Asia CS 2013: Techs and Matchups

Here's the things I like to share about my experience in Asia2013 Thailand. I wouldn't write a play-per-play recount of each of my matchups in the tournament but I'll tell you about new things I encountered on each round.

PS regarding my use of the word "NEW" here in this post. 

It doesn't mean that I'm saying it's "original", "never before seen by any1", or etc. I'm just saying that it is new FOR ME as I haven't encountered it in an actual game before or haven't heard about it yet. I comment on it based on my understanding of how it works too so no promise that I'll get everything right. Pardon if  you saw these before already or if my opinion on it is different from yours.

Tournament is a round-robin format. So everyone will get a chance to play each other much like the same way how Monster Rancher tournaments were played back in PSX era. No top cut. Champion is determined by point system. Here goes...

Deck Used: Prophecy

Round1: vs. Malaysia/Sam (Verz) Won 0-0-

The new thing here is the mained Iron Walls. Such a pain since I can't use Fate or Life or even Junon's effect, as if I can summon Junon anyway. You can still chain your Fate to remove it at once before it resolves though so can still manage even without MST. EEV is the real prob for me. A strategy against decks that can main/side EEV is to stock up on Towers so that when you get virus-ed you can still plan and make a comeback. Put in traps also that can stick around or has effects that can give you enough time that u can turtle behind it until EEV ends. Tower (calling Lily) and Rivalry won me the 2nd game even after I got EEV-ed.

Round2: vs. Singapore/Kenneth (Incarnates) Lose 0-x-x

Tsukiyomi pestered me a lot in the 2nd game when I was already beginning to lock him out. I messed up the Tower loop since I needed to use Life for the 2nd time to summon a third Jowgen. In long run I ran out of Spellbooks to fuel my Fate and got messed up hard when he was able Reborn Big Eye when I had Rivalry up when he summoned Tsukiyomi again. The 2nd game took so much time because of the back and forth with Tsukuyomi and me having nothing to attack him with so our 3rd game was played with timeout rules. No side decking allowed. I'm going first so I can lock him and win but I drew Jowgen plus 2 Wabokus, Warning, and no Secrets. He tries to damage me with the lv4 dragons but Waboku stops him. Sudden death is called and I so wished I could draw Kycoo just to attack Reactan and win but didnt draw him so I lose.

Round3: vs. Hong Kong/Brian (Prophecy) Lose x-0-x

His tech was Offerings to the Doomed. Its cool since in the mirror you usually just expect Fate and Wisdom being used against you in your own turn. Kycoo seals the opponent's Fate so whoever has him up wins in the long run (without Junon). So Offerings gives you at least a chance to eliminate Kycoo to open up your spells. It is also used to win the chain battle as you can chain it to Wisdom when he uses it to save his monster from Fate. As for his side, he used Cursed Seal of the Forbidden Spell. I opted for the pro-advantage card Retort but Cursed Seal has more stopping power if it goes through. It doesn't need you having the same card in the grave plus banning Secrets or Fate means gg. We wasted a lot of time in the 1st game so we barely ended the 2nd game in time. The 3rd game was played with timeout rules again ultimately leading to sudden death with me having no monsters drawn and him topping a batel. 

Round4: vs. Korea/Choi (Incarnates) Lose x-0-x

Congrats to the champion! He was really good with his deck as he knows what he is doing and he plays very fast too. I was able to lock him with Jowgen but he knows Prophecy will take up 2-4 turns before a kill so he bade his time to set up a Blaster (through Tempest search) and an otk (through Tidal mills) then destroyed Jowgen and win from there. 2nd game I full lock him with Kycoo/Jowgen/DFissure. 3rd game he EEV me 1st turn and I got nothing so lost. Games 2 and 3 shows how going first gives major advantage in the ProphecyxIncarnate matchup.

Round5: vs. Thailand/Somsira (Prophecy) Lose x-0-x

He mained more Veilers, Maxx C, and a Droll, i think. I wasnt able to ask him after the tournament. He also mains Stoic of Prophecy. He used it on me to summon Formula Synchron to draw 1 and he also searched a monster. His drops Junon and Batel and was beginning to think he'll summon Starform on my turn to defeat me with flair but instead he used Batel and Formula to Xyz the new Herald of Faithful Light to return Veiler from his grave to hand. With the massive advantage he had, he locked me out of playing with Judgment Days and Jowgen. This was another show of how meta matchups are but this time with the mirror and it almost entirely relies on: 1) whoever goes 1st; 2) whoever doesn't draw sh1t; 3) whoever draws more Judgments; and 4) whoever has Droll. This time I drew the sh1t opening (Eternity, Master, Life, ONLY) so cant do anything with that.

This was the 2nd time I drew the Eternity+Master+Life ONLY opening (the 1st was during playtesting with Team Asiong and I said then it was unlikely to happen again, lol) and it looks like I be haunted by this since I drew the same sh1t hand twice on the tournaments (1 in finals, 1 in semis) last Saturday. 

Round6: vs. Taiwan/CheFei (Prophecy) Win x-0-0

1st game supposed to be my win but I misplayed. I had Junon with enough Books, he had Jowgen/Kycoo lock, I had 2 Batels. I didn't include Power as a cost for Fate (a turn before Kycoo lands) to recycle it back to me using Alma to bait out his Wisdom on 1 Batel then use it again with Master on the 2nd Batel. Should have been able to bring out Junon to kill Kycoo. Mirror matches = mindfuck. 2nd game was a grind. Didn't open well but he did so he got Jowgen early but with only Batel. I turtled, saved Kycoo and my Spellbooks until it came to the time he ran out of Books coz I was always putting my Tower over his. 3rd game he didnt open well so I capitalized. This game shows how Toon Index is very strong in the mirror. Using Toon Index saves you from using up Spellbooks. You win the battle of attrition once your opponent runs out of Secrets.

Round7: vs. 2012Champ/Jeff (Incarnate) Win 0-0-

Wont be detailing much about this game. ^^
Book of Eclipse is boss. Rivalry is useless without Kycoo. And for me, Prophecy taking too long to kill is the deck's biggest weakness OR maybe the fact that you can draw sh1t is the real downside to the deck.

About the tourney format, I think the round robin works out fine but the tie breaker rules were a bit flawed imo. Although the ruling favored me and Sam (and I'm thankful for that), I still think that if I were in Thailand's position, I would be very sad to know I lost to guys to won fewer matches than me. I think it should be the number of match wins as first consideration when picking the winner of the tiebreaks. 

Wow, this post became really long so I'll be ending it here. Comments and reactions would be appreciated. I hope I was able to share something to benefit you.