From: Matthew Low
Subject: matthewlow’s Kubla Con DBZ San Francisco Regional Report 2004

The anticipation for the Regional in my home region was already building like none other. I was pretty hyped up seeing I hadn’t played major DBZ since Portland. That and my sister and many of my really good friends were going to be there, so it was just going to be more than awesome.

Saturday May 29, 2004 finally came. My sister Melissa and I took off for Burlingame, CA, where “San Francisco” Regionals was held. Pretty much it was amazing to refresh myself with the memories of last year. This year was going to be more than special, though I didn’t know it at the time.

My sister was sporting a new deck this time around, using a Red TS Broly 1-5 anger South Kai for Paragus that I had just built the night before. Talk about last minute. I was pretty confident in the deck, hoping my sister would top cut with the thing. If not, it was no big deal; just having my sister there makes everything so much more special.

Anyway, I ran into Kris Bucu (Reloaded on FGN), Nilsen Legernes (Nilsen on FGN), and Drew Cunningham (hobbit on FGN), and the latter two grabbed Super 17 boxes from me and ran off to open them. My sister and I picked up our badges, greeted Aik and turned in our deck lists, and I filled out Alex Young’s (MiraiNoSonGohan on FGN) decklist while doing 340282034983 things to help other people with cards at the same time. Sane.

Without much further ado, I’ll just dive into the tourney itself. I’m obviously running the same deck I run everywhere period: Low Supreme West Kai NonTokui-Waza Ally/Spirit Bomb.dec, or LowAlly.dec for short.

Round 1: LowAlly.dec vs. Red Rush Supreme West Kai Super T Red Rush -_-. Great. I’m going to be angered to death. Great way to start off the tournament.
Basically I knew what I needed to do to beat Red Rush… stall. I needed to make good use of my two North Kai turns, while getting all the anti-anger cards I could to prevent him from leveling. In the process, I would just have to play beats and not care about what his attacks do to me, noting that my allies will just suck up the physical beats. Let’s just say I couldn’t care less what damage he did to me; all I cared was he didn’t anger me and I normally could pull it off.
Early game I drop Protective Shelter, which brought an interesting twist to the game. Seeing we were both SWK, we could both manipulate the discard pile to draw what we wanted. Ended up working to my benefit in the long run. Early game I drew up Super Saiyan Effect, and then just infinitely chained SSE throughout multiple turns. Apparently he didn’t run TES, so I was able to let him attack, I SSE, or enter with SSE and then just get whatever work I needed to get done. I was able to pull a handful of allies out, with ZWG, I think Burst of Energy them to full, and just lay the ally beats. He was able to abuse Red Energy Blast on a few of my allies, but that was about it.
Funny thing is this game almost went to time. During the first combat where I got SWK down to zero, I went through with basically 10 different allies… and guessed wrong every time but once… with Videl, who did a whopping 6 stages. I believe Vegeta and Roshi were both Energy Blasted away so no bonus for me. SWK rules are real fair… I would know ^_^.
But the following combats I was able to actually guess right for a change and tore his deck apart with a 100+ life card Earth’s Spirit Bomb with 10 or so minutes to spare. He never got off level 1, seeing SSE prevented him from basically gaining anger as well.

1-0, 3 points

Round 2: LowAlly.dec vs Saiyan Supreme Gohan the Swift Ally (Roel Milan) I played Roel WAY back in the day at KublaCon 2002. He faced the old incarnation of LowAlly when it was Blue A18… and it has travel a long time since then. Outside of being nice to meet and old friend, especially one who had won an event (San Diego 2002), we had to get down to business.
First few turns we passed and didn’t do much. I knew that he was either Lob for ZWG or Lob for EDQ, but wasn’t sure which yet. Taking it cautiously, I didn’t enter and waited for him to make the first move. I was right. He entered and picked out Lob, and Lobbed VD for ZWG. My top 3 consisted of a drainer, Namekian Shield Destruction, and Energy Lob. GG I win. Shield Destruction on ZWG. Lob for ZWG. Drain to zero. ZWG. Krillin/Yajirobe for another ZWG. Ally beats.

2-0, 6 points

Round 3: LowAlly.dec vs Orange MBS Vegeta Level 1 SS HT (Dave Bondi, Gohanous_Son on FGN) Heh, the random deck I never know what to expect. Dave always has the most random decks ever… I’m one talk ;).
Dave gets out a little drill setup, and I get out a ZWG, Help of Earth, Energy Gathering, and Burst of Energy… and Lob in my hand, ready for the ESB kill that turn. However I don’t have something to look at Dave’s hand. I Black Scout Maneuver and hit no Cell’s Presences. What.
He’s either bluffing or… something. I sit there for a long time… and finally Lob for Fatherly Advice. Advice for Confrontation. Confrontation. 2 Cell’s Presences. ROFL. Good thing I didn’t ZWG.
I generally don’t do squat because I know he has the other one in his hand, so I pass and do nothing. He gets out more setup… then I drop Namek 4. Scoop. He enters later with… Orange Smackdown. Steals Namek 4 and scoops my nons. Fair. Double pass.
Basically neither of us have any board whatsoever, so it is an open game yet again. Dave decides to GT level to 2 which really throws off my strategy. Later on my hand is filled with Confrontation, Champions of Earth, Black Physical Focus, TES, and Power of the Dragon. Sure, I’m going to self mill myself for a ton. Anyway I go ahead and let it happen, killing off Dave’s hand with Confrontation/Champions, leaving him CP because I have TES. POTD for Yajirobe. Drain to zero. Yajirobe for ZWG. ZWG. Krillin/Oolong on Yajirobe for another ZWG. Ally beats. GG.

3-0, 9 points

Round 4: LowAlly.dec vs Orange MBS Supreme West Kai Orange Vegeta’s Assault (Nilsen Legernes, Nilsen on FGN) Bleh. I have to play one of my good friends. Whatever Aik… Draw top 6. Hand consists of Trunks Reconstruction and Orange A17’s Personal Touch. GG I win first turn. Right?
I lay out Reconstruction and enter. Nilsen is like -_- I have CP. I’m like, no you don’t. I call his bluff, but take it somewhat seriously. Reconstruction for ZWG. ZWG for different allies than normal due to the bluff… and Bardock checks out he has FA in hand but no CP. ^_^ I Personal Touch, then Krillin, doesn’t hit, so I Oolong and he hits, so Yajirobe another ZWG into play. Basically 14 allies start to own his face… but SWK blocking rules yet again means I don’t win. I manage to remove one of the CP with SWK rules… but the other one hits the discard. I look for Sugoro to remove it… but I DIDN’T PULL SUGORO. *faints* I kill 75% of his deck but still not enough.
Nilsen smirks, lays out FA, and enters. -_-. He FAs for CP. I’m like… shoot. Wait I have a way out of this. Lob for COGD naming CP ^_^. I win. Nilsen ponders for a bit… Mastery for Lifting Drill. -_-. I basically am done now, so I randomly use whatever allies I can before he lifts and CPs me. Scoop. 14 allies all gone.
Basically the rest of the game is me entering to do random attacks at him to drain the rest of his life deck. We go all the way to time, but in the end I could have won if I had guessed one more right. He had 4 life to my 20+ or so. Oh well.

4-0, 11 points

Round 5: LowAlly.dec vs Orange Technique Piccolo Level 1 SS HT Dende DB (Juan Gerardo, m4j1n__ipg21 on FGN) Rematch from round 2 Las Vegas eh?
Juan starts off pulling Orange Destruction Drill and starts killing off my You’re Inviteds. Bascially I pass, he draws his 3 and drops Final Breath and two drills. I You’re Invited with my last YI. Juan has nothing; no hand, no nothing.
I proceed to Lob for ZWG, drain to zero, Krillin/Yajirobe for another ZWG, and basically I kill his whole deck down to the 7 DBs with allies to spare. Last Breath.
My turn I don’t really do much since I can’t kill him anyway. His turn. Draws up Dende 5, 7, and 4, discarding 3 allies. Regenerates 8 cards, and then passes for 9. I’m like great.
I enter. Mark of the Dragon. He Spheres. I drain to zero. He uses Time. I Sphere. He Spheres. Whatever. I Elder Kai, Oolong, Yajirobe, Sugoro (removing his Spheres), then Nail. He’s still alive of course, but it just happens that GDBQ becomes the top card of the discard.
He draws 3. Dende 3, 2, 6. Draw up Quest. Enter. I draw top 6. No Sphere. He Quests for Dende 1 for game.
Whatever. I just lost to Final Breath.

4-1, 11 points

Round 6: LowAlly.dec vs Orange Technique Piccolo Level 1 SS HT Multiform (Jeremy Bordecht, JeremyB on FGN) I hate Multiform. I really do. Anger win first/second turn is fair.
Top 6 yields a Black Scout and TES, so I enter with Scout. He Spheres. I Sphere. Name Piccolo’s Multiform. Get 3 of them. Double pass.
His turn he knows he has to win with his last Multiform in hand, so he enters and somehow forgot to South Kai for Android 14. Basically he has Face Crunches, Kicks, Champion Aura, Rapid Attacks, and a bunch of stuff… but he runs out of gas really fast. Goes to me. I have Gohan in play from an early draw, and also place ZWG in play. He has less than 12 life so I Gohan for game, but I hit a Champion Aura. So I ZWG, and start to ally him… but he decides to Champion Aura do make himself draw out.

5-1, 14 points

I’m in top cut as the 8th seed. I’m pretty pleased with this, and get ready for the top cut rounds yet again.

Top 32: LowAlly.dec vs Freestyle MBS Trunks Level 1 HT FS Sword/Earth DB (Ian Gosswiller, trunks_the_battler on FGN) I lost when I played against him at DundraCon, so I basically knew what to expect. This time the deck was a bit different because he was using Trunks 1 HT, probably to confuse people into thinking he was DB and not Sword. I took precautions and senseied in HUH??? anyway.
First turn my hand is 2x Black Scout Maneuver, so I enter and Scout both TES (nail 3, he only runs 3) and 4 Speedy Flights. That pretty much screws up what beat me last time.
My next turn I enter and Confrontation away his Gohan’s Sword Thrust. He hits some Sword card that does 2 life cards. Discards Piccolo the Trained with it. Fair. ZWG for allies. Basically I let Vegeta, Oolong, Roshi, and Videl do the work now. Oolong for 5 stages 2 life. Vegeta for 10 stages 6 life. Roshi for 8 life 1 stage. Videl for 7 stages 5 life. Then all my other allies do 2 life (I still Krillin/Yajrobe for another ZWG), and finish him off with a final physical from Gohan doing 8 stages and 5 life.

Result: Win

Top 16: LowAlly.dec vs Orange MBS Supreme West Kai Orange Vegeta’s Assault (Nilsen Legernes, Nilsen on FGN) Nilsen thinks there’s some conspiracy against him because he has to play against me again. He gets mad at Aik for being asian… lol.
This was a slow game. I don’t get broken setup, but I believe I Scouted his Spheres away so I knew I could scoop his setup whenever I wanted. I had Namekian Friendship in my hand for basically the whole game. With I think a COGD on Focusing Drill, I was able to enter and Friendship his whole setup midgame, which allowed me to take the major advantage in random attacks hitting him from allies and whatnot. The game went back and forward consistently, with both of us being somewhat aggressive to keep ahead in the life card count.
I get a basic ally setup, but Nilsen doesn’t pull off CP on me this time. The game just goes to time with me having 53 life left and Nilsen having 24, but one level. The level isn’t enough to cover the massive life card difference, so Aik rewards the timed victory to me. It’s all because I’m asian, nothing more right? At least Nilsen thinks so.

Result: Timed Win

Top 8: LowAlly.dec vs Orange MBS Supreme West Kai Orange Vegeta’s Assault Again. What.
This deck was no where close to being as good as Nilsen’s, but it did drive me crazy during a period of time that he dropped World Tournament. I drew up Shield Destruction but of course he Confrontations that away.
Gohan Spots the Imposter Drill was a pain, but I enter with Black Front Punch and scoop his setup. Once I was able to lay out City In Turmoil (I think, just something to get rid of WT), I just poured on the ally beats. One combat was all that was needed to empty the rest of his life deck in the late game.
Hilarious thing was throughout the game we were stealing Alt Namek DB 7 back and forward… the most useless DB in the game when you play against me.

Result: Win

GKI here I come!

Top 4: LowAlly.dec vs Saiyan TS Trunks SA13 Insert South Kai for Bulma Namek DB (Sean Potestoke, Overtime on FGN) This was a good game by far; I thought Sean had me the whole time.
Sean had CIT in play for a long time even with massive non-combats, which proved to be quite interesting. He just started balling out as soon as he got basic setup, and I kept entering with him Back Bashing out of Combat (physical was stopped with Trunks’s power, energy was stopped with Bulma). I even let him take back me removing Bulma and letting him Pure Defense and block Vigor Orb with her. Interesting setup.
Consistent entering allowed me to waste two of his Saiyan Excitements, and a Namekian Friendship allowed me to ruin his non-combats. Namek 4 ruined mine. But generally it fell apart in two combats for him.
I entered with Power of the Dragon, noting Sean had 5 of the DBs. He then I believe passed, and then I Black Scout Manuevered all 4 Trunks Energy Spheres. That right there turned the tide of the game.
I had basic ally setup from just drawing them throughout the game, so no ZWG was really needed. But anyway the combat that ended it all was like this:
My hand: Confrontation, Gohan’s Kick, Trunks Energy Sphere, Blue Draining Blast.
Sean’s hand: Trunks Back Bash, Saiyan Truce Card, Dream Fighting, Saiyan Planet Explosion.
Enter with Confrontation. About to take STC but change and take Back Bash. He STC. I TES. Then I Kick, he uses power. He passes. I Draining Blast. He Planet Explosions… but no I Kicked. So he takes 9, then I just ally maul him to death. Bulma tries to help, but to no avail. For the heck of it, I steal Namek 4 to discard the setup he managed to regain.

Result: Win

Finals: LowAlly.dec vs Saiyan Supreme Gohan the Swift EDQ Namek DB Control (Richie Williams, Onslaught) This was it, this was for everything. It was around 9 PM now… Match 1: My sensei was perfect… I senseied out a City In Turmoil and Orange Destruction Drill. Fair.
Richie Saiyan Appraisal Manuevers on The Help of Earth so that ruins my ideas of ESB. He then nukes HUH??? as well. With that out of the way, Richie just starts to draw ball after ball… and then I POTD them back in. That prolongs the game another half an hour or so. Basically Richie never let me have that combat to hurt him with multiple Powerful Followers, Dream Fighting, Saiyan Excitement, and Saiyan Power Punch. Power Punch was in a sense worse than a combat ender because my allies were out of commission.
I Mouth Cannon Richie to his level 1 to give me an interesting advantage. Couple turns later I Apocalyptic Battle and discard Android 18 Level 1 (card #2). He discards You’re Invited (GKI1). Fair. We go to level 2.
I drew massive allies but that didn’t matter. I GT level to 3 to draw up Kick with power, but that wasn’t enough to give me the one combat I needed to win. I had one window to possibly win, and that was when he had one way to end combat (Powerful Followers) and I had FA in play. Buu’s New House was in play so we both knew each other’s hands. If I had still had Startled in my deck (cut it right before the tourney for Videl), I would have been able to FA for Startled, Startled his Powerful Followers, and ally beats him to death that turn. But seeing I didn’t have the card, the rest is history. Richie finally drew the last DB after about 10 or so turns of not drawing it.

Result: Loss
It was around 10:30 PM now… my dad wasn’t too pleased… and I needed to walk around because I was sitting for way too long.

Match 2: My sensei was fair again. City In Turmoil and Namek Dragon Ball 4. Whatever.
First turn I Black Scout TES. Richie returns the favor. Great. TESless match. Excitements are fair.
Richie I think SAMs HUH??? again and then Lobs for EDQ. Seven turn clock. Let’s do it.
Buu’s New House hits the table, so it gives Richie an advantage. We both see Power of the Dragon my hand, which was ready for once Richie got 4-5 balls to out prolong the game, waste his combat enders and Excitements to give just one combat to beat him.
Allies are all over the table, but that doesn’t matter. I enter. Excitement, power for Power Punch, allies do nothing. Dazed. Powerful Followers so I can’t enter the following turn. TTUFO. Whatever. I try to ESB him the whole game (take damage via his massive Power Punches… broken), noting that I could Yajirobe/Oolong the last two elements of ESB into play once I got that one combat.
What hurts me the most is forgetting that Richie used Powerful Followers. I would setup a decent combat hand and then he would tell me he used Powerful Followers. Next time I need to stick a sticky note on my deck or something.
I’m given 3 turns to POTD Richie, but Initiative and Excitement coupled with Power Punch denied that. Some later combat Richie plays Stop to discard both hands. I have nothing so I end. He has 6 of the DBs out so I knew this was do or die. I look at my options. FA in play. Hand consists of Red Mouth Cannon, I believe a drainer, and something else. I think I have this. GT level to 2. Enter to draw up POTD from power and enter with POTD. Right? No. I had COGD in play, so that gets discarded. That ruins everything. I draw up Kick from the bottom of my discard instead. Richie’s hand is Startled (on FA), Saiyan Power Block (for Kick), Epic (for the drainer/Kick), and Are You Tuff Enuff (to send me to full). Mouth Cannon would discard his drills but that would be it. I can’t do squat so I end up folding as the clock strikes midnight. GG.

Result: Loss

Final Result: 5-1 (14 points), 2nd place

Props:
Richie for the amazing three hour marathon match that lasted to midnight Anyone who watched the whole three hours Aik for being Asian, the best judge ever, and just being plain cool to hang out with.
People I played… Nilsen, Sean, Juan, Ian, Jeremy, Dave… awesome games guys) Melissa for being the best sister ever (she went 2-4, still not bad for learning how to play GT rules the day before) Nilsen for putting up with two timed losses to me People who loaned me cards (you know who you are) Anyone who told me good luck and believed in me (you know who you are, you guys are the best) Dad for waiting 3 hours because I somehow made the finals… and me saying that if I do, you’ll have to wait for me the morning before XD.
Grand Kai Invitational 2004

Slops:
First turn HEA (Jeremy Day 2)
Taking out Startled
Pairings that made me play Nilsen twice
Forgetting to visit the Score booth
Infinite work I had to do coming back to college Not guessing right 9 times against SWK Red Rush Not pulling Sugoro against Nilsen Terrible Sensei skills in final matches Random person playing a terrible and utterly disgusting mockery of my deck on Day 2.
Score for taking SF Regionals to finally restrict Excitement and errata Back Bash My back for being sore after sitting for so long

I’ll be taking this deck to Worlds in a few days. Hope to see you all there! It is more teched out now and whatnot so be ready… It’s going to be awesome!

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matthewlow@franceslow.com
"You will not be allowed to do this to anyone else!" - Gohan

"You are the light of the world - like a city on a mountain, glowing in the night for all to see. Don't hide your light under a basket! Instead, put it on a stand and let it shine for all. In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." - Matthew 5:14-16

"May you experience the love of Christ, though it is so great you will never fully understand it. Then you will be filled with the fullness of life and power that comes from God." - Ephesians 3:19

"Look! Here I stand at the door and knock. If you hear me calling and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal as friends." - Revelation 3:20
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