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Duel Masters Tournament Report
Steven Cantrell
Galactic Quest in Lawrenceville, Georgia
Saturday, April 2, 2005
Five Dollar Entry Fee
Fifteen Duelists
Matches best 2 of 3; 4 Swiss Rounds

I was supposed to miss this tournament due to a soccer game.  The game was fortunately cancelled because of the rain here, so I got to play Duel Masters instead. I showed up an hour before the start expecting the usual tournament. Stephan Slack, Lee Sandow, Austin Ladshaw, and Justin Florio were all missing for various reasons. This meant the tournament would be more casual and not as competitive.

I asked Justin Couch if he wanted to look at the Stompatrons spoiler I made and printed out. He replied that it wasn’t much of a spoiler anymore because Galactic Quest was already selling packs from the new set. That was a pretty nice surprise. I bought thirteen packs and pulled some nice stuff, but sadly only one Super Rare.

Before the tournament started I scrambled to get Proclamation of Death for my deck. The Fordhams brothers wouldn’t trade me any of theirs, so I decided not to stick my only copy into my deck. I did, however, replace two Brain Serum with two Energy Light. Here is the decklist of my beloved Murky Riptide, which will soon get a Stompatrons makeover.

Darkness [20]
4x Bloody Squito
4x Horrid Worm
4x Locomotiver
4x Death Smoke
4x Terror Pit

Water [20]
4x Aqua Guard
4x Aqua Hulcus

2x Crystal Paladin
2x Crystal Lancer
4x Corile
2x Energy Light
2x Brain Serum

Total: 40
Mana Curve: 3.65

Round One: Vs Daniel Daponte (Red/Black Destruction)

Daniel is one of the two MtG players who picked up Duel Masters a couple weeks ago. I played him last week in the first round last week, and won somewhat easily. Since then he put together a new deck based on creature kill.

My deck has done badly against red/black in the past because I don’t have that many creatures to attack with and they are all easily destroyable. The first game I was able to win without too much difficulty. Horrid Worm and Corile worked nicely together. Next duel we were pretty close. I started to pull away when I got huge hand advantage by using Light Energy and Brain Serum in the same turn. Then he dropped Lost Soul to destroy my 5-card hand. Grrrr.…Anyway, I wasn’t able to come back from that. Daniel ended up forcing me to deck out when I couldn’t pull any Evo to kill him fast enough. That shook up my confidence some and made me rethink how to beat him. The deciding duel number three was extremely close. We were both at zero shields in a battle to pull the first evolution creature. I played Paladin on Hulcus to win on the turn before his Chaos Worm would have killed me.

Record: 2-1

Cumulative Record: 2-1 Duels, 1-0 Matches

Round Two: Vs Andrew Frost (Mono Red Rush)

Andrew has been dueling at GQ for a while, but I don’t know him very well because we’ve never played in a tournament before. This match would be interesting too see how my deck could handle rush.

Andrew got me down to zero shields before I knew what happened. Two Valdios were sitting in his battle zone on turn five, which is NOT a good thing. But of course, that’s right about when the Murky Riptide starts to kick in. My chump blockers allowed me to stall and sort everything out. Eventually I gained control and made him constantly topdeck via Locomotiver, Corile, and Horrid Worm. Burst Shot and Speed attackers became his only hope. Luckily, I had a Squito to handle the one Rikabu he got, and Burst Shot didn’t show up in the shields. All that was just the first duel. The next one was easier for me. Andrew put up a fight by getting me to zero shields again, but I was in command to win again.

Record: 2-0

Cumulative Record: 4-1 Duels, 2-0 Matches

Round Three: Vs Patrick Smallwood (Blue/Green with Awe)

Patrick has been playing Blue/Green for a long time. He switches between basing it on Beastfolk and Obsidian Scarab. This week he went with the more annoying version by including Scarabs.

My notes were not good this round so cut me some slack. The first duel I know my control completely pwned him. The next round was much more difficult. He summoned Deathblade Beetle, then played Miracle Quest the next turn to draw 4 cards from it. That lead to a close ending. Patrick ended up using Nexus on Holy Awe to save himself. Then he summoned more creatures than I could handle at once to win. The third duel is hazy, but hand control led me to another win.

Record: 2-1

Cumulative Record: 6-2 Duels, 3-0 Matches

Round Four: Vs Tyler Smallwood (Blue/Red with Merfolk)

Tyler has been doing very well the past month or so since the Five Civs. Each week he swears to quit using Merfolk, but continues with it anyway. This match would determine who wins the tournament.

Before the tournament, Tyler borrowed Bolmeteus Steel Dragon from David Fordham and slipped it into his deck. He never summoned it on me though. This match turned out to be roughly the same as last week. I focused on hand destruction and killing his Cyber Lords. He had to topdeck for a long time. Tyler’s own Engineer Kipo even hurt some by reducing him to four mana on turn six. Merfolk only showed up once, which I can handle. My field was set up nicely with Horrid Worm attacking most of his shields one duel and Lancer in the other. Both duels ended in my favor.

Record: 2-0

Cumulative Record: 8-2 Duels, 4-0 Matches

The Aftermath:

For the second week in a row I defeated Tyler to win the tournament! This is the fifth time I have ever won a tourney at GQ. Today was not as difficult, but the prizes were actually better. I got five packs of the new Stompatrons set, which included the Super Rare Ultra Mantis.

Look forward to a huge report next week from the Gamers Marathon here at Galactic Quest. Kyle (the owner) is opening the doors for 34 straight hours of card playing. Not only are we having the Stompatrons release event, but two other tournaments as well! It will be awesome. Please come if there is any way that you can make it. Details are at the website. www.galacticquest.com Stephan Slack and Justin Couch are also starting up a website just for Duel Masters at Galactic Quest. You can meet the players, see pictures and keep up with tournament results. http://geocities.com/teamgalacticquest/main.html

Props:

My DCI rank went from 15^th in Georgia to 5^th last week when WotC finally updated

All the big events coming up are looking awesome (Marathon, 5 Civs, Invitation Circuit)

Stompatrons for being sw33t, should help the metagame diversify

Winning lots of good packs J

Slops:

None really (even Merfolk isn’t TOO bad anymore)

Once again my name is Steven Cantrell. I really hope you guys enjoy these reports because I spend a good bit of time on them. Let me know what ya think and give me some feedback on how to improve them. Contact is Smcman7@aol.com or on Dmrealms at Thrash-494. I’m always open for duels via AIM at Smcman7. This week my Black/Red rush needs to be tested because I plan on using it in the future.

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Here are some more cool pictures from Galactic Quest to give you a better idea of what is like here:

There’s an action shot with several duelists in it: Starting in the lower left hand corner and going up the row, you can see Austin Ladshaw, Sean Patterson, and Justin Couch. On the right side starting from the bottom you can see Robert Holt, Andrew Frost, Matt Gracek, and Ramsey Payne.

Lee Sandow holding Corile with Crystal Paladin.

Justin Florio not paying attention to me.
 

Matt Gracek looking at Yugioh cards.