Well, as everyone knows it was the Sheffield Regionals on 24th April. I'd like to say a big thank you to everyone who came and supported the event, there were still 18 players in the tournament even after I lost approximately 10 UFS players to the Yu Gi Oh Nationals (you know who you are.....traitors)

There was a broad range of fantastic decks and fantastic players, and whilst diversity was an issue as it always is in this kind of event, there were only three characters which had diversity issues, and only two players per character.

Interestingly there were no Akuma or Andrew Olexa decks in the tournament, and three of the decks in the top 8 cut contained no copies of Blood Runs True or Feline Spike.

Without further ado here's a breakdown of the top 8 in order of Swiss ranking:

1. Matt Hewitt (Chun Li, Darkness Spike)

2. Ricky Gopaul (Hanzo, Hanzokick)

3. Jason Purcell (Sakura, Sakura Spike)

4. Michael Hardiman (Kyoshiro, Order Aggro-Control)

5. Felix Hughes (Nagase, Combo Soak)

6. Kev Beadle (Mignon, Mignon Spike)

(7.) Michael Redhead (Mignon, Reversals) - and here we have our only casualty of diversity, by just 2 points and one place. Hopefully the 9th place prize of an SNK collector's figure softened the blow a little)

7. Jim Freeman (Alex, Power of the Punch)

8. Justin Parker (Seong Mi Na, Iros Spinta/Defender Loop)

The top 8 pairings for those with no numerical skill therefore pitted Matt against Justin, Ricky against Jim, Jason against Kev and Michael against Felix.

After some very close games and a hard-fought round, Matt, Ricky, Jason and Michael stood in the top four (just like in swiss - maybe I should have cut to top 4)

Michael had the remarkable achievement of knocking Chun Li down to 12 vitality which was a sight rarely seen during the entire day, but ultimately Matt's well known skill as a player provided him with yet another victory with no games conceded and placed him in the final. Ricky was the favourite for the match against Jason as Jason had only been playing for about 2 months, however the combination of multiple Feline Spikes finished with a high Plasma Beam earned Jason yet another victory and gave home a well-deserved place in the final.

However, after beating opponents left, right and centre with his Hanzokick, Ricky also walked away with the prize for the highest placed deck containing no Feline Spikes or Blood Runs Trues: A copy of Street Fighter 2 Special Championship Edition which plugs into any TV.

This left Matt Hewitt against Jason Purcell in the final for the title of UK Northern Regional Champion. Jason started off well in his games with multiple early foundations one game and several Seals of Cessation in the first two turns in game 2, but in both games Matt played his trademark combo of Darkness Blade + Feline Spike to deal fatal damage to a committed Sakura.

There are a few special mentions which simply must be given, and here they are:

Felix Hughes: The one man in the UK who can make me play like a complete idiot using his fearsome "Felix Hado", on the day of the regionals he entertained us all be making the cut with a deck which consistently stalled with White Gi in play until he was ready to play all four copies of 105 Rapids of Rage (or whatever it's called ) in the same turn for amazing overkill.

Kev Beadle: Previously known as an amazing sportsman and organiser for UFS, Kev has also proven his skill as an amazing player by making the top 8 cut in the first ever sanctioned event he played in.

Jim Freeman: For keeping his shop open as long as necessary for Matt's control to end the tournament (well, Matt was playing aggro this time but Jim kept the shop open for an extra hour for us anyway)

Matt Hewitt: Not so much surprising as unstoppable, Matt didn't drop a single game all day, let alone a round.....

Jason Purcell: Well done to our local player who has only played UFS for around 2 months and made the final in his first national level event. No more really needs to be said

Ricky Gopaul: Putting up with my ramblings about the game when we went out for a meal, and for putting up with my Vega deck for an entire game the following morning when I remembered I'd talked about it too much when I was half-asleep so I should back myself up by playing a game with it.

Lloyd Thompson, Matthew Repton, Michael Hardiman, Patrick Newlands: Found the best use for Assets of Power possible: In the finals I walked past their table and found them playing Go Fish with a full deck of Seals (" Does anyone Have Seal of Bedlam? Go Fish ").

So, congratulations to Matt Hewitt our new Regional Champion , thanks once again to all players who attended the event, and for those who made the trip from outside Sheffield I hope the event and the prizes made it worth the journey.

To everyone, I'll see you again at the Path of the Master Finals in Loughborough.

- Ross, UFS Tournament Organiser for Patriot Games in Sheffield

Speedsta said:

Hey! That was me playing Go Fish, not Nathan, I even won the thing and got the Giraldots and all the Seals, which I'll be taking with me to every UFS event I go to and introducing all the UFS players I can to the game.

Speedsta said:

Just to be exact because i like to, Matt only beat me 1-0 in top 4, which is a morale victory as he destroyed me in swiss 2-0.

*Sigh*....there's no pleasing some people

Fixed

go fish with seals is a asome idea

There are already Go Fish decks in Sheffield and Manchester. The infection is spreading!

Thanks for a great day out even though i lost to diversity. It was fun and your right the nineth place prize did lesser the blow abit. Hopefully I will see you all soon and if not i should see people at Path of the Master which is going to be a great event I think.

It was still the weirdest thing on Sunday turning up at Patriot and seeing everyone playing Go Fish! with seals the day after.

Sheffield was a great time, and combined with Tower of Souls (two boxes - two of all of Tira's Ultra Rares woo hoo), has really revitalised my UFS interest which is a great thing. I haven't been able to play in a non-local tournament for ages, so it was nice to stretch my legs a bit.

I do apologies to all my opponents (except the ones that beat me of course) for my somewhat slow deck. Almost every game I won was a horrendous grind to time. I won't be doing that again for a while. (Though it was quite good fun working on setting up multiple 125 Rapids of Rage, with only 2 cards left in my deck in the first game).

Congratulations to Matt on wining. His deck was definitely very neat and I must respect anybody running 8 1 checks in his deck. I knew what it did and I couldn't stop it (though I definitely made a mistake in my first game against him that might have helped).

My three main memories: The 125 Rapids incident. I was down to the dregs of my deck thanks to White Gi and manged to use Cool Headed to stack my deck so that I had all 4 copies and that was just enough to win. I actually managed that trick a couple of times, but the first was the best.

Playing one of the Hanzo Kick decks (the one that hasn't been listed here) and despite my opponent having Blinding Rage always managing to hit something with Shadowblade when the other copies were trapped in his momentum/hand/discard. Entirely by chance as well I might add.

My opponent in the top 8 saying something like "Wow, you are actually fun to play!" (I may have just fired off a sneaky rapids when he was out of cards - I certainly did that once). This of course implies Ross that nobody in Sheffield is fun to play, if it s such an unsual occurrance as to be worth commenting on : )

(I do have that Algol card you were looking for spare though).

I won't unfortunately be playing at PotM (I have a prior commitment at the same venue), though I will be there and have some decks on me if anybody fancies a quick game or two.

Philosopher said:

That's kind of weird, I'll ask him about it. I suppose one problem with Sheffield's meta is that when Matt and I build tournament decks they are often control, which means people build decks to try to beat them which are then equally not fun to play aggro against, etc. But I very rarely use my main tournament deck in any local games and Matt isn't in the shop very often so I'm not sure what your opponent was getting at? There is a predisposition to play top tier characters/deck archetypes in Sheffield so possible that may be the cause.

And I'll offer you anything I have for the Algol card, with the exception of my body as I generally charge more for that

I wasn't being deadly serious. It was just a nice thing to hear someone say. It may just be that I'm a wonderful human being. It also might just be that I was playing a different stle of deck with a few unconventional choices in it. I shouldn't worry.

And I will be in Sheffield on Sunday for VS, if you are around to trade or similar.

Philosopher said:

Lol, for one of the Algol cards I need I'll make a special journey to the shop : )