Before the event even started, I had a nice dinner with some of the other judges. Jambalaya with muscles, scallops, shrimp and chicken breast; so good you wouldn't believe. Should've topped it off with a good drink, but I stuck with water because I'm lame.
The Rhode Island Convention Center is a pretty snazzy place. Put smack-dab in the center of downtown Providence, it had all the luster of Hotels, Malls, and Pride Parade traffic at around 7PM. With 700-800 participants, not including venders and visitors, it almost seemed too big for the YCS. But that's okay, more space means less cramping in player seating. I must say that I did expect more players, seeing as how this was the last YCS before Nationals. I guess we were a little too deep in New England for people to warrant traveling to us. Might not sound like a big deal, but if I ran an event and got considerably less people in certain locations, I wouldn't take the event to that location any more. Let's hope that a large scale Connecticut event would do better than Rhode Island, which is probably a difference of only 200 miles.
The first day of YCSPVD was a lot of fun though. The biggest part of judging is having confidence in your rulings, and I felt good about each ruling I made. Of course, I was appealed on 2 of them, in which the head judge spoke in contrast. But hey, that's part of learning the game I guess. The first was Kinetic Soldier vs Honest. Kinetic Soldier activates at the start of damage calculation. I knew that you could activate Honest at a lot of different times in the damage step, so I figured that there is a sub step after Kinetic resolves that you can use Honest from your hand. I was informed that not only can only 1 chain occur during the part of damage calculation that Kinetic Soldier activates, but also that that time of activation is the last moment either player has to use a card. In this case, you can only chain Honest to Kinetic Soldier's trigger effect, so that the light monster gains 1350 attack and the Kinetic Soldier gains an additional 2000. The second mistake was a silly priority question for summoning monsters.
Everyone else's questions were pretty straight forward and I didn't have to correct much:
1) Saber Hole can not negate the summon of Gorz.
2) Solemn Warning can not negate the activation or resolution of Infernity Launcher.
3) If your opponent uses Dark Hole and you chain an effect to summon a Six Samurai monster to the field, you can not activate Musakani during the resolution of those effects.
4) If you switch control of Caius and a TG monster using TG-EM1, Cauis will not lose its target. Furthermore, Caius will deal 1000 damage to your (new) opponent if the monster was Dark.
5) Reborn Tengu can not activate its effect from inside of the deck.
Speaking of Tengu, I hate Tengu plant decks. It capitalizes on the worst part of Reborn Tengu, the fact that you can make a full field of synchros and 1700 ATK monsters with it. I judged Attack of the Giant Card (TRISHURAAAAAA) and at least 5 win-a-mats, and 3 of the winners were Tengu Plant decks. I have seen Tengu Plants get out of the most ridiculous 1st turn Six Samurai fields. It almost makes you think that Brionac is the problem, and maybe it is. Perhaps we should get a format with Goyo Guardian and no Brionac and see how that fairs for a year. I don't like the deck, but if you dont think it is unfair, let's take a look at one of the plays my win-a-mat player made against Six Samurai.
Samurai Field: Gateway of the Six, Shi En, Grandmaster, Kizan, Kizan, Musakani, Musakani.
1) Charge of the Light Brigade, opponent negates it with Shi En(bad move, but it isn't going to matter, don't worry). Mills off 1 Glow Up, 1 lonefire, 1 Avarice.
2) Giant Trunade
3) Normal Tengu. One for One discard dandy for spore.
4) Synchro for Formula and draw 1 card.
5) Synchro for Brionac, special summon Tengu.
6) Special Summon Spore from the Graveyard by removing Lonefire, it is level 4 now. Synchro Spore, Tengu and a token for Trishula, remove Shi En from the game, special summon Tengu.
7) Mill for Glow-up Bulb, special summon it. Monster Reborn for Tengu. Synchro Glow-up and 2 Tengu for Trishula, remove grandmaster from the game.
8) Bounce both Kizan back and attack for 2700+2700+2300 = 7700.
He actually won on that turn and I really wish I had remembered how he kept a Tengu on the field. There may have been a mind control involved, that way he could sync 1 Tengu with a Kizan to make Trishula. Either way, you can see how a deck with good monsters and a bunch of Limited spells and traps can be very powerful.
In my last post, I said that I wanted to see other decks than Tengu Synchro in the top tables last night, and I was happy to see some good ones!
-I saw at least 1 Fabled deck, which was awesome. Of course, the guy I watched was using a more explosive version, utilizing Tengu, a few plant monsters, and a few other cards instead of the more controlled version I like.
-I saw lots of gladiator beast decks, which I feel is a great deck right now thanks to Forbidden Lance, Safe Zone, and D.Prison.
-I saw a couple of Scrap decks, but I'm not sure how many of them survived.
-Sabers are still on of the best decks in Yugioh. Every single monster in that deck is good, and the only losses I've seen is when they COULDN'T draw a monster.
A few of the people at my locals did make day 2, so that is very exciting. I would play a bit of the public events today, but I don't want any of the prizes. I got my Akiza mat, Essedarii mat, and the Sun and Moon Dragon mat. I got packs and my binder, so driving back to providence to win some turbo packs, a giant Shi En, or MORE Akiza mats isn't sounding too thrilling.
I'll probably chill at home, maybe drive around for some yard sales or something. I'll play Yugioh tomorrow at locals.
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