Day 2 of Asia Champs / Philippine Qualifiers

Just got home and let me start this post by saying "TEH BUILD WINS!" Haha. 

Why did I say this? Coz I won our country's qualifiers this evening with my Inzecter deck. Which build though? That was my problem before i decided to register for the tournament. As we all know, you can play the "standard/core" build, the "Wind-up" build, and the "Trooper" build. I opted to use the latter since I miss the GY shenanigans that Junk Doppel offers and this particular Inzector build takes away from the boring "normal summon, good? no? okay, end turn T.T" that standard Inzector decks suffer from.

Here's a quick rundown of the my Day 2 of the tournament:

Random pairing was done and the matchups were: (I'll put some details if I know some)

Top 8 pairings

Alvin Lim (TG Agent) *won* vs. Jeff Legarda (Evol)

William "Wslasher" Sy (Six Samurai) *won* vs. Karlo Bonillo (Inzecter, with almost same build as mine)

=Karlo should have won in Game 3 if he didn't misplay with making a Zenmaines with his unused and newly-revived Damsel mistaking it as his Veiler'd Damsel.

 

Jomer Flores (Rabbit Ragia) *won* vs. Timothy Vivit (Inzecter, standard?)

= I heard from Tim that Jomer got plenty of outs to his faceup Decrees, gg.

 

Edsel Gozon (Inzecter) *won* vs. Kent Dino (TG Agent)

= I started strong in Game 1 and controlled. Game 2 I kept on drawing Hornets and no other Inzects and got beat by TGs. Game 3 I took a lot of punishment from his side deck cards such as DD Crow, Veiler, and Crack from the Different Dimension. A pinch mill of Hornet by Card Trooper opened my Inzecter plays and won the duel. Found out that he had 2 Shine Balls and no Agents in his draws thats why he wasnt able to apply pressure even though I got hit by plenty of banish stuff.

Top 4 pairings (unintentional, but the matchups were surprising, ^^)

William Sy (Six Samurai) *won* vs. Alvin Lim (TG Agent)

= Battle of champions! William and Alvin are both National and Asian Champions for 2010 and 2011. Game 1, William's mained Maxx C and Veiler won him control. Game 2 it was payback of Alvin's Maxx C and it generated the advantage for the win. Game 3, a top of Heavy Storm by William made way for his swarm.

Edsel Gozon (Inzecter) *won* vs. Jomer Flores (Rabbit Ragia)

= Battle of 2010 and 2011 Champion Team members! Game 1 he used Dustshoot on me. Game 2 I used Dustshoot on him! Lucky payback, lol. Haha. Game 3 was very nerve-wracking. We went into top decking mode with him at 6000+ LP while I had 250 LP left. His cards were only a faceup Guaiba and a set card while I had a Hornet in hand and none in grave with all my Damsels banished (courtesy of Chain Dis) and Centipedes graved. I top draw.... Giga-Mantis!!! I contemplate if I will attack his Guaiba since I'm afraid I might get Prisoned. I decided to attack and it connected! Yeah! Hornet/Mantis continued to attack through his Holy Lance (which prevented the damage from 1 attack of mine) and bluff set cards (found out they were Macro Cosmos and Dustshoot) and eventually he scooped. Wew! Great game Jomer! ^^

Finals

Edsel Gozon (Inzecter) *won* vs. William Sy (Six Samurai)

= Now it's time for team mates to face off! Im proud to see us meet in the finals. Go Team 3DS! :D

I started with Hornet f/d and 2 sets. He set a monster and 2 cards too. I summoned Damsel and he lets it go. I activate my f/d Foolish Burial to send another hornet to GY and activated Damsel. It got Veiler'd and I equipped it with Mantis to attack his f/d Kageki. Proceeded to control from there. Game 2 his Zanji went through my Snowman Eaters and Rykos. He got Enishi and I scooped as I didnt have anything left. Game 3 I started with 3 cards set. He responded with 4 cards set and at EP I flip my Decree. My turn I summoned Centipede and activated its effect. He activated Shadow Mirror and chained MST to destroy my Decree. I made Zenmaines the next turn and beat his LP down with it. It turned out he drew too much Veilers and stuff. Too many sided cards, imo. 

I think tomorrow eve I'll post some videos that Wslasher recorded as feature matches from Day 1 and Day 2.

Well, I'll end this post with this guys... I'm getting tired now as its almost 3am here. =.=

Thanks for reading guys! Wish me luck at Asia Championships!

Day 1 of Asia Champs / Philippine Qualifier

Here's a short update of what occurred earlier today in the Philippine Qualifiers for Asia Championships 2012!

As I have mentioned before in my post, the tournament format is made complicated again by Konami and is as follows:

Round 1-4
This was a Swiss-format tournament of two groups. The 80 unseeded players are equally divided into 2 groups. At the end of the 4th round, the Top 16 players of each group (for a total of 32 players) are taken and they will advance to the next round.

Round 5
32 players + 4 seeded Rank D players = 36 players
They are randomly paired and played Single Eliminations.

Round 6
18 players + 2 seeded Rank C players = 20 players
Again, randomly paired and eliminations.

Round 7
10 players + 2 seeded Rank B players = 12 players
Same format as previous round. This was the last round for Day 1 and is the most critical of all since this round determined who will come back for Day 2. (wow, YCS? haha)

Tomorrow (or strictly, later this afternoon) is Day 2 of the tournament where the top 2 players of the Philippines that were seeded will join the matches. All rounds will be of random pairing and single elimination matches and the format will be as follows:

Round 8
6 players + 2 seeded Rank A players = 8 players

Semis... then Finals!

The players that will face the gauntlet tomorrow are:

Top 8
Alvin Lim (Rank A seed)
William "Wslasher" Sy (Rank A seed)
Timothy Vivit (Rank B seed)
Karlo Luigi Bonillo (Rank C seed)
Jomer Flores
Kent Dino
Jeff Legarda
Edsel Gozon (me!) :D

Nice lineup! I'm expecting tmr will be a very stressful and long day as most of the players in the top8 are seasoned veterans and each having their own achievements -- we have 2 Philippine Worlds and Asian Champions, 2 members of the 2011 Asia Team Tournament Champion, and 1 member of 2010 Asia Team Philippines! I hope my good luck doesn't wear out :))

btw, one of the players in the top 8 was running a rogue deck that anyone wouldn't expect to see top. Haha, surprising and impressive showing! Congrats!

That's all for tonight! Wish me luck for Day 2!

EDIT!:

I just want to say... "the build works!!!!!" haha! << tagged to Karlo Bonillo :))

2012 Banlist confirmed! More thoughts

The list is confirmed. Here's a final pic for those still in their denial stage.

Here's a link to my previous post about the complete list:

http://duelingblog-ph.blogspot.com/2012/02/march-banlist-death-of-trishula.html

So what's new? If you look closely, you can notice an asterisk beside Reborn Tengu. It says that Tengu will be released soon (and much earlier) in the OCG that's why it was included in the list. Starter Deck 2012 anyone? Although I dont think I'll be buying 2x SD2012 just for Tengus since it wont be that useful and advantageous anymore, plus, synchro summoning (Tengu's asset) is much much harder to perform now since Bulb and Spore are gone. Alexandrite Dragon pushes me more to buy the SD. Hoping for good reprints also.

What else?

Oh yeah, I went to the shop yesterday to play but went down in the 1st round (elimination). Because of that I wasn't in the mood to register and spend ($12+) for Asia Qualifiers next Saturday. Maybe I'll register on Tuesday.

Lots of ppl were raging and complaining about the banlist when it was confirmed by late afternoon. Some were telling that they're gonna quit though I dunno if they really will. It would be shame though to see them quit just because of a banlist. Personally, I lost lots of cash also since my whole bling Junk Doppel deck is dead and I probably wouldn't be able to sell it now. My Tengus are also hit. My DT Trishula died. But they dont see me saying I quit.  Maybe they still haven't accepted the fact that Yugioh is a game where you'll continuously waste cash. You can't make a top deck and expect it to last forever. Sooner or later you'll need to change your deck. If you want to make a top tier deck, you should accept the fact that you'll only play it for 6 months or less.

Let's move on ppl! haha.

It's gonna be 6 months of Inzector, Windup, and Rabbit decks -- unless something usurps them.

No Veilers? GG

No Fiendish Chains? GG

No Maxx C? GG

No Raioh? GG? well, not much xD

Expect me to also "abuse the living shit out of Sangan and Card Trooper" with 3x Call of the Haunted and 2x Torrential Tribute!

 --quoting LFN on this cool line! Yeah!

March Banlist: The Death of Trishula

I wake up in the middle of the night because I got flooded by text messages telling me about a new banlist.
I check the blogs and other forums and here's the new "unconfirmed, yet seems true" banlist:

Forbidden:

Trishula, Dragon of the Ice Boundary

Glow-Up Bulb

Spore

Trap Dustshoot

Limited:

Tech Genus Striker

Agent of Mystery - Earth

Semi-Limited:

Marshmallon

Lumina, Lightlord Summoner

Emergency Teleport

Shien's Smoke Signal

Level Limit Area-B

Torrential Tribute (!!!game changer!!!)

Ultimate Offering

Reborn Tengu

No longer on the list:

Call of the Haunted

Most things that we look for that proves a list is legit is in here:
1.  Scan of the magazine
2.  Mid-February release
3.  Shown on Shriek's blog (though its true also that Shriek posts fake lists sometimes)

There are also things here/missing that can argue this is a fake:
1.  No pic of actual promo card
2.  Includes a TCG Exclusive card (when Konami clearly announced that they wont be doing separate lists for tcg and ocg)
3.  Includes a SD debut card (agent earth)

Personally, I feel this is the real list even though its hard to fathom that Konami ultimately decided on killing the only engine feeding the synchro decks -- Plant engine.  Looks like I need to say goodbye to the deck I find very fun and exciting to play with which is Junk Doppel.

We'll miss you Tori!

XYZ UTOPIA!

Inzektors, Windups, and Rescue Rabbit weren't hit!

My gut feeling tells me a month back that the new decks (though dominating the meta) wont be getting hit yet because it is a March list. Usually, new decks and stuff are hit on the September list while old stuffs are killed in March to give way to new products. Hooray that I haven't sold all my Windup stuff yet.

So what decks are we expecting to see?

Of course, top tiers are still Inzectors, Windups, Rabbit, and Hero Beats.
Following behind are Offering gadgets (still alive), Ninjas, Lavals (no Trish but can still go Quasar/Nova), Sams (2 SSSignals but 1 Shien and no Trish? =.=) and Dark World.

New appearances by Lightlord (2 Lumina but no bulb and Trish?), Tele-dad-like decks, and Hieroglyphs can be expected. Special mention to Hieroglyphs since the deck is built strongly but not broken yet.

RIP to the decks:
Junk Doppel and all TCG "Synchrocentric" decks (oh i hate that name)
Karakuri Machina Plant
TG Agents (r1 tuners and no trish? can still play but lol)
^what else?

OH, i nearly forgot! Another major format change is 2x Torrential Tribute!!!
Imba, i haven't gotten an asia copy of 1 yet and now I need 2? fuuuu. Need 3x Call of the Haunteds too >_<

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Btw, sorry for not posting stuff since I'm waiting for the banlist and a full GAOV before I post anything. Since both the banlist and a full GAOV are now spoiled, expect the next post to be about Hieroglyphs!

Thanks for reading!

Flash News: Konami f*cks us again!

Dont forget to check out my earlier post: (Banlist Speculation/Wishlist (Flamers come XD ))
http://duelingblog-ph.blogspot.com/2012/02/banlist-speculationwishlist-flamers.html
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Its so surprising when I titled my last post as "Flamers come" then a few minutes pass I get this news...

http://www.konami-asia.com/th/yugi/event/seeded_player_2012.php?lang=en&ct=ph

This a photo from the Konami Asia site (link above) showing a list of "Seeded" players for the upcoming Asian Championships 2012. Afaik, "seeded" means "invited." Meaning, these guys get a free invite to the Asian Championships in SG? Bypassing the qualifier tournament? Wow

This is good news right? Because Konami is giving away free "seed" positions.

But wait, who were chosen?

Oh, the first two persons are the Top 1 and Top 2 persons for the Division A of the Zexal Ranking.
Obviously, they should be given invites and they deserve it.

But wait! The next persons are not from Division A! They're all from Division B, C, and D!!!
Why do they get the free invites and not those in Div. A?

I remember when Konami announced the new Zexal Ranking system they wanted the players to reach Division A because they will be given special privileges. Here's a few quotations from Konami FAQ:

Q: Will this ranking system be use to get special invites for prestige event(s)?
A: Yes

Q: So does that mean players in "Division Duel Monsters" cannot get invites to Asian Championship Qualifiers?
A: Yes, so try your best to keep your division in Divison GX (C) ,5D's (B) and ZEXAL (A) before the "play-off" game mode start.

So Konami, what happened? Why just pick 2 from each division? Why give invites for B, C, and D when there are still persons above them? Why give 4 invites to "Division D - Duel Monsters" when you said they cannot get invites?

There's lots of questions to answer. Konami just put a list on their site without any explanation of what is happening. Hopefully, this isn't made by them just to troll us.

Banlist Speculation/Wishlist (Flamers come XD )

I think its only about a week or so before we get a few leaks (fake or not) of the coming March banlist changes.

What deck gets hammered? revived?
What staples get rotated in/out of the list?
Will there be another imba Forbidden card coming out of its prison, like BLS?

Here's my take of what I would like to happen...

Monster Reborn OUT/ Dark Magician of Chaos IN (FLAME START)
= I would like to see this happen. Personally, I'm always wishing my opponent doesn't draw Reborn because if he does... either he cooks up an OTK with it or I survive but with most of my defenses wasted. Of course, the same goes for if "I" was the one who draw Reborn. See the pattern?
How about DMoC? I remember him being spammed back in the DAD Return days because of Reborn and Dimension Fusion. D.Fusion is already banned and if ever Reborn goes 0, DMoC wouldn't be spammed like
a boss --- unless you want to do crazy stuff like "CoTH + IronWall" or Escape from the Different Dimension.

Mystical Space Typhoon back to Limited
= I didn't like it when Konami put this in unlimited. Its like they want us to throw away our Dust Tornados, Double Cyclones, etc.. With Heavy Storm unbanned, 1 MST is the balanced amount for the good of all decks. Plus, this will give us space in our Main and Side decks.

Bottomless Trap Hole unlimited
= Why are boss monsters thriving in our games compared to the metas before? Its because BTH was put to 2. Yes we have Solemn Warning to pair with the 2 BTHs... but can Warning save us from 2x Call of the Haunted and Reborn? No, lol.

That's it for generic stuff... here's some things deck-specific:

Inzecter Hornet limited (FLAME START)
= Some say Damsel will be hit, but I dont think so. Why? They hit Damsel and the entire deck goes down. Damsel is the only "real" threat in an Inzecter deck because using her to spam Hornets garners you plenty of plusses. Take away Hornet from that then you only get a chance to spam Centipedes and get BTH'd after. Plus, even without Hornet the deck can still function using the new LV2 Inzecter to spam Rank 5 Xyz monster but with a risk since you weren't able to destroy anything on your opp's side.

Agent of Creation - Venus limited
= Because of Xyz monsters, Venus became a +1-2 card, lol. If you kill it, she becomes food for Master Hyperion. Wow, I can't believe 1 useless monster before became so powerful with just 1 SD. Please hammer it Konami. Let those Agent decks use their Mars, Mercury, or Jupiter for once.

Evolkaiser Ragia limited (FLAME START)
= They did it to Shi En, right? Its only justice that they do the same to this guy.

Future Fusion banned
= Lots of dragon themes going around now. What do they have in common? Once they draw Future Fusion, it's a whole lot of advantage and plusses for them. Additionally, they can use this in the same turn they use Pot of Duality! Talk about greediness.

Fishborg Gunner limited
= I cant believe why they needed to kill this card when they also limited Formula Synchron and Librarian at the same time. Is it because of their new "Fishborg" card? Wew, that card is only troublesome to use.

Effect Veiler limited (FLAME START)
= I DO want this to happen, lol. Yes, this move promotes self-touching decks but there's always 3x Maxx C, 3x DD Crow, 3x Orange Light, right? We all want to limit the power cards of different decks but let's give them a chance to win at least. Let's prevent anti-meta decks to become THE meta itself.

Destiny Draw unlimited
= I think its about time we give total freedom to the once broken Destiny Hero engine. There's lots of different engines available out there that are much more powerful like the Plant engine and TG engine. I'm a fanboy of DHeroes so please grant me this wish, haha

These are just some of the things I would like to happen. I haven't covered everything yet so I'll just leave that to you readers to comment about. :)

Thanks for reading!