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Duel Masters Invitational Circuit - JohnnyBlaze
Card Empire
Torrington, CT
6/18/05

Ok so this is my 1st Duel Masters sanctioned tourney that I have been to since last year at Origins. I’ve heard great things about Card Empire and that they have the 2nd ranked player in the US that plays at this shop. I ride out with my son and his friend. It is about a 1.5 hr ride. Tourney didn’t start until 3 in the afternoon. There is a total of 62 participants that entered to play. We were registered as #53-55 so we just missed the foil Terror Pit and Duel Masters Invitational Circuit deck box that they were giving out. I must say that this is the largest Duel Masters turnout that I have ever witnessed. People traveled from all over the place PA, Mass., and ourselves from New York. Even at the 2004 Origins championships I didn’t see this many people playing Duel Masters. So Howard the TO announced that there were going to be 6 rounds in each age division before final cut. I had no idea what to play since there are no sanctioned tourneys or leagues around us to play. It’s just not that popular here where I live. All people play competitively near me is Magic, Yugioh, VS, or Pokemon. We do play Duel Masters alot at home and scope out the message boards from time to time. But basically I was going into this thing blind. Here is what I ended up running:

Nature/Fire deck – 46 cards

Nature cards - 32
4 – Bronze Arm Tribe
4 – Torcon
3 – Mighty Shouter
4 – Barkwhip,The Smasher
3 – Dual Fighter Fang
2 – Bliss Totem (The tap creature to generate mana from your discard)
4 – Faerie Life
4 – Mana Nexus
4 – Natural Snare

Fire Cards -14
4 – Tornado Flames
3 – Crimson Hammer
2 – Burst Shots (I realized after the tourney that 4 of these would have been helpful)
3 – PyroFighter Magnus
2 – Twin Cannon Skyterror



Round 1 vs. Bill
Bill is a regular here at Card Empire and plays a deck that is commonly played here the 3 Civilization deck with Dark, Water, and Fire. Basically it is a deck with a bunch of Shield Trigger creatures and Terror Pits with creatures such as Aqua Hulcus, Emirle, Corile, Aqua Surfer, Locomotiver, Pyro Fighter Magnus, Dual Fighter Braid Claw, and some other Fire speed attackers.

1st game - He gets out to a fast start and does the replace his Shields combo with Emerile. I also get a fast start with a lot of mana out and destroy about 3 of his shields. I hang in there as 3 of my Shields are Natural Snares that place his creatures in his mana. But what kills me are his Terror Pits and bouncing my Barkwhips and Dual Fangs back to the top of my deck. He wins
2nd game – He starts out slow and I get the early advantage. We go back and forth destroying shields. At this point I am down to zero shields to Bill’s 1 shield. I start speed attacking with Magnus and his last shield is a Terror Pit to destroy my Magnus. He is able to get out Rikabu the speed attacker to win.

Record: 0-1



Round 2 vs. Ed
Ed is another regular here at Card Empire. Ed played a deck very similar to Bill in the 1st round, Darkness, Water, and Fire. Results were pretty much the same. Ed won both games with me hitting some of his shields in both games but his rush kept me at bay.

Record: 0-2

Round 3 vs. Jason
Jason played a Darkness Slayer/Blocker deck with some Nature and Fire thrown in there for attackers. Namely Pyro-Fighter Magnus.

1st game – I was able to keep his Slayers at bay by using Crimson Hammer and Tornado Flames on them. Unfortunately a lot of my good attackers kept on getting in my mana zone from using Bronze Arm Tribe and Faerie Life. We both got down to zero shields and Jason was able to get the Pyro-Fighter Magnus out 1st to win. 0-1

2nd game - I had a much better start this game by going off on 2nd turn and using Faerie Life then next turn Bronze Arm Tribe and evolve into a Barkwhip to start destroying shields. After he destroyed Barkwhip and a shield that was Torcon I was able to get out Dual Fighter Fang and a Pyro-Fighter Magnus to destroy the rest of his shields. 1-1

3rd game – Similar to Game 2 but Jason also got his stuff going. What saved me this game is that I was able to Natural Snare 6x with the use of Mana Nexus to keep on reusing them on his blockers to destroy his shields. I had 3 as Shield Triggers and 1 in my mana and then I also used Bliss Totem to put the ones in my discard back in my mana zone. 2-1 Yeah I finally win a Round.

Record: 1-2



Round 4 vs. Ellen
Ellen is one of the few female players that I have met that play Duel Masters. There were actually 2 at the tournament both playing in the 15+ division and both of them really good. (Vanessa being the other female player). Ellen has a son that plays in the 14-under division. At 1st Ellen was hesitant to have her picture taken for this report. But with other players telling her to do it and with the sacrifice of my pinkish/purple D20 she let me take it.

Ellen was playing the popular 3 civ deck that runs Water, Darkness, and Fire civs. Both games went to the wire with Ellen squeaking out the victories. I made a crucial error in Game 2 that actually would have won me the game to go into a 3rd game. I had 2 of my Pyros in my mana so I Mana Nexus one into my shields instead of the Tornado Flame that would have taken out her last Pyro. So she won that one.

Record: 1-3


Round 5 vs. Ed (With slight variation on Diamond Cutter)
I think this guy’s name was Ed. If it was I played 2 Ed’s that day. This guy was comical and I enjoyed playing him very much. He is a great guy and such a sportsman. Ed was running a variation of Diamond Cutter.

1st Game – I get quick Barkwhip swarms out and get him down to 1 shield. At one point in the game I was able to get 7 Shields up with Mana Nexus. After a couple of his Terror Pits and a swarm of Blockers, my Pyro-Fighter was useless. Ed then swung in for the win by breaking all 7 shields and then attacking me for the win like with 10 creatures out with Diamond Cutter.

2nd Game – Identical match, except for the fact that I only got Ed down to 2 Shields. I had 7 Shields up and running but I had no way of getting through his zillion blockers before he pwnd me with a Diamond Cutter.

Record 1-4

It was like 7:30 at nite at this point and we had to get going back home since it was a 1.5 hr trip and the kids were hungry. So we decided to drop. My son ended up 2-3 and so did his friend so even if they won their last match it wouldn’t have mattered for them making the top cut at 3-3. It was a great day for dueling and I would recommend for any duelist to go to The Card Empire in Torrington because by far they have the best competition. I also met Nick and his finace Vanessa. Nick was the 2nd place finalist at Wizard World Philly and also won a trip at the Blue Bell, Pa. Invitational Circuit. Here is a pic of them:



And here is a picture of me that was taken by Doug:




Please feel free to email me at JSChimento@aol.com
to discuss this report or to help me out on my deck so that I can do better next time.
Peace – Johnny Blaze.