• Pojo Home Page
  
• Message Board
  
• Contact Staff
  

Mataza the Zapper - UK National Championships - Ryoga

Olympia Conference Centre, London

17^th April 2005

150 Competitors, Invitation Only

Hello everybody! I case you didn’t know, I do actually play this game. After this, obviously I don’t play it particularly well, but I enjoy myself anyway.

This is the UK Nationals, pretty much the biggest event in British Yu-Gi-Oh of the year. We don’t have Shonen Jump Championships. We had 20-odd regionals, 30-odd City Championships, and few other things to qualify for this. This was it!

Now qualifying, that took me far to long. My brother, five years younger than me, managed to be the third person in the nation to qualify. This is still an affront onto my honour (it took me until February to ruddy qualify). Today was my day to earn some of that honour back.

The greatest problem with this event was a complete and utter lack of originality. Jaelove would be fuming. 90% of players seemed to have decided that this was the Nationals and if they were going to win, they need a good deck. Thus, 90% of people were playing Chaos. I had expected this. Sadly, I had expected people to run Apprentice Magician based Chaos Decks as that’s what the web was saying worked, so out went my second Zombyra and in went a second Mystic Swordsman LV2.

Shame, really, because everyone but the few people that ended up in the top 8 ran Beatdown Chaos. Just whack you ‘round the head till they draw BLS and go for the kill! I normally do alright against this sort of deck. Heck, I’d won a tourney two weeks before with pretty much the same deck, but today it just didn’t want to work.

The general idea of running this is to make the first couple of turns rather boring. I try to keep at least three cards in my hand and use Zombyra, Mystic Swordsman, and GAF to knock the opponent’s monsters out of the way and bait out traps. Then, when their hand is down to about one card, slam with Mataza until you don’t need to slam any more. The use of United We Stand in this slamming is optional.

Thus, the use of a few defensive cards (Book of Moon, Zero Gravity) and larger monsters in the deck. Why exactly I wasn’t running Delinquent I can’t decide at the moment. It seems obvious currently.

Before I go into my matches I must thank Ray, Yuri, and all the judges for the wonderful job they did running the event. In previous years things got very delayed by registration and the time between rounds was about 30 minutes, meaning we didn’t finish for eight hours. This year things were so much better done. Everything was where it was supposed to be and when it was supposed to be. Marvellous! We didn’t even have to pay an entrance fee! (That was undone by having to spend a night in London, but heck, it’s the little things you appreciate).

Note to Galactic Donut: I don’t think this is entirely accurate, but it’s near enough.

Now, my standings!

Round 1: Standard Chaos

            These games were mostly uneventful. The guy had a good deck, but he didn’t know how to use it. He protected his face-down Magician of Faith for a few turns when he had a Pot in the Graveyard. Strange man. He won the second game with a Delinquent, BLS, and Lightning Vortex a few turns in to clear me out.

Game 1- Me – 7100 – 6300 – 1600 – 2600 – 3600 – 3300

               Him – 7100 – 7000 – 6500 – 6400 – 3000 – 0

Game 2 – Me - 5700 – 3000 – 2800 – 0

                Him – 6000 – 4700 – 4500 – 4100 – 3300

Game 3 – Me - 6400 – 5800 – 6800 – 5900

                Him – 6400 – 2200 – 1400 – 0

Round 2: Horus -> Chaos

            This guy was interesting, to say the least. At the beginning of each game I always deal out the opponent’s Deck into five piles to split up any cards they may have stuck together (*cough*pot*cough*graceful*cough*). I also count the cards as I go out of habit. When I did that here I got 37. I counted the Deck again and got 38. I asked my opponent if he had lost any cards, so he took the Deck, dropped it, and counted out 40 cards very slowly. I’m not sure if he did anything or not, but it makes you think.

            Anyway, this was one of those games that just grates at your soul. He started out running Horus. Turn two he activates Royal Decree to my Zero Gravity and from then in I’m screwed. A hand of three traps doesn’t help. I ended up setting until Horus came out. Then I lost.

Game 1 – Me – 7000 – 4800 – 5800 – 4200 – 200 – 0

                Him - 8000

            I side decked my Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and cursed myself for taking out the Compulsory Evacuation Device. Just as I hand my Deck over, he starts side decking and drops nine. Damn. Next game he has Chaos. He activated Pot of Greed four times! I was rather doomed. Over both games he always had at least three more cards than me. Damn.

Game 2 – Me – 6500 – 4500 – 3700 – 0

               Him – 7000 – 6400

I was a bit down after the last round. That was the first time I had played a deck that switched strategies. At least the guy had been friendly after I pointed out the two missing cards. I also managed to trade into two FET Ultimates. Only 20 more to go. *Sigh*

Round 3: More Chaos

            Like the first round, this game was against someone who really didn’t know his deck. He just attacked and attacked, activating traps at the first opportunity. He even lost the last game in a wonderful bit of strangeness. I had only Mataza on the field. He Normal Summoned Sinister and activated Creature Swap. For some obscure reason he though that like Spirit Reaper he could do it. The judges quickly dispensed with this belief. Once again, though, I lost the first game to BLS. Interestingly enough, the first change in LP in all three games was from a Ring.

Game 1 – Me – 7200 – 6300 – 3300 – 0

                 Him – 7200

Game 2 – Me – 6200 – 4800 – 4000

                Him – 6200 – 4900 – 1300 –0

Game 3 – Me – 6400 – 4100 – 3600 – 1300

                Him – 6400 - 5600 - 3300 - 1500 – 0

Currently 2-1.

Round 4: Fiend

            Finally, some variation! A little kid running Slate Warrior, Kuriboh, and Dark Necrofear. This game was fun. He Kuriboh-ed my attacks far to often and managed to get Necrofear. I simply used Smashing Ground and left only a face-up Mataza on the field. He was rather angry he couldn’t Premature the Necrofear equipped meaninglessly. Hehehehe.

Shame I lost really. Dang Snatch Steal. Dang Jinzo. Especially Jinzo.

Game 1 – Me – 6400 – 5200 – 4400 – 1800 – 1500 -  0

                 Him – 9000 – 10 000 – 9700 – 9000 – 8200

Game 2 – Me – 7700 – 7500 – 5400 – 2000 – 0

                 Him - 5900

Currently 2-2

Round 5: Still More Chaos

            Chaos is a fine deck. Shame really no one seemed to be playing it particularly well. Most all the decent duellists I knew had lost in the first two rounds. Shame on them for abandoning well-tuned decks and running for Chaos (Galactic Donut is not one of these people). This guy didn’t particularly know what to do with Mataza and got very annoyed with a particular GAF that attacked three turns in a row (all hail Zero Gravity!).

Game 1 – Me – 7400 – 6600

                Him – 7000 – 6000 – 3400 – 1600

Game 2 – Me – 6100 – 4200

                Him – 7000 – 3400 – 2900 – 1400 – 100 – 0

Currently 3-2

Round 6: Guess who’s back?

            This guy I actually recognised and the only person all day to know about Pojo and ask how things were. He had a wonderful Poker face, permanently uninterested in what was going on. He sat slouched and requested repeatedly that I go slower. However, the guy was extremely friendly.

After I won the second game, he suddenly sat up, side decked, and blasted the crud out of me. Afterwards he showed me his Deck. It looked very familiar. In fact, beyond Waboku, it seemed to be last year’s world champ deck. He also offered some advice, namely drop GAF.

Game 1 – Me – 6100 – 4950 – 2550 – 0

                Him – 6700

Game 2 – Me – 7100 – 6300 – 4700 – 4100 – 3500

                Him – 7100 – 5500 – 6500 – 4500 – 4300 – 1700 – 0

Game 3 – Me – 6400 – 5600 – 4000 – 2200 – 0

                 Him – 6000 – 4200 – 3400

Currently 3-3

Round 7: Surprise, Surprise, Chaos

            Yet again someone I recognised. I’d creamed this guy royally a few months previously, with a different Deck. As the game started, he was surprised to see the Mataza, but this didn’t last long. He quickly corrected himself in the second game and took advantage of some royally crud play from me.

When one has a monster equipped with Premature Burial and your opponent summones Breaker, you should not chain your Ring of Destruction to the removal of the counter. No, chain it to the placement of the counter. For some stupid reason, I let him place the counter AFTER looking straight at Ring. Dang it!

Game 1- Me – 6400

               Him – 5400 – 4400 – 3600 – 3400 – 2600 – 0

Game 2 – Me – 7700 – 6400 – 5600 – 3900 – 2200 – 700 – 0

                Him – 7000 – 4400 – 3600

Game 3 – Me – 6500 – 6200 – 5400 – 3600 – 1800 – 100 – 0

                Him – 6500 – 4700

End Result: 3-4

75^th Place out of 150 players

            Well, I started well, but things seemed to go downhill from there. There were a few differences between this tourney and the one I had won two weeks earlier.

1. I never actually got to use United We Stand. Previously I had managed to whack for 5000+ damage five times. Today, none!

2. What happened to Goblin Attack Force? He stopped working. All he did a Berserk Gorilla could have done (kill monsters). No direct attacks!

3. Iron Blacksmith Kotetsu didn’t seem to matter. I got Snatch Steal. They played absolutely sod all worthy of nicking. Dang it!

4. What is it with me and Level 2 tests? I get 70% once and they won’t let me take another. This is the second time I’ve signed up to do one and when the time came, I discover the list I signed has disappeared and, oh dear, we can’t do any more tests today. If Yuri wasn’t running them I might get mad, but no one can be angry with Yuri.

However, it was a fun event. I got bugger all in my four prize packets, but I did manage to trade into a Phoenix. Weehee! Only Gatling Dragon to complete FET!

Now, some advice for the little kids. I played a few little kids and they had very good decks. However, all made they same simple mistake. I almost beat the kid with the Fiend Deck (he top decked a Prem and Jinzoed me to death). You might ask why I almost won? Well, one turn three he had no hand. Playing all your cards by turn 3 is not the way to win. Be more conservative! Keep your cards back. OK, you can use Smashing Ground on that Kycoo on turn two and attack directly with your Slate Warrior. However, isn’t it better to just trample over the Kycoo with the Slate Warrior and keep the Smashing Ground for when I play something big (Jinzo, a Monarch, BLS)?

In conclusion, I hate Jinzo. If anyone has a petition for the banning of Jinzo, send it my way. I’ll gladly sign! I hate the blasted thing. The number of times I have lost a game because I’ve got two sorts of chainable trap set to save my butt and he screws me over if far too large. In face, I hate Jinzo more than BLS simply because I’ve had to put up with him longer.

Well, hope you lot weren’t too bored by this. Share and enjoy,

Ryoga

Tripleplay97@yahoo.com