This is my first time attempting a tournament report so bare with me.
Around 6 Friday night I bail out of work a few min early in order to get goin to Lubbock, being a 6 hour trip from Dallas I wanted to get started as fast as we could. Myself (Shelby), my girlfriend (April), Steel (Jacob) and MegaGeese (Wakeen) set out to go pick up Sage (Marshal) from Denton just a few miles north. We arrive to snag up Sage and as seating arrangements get in line, it was realized that the 3 larger people (no offense guys) Geese, Sage, and Steel were sitting in the back seat of Aprils Toyota 4Runner, this fact made me laugh as Geese was playing the part of ***** in the seats and that seat belts could only be buckled with the aid of an opened door. With that said we were off, I am a easy sleeper so I attemp t to doze off for the majority of the trip as the 3 in the back talked about combos that I couldn't help to get drawn into and give my own feedback so no sleep for me.
We arrive at the hotel at 1:30 in the morning and get situated in the room, April and I took the bed, Steel took the other bed, and Geese and Sage took floor spots on opposite sides of the room. As April blacks out, the rest of us proceed to do finishing touches on our decks, My Fio (choas/air), Steel's Talbain (all), Geese's Lu Chen (water/good) that seemed to switch back and forth between Ukyo one too many times in favor of Banana Raid as a favored kill card with face down card discard. But what about Sage you may ask? Well since most of his cards were in South Carolina he was hard up for cards. He first attempts to make an evil Ibuki deck with little to no resolve, but then comes across on how he wants to make a void deck, with Akuma. Happily, I'd brought along my Friday Night Fight kit, so lots of Akuma stuff was had, as well as my Ken deck, and with Geese's crazy assortment of cards we had him squared away in almost anything he wanted to play. I got out all my cards, told him to go through and go nuts with anything he needs, just don't touch Gill or Fio .
Next morning we wake up at what felt like an extemely early time around 8 or so. Myself and Steel go get breakfast as everyone else got their stuff together, took showers and whatnot. Sage reveals he's playing a Void Akuma with Heel Snipes and Spiral Arrows, and I never thought twice about it.
So we arrive and at the convention and prep our decks, and as we do, a heated debate goes awry and one guy open hand slapped (very hard I might add) another guy. This lead to his disqualification and a quit exit before the cops were to arrive.
Deck Check
My Fio (air/chaos) - very simple, Fio's form, anything that would gain momentum to stash my opponents hand into his, her own agenda to pass checks, and spikes and ookies with counter the assault to power them up more.
Steel's Talbain (all) - Very fun deck to play against, except when you get caught unaware of what hes doing; Dark Force, Monster Lariot, Bitter Rivals, and build around you till it doesn't even matter anymore. "They just lay back and accept it"
Geese's Lu Chen (water/good) - Something very different for Wakeen, a 6 -Handsize and no order in sight /gasp!!! But very effective with the simple fact that given any number of face down cards in your card pool make it very hard to pass checks.
Sage's Akuma (void) - Well well this little deck, made mostly of stuff thrown from other decks, but oh Jesus was it effective, I truly am a believer in Heel Snipe+Akuma's and Spiral Arrow now.
Game 1
Win Vs. Zhao Daiyu(chaos) by Jeremy from Abilene 2-0-0
Very fun guy, we had met once before at our Arlington meet when he was playing Guile and I had Ken. We laughed about first pairings, rolled for first (I won) and we proceeded to play. First thing I played was a Destiny, of course an eager Zhao was there to hack the check, but with a feline spike in hand i quickly discarded that, made the check, and went on to play a L.O.T.M and a Kabuki Artist as well, i was able to spike in very early on and win. The second game wasnt so lucky with the Destiny but did manage to get use out of Willfull from the sideboard and went on to win. a very good sport we hung out with his crew quite a bit though out the tourney.
Game 2
Win Vs. Jon Herr(water) by I cant remember 2-0-1
Sorry I forgot your name but you were really cool. Anyways a very back and forth game, first game he just anihalted me when i had expended my hand with no way to fill it back, Whoops. Second game I Spinta'd like it was getting banned the next day, controlling the big problem he had out: 4 - that's right, count 'em 1,2, 3 - 4 battle prowesses, I knew if that didn't go he wasn't going anywhere. Last game I got out my L.O.T.M's really early along with Military Combat Arts and N-Type Humans so I emptied his hand and Spiked him.
Game 3
Win Vs. Promo Rock Howard(all/order) by I cant remember 2-0-1
What I do remember about him is that: we had played before, he had a blue shirt with chicks on it (birds not girls), and was really nice. The deck he was running made mine a hard game to play, when my job was to get cards out of his hand, and he draws one every time I play one, it makes it very hard for the math of it all. But both games i had managed, I-spins to kill problem cards, Her Own Agenda's response to make checking Spikes afterwads easy, and putting everything he had in hand to his momentum. So by this time I was stoked, 3 wins, no losses I'm on a roll.
Game 4
Win Vs. Astrid(fire/all/order) by Sarah from Abilene 2-0-1
Another of the Abilene crew and Jeremy's girl. This was the same deck she had played from teams in Arlington, or so I thought. She had made this deck an evil, evil thing filled with attacks, Path of the Master's, Bitter Rivals, and everything else that would make someone want to pull their hair out. First game went to her when I Heel Sniped as a reversal to a Pommell Smash, committed 1 of her Bitter Rivals, and got all but 1 card out of her hand. She politely took the partial damage after blocking, then hit me with another Pommell Smash, this one got pumped to the range of 21 damage, I had one high block, she Bitter Rivaled to a low and it was over. The next to I pulled victories out of my butt, congratulated her on the changes made and how crazy her deck had become.
And with that I was apparantly swiss champ, we had a break and after that went to top 8
Top 8
2xFio
Jon Herr
Seong Mi-na
Astrid
Lu Chen
Akuma
And I think Rock Howard
Win Vs. Fio???(chaos) by Rodney
LOL, I dont think anyone was ready for some hot Fio on Fio action, but here we were, there it was, and there it went. Don't know what happened to diversity for this tourney, but whatever. Both games he went for a Wicked Chew into a Checkmate loop with 2 L.O.T.M's, and both times he got stopped by a spike, my own L.O.T.M., and Kabuiki Artist that brought back the spike to be played. I was very lucky that i had blocked the chew, cause if not, it would have been my ass.
Top 4
Lose
Vs. Akuma(void) by sage
After a lose on Geese's part to Sage's Akuma, I got cocky and started to believe I had the event all out. What I didnt realize was the all out power of the Spiral lock down with Body of Souls to ensure I saw it every turn. This is how both games went with me grinding my teeth with nothing I could about what was happenning. Only thing I can figure is if I woulda ran Kings Games, Assassination Arts, and Make a Difference. He would have had to choose either Kings Games or Assassination Arts to commit with Heel Snipe. If he chose Assassination Arts, Kings Games would allow me to clear with Make a Difference before the Akuma E, and if he picked the Kings Games, then Assassination Arts would reduce Sniper Arrow to 0. And even then, he probably would have worked around it.
With that said Sage went to Finals with Akuma against Steven's Seong Mi-na deck, after what seemed like 2 long hours of play, Sage emerged victorious with 2 wins and a sleep deprived face. We retreated after prizes went out to Olive Garden with the Abilene crew for a night of drinking and food. Afterwards everyone went back to the hotel room and crashed within 20 minutes of getting back at 10.
Thanks for lending me all those cards by the way. Also, I have a couple of your cards I noticed, so I'll find a way to one of the tournaments and get that to ya.
