#metalborgs

Drove at the speed of fucking Sonic to get there for 10AM because that’s when they said registration would be.

Plot twist.  Store doesn’t even open until 11.

Oops.

So me, @holydragonreligioussoulsaver​ and our other teammate who’s far too innocent for this website made the best of it and got hot chocolate and shit.  Good times.  I also made them listen to me reciting the Knuckles raps from Sonic Adventure 2.

Did I mention I’m a terrible friend?

So anyway, you’re not here to read about my terrible social life, you’re here to read about how I performed in a card game and my match analysis/thoughts.  Wellp.  Let’s get started!

I, of course, was running my good ol’ Metalborgs.  I pimped the fuck out of it to wreck the meta though.  I put 10K/12K attackers because early aggression demolishes the likes of Aqua Force and Shadows and vanilla 8K/10Ks because fuck getting early rushed by basically every deck in the game.

So anyway, let’s dive in, shall we?

ROUND 1:

Me Vs. Kid who was really excited.

True Justice Vs. Giraffa Ride Chain Megacolony.

No.  You didn’t misread that.

I was literally pissing my pants with anticipation over what meta deck I was gonna fight first, but then he flipped up his VG and it was pupa.

My reaction was basically “Oh...”

But before you start calling me a piece of shit, note that never once did I underestimate him.  I have a machining build myself and I know for a fact that Megacolony can seriously fuck your day if piloted well.

Unfortunately for my poor opponent, my owning a ~90% complete Machining deck that I proxy-fight against for practice meant that I knew the matchup (don’t go over-zealous with strides; always have a G3 to ride).  He was a really nice guy though.  I hope he managed to win at least one or two of his sets...

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

ROUND 2:

Me Vs. ...My teammate?

True Justice Vs. Boob Dragon.dek.

So I accidentally joked about possibly having to fight one of my friends in round 2.

Karma’s a fucking bitch.

I was able to power through though.  The secret is to NG the first attack, then guard anything that involves Wingal until it doesn’t matter anymore (after MLB becomes 12K Wingal Brave is no longer actually pressure and you can freely let it hit).

Plus we play all the time at locals so I know the matchup/her playstyle way too well.

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

ROUND 3:

Me Vs. Salty Kid who Used to Go to My Locals

True Justice Vs. Awkward Revengers

So I fucking hate this kid and I was so pissed/happy to have to fight him.

Here’s the story:

When I started going to my new shiny locals with my teammates, there used to be this crew of kids who would show up every week.  We’ll just call them “the salt crew.”

Why call them “the salt crew?”  Well the answer is blatantly obvious.  They got salty all the fucking time over everything, but had no right to complain.  They’re the types of people who run shoddily constructed versions of the “best decks in the game(TM)” and expect free wins because their bank accounts are bigger than yours.

I hate those kinds of people with a burning fucking passion.

So long story short my teammates and I kept topping at our locals to the point where they were literally so salty about it that they stopped coming to our store.

And here I was, face-to-face with the pseudo “leader” of their motley crew.

So game 1 I probably should have lost, but I 6th damage healed and then won with HeavyDuke.  Was it sacky?  Yeah.  But hey, he deserved it.  He strode Damned turn 4 and double G1/0 checked to snipe both of the fucking Laurels I had out...

Game 2 I fucking mopped the floor with the poor kid.  He bitched and moaned the whole game about how “sacky” I was too (despite the fact that he was getting crits on nearly every drive check).

I mean, he wasn’t even running SwordBreakers.

Or Dark Hearts

Or BDRs

Or Dorints.

You know, the most consistent unflipping engine in the game other than G-PGs?

Like what?

Like I was literally sitting there letting Judgebau hit because he wasn’t even plussing off of it.  Just wasting CB.

Good times.  I hope his cards spontaneously burst into flames.

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

ROUND 4:

Me Vs. Creepy D-Robo Kid.

True Justice Vs. Halfway Decent D-Robo Deck

Why do *I* have to fight all the weirdos...?

Okay so here’s the story:

So starting around round 2-ish, me and my team were chilling by the top tables discussing our matches and eating the “salty pretzels” I bought as a half-joke half-way to keep blood sugar/electrolytes up.

Starting around round 2-ish we were introduced to Creepy D-Robo kid, a strapping young lad who was also at the top tables.

He...

He talked about justice, which is that thing I like to do all the time when I Cardfight irl.

But he also liked creepily staring at my poor teammate.

HINT:  It wasn’t my male teammate.

He-

He even asked her to “hold hid hand” (GET IT!?  HIS HAND IN THE GAME NOT HIS HAND IN REAL LIFE!>!>!>!??!?!?  AHA!  AHA!!  AHA!!!)...

So I figured this guy was probably just lonely or something I dunno.  I generally like to give people the benefit of the doubt because who knows what kind of shit they’re going through, etc.  I mean, he didn’t like approach her or anything, so whatever.

Then we sat down to play.

My teammate told me “good luck!” and he just gave me this off-kilter death glare for whatever reason.

I sighed, and decided if he was gonna be like that I wasn’t even gonna make any of my famous G-Gundam jokes.

His loss, really...

Game 1 was interesting because his deck was pretty intelligently built.  He was running 8K/10K vanillas like I was.  In fact, we both rode our vanillas and both swung at each other, and we both damage checked draw triggers.

It was like I was fighting my dark side who was apparently even more of a loser than I was.

So he rode Daikaiser but I was watching his drive checks so I knew 2/5 cards in his hand were also G3s.

I also knew that I couldn’t stride if I rode to G3 on my turn.

But I also had Commander Laurel.

And he had a Daijet on board.

So anyway, the plan was simple.

Piss him the fuck off, of course.  Get him out of his playbook into a situation he’s uncomfortable with.

So I dropped my whole hand without riding to G3 and dove on that Daijet with the fury of 1000 fucking suns.

He guarded the VG swing to stop Laurel.

(4 cards left in hand.  2 are G3s)

I swing at Daijet for 16K with Laurel + 12K attacker

he drops a trigger to guard.

(3 cards left, 2 are G3s)

I swing with my other column for 20K (12K Attacker + vanilla 8K).

He blinks.

The attack goes through.

So let me explain why he completely fucked up.

He literally dropped like 2 10K shields that he needed for Sin Buster/Heavy Duke (they stop the opponent from guarding with G1s or higher from hand), only to let his Daijet die anyway.

That’s what we in the business like to call “going -3 and losing field presence.″

Don’t go -3 unless you have to, kids.

And don’t drop guard on your RGs that are under attack if you know you can’t guard all the attacks heading its way that turn.

Those cards you’re not dropping in a futile effort to save the RG who’s gonna die anyway can be saved for later, when you’re probably gonna have to block a scary-ass attack from something with an on-hit effect or worse, a crit.

So anyway, I rode to G3 next turn while he sat there with his thumb up his ass.  He was so behind on card advantage at that point (he drove check a PG and a G1) that I easily steamrolled him with HyperDuke.

Game 2 was over in a flash.  I G2 Laurel Rushed him -> Sin Buster -> dead.

The icing on the cake is that he had to fight the girl he was creeping on in the next round.

He got 2-0d and fucking stomped.

I doubt he was very thrilled about that...

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

ROUND 5:

Me Vs. Are-You-Fucking-Kidding-Me-How-Many-People-That-I-Already-Know-Am-I-Gonna-Have-To-Fight-Today?

True Justice Vs. Sanct. Guard.

So it was me Vs. my other teammate, who rolled the entire tournament with his 100% full power Jewel Knight Sanctuary Guard Deck.

His deck had a fatal flaw which became apparent in our games though:

He doesn’t really run all that many Jewel Knights.

You know, the Jewel Knights you need to counterblast for Swordmy (a.k.a. Cancer Cat) to go off?

Yeahhhhhh....

So anyway, I just kind of rushed the fuck out of him Game 1.  He kept putting RGs on the table so I just kind of kept sniping them.

He didn’t really know how to fight my deck with SG very well...

Game 2 I’ll admit was complete lucksack on my end.  I literally got 2 crits in my first 2 attacks to break through two “1-to-pass” guards from him to put him from 0-4.

All it took at that point was a stride to push him over.

Poor guy...

He was salty as fuck though.  Shut the fuck up kid you spend $1000 dollars on your deck just because it’s blatantly overpowered at least build it the right way.

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

So yeah, I was 10-0 in games and didn’t drop a single one in Swiss.  I wasn’t really cocky though because I knew my friend would probably do a lot better next time we fought because my sackiness wasn’t going to last forever...

TOP 8:

1.)  Me.

2.)  Some guy with a Revenger deck that my SG teammate beat in round 1.

3.)  SG Teammate.

4.)  @holydragonreligioussoulsaver

5.)  Some guy with a really fucking good Angel Feather deck.

6.)  A pretty lackluster Revenger player.

7.)  The Creepy D-Robo Kid (God... Really?)

AND THE NUMBER 8 SLOT... AND MY OPPONENT IN MY NEXT MATCH...?!?

...The Salty Revenger kid I played in round 3?

He was 3-2...

And his second loss was to some scrubby Aqua Force deck that didn’t even top...

Can you say “I KNOW THE JUDGE AND CHEATED MY WAY INTO THE LAST SLOT!?”

So anyway, I have to play this kid.

So apparently he developed PSYQualia in between sets or something because he literally hit a trigger on every drive check the entire set.  I also only saw Laurel in game 1 for 5 seconds before he topdeckked BDA and sniped it.

...

Like.

I didn’t even do anything wrong.

There’s not really much you can do when every enemy drive check is a heal/crit and every fucking damage check is a draw/heal.

Like seriously.  This game sometimes yo...

RESULT:  LOSS 0-2.

Got a playmat which I immediately swapped for a Primavera because I’m building Musketeers right now anyway.  So totally worth it.

Also got 20 Star Chips which I can use to get into Pegasus’ ARG Castle later this year.

CAN YOU SAY 60 DOLLARS SAVED ON GAS/ENTRY FEES HAVING TO DRIVE TO THE VENUE ROUND TRIP THE DAY BEFORE TO DO LCQS!?!?!?

EPILOGUE:

Poor Boob Dragons lost to Angels via not having MLB (roughly the equivalent of a Metalborg deck not drawing Laurel.  Instant death.)

SG teammate wrecked bad shadows and Angels 2-0 each to get to the finals.

Where he met the kid that beat me.

Of course, salty-as-fuck-lad got fucking like 9 heal triggers checks per game.

I’ll give you 3 guesses for who won ARG PA...

HINT:  I’M FUCKING MAD ABOUT IT!

But it’s okay.  Once you see the pictures of my teammates and I holding Trunks Sword DBZ triumphantly you’ll laugh and realize we still had a great time.

...

Oh, and I’ll post our decklists once they go live.  If they edit the name of any of our lists I’m gonna be fucking livid.

Final Note:

None of my opponents knew anything about my Evil Brother Kyoji.

So yo, went to ARG with parts of my Card Game Alliance today to try to play in the LCQ.

Started off on a fantastic note when we walked in and a judge guy gave me the false impression that there was no tournament.

After further analysis, it became clear that the situation was different than I had imagined it would be:  You could grind in as many win-a-mat 8-man-Bo3-Single-Elimination Pools as you wanted from the hours of noon-5PM in a desperate attempt to accumulate enough Star Chips to Enter Pegasus’ ARG Castle.  Here’s the Point Breakdown:

Entry Fee (per-attempt):  $10

Lose in First Round:  5-points

Lose in Semifinals:  10-points

Lose in Finals:  15-points

Win Pool:  20-points

Naturally, you needed 20 points to enter the actual tournament tomorrow, so we would potentially be at this tournament for a while.  Fortunately, only two of us (me and a friend) were planning on showing up Saturday, so between the three of us we only had to amass 40 points.

Unfortunately, my dear allies seemed to have come down with a case of the bads, failing to win even a single round, so I’m going to ignore their stories and withhold their names from this story to protect whatever shambles of honor they have left.

FIRST ATTEMPT:

ROUND 1:  Draw-Power Metalborgs Vs. Cheating Aqua Force Player.

I’m not kidding when I say this kid was cheating, I’ll explain why in a minute.

So this kid tried to hit on my teammate earlier when he overheard that she was using a “teaching deck.”  I dunno man he had some pretty smooth moves.  He walked up, feigned not knowing much about Vanguard/”being pretty new to the game” despite being at the ARG national-fucking-championships for said game in an attempt to get a card game or 3 out of her.  I giggled a bit as I deck tested against my other friend.

So anyway, I got paired up against this joker in game 1.  He looked pretty scummy too.

Game 1 I beat his ass because he had no clue how to fight against metalbogs (i.e.  don’t waste your G0s guarding RG attacks).

Game 2 his entire demeanor changed and he suddenly became Mr. Card Game Expert, thinking through his moves and playing well.  I was slightly caught off-guard by this, and by the convenient double crit I received to close out the match.  Halfway through this match I noticed he was playing with the corners of his sleeves while absentmindedly fidgeting during his turn.  I thought nothing of it as first, because I fidget while concentrating as well, but I was salty when he double critted me so I was mad going into game 3.

Game 3 while cutting his deck I realized some of his cards had bent corners/intentionally damaged sleeves.  This just screamed “wow, what a cheating piece of shit” to me, but I reasoned that there was no way someone would seriously cheat in a unimportant mini-qualification-tournament, so I didn’t call judge.  Adding to my problems was that I had to ride Laurel as my G1, so I just kind of died instantly.  Before I died though, I discovered through observing his drive checks/damage/etc. that he actually *WAS* marking all the triggers.  Obviously it was too late to do anything about it, but I called him and his sleeves out snidely as I scooped up my cards, hoping his next opponent would hear me basically call him a cheater.

RESULT:  LOSS 1-2

INTERLUDE:  Having all lost, we decided not to waste any time and sign up for a second pool.  On the way back I laughed internally as I saw cheating-Aqua-Force-guy re-sleeving his deck with a judge watching.  Clearly his opponent had either heard me or noticed on his own.  Go him.  I hope he won.

SECOND ATTEMPT:

ROUND ONE:

Draw-Power-Metalborgs Vs. Daikaiser-Sin Buster-Metalborgs

This guy was really chill; total opposite of my first opponent.  Well-dressed, very polite, not a fucking-cheating-scumbag, etc.

He also played Dimension Police, although our decks were vastly different.  I took game one because he didn’t understand what I was up to (drawing shittons of cads) until it was far too late and I was at an insurmountable hand-size.

Game two he beat my fucking ass into next Tuesday.  Although in my defense I didn’t draw Laurel.

Game three went more-or-less the same as game one, only I got to break his spirit completely.  Allow me to explain in gleeful detail:

He decided it’d be a great idea to sit on Daikaiser and call his Ur Busters and Daijets to poke me.  I, in turn, decided it would be a great idea to PG every single one of his Daikaiser/stride attacks while diving on his RGs with my 30K+ Sin Busters (For whatever reason he never PGd his poor RGs, I think he was using G-PGs).  This left his field/hand chronically drained, his damage at 3, and my hand disgustingly large thanks to Laurel and him being too stubborn to go into Sin Buster instead.  I started to deck out, and I figured that 19 cards in hand and over 50K in trigger guard was enough to survive the BR turn, so I decided to start going after his VG.  He collapsed in two turns after failing his Break Ride Push by one trigger.

RESULT:  WIN 2-1

INTERLUDE:

My lovely teammates both died again, bringing our current Point Total to an underwhelming 25.  It seemed I would have to beat my next opponent if I didn’t want to drop even more money on LCQ entries.  Then I realized my opponent was going to be using Messiahs, my worst matchup.

Acknowledging my inevitable defeat, I put on my best Yuguoh Arc V EGAO and marched onward to...

ROUND 2:

Draw-Power-Metalborgs Vs. Totally-not-a-Stall-Deck-Messiahs

You’ll understand my joke name after I finish telling you about this epic match.

This guy was another tool-type.  Really loud, really obnoxious, tattoos and shit, judge was in his pocket, $500 meta deck, etc.  Although, unlike the cheating bastard from earlier, I could sense some honor from this guy.  His cards weren’t marked (trust me, I was neurotically checking everyone after my experience in round 1), and he was rather talkative before the match.

Then the match started...

So he thought it would be a great idea to not only let me go first, but also to keep himself on Grade 2 (to prevent me from legioning, I suppose).  Of course, this would probably prove an effective tactic against a standard Metalborg deck, but my deck was different.

My deck ran 8 draw triggers.

So he just sat there and allowed me to punch his RGs in the face repeatedly win Sin Buster, hit draw triggers, restand with Laurel and attack his VG and potentially draw a card on-hit.

Soon it dawned on him that he’d made a huge mistake, and that I had 15 cards in my hand to his 4.  I mean, I would’ve suicided at this point and moved on to game 2, but he insisted on seeing his doomed mission through to its end.  I however was in no rush to finish him after observing that he was becoming a bit jarred (read:  SALTY AS FUCK) by my clever antics of stalling for cards/sniping Awakening/Gravity Well.  I then realized how I would beat him.  Sure, I couldn’t beat his deck; but I could still beat him the player.  A deck’s only as good as the duelist/cardfighter running it, after all, so if I could make him mad then surely he would start misplaying, allowing me to win not only game 1 but also the set.

So I sat on my ass, relaxed, re-legioned several times, and watched my opponent descend into madness as I effortless blocked every single one of his attacks while maintaining a ~13 card hand.  He decked out eventually; and victory was mine.

Game 2 I was less fortunate, as I couldn’t draw Laurel early and I only hit one PG.  He was also very much done screwing around, forgoing the whole “sitting on G2″ thing to start blasting my ass.  I didn’t really mind though, as I knew my defeat was still pretty likely despite my grand plan.

Game 3 was basically a repeat of game 1, only his play was incredibly poor; probably due to fatigue.  He repeatedly said shit like “I don’t even care anymore bro,” indicating that I had shattered his very will to fight.  Just for shits and giggles because I’m an ass, I watched him deck out again.  I mean; I wouldn’t have wanted to let him get any face-up damage for Amnesty, after all...

After the match he said the funniest thing ever.  The judge was astonished that our set had taken so long and my teammate even remarked that it took “over two hours.”  He tried explaining my antics, to which I replied “Well, we were both playing stall decks, so of course the game kind of dragged!”  Messiah-Kid, angered by this, retorted that “MESSIAHS AREN’T A STALL DECK!!!” before storming off.

RESULT:  WIN 2-1

+1 Ego-boost.

INTERLUDE:

I was content with myself at this point, since we now had the 40 Points my friend and I needed to get into Pegasus’ ARG Castle.  However, I also knew I was one set away from a free box, so I figured I might as well make the 35 I blew on gas and the 20 I blew on entry fees worth it...

ROUND 3:

Draw-Power-Metalborgs Vs. Dark Zodiac-Link Jokers

So this guy was the chillest dude.  Even chiller than the Dimension Police guy I played round one.  He was also a judge, so fighting him was actually a bit of an honor.

However, he was a bit horrified from watching my set against the Messiah-Kid, so he explicitly informed me that he would be “going for the kill right away.”

I mean, the guy kind of told me his gameplan, so I knew that all I really had to do was Laurel Rush him and snipe his RGs to leave him resource-less.

And that’s exactly what I fucking did.  Game 2 was a bit sacky though, as he whiffed a triple drive that I had no way of blocking, allowing my to survive and Sin Buster his sorry ass into oblivion.

As icing on the cake, I softly spoke the following to my opponent as I beat him.  I forgot part of the quote though, so it wasn’t as cool:

“This hand of mine glows with an awesome power...

Take this!  My love!  My anger!!  And all of my sorrow!!!

Shining Finger!”

And then I attacked for game.  I knew he couldn’t guard.  He chuckled afterwards and was a good sport about his bad drive check.  He seemed like a really cool guy and I hope I get to fight more people like him tomorrow.

RESULT:  WIN 2-0

FINAL RESULT:  20 ARG POINTS, FIRST PLACE!

So I won the tournament somehow lol.  I hope the Aqua Force kid gets his deck stolen or something, or at least caught/banned from ARG by a judge who isn’t his “bro.”

I got a box of set 17 as a way of thanking my teammates/friends for coming along with me even though they had no intention of playing in the big dance on Saturday.  Pulled a DOtG and other random shit.  Nothing too special.

So I’m going to ride out again tomorrow.  Although I severely doubt my tricks will prove as formidable against the kinds of seasoned players that will be at the proper “National Championship” playing for $2500.