"The Illusionary Mystery" by Rob "NBK-Valkier" Cummins - Toy Revolution, Sutton Coldfield, West Midlands, UK

 

Hello again!

 

After last week's strong performance in the Sealed Boosters tournament in Coventry, it was time again for another DM tournament to attend. This was a tournament I was seriously gearing myself up for as I knew there would be a good turnout and that the prizes were gonna be decent so it would be worthwhile to do well! The tournament took place in Toy Revolution in the Indoor Market, in Sutton Coldfield city centre! Before the tournament, my little pre-route to the tournament. Got up at 8am, left at 8:45am to catch the bus to get into Birmingham, then had to meet up with a group of DM duelists from the Coventry tournament from last week who were interested in taking part and we were more than happy to take them there as the more duelists, the better competition it would be! Eventually, after getting some of them to calm down, we finally got them on the bus to sutton coldfield and just in time for the tournament to start! I was told 11am, but it seemed that Dan, the tournament organiser, decided to start an hour early due to a request from a parent for his 2 sons who were participating. Slightly lame but we were there so there was no problem. Now on to the tournament.....

 

The tournament was a Constructed deck tournament and all set cards along with promo's were allowed to be used. The duelists would be split between 3 tables, 2 tables of 5 and 1 table of 6. The top 2 duelists from each table would qualify automatically for the play-offs while the top 2 losers would take the final 2 places. With 16 duelists, it was gonna be a tough tournament so I had to prepare appropriately. The deck I used for the tournament is one that people from DMrealms might recognise as the deck closely resembles Mohammed's 2nd place deck at Gen Con Socal and pretty much does the same job and i was rather impressed with it so I decided to use it for this tournament. Practise with the deck before the tournament went very well so I was slightly confident going into the tournament but lost it a bit beforehand as I was nervous in case I got drawn against someone decent! Here's the deck list for "Illusionary Mystery".....

 

"Illusionary Mystery"

 

No. of Cards: 44

Type of Deck: Light/Darkness/Water

 

4 x Magris, Vizier of Magentism

4 x Sarius, Vizier of Suppression

4 x Senatine Jade Tree

4 x Holy Awe

 

4 x Wailing Shadow Belbetphlo

4 x Bone Assassin, the Ripper

4 x Locomotiver

4 x Terror Pit

 

4 x Illusionary Merfolk

4 x Corile

4 x Emeral

 

Shortly after 10:30am, Dan got all 16 duelists together and made the draws for each of the tables. I got drawn on Table 1, my brother, Jonathan, got drawn on Table 2 so we were apart for the 1st part of the tournament thankfully. My 1st match on the table was against Simon.

 

Match 1 vs Simon

 

This guy I had played before in a previous tournament but his deck was terribly messed up and he could never utilise the cards in the deck to his best ability. Now, his deck had a lot more structure and actually had a strategy, which was great to see. He was using a Light/Nature Guardian deck, focusing on using Larba Geer, the Immaculate, and his favourite card, Ladia Bale! 1st duel saw me get some early blockers out but he got his larba geer out earlier than I had expected and took control of the field. Managed to remove it with a slayer and then took control of the field by using Corile and Magris so ended up winning it. 2nd duel went slightly different as I got some early attackers out but he was put on the defensive and was doing a good job in holding me off. Eventually, I cleared his field by using slayers and terror pits and eventually swarmed his shields and ended his chances of taking a duel off me. After winning the duel and giving in the result from my table, Simon asked for a 3rd and final duel to see whether he could get some retribution from the match.....he ended up losing badly so a 3-0 whitewash overall. Good duel mate. Next match put me up against young duelist, Max!

 

2-0

 

Match 2 vs Max

 

This kid suprised me a bit as he beat one of the stronger duelists on the table (well, I thought he was good considering what people had said beforehand) so I was slighty curious to see how this match would turnout. I was able to see what his deck was as his match with Ricky was right beside me and I noticed that his deck was a mix of Fire, Nature, and Water. Took me a bit by suprise but went on things all the same. 1st duel was rather slow as I couldn't get many creatures out and had to concentrate on removing his creatures before they made any real impact on the duel and so after several turns I finally amassed a strong force and then holy awed him and took out his shields in one full swoop. 2nd duel was over very quickly as for every card he put down, I was able to counter it on each turn and still have field advantage so the duel was finished rather quickly sadly. All the same, it was a very good duel and a duel I certainly enjoyed as it was my 1st real taste of facing a deck of its type. After a short break, I came back to duel Ricky!

 

4-0

 

Match 3 vs Ricky

 

I had to admit, I was worried about this duel before the tournament as I was told by some of the coventry lads that came along with my bro and I that he was a good duelist and his Mono-Water deck was a formidable one to face. Unfortunately, i found that information to be false as he ended up losing 2-1 to both Simon and Max, who I had faced previously, so I wasn't too worried. Both duels pretty much saw him taking the defensive with his blockers, mainly Angler Cluster, but all it came down to was removing his attackers with my own blockers when he attacked  and used a combination of slayers, terror pit and holy awe to slowly but surely kill him off, with all 5 shields intact each duel. His main downfall was his inability to hold off attacking when I had blockers on the field, as it pretty much lost him the match very early on. My final match was against an unknown duelist who I hadn't seen around the place before, Prince.

 

6-0

 

Match 4 vs Prince

 

Now this guy had been watching me when I had faced off against Ricky and was originally reluctant to play me as he considered me "too good". I simply said to him that he could quit and give me the points if he really didn't want to duel me, which of course, led him to take back what he said and duel me with determination (not in a bad way of course). He was using a slightly different to Simon's but was pretty much the same type of deck, a Nature/Light Guardian deck. He was a better duelist than Simon as I was fortunate enough to watch them beforehand. 1st duel was mainly blockage but managed to annoy him with corile and magris and then coupled with merfolk and emeral's ability, he was left in a horrible position and I finished him off eventually. 2nd duel was pretty much the same thing except the terror pits and slayers saw more play than usual so it ended up a comfortable 2-0 win.

 

8-0

 

After all the rounds were sorted out, Max and I were pushed into the play-offs automatically in 1st and 2nd place while Prince had to settle with a possible loser spot. He managed to make it through the loser play-offs along with his brother, Andre, and the play-offs were finalised. Here were the pairings......

 

Andy (No.1) vs Andre (No.8)

Max (No.5) vs Jonathan (No.4)

 

Rob (No.2) vs Prince (No.7)

Shane (No.3) vs James (No.6)

 

Quarter-Finals vs Prince

 

I found this rematch slightly ironic as Prince was well annoyed he had to play me in a 2nd match in a row and wasn;t looking even the slightest bit confident, which I took to my advantage. Having previous experience against his deck helped me a lot as I knew how to counter his moves and it worked in my favour in both duels. His blockers never really got to stay on the field long without them having to be slayed or removed by merfolk or magris and any big creatures were annihilated by slayers or terror pit or bounced back. Merfolk played a big part in this match and i was happy to get to play the combo a lot. After this match, I was kept waiting for a while to see who I would face. In the other matches, Andy convincingly beat Andre, Jonathan went on to win Max easily enough and, in what could be considered a shock, Shane lost out to James, and it was James who would be my next opponent.

 

10-0

 

Semi-Finals vs James

 

I played this guy in a previous tournament as well and he wasn't too pleased that he had to face me so close to the final, He was playing his usual Mono-Water deck he had previously and it looked as if it hadn't changed at all so I wasn't too worried. Corile was the major factor in this in the 2nd duel but the 1st duel was pretty much both of us stalling each other with blockers until I had 6 attackers and then holy awed him for the win as he got unlucky having no real shield triggers except for brain serum. 2nd duel, corile kept bouncing back his cards and he could never get real field control on the battle zone. He did manage to get Crystal Lancer out on the field and took 2 shields off me, but it got slayed immediately and left him with nothing to use so it was a comfortable run from then on. After this duel, it was a matter of waiting for the other semi-final to finish up, with it being my bro, Jonathan, vs Andy Jennings. My bro playing his new Fire/Nature/Darkness deck vs Andy's new Fire/Light speed attacker deck. Unfortunately, my bro couldn't get past the block and attack strategy of andy's deck and lost out eventually 2-0, in the final duel losing to the final shield he hit on andy's field, twin-cannon skyterror. So I would have my revenge for my brother against Andy in the final.

 

12-0

 

Final vs Andy

 

This was the match I was waiting for and I was suprised on how well Andy had done considering his past tournament results being 11th and 13th so he really improved. His deck was proving to be too tough for some duelists to handle, even for my bro so this would decide the tournament. 1st duel so him use a load of early blockers to hold me off and was using some weak attackers to get at my shields but eventually i put up a bit of a defence and managed to corile his field 3 times in a row and then merfolked him twice, leaving him in a state of disbelief and anger. A few slayers and a Holy awe later and he ended up losing the 1st duel quite quickly. The 2nd duel was slower as neither of us got good hands and slayers were out early for me to take advantage of his blockers. For some slilly reason, Andy used his Aeris, Flight Elemental to take out my 1 of my wailings, which actually did me a favour, and left him in a bad position as, again, I used corile, emeral and merfolk combo to manipulate my shields and slaughter his field. At the end, his field got obliterated and was finally taken out by Emeral to win the match and the duel!

 

14-0

 

I was quite happy with have won the tournament in sutton coldfield for the 1st time and was my 2nd tournament victory since starting DM. I got 3 boosters of Survivors, 1 Giliam the Tormnetor and 3 Explosive Fighter Ucarn JDC promo's as my prixes, and I got Syrius, Firmament Elemental out of my packs along with a few nice cards, so I was more than happy after spending £3 on the entry fee! Everyone else throughly enjoyed the tournament and it went very well. Thanks to Dan for setting up the tournament and for providing the cool prizes! There is another tournament in 2 weeks so I'll be looking forward to that!

 

I hope you's enjoyed the report, if anyone wants to contact me about anything in the report or just wants to talk about DM in general, contact myself on mexflash@hotmail.com on Msn messenger! Cya's all again soon with another tournament report!

 

Rob Cummins