Name: Logan 'Reno Piett' Ratliff Deck: Beatdown Location: Frankfort, KY Store: Moonlight Comics Participants: 12 Date: March 24, 2003 Howdy! I'm back after a three month hiatus with another tourney report from Moonlight Comics in Frankfort, KY. The past couple monthes have been just meetings that we've held to help the younger kids learn how to play by tourney rules. Pretty much all of them have it down now, so Steve (the owner) decided to hold a last minute "pre" tourney. Basically just the first 12 people to show up could enter to give everyone an idea of how a tourney runs. It was a double elimination tourney following a 40-minute best two out of three format. Also the touneys at Moonlight are unofficial. The prize for winning the tourney was a single LON pack. Now a lot, but not bad considering there was no fee. Anyway, here is the beatdown deck I am currently running, but it is by NO means complete: ~~~Tribute Monsters (3)~~~ 1 x Jinzo (The true Trap-Master) 2 x Summoned Skull (Beatdown staple) ~~~Normal Monsters (16)~~~ 1 x Dark Elf (My Priestess of Lloth) 3 x La Jinn The Mystical Genie Of The Lamp (I wish for for annihilation!) 3 x Harpie's Brother (They slice! They dice! They make julian fries!) 1 x 7 Colored Fish (Fishie fishie fishie...) 1 x Gearfried The Iron Knight (Mmmm, anti-magic) 1 x Maha Vailo (Urrrrr! Maha get strong!) 1 x Invader Of The Throne (Come to me, Mr. Skull...) 1 x Witch Of The Black Forest (Jinzo detector) 2 x Hayabusa Knight (Zip! Zoom! Double attack!) 2 x Magician of Faith (Nothing beats 9 turns of Swords.....cept maybe 3 Raigekis) ~~~Magic Cards (15)~~~ 3 x Malevolent Nuzzler (Sessy and strong) 2 x Tribute to the Doomed (Recurrsion tactics) 1 x Monster Reborn (Encore! Encore!) 1 x Pot of Greed (Being greedy isn't ALL bad...) 1 x Raigeki (The finger of God) 1 x Swords Of Revealing Light (Stall 'em out!) 1 x Change Of Heart (I'll take that, and tribute it...) 1 x Dark Hole (Let's start with a clear field, shall we?) 1 x Heavy Storm (Pre-Raigeki magic) 1 x Premature Burial (I really love recurrsion) 1 x Snatch Steal (A second Change of Heart) 1 x Rush Recklessly (Adrenaline boost) ~~~Trap Cards (6)~~~ 2 x Seven Tools Of The Bandit (You won't be activating Bind today) 2 x Magic Drain (I'm beginning to like these more than Jammer) 1 x Call of the Haunted (Save this for a Jinzo comeback) 1 x Mirror Wall (Mirror Force substitute) Total Cards (40) ~~~Side Deck (15)~~~ 1 x Hayabusa Knight 1 x Bistro Butcher 1 x Man-Eater Bug 1 x Card Destruction 1 x Delinquent Duo 1 x Gravedigger Ghoul 2 x Nobleman of Extermination 2 x Gravekeeper's Servant 1 x The Shallow Grave 1 x Fissure 1 x Mystic Plasma Zone 2 x Trap Hole I have a sidedeck now, tho it is not very useful. Just a fun cards I like to play here and there along with some anti-Exodia cards. I'm typing this on Thursday, and the tourney happened on Monday. So if I skip or accidentally change a few details, please forgive me. On with the tourney! ***Round 1 (Preliminary Matches) Reno vs. Les (50ish card Mixed/Beatdown) One of the better duelists at our store. His deck is pretty much a mix of a lot of things, but it has heavy Beatdown undertones. It can run smoothly when it feels like it, but if Les had a few more staple cards in there (Pot, Raigeki, etc.) it would run much smoother. I don't remember a whole lot of the details about this match, but I believe I got out Jinzo and a Nuzzled Hayabusa at the end for the final blows. Score: 6600-0 The second duel was intense. All I got on my draw was magic and a Magician. He went first and set a monster. I drew a Skull and played TttD on his monster, discarding the Skull. I then set my Magician to get TttD back the next turn. He went next and played a La Jinn. He then Crossout'd my Magician and attacked, bringing me down to 6200. On my turn I drew Reborn. I then Dark Holed the field and Reborned the Skull and dropped two Nuzzlers on him and attacked, bringing Les dow to 4100. On Les's turn he played Reborn and brought back his La Jinn. He then used Change of Heart on my Skull and summoned another Jinn (or maybe Fish, I dunno) and attacked, ending the duel. Man! That sucked :o\ Score: 0-4100 The third duel worked out perfectly for me. Again I don't remember many of the details on this one. I do remember that he Snatch Stole one of my Harpie Bros, but I think I had Swords out to keep him from attacking that turn. I got 1000LP during my turn as Swords expired, bringing me to 9000LP. Next turn he hit me with the Bros, bringing me down to 7200, and I got brought back up to 8200 during my turn. Then I played Heavy Storm and pummeled him to win the duel. Score: 8200-0 ***Round 2 (Preliminary Matches) Reno vs. Tyler (Turbo Exodia) This kid came into the store one day after we started the meetings and had the full set of Exodia, but didn't know how to use it or build a deck for it. So I brought him a decklist the next week for a fairly standard Turbo Exodia deck. Within a few weeks he had the deck together, and it has dominated more often than not since. I was EXTREMELY unhappy that I had drawn him in the second round to say the least. The first match here is hazy except for the very beginning and very end. When I saw I was playing against an Exodia, I went ahead and was goina get my sidedeck ready to pull out Duo and Destruction and Ghoul to slip in there......and I couldn't find my sidedeck! I always keep it in my binder, and it wasn't there! DOH! I came to find out later that it had slipped out in the backseat of my car, and that I didn't need it in the first place. Beatdowns can be fast enough sometimes. It was a LONG match (not good against an Exodia), but fortune shinned upon me and he wasn't drawing his pieces or detectors often. In the last turn I had a Hayabusa with a Nuzzler out, and he had a face-down Sangan. He was at like 1400LP or so. So in my battle phase I took the chance and attacked the facedown card (didn't know it was a Sangan). He flipped it and put it in his graveyard and pulled out a piece of Exodia. I sat there silently, just waiting to hear him say he had drawn the last piece of Exodia.........and he just looks at me and smiles, then shuffles his deck. Guess he hadn't got the last piece, and he'd forgotten that Hayabusa attacks twice a turn. I do my second attack and end the match. He then draws his next card for curiosity's sake......and it's the last piece! Whew! Got lucky on that one! Score: 6800-0 This match was over pretty quickly, like 5 turns at most. And that's what I needed my deck to do in order to beat a Turbo Exodia most of the time. The only damage I took was by activating a Seven Tools on one of his traps during the first turn. After that Skull and Jinzo did some clean-up work and ensured me a victory. Score: 7000-0 ***Round 3 (Quarterfinals) Reno vs. Nikki (Feminine Life-Gain deck) One of the very few women to play at our store, Nikki has a nice little deck. Its not something I would personally use, but it seems to suit her and can run pretty well when it wants to. Unfortunately for her, it didn't want to today. These matches were over pretty quickly and without much trouble, so no specific details come to mind. Sorry bout that. Score: 5700-0 Again, no details are coming to mind. Just another quick hit and run. Score: 4900-0 ***Round 4 (Semifinals) Reno vs. Robert (Weenie Control) Ugh, the anti-Beatdown deck. Luckily for me I have tailored my deck around Weenies a bit (they are everywhere in our store now!), and have three different ways to neutralize them in my main deck: Hayabusa, Heavy Storm, and Jinzo. Since he only plays two Prohibitions, he can only take two of them out of the equation. So I'm usually good to go. In this match he got out Messenger in the first turn. From there it was going back and forth. He'd get out like a Jinzo or Flower or Double, with maybe an Axe or Nuzzler, and hit me for direct damage. Then I'd summon Hayabusa, or Witch, or Invader, or bring them back from death and kill it. Eventually he got out a Flower with an Axe, making the attack 1400, and started pecking at me. There was nothing I could do to stop it, unless I drew Rush Recklessly to throw on my Hayabusa to bring it down. Needless to say, he went on to win this one. Curse my bad luck! Score: 0-4050 Alright! This match was much more to my liking. He couldn't draw a Bind or Messenger to save his life, so I kept summoning Jinns and Skulls and overwhelming him with delicious Beatdown goodness. Score: 7000-0 This one was much like the last duel. Except he actually drew a Bind in the middle of the duel and tried to activate it. Seven Tools easily took care of that tho. Once again my wonderful creme-filled, chocolate-dipped Beatdown guys (with sprinkles!) mopped up the match and won me the duel. Score: 6600-0 ***Round 5 (Finals) Reno vs. Les (50ish card Mixed/Beatdown) Well, Les battled his way back from the cellar and ended up here in the finals somehow. This goes to show that a good duelist doesn't have to have a strict archtype deck to do well. Mixed decks can wreak some havok, and they are designed to handle anything thrown at them. But Les didn't do as well in this duel as he did in the last one. Again, details are sketchy at best, sorry. Score: 6500-0 Well, I remember a little about this match. I played Swords against him in the first turn and started to peck at him. During one of these times I believe I TttD'ed one of his monsters to clear the field and attacked. He then pulled something I wasn't expecting and flipped over Ultimate Offering and summoned up two guys in defense mode to block my two attackers. Interesting.....anywho, I set a Magician the turn before Swords expired, and flipped it the next turn to bring Swords right back out on him. God, 6 turns of Swords has to be frustrating. That was plenty of time for my guys to overwhelm him and win the duel, and the tourney. Score: 8000-0 Yey! I won! :o) And with an undefeated duel record (my match record was 10-2). Like I said, since this tourney had no entry fee and was sort of a 'pre' tourney, the only prize was a single LON booster. Ah well, at least Steve was nice enough to give out a prize. He handed me the pack and I opened it. I flipped thru the cards to the fifth one and.........woah! This is a REALLY nice prize! I had pulled a United We Stand! Booyah! If the pack is goina have a rare like this in it everytime, then we can have one pack tourney prizes all Steve wants! I came to find out a few minutes later that a kid had pulled a Magic Cylinder like 10-15 minutes prior to the tourney ending. If only we would've finished it earlier...........ah well, I can live with my pull. I took out one of my Nuzzlers and replaced it with United. Even if the monster I equip it to is the only one on my side of the field, an 800 attack increase is still better than a 700 attack one. Anywho, expect me back next week with another tourney report, as Steve said it is highly likely we will be having one again. Till then, here are a few Props and Slops: Props: To Moonlight and Steve for holding the tourney To Subway for being right above the store and being so delicious To all the kids who have turned out to be pretty good competition now To Josh from Shelbyville for reading one of my previous reports and now coming to Moonlight to play with us To Nate, who works at Moonlight, for holding cards for me when he trades for them at the store Slops: To my binder for being sneaky and letting my sidedeck slip out To the few thieves at the store, stop stealing cards from kids who don't know better! You can contact me at renogar@mikrotec.com if you want. All rants on beatdowns, vulgar emails, etc. will be deleted on sight, so don't waste your time. Thanks, and may the Swartz be with you!