PH WCQ Results

A big congrats to our back-to-back WCQ Champion Irwin Arogo! The Top 8 cut was full of big names in Philippine Yugioh after a grueling 7-round swiss of 102 players. Final results are as follows:

1st: Irwin Arogo (Dragons) 6-1 swiss
2nd: Junjun Agoto (Prophecy) 6-1 swiss
3rd: Armyn Villanueva (Dragons) 7-0 swiss
4th: Chito Racimo (Prophecy) 6-1 swiss
5th-8th:
Edsel Gozon (Prophecy) 6-1 swiss
Alvin Lim (Mermail) 6-1 swiss
Roy Gonzales (Dragons) 6-1 swiss
William Sy (Bujin) 5-2 swiss

Special congrats to Irwin's team Asiong for getting half of the top 8 placings.

The top cut was very tight as getting X-2 generally means you wont make it to top 8. Lots of ppl disagreed as everyone expected a Top 16 cut but maybe it would have been for the better so only the best scorers gets the chance for the championship. Less non meta decks to top too.

Well, here's my matchups for the event.

Round1: vs Dragons 0-x-0
g1 = Went first and proceeded to complete the Jowgen Kycoo puzzle.  He used Heavy Storm and Book of Moon for my Jowgen when I chained Lance to Storm. He summon Tidal from a baby then forget he cannot attack with it and got nothing else to do.
g2 = Took a 1st turn EEV. I chained Judgment and dropped Batel but he got Veiler too. I was left with Soul Drain so I was still ok but he got MST after a lil' while.
g3 = Puzzle complete.

Round2: vs Machina Gadget 0-x-0
g1 = He got no backrow while I didnt have Spellbooks that can combo so I just made a Blader to kill his Gadget and stop his Fortress with BTH to stop any Xyz that would try to take down Blader.
g2 = He had Droll to stop me after I added Sefer with Batel and didn't have any other good spellbooks left. Took Storm and lost to too much advantage. He spams King Feral Imp and Giganto each turn lol.
g3 = Puzzle complete.

Round3: vs. 4-axis Fire Fist 0-0-
g1 = He tried sharking me (long story) but in the end... puzzle complete.
g2 = Lots of passing around (drew Fate+Fate+Sefer again) and setting monsters. By the time he set a 2nd monster I realize the 1st one could be Morphing Jar #2 so I also set my bad-drawn Jowgen. His turn he flipped and indeed it was Jar. So my Jowgen went back to the deck and was replaced by a Batel. After a while he was down by a lot of resources while I had lots.

Round4: vs. Prophecy 0-0-
g1 = Both our Batels got Veiler'd. But I have Kycoo early and he didn't have something to go against it.
g2 = Droll'd him. I had 2 Judgments drawn so I used 1 and a Secrets then he uses Droll too. I just set the other Judgment with Book of Moon to use in his turn. He wasn't able to come as I showed me he drew 2 Crescents in his first 6 cards. That's why I prioritize to side this card out when I side in non-Spellbook cards. Less consistency but less card conflicts.

Round5: vs. 3-axis Fire Fist 0-x-0
g1 = Puzzle complete.
g2 = He spammed a lot in his turn while I had no Maxx C or Veiler so he got an overwhelming advantage against my mediocre draw.
g3 = Puzzle complete.

Round6: vs. Dragons 0-x-x
g1 = Puzzle complete.
g2 = Puzzle complete but he toppled it using Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, and Blaster. Sad. But I thought it couldnt be possible that would happen again.
g3 = Drew Fate+Fate+Wisdom+MST. No monsters but I got Soul Drain and Solemn Judgment. I set both traps. His turn he set 2 cards also. My turn I drew Judgment Day.  His turn he uses Star Sword, I chain Drain, he chain his set MST, I chain Solemn. After he drew he uses the other set MST to destroy Drain. He made Big Eye and set EEV. I drew Jowgen and he uses EEV. I summon Kycoo from deck and summoned Jowgen from hand. His turn he passed. My turn I drew Soul Drain. I felt I won already but his turn he used Dark Hole and proceeded to kill me using the baby dragons. Felt so sad about my luck compared to his.

Round7: vs. Mermail 0-0-
g1 = Puzzle complete.
g2 = He made Gaios and Kappa but I had Dark Hole then locked him out.

Top8: vs. Chito (Prophecy) x-0-x
g1 = He went first and he had everything set up. Star Hall and the puzzle.
g2 = My hand only had Secrets and Judgment useful so I got no choice but to do it. He didnt have Droll so I got early advantage. Game took so long with me winning using 3 Kycoos (1 is his that I got using Puppet) and a Star Hall with 15 counters. Time was called.
g3 = Last 3 turns :( He went first and used Judgment and Secret to add Wisdom then I use Droll. He summon Kycoo and set Wisdom. I summon Batel to Secrets that added Sefer but he used Droll to end my searching. I set Judgment, Wisdom, Sefer, and activated Star Hall. His turn I activated Judgment and he did a lot to summon Jowgen at end phase while also damaging me using his Kycoo. My turn I drew Veiler. My hand got 8 Spellbooks but all was useless since it was my last turn and I needed to inflict more that 1300 dmg to him. Tried to pump my Batel using Star Hall and Power but his last set card was a 2nd Wisdom. gg

If only I got more time I could have stalled and waited til I was able to get rid of his Kycoo since he only got 2 cards left in his hand while I got 8+. Well, cant do anything about that.

Here's my decklist..

Im so sleepy now so maybe I'll just edit this with my comments about this list later night.
Thanks for reading!

Rumored Spoilers: War Gods & BLS

Saw this new cards going around a Thai Facebook page.
It got lots of Shadow Specters spoilers. Most is not that notable except for this unconfirmed news...

War God Dragon Emperor - Yamata no Orochi
Dark / Beast-Warrior / Fusion
Lv 8 / 2600 / 3100
2x War God monsters
Must first be Special Summoned (from your Extra Deck) by shuffling the above cards you control into the Deck. (You do not use "Polymerization".) Once per turn, during your Main Phase: You can select 1 of your banished "War God" monster; Special Summon that target in face-up Defense Position. If this card would be destroyed, you can send 1 face-up "War God" monster to the graveyard instead. You can only control 1 face-up "War God Dragon Emperor - Yamata no Orochi".

You might think the summon from banish effect is useless since it is not that easy to banish a War God. Well, think again...


War God Princess - Kushina
Light/ Beast-Warrior / Effect
Lv 4 / 0 / 2000
If you control a face-up Beast- or Winged-Beast-type "War God" monster, you can Special Summon this card (from your hand). You can banish this face-up card you control; Special Summon 1 "War God" monster from your deck. Also, you can banish this card from your graveyard; Special Summon 1 "War God" monster from your hand. You can only use 1 "War God Princess - Kushina" effect per turn, and only once that turn.

Hopefully, the real effect becomes like LSS-Kizan's. Too bad her effect has a restriction like the Incarnate Dragons, otherwise, she could have a spam combo with Yamata no Orochi.

But still, her effect and her being a LIGHT Beast-Warrior is a welcome addition to the deck.
More War God cards please!

AND last but not the least!


http://neoarkcradle.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2828&start=120

^if too lazy to register.... http://i.imgur.com/h2HcLNG.png

^if really too lazy, it says that in one of the upcoming VJump Edition packs there will be a monster called カオス・ソルジャー ― 宵闇の使者. 

^the above translates into "Black Luster Soldier - Envoy of the Twilight".

YGO going back to Chaos theme after Elements?
Remember how Cosmo Blazer and the VJump Edition promos combined to make the tier1 Fire Fist decks before LGTY arrived?

Latest booster = JOTL (LIGHT/DARK)
Next booster = Shadow Specters (LIGHT?/DARK)
Next SD = Blue Eyes (LIGHT)
Next VJump? = new BLS? (CHAOS)

Well, hopefully the new cards can outrun or outsmart Incarnates.
Have fun speculating! xD

Blue-Eyed Prophecy

http://yugioh.wikia.com/wiki/Blue-Eyed_Maiden

This card would work so well in a Prophecy deck. Goodbye lone Veiler?

Summon Maiden. Target it with Power. Summon BEWD! Too bad it's a "once per turn" only effect.
You can even target Maiden with Torah xD

Lv1 so can be easily summoned by Judgment Day. Now it is not that bad when you can only activate 1 spell after Judgment Day. Also, she may be able to stall your opponent since he'll need to attack her twice to get over her plus the BEWD that she'll be calling.

One more thing you can do.

Opponent's turn. Activate Judgment Day. Use Fate against 1 of his moves. Summon Maiden in the EP.
Your turn. Now, there's lots of things you can do with her.

1. Target her with Power. Summon BEWD. You now have a 4k atk field.
2. Target her with Torah. Summon BEWD. Sync her with Batel for Claiomh Solais the Hazehawk (Mist Bird Clausolas). Run over Clausolas target with BEWD. Cool 3k direct damage.
3. Target her with Torah. Summon BEWD. Sync her with Junon for a lv8 synchro like Blader.
4. Target her with Torah. Summon BEWD. Sync Blue Eyes Silver Dragon for the lols.

OR you can just let her stay there and be a wall that calls out BEWD every turn. :))

Downside is that you'll need to main 1-2 BEWDs. hahaha. Good luck drawing those.

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. 

Loots from Thailand

Its been a 2 days since I got back home from the Asia Championships in Thailand. Wasn't able to post yesterday as I was rushing to go to a tournament where a 4axis FireFist was being prized. Luckily, I won the deck so the rush was worth it.

Mixed feelings is what I have for my results. Happy since I was able to at least bring home 3rd Place but disappointed also because I didn't improve from last year as I was also 3rd.

Lots of things to talk about such as the experience there, the friends (new and old), and the tournament, but for now I'll post about the loots I got from Thailand!

Sorry for the low-res picture. >_<

Noob as I was, I didnt exchange all my money into Thai Baht when I arrived so what happened was I ran out of money to get more cards and to buy souvernirs (sorry friends and family).

Does it look like I bought a lot? Almost half of the cards above are what I got from the Champion Challenge side event, so yeah, the only thing I bought was the Prophecy deck and a few singles and after that my pockets were almost empty. Special thanks to our Thai friend, Air, who was able to find and sell me a Prophecy deck with only 1 day notice.

And here's the actual prizes from the tournament. Sadly, no cards included. lol. So luckily, I am a proud owner of a pair of Asia mats. Thanks also to the Korean champion, Choi, who gave me a Korean Fire Fist mat for free!

Next post will be about the tournament. Thanks for reading!

Trio of Power

Most of the Asia Qualifiers ended and it's almost a month before the big event in Thailand.

Let's talk about the winning decks from each country a bit.

Hong Kong - Prophecy

Spellbook Judgment Day is a bad card design that is really meant to be abused. Drawing it with Junon/s and a good mix of spells equates to 2-3 turns of massive advantage. Lucky if u live through it all and they depleted their Spellbook stock. Easy to side against them though as Droll & Lock manages to stall them by a turn while EEV spells doom all over. Too bad Rose Archer needs a plant field to be used.

Singapore - Incarnate Dragons

Incarnate Dragons has been the talk of the blogs and forums for a while now and is very much considered to be THE deck to beat for the current meta as DragoSack and LaDD is a bitch. Almost has no bad starting hands asides from perhaps having same colored dragons in hand and GY but a single Sarco solves this problem.

Malaysia - Verz

A meta deck that could be called anti-meta as Ophion alone stops the other decks above. Most argues that Ophion can be killed easily by card effects but here's what i say...

Saw this around facebook so much that i wanted to edit it. Original picture only had two panels and I added the Xyz Reborn part. The above pic sums up basically why Verz is still on top plus its ability to main deck EEV too.

I dont claim that Verz is invincible but it does have an advantage over Incarnates. Prophecy perhaps can win over Verz easier than Incarnates as Hygro Spellbook on Toon Gemini Elf, Justice, or Shining Elf is an easy out to Ophion. Let's not forget about Injection Fairy also. Xyz Reborn is a pain but let's hope Decree stops it.

How about the ProphecyxIncarnate matchup? Advantage-wise both decks do it massively as Prophecy can plan and collect the necessary Spellbooks to get through Drago-Sack and OTK while the Incarnate can just hide behind double Drago-Sack or LaDD. Jowgen will be the winning card behind Prophecy if he can protect him. Perhaps also why Wabokus are used in multiples inside Prophecy now aside from LP safety.

This three is what i consider as the big three this format. Of course, 3axis FF and Mermails are still lurking but i feel they wont stand through a test of several rounds with so much Incarnates around. Fairly speaking, 3axis can rush the otk through Rekindlings and Mermails can push OTK too or rush into Abyssgaios with Veiler ready in hand so still cannot underestimate them.

So I said last time that I'll post my Mermail deck but I guess it really doesn't matter anymore so let's scratch it. Thanks for that and also for reading!

Back again. PH Asia Qualifier results

Been awol for how many months now but I'm back again to live up to my blog's description that you can see above, lol.

I think explanations are needed to be given as to why I've been out blogger for a long while.
1.  Career forced to live on the provinces where Yugioh is nonexistent.
2.  Internet connection there is unstable so wasn't even able to play decent games online.
3.  Stuck on Machina Gadget deck for a long while so nothing new to share too.

Luckily, I was able to move my career to a place much closer to home and the city so for the past few weeks I came back to the local shop regularly, got a new deck, and played more games so here's a few things I want to share. There's a lot I want to write about so I'll make this into a series of posts...

===============================================================

Lemme start with the concluded Philippines ACQ. We played before the new banlist was applied so Windups are still top tier and you can still encounter the shit turtle-ing under the protection of 2x Warning and a Judgment, but still, 104 players arrived and played for the chance to win the Thailand trip.

Not as many as other Asia countries but still impressive for this year.

For now I'll just put the results.

104 players
7 rounds of swiss + Top 16 cut

Top 16 comprised of
3 Fire Fist (2x 4star, 1x 3/4star)
2 Mermail
2 Machina Gadget
2 Agents
1 Windup, Verz, BF, Six Samurai, Prophecy, Wind-Incarnate Chaos Dragon, Sacred

Top8
Irwin Arogo (Fire Fist 3/4-star) vs. Louren Vidad (Agents) = Agents win
Alvin Lim (Fire Fist 4-star) vs. Karlo Evangelista (Mermail) = Mermail win
Jeffrey Maglilong (Sacred) vs. John Kevin Alcantara (Fire Fist 4-star) = Sacred win
Me (Mermail) vs. Yuki Karikomi (Wind-Up) = Mermail win

*shockingly, all the Fire Fist decks were eliminated this round

Top4
Louren (Agents) vs. Jeffrey (Sacred) = Agents win
Me (Mermail) vs. Karlo (Mermail) = I win

Finals
Lost to Agents but he can't go as he says he is busy with study and is minor so I go instead. Lucky. lol
He should have said so right at the beginning lol.

Here's a rundown of what I encountered during swiss (in order):
Green = won, Red = lost
Agents >> Samurai >> Arrive Hero >> Agents >> Verz >> Agents >> Prophecy

As you can see, I can confidently say that Agents was the most represented deck in the tournament. Actually I expected more of Gadgets and Fire Fists decks w/o the promos and those were the ones that I made my side deck around. I also expected after the top 8 cut that all the Fire Fist decks would have advanced to Top 4 since they were complete with the promos and is the most dreaded deck in the tournament but it didnt happen. So unexpected.

Verz, another deck considered as top tier, were represented by few ppl. Plus, the inherent bad matchup of the deck against Fire Fist is hard to fix here in the Philippines as only a handful of ppl have sets of Forbidden Holy Lance and most of these ppl are running Fire Fists too. lol

Prophecies were only represented by 3-4 people, I think. Lots of ppl are unprepared for this matchup as some dont even know how absurd Divine Judgment's effect is. However, perhaps the odds were still against them as only 3-4 Prophecies are facing off against 101 other ppl. There's a big risk of them being eliminated even though I consider the deck as the most powerful currently. This is proven as 1 Prophecy deck reaches Top 16. I heard he lost because he drew badly while pitted against Raioh. lol

That's it for our Asia Qualifiers. There's still 2 mos. till the Asia Championships in Thailand so there's still a lot of time for the meta to change (if it does at all) and for me to decide which deck to use. I enjoy playing Mermail and adding Tidal (Water Incarnate Dragon) gives a whole lot of help (Ill talk about it in my next post). But im still iffy if it'd be the deck I'll use forThailand. So there.

Well, I hope you enjoyed my comeback post and see you next time.