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Deck Type: Chaos

Player’s Name: Christopher Contreras

Store Name: Campaign Headquarters

Store Location: Norfolk, VA

Date and Time: 06/18/2005, 11 AM

Attendance: 12 competitors

Format: Advanced, Three rounds of Swiss followed by top-eight

This is my first tournament report and I am happy to share with the rest of you my experience today.

First off, what is this “Combo Chaos” that I speak of? Is it just another Chaos variation like all the rest or is there anything particularly interesting that makes this deck stand out? Here is the deck I used today:

1 Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Beginning

1 Jinzo

3 Hysteric Fairy

3 Cannon Soldier

2 Magician of Faith

2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer

2 Spirit Reaper

1 D. D. Warrior Lady

1 Cyber Jar

1 Tribe Infecting Virus

1 Sangan

1 Exiled Force

1 Breaker the Magic Warrior

1 Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke

2 Creature Swap

2 Giant Trunade

1 Smashing Ground

1 Heavy Storm

1 Pot of Greed

1 Snatch Steal

1 Graceful Charity

1 Delinquent Duo

1 Mystical Space Typhoon

1 Card Destruction

1 Lightning Vortex

1 Premature Burial

1 Swords of Revealing Light

1 Call of the Haunted

1 Sakuretsu Armor

1 Ring of Destruction

1 Torrential Tribute

SD 3 Prohibition

SD 3 Compulsory Evacuation Device

SD 2 Sakuretsu Armor

SD 2 Nobleman of Crossout

SD 2 Raigeki Break

SD 2 Chain Disappearance

SD 1 Ceasefire

I am positive that many of you are looking at the monster base of this deck in particular and asking yourselves, “What is this guy thinking? Cannon Soldier? Hysteric Fairy? Ninja Grandmaster Sasuke? Where are the Blade Knights and Chaos Sorcerers?”

I made this deck to do two things. Firstly, if I had one or both pieces I needed to summon BLS-Envoy on the field, but not in the graveyard, I could just sacrifice what I needed from the field using Hysteric Fairy or Cannon Soldier and summon the BLS. Secondly, Hysteric Fairy and Cannon Soldier (very much Cannon Soldier, in particular) can give you a huge advantage when used correctly. I found out very much today that Cannon Soldier can quite possibly be one of the most deadly win conditions for Chaos, if used correctly. I’ll go as far as to say that the BLS took a back seat to Cannon Soldier in terms of effectiveness in the deck.

As for Grandmaster Sasuke, I only put him in as a fill-in because I hadn’t gotten my Sinister Serpent in the mail yet. I’m not entirely sure whether I want to put Sinister in now or not though. Don’t get me wrong; Sinister is a really nasty, ugly card that can be utterly gross in many, many cases, but Sasuke does have its merits too. Sasuke has the magic 1800 ATK, is a Light creature, and has an effect that tells people who stall behind Defense Position fatties to take a hike. Another Light monster to consider would be the ever-annoying Reflect Bounder, which I saw multiple times today.

The magic and trap base of the deck should be relatively self-explanatory and there really aren’t terribly many surprises. The only one that may raise an eyebrow is the main deck Sakuretsu and the only reason why that’s there is because my Mirror Force hadn’t gotten to me in the mail yet either.

The side deck is also relatively basic and straightforward. I doubt there really is anything to explain there.

-----

Round one was against some sort of creative Chaos variation that had Newdoria and a few other cards I didn’t expect in it. At first, I thought I was possibly facing a Fiend Chaos deck, but the monster base proved to not be terribly skewed toward fiends.

The first duel in the match was pretty harshly in my favor. I pretty much got every card I needed at the right time, such as a turn one Cyber Jar which netted me three monsters, a Giant Trunade, and something else when I already had a Swords of Revealing Light in my hand. I had put down Swords and after a couple turns went by, my opponent really must have not liked one of the cards I played (I think it may have been a Vortex.) and he played Solemn Judgement to counter it while still at 8000. After that, the game pretty much consisted of my putting down monsters, keeping my opponent from attacking the entire duel due to Trunading my Swords and putting it back down, and then sacrificing my three monsters at the end to Cannon Soldier once my opponent was down to 1500.

I didn’t bother going to my side deck for game two and I don’t think my opponent had a side deck. The duel turned out rather ugly with my opponent generally having one more answer than me the entire game. Whenever I needed to attack, he’d have a trap and whenever I needed to hit his graveyard with Kycoo, he’d have that Reflect Bounder in the way. I eventually just lost due to always being down a monster against him.

I still didn’t side in anything for game three though, considering I didn’t really see anything new that I needed to change my strategy for. The biggest thing that swung in my favor was hitting his Cyber Jar, getting more monsters than my opponent, then eventually getting a Cyber Jar of my own and again getting monster advantage. There wasn’t a whole lot my opponent could do about a swarm.

(My Record: Matches 1-0, Duels 2-1)

-----

Round two was against one of the more impressive duelists I have known.

Until two weeks ago, I had been on a two-year hiatus from Yu-Gi-Oh! for various reasons and most of the people who used to play at Campaign weren’t there anymore. As a matter of fact, the only people who were left that I had seen before from the tournaments (other than store employees) were the judge, the judge’s son, this guy who I played against in this round, and one other person who had since moved, but still comes down to visit. In short, I was finally glad to be facing someone who not only had skill, but also was somewhat a part of the store’s YGO tourney history.

In the first duel, I saw a rather creative array of cards such as Exchange, Newdoria, and Drop Off, as well as many of the generally accepted nasty cards of Advanced and I really wasn’t sure what to expect. I pretty much just went true to my strategy of face-beating with my 1800 ATKers and using my Cannon Soldier as my touch of death.

When the second duel came around, I still couldn’t exactly figure out what my opponent was playing, so I had to again focus more on me than him and I just more beating down and whipping out my BLS-Envoy. Of course, it wouldn’t have been possible to even summon BLS if it weren’t for my Cannon Soldier of Armageddon, Death, and Demise that sacrificed itself and a Hysteric Fairy to smack my opponent for 1000 and become BLS food.

(2-0, 4-1)

-----

Round three was against Metamorphosis Chaos and it turned out to be one of those matches that could have gone either way, but just didn’t.

The first duel was relatively close, but I unfortunately couldn’t get the better end of it, partially, and possibly mainly, due to neither getting out a Cannon Soldier nor any terribly reliable card draw. It was pretty much beatsticks versus beatsticks and my opponent’s just won out.

The second duel was a lot worse. I side decked in for the first time, taking out the two Creature Swaps and siding in a Ceasefire and a Sakuretsu. In normal circumstances, the hand I drew with a Tribe, three traps, and a Delinquent Duo would have been fairly nice, but my opponent just happened to have the ugliest cards for the scenario and I managed to be out a hand and anything resembling field position after about three turns. I got totally face-planted with a Jinzo and that’s all she wrote.

(2-1, 4-3)

-----

With my 2-1 record, I did manage to make the quarterfinals and I was matched up against a rather young kid. I don’t think he was any older than twelve and I think that estimate may even be really liberal. When I saw this kid had a fusion deck of his own, I was already feeling unhappy.

Game one was relatively hard-fought and each of us did relatively ugly things, mostly with Creature Swaps, Snatch Steals, and such. He used his Thousand-Eyes Restrict to be particularly cruel, but I managed to whip out my BLS-Envoy and put him away.

In the second game, I just got slaughtered and to an untrained eye, it would have probably looked like I was just letting this guy win when I really actually was trying to put forth some sort of offense.

Creature Swap was my savior for the third duel and pretty much saved me from getting face-planted by my opponent’s Jinzo. Other than my opponent using TER a lot and my constantly having to answer without actually being able to kill the thing for a while, there was really little of note in this duel.

(3-1, 6-4)

-----

I’m not sure exactly what kind of deck my opponent was playing in the semis, but whatever it was, it was really potent and agitating. It had all sorts of various cards that I didn’t quite see a theme to at first mixed with a bunch of generally accepted Advanced nasties.

I think the first duel of this match was the tell-tale sign that I was done for the day. I was down some on life, but I was still holding my own when I made a really horrible play error that I thought I was going to go utterly insane over. My Swords was going to run out at the end of my opponent’s turn and I had a face-down Torrential Tribute. I was at 3300 LP to my opponent’s 7500 and he had four two face-down monsters and a face-up attacker to my one Hysteric Fairy. Now, anyone with any sense would have flipped up the Torrential when he summoned his Breaker that turn, but not me! Next turn, I got my face kicked in and we went to game two.

Game two was back and forth a lot with my utilizing my Kycoo as much as I could to prevent my opponent from abusing his Night Assailants and Sinister. At one point, it was relatively close with me at 3600 and my opponent at 2600 and we both had no monsters when my opponent played Level Conversion Lab, rolled a 4, and put out Ancient Gear Golem. I had nothing in my hand nor did I draw anything that could really do anything against it and I just lost.

(3-2, 6-6)

-----

I don’t know who won the tourney, because I was pretty hungry by the end and decided to leave immediately after being eliminated, but my day ended with my getting eliminated in the semifinals and I learned quite a lot from playing this deck.

Firstly, I proved that Hysteric Fairy and especially Cannon Soldier are tremendously gross cards if used correctly. Hysteric Fairy gave me that 1000 LP in a couple of clinch moments and Cannon Soldier just flat-out won me games. I also learned that Cannon Soldier is so vital to how this deck runs that when I don’t get it or I get it at a time when it’s just flat-out not useful, that I’m rather inherently at a disadvantage.

Secondly, I learned that he who gets the better Cyber Jar result will be at a huge advantage. I found that out from being both the guy getting the better end of the deal and the guy getting the short end of the stick.

Thirdly, I learned that not understanding the theme of my opponent’s deck didn’t necessarily mean my opponent had just a random pile. Regardless of what my opponent was doing, I couldn’t really worry about reacting to my opponent’s moves and I had to be a lot more focused on my own strategy and making sure it couldn’t be wrecked.

In any case, that’s about all I have to say for today. If you have any questions, comments, suggestions, or other things that don’t constitute illegal activities or just being a total snot, my email is winterborn [at] gmail.com.