This week, I have a tale of two decks and two tournaments. It's an interesting story of how I won and lost, could have won, should have won, got eliminated in the first round and went on to finish 2nd in the same tournament I lost in, and how I got my third Morphing Jar.

TOURNAMENT #1
Sports Cards and Collectibles
Fayetteville, Ga
$5.00 to enter. You get an AST pack for entering (I pulled Agent of Force - Mars. My third)
1st place 4 packs
2nd place 3 packs
There were about 20 people there, I think.

Today I decided to use my Magical Scientist FTK/OTK deck. I'd built it a couple of weeks ago, had casually dueled with it and thought it may actually be a little competitive. It started out a little defensive, with Raigeki, Harpie's, MSTs, etc., but I decided to look at all the cards, and determined if a card did not help get the FTK in the first turn, it was eliminated and replaced with another card. I took every card out of the deck that did not help get the FTK in my first draw. I do have a side deck for it, but it's not important. I could side deck into a more aggressive beatdown deck, but that isn't the deck's main purpose and no matter how I side deck, it would never move far enough away from a Scientist deck to really work well as anything else, maybe a Chaos deck, but I digress.

The key to an FTK is going first (duh) and getting all the cards you need to set up the OTK in the first draw. There are several ways to accomplish this, and 100% of the time it's sheer luck. There is not that much skill involved in playing a Scientist OTK deck. The skill comes in building the deck to it's greatest potential. If you do not get the kill in the first turn, it gets exponentially more difficult to pull off and it will become obvious when you are going to lose.

A personal note: I really hate Magical Scientist decks. I think they are cheap and really do rely on luck to win more than skill. I hate the expression on people's faces when I win and they don't even get to look at their first hand. That's wrong. I do like to kill my opponent if they are trash talking me, though. That's sweet. That's Yugioh!

The 2 FTK god hands that guarantee victory on the first draw and is a 90% chance of victory on the second draw:
1.) Cannon Soldier + 2 Last Will = Game Over
2.) Gilasaurus + Catapult Turtle + Last Will = Game Over

x1 Magical Scientist
x3 Catapult Turtle
x3 Gilasaurus
x3 Cannon Soldier
x3 Dark Magician of Chaos
x1 Witch of the Black Forest
x1 Sangan
x1 Serpentine Princess

x1 Pot of Greed
x1 Graceful Charity
x1 Monster Reborn
x1 Premature Burial
x1 Card Destruction
x1 Dark Hole
x1 Painful Choice
x2 Monster Recovery
x3 Last Will
x3 Monster Gate
x3 Reload
x3 Reasoning
x3 Spell Reproduction

I won the die roll and chose to go first. I wasn't able to get the FTK, but I had Catapult Turtle in my hand. I set a Sangan and some M/T card as a bluff and ended my turn.

I drew a Last Will! I tributed the Sangan for the Turtle and activated Last Will, special summoning Magical Scientist to the field. My opponent could not stop it and I won on the second turn.

I won the die roll and chose to go first. I managed to go through over half my deck in my first turn and was unable to get the combo out. I did manage to get 2 DMoC on the field though but, one Raigeki later and I was destroyed.

He chose to go first and set a monster and an M/T card. Good. If my oppopnent starts out defensively, I have a fairly good chance of getting the OTK on my turn. Torrential Tribute, ROD and Imperial Order are about the only cards that see regular play that can stop me when I have to go second.

I was undefeated and, I have to admit, pretty much shut down both people I had faced. Unfortunately, the other duels were taking a long time and I was not able to finish the tournament before I had to leave for the other. I was pretty confident I would have probably made the finals but, I'll never know....

This is where the story gets REALLY interesting. Last week, I let James use my Magical Scientist deck, which was still under construction at the time. He had such fun running it, he asked if he could use it again this week. I was thinking about using it myself, since it did so well earlier in the day. I decided to let him use it under 1 condition. If he made it to the final three and got a Morphing Jar out of his tournament pack, he'd have to sell it to me for $35. He agreed. He probably wouldn't make it into the finals anyway. He made it into the third round last week, but I figured the deck wouldn't go much higher than that.

Now, I'm not going to go into any details here but, I lost in the first round to a beatdown deck. Both games were really close and the first game I lost to one of the new movie pack cards, Rare Metal Dragon. For those of you who do not know this card, you will soon see it's potential. It is a level 4, DARK, 2400ATK 1200DEF, Dragon that can not be normal summoned or set. My opponent would combo this card with Marauding Captain. Ugh. I couldn't get my Ojama Tokens on his side of the field fast enough.

The second game I lost because of my own outrageous stupidity! I made a mental blunder so enormous I am actually embarassed to write about it. I have been store champion two seasons. I placed 24 out of nearly 200 people at a regional event. I was ranked 3rd in the southern region and 14th in the country and I made a mistake so ridiculous I almost punched myself in the head! I will tell you the situation and the cards in my hand and on the field and you can make your own educated guess as to what happenend.

My opponent was top decking and summoned Witch of the Black Forest on the field with no protection.
I had a set Waboku on the field when he attacked with the Witch. I was holding a Dark Driceratops and a Final Attack Orders in my hand. I had card advantage, although I didn't really have anything to summon. I chose not to activate the Waboku, I was saving it for a bigger attack, and took the 1100 damage from his Witch. I drew a Berserk Gorilla. Now, here is where I made my fatal blunder. I have no excuse for what happened next except I am an idiot. You figure it out......

James took my Magical Scientist deck on to 2nd place and he actually DID pull a Morphing Jar from his tournament pack and I bought it for $35. He also pulled a Blowback Dragon and I bought it for $5.00.