[Seattle] World Championship Qualifier Tournament Report

Introduction
Finally, a chance to write this report. I took notes every game on my phone to make sure I didn't forget some important details for this report. As I said in my last post, the qualifiers consisted of a double-elimination, best-of-1, seven round tournament. Participants were split into four blocks, A, B, C, and D. From rounds 1-3 you would play players from your own block with similar records. From 4-5 blocks A and C, and B and D were combined and lastly in rounds 6 and 7 all blocks were combined for the top tables.

We got there about an hour before the doors were to open for registration. There were already ~15 people in line, so we lined up. In the meantime we played a few games, warming up and I recorded some footage for the vlog that I will edit and upload soon. At one point I had to go to the washroom, so I had to walk past everyone that was in line. Next thing I hear is someone yell out "HERO!" and I turn around and a couple of guys were waving to me. I came over, greeted them, shook their hand and told them to say a few words to the camera for my vlog. They claimed to be my number 1 and 2 fans, which I don't doubt and I really appreciated their kind words. Shortly after coming back from the washroom, more people came up to me to say hi and meet me, which made me feel fuzzy inside. A bit after, they opened the doors to let us in.

We registered, got our goodie bag and wrote down our decklists on our sheets (which was tedious since we had to write down the whole card number, for example BT03/005EN Swordsman of Explosive Flames, Palamedes). The goodie bags were awesome, containing a pen, deck box, box for deck boxes, manga booklet and a Bushiroad catalogue. After this I just wandered for a bit, checked out the vendors, met more people, took my picture with Dr. K and got ready for the first round. Dr. K announced that they would be starting soon, and we lined up near the tables of our respective blocks. Then pairings were announced and we were told to sit down. After a brief opening ceremony, Dr. K announced the start of the tournament, with a resounding "STAND UP. VANGUARD!".

Round 1 - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Connor W (Nova Grappler/Nubatama)

I recognized him from the line-up before registering. He had a twin brother who was wearing an SFU shirt, which is a university close to Vancouver. Upon revealing his starting Vanguard (Turboraizer) I felt pretty confident going into the match, especially with such a solid hand. I got the Grade 1 Galahad ride, missed the second but just rode Gallatin. My hand allowed me to pressure him early with some rearguards, and he seemed to not have any so I took the early advantage in damage. He then rode Mr. Invincible and called two rearguard Stealth Dragon, Voidmasters, but with no boosters all he could do was poke my 9k Galahad rearguard which is what he did. I even let him hit with one at one point since my hand was cluttered with Grade 3's, but he didn't bother to use it's effect. Even though I didn't check a single trigger up this point, my full field compared to his booster-less one was enough for me to take the hand advantage, even after he healed twice. Eventually he just didn't have enough to guard, and at 5 damage declared no guard where I proceeded to double crit him. He took the 6th damage and I took my first win.

1-0

Round 2  - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Robert S (Pale Moon)

Second match, I get paired up against my friend that I roomed with. Small world eh? After an uneventful early game, we're both at about 2 damage. He rides Robert and checked the top card, but put it at the bottom more often than not. I rode Alfred calling another rearguard Alfred and a Grade 2 rearguard and a bunch of boosters. After a few turns of going back and forth, we both found ourselves with few cards in our hand and at 5 damage. On my turn I attack with Alfred for 20k, and he guards for 1 trigger to pass. First check, nothing. Second check, nothing. Disappointed, I attack with my rearguards and he guards with everything else that he has left. On his next turn he leaves the card checked with Robert on the top and attacks. I perfect guard and he indeed gets a trigger and adds the power to his Alice. Using up the rest of my hand, I guard the two other attacks. On my turn again, I attack with my Vanguard and he once again guards for 1 to pass, and once again I whiff. He manages to guard my rearguard attacks again and at this point I'm fearing for myself. On his next turn he draws, soulcharges puts the card on top to the bottom and uses Robert's megablast - one I had completely forgotten about. It was now my turn to guard for 1 trigger to pass. First check, nothing. Second check, nothing. Phew. Using everything else I had, including my intercept I survive but I am left with only a rearguard Alfred and my Vanguard. I draw into a Margal, and I do the only thing I can do with it. I soulcharge it to add the +3k power to my Vanguard Alfred, so it swings for 15k. With only 15k Shield in his hand I know that he has to guard for 1 to pass, but ends up guarding for 2 anyway. First check, draw trigger (of course my Margals would be together), draw, second check Critical Trigger. All effects were placed on my rearguard Alfred, which dealt the finishing blow. We both exhaled and shook hands and agreed that it was probably the best game we've ever played against each other. Glad he kept his good mood after such an epic game.

2-0

Round 3 - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Tim W (Royal Paladin)

I didn't know what he was playing until we flipped over our Vanguards and we saw that it was a mirror match-up. Going first, I got the superior ride to the Grade 1 Galahad and ended. He also got the Grade 1 Galahad ride and calls another one to rear. I give him a 5k for the rearguard, and I take the Vanguard. Next turn I also get the Grade 2 superior ride leaving me with plenty of cards to call as rearguards, including a 17k Gallatin column. Attacking with my lone rearguard first, he takes the attack. Guards the Vanguard for 10k and takes the Gallatin 17k attack (magic numbers!). He misses his Grade 2 ride and rides Gallatin instead, but has no other rearguards to call. I take the Vanguard, and on my next turn ride Alfred. With my available rearguards I continously attack him, giving me damage and hand advantage. If I remember correctly, he rides Palamedes and then calls another one on the side, also calling a Toypugal, but can't boost his Vanguard, making it easy to guard against. In the eventual end game, we're both sitting on Alfred and he has two Palamedes on either side. I Blaster Blade one of them, and swing for an easy 20k as I called a booster behind Alfred ready for SSD my next turn. Being low on cards due to the early-mid game pressure, he can't guard a 25k Crit 2 Palamedes at 3 damage, so he eats 2 damage. Eventually he just can't keep up in cards, and I take the game. He later tells me that he opened with 2 Palamedes and a bunch of triggers meaning he couldn't do much to counter the pressure. I wished him luck in future rounds, and I can't say I wasn't a little disappointed that I had to knock down a fellow Royal Paladin player.

3-0

Round 4 - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Stacy S (Narukami)

This game. THIS GAME. Probably the best and worst game of my life, and you guys will see why. I open with 2 Palamedes, 1 Iseult and 2 Grade 1 Galahads. We stand our Vanguards and I'm glad to see Lizard Soldier, Saishin. Going second I draw into another Iseult for turn, don't get the superior ride but ride the Grade 1 Galahad from my hand and call another one to rear. I end up hitting with both attacks but it turned out to be a bit of a misplay as next turn he rides Deathscythe, killing my only booster available to me. He proceeds to call two other Grade 2 rearguards, one with a booster. I give him 10k for the lone 10k vanilla (ugh) and take the other two attacks, in the process damage checking a Pongal (which will be important for later). I draw and ride Gallatin from my hand because I didn't get the Grade 2 Galahad in the check, but with no boosters other than Iseults (I've drawn 2 in my last 2 turns), and no other Grade 2 rearguards I attack with my lone Gallatin. Next turn he rides Dragonic Kaiser Vermillion, and then retires his 10k vanilla for another Dragonic Kaisier Vermillion. I thought to myself I can't believe that I might lose to this guy. At this point I'm looking at my hand and all I see are Palamedes, Iseults and triggers, while he as 5+ cards in his hand and field. I guard the best I can but end up taking some damage, bumping me to 4 to his 2 (I think he healed). Next turn I draw into yet another trigger and ride Palamedes, calling the other to rear. With still no boosters, I poke with my rear and Vanguard checking an Akane and Pongal. On his next turn he attacks, I perfect guard and take another attack for my 5th damage, to his 3. Right before I draw I thought to myself, "okay as long as I don't draw into my last Pongal in the deck, I can finally get some boosters for my Palamedes". And what happens? I of course draw into my last Pongal in the deck. With no other options left, I call 2 out of the 3 Iseults in my hand to boost my Palamedes and just call the Akane and Pongal, unable to use her counterblast due to no targets being left in my deck. 15, 19k and 19k columns against an 11k Vanguard. Delicious. I attack with Palamedes, which he perfect guards and I of course get no triggers so guarding everything else is ezpz. On his next turn he calls another booster and attacks me for 17k with his Vanguard. I have no choice and give him 1 to pass. First check, nothing. Second check, nothing. Phew. I guard everything else (including a 20k column with Djinn and an 8k booster with a perfect guard) and manage to survive. Meanwhile he's sitting pretty at 3 damage, and I draw into an Alabaster Owl. Left with a lone Pongal and two Palamedes boosted by Iseults, I use Pongal's effect to get SSD to my hand. Note that I ask him to cut my deck, and he said it was fine. I call the Alabaster Owl and the SSD and I know this is going to be my final turn. I attack with my Vanguard for 19k and he gives me 2 to pass.

First check.

Critical trigger. Without hesitation, I put all effects on the Vanguard.

Second check.

.

.

.

.

.

I could not believe what had just happened. There were about 15-20 people watching since our match had gone for so long and we were at the top tables. Everyone just goes "Wow...' and I myself are nearly speechless with what just happened. His damage checks revealed nothing and I manage to win the game. He then proceeds to show me a perfect guard in his hand and says "I probably should've used this". Yeah, probably. I just exhale and throw my hands through my hair in disbelief.

4-0

Round 5 - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Tony L (Nova Grappler)

I was surprised to see Nova Grappler this far up, so at this point I knew he was either a sack, or a legitimately good player. Gladly, it turned out to be the latter.

The game starts off pretty normal, although he did pressure a fair amount early on, and with a subpar hand there wasn't a lot I could do about it. Once again all my boosters decided to go and hide at the bottom of my deck, so I couldn't pressure him as much as I would've liked. I also had to do some "unnecessary" guarding because he kept targeting my rearguard Palamedes, but without it I wouldn't have any rearguards that could hit his Vanguard. I eventually get boosters, and with some clutch heal and draw triggers, I manage to stay afloat. He retaliates with some clutch critical triggers of his own, once again putting me in the danger zone. With some skill and some luck, he gets a Grade 3 to stand his Deatharmy column, which I can't guard and he takes the game. It was a bit of a weird game because I couldn't quite pinpoint why I lost. We both got triggers equally, but I guess what made the difference was my early game struggles to hit his Vanguard, (he also rode Brutal Jack), giving him early hand advantage. He seemed like a really friendly guy so I wasn't salty. I'd rather lose to a friendly Nova Grappler player than a Gold Paladin dick.

4-1

Round 6 - Bye

After calling all the names for the next round, I couldn't find mine. I eventually do at the end of the table by myself. A judge sees me and he says "HerO, you have a bye". I think what was more awesome was the fact that the judge called me HerO. The bye was a little disappointing because I did want to play, but I took this opportunity to focus for the final round.

"5-1"

Final Round - Gerardo R (Royal Paladin) vs. Michael R (Tsukuyomi)

Before the match started, I was originally paired with Tony L again. The judge came over, and completely arbitrarily switched my opponent with the person on the left who had a Bye, which turned out to be Michael. Because of this, Tony got the Bye, and actually got to Top 8 with it. This would've been fine, if my friend who had gone a legit 6-1 had not made the cut. The way the judges told me they determined Top 8 was by looking at your wins and you were awarded points based on the win rate of the person you beat. Even so, getting a Bye to Top 8 over someone that went legit 6-1 doesn't sit right with me. But oh well, moving on.

In my opening hand I had no Grade 1. At all. I was completely depending on Drangal to get me the Grade 1. I go first, so I check the top 5. First, second, third, fourth.. oh god please. Fifth card. YES, I get the Grade 1 Galahad and superior rode. Having dodged that bullet I end. He rides the Grade 1 Tsukuyomi from his hand and calls another rearguard. I take the rearguard one since I have no 5k's in my hand, but instead of dropping 10k for the unboosted Vanguard, I commit the misplay that could have potentially cost me a championship: I don't guard and he gets a Critical trigger. Before I get to Grade 2, I'm already at 3 damage. To make things even worse, throughout the game I either damage checked or drew all of my triggers, leaving me with only 4 in the deck for about half the game. I can only imagine that I would've drive checked those instead, if I hadn't taken 2 damage for no reason. UGH. Next turn I superior ride the Grade 2 Galahad and call a Gallatin. I poke twice and end. He superior rides the Half-Moon and calls a Red-Eye. At this point guarding the Red-Eye didn't matter since he had already used a Psychic Bird on his first turn. I also had to keep a mental check of each stack. How many cards were in the whole stack? How many per each individual stack? Keeping track of this is extremely vital if you don't want to get overwhelmed by Tsukuyomi. Moving along, we both have decent fields but he's ahead in card advantage for obvious reasons. Not being able to do much other than get rid of his Silent Toms, I just prepare in order to deal with the incoming triggers. My deck unfortunately decided to damage check 2 of my Iseults, (all goes back to that early game misplay) and I was forced to use another for a Silent Tom earlier, so I had none going into the stacks. I count his deck, see that he's at his stack and I overguard with 20k. He splits the powers and I manage to guard it all, but for how long? I take my turn, and once again I can't do anything but swing for mediocre numbers. On his next turn I was about 90% sure that he was off his stack by 1, so I give him 2 to pass for his Vanguard. As I predicted, he only checks one and gives it the power to his Silent Tom. I am able to guard everything, but at the cost of nearly all my cards.

Off-topic rant: This is what Royal Paladin are missing. A solid card that can push for game and doesn't require set-up and field commitment (Soul Saver Dragon). Spectral Duke, Ezel, Spike Brothers, even Tsukuyomi with Silent Tom to some extent are able to make it harder for your opponent to guard in some way or another that allow them to push for game. Palamedes is not enough any more compared to the finishing abilities that other clans have access to. This is why I find Tsukuyomi such a tough match-up. If you don't open ideally to rush them, or sack them, then I'm just a sitting duck.

With only 3 triggers left in a 15+ card deck, my chances of winning were slipping away. With no 10k shields in hand and being able to do nothing, I just attack and hope for the best. I check nothing, try to take out the Silent Tom and end my turn. Knowing that he's at his last stack, I just give him 1 to pass, hoping that maybe, just maybe he had no triggers in that last stack. But alas, no such luck. He checks a heal trigger, and I take my last point of damage in the tournament.

It was a solid game, and he was a great player, but I cannot stop thinking about that early game misplay that more than could've changed the outcome of the game, even of the whole tournament. I got so close, just to throw it away myself.

5-2

Conclusion

So I finished Top 16, not what I wanted but I was close. I met some awesome people, met a lot of fans, got a bunch of free stuff and of course the experience. I am loving how far and successful this game has become here in North America and I can only imagine what this game will be like this time next year. Congratulations to the top players at Seattle, including the winner of course, who is actually a friend of DiS Guy/Wai/Why.

I'll get you next time Seattle.

HerO

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