Pojo's Duel Masters Tournament Reports

Duel Master GenCon Tourney Report
By Bill Gill (a.k.a. - Pojo)

Goal of Tournament: Don’t embarrass myself!

To be honest, that’s about all you can hope for if you don’t have real world experience. You can have the best deck made, but if you don’t play it and don't know it well, you’re going to get creamed.

Scott Gerhardt (of Pokemon & MTG fame), had been goofing with a 4 color deck. A friend of his had been playing it in Texas and doing well with it … so I figured I’d give it a try. The deck list was:

The Rainbow Connection
by Scott Gerhardt

4 Bronze-Arm Tribe
1 Rumbling Terrahorn
2 Fighter Dual Fang

4 Terror Pit
3 Death Smoke
2 Gray Balloon, Shadow of Greed

3 Rothus, the Traveler
1 Garkago Dragon
1 Scarlet Skyterror
2 Metalwing Skyterror

3 Brain Serum
3 Corile
3 Teleportation
4 Hunter Fish
2 Aqua Sniper
2 Phantom Fish

I played a couple matches on Friday with it against one of WOTC’s gym leaders (or whatever they call those guys on the DM side of WOTC), and didn’t fare well. So Scott took the deck to show me how it’s played, and got 3 games in against cecilbill’s blue/green deck and won 2 out of 3. (cecillbill finished in the Top 4 of the main event Saturday). Scott also played Chris Rogers one game that night, and Scott won that game. (Now Chris Rogers won the event Saturday … so this deck was definitely playable).

(Pojo Note: I lost my sheet with my opponent’s names, so hopefully they’ll write in and tell me their names, and I’ll edit them in. ;-)  I had a camera phone and snapped some photos)

So Saturday Morning, the event starts at 9 a.m. They are playing 5 rounds of Swiss, with a cut to Top 8. Match wins are a result of winning 2 of 3 games. 50 minutes per round.

Match 1

I’m hoping for an easy first round opponent to ease into the tourney. That doesn’t happen. My first round opponent is a guy from California. (Please resend me your name!  I think it might be Jeff??  ;-)   He traveled all the way to GenCon to play Duel Masters. Okay … so this isn't looking good to me already. He’s playing a Blue/Green Deck with a splash of black I believe. He’s using Fighter Dual Fangs and Aqua Sniper just like me. We play some brutally long games!

Game 1: I actually don’t remember this game too well. I know it was brutally long and I win a very tough game.

Game 2: This game is taking forever. The judge calls 5 minutes to go in the round, with both of us at 1 shield or two. I started feeling the time pressure and made some bad moves and lose the game. It doesn’t help that two peoples standing behind me (much better players than I am) , come up to me after the match and tell me about a significantly poor move I made on my last turn that could have won me the game and the match. Grrrr …. Oh well.

Game 3. We are shuffling. We are the last ones still playing. Judge says two minutes left in the Round. Judge says that when the time expires, we will have 4 turns left (2 each). I can not win fast with this deck. My strategy is to set up blockers, stall, bounce, and drop some fatties to win. I get a really bad early draw, and get no blockers. With no time left in the round, I have zero shields. He drops a couple of attackers. Luckily for me, I am holding Teleportation cards, and I am able to bounce both attackers back to his hands. He lays them down again, and I bounce again, and I drop a blocker. His only chance now is to play a bronze arm tribe and evolve to a dual fang to win, which he doesn’t have. PHEW! I escape with a draw. (0-0-1, 1 point).

This guy (Jeff?) later takes 4th in the tourney I believe.  Not losing til the final 4.  So a tie is pretty good I think. 

Match 2

I think the event started with about 40+ people. Well, some were new to gaming, and left after this first round loss! Doh!   I’m thinking … okay .. I didn’t win … I hope I can coast through Match 2. Then I see her ... Lisa Montalbano. She came with her dad and brother and they were all cleaning house on Thursday and Friday. She won a constructed event on Thursday, as well as a limited event on Thursday. She plays Blue/Green as well. I “think” she’s splashing black for Terror Pits as well. This type of deck was abundant, and I’d have to say it was the most popular deck type around, at least of the "winning decks" anyway. She had lost her first round match.

Not much to say about either match. I didn’t get out my blockers, and when I did, she got out Dual Fangs. I didn’t Shield Trigger anything against her either game, and she creamed me. No excuses. No bad plays on my part. I just got rolled. (0-1-1, 1 point)

Lisa later makes makes the Top 8.

Match 3

Okay … I gotta get a fairly easy match now. Maybe someone with no points?  Am I going to win at all? Am I that sucky? Match 3 .. I play against mono-red. I think this is a good match up for me. My blockers can handle weenies. He’s 1-1 right now. He won his first match.

Game 1 goes pretty fast. He drops some weenies, I drop blockers. I smoke and terror guys early.  About Turn 7 & 8, I start dropping fat red, and he can’t deal with the fatties. Win.

Game 2 … He starts out pretty fast.  About turn 5 or so, he realizes he didn't shuffle in his graveyard into his deck from Game 1.  LOL.  I couldn't see his graveyard as it was behind the seating sign.  The Judge lets him shuffle his old graveyard into his deck.  I had no problem with this, as the game is all about having fun, and I didn't want him assessed a game loss.  I am able to catch up with him in the middlegame, and terror or smoke his creatures, and my fatties march through for the win. 

Match 4.

Now I’m playing a match with a guy from Michigan. People tell me that he’s a friend of Kenneth Whitworth (person who takes 2nd place later in the event). Ken was playing mono-green, and this guy is playing mono-blue. I know mono-blue is a good deck, as cecillbill won a Mono-Color Duel Masters Tourney with Mono-Blue the night before. The deck has nice card drawing, nice blockers, bounce, and fat! It works well together. I can’t recall if my opponent is 2-1, or 1-1-1.

Game 1 … I won this game pretty easily. He must have had a bad draw, because my deck doesn’t play fast.

Game 2 … This game took a long time, and he outlasted me. The card drawing with Aqua Hulcus and Illusionary Merfolk… and then Emeral’s shield building really is tough to beat when the game drags on. Loss

Game 3 … I didn’t draw squat, and he tears me a new one. (1-2-1)

I’m thinking of dropping at this point and going for some lunch. It’s about 2 pm, and my stomach is asking for some grub. The judge tells me if I win Match 5, that I can make Top 16 at least, and take home 16 packs of cards. "Really??"  Okay … lunch can wait. 16 x $3/pack = about $50 in cards … so why not??!!

Match 5

I look at the pairings, and I’m playing someone with 3 points. Okay … Sounds good. My 4 points to his 3 points … what a stellar match-up! I wait … no one shows up. Next to me, another guy has an opponent that doesn’t show up. I think they were a teen and their parent who dropped?? I dunno.  Judge makes us wait at least 10 minutes for a match loss.  So we play for fun, and us losers down at end of the table reminisce about the early Pokemon Days. I played 3 games against 2 different guys and their fire decks for the hell of it, and win all 3 fairly easily. Fire didn’t do well in this tournament that I saw.

Final Results: 2-2-1 - Good Enough for 15th place officially, and 8 packs of Base Set, and 8 packs of Rampage.  I really can't complain.  I don’t feel too bad. I’m 0.500. My first round opponent made it to the Top 4. And I could have won that match if I played correctly. My 2nd round loss made it to the Top 8. And my other loss opponent just missed the Top 8 cut, finishing 9th I think.  I think I achieved that Goal I set forth up at the top!  ;-)

And … looking at the Deck … Scott Beat the eventual champion’s deck with this deck, and he also beat cecillbill 2-1, and she finished 3rd. So this deck fared well versus the top opponents. 4 colors has be considered extremely playable at this point. I think if Scott was playing this deck, he would have made Top 8, and cecillbill agreed. 

Props & Slops

- Props to the folks that attended. Most everyone was fun to talk with and polite.
- Props to the judges who ran a good tourney
- Props to WOTC for providing pretty good prizes to the 40+ people that played

- Slops – Well … I gave WOTC a prop, but now time for a slop. First place was supposed to get a trophy, and 2nd place a plaque. Well, first place got the plaque and 2nd didn’t get the engraved prize he was promised. Though he still got a couple of booster boxes. 
- I also think WOTC should be giving out some promo cards for participating in these kind of events.  Something unique like the DBZ'ers and the Vs. people were getting for entering tourneys. 

More Photos:  (Remember ... these are all phone camera pictures ... not from some Nikon Camera ... so excuse the quality).

cecillbill (Christina) left versus Joe Montalbano
This is from the final Match from the Friday Night Tourney.  This was Board 1.

Chris Rogers.  GenCon Champ.
Playing mono-yellow with black splash in Championship Match.
Win 2-1.

Kenneth Whitworth playing mono-green in the Championship Match
He took 2nd place in the event.  His only two losses were to Chris.

Here's some of the hauls the winners took in: (Booster boxes & Toys)

Take care,

Pojo