Here's a quick ruling question: can Witch of the Black Forest search out Gravekeeper's Spy? To rephrase, is 2000 less than or equal to 1500? I'm sure that everyone o you knows the answer to this: no. Unless of course, you're Ryan Murphy. What's more, the deck is a complete joke.

But enough of the customary Ryan Murphy ranting. Complaining about the format and Dark Armed Dragon is so passé. So instead, I'm going to talk about my day at Toronto's regional tournament.

Before the Tournament

So I had a week to build a deck for regionals. I didn't use that time to build a deck. Instead, I showed up at the tournament place, waited for my friends to arrive then started to decide on a deck 1 hour before registration ended. So if one friend played Dark Armed Dragon and the other played Six Samurai, what was I to play? Well, I could've played Six Samurai as well, but instead played Macro. So I started going through boxes and boxes of cards just pulling out whatever seemed useful. I just pulled out 40 cards from and then called it a deck. Bad idea.

2 Cyber Dragon
2 Mobius the Frost Monarch
2 Van'Dalgyon the Dark Dragon Lord

3 D.D. Survivor
2 Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer
1 Banisher of the Radiance
1 Exiled Force
1 Kinetic Soldier
1 Morphing Jar
1 Spirit Reaper

3 Dimensional Fissure
2 Enemy Controller
2 Reinforcements of the Army
1 Brain Control
1 Monster Reborn
1 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Scapepgoat

3 Dark Bribe
3 Solemn Judgment
2 Macro Cosmos
2 Magic Drain
1 Mind Crush
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute

This is the worst deck I've ever played with (relative to the age of the game). The deck has no aggression, relying on a few monsters to win the game. The number of dead hands are just astounding. There's also a bunch of random cards in here, like Mind Crush without Trap Dustshoot and the random Kinetic Soldier. When I was writing up the deck list for registration, I realized the deck had no Torrential Tribute and took out Trap Dustshoot for it.

The Tournament

Round 1: Some Fiend Deck

He played Dark World with Doom Shaman to bring them back. He also had a Volcanic Shell engine going to fuel its discard cards.

Game 1: He discards Doom Shaman via Phoenix Wing Wind Blast and then plays Swing of Memories to summon him, then normal summons it. I told him that Doom Shaman still dies but the Head Judge ruled it otherwise. More on that later. I still beat him though as we were both topdecking but I finally assembled D.D. Survivor and Dimensional Fissure whereas he topdecked some Dark World monsters.

Game 2: I just drew a hand of Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment, Macro, more Dark Bribes and more Macro and he beats me down with Snipe Hunter.

Game 3: I was on the verge of losing but topdecked Morphing Jar, which I didn't side out because my sidedeck was worse than my main deck. He had Snipe Hunter on the field and instead of sniping my Morphing Jar away, he decides to just attack. With the cards I drew, I finally drew a Macro Cosmos after not seeing neither a Dimensional Fissure nor a Macro Cosmos for upwards of 10 of my turns. I then proceeded to beat him after I used Torrential Tribute on his Return from the Different Dimension with him at 150 LP and me at 200 LP.

Round 2: Traditional Monarchs

Game 1: After I used Solemn Judgment and get out Van'Dalgyon, I attack his face down Gravekeeper's Spy, On his turn he plays Smashing Ground, which I Magic Drain'd. He then plays Snipe Hunter, takes control of my Dragon with Enemy Controller then attack for game.

Game 2: I get down Macro and D.D. Survivor early in the game and just outplay him with Enemy Controller tricks and stuff. I want to note that this will be the last time I'll get out D.D. Survivor with Macro Cosmos together for the rest of the tournament.

Game 3: He does a simlar move where he just takes my Van'Dalgyon with Enemy Controller and attacks me for a bit over 4000 damage, with Snipe Hunter again, for game.

Round 3: Some Counter Burn

Game 1: I Solemn Judgment his Solemn Solemn Judgment and just beat him down with Kycoo while he had a bunch of useless Divine Wrath. I didn't know he was playing Burn in this game.

Game 2: I sided in Twisters because my 6th sense told me to. I play Heavy Storm, he counters with Solemn Judgment, I counter his counter with Solemn Judgment. I drop Van'Dalgyon and play Brain Control on his remaining Bountiful Artemis for game. In this game I learned that Bountiful Artemis gets to draw when any player activates a counter trap, not just its controller.

Round 4: Magical Explosion FTK

Game 1: I drew some crap like Scapegoat and D.D. Survivor and he just OTK's me on his turn. If only I had a Macro or Dark Bribe, I would win this.

Game 2: He did nothing for 3 turns and I just beat him down with D.D. Survivor and Kycoo.

Game 3: His deck fails horribly and dumps all 3 copies of Magical Explosion to the graveyard so he has to wait a turn to get them back with Cyber Valley. If I had Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment or Mystical Space Typhoon, I would win this but I just had crap like Scapegoat and D.D. Survivor and topdeck into Magic Drain.

Round 5: Old School Beat Down

Game 1: If you haven't notice, I won my games just beating down people with 1800 attackers. He just overpowered me with Berserk Gorillas and Goblin Elite Attack Force.

Game 2 I had Dark Bribe, Solemn Judgment, Macro, Macro, more Dark Bribe and Magic Drain and he just beats me down with D.D. Warrior Lady and Kycoo.

So with this lost, even top 32 for a prize was impossible and I dropped. Everytime I drew an opening hand I wanted to roll my eyes because they were all so bad. The deck has little synergestic interactions. I also hit into Gravekeeper's Spy an unsually large number of times and D.D. Survivor and Kycoo don't destroy those.

After the Tournament

With such an early drop, I had time to look around. First, a highly respected world class player who shall remain anonymous said he built the Shadow of Ohm FTK and concluded that Gillison and Diaz had to stack the decks to win because because all the neccesary draw power and the discard stuff had to be stacked together in order to operate like what was seen on Metagame feature matches.

The second thing I saw is just sickening. I was watching James Neumann play, and he lost. Now, that's not very sickening but the next thing is. He signs the match slip and checks that he won and walks away. Now a less acute player would just sign the slip and hand it in. That means the records would say Neumann wins. He seemed to be really sportsman-like but I guess that's just a way to mask make his cheating much easier. I guess he could've mistakenly checked the wrong box but when was the last time anyone checked the wrong box on a match slip, and this should be especially rare for someone who frequents large tournaments. So if you play James Neumann, watch out for his tricks.

Anyway, there were an unusually large number of Six Samurai players. At the top tables, I would say 1 in every 2 decks was Six Samurai. More on this next blog.

Bad Judging

The number of incorrect rulings from the judges is just astounding. Seriously, I, as a level 1 judge, know my rulings better than the judges at the regionals. Much better in fact. It's kind of sad how these judges don't check the judge forums because these rulings can easily be found there. So I'll just outline some of them here and hopefully some judge will learn something from this.

#1: Swing of Memories vs. Gemini Monsters

A Gemini monster thatis normal summoned to have its effect active is treated as the same monster. Cards like Birthright stay on it and continue to affect it. Swing of Memories will still destroy it at the end of the turn. I almost got screwed over from the head judges incorrect ruling but luckily I still won. The Head Judge says he just came back frm Shonen Jump Columbus too, so yeah, even Shonen Jump judges don't update their rulings.

#2: Dark Bribe vs. Protector of the Sanctuary

Dark Bribe cannot be activated outside the draw phase if Protector of the Sanctuary is on the field. The judge ruled that Dark Bribe can be activated and then the draw effect just does happen. Wrong!

#3 Burial from a Differential Dimension vs. Macro Cosmos

This is a big one. A lot of players think that Burial from a Dimension cannot be played while Dimensional Fissure, Banisher of the Radiance or Macro Cosmos is active. It has been ruled offically ruled by Curtis Schultz that it can be used. Click the link for the reason.

#4 The Six Samurai - Yaichi vs. Torrential Tribute

Yaichi and Kamon need another Six Samurai of a different name with them on the field to activate and resolve. If Torrential Tribute is chained to Yaichi's effect, it would wipe out the Six Samurais and Yaichi's effect would not resolve. Even after I explained this to a judge, he continued to believe that the effect will still resolve without another Six Samurai on the field. Bad judging.

Lessons Learned

So here's what I learned:
1. Don't build a deck 1 hour before a regionals.
2. The Shadow of Ohm FTK doesn't work when not stacked.
3. James Neumann cheats.
4. Many judges are incompetent.
5. Kenny Lam slowplays like mad. You should know this if you live in Toronto.

So that's it for now. Happy dueling.

Related to: Yu-Gi-Oh!

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