Good Lord, where to even begin?
In the weeks preceding our regional, I went through my usual "OMFG what do I play?!" phase, just like always. I settled on playing Donovan for singles pretty quickly, so it became a question of what to play for teams. From the start, I had to try to figure something out that wouldn't interfere with Jacob's Seong-Mina or Scuba's Zi Mei. This meant I'd have to find something that I could play without the use of Chester's Backing, Blood Runs True, Rejection, or Ira-Spinta - tough for me, especially since one of those is my favorite attack. I waffled a lot, and decided to give Nagase a shot, but dragged my feet with getting to work on her. I was then going to run Ibuki, but without the BRT and only running two Rejections. Scuba convinced me to give Donovan a shot off of Death, so I built that instead.
Thursday - Airports Suck, and Why Half Days at Work are Fun
I wake up Thursday, head to work, and do the usual stuff. Finally, eight o'clock rolls around, so I go to pick up Scuba at the airport. His flight's been delayed half an hour, so I'm anticipating a twenty plus minute wait, but somehow the flight makes it on time, so I'm only there ten minutes tops. We load up and begin to go to the apartment, taking a detour on the way to the top of the friggin' parking garage (apparently, "EXIT" means "NOT THE EXIT"). Finally get out of the airport, check the mail, then head to McDonald's, which is surprisingly busy for a Thursday night. From there, it's the homestead, and I build Death Donovan.
However, in testing the deck against Scuba's Zi Mei, I couldn't get comfortable with it. Too much of the deck depended on what the opponent did; lots of anti-commit effects, negation, things like that, and the attack lineup was solid enough (and very lulzy with Unorthodox Training, which allowed me to T2 Scuba one game). It just didn't feel right, though, so I abandoned the deck entirely, and decided to sleep on it.
The problem here was that I didn't get any sleep at ALL. So instead of sleeping on it, I just thought. I decided to say "the hell with it" and play Tira off of Air, like I'd been wanting to do all along. I'd have to sacrifice iSpin, but if I borrowed some copies of Path of the Master, then much lulz could be had with Knight Breaker and Shredding vibrato's Death Enhances, not to mention the huge pump for Menuett Dance. Chaining off the Tag Along would be impossible, so I'd need Flames of Fame to clear it, though it could also clear attacks (how convenient for vibrato) and draw cards. About half the deck built itself by virtue of being Air, and the rest I went over a little in my mind until I had a general idea of what cards I could play in it.
Friday - Teams, or How Jacob and I Got Deported but then Somehow Got Approved for Credit Cards
Everyone starts waking up at about nine, since the store's supposed to open at ten. I take a nice shower (I love hot water <3), toss on my one-of-a-kind GI Joe shirt (pics are forthcoming), and we load up the car. Stopped at Whataburger on the way, where we learn that Scuba is NOT on a boat, which makes me doubt the guy's chops; I mean, c'mon, how do you go anywhere without your swim trunks and flippy-floppies? Next was lolcoincidence as we have to stop at Kinko's for Brian to print up some copies of Sandbag for the Sandbag Challenge, and then we were off! I somehow managed to hold back my story of how one of the managers from my old job got arrested for stealing to pay off his drug dealer, and we talked about Guitar Hero, learning to play music, and the World Series of Video Games. We stop to grab drinks at RaceTrac, and zoom zoom, it's off down Nostalgia Lane as we go through my old 'hood to the venue.
Unfortunately, there's some issue with the store not being open (I think it's because it was a delivery day for them?), and we can't get in to set up or anything until eleven...which sucks, because it's currently 10:25. We stand and watch the guys at the auto shop a little further down play soccer, and then Brian and I get into pop culture reference mode as I see a copy of Betty and Veronica Digest right by the door ("Why do you thnk Jughead wears that funny-looking crown all the time?"). Shelby, April, and Jacob show up a bit later, with Ron, Justin, and Froo (this is your name now) from the Austin crew in tow. We greet each other, get stoked for the event, and laugh about random stuff until the shop opens up. Then we're in! April's not playing, so she and Brian run the comp and the Sandbag stuff, and generally take care of the organization of the whole shebang (someone's gotta keep Brian in line, right?).
We sit down and start prepping our decks for teams. Scuba's is already done, but I have to find the cards for mine (no real issue, since I always have the bones of an Air deck amongst my five deck boxes), and Scuba wants to redo Jacob's deck. Jacob cuts Chester's so's I can run them, and I give him my BRT to use in his Mina (he only has one of his own so far). A few other things get shuffled around, and I finally finish finding the cards/making cuts/sleeving my deck. We fill out our decklists, Scuba takes the captain's seat, and I get handed the extreme responsibility of choosing a team name (Shelby is singing the McDonald's theme song for the longest time, haha!). So I just go with the first thing that comes to mind. Therefore, tri-symbol Seong-Mina, Air Tira, and Evil Zi Mei come together to fooooorm...
Round 1: Applying for a Visa vs. Lamb Chop (Shelby, Ron, and Chris)
I think we win the die roll here, and when the characters are flipped, we're looking at Zi Mei (Chris), Starter Ken (Shelby), and Raphael (Ron). Scuba pairs me with Chris, and Shelby throws down with Jacob, leaving Ron and Scuba to go at it.
Game one, Tira performs like a beast. All of my China Boxes hit the field hella early, as well as Lord of the Makai and a Flames of Fame. The kill turn is already set up pretty quickly, so I just gotta check something. So I manage to fail a block on something by checking a Menuett Dance! Hahaha. Anywho, I manage to block everything else, and my turn opens with an Ichi no Tachi, a Tag Along, and a Vibrato. I play the Ichi, clear with Flames of Fame, then Tag Along the Menuett back. I play it, and Chris blocks the original, eats one, Rejections another, and eats the last. I'm clearing these with Tira as I go, so I've got one card in the card pool, then go into Vibrato, clearing his last card in hand with King of Fighters, and it's game.
Game two, I side in Destiny to fight off his BRT. Problem is, he gets two BRT early, and no Destiny or Billiards for me. However, my draws are still pretty decent, so I toss out a bunch of cards to set up with, including Path of the Master. His next turn, Chris drops double Lynette's, copying my PotM and Chinese Boxing. He's got a Chester's on the board, which will negate my only Chester's, and I only have an Owlface in my hand (hey, spammable difficulties are spammable, and the last two cards didn't have blocks anyway, so nyah). He drops one card, Fury of the Ancients, then multiples and turns PotM sideways. I scoop since I have zero ways to not die.
Game three was the most fun, since it was a lot of back and forth the entire time - Chris almost won once, and so did I (haha, double Rejection). Unfortunately, time gets called just before he ends his turn that left me at 2, so we end in a draw. I flip the top five cards off my deck to see my next hand, then immediately wished I hadn't: Ichi no Tachi, Knight Breaker, Midnight Launcher, Menuett Dance, and Vibrato - one of each of my attacks, and Chris has two cards in hand =/
Jacob lost his first game with Shelby, and their second went to time. Scuba won his first game with Ron, lost the second (Death Puppet FTW), but won the third, so overall it's a wash.
0-0-1
Round 2: Applying for a Visa vs. Bye
We so TOTALLY 3-0 this one xD
In the downtime between matches, Chris plays the Sandbag Challenge, but only sees, like, one attack, so he only deals about ten damage. So I figure, why the hell not give it a go? It's Legacy, but whatever; I pull Tira out and go to town. I manage to set up about four foundations turn 1, and then start attacking turn 2. I play out Menuett Dance three times, and crank out a total of 55 damage by the end of turn four, putting me far in the lead.
Round 3: Applying for a Visa vs. someone (I forget the team name...I think it was Bastrid)
This one is Froo, Sage, and Justin, fronting rare Basara, Astrid, and another character who slips my mind. I'm paired with Froo's Basara, and Astrid comes for Mina (I think?). Froo gets a fricking godhand opening of double Beautiful Nightmare, TWoP, and another foundation, along with a very techy Tower of Remembrance - Encounter, so things are off to a rough start already xD I manage to bait out one of the Nightmares with Chester's, allowing me to get Kabuki Artist and Flames of Fame on the table, along with Lynette's copying a Nightmare. He plays out a couple of foundations, and I Nightmare the important one (No Memories). He has to commit Basara and Nightmare to pass the checks, though, so I'm in luck! I've lost a little vitality, so I lead in with double Ichi no Tachi, which he takes, and then a Vibrato after clearing them. He flips an attack for the block, so he loses a lot of health. However, he starts attacking me now, TWoPing me down to one card on one of his attacks (I'm an idiot and forget to Chester's the TWoP, sigh), which I eat (TIME TO BE JOLLY, HEEHEEHEE!). I open with a Menuett, play it, and multiple, and that's that.
Game two I side in my two Soul waves, and pray that I see them. This time he gets two TWoP early, so I know he can go off whenever, but he doesn't draw any Nightmares, so he has to use Basara to keep my Chester's in check. Nobody attacks for about 4 turns, so there's lots of stuff on the board when he goes to attack with Reppa. He TWoPs most of my hand away, but I somehow drew into a Soul Wave, so he ends up tapping out most of his board. I partial the attacks and live with about 12 health. He's locked down, so I start nom'ing his health with Menuett, then play the amusing Gloomy -> Jolly -> Gloomy loop of clearing, healing, then Flames of Fame'ing to clear, clearing, etc, finally dropping him down to six. But I can't finish the job! He draws nothing but foundations his next turn, so I'm in luck when I get double Ichi, a Breaker, and Vibrato. He blocks the Ichi (clear with Flames), eats the Ichi (clear with Tira), blocks the Breaker but then can't do anything about Vibrato.
Scuba wins his game against Justin (who were you playing, dangit?!), and Jacob and Sage have...timed out on game 1 xD Mina has a phat ass, dood.
2-0-1
There's some weirdness with pairings here, since there's so few teams, and we end up playing against Lamb Chop again O_o
Round 3: Lamp chop Redux
This time, I go against Shelby (DEAR GOD NOOOOO), and Jacob goes against Ron. Scuba takes Chris on ("Are you ready for hot Zi Mei on Zi Mei action?!" "YES!").
Games one and two are pretty much identical. Shelby's Ken deck is deceptive in nature. Yeah, you can say "O, it's just Starter Ken" all you want; that's where it starts. It's a feckin' mill deck that abuses the ever-loving PISS out of Antisocial and Ken's E to mill the opponent out, while Independent Operative, Chester's, etc keep him alive. His deck is larger than most (80-ish cards?), so it's a "kill him before he can set that crap up" thing. I've played against it many, MANY times, and it makes me want to put a bullet in my head. Srsly.
Anyway, he set up his bigass wall of control, and somehow I managed to get it under control just enough to sneak in with Menuett and Vibrato a few times under his vitality gain. No offense to Shelby, but against that deck, every game sort of blends together =/
I think the only difference is that one game he had one Antisocial out. I definitely remember game two's end, though, in that I'd sided in Soul Wave, knowing I'd see them and get them off. He Antisocials on an Ichi no Tachi, and I draw a Soul Wave, cycle, then draw ANOTHER off the other four cards I draw; I discard them both, tapping down all but two of his cards, which I immediately start locking down with Chinese Boxing (no Bust a Cap shenanigans this time!).
Scuba wins his game, and Jacob and Ron draw (I think).
3-0-1
So now we're in the finals. James and Lin from the Austin group showed up at the last minute, so Brian played on their team while April ran things (she's THA BOSS...I saw her sending faxes and everything!).
Finals - Applying for a Visa vs. Thank You (or was it I Don't Know?)
The only thing I remember is that I get paired against Brian's Astrid deck. I *think* Lin was playing All Herr (All Your Base Are Belong to Herr, lol), and I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that James was playing his Hilde deck (don't quote me on this, because I really don't know).
I've played against Brian's deck before, so I know what stupidity I was in for. STOP PLAYING MYSTERIOUS STANCE, **** YOU! Anyway, I sneak a win in early on game one ("Why does everyone keep destroying my Quest for vengeance?!" xD), but game two is a loooong, back-and-forth game of cat and mouse, where I eventually manage to sneak in under his guard with Menuett/Vibrato shenanigans.
So we end up winning teams, claim our trophies and prizes (a ton of promos from the regional kit, plus what Brian bought, plus a box each of Set 12 (Jacob and I get Shadowar, while Scuba goes for SoulCal). Decent pulls were had (I somehow manage to pull both of Yi-Shan's SR attacks, which Jacob may want, since he likes Yi Shan), and I trade James and Lin for their foil Cursed Bloods (bwaha, I get a full set at the end of teams!). From there, it's time for a break!
Next time - Double Dragon, my first game with Sage, and the lulz that were had at Hooters!
To be continued...
PART TWO
At some point I get my first game with Sage in. He's using his Astrid deck from teams, and I'm using my Tira, also from teams. His deck appears to be based off of Fire.
We get approximately ONE game in, because we both spend our turns setting up our boards. Sage ends every turn with, like, four cards in hand, and since this is Astrid, eating a single one of her attacks as a Reversal is gonna sting like no other. So I just keep playing foundations xD Scuba is watching now, and a few other people, and I continue to set my board up amidst "Is this universal Fighting System of Universal Foundation System?", "grey wars", etc comments. Doesn't bother me until I draw into a hand of three attacks and someone (cough) tells me I should attack Sage. Given that the attacks are two Ichi no Tachi and a Knight Breaker, yeah, that ain't happening. I refuse to let him eat a couple piddly attacks, then block and Reversal me with three cards in the pool. So I play a few foundations, then end my turn.
Sage calls me out as I start to draw up, saying he's attacking on his next turn, and I reply with "good, because I'm attacking you NOW!" or something stupid/cheesy to that effect xD Anyway, I've drawn into a Menuett Dance now, which is enough to eke out a very tasty win, as I have a Path of the Master out. So now the fun begins - I start out with the double Ichi, which he eats, then the Breaker. He blocks, and attempts to Reversal, forcing my first of three Inhuman Perceptions. I've drawn into another attack, so I play the Launcher I just got, which he blocks, then attempts to Reversal, forcing the second Inhuman. By this time he's got about four ready foundations, plus Astrid. I play out a Menuett Dance for 10, checking...Menuett Dance. OUCH. I tap out almost all of my board, keeping that last Inhuman ready. Anyhow, I multiple it out, he blocks with his third Fire Shadow in a row (urgh) and he goes for the Reversal, his last card in hand. I negate it, and thank CHRIST it's a Pommel Smash, because now he can't block the 17 damage multiple copy coming straight for him for exactly game. Phew.
And, of course, he'd checked, like, a BILLION weapons (closer to thirty, I think), so that Pommel Smash would have not only saved him, but eaten a giant chunk of my vitality. Urk.
Now we're in this downtime part, where people break up into groups and stuff. I start futzing with my stuff, getting my Double Dragon deck ready, while Shelby does the same. I can't remember exactly what the deck is supposed to look like (odear), and I start stuffing new stuff in it, too (Torn Hero, ha). Final deck is about 76 cards - a few more than I remember, to be honest.
Our original Double Dragon team was the retardation that is Air Cody plus the now-banned Talbain. Sadly, Donovan won't work quite as well, but he's my favorite character, and does very similar things anyway. We come up with the super epic team name, soooo we're off to the races! =D
Round 1: In the Box vs. Good 'gief (Justin and Ron)
Justin is playing Domination Zangief, using the old "face-up in momentum" 'gief attacks to mill and burn; Ron is playing Promo Tira. We win the roll, and I go first, dropping Assassination Arts, a foundation, but then failing my next card due to checking an iSpin. Justin tosses out a vast Resources, so we're off to a bad start already, given that he can speed up his building a bit with it. Shelby plays out Powerful Style and Whereabouts, and Justing drops a Grappler with VR. Ron plays out Chester's and something else (I don't remember if he got his LostMems out this turn or his next one), and it's back to me. This time, I drop White Gi, Lynette's, Cursed Blood, and Red Lotus, so I've got some decent board position. Justing drops both of his attacks, which end up in his momentum, and so the burnfest begins. I drop some random foundation with Lynette's (which is copying VR). Shelby leads off with a chain of attacks headed straight for Ron, starting with an Overhand Throw, then a Strike Heads, straight into a Criminal Uppercut. Between the two of them (and Tira, d'oh), Ron lives with about 1-3 health (I wanna say 2, really). He now drops Yoga Mastery and another foundation - without Cursed Broken out, we're offically boned until we take out Tira. All I managed to get out next turn is double Mysterious Stance and a Red Lotus - I'm drawing very badly, not getting any of my power foundations, though I'm sitting pretty on two iSpin...just gotta get that Yoga committed!
Justin managed to stuff ANOTHER of his attacks face-up in momentum now...unfortunately, a second burn attack. Shelby isn't really drawing attacks now, so we can't put Tira away yet, and they're both attacking Shelby now (smart choice, haha!). We manage to fill Ron's card pool with Yoga bait when Shelby tosses out a Final Destruction, but Justin taps out for a block, and Yoga is STILL ready. GAH. Anyway, their united front eventually overwhelms Shelby (ping damage, noooooo), and then eventually myself, as I only lasted two turns on my own (one more and Shelby would have been back in). Ron's excellent staging area of Chester's, Yoga, Charismatic, and Lost Memories definitely manages to get around my ability to control the game and Shelby's insane damage output, leaving Justin to slowly kill us, one milled card at a time xD
We end up getting a bye the next round, so we sit and watch April and Jacob (Awesome Go Awesome, being comprised of Seong-Mina and SR Ibuki)'s match with Ron and Justin. This one ends in a draw, I think (I may be wrong, as they may have gotten April down), but time is caled as they're about to take out Jacob. However, Jacob proves just how much of a magnificent bastard he is with a very good No Memories baiting Chinese Boxing on Ron's attack, then Rejection'ing Ron's attack. They're confident they can kill him on the next attack, forgetting (just like everyone except Jacob) that his Kabuki Artist is ready and he has another Rejection in his discard pile. They can't finish his last four health, and I give Jacob a massive high five for the flashy blade work (yeah, I went there, Brian).
The store is now closing, so we pack it in and decide to head to Hooter's for dinner (is it me, or do we always end up at Hooter's every time we do a major UFS event?). We almost miss the turn due to SOMEONE'S navigating in April's Canyonero (coughjacob), but we make it anyway. Everyone piles out, and so the twelve of us head on in (Ron, Justin, Froo, Scuba, Jacob, April, Shelby, Chris, Brian, myself, and James and Lin, who showed up as a last minute surprise). The hostess is actually really hot, but, sadly, she's the only one, as all of the other waitresses are way too skinny, andare forced to wear shorts that are about four sizes too small for them (so what little wasit they have spills out over the top, which just looks weird). We start ordering, laughing about everything under the sun, including the baseball team at the next table over, the guys playing pool, what's on TV, etc. I accidentally grab our waitress' ass (I SWEAR, I didn't mean to; I was stretching and didn't know she was right there behind me and to my right as I turned), which was awkward. She refuses to let Shelby drink unless someone else does, so April bites the bullet, leading to my asking why there's a ziplock bag full of ice in the pitcher =/
So we eat, drink, and laugh there for a good couple of hours, ending in napkin basketball that spanned the entire table and reminisces about Worlds ("So, yeah...we're really busy, so if you want to talk to the manager, just let me know"). As we head outside, some girl in the next room over is just STARING at me as I walk by the little window thing, but I pay her no mind as I instead check out the hostess again xD
Outside, we decide to finish Double Dragon finals at Shelby and April's, so we break and head out. At this time, we confirm that Shinji's on his way, and we stop by the crib to drop some stuff off and so I can grab my phone charger so can text ze girlfriend =P
We make it to Shelby's (I forget what Chris and I were giggling about in the back seat, but ****, those were some good gummy bears), talking about how lulzy Ken is and how I was going to jump onto the boat the guy in front of us was towing, and so on. Double Dragon finals end up being Chris and Froo vs. Justin and Ron; meanwhile, April, Jacob and I watch the Newlywed Game (HAHAHA, that black guy's reactions were THE BEST), Brian spends like, an hour trying to help Shinji navigate, and Shelby...goes to sleep (I hate you). I spend basically the entire time texting, too
O, and we finally see Justin's crazy-ass foil test card.
Justin and Ron end up winning by DQ, as Chris and Froo both have Bitter Rivals in their decks (d'oh). Prizes are divvied up, and about this time Shinji makes it there with Jay and Ronlin (please tell me I spelled this semi-accurately), who were both really cool. Everyone's tired as hell by the time they get there, though, so I think Ron and Justin had gone to sleep, and I was basically a zombie sitting by the front door. We pack up and leave with Shinji in tow, occasionally stopping to let him catch up with Luke and R2
Brian, Scuba, and Chris head to Wal-Mart to pick up stuff for tomorrow, so I stay home and enjoy someone complimenting my Koolaid xD I give Shinji total access to my Set 10-12 stuff, so he comes up with his Mina deck at some point in time here (turning down my semi-decent Astrid deck in the meantime, haha). Everyone gets back, and so I crawl into bed and finally manage to get some sleep somewhere around 3 AM.
Next time - Singles, Legacy Highlander, and how donating a dollar to charity when asked can save you from getting slapped!
. I final confrontationed everyone to hell XD
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