Subject: Surprise Deck, Last Will, Ground Zero, Lancaster CA The Surprise Deck by Last Will Lancaster, CA(Ground Zero Comics) 10/11/02 Entry Fee: $6 Number of Participants: 31 I recently posted some ideas on Pojo(Tips & Strategies page) about some untapped aspects of the game. I received some positive feedback and several people wondered if the strategies I was preaching actually worked. Well, it finally came time to put my money where my mouth was, and see if my ideas were more than some hot air. The following is the deck I played with throughout the tourney; I used no side deck: Monsters(18) 3x Summoned Skull 3x La Jinn 3x Magician of Faith 3x Man-Eater Bug 2x Witch of the Black Forest 2x Sangan 1x Cyber Jar 1x Masked Sorcerer - 900/1400, when this monster inflicts damage, draw one card Magic(15) 3x Last Will - if you lose a monster on the turn this card is played(your turn, basically), special summon a monster with attack of 1500 or less 3x Share the Pain - Each person chooses 1 monster on their side of the field and destroys it 2x Heavy Storm 1x Delinquent Duo 1x Snatch Steal 1x Change of Heart 1x Raigeki 1x Swords of Revealing Light 1x Monster Reborn 1x Dark Hole Traps(7) 3x Trap Hole 2x Robbin' Goblin 1x Mirror Force 1x Magic Jammer Total cards: 40 Why is it called the Surprise Deck? The look of surprise on the faces of opponents when you use cards like Masked Sorcerer, Share the Pain and Last Will. "What does that card do?" "Can you do that? Judge?" "I lost to a deck that doesn't run any 7 colored fish, fissures or wabokus?" Heard each one at least twice Friday night. The format of the tournament is as follows: - 5 Rounds of Round-Robin play - 3 Points for each duel(win the match for a total of 6, lose 2-1 and you get 3) - After 5 rounds, the 8 duelists with the most number of points go on to the elimination round. - In the elimination round, 1 faces 8, 2 faces 7, etc. - Winners move on, losers go home. Anyway, enough rambling(for now), on to the action. First Round: Richard of the 71 card deck The first pairings are completely random, and I draw an opponent with cards such as Mystic Horseman. To be honest, I remember more about the number of cards in his deck than I do about anything that happened during the duels. He didn't have a real firm grasp on the rules, and this round went rather quickly(2-0) Second Round: Lynn the Collector In the subsequent rounds, the pairings are based on current record. The people who won 2-0 all played others who won 2-0, and so on. I draw someone who is a buddy of mine. Unfortunately for him, he's more of a collector than a duelist. His deck contains only cards in which he has 2 or more, so most of his useful cards sit in his binder. This went pretty quick as well(sorry for lack of details, saving those for the more worthy duels later on), but one thing sticks out to me. After playing my patented(lol) combo(playing a Sangan/Witch onto the field, then Share the Pain along with Last Will to remove his flip effect monster while getting 1 card to my hand and 1 to the field), Lynn calls over the judge of the tournament and ask if what I did was legal(it is). The ironic thing is the last time I was at the tournament(2 weeks prior), my next opponent(Dan) asked for a rulings clarification on the exact same combo. As for the duel...well, not much to talk about, another quickie(2-0) Third Round: Dan the Direct Damage Dealer This is where it got interesting. Dan won the tournament last week, and packed a pretty unique deck compared to most. Dan frustrated me with Messenger of Peace in the first duel, but luckily, I drew all 4 Sangan/Witches within the first 3 draws, and was able to attack for small amounts at a time. He didn't draw enough monsters, and eventually I nickel and dimed him to death. The second duel was a long one, but he set me up perfectly. Two Just Desserts while I had 3 monsters on the field dropped me by 3000. Princess of Tsurugi followed soon enough, and I was down to 2600, while he was at 8000. I had a huge monster advantage at the time, but a slight problem. He had Toll and Messenger of Peace on the field. I could only attack with 1500 ATK monsters, and it cost me 500 to do it. I would need 7 attacks to kill all his life points, but I would die before that, so I stalled and waited for something, anything to bail me out. All for naught though, he had enough direct damage to finish me off. The third duel was the only one with out the Messenger, but he had a Nimble Momonga and a Giant Germ infestation. Quite a few monsters in defense mode for him, and a dangerous amount of trap cards set, so I did something my deck loves to do. Stall. I waited him out with Man-eater Bugs and Magicians of Faith until I finally got the cards I wanted(Heavy Storm and Raigeki). Naturally, he jammed my Heavy Storm, but that left him wide-open for Raigeki. Later on, Last Will brought out Masked Sorcerer, and he went to work, protected by Trap Holes and Mirror Force, doing 900 damage, and drawing a card each time. Not to mention Robbin' Goblin, which quickly gave me an immense hand advantage, and I had no trouble from there.(2-1) Fourth Round: Jeff the Forbidden one It takes all kinds, Ground Zero holds direct damage decks, toon decks, "beatdown" decks, and in Jeff's case, Exodia. Not packing a card destruction, I needed to rely on my Delinquent Duo, 2 Robbin' Goblins and a Cyber Jar to disrupt his plans. Problem is, he has a stall deck. And while my deck is very, very fast(Sangan, Witch and Last Will draw out cards at a rate you wouldn't believe), it also runs out of cards very quickly. So, I had 2 problems to worry about...him drawing Exodia, and me running out of monsters. As it turns out, neither happened. In the first duel, Jeff had collected 3 pieces of Exodia when I drew and set a Cyber Jar. When it flipped, Jeff's face dropped as an Exodia piece came out and had to be summoned to the field, but rejoiced just as quickly when he saw a Hane-Hane, which could send it back to his hand. Unfortunately for him, I drew a Raigeki with the Cyber Jar, and this not only foiled Exodia, but ended the game. Duel 2 was agonizingly long(as the first one was). This time, Exodia was foiled by Delinquent Duo, but I wasn't out of the woods just yet. Those extra worthless exodia pieces in his hand ended up being the ruin of me. The Right Leg was used as a tribute for Magic Jammer, negating a crucial Chnage of Heart. After a Messenger of Peace came out, he summoned the head of Exodia and started smacking me around with it. I couldn't get the right cards, and I ended up losing. Now, there were 2 minutes left, and we had to play a 3rd duel. Whoever finished with the most life points when time was up would be declared the winner. On his first turn, he played Raigeki, Swords and...an Exodia Piece! He attacked for 200, I couldn't counter because of Swords and I lost the duel(1-2). Fifth Round: ? Can't remember the name for the life of me, but his strategy involved Messenger of Peace, Giant Germ and Giant Soldier of Stone. Took some time to break through his defenses but a couple Heavy Storms helped out. With him down to 200 points and desperate, he uses Witch to take the one card that can save his bacon into his hand...Cyber Jar. With that set on the field, I need a card to remove it without it flipping...and I draw Raigeki, game over. Lucky me. The second duel went rather quickly, except for another rules protest. He attacked my face down Masked Sorcerer with a Mask of Darkness, and didn't think I could still draw a card(I could). I started preparing for the Elimination Round.(2-0) The seedings were announced...Gustavo(ranked in the top 100 in the official Upper Deck rankings) who was 5-0 would be seeded #1. Dan and I had tied for #2...so scientifically, a coin was flipped and I was seeded #3. Quarterfinals: ?'s Little Brother The #6 seed was a kid, no older than 11 or 12. He had a standard "beatdown" deck, but seemed to be missing some crucial Ultra Rare cards that could've helped him. Don't remember a lot about this duel, because it went by very quickly, but I do remember Share the Pain, Last Will and Masked Sorcerer figuring quite prominantly in both duels :) Semifinals: Dan The first duel was all about monster advantage. Kept his monsters off the field and attacked with Witches and Sangans and Masked Sorcerer and Man-eaters. Slowly whittled away his life points and won. The second duel was frustrating. I was being stalled all game, and kept getting hit for direct damage. The coup de gras, was when he had his Cannon Soldier with 2 Black Pendants sacrifice itself and 3 other monsters for 3000 direct damage. Finished me off with a Just Desserts. The Third Round was when it all came together. Used Raigeki three times during the duel, and kept drawing more useful cards with Masked Sorcerer. He never had a chance to get any of his combos off the ground and I moved on to the Finals to face Gustavo. Finals: Gustavo Gustavo runs a textbook "beatdown" deck. Which is great, because that's the exact kind of deck mine is tooled against. He went first and set a monster(Man-Eater Bug) and a trap. I played a Sangan face down, Share the Pain, Last Will, got a Masked Sorcerer to the field and a Man-Eater Bug to my hand(already had a MoF). I bluffed by setting a Share the Pain face down behind the Masked Sorcerer to try and discourage a direct attack. It worked to a degree...to make sure I hadn't set a trap hole for him, he Mystical Space Typhoon'd my Share the Pain away and wiped my MS away with a La Jinn. I drew my own La Jinn, played Dark Hole first and then he Trap Holed my La Jinn(I had a Heavy Storm in my hand...bad play on my part). Anyway, he set a monster face down rather than attack. I had no real play, so I set a Man-Eater Bug face down. He flipped up his on his turn and destroyed mine, then played La Jinn and attacked for 2250. Still had a Magician of Faith, but nothing too great to get back yet. Needing a good draw, I bought myself some time with a Swords. Both of us drew for a couple turns, and I set my Magician of Faith on Swords' 3rd turn. Next turn, I flipped it up to get my Swords back. By this time, I had drawn enough cards to start bringing about the end of this duel. By the time Swords was up, I had him on the ropes until he pulled a Pot of Greed. He set a couple traps down and a monster face down, he was under 1500 life points. I finally unleashed my Heavy Storm(destroying my Trap Hole and Robbin' Goblin in the process), and killed a Mirror Force and Trap Hole. I had a La Jinn on the field, so I just set a monster, played Share the Pain on it, destroying his face down card...Cyber Jar. La Jinn attacked for the win. The second duel went by pretty quickly after he played Swords on the first turn. He tried to use Magician of Faith to get it back twice, but I Dark Holed, flipped my own Magician of Faith and Dark Holed again. This round was won with Masked Sorcerer, Witch and Sangan on the field, attacking for a total of 3000 each turn, with me drawing a card(the last one was mirror force, which ended the game). To be fair, Gustavo didn't draw great cards, and the luck of the draw probably helped me prevail here. Aftermath... The prize to the winner was...8 packs of Magic Ruler. Dan offered me a Forceful Sentry for 4 packs and I accepted(have to make room for it now!). One of the other 4 packs contained a Spellbinding Circle, while his 4 packs contained nothing much. How successful is my deck? Not exactly sure. If I dumped the Sangans, Masked Sorcerer, Last Wills and Share the Pains, and put in more mainstream cards, would I still have won? Perhaps. I think my deck fared much much better against the standard "beatdown" deck than a normal deck would. However, the Direct Damage and Exodia decks gave me more trouble than they should have, perhaps. And maybe I was just lucky. However, after the tournament, as my deck was examined by the other semifinalists, and they moaned "how could I lose to a deck that runs Share the Pain?", I felt more satisfaction than I possibly could have if I had run a regular deck and went 16-0. If anybody wants a Spellbinding Circle for a Swords or a Magic Jammer...let me know :) Sorry for the length of the post, and thanks for listening :) Best of luck and stay original! fastat3m@hotmail.com _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com