Hey everyone, sorry for not having posted earlier, life has been getting in the way in ways I didn't really care for
First of all, I'd like to repeat what I had said in my post after I got home from Nats, thanking everyone who was at Nats and everyone who wasn't. I was shocked at the posts that had been put up supporting me before the Nats had even started! Steve did a wonderful job at hosting the event, and Phoenix Games was a wonderful place to have it in. The level of hospitality shown was fantastic.
Friday was a little difficult for me, for reasons that those who know me already know about and those that don't don't need to know about. So when I left Colchester in the afternoon to go to Leicester, I could have been in a better mood, to be honest
, however, the company I kept in the car were very helpful in that they managed to sit through 3 hours of my crappy music (except for the Street Fighter Theme Remixes, but who doesn't love them?
) until we got to our hotel. I got a call from Sam, one of the residents at Leicester and a good friend of mine not long after we'd sat down and I'd cracked open a bottle of wine at the bar (again, those who know me know that thats probably the most posh I'm ever actually going to get!), inviting me to go out for a drink down at the local pub. Me and Kyle decided to go, myself thinking that I'd gone away for the weekend and that I wasn't going to spend it sober. After jumping through cheap Jaegerbombs for an hour or so, I racked up the courage to go up and sing karaoke, making a total fool of myself, but loving it nonetheless. (**** you, Kate Bush and Enrique Iglesias...)
Having woken up feeling like a truck had hit me on the Saturday morning, we went down to Phoenix Games in order to start Nats, which was a pretty daunting task at the time
. But I soldiered on, and started playing. There were a total of 6 of us playing in Nats from Colchester, who were playing the following:
Myself - Donovan:. Kyle - Victor:. Oliver (my younger brother) - Zi Mei. Paul (Theo) - Felicia:. Jonathan (Crazy Elf) - Guy: Dan (Nemesis) - Nagase:.
We'd all been playing our decks for a while now, so we were all fairly confident with our playstyles and decks. At about 11AM, the tournament started (forgive me if I don't know forum names, but I do know real names/nicknames
) My rounds in swiss went as follows:
Round 1 vs. Naffy (please tell me I got your nickname right, we spoke quite a lot over the weekend, and it'd be really embarassing if I didn't :|) playing King. Win 2-0
I'm actually extremely thankful for this game, as I was really worried about being hungover and a little off that I'd come across wrongly, but he was very helpful in making the game as fun as possible and making me feel much better after having had it, thank you very much
Round 2 vs. Jason playing Nagase:. Win 2-1 (I think)
We'd played eachother a fair few times in the past, and the last time we played in particular ran on for a very long time, but this time we had a real blast with I think 7-9 Blood Runs True's at the table at one point (Lynette's Shop included)
Round 3 vs. Dan playing Akuma::: Draw 1-1
Again, I'd played Dan a lot in previous tournaments (and more often than not lost, I'll mention), but again, we had a really good time playing, despite the fact that he was playing Akuma
(Sorry, Akuma's a bit of a pet peeve for me
) Couldn't deal with Cutting Edge in the final game, I had a one time chance to kill with a Plasma Beam, but Cutting Edge stopped me, making the match a draw.
Round 4 vs. JJ playing JJ - Win 2-0
It's always quite fun to play against someone playing as themselves
Donovan most certainly does not like being cancelled, I'll tell you that much! Pommel Smash was most certainly the most useful card in this match. (As it was in most of my matches, in fact)
Round 5 vs. Felix playing Bishamon - Win - 2-1
Heard a great deal about this deck at the beginning of the day, being over 100 cards large. I'd looked at it and thought 'I really don't want to have to play that' thinking of all the horrendously long games from Worlds
, but there I was. Again, the person on the otherside of the table helped in making the game much more fun than it could have been. I'mm not sure if mill decks expect it if you half-mill yourself with draw power
I figured that if I don't kill him quickly, I'll be milled regardless of the speed of which I do so. Luckily, that attitude seemed to work
Round 6 vs. Kyle playing Victor - Loss 1-2
Wow, last round, first time playing one of my own players
Normally, this would happen a lot faster and a lot more often, including at Worlds, where Kyle and I had to play eachother within the first couple of rounds. I got taken unawares by a Mentally Spike loop in one of my games, and Darkness Bladed on another, which meant that I'd probably have to face Kyle again in the top 8. Little did I know how far up I'd have to play him!
And so, after swiss, the top 8 looked like this:
Kyle - Victor, Dan - Akuma, Myself - Donovan, Baz (madeofwin) - Bishamon, Kevin - Seong Mina, Ben - Heihachi, ??? (Apologies for not remembering) - Zi Mei, and Jason - Nagase.
I was pretty impressed and horrified at the same time that 3 of the people I had played in swiss had gotten into the top 8, meaning that at least one of my matches was bound to be a rematch. After the swiss had passed, I tried my best to organise as epic a dinner as I had at worlds. And I must say, it worked, although a lot of us were very tired from travelling and playing, so it was probably the best thing for it to wind down and chill out a bit. We ended up going to an all you can eat Chinese buffer with 30 people (which, while a smaller number, was a higher percentage of the full attendance, so I think that counts
) We had a great laugh, and the hope was that we would all go out for drinks afterwards, like we did at Worlds, but, understandably, everybody was pretty tired, so a small group of us ended up going out, although, unfortunately, a couple of the guys were underage, and there were bouncers on every door, so we couldn't really manage that either. So we ended up going back to my hotel room with a few bottles and just chatting until 1-2AM, which was great fun, by the way
On the Sunday, we went back to Phoenix, ready to play in the top 8. My first pairing was against Ben, with Heihachi.
Top 8 vs. Heihachi - Win 2-0
Having heard about this deck mincing through my friends, I was a little nervous to say the least. Early game 1, he threw out Neo Deadly Raves' at me for 12 damage a piece, which was really quite scary, although I suddenly realised why I liked having Holding Ground in my deck
. After I took more damage than I care to mention, I was lucky in pulling out all my Amy's Assistance's, Cutting Edge's and Holding Grounds' at once. Game 2, his luck seemed to be against him as he didn't attack me for most of the game. Twin Plasma Beams managed to catch him in the end.
Top 4 vs. Zi Mei - Win 2-0
With this match-up I groaned a little, I must admit (After all, she did wipe the floor with me at Worlds). However, I could not have thought for a second how different this deck was from Paul Bittners
. 3 Words: Unrelenting Fire Aggro. I kept having Leg Slashes and Midnight Launchers after Midnight Launchers thrown at me every **** turn. The highlight of this game was definately Game 2, when he threw out 2 Fury Of The Ancients at me, having to blow up his staging area to supply the Multiples, I had to use Cutting Edge on every single copy in order to survive, which left me on 4, with him being left on 1 by my previous assault. He supplied himself 2 Stand Off's and an Amy's, while I set up a little, having drawn no attacks. My next turn, I drew a Charismatic and an Ira-Spinta which took out all his damage reduction for kill.
Final vs. Kyle playing Victor - Win 2-0
To be honest, as nervous as I was (Kyle has a high habit of beating me all the time in playtesting
) about this fight, I couldn't have asked for a better opponent than one of my best friends. Either way, I would have felt like a winner (even though I would have found it harder to lose to Kyle than I would have done anybody else initially). For those who want it, hopefully a video of the finals is being posted at some point soon for people to watch. Game 1, Kyle was struck by a terrible pang of bad luck, checking a Darkness Blade on his first card, while I got really good luck with Cursed Bloods, Aquakineses, BRT's, and Spinta's early game. Game 2 was a lot more frightening when I had realised that I had left myself open to be killed in a similar fashion to how I was during swiss, a Mentally Unstable Spike loop. However, Kyle didn't have enough cards in hand to kill me, and so had to use Victor in order to get one. Luckily the Tag Along in my hand stopped that from happening. Now that he had tapped himself out, I could even the playing field a bit with Ira-Spintas' and Tag Along loops, playing my damage reduction at the same time. The game lasted a good 20 minutes before he finally caved to 2 Kuzuryu Reppa's and a Plasma Beam, leaving me the victor. (See what I did there? ;p)
So that was Nats, and bloody brilliant it was too
I'll be posting my decklist onto the deckbuilding forums as soon as possible for people to see, including the slight change between Worlds and Nats (which didn't actually make any difference in the end...). But one thing I'm most definately proud of is the fact that I won with a deck that actually attacked over the course of the game. I didn't build a fortress around myself before attacking. I was the battering ram instead, which I enjoyed, and apparantly, worked. The final games of official Block 3 were a blast, thank you all very very much
Henshin-a-gogo Baby!
Joe xx
shame i didnt get a chance to play with you over the weekend (ooh err missus) but i promise you we will have an epic match some day, you as you and me playing something that breaks patriot games, champion cards carnage ahoy!
