I'm so tired.
...
So, first of all, the event was awesome and it was fun. I suppose with that out of the way I can get to my terrible, terrible matchups in singles. I played a Good Hilde (with 3 random Cobra Blows FTW).
Match 1: Hilde vs. Hugo (Kenneth) L 1-2
I pooch because of two things: first of all, the reason I ran her was to be able to pull off the FTK at least ONCE... but at 38 damage it can't kill Hugo... Secondly, first thing he plays is a Fight or Flight. Rah, great start to my day!
My luck sucks, so I'm used to it. I use tons of reduction on an attack, he E's with Fight or Flight, I give it speed out the butt anyways and it pokes Hugo for like... 3. I get a momentum, and my glory moments are near.
He plays out foundations, and my turn pops around. I draw a Lynx Tail, which is yay. I Lynx Tail, use its E, he doesn't use his FoF now, instead waiting to see it it was really lethal. I E with More Machine than Woman and bam, commit FoF because of its effect. As much as I tried all I could do was pump it to 29 damage overall, but I pull it off next turn.
Sadly, more FoF's come games 2 and 3, and a Lynette's Shop (although I do question his choice for copying Amy's instead of Assassination Arts or Healer...) but I die. As in, I had no blocks in hand Kuzuryu and multiple, FoF kind of die. Woot!
Match 2: Bye
I told you my luck sucks.
Match 3: Hilde vs. Zi Mei (Roy) L 1-2
It's not like I didn't have enough Zi Mei's to test against (I PLAYED 6 IN FLORIDA ALONE), and it's not exactly a terrible matchup either. It is when in all 3 games FoF come in droves turn 1. So yay, look for More Machines, survive blocking and reducing, throw out an insanely fast, double printed damage attack and try the kill on the next turn. I do in one game.
Then I die! Woot!
Match 4: Hilde vs. "Lillith" (Stephan)
He didn't get the resource restriction thing right but I really didn't call him on it because well DUH, we're not making top 8 anyway so yay! I just explain some things about the game and open his eyes to the awesomeness of the deck, which is Scuba's Evil Zi Mei fronting Lilith. Game 1 takes forever (he dropped a No Memories turn 1, but didn't know how it could stop my character...) but I get it in the end. He says "I don't know, this character doesn't seem to do anything except milling, which I don't even know what that is but they keep telling me that" (lol). I say, knowingly, "Well, do you have a character in your sideboard?" and he answers, "Yes, I'm supposed to play game 1 with Lilith then switch to Zi Mei on the second game".
I'll say this: Stephan is a cool guy and he has a knack for the game, but you guys are douches for teaching him how to sandbag Zi Mei.
End of Swiss! I go nowhere, but sadly because I beat Stephan (****, I should've given him the win), he gets last place and the James Hata* card that was the consolation prize lol
Top 8, stuff happens, people lose, other win, finals is Hanzo vs. Ibuki in what people call a knock-down-drag-out match but was really mostly an Evil bore-fest, so I went to play SFIV tournament and got 2nd. I go back and they're still playing. I go through Scuba's binders for trading, and he'll tell you I took forever. I go back and they're still playing. I walk around, eat a muffin. Playing. Bathroom breaks, multiple. They're going at it.
By going at it I mean this was as intense as a chess match, which is basically what this was. Each had enough Chesters to negate each other's Chesters, BRTs as well and other goodies. You could drop a pin and hear it. Eventually at some point after we played Pokemon on DS, close to 10pm, Ibuki gets it after siding into Soul Waves to commit Hanzo out then bringing on the pain. Hilarious.
That night we all go to Scuba's house which for the record is gigantic. By "all" I mean 12 people, and by "gigantic" I mean we all fit there comfortably. Obviously he doesn't have 12 beds, but couches and random padded thingies that could double as beds were provided. But who cares about beds in a UFS event? We didn't even go to bed until like 3 or some crap building and testing our teams decks.
Last minute, instead of Air Temujin, Eithinis decides to play the same deck he played in singles, cut down to a smaller size (Astrid). Patrick (no username, nicknamed Chibi) was going to build a Mitsurugi with Ivy's attacks, then after realizing the awesome of Ivy/PotM he went that route. Completely themed Ivy deck + Path of the Master = Raging Gnomes of death and destruction. Or well, Pommel Smashes of death and destruction, whatever he got to draw. I last minute (and by last minute I mean that after building three different decks and changing characters twice) went with a 76-card Anakaris deck. Honestly couldn't find what to take out, I wanted it ALL. Eithinis tells me, after I told him I was worried about how much the deck stalls, "You just need to win once, then you can stall as much as you want", to which I respond, "That's the problem, that's all the deck does!"
I went with it anyway.
Match 1: Team Carnage con Queso vs. Team Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers (WTF?) L 0-3
I see Zi Mei, who will completely shut down Anakaris, magically win the dice roll (my luck sucks, rolling a 2 on a d10, but Scuba rolls a 1 lol), so I know our Astrid is more than capable of handling Zi Mei (Scuba) in most cases (I hate Pommel Smash as a reversal). They think about it and pair me up with Spinta-loop Seong Mi-na (JB, no idea what his username here is), and well Chibi's Ivy plays Death/Water Donovan.
Ah, Spinta-loop Mi-na, how I remember thee. It was a deck I was familiar with, as I had built it in the past, so I was well aware of what I was facing. All calm, cool and collected I proceeded to stall the game by using my R to gaing a hand size and eventually (by the time my team mates were done sadly losing), I mill out from, well, having a 12 hand size. I shouldn't have a 12 hand size but hey my non-hand size gaining reduction was in my momentum for some unexplicable reason. lol
Awesomeness to be noted. He was committed out and had blocked a throw when a Tiger Fury came at him for 23 damage. He tries to Rejection it and FAILS by 1. Awesome.
The he proceeds to full block by checking a 6 to block with a BRT. ****.
I exhaust next turn, after having cycled like 4 times lol Yay for 76 cards.
Oh well, we're like, oh it doesn't matter, we'll get good tie breakers if they are swiss champs, we still have 2 more rounds, alright, let's go, who do we fight, RAWR, WE R SPARTA!
Match 2: Team Carnage con Queso vs. Team (insert name here because I forgot to take note of it) W 2-1
Oh my ****, a win. But now on to the details. I roll a 2 (crap, seriously?) but they roll a 1 (also, seriously?). Eithinis warns me that he has no CC hack protection so asks not to be paired with Akuma at all. Chibi says he can take him (uh after all, he needs to make 3's repeatedly lol). So I pair Akuma (name unknown) vs. Ivy. Tagrineth, team leader, thinks about it. He argued later than I would be able to reduce all his attacks to 1 damage and his deck wouldn't be as effective, which I suppose it's true, so he pairs me up against J (Awakenz) piloting Tag's Hilde deck in hopes of HILDE SMASH.
At first I was like "Oh, crap, honestly? A Hilde? Who plays Hil... oh yeah... right..." It was insanely similar to my build, with the exception of White Magic for momentum gain and he ran Lightning Horn and a few other slight nuances but mostly similar. I was worried when we were going to the first turn, when he played stuff like Amy's and Healer and I go "yay, how dumb, I'm going to die" then I look in my hand and realize...
"...holy crap, my entire deck is chock-full of answers to Hilde!" I proceed to play Assassination Arts, Amy's and Holding Ground. Next turn he plays Shadowar, Glanzende Nova and other stooffs. I draw and play Criminal Past, Holding Ground, Stone Mail, American Made... it could not have been a more devastating hand against a Hilde. Of course, I never see my Paths for awesomeness with High Plasma Beams (after that game with Mi-na where my Plasma Beams would get no damage pump even with a decent staging area lol), but after J overextends without noticing that Assassination Arts was ready, I get a Tiger Fury off next turn for game.
Game 2 I have no clue what he sides into, but I side into my ultra-secret weapon... Rashotep, 4 One-Handed Crocodile Grasps and 3 Tag Alongs. I knew from tesing the Hilde deck REPEATEDLY, that she has absolutely no chance against Rashotep, and that was basically what happened. He had no Tag Alongs in the deck, but I couldn't feasibly kill him either, so I had to bait him as much as humanly possible. So in one of his attacks, I didn't use his E to blank Hilde. He reduces, I do nothing, he reduces, I do nothing, he reduces, I do nothing, Hilde second E, I do nothing, Hilde first E, I do nothing, move to block step, American Made to help full block.
This was the break I needed. With a Crocodile Grasp and Tiger Fury in my hand, I am dead set on ending it. I play Crocodile, check nicely, Rashotep E blanks Assassination Arts. Next E is Crocodile's Stun:2, he does Cage Arena, I do Ka Technique, he does nothing, I use TWoP to discard 3 cards, since I had two Glares to do the rest. Surprise, surprise, two of those were Big Cyclones. Yay for last minute ouchies.
I decide to discard the rest, taking a HUGE risk, but he had no more in hand. He takes the damage, and I blank Cage Arena. So he can't use Cage Arena, the Amy's and his only two reductions are Hilde's and a Shadowar, with a Healer. I let him do his thing until the Big Cyclone was pumped by Hilde, then use my own Assassinaton Arts to bring it to 0. I take the second Cycline and Tiger Fury for game.
It was probably one of the most one-sided mismatches ever, and I didn't even know it was until I saw my first hand. This gets us the match, as Astrid got a win.
We're like OMG we can make the top 2 (it was going to be top 2 because there weren't many teams). Alright, who's next, we'll mow them down!
Match 3: Team Carnage con Queso gets a bye and pooches a bit (BYE)
****. Well, a bye counts as a win, but not for tie breakers, so at this point we're hoping for a miracle.
Team I Am Not A Yoshi, who has a 1-1 record and no byes, faces Team Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers. If Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers win, I Am Not A Yoshi will have a worse record before tie breakers, and with Tag's team being the only team with the same record as us, and since we beat them and we got beat by the swiss champs, our tie breakers would get us to top 2.
And it happens! WE TOP 2! First time I top anything (please, no jokes there lol). I get a Life life counter and a sexy-ass Shadowar mat.
Yay, we have to face Unfrozen Caveman Lawyers and we HAVE TO GO because we had a 3 1/2 hour drive to catch a train! We start anyways, and I pair me up with Donovan (F ZI MEI) and my teammates lose at the sights of double Forethoughts and BRTs but I try a little further. I did OK for the while I played. But we REALLY had to go.
Pros:
Awesome people, and I actually like the relatively small turnout of 20 people since I got to hang with them a lot closer than before in SAS
Topping any UFS event is awesome
My Life life counter
My mat
Trading for 6 Heel Snipes among other awesome shite
Having John take us to the train and we made it just in time!
Being able to get monies help for the way back
Steak and Shake... had never been there
Cons:
My clothes were wet (long story) so I had to wear the same clothes for FOUR DAYS
Our train cut our finals game short, mainle because SOMEONE was late.................................................................................... Tag lol
Awesome tourney guys.