Well, of course, the new LON restrictions hurt Beatdowns more than anything. I could care less about Sangan, but now Magic Cylinder, Mage Power and United We Stand are restricted to 1 per deck. Well, at least that did free up a spot for me to upgrade the deck. I thought about going with Ceasefire this time to help inflict some pain in this effect-happy environment we are in and Megacyber can be a 1 tribute terror if someone plays Scapegoat or bothers me with those accursed Nimble Momongas! So after some tweaking, this is the latest incarnation of Bruticus:

Jinzo

Summoned Skull x2

The Fiend Megacyber

Barrel Dragon

Harpie’s Brother

LaJinn x2

7 Colored Fish

Hayabusa Knight

Hysteric Fairy

Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer x3

Bazoo the Soul Eater

Maha Vailo x2

Goblin Attack Force x2

Man-Eater Bug

Jinzo #7

Witch of the Black Forest

Wall of Illusion x2

Cyber Jar

Penguin Soldier x2

Magician of Faith

Heavy Storm x2

Axe of Despair x3

United We Stand

Mage Power

Mystical Space Typhoon x2

Monster Reborn

Change of Heart

Pot of Greed

Raigeki

Exchange

Snatch Steal

Mirror Force

Magic Cylinder

Solemn Judgement

Imperial Order

Call of the Haunted

Seven Tools of the Bandit

Dust Tornado

Swords of Revealing Light

Spellbinding Circle

Magic Jammer

Bazoo the Soul Eater

Magician of Faith

Duelist: Darren Snead

Duelist Name: Ghetto Kaiba

Representing: Yu-Ghett-Oh! Duel Posse Raleigh, NC

Check out my site, Duel Monsters in Da’ Hood! and show some love!

Tourney Report

April 4, 2003

The Toy Chest, Cary NC 6-8pm

Entry Fee: 5 bucks

Prize: 2 Booster Packs of Choice (but everyone gets 1 Pack just for registering, sweet!)

Round 1
This was kinda a hard match to have going for starters. At least me and Curly-Haired Dude (I think his name is Justin now) aren’t in the same bracket! I get hit pretty hard for starters as I draw a bad hand. He plays Goblin Attack Force with Mage Power x 4 to my Life points as my Wall of Illusion gets Raigeki’d. I play Mad Sword Beast after a quick Heavy Storm. I really like Sword Beast, especially if you play powerups. Once it’s on the field, you are normally guaranteed to do at least some damage amongst most flip effect monsters. Though, running a lot of them in this deck wouldn’t be feasible. The beast, without equips, is just 1400, so it gets creamed by a LaJinn. I then play my own GAForce in attack as a stall, then next round I play a Hysteric Fairy and GAF kills his LaJinn and then I Call of the Haunted my Beast back and go for LPs. He wisely Reborns a GAF in Atk and lets it ride, cuz’ I can’t get through it as of yet. No problem, as I sacrifice GAF & Beast for a B! arrel Dragon, then I get his destruction power to work on his GAF and that’s round 1.

He sets a lot down in his M/T zone and plays in Def. I play my own Witch of Black Forest in Def. mode and then play Heavy Storm, then set a card myself. My Witch leaves via Raigeki and he sacs for a Summoned Skull. Luckily, the card I put down was Mirror Force! I hit him with a Harpie’s Brother, which next turn he Change of Hearts and then sacs for The Fiend Megacyber. I play Def. until I hit a Cyber Jar of his and get a bunch of power ups, but 1 monster. I somehow manage to hold out until I can sac for a Summoned Skull and eventually clear a way to hit him twice thanks to my only Man-Eater Bug. As an extra treat, I equipped my Skull with Mage Power x 4 (2000 bonus Atk.) to make sure the deed was done! Great match to start with. Well, at least I got out of the first round!

I had fun talking with this kid and his for a minute before the match. He was more intimidated than anything. I was like "You can win, don’t worry so much!" I was telling him that’s the beauty of Yu-Gi-Oh!, that any deck has a chance to win and it isn’t always about having the rarest, most expensive ubercard (cough* Magic*cough) to be the best. Just have faith in your deck, Joey and believe in the heart of the cards…oh I’m on another episode tangent!

I got my Imperial Order destroyed by none other than an old school Trap Master, get my Atk. monster Fissured and my Def. Wall of Illusion destroyed by an Acid Trap Hole all in my 2^nd turn. So things are quickly falling apart here. I play a big Bazoo @ 2500 Atk, but he plays Offerings of the Doomed on me. Ouch! And I lost 3 cards to boot as he played the Dark Door, so now only 1 monster can attack. That one monster on my side is Jinzo as I constantly hit his Def. cards until he can no longer defend himself and I win the match.

Well, now I am seriously considering putting an Offering of the Doomed in my Deck, sidedeck anyway! Though you skip a draw phase, if you have substantial cards already, it’s normally a great play. Well this round is kinda short, but I didn’t think it was going to be. The next guy, James, was helping the kid as immediately, he had filled up his M/T zones and had a full set of monsters in Def. Mode on the field. I had only a couple. He managed to juke up a flipped Mask of Darkness with Megamorph, Nuzzler and Black Pendant to destroy my attack monsters, which were Bazoo, Kycoo, Lajinn, a facedown Maha Valio and Jinzo. I had flipped Cyber Jar and he got a bunch of Man-Bugs and other nasty flips while I had gotten a bunch of Beatdowns. I didn’t want to set off his flips cuz’ my backfield had some very nice cards (Mirror Force, Imperial Order and Mage Power) that I didn’t want lost to another Trap Master or his ilk, so I was holding out for my Raigeki or some other Removal ! cards. His Mask was pretty big at 3000 Atk. But, this was what my deck was built for. He destroyed Kycoo easily, but for some reason, left my Jinzo alive. I guess that could be smart, provided he knew I couldn’t counter anything he was about to do. So I played another LaJinn face up, proceeded to summon my Maha Valio and equipped her with (tada!) Axe of Despair and (finally!) United We Stand!! That made my Maha Valio 1550+500+500+1000+4000=7550 Attack points! Needless to say, I ran her right down that Mask of Darkness and obliterated him. That was the combo I have dreamed of forever! So maybe I’ve finally got the right combination for a victory!

Evidently, this was his first tournament, though he had some pretty good cards with his deck. We wagered a card in the duel, something I normally wouldn’t do, but what the heck? I put my Magic Drain against his Magic Jammer, so there is some incentive now to represent for sure! This kid behind me pulled Mage Power that had lost in the first round and it was a card I deeply coveted! I was trying to get the match going, but half the store was following him trying to get the card. Luckily, I had dealt with him before and hooked him up with some good cards in the past, so he was cool and waited until I finished the match and said we could trade. Awesome! Oh, ahem, on the match!

I actually haven’t played Vs a Clown Deck before, so this would be a learning experience. The first match, I didn’t do too much fancy, just held my side down as he kept playing Dust Tornado on every facedown M/T I set. So, I finally got my Killer Penguins to open up a way to his Life Points and eventually he came down after getting a few licks in. I don’t think I saw one of his clowns.

I spoke too soon as this match, he got out the DNA Surgery/Insect Barrier combo on me quick and as I built up my horde to destroy him after I countered, here came the clowns! I will admit it was pretty effective, but my counter cards never came. Two Heavy Storms and 2 MST, even Jinzo or a Dust Tornado woulda helped! I didn’t see anything as slowly, the clowns did their dirt and my LPs became exposed and I got beat. It was a good match to lose, as I have never played against the clowns and this gave me another match to think about when I restructure my deck later.

James was just happy he beat me at this point, but I had to show him the true power of Bruticus! Can’t be getting run like that last round. I go on the attack with a Goblin Force. He plays a ton of M/T cards again and I get my Heavy Storm out this time to wipe out any problems. He gets a Cylinder from his next attack and then Jinzo shuts down the board as I rush him with all of my troops. That was maybe 5 rounds long. His mom was watching and didn’t know it was over. He just handed over his card and bounced, but of course, I knew it would come to this:

Ok, well one day I am going to have it easy and he won’t be here or something. We talked before the match on a trade for my 1^st Edition Exodia part and his Magic Cylinder. He was working on his third (that’s 3^rd) Exodia set, with one being First Edition. I luckily have 1 am working on the 2^nd set as hard as I can! He said his deck was completely revamped, which of course, was meaning bad news for me. But I have won against him once, but I’m like 1-3 against him. And right before the duel, he tells me he’s confirmed he’s the store’s #1 duelist. Nothing like a vote of confidence before the duel!

He had a very good stall going up until he played a Painful Choice. He broke out with 3 Exodia Parts, some other card and Umi. I’m thinking "What harm can UMI do?" I figured at worst it was a Legendary Fisherman, but I could get rid of it. But man, was that the wrong choice. He played the useless Umi with Tornado Wall, so now his LPs were completely protected against all my attacks. So, he stalled me until I got frustrated and started attacking his Facedown monsters. I only had like 600 LPs at the end of the game as he simply hit one of my flipped Penguin Knights and ended it. Immediately he said "Dude, why didn’t you just deck me out?" I looked at his deck and he only had 4 cards left. If I had just bided my time and stayed in Defense, I would have won. Of course! I was so mad at not getting any removal cards, I forgot about decking him for the win. Oh well, that was yet a valuable lesson learned!

I was so upset with myself for letting an easy round get away like that! And we were getting towards the time for the final match, so now time was a factor. We rushed up a second match, where I am glad to say, I finally got some good cards before he could start his stall up. Namely Jinzo made an appearance (where were you last round?) and stopped all his Traps, so I won this in like 7 or 8 turns of good ol’ fashioned beatdown. So now we’re tied at least.

Fair enough, it’s one to one. Well, after all that, we still had a final match to go. This one was in the toilet from jump. I didn’t get a single monster as he Summoned Jinzo, which I Solemn Judgemented, and he 7Tooled me, so that was ½ my LPs from there. I couldn’t muster a defense as he went on to beat me a few rounds afterward. So yet again Justin has shown his skills in battle and I salute him. The only solace I find is that he is ranked #1 and he did go on to win the Tourney. As always, challenging to the bitter end. I get my pack, that crappy Gilisaurus thing in LON that I have 8 of now, but I make up for that with some cool trades! So until next week, true believer, Peace from Ghetto Kaiba!

Onward to the Props and Slops:

Finally getting some real good cards in trade: GEMINI ELF (finally!), Fire Princess and Mage Power!

Seeing some new faces to duel

Winning a Foil Magic Jammer in my duel with Tyler

Getting to Final Four (again)

Careless mistake costing me a rival match (again)

Having an extra card in my deck (Trying to keep it at 50!) Mad Sword Beast (though he did come in handy!)

Still no Torrential Tribute or Masked Beast in my collection. Drat!