Tournament
Report
The Place:
Gamelot
(inside Purple Cactus)
(210)
722-3236
The Time:
Sunday,
March 20th, 2005
The Weapon of My Choosing:
Nature/Water
Agro/Control
*Bill can relate to this: upon sitting down to write up this report I realized I had lost my notes for the tournament. It sucks, but I will try to write up the best report I can with what little information is still somewhere deep within the dark cavernous portions of my brain.
Justin (my son), Ryan (my other son – not here to play Duel Masters, though), Tony (my step-son) and I arrived about 45 minutes early to what was to be an unsure turnout. Before long all doubt was washed away as we found ourselves with a total of 12 players. While we were waiting for people to arrive, Tony ran off to grab a couple of quick games of Yugi-Oh and I set up Ryan in the Pokemon tournament he had come with us for(he’s 6 and not quite ready for Duel Masters yet).
Justin and I remained in the Duel Masters section to pull a little bit of trading so that we could complete our second set of promo Coriles and open the box of Shadowclash/Evocrushinator we had just purchased (we had to mix packs – not enough Shadowclash at the store). For those pack junkies, yes we got a good box. Check it out:
2x Doboulgyser, Giant Rock Beast
1x Rimuel, Cloudbreak Elemental
1x Astral Warper
1x Armored Blaster Valdios
1x Alcadeias. Lord of Spirits
And that’s just the Super and Very Rares, of course. Not bad if I do say so myself. After a bit more trading to try and net us extra play sets of Terror Pits and Natural Snares (Our collection provides decks for three players so we have to have multiples of many playsets) the tournament was ready to begin.
Good enough!
Let’s begin!
The Tournament Begins…
Justin patiently awaiting his first turn
during the first game of the tournament.
Tony (Upper-Left Corner) sets his shields and draws
his cards.
About My Weapon of My Choice:
When it comes to nearly any game, I normally start into the game from a purely agro state (thus in my introduction to Duel Master I played both Fire/Darkness Human Rush and Nature/Light Beast Folk Rush). Eventually my playing style evolves more into control. It appears I am still following this pattern. While I’ve been toying with pure control, I’m currently focused on Agro/Control. Here it is – the weapon of my choosing…
Beast Folk/Liquid People Agro/Control (Nature/Water)
Total Cards: 42
4x Aqua Guard
4x Aqua Hulcus
4x Aqua Jolter
4x Corile
3x
3x
4x Spiral Gate
4x Torcon
4x Bronze-Arm Tribe
4x Fighter Duel Fang
4x Natural Snare
Let’s see how I how performed during my first tournament of this in this change over…
Ding Ding! Round One!
D.J.
D.J. is one of those many players who started playing Duel Masters towards the beginning. However, he tells me he abandoned the game for a time and has now returned. We welcome you back D.J.
As an additional note, I had actually had the misfortune of drawing a bye for the first round. Fortunately, D.J. showed up and so I was able to be paired up against him just before the round started.
His Deck: As I remember it he played solid Darkness.
Note: Mono-Darkness seems to be catching a great deal of attention in our locale meta-game (we used to see a lot of mono-Light and Light/* combinations).
DJ played his blocker and creatures as quickly and as well as he could during the first game, however I was able to Crystal Paladin them for the win.
Second game proved to be more interesting. While I was able to play a few quick creatures, a third turn Horrid Worm proved to be a hindrance. Over the next couple of turns he was able to knock both a Fighter Duel Fang and Crystal Paladin from my hand, leaving me with no evos for the time being. Fortunately, my weenies kept coming and where able to out race the limited amount of blockers he was able to put into play.
Results: 2/0
Ding Ding!
Round Two!
*I feel really bad that I don’t remember this guy’s
name. I have played him in several tournaments and promise that I will get it
down this next one!!!
His Deck: I believe this was a Darkness/Water mix, though I’m not sure.
A quick and harsh match in which he was not able to match the overpowering effects of my Coriles and evos.
Results: 2/0
Ding Ding!
Round Three!
Joel
Though Joel is one of the youngest players at Gamelot, was not about to underestimate him. Not only is he
the youngest, but he is also one of the highest ranked players in
His Deck: Once again – Mono-Darkness.
Unfortunately Joel has switched out a his deck a bit. Last time we met he played Nature Darkness. This time it was mono-Darkness. I believe this to have been a mistake on his part. The apparent attempt is a focus on Ballom, however Ballom doesn’t matter if you are already dead. I believed he pulled out a single game from me, though by the end of the match I had managed to beat him. Frankly, I hope he will go back to his old deck as he was much more formidable when he played with it.
Results: 2/1
Ding Ding!
Round Four!
Phillip
As of the date of this tournament Phillip is the only
player at Gamelot I had yet to beat at least once.
Rightly so – he’s also the #1 ranked player in
His Deck: Fire/Nature/Water Survivor Control – basically you are looking at an Ill-Folk styled base only using Fire and Nature appropriate Survivors.
Phillip’s deck concept proved to possess powerful elements of control that consistently prevented me from even getting off the starting line. Each game he was luck enough to slap down as second turn Emeral. By the second game he was able to finish off me off by slapping down a Bladerush Q and attacker with the other Survivors dominating the board.
Results: 0/2
I’m not sure how I actually place, though I imagine my defeat to Phillip knocked me down to 3rd (it normally does). Still, we all had a blast and it was definitely worth while. While I was playing, plenty else was going on. Here’s some of the other players and their duels…
Joel Shuffles
Joel prepares for his first match up of the day.
Introducing
(PS Told you Mono-Black was popular in our current
meta-game)
Phillip and his Prey
Phillip (left) stalks a Mono-Water victim with his
somewhat unique survivor deck.
Shane and his Shame
Shane is the former #1 player in
Justin’s Prayer
Justin holds his breath against this mono-light player
as he begins a game with quick human beats from his Fire/Darkness Human Rush
deck. He’ll eventually go 2/2 in matches for the tournament.
Time?
Tony (right) goes to a nail biting game three in this Mono-Light versus Mono-Light match up.
While he won’t quite win this one (thanks to a single misplay), he ends going 2/2 in the tournament for matches.
Phillip’s Assault on
Shane
While Phillip (right) appears to be way behind in this game he will eventually go 2/1 for the match. This will allow him to play me (the other und
Props: Great sportsmanship of players at Gamelot
To Cliff - for the no fee tournament allowing me and my two kiddos to all play
To
To Justin – for maintaining his 2/2 streak with a smile. Don’t worry bud, you’ll get better as you continue to play!
To Bill – for letting get in the end of this report and working with me to put together all these pictures.
Slops: No complaints, but I’m not much of one to complain – period.
My next tournament report will likely not be for several weeks (perhaps a month). In the meantime I believe I will have plenty of cool articles coming at you. Next week you should keep an eye out for “Duel Masters: RIP, Life Support, or Going Strong?” and the next installment of “Building on a Budget.” Until then – ‘nuff said.
Regards,
JMatthew
markulin33@msn.com