Breaking The Curse, 7

The time for Asia Plus has once again promise duelists with excitement and entertainment. The time when Meta isn’t defined by a few decks and the tournaments are filled with tons of different decks, some old and some new, a time where a format’s bullshit is of no relevance. Well, not totally, but players get to compete against a multitude amount of decks while each team shares a banned list. Sounds exciting? Regardless, the year 2012 marks my first debut in Asia Plus and I am hoping to achieve something for this new environment, for me. As mentioned above, Asia Plus is a team tournament governed by the Asia Format. For the first time, I joined forces with my rivals to reach a higher plateau. We are called Team Dark Stallion. I’ll leave my team’s introduction for another time and today we are back again with yet another tournament report. Also, I finally got my Hieratic 2012 Nationals Playmat. Stoked! So, let’s get into it.

Asia Plus Qualifiers

Format: 3 Rounds of Swiss Cut to Finals

Deck Used: Improvised Hanzo Hieratics

ROUND 1 (Queen Dragun Hieroglyphs, Sorry I Forgot Your Name)

I was jacked-up nervous as both my teammates Izzat and Sean nominated me as the team leader by unanimous vote. Frankly speaking, I was expecting myself to be sort of a feeder given the fact that I am running a deck which primarily speaks out in many ways, kill or be killed. But I’ve come far enough into the competitive scene to learn how to subdue my nervousness. Needless to say I was focused and my mind only had the field and the steps in concentration. In a way, pressure is a good way for me to concentrate. 

GAME 1: I had a tech Drago on the field and managed to hold my opponent down until his Life Points were 2300. Two more strikes and the game would have ended for free but he managed to topped-deck my best friend, Dark Hole. Well, what happens next is pretty much the usual herp derp. There goes Game 1.

GAME 2: Now this game is slightly more interesting. We played a couple off set-and-pass as my opponent farms with Card Car D. I drew into my Drago and summoned it to hold field again. This time he has Alexandrite Dragon to smack my ace off the board. He tried to rush for OTK but seemed to have misplayed. Well, it looks to me. My opponent has REDMD, Gaia Dragoon, and Alexandrite Dragon on field. At this point I am down with 500LPs and my hand card consists of Seal of Gathering, Su, Tefnuit, and Emergency Teleport. Bait out his one back-row with my Tefnuit, gathered another Tefnuit from my deck, made Atumus to special summon a random Level 6 Dragon, and E-Tele for Krebons to Synch into Void Ogre Dragon. ZERO HAND CARDS! Void devoured REDMD while Gaia Dragoon pierced Alexandrite. Now he only has a Gaia Dragoon left. He took some time to consider and decided he had no chance against the mighty black dragon from Premium Pack 14.

GAME 3: Nothing special until the point where I made Gaia Dragoon and Void Ogre to kill his REDMD and Emerald Dragon. Now, the dude has a Gaia Dragoon left on the field while I had around 3000LPs left. I read a Monster Gate in hand as he contemplated on the fact that if he should gamble with the risks. It was a situation of do or die and personally I want him to go. LOL! He searched out Tefnuit using Seal of Gathering previously so I knew he wanted to bet on the Volca-Finish. Everyone was watching the game as he made more obvious nervous expressions. I was holding Hanzo, no negate for me. Eventually, he decided to play Monster Gate and the fuck he got a Nebthet out! I was ready to scoop but instead of popping my Void Ogre and ramming Gaia against Gaia, he went and popped Void Ogre after that ended his turn. I drew into REDMD! The game was pretty much sealed. Remove Gaia Dragoon for REDMD, REDMD’s effect to revive Void Ogre Dragon, summon Hanzo and search out Ninjitsu Art of Super-Transformation. Set and battle. He drew and scooped. 

XOO

TEAM RESULTS

Player A (Sean): O

Leader (K’yde): O

Player B (Izzat): X

(1-0)

ROUND 2 (Chain Burn, Sorry I Forgot Your Name)

Rogue decks aren’t a problem for me since they play weird and I can cope with weird plays. Of course, it was fun to actually encounter a Chain Burn deck in Malaysia. Final Countdown, Chain Burn, and Exodia decks were one of those decks that people never remember. It is quite relevant in team tournaments if you ask me. They don’t use staples and, damn, they create a whole bunch of confusion and throw a majority of people into disarray in the scene. That alone spells entertainment. Whatever the fuck it was, it’s time to duel!

GAME 1: He summoned Card Car D, set 5 back-rows, draw, and ended. I Storm and he chained, I took a whole bunch of damage and he seemed very pleased. But what my opponent isn’t aware of is I’ve trained myself in the wise words of Grandmaster Baha of Merlion. “I Don’t Exceed Every Turn, I Exceed One Turn And People Die.” Yup, he wasn’t very pleased after that.

GAME 2: He started off with the usual Card Car D-Set 5 plays and ended. I drew into my Royal Decree. I summoned Hanzo for fun, searched out my art of stealing, attacked for 1800, set Super-Transformation and Royal Decree before ending. My opponent went into Card Car D and he seemed very pleased once again. I End Phase Decree him. Now he doesn’t seem very happy. Did some Hieratics stunts and went for game to obviously bait of opponent’s Swift Scarecrow. Repeated the process for another turn and in the end Chain Burn burned itself. TROLL AVOIDED!!!

OO

TEAM RESULTS

Player A (Sean): X

Leader (K’yde): O

Player B (Izzat): X

(1-1)

ROUND 3 (Chaos Dragons, Sorry I Forgot Your Name)

GAME 1: He started off with Future Fusion while I am here sitting down enjoying the view of my Koa’ki Meiru Drago. This game is not worth mentioning. The usual MY-OPPONENT-TOP-DECKS-DARK-HOLE happened while I was in the process of beating the shit out of him with my Drago. Three strikes in and yet again no home-run with Drago. Let’s go to Game 2.

GAME 2: The dude made a clever play by spamming his REDMD, Lightpulsar Dragon, and BLS while I have Hanzo and double Super-Transformation set. So, I took all his boss monsters and showed him all of my boss monsters. When I Special Summoned Lightpulsar he was shocked as if he has seen a ghost. In horror movies, if you are scared the ghost usually eats you like nobody’s business. The same happened here.

GAME 3: At this point both my teammates scrubbed and the dude I was playing against got a little too cocky. I was pissed. No joke. He played Volcasaurus on my REDMD, I gave him a taste of his own medicine and taught him how to use Lightpulsar Dragon. End of story.

XOO

TEAM RESULTS

Player A (Sean): X

Leader (K’yde): O

Player B ( Izzat): X

(1-2)

Both my teammates went through a series of unfortunate events.  Izzat was constantly outplayed by his opponents. They simply had the right cards to overcome his plays so there is nothing you can really say about it. In Sean’s case, he met BLS during late game and was utterly disgusted by Card Destruction. I don’t know what to say. I was frustrated no doubt about that but a part of playing in a team means you win as a team, lose as a team, and learn as a team. No member should point fingers at the others or play the blame game. No point wasting time on unnecessary issues. No hard feelings and all you need to do is put your head up high while preparing yourself physically and mentally for the next opportunity you get. Basically, Team Dark Stallion scrubbed their first team tourney. Life sucks at the moment! Last but not least, I would like to congratulate Team MYM for qualifying. Congrats to Andrew Ng (my idol), Shahmir Roshidi, and Zack Teoh for playing a day’s worth of good games! Once again my idol has proven why he deserves my respect and admiration. LOL! I’m looking forward for our next attempt in team tournament and damn it we will take the seat home next time! Until then, remember to play smart, fight hard, or go home a loser. Thank you for stopping by!