Craig Roberts “The Annoyingly-Evil Stall/Jinzo Deck” ‘Lucky Frog 11am’ and ‘Wizards of the Coast 5pm’ Tournament Reports Annandale and Springfield, Virginia November 16, 2002 Prelude: Ok, I would first like to say it’s been one hell of a long day for me (was out at the tournaments from 10:30am till 10:00pm) and, well, for one thing, I know that there are a bunch of kids who are probably going to be submitting tournament reports in this area. But why bother with their reports when I’m the one who placed first in both tournaments (second time placing at Lucky Frog and first time at WOTC), but they all have equally valid opinions...well maybe, maybe not. Ok…. now to the report and believe me, it’s a long one. First, the deck and its contents: Deck Size: 40 (20 monsters, 16 magics and 4 traps) Monsters: 1 * Giant Soldier of Stone (my only non-effect monster; maybe a cannon will do) 1 * Cyber Jar (cause those things are just so much fun to use) 1 * Morphing Jar #2 (good against exodia and when outnumbered) 3 * Nimble Momonga (b/c who doesn’t love a squirrel wearing goggles) 2 * Sangan (mainly used for wall of illusion or cyber jar) 2 * Witch of the Black Forest (did anyone say Jinzo-time? Oh, I just did) 3 * Wall of Illusion (good stalling against kamikaze Exodia and strong monsters) 3 * Magicians of Faith (it’s all about getting back those crucial staple cards) 3 * Man-Eater Bug (yummy yummy in my tummy) 1 * Jinzo (crucial incarnate, I owe much to my Jinzo) Magics: 1 * Pot of Greed (who wouldn’t play this card?) 1 * Delinquent Duo (mainly for Exodia, good mid-game) 1 * The Forceful Sentry (is it just me or is his body really out of proportion) 1 * Dark Hole (the cosmic toilet flushing, good at times) 1 * Raigeki (creamy goodness, bye-bye opponent’s monsters) 1 * Monster Reborn (very important to my strategy, you’ll see) 1 * Premature Burial (why would I want your Summoned Skull, when I got Jinzo) 1 * Snatch Steal (it’s always fun to take their good monsters) 1 * Change of Heart (take their facedown cards, and reap the benefits) 2 * Heavy Storm (because no one likes their opponent having 4 traps down) 2 * Swords of Revealing Light (stalling for the sake of stalling) 2 * Tribute to the Doomed (no your man-eater bug will not get a crack at my Jinzo) 1 * Axe of Despair (….I kind of forgot I had left this in my deck; didn’t do much good) Traps: 2 * Gravity Bind (annoy those beatdown decks and wait till the time is right) 1 * Mirror Force (almost a must for any deck, especially stall) 1 * Ceasefire (wow you got a lot of facedown cards, let’s see what they all are) Sidedeck: 1 * Confiscation (the only card I used the one time I sidedecked all day; anti-exodia) 3 * Hayabusa Knight (because they got cool effects and fly under gravity bind) 1 * Giant Soldier of Stone (ok, so I have two non-effect monsters, but this is sidedecked) 1 * Axe of Despair (what’s a Falcon Knight without a good boost) 1 * Messenger of Peace (anti-beatdown, but more importantly anti-Jinzo) 2 * Card Destruction (m'eh, anti-exodia) 2 * Burning Land (it speeds up the game, with a nice twist) 2 * Chain Energy (always good when you got the upper hand) 2 * Cannon Soldier (goes nicely with my burn magic cards) This deck evolved out of my ghetto burner/disruption deck I had made earlier in the week. It seems a little awkward to use for others, but I like decks that waste time, and hey it got the job done. Tip: I don’t encourage people to copy other people’s decks (especially mine) and use it as their own… but more just to take the basic concepts and adapt it to their own individual style of play. Something that they are comfortable with, it makes this game a lot more interesting when you meet people who have made decks according to their own spin on things. First Tournament: Lucky Frog at 11am (duelist kingdom sanctioned) Pre-Tournament: got my 2nd dust tornado in a PSV pack I got just for registering, put it in my binder to collect dust… (still waiting for those tournament season 2 packs to come out) Remaining Contenders: 24… I think the brackets were very unbalanced, all the good players were in the top and all the n00bs mainly went down below. Round 1: me vs. Blain(e) (stall deck) Won the first two duels quickly and effectively, didn’t have as much problem with his methods of stalling as he did with mine, won it mainly with just attacking with my walls of illusion and nimble momongas. Note: his traps don’t seem to function properly for him when my Jinzo is trouncing about. He did some chain energies and solemn wishes (which was a real pain) but luckily, I got heavy storms at just the right time. Remaining Contenders: 12… I think, but he wouldn’t show me the the tourney sheet Round 2: me vs. Some Random Kid #4 (no point in his deck, I guess beatdown) I’m not sure what he was trying to accomplish with his deck but he couldn’t get through all my monsters to get a clear shot at me and gravity bind was there when monsters weren’t. Beat him first two duels. He mainly went with lvl 4 1800atk monsters like la jinn and harpie’s bro, which grav bind and wall of illusion were particularly effective against. Remaining Contenders: somehow we got down to 4 when I got to my next match, one kid got two byes in the lower bracket (straight to the finals) and Eric (who has beaten me every time I’ve played him so far) got a bye to play the winner of my match. Round 3: me vs. Keith (Exodia, luckily the only one today, usually there are 4 or 5) Before the match, he had me count my sidedeck, and to my surprise, there were only 14 cards in it (illegal) and 41 in my deck, so to my misfortune there would be no getting out my anti-exodia cards from it or the rest of the tourney (didn’t sidedeck in earlier matches). He got exodia late in the first duel, but the other two duels I beat him with Jinzo (he probably came as close to 4 pieces both times, don’t know). Our duels pretty much came down to whether or not I could get out Jinzo before he was able to draw the head of Exodia (my Jinzo and WOTBFs just never seemed to show up) and the duels dragged out a long time. He has a pretty evil exodia deck, what with all his cannon soldiers, mystic tomatoes, and last wills. So I pretty much just tried setting up walls against his guys so he couldn’t do his usual kamikazing and just wait till I could get a Jinzo or morphing jar out. Remaining Contenders: 3 ….really now, they need to work these brackets out … time to play Eric, the bane of my existence. Round 4: me vs. Eric (beatdown deck, luckily too, he wasn’t using Exodia today) It went fairly quick, the first duel I got out jinzo and trounced about unopposed (an unequipped 1800atk monster doesn’t do much good at that point and TTTD, raigeki, and Change of Heart kept his facedown out of the way). He won the second match, as I simply ran out of cards in hand, and options to choose from (curse him for hand destructioning white hats). Third duel, it was a long one, I went on the defensive for the most part and just tried to wait him out till he had used up most of his good cards before I pulled Jinzo and started attacking, he killed it once, but then again, that’s why I have monster reborn and premature burial. Remaining Contenders: 2 ….I really think they set this thing up just to annoy me… I had to play more matches then any of the other kids who got as far as me… I mean the kid I was playing only played 3 matches all day (the third being against me in finals) Round 5: me vs. Emmanuel (the most pointless deck I’ve ever seen) I don’t know how he got to the finals but anyways, it was pretty quick and painful for him going against my assaulting Nimble Momongas (yay, squirrels with goggles). Yeah ok, he did pull out a few decent plays, but he used mainly booster commons and starter deck cards so there wasn’t much he could do… seeing as how all those staples are expensive holos. 1st Prize: $12 store credit (not the usual prize but since it rained today, there was a low turn-out as there isn’t much inside space and a lot of the matches are usually played outside). Bought myself 2 LOB unlimited boosters and got a SORL in the first, and a REBD in the second, then with my remaining $2, bought myself 2 slices of pizza. Pretty good luck for a change on my pickings. Second Tournament: Wizards of the Coast 5pm Tournament (non-sanctioned but follows all the same rules, I hear Paul (the guy in charge) even sometimes writes rulings for pojo) Pre-Tournament: not much happened except for a few ‘fun’ matches, beat Keith once more, and William (an extremely, lucky friend) once with my deck, and once while using each other’s decks. Remembered to fix my deck and make my sidedeck legal. Remaining Contenders: 32 (the set capacity)…. More organized then Lucky Frog, but a lot more n00bs then there usually are (thanks to Jeff and Saul’s recent departure, hehe) Round 1: me vs. Imad… a n00b (high tribute beatdown deck) He didn’t get anything done the entire match, the most he accomplished was getting out a maha vailo with a sword of deep-seated (really, now) and a yami…. All of which I wiped out in a turn…. A quick match and not much to brag about. After the match, I went through his deck with him and gave him a few pointers, he had too many cards in his deck (around 60) and way too many 7-8 star monsters among them (like 10). He had said he was just trying to put in every combo he could think of in, so I told him he should concentrate on one aspect of play (i.e. Beatdown) and try to theme the deck to it. Remaining Contenders: 16(15)….of course the 6 (really only 5, since William doesn’t count, hehe) good players who showed, all advanced, as well as a few of the…. newer people, some seemed to show promise. Round 2: me vs. Duy??? (The ingenious non-existent deck) He didn’t show, so I got a bye. A nice extended break from the long one I had just taken. Supposedly, he ran to the bathroom and never came back; those toilets are deathtraps I tell you. Oh well, got to watch what tactics my opponents would use against me (a very helpful tactic to that is to actually watch, instead of rant about how much skull servant, dissolverock, and flame ghost own). Remaining Contenders: 8…. 6 of the good players advanced as well as a few of the “newer” who actually seemed to be good… Round 3: me vs. Sita (aka. “Shadow”) (beatdown deck) I got the best of him most of the time, every time he started up an offensive, it met my nimble momongas, walls of illusion, or man-eater bugs. I relied on Jinzo the bulk of the duel to hurt him. I won the first duel after a slow excruciating process. He won the second duel fairly quickly, effectively continually slicing through all my defenses and hurting me bad. The third duel I made a comeback, after losing some life, getting rid of 2 summoned skulls and beasts of talwar, and a reborned jinzo, getting my jinzo out and from the graveyard maybe 3 or 4 times that last duel. I beat him with 1100 life points left, while he had 3500, he had a clear field, so I hit him with a reborned summoned skull (his), and a prematured nimble momonga (sometimes, it’s just more fun to do it with a squirrel then with jinzo). Remaining Contenders: 4…. Things start getting tricky, and tensions run high…. Or at least I thought so, but then again, my opinion doesn’t run for much there. Only people left were 3 ‘good players’ and a good ‘newer’. Round 4: me vs. Keith (Exodia deck…. Again) I dominated him the first match, getting a seemingly perfect Jinzo hand off the bat. Got Jinzo out on the second turn, and ended the duel about 3 games later without taking any damage (a pretty good start, as I usually have bad tensions of anticipation against Exodia players). The second duel, reverted to our usual more balanced warfare between each other, but he eventually beat me life point wise, hitting me over the head with that damn head of Exodia. But in the third duel, I got my revenge, and tipped the game in my favor midgame, and Jinzo did the rest. Weak monsters are never good against a bunch of sangans and wotbf gunning for exodia, combined with 2 solemn wishes, good thing I learned that and used morphing jar #2 (almost too good against Exodia, despite the fact that the only card he seemed to have discarded was monster recovery, drawing for lvl 4 monsters ins his top 5 cards, just my luck). Remaining Contenders: 4… well really only 2 since Keith went on to play Scott for third and fourth, while I went on to the finals. Round 5: me vs. Random “newer” blonde kid #5 (relinquished/beatdown deck) A little nervous, but once again I donned the “Eric Rodsa emotionless, indifferent face”. Pretty much stopped the kid in his tracks the first duel, and brought out Jinzo and an array of small monsters to win. The second duel, he made a mad big offensive, but a gravity bind held him for the time. Eventually a SORL came out too, and a cyber jar dissipated his army, he managed to get Relinquished out and absorbed my Jinzo and put it in defense. My next turn, I put out a Tribute to the Doomed and killed it, then once again reborned my Jinzo (I must brought him back out like 4 or 5 times total that duel). After awhile, he ran out of cards in his hand (utmost importance to always have cards in your hand) and Jinzo pummeled him thoroughly. The times when I had Jinzo out, seemed to be the only times I ever actually attacked him effectively. 1st prize: 5 booster packs from a set, went with 1st edition PSV. Didn’t get much in three of the packs, but did manage to get a Graverobber and a Beast of Talwar (which I’m not too impressed with, after seeing it decimated by my deck). You also get to give a quote, which I gave a good one, but about 10 seconds afterwards, thought up an even better one but too late, oh well…. Guess I’ll just have to get in the top 4 again next week too (it’s all about the quotes, who cares about the prizes). Last Thoughts: Today was the second I’ve ever placed at Lucky Frog, and the first time I’ve placed at WOTC. I usually get really bad luck and get eliminated first or second round by one of the good players, but seems like my new deck worked out super well for me (I’m used to playing stall decks though, been doing stall/clown decks since I started playing just about). Ok, that’s the report now the usual ….props and slops that people seem to usually write. Props: - It rained today, accounting for the low turnout at Lucky Frog - The high n00b turnout at Wizards of the Coast - Nimble Momonga, it saved me quite a few times - Jinzo, Definitely… It won a lot of my matches for me, no wonder it’ll be restricted - Having a bunch of cool friends to play against competitively (all in good fun of course, except for William, he’s just fun to beat; too bad Goat wasn’t around) - There’s most likely more that I don’t remember so whatever would seem appropriate here - Definitely for pojo and apprentice for allowing my to test my many various deck ideas against other duelists - To Keith, for being the only guy I’ve had to play who used Exodia since there are usually like 12 kids who use it at WOTC, but better luck next time against me. - And to Eric Rodsa, for his ability to never make a facial expression when he talks, but keep the same indifferent look as he usually does (I seem to be the only person to ever notice this). And actually beating him this time around. - A lot of the game (and the fun) resided in attempting to psyche out the opponent. - Not losing a single match the entire day (since the creation of the deck). At least a solid 14-0 today with all the matches (tournament or not) that I went through (looks like it's time to fill in the spot that Jeff left open... hehe) Slops: - It rained today, accounting for the low turn-out at Lucky Frog… and thus low-value prize. - for the fact that a few of my friend’s are now trying to do a pseudo version of my style of play (I’m looking right at you Scott and Goat) but hey, it’s all good - for the messed up matching at Lucky Frog - for not being the one to eliminate William at WOTC (oh well, Keith, you may have gotten him, but at least I got you twice) - pretty much anything that should be obvious. - It would probably help to come out with a set restrict list for PSV soon but no matter I just go by the one set for the pojo’s yugioh ladder till one does come out Yup that’s it, I’ll probably realize more after I’ve submitted this report but oh well. The name’s Craig Roberts, or “cowboi” on #pojoyugioh (“: Cowboi: No Advertising” ;x ) , mainly to those in the area as “that kid with the super annoying and evil deck”. If you have any comments/suggests/insults/ranting/nonsense, you can send any of it to certemplar@yahoo.com, but don’t expect a reply soon as I don’t check it very often. I’ll try to check it a little more often for this though. And finally, the long endless report comes to an end.