#legit felt like my deck knew I was going to retire it to fun deck status after this

[carnelianwings]

Went to BCS Sacramento, did well on Day 1 (by my standards), and shockingly well on Day 2.

Tucking the rest behind the cut, I’m going to assume my opponents (especially from Day 2) aren’t here (because whoooooo boy I was seeing salt on Twitter due to how I got the wins - totally legal by the rules, it was just 95% luck 😅)

Day 1 was Standard, which is the usual format I play the most of these days (since we usually have enough for shop tournament), so with 435 people I just hoped for “going positive” and calling it a day. Which I did, with a 4-3 result on Lianorn. Highlights included hitting the full combo with the insane double Rosarium Fairy + Luster Impact + Magnolia Order, set up via Vivace Persona > Gun Cycler RC skill > Broccolly on place > draw into second Fairy. Also completely broke a Luticia player on Round 7 when they did Luticia Persona restand … when I had an absolutely massive hand to defend it all.

Day 2 though …

First opponent was clearly me just getting paired well over my head against a previous BCS Champion and Worlds player, so literally “Oh shit I just got paired into this absolute tryhard, one of the best players in the game, and all I can do is pray I built this Narukami deck well enough and to the luck gods I will see what I need to win.” I knew this because you can set banners for your BushiNavi profile, and this guy had the Worlds 2023 participant banner so basically I had a “… oh fuck I just got Round 1 paired into someone who’s the equivalent of a Top 100 player in Vanguard Zero”-moment.

But the funny thing about that situation is I’ve had that happen to me in Vanguard Zero before not once, but more like a dozen times, especially when I was grinding for a rank reward alt art I really liked (Starcall Trumpeter, Thing Saver, Percival, Altmile, and Blaster Blade Exceed seasons all come to mind) so I was like “Wait. I’ve done this before. And I’ve won before when it happened, by staying calm, remembering my plays, and having a bit of luck on my side. I can do this.”

So I did that. And oh boy did the luck come through - I take first, find my G3s for the Zorras History Collection Stride, boom, third check, Dragveda comes through. Push to 4, force out some PGs, double triple drive gives me the cards I need to survive the clap back, opponent leaves a G2 with Resist on the board (hoping to stop V-Chou-Oh restand). Reride Sweep Command, take my 3rd Accel II circle, throw down Meteor Flare to kill the Resist, retire it, Stride Exterminate for 6 attacks at +20k to front row for game.

Round 2 I lose to Granblue - that was a brickfest on my part, went 2nd, had to G Assist Turn 1 for a G1, couldn’t find a single Vanquisher for the Stunverse-Zorras double Stride play, ran out of Soul because I couldn’t find a reride, couldn’t do Exterminate or even just Stunverse. Which I freely accepted - it’s a risk I was taking by running only 8 G1 units in that deck, 1 of which is a 1-of Honoly.

Round 3, I somehow get paired into another more experienced player - I knew this, because this guy shows up, all business, zero small talk, no playmat, just sits down and sets up, 100% methodically. All he says before we start is “Yeah this deck has some ratio issues”, and all I say is “Yeah, mine does too” followed by a “good luck” right before we start the match (I consider it common courtesy just from my old chess club days). Turns out it’s Dimension Police, probably Dailiner, and I’m like sweating. Deck does 2 and only 2 things: make huge-ass Vanguard columns, and Sentinel crush. I’m Narukami. I can get the big hand, but I’m not necessarily built for dealing with that kind of offensive output. But I’m spared - opponent mega-bricks on Turn 1, rides the 6k Commander Laurel for G1, fails G-Assist on G2, gets wrecked by my Zorras Stride on Turn 3, he finds a G2 and Rides up but by that point it’s too late. Second Stride Exterminate, opponent defends with the -2 crit off a heal guard … except I drive check crit (goes to Esperaridea, I almost always throw it on him), blank, and … Dragveda. At which point it was game over because I throw power to Esperaridea, restand Exterminate, attack again for another triple drive. (Actually funny that round because my opponent was like “Wait Esperaridea restand is 1/Turn?” and I confirm it is, but on the inside I’m like “… it’s heavily used in Standard in Shiranui and basically in every P-Narukami deck but you didn’t know that while being this tryhard about this game?”)

Round 4 I get demolished by Bermuda Highlander … which I kind of expected to happen because while I get a lot of practice into it, I have a hard time building enough hand fast enough to deal with all the multi-attacks but at least I did kind of make my opponent work for it.

Round 5 I get matched against this mega salty (disrespectful) guy who just kept complaining about how he was stuck down here (X-2 bracket at this point) while his friends were at the tables higher up than him, wouldn’t stop complaining about it, and was like “I didn’t bring a Standard deck with me for side events so I can’t drop”. Then has the gall to say, after I defensive 6th damage OT (Dragveda bless you thank you for saving my ass) he was all “unless I see defensive OT I’m dead this turn, so I may as well flip the top card over and see” as I’m getting ready to discard for Exterminate Stride and I tell him he can if he wants to but we can’t continue after if he does. He flips heal, followed by OT, flips them both back over and says “let’s play it out” and I refuse (was about to call a judge on this guy too).

This is why I refuse to give up until 6th damage hits damage zone, because had he flipped heal-OT I would’ve lost on the following turn (I just didn’t have the hand for it). I’ve also pulled heal-OT (or vice versa) at locals twice before (hilariously against the same player both times - he still remembers it 😂) so I know while it’s unlikely it’s possible, especially with a deck that can compress (like Granblue).

Round 6, I got the default win after my opponent no showed (I got confirmation my opponent dropped after pairings went up, so I can only assume my opponent was friends with someone else I’d played earlier that day and knew they were getting paired into a very lucky Narukami player and didn’t want to play it out).

Round 7 was actually the most back and forth match I had all day, Chaos-Messiah, actually went “… oh shit” internally after I won dice roll and chose first. Opponent survived double Exterminate, went into Integral Messiah to force me to shuffle hand back into deck (hilariously enough I think that ended up helping me in the long run), but passed turn on a board. I’d managed to get a Stride crit back into hand off the draw 5 (along with 2 heal guards and Dragveda), so I Stunversed him to recover some hand. Survived the next turn (Dragveda saved my ass again as a 50k shield), went into V Max despite having only 1 CB for game despite having GB8 already at the start of the turn - I didn’t want to go into GB8 because that would’ve meant Binding both of my Esperarideas on the board (and they’d been putting in work forcing my opponent to guard and giving me 5 attacks/turn). I had to scramble all of my knowledge from playing against our Chaos Breaker main at locals (a match up I’m 0-2 against, because I kept decking out against it) to keep up with my opponent, and in the end he decked himself out when I managed to land a hit when he had just 2 cards left in deck. Most stressful game all day, and my opponent making me shuffle back my encyclopedia of a hand with Integral Messiah actually made it so I’d have more cards than him in deck.

Then I learned X-2 had a shot at Top 16 and I was like “Uhhhh what????” but I ended up bubbling out on tie breakers and didn’t make it - not that it mattered because, uhhhh holy shit??????? 5-2 at my first solo tournament??? When the last time I played this deck I had a personal 2-5 for BSF Ontario TriReg??? At the format that has the highest burden of knowledge for card interactions and pool?????? And all I had to go off of was just … whatever I remembered from the anime, from playing Vanguard Zero (which changed some card effects) and whatever I got to see at my very small locals???

Also my favorite “spice tech from Standard” Meteor Flare keeps coming up - the +10k for no opponent rear guards comes up absurdly often (most people just try to clear board to avoid letting me bind their stuff) and the Continuous ability deny actually came up today. I’d originally put it in when Bushi changed how Resist worked, so I teched in 2 copies just so I could shut off Resist because it’s typically a Continuous ability the rear guard grants itself.

All in all, a rather fun experience, made a new friend, said we’d meet up again at Pasadena. Said friend was like “Damn you’ve inspired me to play Premium now” when he learned this was my first solo tournament after doing BSF Ontario with 2 others from my locals. Also actually felt validated in that deck choice and that “Yeah, I really can do this as a player making the jump from Vanguard Zero to physical TCG and the skills I learned from Zero are still relevant and valuable.”

Also as for winning off OT not once, but twice? It’s a card in the game that you can only run one of, if you see it great, if you don’t, well, that’s the way the cookie crumbles. I do find it kind of amusing both times it was against a Star/Brandt Gate deck, because I know if it had been the other way around they would’ve been like “Welp sucks to be you” because Eldobreath is just as good as Dragveda for how easily it can just win you the game right then and there, and is largely considered to be one of the two best OTs in the game (the other being, of course, Dragveda). Card games in general, whether it’s a TCG like Vanguard or a regular card game like poker or blackjack, have always had an element of chance involved, and part of that has always been risk assessment. If I have the means to guard a Vanguard drive check and I choose not to, I (personally) accept that if the consequence is my opponent sees their “I Win” button, and I lose because they flipped it, then the fault lies not with my opponent, but myself. And that, in my opinion, is a skill, and I think it’s a skill lot of people don’t realize is a part of the game.