The Raven’s Call
Lael Brattan
Hall of Heroes, Echelon Mall
Voorhees, New Jersey
July 30, 2004 - 7:30 PM
Again, many, many participants
Entry fee is a minimum purchase of $4.
First place gets 3 packs.
Second place gets 2 pack.
Third and fourth place get 1 pack.
The rest get nothing but their entry purchase.
Hi everyone, and welcome to my third Tournament Report. As usual, I’ll present the deck, then comment on it, and then onto the tournament!
Deck: 40 cards
Monsters: 16
x1 Jinzo
x1 Vampire Lord
x1 Despair from the Dark
x2 Ryu Kokki
x1 Patrician of Darkness
x3 Pyramid Turtle
x2 Spirit Reaper
x1 Tribe-Infecting Virus
x1 Witch of the Black Forest
x1 Sangan
x1 Sinister Serpent
x1 Fiber Jar
Spells: 18
x1 Pot of Greed
x1 Graceful Charity
x1 Raigeki
x1 Harpie’s Feather Duster
x1 Monster Reborn
x1 Dark Hole
x1 Change of Heart
x1 Mirage of Nightmare
x3 Mystical Space Typhoon
x1 Snatch Steal
x1 Premature Burial
x1 Painful Choice
x3 Book of Life
x1 Call of the Mummy
Traps: 6
x1 Mirror Force
x1 Imperial Order
x1 Call of the Haunted
x1 Ring of Destruction
x2 Waboku
Once again, I used my Zombie deck, with one change: I took out my Royal Keeper for a Premature Burial. I didn’t find it necessary to have Premature in, but anything’s better than Royal Keeper, I guess.
Pre-Tournament:
Kenny couldn’t go this time, so it was just Pat, Nick, and myself. Pat left earlier, and Nick picked me up. Turner would come later with my parents. We got there at 6:00, and watched some people duel. I played DDR… -_-. I averaged a D on Light (did I mention I don’t play the game?). Nick, of course, averaged a AA. But this is about Yugioh, right? Pat pulled Archlord Zerato out of his entry pack (Hall of Heroes had AST that night, albeit not for long), and I got Venus. I read some of my summer reading for a while, and then my brother showed up. He also got a pack of AST, and pulled Theban Nightmare. It must have been a short-print pack, because he also got Night Assailant and Mystik Wok. I helped him with his deck a bit, and some people wanted to trade me. A little kid wanted my Serpent Night Dragon (finally!), but alas, he had nothing to trade besides some commons and a Burst Breath of Destruction. Just then, EVERYONE showed up, and it was crowded rather quickly. The “judge” set up the matches, putting Pat and me against each other! Oh, no, no…we talked to him, and he switched us around. He announced that for this tournament, the first round would be best of three as usual, but each subsequent round would only be one duel. This, I assumed, was to end the tournament earlier than usual. The tournament then started…
Round
One:
Lael (Zombie) vs. Gary (Jumble)
This kid was new. He had a rather large deck, and used the play mat from the starter decks. Nonetheless, he knew most of the rules, but had to read my card effects, and some of his. He was nice, and I enjoyed the duel, even though it took a while.
Duel One
My opening hand was Witch, Painful Choice, Imperial Order, Sangan, and Call of the Mummy. He went first and set four cards face down. I played Painful Choice and put Patrician, V-Lord, Kokki, and Sinister into the graveyard – he gave me Despair. Ouch…I played Call of the Mummy, and Special Summoned Despair. I set IO, and attacked. He played Shadow Spell on my Despair, oh no! I finally won when I got out Kokki and Reaper, then MST’ed his Shadow Spell. He conceded when he realized there was nothing he could do.
I got Despair in the grave again, and played Book of Life on it. I used Tribe to destroy his field, and when I was a turn away from winning, he played Time Wizard! TIME WIZARD! AND IT WORKED! I had Despair, Kokki, and Tribe, and they were all destroyed. Then he played Monster Reborn on my Despair…crap. I was down to around 2600, and he used Gift of the Mystical Elf (is that the name?) to gain 1800 LP and take the lead. Crap…fortunately, I was able to pull it off when I (again) played Book of Life on my Despair. There was a small disagreement when he played Scapegoat from his hand on my Battle Phase…can’t do that, sorry. He was nice, though, and I wanted to help him, but I quickly had to go to my next match, as Nick was next to me and already on his third.
As I said, Nick was in his third round – playing Chiro. As it was the third round, it was set to a one-duel format. Nick won the first duel, and claimed he won the match, as per the rules. Chiro, being the whiney cheating baby that he is, went to Pete and complained. Because of Chiro, the tournament was changed to be best of three the whole way through, thusly screwing over half of the competitors, including Pat, who had lost because of this rule. Nick still won, though, so HA! HA, HA, and again HA! Turner had made it to the second round too. The person came over and faced me.
Round
Two:
Lael (Zombie) vs. Dante (Erm…)
Uh, no idea what kind of deck it was, but it was certainly original, and I liked it a lot. He had been eliminated along with Nick last week for “taking too long,” and on his way over, he challenged him to a rematch. Just then it came to me that I could handle this deck. He was nice, and he had a cool calculator.
He started by playing The Unhappy Girl in attack mode, and one face down card. I MST’ed the card, then somehow got Kokki out…I don’t remember how, sorry. As you know, Kokki’s effect destroys Spellcasters, and the Girl was a Spellcaster…he lost 2000 points and his monster. I played Graceful later on and discarded Sinister and Despair, then BoL my Despair. I won when I got out Jinzo the next turn, and he couldn’t get rid of my monsters.
I didn’t take good notes on this duel…all I remember is that there was a war between the ownership of my Jinzo for the last few turns before I finally used him to win. During the duel, he tried to play Scapegoat…guess…from his hand during my Battle Phase, just as my former opponent had done. He was more experienced, so he argued with me for a minute or so before I turned to someone and asked them…Needless to say, I won the argument. Oh well.
Between
Rounds:
Turner made it to the third round, surprisingly, and lost. I went to the judge to report my win, and since he couldn’t find an opponent, I jokingly asked him for a bye to the fourth round. He looked around, then said “Granted.” Yes! Wait…“Never mind, I found someone.” Crap.
Round
Three:
Lael (Zombies) vs. Shawn (Uh…beatdown?)
I say this because he ran Goblins, Spear Dragons, Injection, and some 1900
attackers. I commend him – he played
intelligently.
Early on, I sent Despair to the grave through Painful Choice, then played Book of Life to revive him…I love that move. He didn’t know what Despair was, so he looked at it, then realized its power. Gave me a “yeah, right,” kind of look, then flipped Bottomless Trap Hole. Drat. I had two BoLs in my hand, and Spirit Reaper on the field. On his turn, he drew. “Ooh,” he said, then summoned…Spear Dragon. Oh crap, trample? Who plays that anymore? He reborned my Ryu Kokki, and slammed me with Kokki and Spear Dragon. I couldn’t get his monsters in the graveyard for the rest of the duel, so Book of Life was useless in my hand. It sucked.
I didn’t take notes, but he took me out quickly with Witch and Injection. I apologize for the lack of detail in these duels…sorry.
Post-Tournament:
Well, Nick and Pat were watching me play, as Nick was playing the winner of my match. They both told me, “Hey, at least you made it to the semi-finals.” Huh-wha!?!? Third place?! I went to Pete, and I told him that since I had gotten third place, was I entitled to a pack? He went to go check to see how I actually had done. I looked around for a while, and then I turned and saw Pete coming towards me with a pack of cards. “Third prize, congrats. There’s no Sanctuary; everyone already took it.” W00t!!! I guess there were less people, so I got third place! Later I found out that I was in fourth, but I took what I got. So I got a pack of PGD, and pulled…Pyramid Turtle. …Yeah… I got another Call of the Mummy in the same pack, so I sold the Turtle and Call to Pat for a dollar. I went to go eat, and on my way back, I saw Shawn walking away…Nick must have won! He was in the finals! I ate, and then went to go watch the final match. It was round three…Nick was winning. It was tense as a group of 5 or so watched the match. There was a large argument about mid-way when Nick played Snatch Steal on his opponent’s Goblin Attack Force, and then when that person played Heavy Storm, he could change it back. So, he called Chiro over. “Oh, that only works if you play Change of Heart.” Um, no, it doesn’t. So then, Nick’s opponent plays Change of Heart and tries to change the position. “Don’t listen to Chiro, he cheats and makes up rules,” everyone said. At least we’re not the only ones who think so. So Nick continued to beat his opponent down with Don Zaloog and then D.D. Warrior Lady, and he won! Team Red Fury gains a victory! For his prize, Nick got three packs of PSV. He pulled Dimensionhole, some other crap rare, and Dust Tornado. Oh well, he still won! It was a great night in all.
Pros:
- Coming in third/fourth place!
- Nick winning the tournament!
- Turner making it to the third round
- Passing my songs in DDR, even though I suck at it
- Turner for pulling great cards from his pack
- Chick Fillet for great food
- The tournament was more organized this time
- Winning a pack
- The friendly duel I played after the tourney was a good duel, and I won.
- Pete for being nice to Turner and me
- My parents, for taking and paying the expenses of Turner and me that night
- The Simpsons posters and calendars in Hall of Heroes!
Cons:
- Little kids kept bothering me the whole time
- The “judge” saying that he was a Level 6 Judge, even though he’s about 13 and there’s no Level 6, unless I’m wrong.
- Chiro’s whining, cheating, and complaining. He cheats, but he gets away with it because he buys boxes of cards. Some people disgust me.
- Screwing Pat over by changing the rules halfway through the tournament BECAUSE OF CHIRO’S COMPLAINING.
As always, anybody who would like to contact me for anything can do so at NMaster1223@aol.com or through AIM at NMaster1223. Thanks for reading, and please keep reading my reports and sending ways to help.
-Lael