 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|||
| Pojo's Duel Masters news, tips, strategies and more! | |||||
|
|
|||||
 |
|||||
 |
|||||
DM Home
Magic |
 |
Duel Masters Tournament Report
Steven Cantrell
Thirteen Duelists
Forgive me for not sending in a report in a while. This one will be a treat because I’m covering not one, but two tournaments. First is the normal tournament from Saturday and then a fun one Wednesday evening. Grab a pack of Twinkies, sit back, and enjoy!
We had a good number of people here for the tournament. All the Team GQ regulars showed up with the exception of Austin Ladshaw. My hopes of retiring as #1 by DCI ranking in Georgia would be tested today. Before the tournament I had to decide whether to use U/B/R control or my new B/U/G control. My choice is obvious if you take a look at the decklist below.
Water [16] 4x Emeral (3x JDC) 4x Hulcus (4x McDonalds) 4x Corile (4x TotFC) 2x Illusionary Merfolk 2x Brain Serum (1x Atari)
Fire 10] 4x Pyrofighter Magnus 2x Twin-Cannon Skyterror (2x SotM Release) 4x Searing Wave
Darkness [18] 2x Bloody Squito 4x Horrid Worm 4x Locomotiver (4x JDC) 4x Proclamation of Death 4x Terror Pit
Early
on I made a few trades for promo versions of regular cards.
My deck is now just one JDC Emeral and one Atari Brain Serum
short of blinding shininess, at least until our Circuit
event when I can rack up foil Aqua Hulcus and Terror Pit.
Now let’s see how all those foils did...
Round One: Vs. Ramsey Payne (Fire/Light Rush) Ramsey is always a fun opponent to play. Oh, what’s that Timmy? I’m going up against rush with only two blockers in my deck? Well let me show you how this is done.
Bloody Squito came to my rescue on turn two. Then a couple different Emerals stacked my shield zone with nice triggers to help me eek out a win. The next duel, however, was not as fortunate. Ramsey drew 2 Braid Claws and 2 Pyrofighters very early on. Let’s just say I got pwned. Badly. In the final duel my opening hand was all blue. Ramsey managed to get me down to one shield, but not before the control could set in. Merfolk came through twice, as well as Corile and Horrid Worm working nicely as usual. In the end my Pyrofighter and Twin-Cannon showed up on the same turn to stop this rushing nonsense once and for all.
Record: 2-1 Cumulative Record: 2-1 Duels, 1-0 Matches
His
key cards: Pyrofighter Magnus, Braid Claw, Holy Awe,
Blockers
Round Two: Vs. Shaun Coleman (Fire/Darkness Aggro) Shaun is still the same n00b as when I played him a month ago with the same n00b deck. I honestly do not know if this kid has won a match here. This round is almost as good as a bye, but it would hurt my strength-of-victory percentage on the standings (calculated by computer).
Shaun predictably tried to rush. He got me down to a couple shields before stalling out as usual. I took over control of the game by playing two Twin-Cannon Skyterror and two Locomotiver over the course of three turns. First game in the bag. More of the same in our next duel. At one point Shaun was topdecking, so I decided to be rude and Corile his almighty Bolshack Dragon, then Terror Pit it the next turn. I swarmed him to win in the end easily.
Record: 2-0 Cumulative Record: 4-1 in Duels, 2-0 in Matches
His
key cards: Pyrofighter Magnus, Bolshack Dragon, Tornado
Flame, Death Smoke
Round Three: Vs. Justin Florio (Fire/Water Rush) Florio is certainly not new to Galactic Quest, but this is the first time we have been paired up in a tournament. I knew this would be a challenge because his rush deck placed first last week while I was gone.
Both duels went along the same lines. His Speed Attackers would pop out to break several shields quickly. Then I would start establishing hand control via Merfolk, Locomotiver, and Horrid Worm. Finally my own Pyrofighters would show up to lead a swarm and bust his remaining shields at once. Okay, maybe that wasn’t a good description, but just know that I was able to survive the rush.
Record: 2-0 Cumulative Record: 6-1 in Duels, 3-0 in Matches
His
key cards: Rikabu the Dismantler, Pyrofighter Magnus, Emeral
Round Four: Vs. Justin Couch (Water/Nature Awe) Drumroll please, it’s the finals! Justin put together a powerful combination that already beat Slack in a mirror match the last round. I had no clue how my deck would perform against his.
All three games really were not that close. Whoever could jump out with the lead usually kept it and won. In the first one a massive Searing Wave led to my victory. In duel two, Justin managed a Mana Crisis on turn three to pin me down. After that he played a bunch of draw to keep control of the game. A difficult loss to swallow. Fortress Shell was my demise in the final duel of the tournament. Justin outplayed me to claim first place.
Record: 1-2 Cumulative Record: 7-3 in Duels, 3-1 in Matches His key cards: Fortress Shell, Bronze-Arm Tribe, Illusionary Merfolk, Holy Awe
The Aftermath: At this point I figured second place was surely mine since I lost by such a slim margin in the finals, but Florio ended up in second place ahead of me. Beating him before apparently wasn’t good enough. After that we decided to have the top four players in a team multi-player battle. It was Stephan Slack and myself versus both of the Justins I had previously played today. The game was doomed to fail before it even started since they decided to target me first, only because my deck was the bigger threat. Oh well.
Props: Pulling Ultracide Worm, then trading it for Valdios Making the Top 4 Cut as usual My DCI ranking went up again, now 2nd in GA
Slops: Losing in the finals My luck in multi-player duels
Now onto the next tournament! This one took place Wednesday evening. Six people (myself included) paid the one dollar entry fee so we could buy two packs, one each for first and second. This tournament had an extensive banned list of over 100 cards, so obviously none of us could use our regular decks. Here is the Fire/Darkness control I created ahead of time:
Fire [17] 4x Immortal Baron Vorg 4x Rikabu’s Screwdriver 2x Blasto, Explosive Soldier 1x Bolshack Dragon 4x Comet Missile 2x Rumble Gate
Darkness [23] 2x Jewel Spider 4x Grinning Axe, the Monstrosity 4x Bone Assassin, the Ripper 2x Vile Mulder, Wing of the Void 4x Mongrel Man 2x Gnarvash, Merchant of Blood 1x Olgate, Nightmare Samurai 4x Proclamation of Death
40 Total Cards 3.38 Mana Curve
This deck was made to handle all the conceivable threats that could come my way. There is a strong amount of blocker kill, control, and overall firepower. Before the tournament I defeated Lee and his five color deck two duels to none. Shortly thereafter Justin Couch got the tournament under way. He randomly paired us to start off, and after that we would move counter-clockwise around the table to face a new opponent.
Round One: Vs Justin Couch (Light/Water) This would be interesting. I witnessed Justin using his deck with great success beforehand. Luckily for me, his strategy revolves around the unblockable creatures. But they simply become overpriced attackers since I have no blockers.
His creatures had already been nailed with three Proclamation of Death by turn six. Justin couldn’t rebound from that, but he still broke a couple shields. My slayers and draw engine also lead to the win. Our next duel was just about the same. I had a large field including a double breaker or two in the end. Justin never played most of his blockers because I always had a Screwdriver ready to destroy them.
Record: 2-0 Cumulative Record: 2-0 Duels, 1-0 Matches His key cards: Candy Drop, Faerie Child, Amber Grass, Thunder Net
Round Two: Vs Patrick Smallwood (Water/Nature) To be honest, I was not expecting a challenge from Patrick. His deck looked pretty straightforward and fairly aggressive.
Patrick rushed me down to a few shields with cheap creatures like Carrier Shell. Then his hand and field stalled out so I could set up my own field. My swarm of creatures ended up winning, but blocker security would have been nice. Our next duel was fairly evenly matched. He rushed again with small stuff like Mighty Shouter and Aqua Soldier. His larger threats fell to my slayers. Eventually I killed three blockers in the same turn to make the final attack.
Record: 2-0 Cumulative Record: 4-0 Duels, 2-0 Matches His key cards: Teleportation, Deathblade Beatle, Candy Drop
Round Three: Vs Tyler Smallwood (Water/Light/Darkness) This would be difficult. Tyler showed me this deck during the tournament on Saturday, so mine was somewhat built to combat his. Nonetheless, he had plenty of blockers to cause problems and good draw power.
This is just from memory: He would start off with a few blockers, and then summon slayer creatures. At the right times, Tyler casts Slime Veil trying to slam my creatures into his wall of blockers. Meanwhile I am trying to handle his blockers with Screwdriver and Comet Missile while building up my field. Both games were close all the way, but I slipped by with two wins. Mongrel Man helped a lot to keep my hand replenished.
Record: 2-0 Cumulative Record: 6-0 Duels, 3-0 Matches His key cards: Slime Veil, Marinomancer, Slayers, Blockers
Rounds Four & Five: Vs Justin Florio and Matt Gracek This is where things went wrong. We originally planned to have five rounds so each person would play everybody else once. Somehow that didn’t work out so we had two separate multiplayer free-for-alls instead. The winner of the game would get credit for going 4-0, second would be 2-4, and third would be 0-4. Justin and I originally decided to kill Matt first.
This quickly went from bad to worse. Matt decided to attack me rather than Florio simply because I didn’t have blockers to hold him off. Then while I was retaliating against Matt, Florio sat there for the most part and built up his forces for the long run. I decided to play Proclamation against Florio, which violated our alliance. So Matt and I teamed up to try and take down Florio. Unfortunately he summoned Mongrel Man to start drawing cards like crazy, and then proceeded to kill both of us. Matt did die first though, so I got credit for a 2-4 loss instead of an 0-4 loss.
Record: 2-4 Cumulative Record: 8-4 in duels, 3-2 Matches Matt’s key cards: Splinterclaw Wasp? Florio’s key cards: Mongrel Man, Slayers, Blockers, Rumble Gate
The Aftermath: The banned list experiment went well overall. Justin Florio and I both ended up with eight points, so we tied for first. The two prize packs had jack squat in them. After that we all went to eat and talked strategy for the Invitational Circuits until our rides came.
Props: Had fun trying new cards Getting to come on a Wednesday Doing well in the tournament
Slops: My luck in multi-player duels (again) The guys where we went to eat messed up my order L
Just a word on a recent problem: Feel free to challenges me to duel online. However, my computer can’t seem to cooperate with DMC, so I can only duel via AIM. Please ask for a duel only if you are serious about it and will play honestly. Right now I have three different decks that all need to be tested against a variety of other decks. Thanks!
Once again, my name is Steven Cantrell. Drop me an email at Smcman7@aol.com or catch me on my AIM screen name Smcman7. My family is going on another vacation (reunion in Illinois) so I will miss the next tournament or two. When I return there are only three more weeks until the Circuit event in Georgia! Till next time...
|
|||
|
Copyright© 1998-2005 pojo.com This site is not sponsored, endorsed, or otherwise affiliated with any of the companies or products featured on this site. This is not an Official Site. |
|||||
