Trigger Happy
Lee Sandow
Galactic Quest Comics
Lawrenceville, GA
11-20-04
Hello, loyal readers! It is I, Lee Sandow, the guy with too much spare time on his hands (so much that I wrote a full Shadowclash Spoiler for pojo). Anyways, I’m here to tell you about ANOTHER sealed pack tournament at Galactic Quest. This time, we had the real Shadowclash packs, so we started the tournament we’d meant to have last week. This is by far the most interesting tournament report I have ever written, namely because of the fact that from round two and on I had a POUNDING headague. How bad was it? Wait until the end of the report. You’ll KNOW how bad it was.
TOURNAMENT STRUCTURE:
Sealed Pack draft format, each player receives5 Shadowclash packs. Players will have 30 minutes to build their deck. Each deck must be at least 30 cards; you may use more than 4 of the same card if you pull that many. Each round is best two out of three, swiss scoring system.
PACKS:
I failed to take good notes in this area today, but I at least do remember my notable pulls. First, I noticed I had a SEVERE shortage (read: two) blockers. This isn’t a good thing. I only pulled one foil (the horned beast evo), and since there isn’t a SINGLE OTHER HORNED BEAST IN THE SET, I couldn’t use it (great planning there, huh?). My rares were borderline unusable, and my non-rare line up wasn’t nearly what it could have been either. All around, these packs were VERY crummy, and there was very little I could do with them. I threw in every shield trigger creature I had, went with all 5 colors, developed a good mana curve, and charged into the duel.
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Trigger Happy (36 Cards)
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DECK:2x Torcon 1x Ancient Giant 1x Cannon Shell 1x Exploding Cactus 1x Pippie Kuppie 1x Blasto, Explosive Soldier 1x Mega Detonator 2x Kamikazie, Chainsaw Warrior 1x Volcano Smog, Deceptive Shade 1x Shadow Moon, Cursed Shade 2x Purple Piercer 2x Locomotiver 2x Gregorian Worm 1x Gigabolver 1x Chains of Sacrifice 2x Aqua Guard 2x Aqua Jolter 2x Whisking Whirlwind 1x Screaming Sunburst 2x Mist Rias, Sonic Guardian 1x Kolon, the Oracle 1x Ru Bil, Archery thingy 2x Gulan Rias, Speed Guardian 1x Aeris, Flight Elemental 1x Full Defensor 1x Keeper of the Sunlit Abyss
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Like I said, it wasn’t much, but it was the best I could do with my available resources. Some people around me got godly pulls (2 Balloms… grr…), but oh well. Nothing I can do about it.
DECK STRATEGY:
Pray for shield trigger creatures, and pummel the life out of my opponent. That was it. Skill wouldn’t be much use in this tournament. It all came down to luck.
FIRST ROUND: LEE vs. Matt #2
DUEL ONE: I lost. I got rushed, and when I made my big push against his shields, they were ALL shield trigger creatures. This is not going to be pretty. 0-1
DUEL TWO: I should have lost this duel. A bad move by Matt was the only thing that saved me. Allow me to elaborate. I summoned an army of creatures, ready to break all his shields in one turn, but he summoned three-eyed Dragonfly (or whatever it’s name is). He had two other creatures on the field, and I only had three shields left. He sacrificed one of his creatures to double break my shields, the realized his mistake. If he had attacked with the creature, THEN sacked it, he would have won. As is, he only was able to break all the shields, and the extra creatures I got from my shield triggers was the only thing that allowed me to win in that one turn. (1-1) Idiot.
DUEL THREE: This one went both ways, with both of us depleting each other’s shields fairly evenly. Then he summoned the Dragonfly again. And as if the first time wasn’t bad enough, he messed up AGAIN. This time he attacked, and I let it pass, then he sacked the creature that had attacked… And ran into the blocker he forgot I had. He broke my last
Matt #2 again… Why me? Matt had a better pull than I had, and I was certain I was going to lose to him. A first round loss would be REALLY embarrassing, so I hoped to not lose. Still, luck doesn’t matter when you’re an idiot like Matt.
shield with his only remaining creature, but next turn I pummeled him again. (2-1)
It was a miracle that I made it through this round. Then… the headague set in. It only goes downhill from here. From now on, at the end of each duel, I will grade the strength of my headague on the Head Hurtage Meter (HHM).
I forgot guys name. Sorry, guy! This guy did well in his first round, and I was still concerned about the strength of my deck. The whole throbbing head thing didn’t help one bit.
DUEL ONE: My deck was doing VERY badly. My opponent still had four shields. I had five attackers on the field in the end, and a sizable hand thanks to Mist Rias. He had two blockers, 4 shields, and enough monsters to beat me if I didn’t beat him in this turn. I drew… MEGA DETONATOR. I discarded four cards from my hand, making 4 of my 5 creatures double breakers. He blocked two of my attacks, but the other two broke all his shields. He triggered some creatures, but I still was able to swing with Mist Rias for the win. HHM: 2/5 (3-1)
DUEL TWO: Same story, with the same ending. Mega Detonator blasted all his shields, and won at the last possible moment. At least I wasn’t relying on my opponent’s stupidity level to win any more. HHM: 2.5/5 (4-1)
Wade was twelve, and had pulled an UNREAL number of shield trigger creatures from his packs. I was secretly just hoping my head would explode on this point.
DUEL ONE: I have NO idea what happened in this game. I got beat, BADLY, and that’s all there is to it. HHM: 4/5 (4-2)
DUEL TWO: I was able to scrape a victory from this one, namely due to some fortunate shields on my own part. I don’t remember anything beyond that. HHM: 4/5 (5-2)
DUEL THREE: I got rushed, and Kolon, the Oracle raped my only blockers. I dropped Mega Detonator, even though I knew I had lost, just to go out with a bang. All it did was shield trigger him MORE creatures, so I lost. HHM: 4.5/5 (5-3)
So Wade went on to the finals, and that left myself, Justin, and Flametropus (from last week) tied for third. We decided to have a three-way duel to decide who would get the third place prize.
This game was going to be best of one. Thank GOD. Flametropus and me go back a long way, so we mutually decided to go after Justin. I was doing this for revenge, since Justin had CLOBBERED me once before by double-teaming ME. I also expected to lose to Flametropus to apologize for beating him last week. HHM: 4/5
THE DUEL: Our plan went smoothly… for a while. Eventually we broke all but two of Justin’s shields, but then he dropped a LOT of blockers. He also pillaged Flametropus’ and my darkness cards with a Mileus, the Daystretcher. I stopped playing anything to the field, which Justin took to mean I couldn’t afford anything. Flametropus managed to buy us some time by discarding Justin’s entire hand with Soul Gulp. Finally, Justin broke all but one of my shields, giving me a shield trigger creature. He had two shields left, 2 blockers, and I had 4 attackers. I played Whisking Whirlwind, and then activated MEGA DETONATOR. I’d just been biding my time. I eliminated Justin, allowing me to gain one extra shield. My creatures were all untapped, but I had only two shields left, and Flametropus had three attackers. He took me out without ever losing a shield. Oh well, I happened as I planned it.
(Looking back, I found a way I could have won this match. Oh well.)
THE AFTERMATH:
So I placed fourth. I got a rampage pack, which yielded Jack (and no, I don’t mean Viper). I hurried out of the store so I could go home for some headague medicine. In my haste… I FORGOT THE DECK. So I’ll never see my “Trigger Happy” deck again. So sad. Good thing it was so bad, but I’ll miss my dear Mega Detonator.
Now, to slops and Props.
PROPS:
To Tylenol Headague medicine
To my opponents for being good sports
SLOPS:
Losing
My headague
LOSING MY DECK
Lousy pack
IN CONCLUSION:
Well, you can’t win em’ all. Next week we’re just going to have a normal tournament, so it’ll be up to skill again. Look forward to that report next week! Wanna chat, Duel using Duel Masters Civilizations, rant, or discuss this review? Wanna thank me for typing a full spoiler of Shadowclash? E-mail me!
Lee Sandow
This week, I’m going to review Mega Detonator as my “Card of the Tournament”.
Cost: 2
Civilization: Fire
Card Type: Spell
Flavor Text: "They don't call me an arms dealer for nothing." -Engineer Pipo
Mana Generated: 1
Rarity: Rare
Card Number: 44/55
Constructed: I haven’t had an opportunity to try him out here, but I think this guy will find a NICE home in rush decks and in mono-red. He is a cheap, easy drop, and he suddenly makes that Deadly Fighter Braid Claw truly deadly. Combine this with a big hand and many creatures to maximize the fun. The only problem I find with this card here is that hand sizes can sometimes be fairly small. Use with caution. 4/5
Limited: This is an atomic bomb in limited, especially in today’s case. It allowed me to win a turn, in which I would normally have been unable to do so. It also makes those little weenie creatures you draft VERY nasty. Since hand sizes are generally larger in this format, you’ll have more cards to discard to give more creatures the bonus. Here, this card is awesome, and not to be passed up if you draft it. 4.75/5