AB and Deck #4.5

Sorry guys, I was the photographer.
Wish I had caught their names, thanks for the picture op!

Anime boston was a blast. I really wish I had more pictures of the gaming area, but I didn't take any because I'm stupid. But please believe me when I say I am trying my best to make the blog as picturific as it was in the earlier posts. I have a good amount of reporting I can do since I did bring my cards and was able to play a bit. I even sold some cards for the first time, which help support me actually being in Boston over the weekend. Selling cards isn't anything new to Yu-Gi-Oh players, but to the other casual players out there, this is the low-down. Most people have a trade binder, and a lot of those people have a separate, non-trading binder, full of the stuff they make decks out of. After a while, stuff in the trade binder is less and less good, and the odds of you trading it for something more useful before you could have sold it for cheap increase over time. So a lot of people go straight to Dealers and Venders to sell their cards. Some sell for less than a dollar, some for 1 dollar, but eithe rway, they have to get rid of the card. I tried to avoid dealers as much as I could and just went with players. Of course I didn't sell as much as I probably could have, but I am still satisfied with the results. I also brought the latest UniSTORM and a 12-card side deck to play people with.

Monsters: 20 x2 Veiler x2 Ryko x2 Desertapir x2 Grisnir x3 Gnjostr x3 Gudlfaxe x3 Mega Hamster x1 Gorz x1 Airbellum x1 Vanadis Spells: 11 x3 Gold Sarcophagus x2 MST x1 Duality x1 Reborn x1 Dark Hole x1 Avarice x1 Mind Control x1 Trunade Traps:9 x3 Fetters x2 Warning x1 Mirror Force x1 BTH x1 Mind Crush x1 Torrential Side: 12 x2 Cyber Dragon x1 Chimeratech x2 D.D. Crow x2 Chain Disappearance x1 Kinetic Soldier x1 Seven Tools x3 Laevateinn

The deck did decently, I was able to win the first 8-man tournament, but I lost the 2nd.
11am Swiss
Budget Six Sams
I played a lot of Budget decks in the first round, which sucks but not everyone has $300+ decks, so Budget Samurais are almost like the old samurais, except with synchro monsters(no Shi En). The one victory the guy got over me was in round 2 when he opened the duel with Mizuho and double Shien, which is not fun at all. There was also a Starlight Road involved while he had a Musakani set, so that duel was going nowhere fast. Every time I think about Six Sams though, I always remember about how much difficulty they have against Thoughtruler, and how I never summon it. Veiler does work with stopping plays cold, and Solemn Warning on the normal summons hurts just as much. I have no idea if he ran double-edged sword technique though.

Empty Jar
This scared me, but Empty Jar can be destroyed with a good side deck and a little luck. The first duel did drop me down to 1 card, and surprisingly, it was Pot of Avarice. I believe I foiled his last mill attempt with an Effect Veiler, which left me with a field of 4 monsters. Avarice anything and synchro a lot for the win. The next round he sided into a slower build. More focused on controlling me instead of going with the FTK. Unfortunately, I had sided in plenty of cards and letting me set Tanngnjostr on turn 1 really ups my offense.

Budget Gravekeepers
Now, budget gravekeepers are honestly gravekeepers without Duality or Warnings. The girl running this deck had neither, but everything else seemed legitamite. She even got the first turn Royal Tribute on me, which hit an amazing 1 Dark Desertapir and 1 Guldfaxe. What is nice about this version of the deck is that the lower monster count allows me to not rely on my opening hand so much. Instead, each topdeck and search are the most important. Unfortunately, playing gravekeepers without Warning against someone who IS using Warning is definitely an uphill battle. There is no way I'm going to attack her face-down monsters with my Beasts, so she has to flip everything on her turn. A few well timed Veilers andSolemn Warnings stopped her Descendant plays cold.

One of the players at Stillpoint whose name escapes me was also 3-0 with his deck(Tuning?). He had to rush to a panel that was starting so we didn't get to play! He was gracious enough to give me the win, but I definitely owe him a duel some day.

6pm Swiss
Around this time was when all the advanced players started showing up. My confidence wasn't much higher after the 11am Swiss because I fought no top-dollar decks.

D.D. Dynamite
This was a girl from The Wizards Duel that I played back in May 2010 when I first restarted. Back then she was running a bit of anti-monster burn, with cards like Lava Golem and Ojama Trio. This time was D.D. Dynamite, which beat me just as badly as that deck a year ago. The first duel I do believe I won with generic Nordic plays. After that was definitely downhill. Double D.D. Dynamite for 6000+ damage will kill just about any player, especially since I used a Solemn Warning that game. The next round was slightly different. I attacker her Backrow a lot with things like MST and Scrap Dragon, but instead of winning with Dynamite, she was doing things like setting Gret Maju so I attack into it. Maju gets a ton of attack and defense based on how many cards are removed from play, and there is no way to tell you will attack into a monster with 4000 defense. The end of the duel was decided when she used Gold Sarcophagus to get D.D. Dynamite. If you can't win in 2 turns, then the game is over.

Budget GKs again?
Different person, different build. I guess I could say it wasn't budget, but rather a "personalized" GK build(tier 2 GKs). I believe the player was getting back into YGO, or may have never been a competitive player to begin with. He asked a couple questions about rulings and made a few futile plays, which suggests casual play. An exampled would be Secret Village. A great card in GKs, until you get Necrovalley down, you can shut down your opponent's spell cards. If you realize Necro isn't very detrimental to them, keep Village on the field. He thought that with Village, even if he DIDN'T have a spell card, he could lock the opponent's. Unfortunately, the card doesn't work that way. So every duel he played Village, he would get locked out of the game by his own card.

Regional Infernities
Surprisingly, I won the first duel. Playing Infernities require a bit of finesse and so does playing against it. The duel was mostly for fun, so neither of us used our side deck, and as you know, the side-deck is what destroys infernities. I did end up losing this match because of a few misplays on my part. I have never been very good and deciding when to use what card against infernities because they almost always have a back-up plan.

I will be using Nordics today at locals. There is no telling if it will be my last time or not, but I still like the deck a lot. In fact, there weren't any other decks I planned on making now that I have Cell Spam and Nordics 100% completed.

Until now..

Not quite sure what to call the deck. Right now, it is code named as "Dual" but I may call it Warrior's Strike to poke fun at the starter deck. As a disclaimer, let it be known that I do not like Little City/Gemini Beat/Hero Beat/Light Beat/Whatever you want to call it. But I do like the Warrior's Strike starter deck, and decided to expand on that since hero beat seems to be doing so well. There are 3 important things in Hero Beat that Warrior's Strike CANNOT use:
1) Hero Mask - Add an Alius and Destroy weak cards on the field.
2) E-Call and Stratos - Additional "RotA" for Alius.
3) Main/Side decked Miracle Fusion and Super Poly.
Dual still has some options since it runs more Gemini than "Hero Beat." This allows me to use more of the Gemini Support cards while still keeping as responsive of a deck as possible.
1) Woodland Archer and Featherizer can be used as an Additional RotA for the deck. Archer can also be summoned next to Gale for a level 6 Brionac, Armed Wing, Uruquizas or Gaia. Featherizer is more similar to Stratos, except you can't attack with it.
2) Running 9 Gemini allows me to run 3 Supervise. While that may seem excessive, and may change in the future, Supervise is a fantastic card that almost always replaces itself. With Gale, a level 4 Gemini monster with Supervise makes Black Rose Dragon. After you destroy the field, Supervise will allow you to summon a monster, which could be the same one used as the synchro material.
3) Blazewing Butterfly can be used as a miniature Lonefire. Sure it is a lot easier to respond to, but the deck replaces cards fairly easily.

I don't have a full decklist yet because the deck is still in testing, but keep a look out! It is pretty entertaining.