RegnR8's Absolute Rule
of the Monarchs
Tournament Report for Jan. 23,
2005
Newnan Sports
Cards
Free to play
Winner gets 4
packs
First loser gets 3
Third loser gets 2
Advanced Format
Single
Elimination
About 20 - 22 people today.
Hi
all,
Welcome to another
edition of the Tournament Report. I hope this writing finds you well and
winning!
Today's report is
going to be really short. Not because I was eliminated early or anything as
unbelievable and incomprehensible as that, it's just because I didn't feel well
and my energy level dropped by the second round. I simply didn't feel like
taking notes and I was having a difficult time concentrating on the duels. I
apologize for the brevity of the report but, I should be up to par next week
with another lengthy, drawn out, hyper-detailed, uber-long and excrutiatingly
dull tournament report you have become accustomed to.
Heh.
Yesterday, I won the
tournament and the deck performed better than it ever has. There still was one
snag to it, and that was in the side deck. I had to take out a Nobleman of
Crossout to make room for other cards and I only had one. There were times when
I wanted to have two NoC in the main deck but couldn't, so I dropped the Giant
Trunade from the side deck and replaced it with a second NoC, which came in
handy in today's duels.
So, here's what it
looks like today. Only one card in the side deck is different from how it was
yesterday.
Absolute Rule of the
Monarchs
x3 Nimble
Momonga
x3 Berserk Gorilla
x2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
x2 Zaborg the
Thunder Monarch
x1 Thestalos the Fire Monarch
x1 Tribe Infecting
Virus
x1 Sinister Serpent
x1 Breaker the Magical Warrior
x1 Morphing
Jar
x1 Twin Headed Behemoth
x1 Fiber Jar
x1 Magical
Scientist
x3 Scapegoat
x2
Creature Swap
x2 Metamorphosis
x2 Enemy Controller
x1 Nobleman of
Crossout
x1 Pot of Greed
x1 Change of Heart
x1 Snatch Steal
x1
Swords of Revealing Light
x1 Heavy Storm
x1 Mystical Space Typhoon
x1
Painful Choice
x1 Premature Burial
x1 The Forceful
Sentry
x2 Bottomless Trap
Hole
x1 Ring of Destruction
x1 Call of the
Haunted
SIDE
DECK:
x3 Kinetic
Soldier
x3 King Tiger Wanghu
x2 Magic Drain
x2 Magic Jammer
x1
Jinzo
x1 Torrential Tribute
x1 Divine Wrath
x1 Nobleman of
Crossout
x1 Royal Decree
After church, we went
home and ate lunch, then headed out to the tournament! Sign up doesn't begin
until 4 and it's usually delayed by about a half an hour to let people get there
and sign up. We arrived around 2:30 and did a little trading and deck
building. I didn't get any practice duels in, but watched a couple and helped
out a fellow duelist with his machine deck. It didn't work too well (the
original ideas weren't happening fast enough) but, with some alterations, it
started to perform a little better.
First pairings were
called and I had to face one of the best, if not the best, duelist and deck
builder in the store (Besides me, of course.
LoL).
ROUND 1
MONARCHS VS
BEATDOWN
The deck I am facing
was the only undefeated deck at the last Regionals until the finals. He went 7 -
0 until he lost his game in the top 8. We were all rooting for him but, it
wasn't in the cards. So, I'm thinking "I'm out in the first round today." I
don't really care because, like I said, I wasn't feeling 100% and I just wasn't
feeling real competitive.
GAME
1
This game was dead
even until he got Dark Ruler Ha Des on the field. I had a set Morphing Jar when
he got him out, and that started to hurt me. I had Nimbles and the Behemoth in
my hand and I needed to get rid of Dark Ruler as soon as possible or I would
lose.
A Scapegoat and a
Painful Choice helped me stall a little. He gave me one of the two Metamorphosis
I offered with Painful. All the other cards I offered would have hurt him as
bad, so I guess he felt the Metamorphosis was the lesser of all evils. I Morphed
a token into TER and took his set monster instead of the Dark Ruler. It was a DD
Warrior Lady and I figured it didn't really matter which monster I took. He
RoD's my TER and that totally sucks.
My Scapegoat tokens
are helping me stay alive. He still has Dark Ruler and a defense position GAF on
the field and I have a couple of tokens left. I summon Twin Head and attack his
GAF. When he activates Enemy Controller, I feel the duel slipping away from
me.
I finally draw Ring
and blow up his Ha Des and the game begins to swing in my favor. My Nimbles net
me a couple of thousand LP and I tribute one for Thestalos and take out his
Gorilla for a little hand destruction and 400LP damage. After I Creature Swap a
token for another Gorilla while I have Thestalos on the field, it's
over.
GAME
2
I side deck one Enemy
Controller for the second Nobleman of Crossout because I know he runs Magician
of Faith and Penguin Soldiers in his deck.
He goes first and I
Nobleman both his Magcian of Faith on my first turn. I'm glad I side decked that
second NoC! He uses Enemy Contoller on my Gorilla though, and that sucked, but I
have Scapegoat and Bottomless set.
I get Thousand Eyes
Restrict on the field along with some tokens and that stalls for a while. He
uses Exiled Force on TER. Then he uses Premature Burial on Exiled next turn to
get rid of a set Nimble. Ha. Later, he Calls his Exiled back to get rid of my
Serpent. Double Ha. That's all his recursion cards gone on Exiled Force, so I
really do not have a Painful Choice/Recursion combo to worry
about.
After that, Mobius
takes care of his set cards. He activated Book of Moon to Mobius' effect, but
when he summoned a DD Warrior Lady to hit my face down Mobius, I used Ring on
her, so I got to flip up Mobius next turn.
He had nothing on the
field when he summoned a GAF, hit my last token, then Creature Swapped his
defense position GAF with my Mobius. I had Zaborg in my hand and he had maybe
1500LP left. I tributed his GAF for Zaborg, destroyed my Mobius and attacked for
the win.
WOW. That was nice.
Unexpected, but nice.
RECORD
1-0
ROUND 2
MONARCHS VS
CHAOS
I defeated this deck
yesterday and figured he would win today.
GAME
1
Yesterday, our duels
went back and forth and we both stalled with Metamorphosis and Scapegoat. Today
was not as slow as yesterday, but it was close. I was winning by a good margin
when he conceeded and I asked him if he was sure he wanted to conceed. He went
ahead and drew one more card and it turned out to be Magic Cylinder, which I
attacked into, but that was too little, too late and when he drew a
Metamorphosis with nothing to Morph next turn, he conceeded again and I knew he
didn't have a chance to win anymore.
GAME
2
This is when I stopped
taking notes. I started to feel a little feverish and I needed to concentrate on
what I was doing. This duel was another typical duel for us. Both slowly setting
up stuff. I guess I set up my stuff a little quicker because I
won.
RECORD 2 -
0
ROUND 3
MONARCHS VS
MISTER COPY CAT CONTROL
Last week, I mentioned
this guy. He copied down someone's control deck and used it. Lame. He totally
OWNED me last week and I ragged him mercilessly. When he got beat later in the
day by someone else's BLS, he ran around the store and begged and begged people
to trade him one or sell him one or something! Today, he was looking for a BLS
to add to his deck and I told him I'd sell him one of mine for eighty dollars!
He starts saying he'd do it and I told him I was just kidding. I told him I
wasn't going to help him build his deck. When he offered to trade HALO 2 for it,
I reconsidered. I agreed to the trade and he backed out of it. Whatever. There
are several of us in the store who have multiple copies of BLS and to torture
the poor guy, we took them all and placed them on the table and called him over.
There were 7 Black Luster Soldiers on the table and he couldn't get any of them!
WoOT!
GAME 1
This deck uses a TON
of traps. Drop Off. Time Seal. Ring. Cylinder. Call. At least nine traps. I knew
I was going to probably lose the first game and I
did.
GAMES 2 and
3
My side deck has got
to pull me through! I put in three King Tiger Wanghu, 2 Kinetic Soldiers, 2
Magic Drains, Magic Jammer, Torrential, Jinzo and Royal Decree. Tigers to kill
his Tomatos, Dons and Reapers. Kinetics to Murder his Dons and DDs. Jammer and
Drains to stop his Forceful, Confiscation and anything else. Jinzo and Decree to
stop all those Time Seals and Drop Offs.
Well, the side deck
makes all the difference in these last two duels. The Tigers totally screw him
over and he is forced to play defensively the entire time, trying to get rid of
my Tigers before he could make any type of offensive push. The Time Seal and
Drop Off never hurt me because I had the Tiger on the field. He couldn't do
anything and I had cards in my hand.
I managed to Magic
Drain his Pot of Greed, AFTER he had set all his S/T cards and he was mad at
that. I countered everything he did. He was happy to hit me with a Don once! He
took out some useless card at the time and I Morphed my Sinster in to TER and
took his silly little Don until I could tribute him
off.
I really dominated in
games two and three. He did no damage to me at all in our last duel. It was a
thing of beauty.
ROUND
4
Well, I got a bye to
the finals. That's cool, I guess. I got to eat some Pizza in between rounds. I
usually buy about 5 pizzas and never get to eat any. This week I got to eat
some! Yum. People kept wanting to duel me and I kept declining. I really don't
like to duel while I am still in the tournament and trying to
eat.
There is this young
kid there who always asks me to look at his deck and help him out. Well, this
week was no exception and he asked me to look at his deck and help him out. As I
was thumbing through his deck, I was thinking, "There's nothing I can do to help
this deck without totally scrapping the entire thing". It was full of Malevolent
Nuzzlers, Axes, Mage Power, Horn of the Unicorn, Black Pendants and other
totally useless crap. Tribute to the Doomed, Dark Core, Cats Ear Tribe, Old
Vindictive Magician, Man Eater Bug, Dark Magician, Elfs. You know the type, they
dump their hand to power up a monster to ten zillion attack just to have it
Snatched or Changed, Fissured or Smashing Grounded. Then it's easy pickin's for
you from then on. I told him there was nothing I could suggest for his deck and
he asked if I thought he should put an Amazoness Swords Woman in it because he
just pulled one. I told him, "SURE! Stick whatever monster you want in it!"
LoL.
After eating, I
actually felt better. Maybe I just needed some
nourishment.
FINALS
MONARCHS VS
ZOMBIE
I always seem to have
trouble with Zombie decks. I think their swarming capabilties just overpower me.
The Book of Life and Swaps hurt, too. Here again, the Tigers, Drains and Jammers
come in handy.
I don't remember if I
won two duels in a row or if we went to three games. It doesn't really matter. I
did manage to Drain a couple of his Spells but, in the end, it was Creature Swap
that won the final duel for me.
Well, the Monarchs are
victorious again! Twice in the same weekend! I get my packs for winning and pull
crap, as usual. Well, no, I take that back, I did get an Ultimate Rare Pikeru's
Circle of Enchantment. It's a purty card and now I have four of them. Hooray.
No, really, I do think the card is cool
looking.
Sasuke30290 has an
Ultimate Rare Dark Blade the Dragon Knight and it is really purty, too. I want
it. Lol.
Just as a side note, I
like doing away with the Secret Rares and going to the Ultimate Rare Versions of
cards. I really think they are WAY better looking, and the collector in me has
discovered another challenge.
That's it for this
week! I am very pleased with the way the deck performed. It is running smoother
than ever and presents me with many options nearly every hand. It doesn't get as
many "dead draws" as it has in the past. The Enemy Controller/Scapegoat combo
works amazingly well with the five tributes I run. I have been criticized for
using 5 tributes by many people because it goes against the "conventional
wisdom" in deck building. It's simply not P.C. to have more than three tributes.
Well, I've never been one to "go with the flow" and am always trying to think
"outside the box". I feel the Monarch deck is proof positive that creative
thinking, strategy, synergy and solid deck building can win, not just some
cookie cutter warrior/control/chaos. I wish I had built the deck this way before
regionals.
Until next time, happy
dueling!
RegnR8
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welcome