We had ours last night, decently fun time. The top 4 was..

1. Chaos Jin (Me, yay for winning)

2. Earth King

3. Fire Paul

4. Fire Heihachi

We had our first of 2 store tourneys in Calgary on Saturday Nov 22 (2nd will be on Saturday the 5th). We had 18 players play, all finished all games in the 4 game Swiss section. (1 of the top 8 players had concert tickets that night and had to forfeit his top 8 appearance so it became a top 7, one guy with a bye in the round of 8).

I will post my own detailed tourney report ASAP (hopefully tomorrow) and decklist . I will post one detail now though, although my block 4 vendetta began against Astrid, and to an extent King, I have now decided Heiachi deserves more of my attention, and to a large extent I didn't give Hata the credit I should have immediately after the SAS. I never called him bad, but I now believe he is even better than I originally stated, I apologize for any instances where I underrated him.

Summary Results (off the top of my head but 99% correct):

Top 8, after 4 rounds of Swiss (1 character diversified, Chaos Heiachi was diversified by Fire Heiachi):

(4-0-0) Chaos Omar (sandbag into Heiachi) - piloted by Cal

(3-0-1) Fire Hata (Vik's version sans PotM and with minor tweaks) - piloted by Mark (winner of Calgary regionals 2009 w/ Felicia)

(3-1-0) Fire Zi Mei - piloted by Rob

(2-1-1) Fire/Good/Order Hilde - piloted by me/Garett/dutpotd

(2-1-1) Earth Sigfried - piloted by Tom

(2-1-1) Fire Heiachi - piloted by Devon

(2-1-1) Fire Astrid - piloted by Jon, guy who left for concert

(2-1-1) Earth King - piloted by Brad

Round of 8

Chaos Omar/Heiachi over Earth King

Fire Hata (bye) over Fire Astrid

Fire Zi Mei over Fire Heiachi

Fire/Good/Order Hilde over Earth Sigfried

Round of 4

Fire/Good/Order Hilde over Chaos Omar/Heiachi

Fire Zi Mei over Fire Hata

Finals

Fire/Good/Order Hilde over Fire Zi Mei

I ended up taking it in what was probably one of my most grueling events yet, the meta is incredibly tight, with very little separating any/all of the top 8 characters above and 18 vitality isn't that viable, I scratched/kicked/cried to hold on to every point in most all of my matches.

Some notes...

We had 2 Paul's in the tourney who didn't manage to get into top 8, one was out of the gate with a 2-0-0 record with a win over the Fire Zi Mei and didn't hold on finishing 2-2-0 for a top 8 spot...

Our resident Steve Fox player played Heiachi on the day and was the only player diversified (go figure).

No one played Cassandra?

The only duplicate characters of the 18 were the Paul's and Heiachi's.

The computer continues to hate me, pitting me against Astrid as often as 'in'humanly possible and pairing me up all the time (i.e. I have tie I play against players that had wins, etc.)

If you have any questions I'd prefer them be posted in my tourney report in the specified section of the forums.

- dut

dutpotd said:

Well of course, we live in a game where no one character truly dominates. Tournaments are being won and lost by James Hata, King, Paul Phoenix, Heihachi Mishima, Jin Kazama, Astrid, Hilde, the list goes on and on. We've seen a LARGE majority of the characters top 8 or top 4 tournies, meaning just about everybody is viable, though yes, it depends on the meta as well, sure.

Astrid is undeniably top tier, and will likely never lose that place (also, she just gained some mad support from SC). While she can and will always win tournaments both large and small, she needs a bit more set-up than most characters, IMO. As I've already said before, Paul Phoenix doesn't have a trouble with finding plenty of damage to push through, which of course, is Astrid's forte. If Paul doesn't have to worry about damage, it puts him that much in close competition with Astrid, because while Astrid can definitely supercede damage over Paul, Paul commits their resources, limiting their options AND making your attacks that much harder to block. Let's keep in mind, Astrid and Paul decks will be ran QUITE similarly with the main exception being Attacks and Assets.

Whatever the case, both are amazing characters, and if Astrid ever wins any championship that has a title to it, I won't be surprised. I'm simply saying if I had to choose between Astrid and Paul P, it'd be Paul P any day of the week. Astrid can get as many weapons as she'd like, she's still no stone cold stunna Paul P Gut Drill to the jaw boy! =D

guitalex2008 said:

It's obviously clutch in Paul, tho.

Shaneth said:

Zhao Daiyu loves it off of Chaos, if only because it allows for her support to become more than just jank.

Ottawa Store Championships aka Wait aren't you in Montreal why the hell are you in Ottawa?

Top 2 :
Astrid (Team Phail/Montreal's Martin "Cass" Cassista) / King (Ottawa's Marc Renaud IIRC) - Marc wins via Die Roll

Top 4 :
Jin (Danny Fung) / Paul Phoenix (Shajir)

Top 8 :
Target X's Tira. There was Mike Lowe with Cassie, Kin with Ivy, Sean Walsh (MTL) with Rashotep and uh... yeah I think that was it

i was playing jin off of chaos

...BM... said:

Edited.

It was a very good meta... I was a five check from winning against astrid... oh well.

I played all paul mainly for gut drill as the card is very strong and is really NPE with paul + paul's gi.

Thanks for the fun games everyone.

It was a blast!

You played well Mr Shajir, i was honored to beat you

Ending the swiss in first place, then beating Shajir in semi-finals only to lose the "official" title to a dice roll was well... kind of not what i expected. I was sure not to even make top 8.

Fun times with you guys, i enjoyed playing against you all. Let's make that soon again!

Likewise Martin...
Very good game...
Hopefully we have some more memorable matches in the future.

Very well played... Very interesting and smart choices in deckmaking... you always had that defence for my attacks when it mattered most although you should watch out for getting committed via For the money; As I was hoping you would commit your foundations so I could finish you quickly.

So it's pretty much appearing that Gut Drill Paul is indeed a decktype that will win consecutively

Saturday's Ottawa store championships was the first major event that I have ever attended, and I had a blast. Everybody was really nice and the atmosphere was awesome. I never thought that I would make top 8, so at the end of the day, I was pretty happy. I look forward to the next major event that takes place and seeing the same people in the future.

I look forward to being able to play the deck I had the most fun playing. ;p

srsly guise it was a great event with, as usual, great people.

MarcoPulleaux said:

He's a terrrible one trick pony and no one should ever play him ever.

>_>

failed2k said:

He is terrible for he strikes fear in the hearts of children.

I still did enjoy the fifteen damage reversal gut drill on my opponents second turn (he went first).

turn thruster(block)+gut drill+toughest in the universe (4 damage) + PotM .... and stun 2 + Paul's R.

I think my opponent was mesmerized.

He did mention something as to why I didn't play fire Paul when he my foundations on my turn one spill.

Yeah... I think that was at the same time as the T2 11 Damage Mark of the Beast on my opponent's turn.

failed2k said:

then i guess that means astrids a one trick pony as well and that must mean that shes terrible....i mean look at her she super bad lol

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

It is.

I mean I beat that Astrid deck... once. About a month ago.

Homme Chapeau said:

Grats to everyone in top 8. King and Queen of UFS, not surprising!!! Top 4 all 6hsers, low life is hard to protect

If Paul is a one trick pony then I'm a monkey's uncle...

Wish I could have flown out for this, you guys will ahve to keep me up to date on the next thing being held there (citys or pro tour or whatever).

And I agree 100% with Shajir, the meta is insanely tight and quite enjoyable.

I'm assuming this was without SCIV set 2 cards legal? Or if it was, did any of the new cards make an impact?

- dut

dutpotd said:

Set 14 not legal, but some cards were played in various non-tournament decks (for those who brought those). I can only speak for myself, but Yoshimitsu's burn support can start piling up the damage here and there.

Theres still a store championship in VA with all the new stuff most likely going to be legal as its not for another 3 weeks.....so well get at least a small feel for what the new stuff has to offer the meta once that comes

Da_ghetto_gamer said:

Shaneth said:

If i can find a way up there you can count me in....nobody right now in our playgroup drives and its a major problem if we do go though i could possibly bring up to 4 other players