This is James, from Austin. Lin (KawaiiMistress) and I decided several weeks beforehand to surprise everybody in Dallas by showing up to the regional. We weren't planning on winning, we really just went to hang out with the Dallas crew. We ended up doing pretty well, considering.
Now let me set the stage for a moment: Austin's play group is rather casual. That is to say, we don't play nor have access to many of the power cards and combos in the game (outside of legacy stuff). We build new decks using different characters every week, just to keep thing interesting. Some decks work great, others not at all, but its the experimentation that we enjoy the most.
With that in mind, I threw together a Juni deck for Thursdays team event. I built a Juni once before and knew she was pretty reliable. Unfortunately, I didn't have time to put together a deck for Lin, so she was going to sit out and I would just (hopefully) find a team that needed one player. When we got there, we met Scubadude who graciously offered Lin his All Herr deck. Brian, our most excellent host, decided to jump into the mix with us to create: The Gorgeous Team.
Juni held up fairly well overall. I eeked out a victory over Sage's Astrid deck (for which he would seek revenge the next day). I had Shelby's super-mill Ken deck on the ropes (1 vitality!), but time was called. I got spiked to hell by Jeremy's Guile deck. And finally, I got schooled in the ways of UFS by Scubadude's Zi Mei. Though he did destroy me, it was cool to see a true top-tier player in action. Meanwhile, Lin was eviscerating everybody she met (and loving it, of course).
We ended up getting second overall and then we went right into double dragon.
Lin and I came up with what we thought we be a devious combo of Hilde and Morrigan. Morrigan would reduce Hilde's attacks with rejections and then supply us both with a wall of control. When it came time to test this out we got a little too cocky and decided to start reducing one of Morrigan's attacks to speed things up. Only after wasting both our staging areas creating a 16 high, negative 12 Chattering Mandible did we realize that Hilde's ability reads "your attack." Oops
So ended our double dragon career shortly thereafter.
That ended day one's festivities. We all headed over to Hooters to chill. Scuba and I talked old school card combos and where the game was headed. He again offered to let Lin run his Herr deck in singles the next day, which left me with one deck to build.
After seeing some of the hardcore control setups in teams that day, I realized there was no way I was going to out-control anybody. My only option was pure aggro. Even though Hilde had failed in double dragon, I felt she still had potential. Also, I ended up getting 4 copies of dual-wielding that very day from Wakeen who was just throwing commons/uncommons at us (thanks man!). I threw in what I could, put together our highlander decks and called it a night.
Singles kicked off around noon the next day. My first match up was with JT from Abilene. He was running promo Morrigan, which you'd think would help Hilde out, but not if he waits to use his character's E after I've done the super pump. My deck fired on all cylinders here and ended things pretty quick. Overall the Abilene crew played really well, especially considering they'd only started a month prior. I fear this group once they get into the full swing of things.
My second matchup was with Sage (Eithinis). Our rematch. Today he was running Ibuki. As you may have read in his report, he copied my healer with lynette's shop on turn 2, and then got out lots of stuff to make sure i would NEVER use Hilde
I thought I could rush him on game two, but didn't get what I needed. When I told him that he didn't get a good look at my deck, little did I know he'd be getting another chance to see it later that day!
My third match was with Preston who was run the infamous Chun-Li. Lin managed to beat him, but alas I did not. We both threw crazy aggro back and forth, both of us on the brink of death, but his powerful styles combined with his rejections had the upper hand. I gave Preston my vote for best sportsmanship as we were both laughing about how wildly our damage/health was fluctuating.
Fourth up was Frew, a fellow Austinite, running Basara. I drew into great kill combo and managed to copy his ways of punishment first turn. Second turn was all she wrote. The second game was similar, though much more prolonged. We were mostly just talking about how enjoyable the tournament had been overall.
All was said and done and I was preparring to play my highlander deck when, somehow, I managed to get into the top 8, right at number 8. This came as quite a shock, but before I knew it I was squaring off against none other than Eithinis for our final confrontation!! Lin was very supportive, asking me to hurry up and lose so we could go get some food
I ended up taking the first game by re-readying Hilde with arrogant and insolent after Sage had burned all his control pieces on my first attack. The second and third games I wasn't as lucky as he got his uber-kill combo out on me (reverse flayer, midnight launcher, knight breaker, etc). It was still a great game and fitting end to our series of matches.
So I remained in 8th place and got a neat, spinning life-counter thing, some promo cards, a pat on the back, a hoist over the shoulders, a poison-tipped Katana, a...well, whatever I got it was sweet, thats for sure.
As I was doing this, Lin was making her opponents weep with her Promo Rock highlander deck. She ended up getting first place and a trophy to prove it! The Vega deck I would have played I lent to Frew, and he got second, losing only to Lin.
Overall it was quite a trip. We got to hang out with our Dallas buddies, meet a bunch of cool new people (Scuba, Sage, Preston, the Abilene crew), and have a great time in general. I just want to say thanks again to Brian (Nubian-God) for going to so much trouble to make the event truly shine. It was great, man.
I hope to see both you and Lin sometime in the future, or anyone else from your group, you all are really chill. My playgroup is pretty casual in itself, I just get to play a bit more competitively when i travel to tournaments.