UFS HOUSE / Red Triangle Green Triangle Canadian Nationals 2009 Report
Friday evening we leave Dayton to head across the border to get our CanNats on. Jon is the reigning champ and hopes to defend his title with his character card. I go with Chun Li as I feel she is the best character right now, despite getting diversified at Path of the Master. Paul finally decides to give Evil a try at the urging of Jon and I. He goes with promo Zi Mei. We stop in Michigan to pick up Kirk Polka and continue our journey. This proves once again that if you stay with UFS House, you win character cards. Just like Omar before him, Kirk would end up winning a character card after traveling/staying with UFS house.
Saturday morning comes and after everyone registers, we only have 40 players. There was a lot of talk that the winner may not get a character card since we didn’t meet a 50 player minimum. I really hope Kirk gets his card as we still had 40 players and a really competitive field. Not to mention it was a National Championship event that has been awarded with a character card the past two years.
Now on to the matches, I have also tracked the records of the 3 others I traveled with below.
Round 1 vs. Ninon air
So my opponent flips over Ninon, which I quickly read because I wasn’t sure which version it was. I see that it is the promo which destroys form foundations. However, I have no form foundations in my deck, so she doesn’t do a whole lot in this game. The first game is pretty much one sided, I don’t take any damage while dispatching him quickly. For the second game, he goes to switch characters. I assume that he is sandbagging for Chun Li of course, but he just switches into the other Ninon. This game goes a bit better for him as he ends up hitting me a few times early, taking me to 12. Mid-game I start looping Ira Spintas and he is pretty helpless against it. He decides he is tired of getting spinta’d on his turn, so starts just playing one attack and then passing his turn. After two turns of this, I finish him with a spike.
W 2-0
Post match thoughts – It’s always nice to get that first round win. I learn that Jon, Paul, and Kirk each won, and that Kirk and Paul even beat Chun Li decks, so that helps me with diversity, it was a nice start to the day.
Matt 1-0
Jon 1-0
Paul 1-0
Kirk 1-0
Round 2 vs. Andrew Olexa air (the character, not the person) piloted by Jesse Cervini
Jesse’s deck was built very similar to mine as we had pretty much the same attack lineup, and just a couple of foundation differences. The first game goes well for me as I am able to hit his Olexa hack with a Willful and finish it quickly. For game 2 and 3 he goes with Chun Li and beats me up with Hoyoku-Sen. I get some Spinta action going early, but mid-game he starts dropping Seal of Cessations to cancel my Chun Li response. I can’t seem to get the pieces out to get around this or to prevent him from using his Chunners response and that proves to be the difference. Good match Jesse, and I hope to see you at US Nats. We need to have a rematch.
L 1-2
Post match thoughts – Losing after being up one game always sucks, and Mike Lowe informs me that he won, so I’m already a game behind in the Chun Li diversity race. Paul informs that me that he played against Chun Li again in round 2.
Matt 1-1
Jon 2-0
Paul 1-1
Kirk 2-0
Round 3 vs. Zi Mei evil piloted by Paul Bittner
Great, I have to play one of my teammates already. Paul and I always seem to get matched up at events (so far 3 out of 3 tournaments this year – MI regional, PotM, and CanNats). We have played this matchup dozens of times at home and I usually come out on top despite Zi Mei’s commit ability. Game 1 and 2 are over pretty quickly. I take the first one really fast after he failed a check early. He kills me on turn 2 the second game with Zi Mei multiple nonsense. Game 3 is a bit more of a drawn out battle that I end up taking in the end. It wasn’t as epic as our match at PotM but this was still a fun match, which is at least good, all things considered that it was a teammate match.
W 2-1
Post match thoughts – Paul is not too happy that he had to play me already and that he is now 1-2. He also had to face three Chun Lis in the first three rounds, which sucked. The leading Chun Li wins again is at 3-0.
Matt 2-1
Jon 3-0
Paul 1-2
Kirk 3-0
Round 4 vs. Sakura all
Game 1 is taking a while, as I am keeping our staging areas nice and small with Ira Spinta. He comments, “I’ve never seen a Chun Li deck spinta lock like this” and decides that he wants to concede and move to game 2. Game 2 he hits me with the Dark Force/Turn it On combo on his second turn. I respond with Chun Li after the turn it on and Ira Spinta his last ready foundations into his momentum, hoping that he will fail and that his Turn it On will be for not. He doesn’t fail though and proceeds to put most of his deck into his staging area. After he gets 20 or so foundations down there, I decide to just move on to game three. Early game DF/Turn it On is nasty. For game 3 I side in my Seals to give me another way to stop Turn it On. However, he never gets to play it as I do my usual shenanigans and finish with the ever popular feline spike.
W 2-1
Post match thoughts – I breathe a sigh relief after the brief scare of the second game of this match and then get excited when I hear that the undefeated Chun Li finally lost. So now there are three Chun Li players sitting at 3-1.
Matt 3-1
Jon 3-0-1
Paul 2-2
Kirk 3-0-1
Round 5 vs. Seong Mi-Na order piloted by Jeremy Ray
Another PotM rematch. Jeremy was my only loss at PotM, which caused me to get diversified, so I am ready for some revenge. His Seong Mi-Na deck is an absolute monster, and all the naysayers of SM should see this one in action. Game one turns out to be the most epic match of CanNats for me, and will remain one of my favorite matches of all time.
Here’s the short version of the match – we like to play Ira Spinta and Willful is badass.
Here’s the long version - He gets some early control haxx out. Soon after he goes for an Ira Spinta which I half block, I follow with my own Spinta which gets Amy’s Assistance’d down to 1. He picks up the Spinta and hits me again. CL – 14, SM – 33. I get him with a Willful’d Hoyoku Sen for 8 damage total due to him full blocking one and partial blocking another. SM – 25, CL – 14. He Spintas, I half block, go to reverse with Spike, he BRTs, I Willful again! He takes all of it. He picks up Spinta and repeats, I block for half again (**** throws!). SM – 9, CL – 10. I Spinta him on my own turn. He is afraid of what may come next, so he takes it all. At some point we each cycle. CL – 10, SM – 5. We each Spinta a bit more, leaving him at 1 life. CL – 8, SM – 1. He has two cards in hand going into my turn and three foundations ready I believe. I am hoping to draw into another Ira Spinta or a multiple to finish him, but instead I only get one attack – Zi Mei’s Wheel Kick. Well it’s 1 damage and that’s all I need so I toss it and commit his board. He says, “If this thing kills me, I’m going to be really embarrassed.” I say, “Do you has high block?” He does of course, he’s Jeremy Ray afterall, and hangs on to his one life. Jeremy breathes a sigh of relief that he survived it and decides it’s time to get this game over with. He spintas me twice more and I block both, leaving me at 4. He goes for Spinta again to finish me off. He has 3 foundations ready including a forethought. I go to block, needing a 5 to survive. He uses forethought so that I cannot pass the block, but wait! WILLFUL strikes again! I Willful the hacked block, passing the check and surviving at 2. He curses, plays a BRT, and ends his turn. I only have 1 foundation left now after all the spinta-ing. CL – 2, SM – 1. I play Hoyoku Sen, he BRTs, but I have yet another Willful to pass the attack and win the game. By the end of the game I had hit him with 6 Willfuls, simply amazing. Man am I glad that I maindecked that card. For game 2, I bring in my entire sideboard – 4x Rejection and 4x Seal of Cessation. Early one I Rejection block his Spintas to get some breaker 2 action going. I do some crazy awesome magic like Willful a block, reverse with Feline Spike, and then still Tag Along his ability afterwards all on his turn. I end up getting him to 13. However, he keeps up the steady of diet of Spintas and brings me down to 6. He hits me with another couple of Spintas, leaving me at 2, but he’s out of attacks. However, he BRTs his own foundation and draws into a Tag Along. He uses that to pick up another Spinta, needing to check a 5 to pass it. He hits the 5cc, but I have 2 rejections waiting for him to survive it just as time is called.
W 1-0
Post match thoughts – holy crap that was close. I was so happy to come away with a win out of that crazy match. Meanwhile, Jon was starting to falter, and Paul was starting to pick it up after not having to face anymore Chun Li decks.
Matt 4-1
Jon 3-1-1
Paul 3-2
Kirk 3-0-2
Round 6 vs. Akuma evil/fire piloted by Tuesday (Mark from the UK)
After coming off such a high note in round 5, round 6 was a big let down for me. I royally screw up during the first game and kill my hopes of winning a second character card. Mark’s deck was an absolute beast and he ended piloting it to a perfect 6-0 record and the swiss champ title – congrats Mark. I had the chance to play spoiler to that perfect record of his, but completely blew it on a really dumb mistake. During the first game, he continually committed my character on his turn with Manifest Destiny. After I had finally built up a big enough board to deal with his insane amounts of control and had enough tag alongs to beat his Akuma ability and his SoCs, I went for the kill. I play Ira Spinta. He enhances with Akuma to commit 5 of my foundations. I respond with Tag Along with sets off a ridiculous response war that leaves a lot of my board, and almost all of his board committed. I have to Tag Along again due to his negation and he is not happy about it. He uses Bitter Rivals to see my hand and says “oh ****, I think I’m dead.” I say “yes sir you are” and gladly discard my Hoyoku Sen to keep my Feline Spike after seeing that he has only two mid blocks that he could play due to symbol chaining. I will commit his bitter rivals with my Feline stun, so I’ve got this game in the bag. Oh wait, like an idiot I forget to use my Lord of the Makai to get momentum. I got so excited because I thought I had just won, and was going to finish one game up on the other 2 top Chun Li players, that I just simply forgot to use LotM. So anyways, I leave him at 4 and he easily kills me on his next turn with my board decimated.
L 0-1
Post match thoughts - The bonehead move described above would lead me to much drinking later on in the night and the birth of team “Red Triangle, Green Triangle” so at least something good came out of it. Two other Chun Li players are at 4-2, so we know it all comes down to tie breakers at this point. Since I finished at the top table for the last match, I have hopes in my tie breakers, but it was not my day, as once again I get diversified with Chunners. Meanwhile, Paul managed to win his last 3 rounds and bounced back to a 4-2 record, making it into top cuts at 5th. Thanks to the diversity, Jon also makes it in at 7th.
Matt 4-2
Jon 3-1-2
Paul 4-2
Kirk 3-0-3
We decide to go watch the UFC fights and get some drinks. We are accompanied by our Michigan friends and some awesome Canadians. I went on a drunken rant about how we couldn’t get water at Sonoco and wanted to go to this place that had a sign that looked, at least to my poor eyesight, like a big Red Triangle with a Green Triangle on top of it. It turns out that this place was Canadian Tire, which are everywhere in Canada, and the green triangle was actually a maple leaf, much to the humor of my Canadian friends. Thus Red Triangle Green Triangle is now a part of UFS legend and is here to stay.
Though I was disappointed in the stupid mistake I made to keep myself out of top 8, overall I was pleased that Jon, Paul, Jeremy, Andrew, and Kirk made it, as they are all friends of mine.
Top 8
Akuma 6-0
Andrew Olexa 5-1
Chun Li 4-2
Mignon 3-0-3
Chun Li 4-2 - diversified
Chun Li 4-2 - diversified
Zi Mei 4-2
Seong Mi-Na 4-2
Jon Herr 3-1-2
Gill 3-1-2
I watched all four top 8 matches. Each of them was very close and in each one, the winner of game one lost the match, crazy.
1. Akuma – Mark vs. 8. Gill – Shajir
This one was epic to the extreme with the ultimate come from behind victory pulled out by Shajir. See his tourney report for the details.
2. Andrew Olexa – Andrew Olexa vs. 7. Jon Herr – Jon Herr
Champion fight! This was another good match that went three games with Andrew eventually taking it with Chun Li games 2 and 3.
3. Chun Li – Mike vs. Seong Mi-Na – Jeremy Ray
Jeremy comes back from getting destroyed in game 1 to putting the lockdown on games 2 and 3.
4. Mignon – Kirk vs. Zi Mei – Paul
Another close match, but Kirk pulls it out with his risk taking play.
Top 4
These matches weren’t as close as the top 8 matches.
2. Andrew vs. 8. Shajir
See Shajir’s report.
4. Kirk vs. Jeremy
This is a rematch from top 4 of PotM, which Jeremy took last time. This time it was Kirk’s turn. Jeremy checked all 4 Ira Spinta in game 1 and Kirk ended it quickly. Game two ended with the glory of Kirk going Heel Snipe, Feline Spike multiple 2, and then another Feline Spike needing to check a 6, hits it, and fully multiples it for the win. 53 damage in one turn will usually get the job done.
Finals
2. Andrew vs. 4. Kirk
Game one had an insane finish. Kirk lead off his kill turn playing Feline Spike and multipled it out. Andrew blocked and it reversed with Feline Spike. Kirk then ate the first spike and played Turnabout to Andew’s spike twice! Andrew had another six 4H8 attacks coming his way, which was way more than enough to finish it. Game 2 was extremely quick with Kirk catching Andrew with a Spike and Andrew only having 1 midblock in hand.
Congrats to the 2009 UFS Canadian National Champion – Kirk Polka!
Props
Kirk – for keeping the win in UFS Car, and for being the first person to win a character card event with Air.
Michigan – having 3 of the top 4, and winning it all, proving once again that the best meta is the Michigan area.
Ohio – having 2 of our 3 players in top 8, and one mistake shy of having all 3 in like last year.
Shajir – for pulling out that crazy win against Mark.
Mark – for making the trip from the UK to play UFS, I’m glad we got to have the match, and hopefully someday we can repeat it on your home turf.
Foxhound – it’s always good to see you guys, we’ll do it again at Nats.
Jay – for running the event and providing some extra prizes.
Kin – for the good UFS talk as always, and for signing your release form while still waiting on your teammates, hope to see you at Nats.
Paul – for playing Evil finally and making the top 8 despite the discouraging start against three straight Chunners decks.
Jon – for repping your character again and keeping your top 8 streak up.
Jeremy – for that MAXIMUM CARNAGE cartridge you found for me, and for that maximum carnage match we had in swiss. I had just enough matt kohls magic to pull it out, not sure if I will have any leftover for next time.
Andrew – for making the finals with his character card, and for only selling out with Chun Li in the top 8 and top 4, haha jk. Also thanks for beating Mike again and giving me hope.
Brian/Garrett/Garrett’s friend (I don’t remember his name, sorry) – great times at the bar, and the RT/GT madness. See you guys at Nat/Worlds. Nice finish with the Alex, Garrett, getting tie-breakered out always sucks.
Nick – for getting diversified with me and for the good times all weekend. I hope you didn’t get too bored at the airport for 17 hours.
Slops
Me – for making a really dumb mistake and missing top cuts because of it.
Mike – for diversifying me, I guess we’re even now. Will the score be settled at Nats? Or will I have a new trick up my sleeve? Stay tuned to find out.
The Canadian team champs – sign your release forms and get your asset card already!
Subway guy – for throwing his sandwich and yelling a lot – according to Andrew