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stone-stars · 2 months

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songs in c3e63: court with no crowns (timestamps from the ad-free version. does not include the generic combat music. “a wizard’s tournament” is the recap song.)

The Fairy - 6:50

Left is Left and Right is Center - 8:34, 9:54, 10:50, and 11:23

The Red Fen - 12:57, 14:40, and 16:08

Slumber in the Stump - 19:37

The Red Fen - 22:32

Gunvar - 23:40

Tundra Trudge - 26:10

Rousel - 28:06 (loops)

Unknown Tome - 36:29

Frankie Vantasmo - 38:01

All I Need is One Thread to Spin a Web - 39:39

The Gambling District - 43:55

The Bronze Bastard - 46:46

The Inkling Syndicate - 48:08 and 51:35

The Rattlin' Snakes - 54:36, 55:44, and 58:18

Blackthorn Hall - 1:02:35

Stallios - 1:08:13

Triss 2 - 1:12:21

Bash at the Gash - 1:23:30, 1:25:26, and 1:26:26

The Inkling Syndicate - 1:29:50

Hospitable - 1:34:19

In the Dark of Dusk - 1:38:06

Frankie Vantasmo - 1:42:33

The Inkling Syndicate - 1:43:51

Bash at the Gash - 1:47:56

All I Need is One Thread to Spin a Web - 1:48:56

context for each song + notes under the cut!

The Fairy - 6:50 - Callie disguises Foster as a goose

Left is Left and Right is Center - 8:34, 9:54, 10:50 - Duck team disguises themselves

Left is Left and Right is Center - 11:23 - Discussing how to get to Rousel

The Red Fen - 12:57 - Remembering Gunk

The Red Fen - 14:40 - Gunk hunting

The Red Fen - 16:08 - Gunk kills the Basilisk

Slumber in the Stump - 19:37 - Little schoolhouse in the woods

The Red Fen - 22:32 - Gunk menacing the school

Gunvar - 23:40 - Saying goodbye to Gunk

Tundra Trudge - 26:10 - Hiking to Rousel

Rousel - 28:06 (loops) - Arriving in Rousel / Rousel description

Unknown Tome - 36:29 - Squirt reveals his true (old) nature

Frankie Vantasmo - 38:01 - Calder asks Squirt about the barracks / Court with no Crowns

All I Need is One Thread to Spin a Web - 39:39 - Duck Team's wanted posters

The Gambling District - 43:55 - Callie asks Squirt about the halfling knights

The Bronze Bastard - 46:46 - Cyra's wanted poster

The Inkling Syndicate - 48:08 - Asking Squirt about the tree/fountain

The Inkling Syndicate - 51:35 - Discussing going to see Zunark

The Rattlin' Snakes - 54:36 - Approaching nobody's Inn / The toughs outside

The Rattlin' Snakes - 55:44 - Callie lets the Rattlin' Snakes take hits on her

The Rattlin' Snakes - 58:18 - Entering Nobody's Inn with their new entourage

Blackthorn Hall - 1:02:35 - Callie recognizes Cyra's friend, Triss 2

Stallios - 1:08:13 - Calder goes to try to flirt with Triss 2

Triss 2 - 1:12:21 - Triss 2 calls Calder a Winter Court spy and flees

Bash at the Gash - 1:23:30 - Zunark emerges from the barracks

Bash at the Gash - 1:25:26 and 1:26:26 - Entering the Court with no Crowns barracks

The Inkling Syndicate - 1:29:50 - Triss tells them about Cyra's plan

Hospitable - 1:34:19 - Callie extends an olive branch to Triss

In the Dark of Dusk - 1:38:06 - Zunark says Jovyre is allowing the Automatons to wreak havoc in the Autumn Court

Frankie Vantasmo - 1:42:33 - Discussing the suspicious about the summit

The Inkling Syndicate - 1:43:51 - Zunark pulls out a map

Bash at the Gash - 1:47:56 - Zunark says he's aware of the serpents

All I Need is One Thread to Spin a Web - 1:48:56 - Pulling out the photo of Glen / Callie casts detect thoughts

Notes: “Bash at the Gash” is credited as “The Eye of Akarot” / "Slumber in the Stump" is credited as "Moonshine's Stump" New songs: Rousel, The Rattlin' Snakes, Triss 2 Unlisted in the credits: The Fairy, Unknown Tome, Blackthorn Hall, Hospitable

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wavering-eyes · 8 months

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January 7, 2023 Richmond Regional Report - Top 32 w/ Salamangreat

Mole gaming.

First off, proof of the above.

And my list below. Note the matching COSSY ID:

Let's talk about the format before we get into my deckbuilding choices. I heard a shit-ton of complaints from many, many people seemingly already tired of Level 1 FIRE the format, but that didn't really pan out in a way that represented my matchups. I played 9 decks and two were on Sinful Spoils.

I expected a lot of Fire King, R-ACE, Labrynth, and Orcust going in, and was very close to taking Fire King myself. Harp just got unbanned and people are still so keen on their new toy that they haven't realized Orcust cards aren't good. I thought Mannadium and Runick decks were strong enough to compete, but given their difficulty I expected relatively lower conversion from them. That left Orcust and the rock-paper-scissors of Lab beating R-ACE beating Fire King beating Lab.

And I took a deck from 2019. Why, exactly?

It's my favorite deck of all time.

Lots of people have forgotten what my cards do!

Veiler, Impermanence and Ash Blossom are all very low-impact hand traps against Salamangreat and those are the most played ones currently.

I didn't practice anything else.

My build is schnasty.

My main combo was Debug + Gazelle, with an additional extender in some cases. This sounds like quite a lot to ask for, but the 1 and 2-card combos are both okay so it pans out pretty nicely, and it's Salamangreat with all cards unbanned so it was very consistent despite that. Here's how it goes:

Debug search Mole (we'll get to this later)

Make Balelynx, search Sanctuary, summon Mole

Make Wicckid, trigger and summon Gazelle, banish Debug, search Weasel and send Spinny

Turn those into Heatsoul, draw a card

Weasel (or extender) summon, make Raging Phoenix

Activate Sanctuary, make a second Phoenix, search Will (if you don't have it and that wasn't your extender)

Will back Weasel, Spinny, Gazelle, and something else

Make Horse Prince with Weasel and Gazelle, summon out Ash Blossom

Make Stallio with Ash and Spinny, trigger Weasel to give opponent Gazelle, then activate Stallio summoning Jack Jaguar

Link off Stallio and Raging Phoenix for Sunlight Wolf, bounce Gazelle, then link off Wolf and Jack for another Wolf

Jack put back Sunlight Wolf, summon to Wolf's zone, add back Ash Blossom

Turn two of your monsters not named Sunlight Wolf into I:P, pass. If you have an extra monster, make S:P then I:P, and on the opponent's turn you can I:P into S:P if you haven't made it or Unicorn otherwise. If you pitched Ash Blossom you can add that back again when you do.

None of this is possible with Salamangreat of Fire which is why it is absent from the above list. I considered one to enable Circle into a decent 1-card combo but assumed if I had only Circle that summoning Gazelle would have to be enough to get me there, and that decision generally led to me winning and losing the same games I would have anyways.

Now, the elephant in the room, Mole. That combo above also works if Debug searches Meer, but Meer is a really versatile card that allows you to play through Debug's biggest weakness: immediate spot removal. Having Meer in the back pocket is always a huge deal since you can Circle into it and keep playing the game, and I think it's a huge waste to have it be essentially Backup Secretary in this combo, so I played a Mole to have a second slightly worse Meer with bonus text. The GY effect made effectively no influence on this decision. It still came up once but we'll get to that later.

Now, what about that extender? Well. The one thing everyone knows about Salad is that every combo line ends on a Nibiru token, so you can let them cook all turn and just Nib once you've decided they've plussed enough, right?

NO. If you read my last post, you might remember that I said Salamangreat had better things to be doing than summoning Gazelle with Speedroid cards, and I meant it--Salamangreat now has anti-nib lines by more or less holding cards to make Stallio. It came up several times this tournament: by the time that combo reaches 5 summons, you already have Spinny in GY and Weasel in hand, so your response is to immediately make Stallio and continue as before with a 1-card Stallio combo, then turn the Nib token and Jack into Hiita and that and Wolf into Raging Phoenix. If they stop you on Raging you can continue similarly. These combos become much stronger once Promethean Princess comes out since you can do this while popping the Nib your opponent controls--there is in fact no good time to use Nibiru against that combo once that card comes out, it literally ends on the same board with a draw off of Weasel.

And this is all a supplement to the lines where you just hold one of your three copies of Will, which is always a possibility. The only game I lost after being Nibbed this tournament was because I literally threw it away.

Enough about engine, though, let's talk about defensives. Ash and Impermanence are unsurprising inclusions. Veiler is very nice right now since two hand traps including Veiler or Impermanence is enough to consistently interrupt Rescue-ACE. Belle is in there to counter Orcust cards, Big Welcome Labrynth, and Fire King High Avatar Kirin, as well as other random things it also happens to answer--but mostly just Kirin. I didn't play Fire King all day so naturally it came out almost every match. Droll was not in main because it's really bad against R-ACE and inconsistent vs. Fire King. Nibiru was not in main for similar reasons.

And as for the rest of the side, Bystials, HFD, Cyclones are obvious side inclusions. Cyclone was chosen over Lightning Storm to beat specifically Runick Fountain and Orcust Crescendo. Phantazmay is quite nice since all of those decks I prepared for are Link decks, Labrynth aside.

Rivalry of Warlords is not joined by Gozen Match here because using Weasel to lock a FIRE deck into FIRE monsters is generally a pretty bad idea. But Rivalry could be highly destructive against anything except the mirror and Marincess, two decks which I would literally never expect to see.

So that's the list. 41 cards because Mole was a last minute inclusion.

And brief notes on siding patterns: Underperforming handtraps usually came out. Ashes almost always stayed in. Mining generally came out after Game 1 unless I was desperate for engine. Rage usually came out going second except when I forgot to take it out, in which case it somehow always came up regardless. Rivalry came in against every deck when I was on the play and Phantazmay went in against any deck with Link Monsters when I was on the draw, though I'd probably not have put it in against Fire King.

Round 1 began, I won the die roll and full comboed against a Labrynth player who seemed stoked at first. At some point in my combo he activated Arias to set Big Welcome Labrynth, but for some reason chose not to activate it until my End Phase at which point I had already searched an Ash Blossom, and he quickly scooped. Game 2 he opened equally bad and I turned off my brain and comboed until he gave up, negating a random set Called By with a Belle. Incredibly easy 2-0.

[I would like to make this at least somewhat educational, so let me tell you right now that you have absolutely nothing to gain from counting yourself out after your first loss. This guy was very depressed after running into rogue and getting smoked like that, but if you look at the top cut, there were no undefeated players, and one X-2 made it into top 8. And realistically speaking... he was definitely not playing well enough to expect to make top 8 that day, but I know at least one person who got their invite at that tournament after dropping to X-2 by round 2. You have to have nerves of steel to do it, but it is very possible. Moving on.]

Round 2 started and I once again won the die roll and opened full combo. Naturally he failed to play through it since I learned he was on Branded and I had literally searched Ash Blossom in front of him--I think I had a Belle in the mix as well. Game 2 I open Ash Droll Droll Spinny Circle and draw into a Gazelle, and my opponent after those interruptions ended on no cards in hand, controlling Branded Lost, Cartesia, Guiding Quem, and Granguignol with Fallen of Albaz in GY. Over the course of the following turn these would turn into another Granguignol sending Rindbrumm to revive Albaz, triggering Branded Lost to grab Mercourier to pitch for it, allowing him to turn one of my monsters and his Albaz into Mirrorjade, and a Despian Luluwalilith via Quem. 3 interruptions isn't that much, but all of them float, Luluwalilith gets him another Quem, Mirrorjade wipes my board and the Lubellion sent off of it gets him a play for next turn while triggering Cartesia to add herself back. And I'm on effectively 3 cards.

I played through it all and outgrinded him because he wasted his negates, outing Lost with Foxy and bouncing Mirrorjade with Stallio, ashing Lubellion search in End Phase after adding it back from GY, and eventually topdecking into more playable cards since his Cartesia was actually dead. Another easy 2-0. At this point I was pretty convinced that I was going to top and I felt very confident in my deck.

Round 3 I beat Vanquish Soul 2-1 and took no notes so I guess you're not hearing much about this one. Don't worry, it will be back. I walked out to my car to enjoy my lunch break with the two guys I'd traveled with, absolutely pumped that I was starting off my tournament so strong. Both of them were much worse off, unfortunately.

Round 4 started with me sat at Table 4. I lost the die roll and was quickly faced with the brutal combo of Dimensional Fissure into Pot of Prosperity revealing Kashtira engine cards and Lightforce Sword, and I promptly realized that my opponent was a bozo who doesn't know how to deckbuild and that I was still probably going to lose to him despite that. I scooped without showing him a card beyond Ash Blossom and in the following game I opened poorly, my opponent dropped Shifter at the start of his own turn, played a little but I left him on just Unicorn, then banished it with S:P the next turn. Naturally, he ripped Pressured Planet off the top and I signed the match slip. I am pretty sure this guy heard me bitching about him post match but I don't care, he's not a bad person or anything but maining cards like that is bad deckbuilding and it sucks that he was rewarded for it against me specifically. But I got the last laugh--his name is not on that list at the top of this post and only top 48 got invites. Make of that what you will.

I took a brief mental break here and wandered around the venue for a bit. My lowest table this entire tournament (excepting Round 1 where I was placed at complete random) was 37, so I took a quick peek at bottom tables to see what was kicking around there and lost my shit seeing an Air Hummingbird for game--visibly enough that the player performing it looked directly at me and joined in the laughter. Shine on, you beautiful scumbag.

I rebounded into Round 5 accepting that there was nothing I could do about the loss and resolved to do better and was sat across from someone from my locals activating Peaceful Planet. I actually played Mannadium for my last event so I was very familiar with the combo lines, and I correctly predicted out loud that his board was probably going to be S:P Baronne and then picked up my cards before showing him any.

Going into Game 2 I opened Gazelle, Parallel Exceed and Will of the Salamangreat and my opponent did me the favor of handlooping himself on cards that did not matter, starting by using one imperm each on Gazelle and Parallel only for me to make Wicckid into Stallio into Jack into Heatsoul into Raging as though nothing had happened whatsoever, ending on a trap with Gazelle in hand which he couldn't beat with only three cards.

Game 3, due to his poor siding decisions, he opened 4 non-engine and Peaceful Planet, I activated Phantazmay for the only time this tournament on Light-Heart summon, and it drew me into Nib just in time for him to show me Baronne materials. Sorry bro.

This round ended somewhere close to time and the next round started nearly an hour later. Our lunch break was after Round 3 so this was very much off schedule. This isn't really related to the content of this post but I did get to hear the scoop on this drama, so I might as well share that with you:

I've included alt-text for this if you prefer that, but otherwise I have no comment on it. Moving on.

Round 6 starts with me going first against Rescue-ACE opening my worst hand of the tournament, double Ash, Veiler, Sanctuary, Will. I pass showing no cards and Ash one of his plays and he uses Talent to look at my hand. I draw no engine the following turn and naturally can't play, so, next game.

I really want to tell you I smoked this dude this game, because I had him absolutely dead to rights. I played through Nibiru and Ash in that order. His only play was to stick Accesscode and wipe board to swing for 5300, but him wiping board turned on my Mole.

I would like to tell you that I shuffled back my GY with mole and cooked him, but... I forgot it even had that effect and summoned Gazelle, throwing the game entirely. Whoops. I congratulated my opponent on his free win after interrogating him on why he didn't scoop and sat down to examine my mental state, realizing how tired I'd gotten after six rounds (and an extra hour...) given that I woke up at 6:00 that morning and had been the one driving the car to the event.

I sat down the following round across from Vanquish Soul activating Stake revealing Ash, and he passed after I ashed it. Good start! One thing I'd picked up from rereading the cards is that effects like Pantera and Razen which check columns do so on resolution, so S:P virtually by herself cooked all of his later plays.

I eventually lost Game 2 after playing through half a board and drolling my opponent on turn 3 because he had already drawn into all of his big VS monsters, used some position-changing effect on a stray Mole to push over 4000 damage, I'd already taken a stack from Heatsoul, and there was nothing I could do to stop myself from being burned 1500 twice. I was otherwise far up in material so I guess this is defeat snatched from the claws of victory. Game 3 went to time and he couldn't burn me through Rivalry, so we drew.

At this point I had the (wrong) supposition that I could still top at 5-2-2. It didn't turn into anything but it was in the back of my mind, so I figured the following round was the real do-or-die moment.

And I absolutely crushed it. Soundtrack for the moment--this is the exact song that was playing in my head as I sat down and mercilessly full-comboed through imperm veiler for the third or fourth time that tournament, ending on I:P S:P Raging. I actually misplayed this combo by searching an unnecessary Will, but it didn't matter; my opponent's first play was to imperm my S:P then activate King's Sarcophagus pitching a Hapi and milling Imsety, after which I activated I:P and spun it with Unicorn, leaving him on one card and leading to a concession before I learned which Horus variant he was on. But seeing that he had hand trapped me technically three times, I assumed Orcust, put in Nibiru and Bystials and was immediately rewarded with an extremely live Magnamhut and Nibiru when he activated Imsety by pitching Orcustrated Return, making The Zombie Vampire and summoning out Knightmare before linking both into Galatea.

This got punished by Talent draw into Foolish Burial, but even as he eventually passed on a Galatea with Crescendo and Impermanence set, my Nibiru was enough to force him into Dingirsu pass with random dead sets. I quickly cleared out his board in battle phase, went to MP2, cleared out some more dead backrow with S:P and Unicorn and eventually baited out a Nibiru that I sent with Druiswurm, leaving him on no cards. I thought to myself for a bit, saw that I still had a Will and cards in hand, and decided that was probably fine. I said to this guy out loud: "Sure. You have one card. Go."

He topdecks ROTA. What a god. It still wasn't enough--he went through Dingirsu and TY-PHON to try and push damage but wasn't able to accomplish much beyond getting rid of the token, and with over 20 minutes left I slowly calculated exactly what it would take to push game, which as I recall involved Jaguar doing piercing and crashing a revived Raging Phoenix into TY-PHON to revive the other one at 5600 ATK.

Cool guy, cool deck, exciting mach, incredible experience playing two 2019 decks in the final rounds of the first tournament of 2024. But this guy never stood a chance. 2-0.

I walk into the final round seriously considering the possibility that I might play the only other person in my car still in the tournament, but that didn't end up happening. My opponent started his first turn by accidentally drawing 6 cards and being ordered by a judge to shuffle back a random one after revealing it, which ended up being a starlight copy of Triple Tactics Talent. Whew.

He pitched a Scareclaw Arrival for Diabellestar, Normal Summoned Visas Samsara and... I think his hand was basically just that and Visas Starfrost? He went through both copies of Light-Heart before activating Primitive Planet and I correctly determined that stopping it would stop at least two interruptions, and was correct. He ended on Savage with Light-Heart and S:P Little Knight, banishing my Ash as though it was an afterthought.

[Another potentially educational sidebar! Mannadium has generally three major parts to its engine: Visas Starfrost and Samsara, 1500/2100 "Heart" monsters (of which Samsara is one), and Mannadium Meek. There is some overlap, but it is a lot to ask to see all of these, so you can usually try and interrupt Manndium hands by thinking about which of these they have and which they need. In this case, the only way he had to summon a Heart monster was by keeping Arrival or if the Planet resolved, so I made sure it did not even though he had a second copy available for next turn. I would probably highlight this as my best play of the tournament--had that resolved and been played correctly, I think it ends on Savage + Baronne + S:P + Dis Pater via Crimson Dragon and I would not have been able to play through that.]

I commended him on banishing the Ash after showing him Lady Debug, which he let resolve, hit over S:P, used Meer to pitch a dead Foxy (which he negated for some reason?), bounced his Savage, and... kind of fumbled the rest as I misplayed my combo, ending with neither Gazelle nor Ash in hand. But he also threw and I was able to pull ahead, after which we both agreed that I had thrown and he had thrown harder.

Game 2 I open 4 engine and a Veiler, and he opens with Wanted once again, but starts by summoning a Fenrir. I think to myself that there's a possibility he needs the Fenrir to hit GY to turn on Scareclaw Kashtira, so I veiler Diabellestar and he shows me both Riumheart and Mannadium Abscission before I scoop, acknowledging that there is simply no way I'm playing through a hand that good. He mentioned later that he also had Visas Starfrost; I don't know what his extra was exactly but I usually turned a hand like that into S:P, Baronne and Dis Pater with two cards ripped from hand via Omega. That hand steals your opponent's girl and does your taxes for you. It's insane.

Game 3, we have very little time on the clock. I open Gazelle and... Rivalry of Warlords. I proceed to fumble my combo horribly, making Stallio into Weasel but forgetting to make Balelynx to search Sanctuary, but he panics and activates Enemy Controller before realizing the lock he's placed himself in, hits me for 1800 and passes.

For the next 3 turns, I perform the Yu-Gi-Oh equivalent of a constrictor hold, locking him under a new Cyberse monster every turn by using Sunlight Wolf and Gazelle to loop Weasel and zeroing my own monsters with Sanctuary to prevent him from crashing to out the lock. He set monsters every turn but it didn't matter; by the time I finally outed the lock to put myself in the life lead, there were three seconds left on the clock.

I commended him on his play (honestly at the time; I only spotted his numerous misplays later) and walked back to my friends to share results, learning that my region had showed up big--some eight or ten of us had made top cut, including one other person in my car, and one, with whom I built this deck, made first place. (He said it was a grown-up decision to take R-ACE instead of Salad. I'm happy for him but a little miffed it paid off so handsomely; it was very sad to see him looking for R-ACE cards on Facebook after theorying Salad so much.)

And that's the story of how I got my invite after a years-long second place/bubble curse. My semester started the following day and I couldn't imagine a better way to start it, apart from having won a mat and deckbox. But this is a bit more than I expected going in and I'm happy to finally have my invite again.

Here's hoping I get to go to Nats this year. Thanks for reading.

#yugioh #yu-gi-oh #yugioh tcg

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