Unstoppable Exodia Continued
Andrew Phillips
Coliseum of Comics,
Official Duelist King Tournament
Participants: 17
Tournament Date-December 15, 2002
It’s time once again for a new tournament report and an
update on the Exodia deck. If you have
read my previous article, Unstoppable Exodia, then you understand how good the
Exodia deck is. Given that the article
was posted two days before the new restrictions it is a bit outdated and many
people have emailed me asking what my changes would be and I have prepared a
new deck list for the new metagame. The
deck has changed very little since the last article and only a few cards have
been added to ensure that sidedecking towards an aggressive strategy is easier. Before I get into the tournament report I
would like to rant briefly about the current restrictions and UpperDeck's
system of running tournaments and keeping track of tournament reporting. I cannot understand why or how UpperDeck has
managed to utterly screw up such a great game and why they are having so many
problems when all they have to do is follow
Monsters
5 x Pieces of Eoxida
3 x Mystic Tomato
3 x Man-Eater Bug
3 x Wall of Illusion
3 x Magician of Faith
2 x Sangan
1 x Witch of the
2 x Cannon Soldier
Magic
1 x Upstart Goblin
1 x Swords of Revealing Light
1 x Messenger of Peace
1 x Raigeki
1 x Dark Hole
1 x Pot of Greed
1 x Monster Reborn
Traps
1 x Mirror Force
3 x Solemn Judgment
3 x Magic Jammer
3 x Gravity Bind
1 x Back-Up Soldier
SideDeck
1 x Card Destruction
1 x Delinquent Duo
1 x Confiscation
3 x La Jinn
3 x 7 Colored Fish
3 x Juri Gumo
1 x Dark Elf
2 x Heavy Storm
I will not go into details
concerning card choices and how they should be played. Please read my previous article-Unstoppable
Exodia (December article) for details on why the cards are good choices and how
to play the deck. The cards that I have
added were the Man-Eater Bugs which has replaced the Witch and the Swords of
Revealing Light. The Man-Eater Bugs
allow the deck to be more aggressive with the sidedeck since most Beatdown
Decks play Man-Eater Bugs to clear out monsters. Thanks to those who take the
time to read and reply! The tournament
was run by an older gentleman who was also going to play and the tournament
began around
Round 1 Shadowfox
I was paired with a guy who was
about 18-20 years old and wouldn’t stop babbling about Japanese YuGi-Oh episodes
and was generally being annoying. The
judge took a long time to get the tournament going and was unclear on some of
the common rules. I argued with my
opponent that at the beginning of the game that both players must draw their
hands regardless of who goes first. He
refused to draw his hand until his turn and confirmed this with the judge. I questioned how then does a person resolve a
first turn Card Destruction or Delinquent Duo if they do not have any cards in
hand and they couldn’t answer so I let it slide and proceeded to play
first. He was playing a bad version of
Exodia and I easily got the pieces out before him. Many of the players there did not believe
that Solemn Judgment is a good card and therefore did not play the card. This cost him the match because he had no
other counter than Magic Jammer and couldn’t stop my traps. His deck did not have two Sangans, a Witch of
the
Round 2 Lady AngelFire
I was paired with a female player which pleasantly surprised me because I see very few older female players that have skill and that play in tournaments (more power to them!). She was playing an aggressive Wind deck that had the usual BladeFly and Harpy cards. AngelFire’s deck also had the assortment of trap cards such as Mirror Force and Trap Holes. Her deck contained Hane-Hanes, Cyber Jar, and Princess of Tsurugi. She had a lot of main deck traps and magic removal to deal with my Gravity Binds, but I managed to play mind games with her and make her believe that I had more Exodia pieces in my hand then I really did. This delay bought me enough time to get the rest of the pieces and win the game. The second game went much like the first except that I had board control earlier and my life points weren’t as endangered. Overall she was a skilled player and would have beaten me if she had a sidedeck which she didn’t have because she believed that anyone would play Exodia.
Round 3 DragonClaw 01
This guy was playing a bad version of a Burner deck with Hinatomas, Final Flames, Tolls, and Messenger of Peace which doesn’t cut it. The first game he got me down to around 1700 before I drew the rest of the pieces of Exodia. DragonClaw used the Tolls to prevent monsters from attacking but I don’t need to attack which spared many life points from being wasted and thus he couldn’t burn me out. The second game went much faster because I had the perfect opening hand which consists of Back-Up Soldier, Painful Choice, a Piece of Exodia, a Sangan, and a Solemn Judgment. By the second turn I had all five pieces of Exodia and he couldn’t do anything about it. The second game I did sidedeck but the cards were not needed because of the excellent hand that I drew.
Round 4 Rick (judge)
Rick was the judge of the tournament and a respectable player from what everyone was telling me. Rick was playing a Burner deck that was similar to DragonClaw’s but with subtle differences. The first game was too close, my life total was 250 and he could have killed me if he had tributed my Cannon Soldier that he gained control of using Change of Heart. That mistake cost him the game, which in turn cost him the match. The next game was just as long, but there was simply nothing he could do anything fast enough to deny me from assembling all five pieces. The match was enjoyable, but due to lack of prize I was disappointed that even though I had won, I had nothing to show for it.
The tournament was uneventful and
a disappointment in the fact that no prizes were awarded to the finalists. The winner simply received a tournament pack
for entering and the points awarded for winning. The structure for the
tournament was a bit skewed in the fact that they simply cut the person who got
the bye in the finals. The finals
consisted of three people and one person was randomly given a bye and thus
didn’t get to play for first or second but simply lost and was eliminated from
the tournament. In retrospect it seemed
a waste of time to play at this event and was useful only in playtesting and
wasn’t worth the time or effort. If you
have any questions or comments please email me at magic707@hotmail.com and I will respond
as soon as possible. Also a note for
those collectors out there; McDonald’s is offering a set of exclusive cards
that haven’t been released yet in
Peace Out,
Andrew Phillips