The REDU Sneak Peek Experience

Well it was a rather below average sneak peek for me. It doesn't change the fact that it wasn't bad for me at all. We had a not so solid 13 players, and someone got a bye TWICE! It sure as hell wasn't me though. I've observed that my pulls turned out to be, and hoped for a good result for the piece of shit stack of cards I called a deck! I must say that it was a tough deck for me to build this time around. I couldn't even find 20 playable cards in the deck! I had to put cards that I thought would be even near playable in order for me to be successful in the sealed event.

I felt that with knowledge around me, I felt like I pulled the best cards among everyone else there. In fact, I was one of two people to pull a secret rare! First thing I pulled was Number 33: Chronomaly Mechu Mech. At least I knew from there that I was going to have an Extra Deck to use! I never realized that it was going to be the MVP of my day when I read up on a few cards. I then pulled that stupid Noble Knight thingy as my super. It was so dumb that I got trolled by the damn card. Could be worse though. It could have been something like Colossal Fighter/Assualt Mode. After that, I pulled Miracle Contact. Useless to me, so I just simply gave it to my friend.

During my rounds, I felt that I had the best deck that I could ever come up with. However, I felt that I had almost no outs to anything! The real MVP of the day was Compulsory Escape Device. I would watch their one monster get shuffled back while I had a couple of wide open monsters to hit for game. I was close to making top 4, but TERRIBAD hands arrived as I kept drawing all of my useless traps and the Tribute monsters afterwards. Not much you can do about that. =[

So you thought that was it? I have to rant about this set. Yes. There are cards in this set that will help me out a lot with the decks that I currently run. However, I think Konami took it too far with rarities this time around. EVERY single card that you would even be remotely interested in is either ultra or secret rare! I felt trolled when Gear Gigant X was a secret rare currently worth about $80-100 right now on eBay! Worst part is that NOBODY pulled the damn gadget! As for everything else, the best cards in each archetype are all secret rares. UGH!

Chronomaly's had a great showing at the sneak peek, but as it looks, it's not competitive at all. They're just another kind of monster that makes Xyz monsters, but at least they got their own Xyz's that are fairly decent. Of course, you'd all be better off playing the Rank 3 one. Mechu Mech is alright, but even when the amount of ATK points off it's original ATK, it's no more than 500 points, and that's if you're very lucky! I don't know too much else about this archetype, but I'm bound to learn more later about it.

Madolche's didn't show very well at the sneak at all. Every time I saw one on the field, it was gone and shuffled back into the deck. There was that one that searched for another Madolche and put it into your hand, but that's more of a gadget engine on it's own. Some of them are very nicely used with the use of banishing cards like Macro Cosmos and Banisher of the Radiance. However, none of them are as good as simply shitting a 2500 Guardian Eatos out of your ass! Give me more time and I'll learn on how this deck works.

NOW we get to the good archetypes! Heroic's! These things are really good, and we only have 5 of them so far! (including the Xyz) One of them is an "on the field" Honest, another one takes steroids after destroying a monster, and the others, well you'll figure that out. I think this could have potential as more of these come out. For now though, put some of these in another Warrior based deck. You might see some good results coming September.

Now for my favorite of all archetypes, and that's Spellbook/Prophecy! We didn't even get the field spell yet, and we still have ourselves a deck! This deck has the ability to bring out ANY Light/Dark Spellcaster on turn 1! You have so many search cards, and for a chance, your spell cards are more important than your monsters! When we get the field spell, this deck will show some competitiveness due to the field's ability to draw an extra card each turn once conditions are right! For now, just figure out the strategy, and you'll be in love with magicians again!

In all, this set was below average. I was hoping this was going to be another DREV as far as cards were concerned. For those who didn't pay $20 to get in, you made the smart move. As for the story of my life, another hyped up thing ends up becoming a major disappointment. In short; Skip this set, and move on to Abyss Rising in a few months. Lets just hope the Special Edition saves this set's hope of sales.

September 1st, 2012 Banist: The Review

Well guys, it's official. The list is up! It's on yuginewz.com if anyone wants to see it. In this blog, I'm gonna take my predicted list and compare it with the actual list. This one's gonna be a long blog (I think) so get your snacks and "DINNER!" ready for the list that just may have temporarily saved this game!

First off, lets list out what I predicted to be the list.

Banned:
Future Fusion
Wind-Up Zenmaines (BOY WAS I ANYTHING BUT RIGHT HERE!)

Limited:
Inzektor Hornet
Rescue Rabbit
Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Royal Oppression
One Day of Peace
Super Polymerization

Semi-Limited
Tour Guide
Miracle Fusion
Lonefire Blossom
Mirror Force
Brionac
BW-Kalut

Not Limited:
Marshmallon
Level-Limit Area B

NOW FOR THE REAL LIST! LOOK AT THIS ONE!

Banned:
Future Fusion
Brionac

Limited:
Inzektor Hornet
Inzektor Dragonfly
Red Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon
Ultimate Offering
Tsukuyomi
Chaos Sorcerer
Gishki Krakken (OCG)
Spore
Wind-Up Carrier Zenmaity

Semi-Limited:
Tour Guide
Mirror Force
Reasoning
A Hero Lives
Hieratic Seal of Convacation
Rescue Rabbit
BW-Kalut
Pot of Duality
E - Emergency Call
Debris Dragon
The Agent of Mystery - Earth

Not Limited:
Marshmallon
Level-Limit Area B
Swords of Revealing Light
Emergency Teleport
Necro Gardna
Magic Cylinder
Destiny Draw

Now can I say..Woah. This is what I call Konami stepping in and hitting on everything that's even half dominating the format right now. I've personally never seen a list this long for changes to the list. My biggest surprise is me calling Mirror Force right at 2! I just threw that out there as a Konami wild card and there it is! Enough about my bragging though. We need to talk about how each deck got hit, what decks got help, and what decks will dominate the first half of the upcoming format!

Inzektors: Gotta start off with this deck. We lost 4 cards in this deck. The bad news is it will be much harder to see your Hornet, and to pop 2 cards on the first turn. This is rather unfortunately now because the deck is now about dead. I could see Inzektors become a potential engine in another deck though. However, the good news is that we still have the Zektkaliber combo in the deck for us to use! Hitting Dragonfly instead of Centipede might have just saved this deck by a thread! All we can do is hope someone has an imagination to save it.

Chaos Dragons: BAHAHAHA! This deck got hit hard! No more Future Fusion! That card created instant setup for a first turn win if the hand is right. Not to mention that REDMD will be at 1, so now the deck's Lightpulsar loop will be more unstable to keep up! If you can banish the lone REDMD, the loop will be over! I'm sure Darkflare Dragon won't be too harmful though should that come back instead. Another bad thing is that we lost TWO Chaos Sorcerers! I guess that's what happens when we have 3 Lightpulsar Dragons, 3 Darkflare Dragons, and BLS along with Sorcerer.

Wind-Up's: No more hand looping like 4 cards on turn 1! Tell you the truth though, this deck has more of an outside box that Inzektors do. There are many Wind-Up monsters that we don't use now that we'll "Wind-Up" turning to now! The biggest threat this deck serves now is Wind-Up Shark for a Rank 5. I'll leave it to everyone out there to think outside the box on how to break this deck once again.

Classic Chaos: 2 Sorcerers gone = R.I.P. Start making Chaos Dragons and get in with the trend. Not much else to say here.

Rabbit: This deck got a little scratch if anything. It's been proven that 2 Rabbit can still win tournaments. -1 Tour Guide = +1 Tour Bus. That is all. Rabbit Players; Have fun dominating the first half of the format.

Now we can mention the decks that got some help from this list!

Tele-DAD: Wow. 3 Destiny Draws, 3 Emergency Teleports, and what not. Will this deck come alive again and win big events like it was 2008? Maybe not like then, but it will be a deck option to use for the format. Now lets just pray that E-Teleport gets reprinted in a Special Edition or a Tin.

Plants: They're BAAAAAACK! Just without Bulb though. Perhaps Spore can make way into a Tele-DAD deck too I suppose. Oh and with Debris Dragon at 2 now, I'm making this deck the deck of choice! I challenge someone to make D-Hero Plants! Did I mention that I'm in before another Plant YCS win?

Lightsworn: 3rd Necro Gardna = DE-FENCE! :P I guess if we're gonna have aggro decks, why not, right?

Blackwings: 2nd Kalut might have boosted this deck up more than you think! I want Goyo back now!

Empty Jar: Tsukuyomi = another Book of Moon. Win!

Agents: One more Earth could really make a huge difference in this deck. I wonder who would like to try a tech Rabbit in this deck with Shining Friendships?

There are other decks that got small help from this list, but I'll let you think about that. Now to conclude to what Konami did with this list, and what I think the story is all about when making it.

They're reminding everyone that Synchro's are in the game still. We might have lost Brionac due to the future of the game being really dumb, but we have Laval's, Gusto's, and Plants and Tele-DAD have made returns thanks to this list. Last format was the format of the Xyz's. Konami wanted everyone to use the new black cards so they could make more money. Now that we have them into our game's system, we can now use Synchro's competitively again!

And there you have it guys! The review of this list! I know I didn't do the best job writing this, but I'm sure you guys can think harder than I can on this list at this point. All I can say is good luck, and have fun losing to Rabbit and Plants for the next couple of months!

A Local Tournament's Experience

I've been wanting to spend some time talking about the local level of YGO events lately. Mainly because of the fact that no regionals or YCS's are going on at the moment for me to write about anything. It is very important that you think about what happens at your local tournaments instead of what happens above that. If you don't, you will spend a misrable time getting beat by decks that you never expected to see. Every local tournament is different. You might have more meta decks get played at your locals than others. Some will have nothing but rogue decks and you're having to come up with a wacky side deck yourself!

However, just because you're the local champion every week does NOT by any means make you a good player! It just means that you're probably better than the players that you're around and you obviously stood out. If you win your locals, think about what you've actually accomplished. Did you beat any tier 1 decks? Did you beat anybody that had true skill with their deck? Or did you beat all scrubs en route to victory? Yes, your confidence going into a regionals or YCS will boost up because of a local win, but you may receive a reality check then if you're beating nothing but bad players with bad decks all day.

I've been going to local tournaments for 10 years now. I've seen it all! I've seen tier 3 decks win local events due to lack of knowledge from other players. I've even been beat by the stupidest bullshit in the history of dueling! Was I mad? Who wouldn't be mad? In the end, it's a local tournament! The bad players are going to have their days, and their moments against good players. If you want to get that high of beating others with complete utter bullshit, then you should try some very random techs in your decks. New ones every week for that matter. I'm sure they won't see that Liberty at Last coming.

The better part about local tournaments though is that you have nothing to lose when you're trying new deck ideas in a tournament. The past 2 weeks, I've been throwing together random tier 2 decks to try out and see how they do competitively. In fact, I manage to get the attention of the people around me and yell out "Chad! I didn't know you had that deck!" Well guys, I have that shock factor placed into everyone's heads when I try out a new deck. If you fail to make the cut, then it's alright. You now know that your deck isn't too good. If you go far, then it's something that you could play with in the future for bigger events! Who knows? You could make the next local dynasty with the next deck you try out!

I do have to mention trading! Although some people at every local event will be the shark for your good cards, most people are more than willing to help out someone that needs to get a card for a deck. I'm not always successful at doing so, but if you came here to get knowledge about how decks run, you'd probably need to get that certain card anyways. If you can put together a trade binder with all the cards that you're willing to trade off, you just might walk out with some really nice cards that you've always wanted to own! You'd also be surprised at the others that would overtrade to you for just the most simple cards in your common box!

My favorite part of a local tournament is that I make friends while I'm there! I've exchanged phone numbers and texted a lot of the better players that go to my locals. I even hang out with some of them every so often during the week and playtest decks with them. Tell you the truth, it's the best way to get better! I remember when one of our godlike players texted me wanting to playtest for a night, he showed me some tips on what I should do, and I've gotten so much better just by playtesting that one night! If you don't already, open yourself to the community and take interest in playtesting with the better players outside the card shop! You'll see your results improving as you keep playing!

In conclusion, local tournaments are really fun to go to if you wish to obtain more knowledge in the game. It's not TOO competitive, you get to know how other decks run with your own 2 eyes (and in 3D!) and you can make friends in the process! Local tournaments are the most important events in YGO because of the fun nature of the event. They'll help you gear up for the bigger events in the future, and who knows? You could just be going to Nationals in the future! All it takes is a good attitude, and a will to get better! You just have to get the time to show up every week!

That's all I'll talk about today. Who knows what my next topic will be? Find out....EVENTUALLY!!!

What NOT to do at a local tournament.

Sorry for the long drought of blogs for YGO stuff. I figured I'd try and make you laugh a bit on what you shouldn't do at a local tournament. I'll just come up with 10 things. Have fun reading!

1. Don't bring a binder full of commons! It pisses me off when I'm about to get all excited about looking through a huge binder of cards only to find out that it's full of really shitty commons! Seriously? Do you have to put every card you own in your binder? I'd rather just look at commons in a stack or in a box! What I hate even more is that they're not even organized! Please just put them in a stack! It'd make a lot more sense!

2. Don't bring your girlfriend to your locals! I mean it's alright if she plays too, then it'd make sense, but if all she's gonna do is either watch you or be really bored while you're probably getting your ass kicked, you just might not have a girlfriend at the end of the day! You should realize that she's gonna be around a bunch of single guys that act really dumb and flirty, and because they're jealous, they'll call her ugly on you! Seriously! If you have a girlfriend that wants to do stuff with you on a Saturday, then you shouldn't be at the tournament in the first place!

3. Don't ruleshark your opponent! It's a fucking locals! Your fellow scrubs are gonna fuck up somehow, and it always happens! All you can ask them to do is just put that extra card at the bottom of the deck, or just let it go. If you go to MY locals, and you ruleshark over a win, you're really sharking over TWO fucking packs! It's not worth it, my friend. Just play and have fun. And we all know who I'm talking about! That's pretty much why I wrote this one!

4. Don't play in the tournament if you KNOW you're not going to top. You essentially pay an extra dollar for a pack for playing in the tournament. If you know that's all you're gonna get because you keep losing, then just don't enter anymore! There are a few people that go to my locals that NEVER win, and they pay $5 every week just to play in the tournament. Folks, it's just not worth it! If you wanna get better, then just ask the best players for advice and to playtest against them. You'll only get better that way.

5. Don't leave your stuff laying around! The past couple of weeks, other people's stuff came up missing due to their lack of responsibility. I swear! The next mat that I see laying around, I just might take it! I wish people were allowed to suffer consequences like that for leaving stuff around, but unfortunately, I can't take anyone's stuff. However, someone might take it, then leave. If you bring a lot of stuff, you're better off leaving most of it at home.

6. Don't bring a large pizza to the card shop! If you're a fat pig and you expect all that food to serve as your meal, then you better be ready to share! It's fine if you bring it, wanting to eat 3 slices, then selling the rest for $1 a slice, but if you don't wanna fucking share your huge ass pie, then don't bring it! Eat it in the car for all I care! It's not like your trades are gonna go away because you decided to eat a large pizza in the car.

7. Don't put shit that you're not gonna trade in your trading binder! Oh my god the worst offenders are so common! The more that I look through a binder and I see the one card that he's not trading because he's keeping it for a deck, the more I just wanna just jack it and go right on home! It just goes to show you! If you're not willing to lose something that you're not using, then don't bring it! I wish more people could follow that logic! I feel like I'm the only one that says everything in my binder is for trade.

8. Don't tell everyone you're the best player in the store! God I hate cocky players that think they can every single game. You know what? The more you trash talk for yourself, the more fuel you give everyone else to play better and eventually 2-0 your ass! Not only will you lose to someone, but you will lose the respect of everyone else at that locals. In the end, God has the last word and will make sure that only the victims win.

9. Don't make love to your girlfriend at the shop! Didn't I already tell everyone to leave their girlfriends at home? I seriously don't wanna see you 2 kiss and make out before a round! I mean there are kids there too! You'll get them to make out with their mothers for God's sake! Please do us all a favor, and save the kissing and making out for some other time!

10. Don't act like the characters on the show while playing! God it annoys me to hear someone say this! "BLUE EYES! ATTACK RESCUE RABBIT WITH WHITE LIGHTNING! NOW!" Did you know the rest of us players take this game way more seriously than that? Just remember this! This is NOT the TV show! Your opponent probably won't have that kind of sense of humor, and will probably slap you on the back of the head for being a dumb idiot that watches WAY too much TV!

Well that's it! Follow these things, and you will have more respect at your locals! Well I hope you do at least.

Deck Profile: Machina Geartown

A couple weeks ago, I tried something new that I thought was gonna succeed in at least the local level. My friend told me to look at Kevin Silva's Machina Geartown deck and build that. Of course, I made my own adjustments based on my playstyle, and I saw myself getting more and more comfortable with the deck! As a result, I ended up with a 4-1 record! However, a Chaos Dragon deck with a God hand on game 3 ended my day early. In the end, I thought the deck was a huge first time success!

Now we're gonna go over some key cards that I loved playing in this deck!

Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon: An amazing 3000 ATK beatstick that comes out when Geartown gets destroyed on the field and sent to the grave. In addition, when it attacks, no Spell or Traps can be activated until the end of the damage step! This will get around any possible D-Prisons, Mirror Force, etc. Having a 3000 ATK beater can get over almost everything in this format! Last but not least, it's a Level 8! This means you can use this one card in your hand to Special Summon a Machina Fortress from your hand or Graveyard! It just shows that this card isn't a dead draw, but can also be the game winning topdeck!


Machina Peacekeeper: Instead of Gadgets, I run 3 of these things! They stress adding your Gearframes straight to your hand, which leads to getting Fortress to your hand! It will be quite easy to get the necessary cards to your hand thanks to this card. It's Union effect is quite useful too! Equip this to a bigger monster, then watch your opponent destroy it! Then you get Gearframe and you protect your monster! It annoyed quite a few opponents during the tournament!


Breaker the Magical Warrior: Wanna put 4600 on board? Summon Breaker, pop Geartown, then Special Summon the giant ass Dragon! Also, it can exterminate backrow so that you can make your big plays without much to fear! You shouldn't have much trouble dealing with heavy backrow as long as you draw your hate, and this helps a lot!

Necrovalley: Although I don't run any Gravekeepers, this card can annoy so many decks! Not to mention that it will not hurt your monsters' abilities to do whatever they need to do! It only hurts 2 of your cards: Pot of Avarice, and Monster Reborn. Other than that, this card can be a huge game-winner against the majority of the meta!

With that said and done, lets just put the decklist up!

Monsters: 20
3x Machina Peacekeeper
3x Machina Gearframe
2x Machina Fortress
1x Machina Cannon
2x Ancient Gear Gadjiltron Dragon
3x Breaker the Magical Warrior
3x Effect Veiler
2x Tragoedia
1x Gorz the Emissary of Darkness

Spells: 17
3x Terraforming
3x Geartown
1x Necrovalley
2x Forbidden Lance
3x Mystical Space Typhoon
1x Heavy Storm
1x Pot of Avarice
1x Book of Moon
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn

Traps: 3
2x Torrential Tribute
1x Solemn Judgment

Extra Deck: 15
1x Ally of Justice Catastor
1x Magical Android
1x Stardust Dragon
1x Scrap Dragon
1x Red Dragon Archfiend

2x Number 39: Utopia
1x Steelswarm Roach
1x Maestroke the Symphony Djinn
1x Photon Papilloperative
1x Gem-Knight Pearl
1x Kochi Kochi Dragon
1x Number C39: Utopia Ray
1x Number 11: Big Eye
1x Chimeratech Fortress Dragon

As for another note, it's really easy to side stuff out with this deck. If you use the right side deck, you can always side out Terraformings, Breakers, Veilers (vs Banishing deck) or Trags and Gorz (vs Inzektors).

And that's all for now! Next up will be a funny blog on what you shouldn't do at a local tournament! =D

The North American WCQ: A Bi-Polar Experience

Well, it was shockingly enough for me to say that I went to Columbus, OH for the 2012 YGO North American World Championship Qualifier. In the front surface of everything, it was a great time! Behind it all was a mixture of pro's and con's that made the trip the way it was. Time to explain most details of the entire trip.

I was chilling with friends when I got the call from my friend that changed my entire weekend. I was asked to take his spot for the trip due to personal reasons. I had to see if I could come up with the money to go cause if I couldn't, then I wouldn't know what to do for everyone. Luckily, we got paid and I got about $300 to go on this trip! I started getting ready by writing the decklist, making copies, and what not. We left at around midnight Thursday. After a few breaks and breakfast, we made it to the Convention Center at around 12:30 PM.

Next, it was me trying to earn my 2012 WCQ invite by winning a 16 player flight in the Last Chance Qualifier (LCQ) I was quite confident that my Machina Gadget could beat the primary meta decks and reign supreme. Each time I entered, I got a Duelist Pack and 2 Starstrike Blast packs!

LCQ #1
Pack Pulls: Glow-Up Bulb (Holy shit! Why is it banned?)
Round 1: vs Rabbit
Game 1: He never set backrow and I Veiler'd the first Rabbit that came out. Over much?
Game 2: I misplay by not bringing out Fortress in Main Phase 2. He ends up Tour Guide'ing me to death the next turn.
Game 3: I love forcing negations with Soul Taker. So awesome! In the end, I came out on top.
Won 2-1

Round 2: vs Chaos Dragons
Game 1: I love Veiler'ing Tour Guide. It makes everything great! Aggro Fortress ftw!
Game 2: I got YGO'd. Chaos Dragons can do too much.
Game 3: I got YGO'd again. =[
Lost 2-1

Off for another try! I had time for it. Too bad it was my last chance to get an invite.

LCQ #2
Pack Pulls: Glow-Up Bulb (AGAIN!) Naturia Cherries, and Eccentric Boy
Round 1: vs Rabbit
Game 1: Nothing was done for like 5 turns at some point. I eventually draw a Gadget and then outplayed him the rest of the way. Macro Cosmos sucked.
Game 2: I responded to everything! He got nothing and Gadgets were beating him to death!
Won 2-0

Round 2: vs Inzektors
Game 1: Chain Disappearance on Dragonfly? Nice! After I Solemn Judgment his Leviair, I won the game.
Game 2: Royal Decree screwed him bad since I actually sided out traps. It made me not scared at all to aggro for game.
Won 2-0

Semifinal: vs Chaos Dragon
Game 1: Steelswarm Roach was quite effective! It forced him to destroy it after I attacked Ryko with it! Went for game and I Warning'd his Battle Fader for the win!
Game 2: Future Fusion huh? Fossil Dyna prevents everything! No Five-Headed Dragon for you! Good game.
Won 2-0

Final: vs Rabbit
Game 1: Feeling really nervous, I just did everything I did before against Rescue Rabbit. VEILER THE DAMN BITCH! Two of them in a row! Nice win in the end!
Game 2: Feeling even more nervous about this! I didn't even side out Veiler since I felt good about it. In the end, I just had every out to his stuff and Maestroke gave me the sweetest win all weekend!
Won 2-0

With that, I GOT MY INVITE! I also took home a Hieratic Dragon Regional mat and since I registered for the WCQ, I also got an Inzektor mat and a pack of 80 WCQ sleeves! It was the most amazing and most relieved feeling ever to know that I came to get my invite, and completed the mission! Now I have to get ready for the next day to try and kick some more ass!

Everything going good until...The power went out in 90% of Ohio. We couldn't check into our hotel room since the power was out and we had no way in. Some places in Ohio got power back, but our hotel never got power. In the end, I had to sleep in the car with 4 other guys, and I was in the middle of 2 of them in the back seat. Not to mention it was hot and very uncomfortable! In the end, I got ZERO sleep and I was up for like over 24 hours straight after a while. No matter, I was to get ready to play in the main event!

After walking around the really nice looking room that the main event was in, I decided to FINALLY charge my phone and playtest for a little bit before it all started. I went to buy stuff from people and got more cool stuff.

NOW we go for the REAL event! How far will I go? We'll find out!

WCQ Report

Round 1: vs Chaos Dragons
It was the dude that got 3rd place at YCS Dallas with HERO beat. It didn't stop me!
Game 1: NO gadgets or Gearframes drawn. I still survive the game with just a Tragoedia!
Game 2: Better, but he opened with 2 Effect Veilers and stopped stuff. I lose eventually.
Game 3: Drew really bad! Why isn't my deck showing up? Spirit Reaper in the end raped me. =[
0-1

Round 2: vs T.G.
Game 1: Very close game here going back and forth, but he had a Horn of the Phantom Beast on his Tengu to plus like crazy and win.
Game 2: Had more control despite Skill Drain. I love the ability to Xyz! After winning this game, time ran out and it was ruled a draw.
0-1-1

Round 3: vs Dark World
Game 1: Thought I'd win this one with beatdown, but he drew into one card and got everything to go his way. Oh well.
Game 2: Responses to everything lead to me winning this one. God I hate Grapha sometimes!
Game 3: Prohibition on Grapha! YAY! I take this one home after a Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror came out!
1-1-1

Round 4: vs Wind-Ups
I start to get really really tired this round. I determined whether I'd drop by winning or losing.
Game 1: He had complete control after I misplayed and Veiler'd too early. Factory and Rabbit is such a bitch.
Game 2: I figure out how to beat the deck and win with Gadgets!
Game 3: I start to fall asleep here. I dropped my hand trying to stay awake and he just had everything to win at that point. I drop here.
1-2-1 Drop

After that, I start going to the vendors and buy whatever I thought was a good buy and sold whatever good things I had in my binder. At the end of the day, I bought way too much! Oh well! We go to our hotel and THE POWER IS ON! We go swimming and relax our stress away in the spa! =] After that we pretty much chilled at our hotel room and playtested so that the others can try and get their 2013 invite. That and I ate a shit ton of chips and White Castle chicken rings! =D After that I fell asleep on the floor and we woke up at like 11 AM.

Sunday I just bought from vendors and sold them a bunch of stuff. Now my binder is pretty much raped and nothing to trade. After watching the press conference for the voice actors, I decided to eat, then walk around to see more eye candy that was walking around the convention center all weekend! Gigity gigity goo!

After a relaxing day at the convention center, we go to our hotel only to find out we lost power AGAIN! So we decided to say fuck it and drive back home.After 12 hours in the car together including breaks and what not, I finally made it home right when I was supposed to wake up for school that morning. Did I go? HELL NO! I skipped like a bastard!

And there you go folks. My experience at Nationals 2012 in Ohio. Hopefully I'll get another chance next year to go if I'm even still playing YGO by then!

So what will win the North American WCQ?

It's impossible to predict the PERSON that will win the WCQ, but it IS possible to predict what deck that will win it all. Will a dominant deck take the crown, or will a Tier 2 deck reign supreme?

Speaking of Tier 2 decks, quite a few of them have splashed into top 8 in many different WCQ's all around the world! From Sea Lancer, to Machina Gadgets, to even Six Samurai! I've even seen a BS deck top! As much as I have to tell everyone. A Tier 2 deck is not as good as a Tier 1 deck, but if the player masters the deck frontwards and back, then the player will have the result of a Tier 1 deck. Many people play the deck in the tournament of their lives that represent what they're the best at. Others, just play a deck that wins all the time and know how to use it very well.

If you go on YouTube, you should be able to find most of the decklists that people topped with in different countries. It doesn't mean that they will do anything here in North America though. Usually what topped in recent YCS's are what's gonna top here. The only decks that I believe will have a chance to top here are Dino Rabbit, Inzektors, and Chaos Dragons. I really cannot see any other deck doing well as the rest of them are bad. It doesn't mean you can't come up with a nice story about how you won with Ojama's or something like that. It just means that too many of the big 3 decks will be played. Therefore, nothing else will have much of a chance.

As a Machina Gadget player though, I've figured out easily on how to beat each of the big 3 decks. Chaos Dragons are a pain in the ass because every game 3, they got Future Fusion and won the very next turn. I'm really good at locking down Inzektors. I'm x-1 with the deck against Inzektors. As for Dino Rabbit, I have almost no experience against it because my locals don't play it. Since I can get around a Laggia very easily with my build, I don't think it's too much of a problem since my deck doesn't care at all about Macro Cosmos.

All I will tell you is that this year, it should have been in Las Vegas. The entire game as of right now is about how lucky you are. Obviously it's been like that since the game came out. However, luck is even more important than ever. You might have a nice hand to work with, but does your opponent have one card that can win them that turn? Worst of all, did you open with Effect Veiler? The game is way too luck based today. I mean 2 of the 3 big decks do not require any thought whatsoever. You just drop cards, and they tell you how to play the rest of the deck.

To conclude to all of this, I must tell you what will win the WCQ this year. I hate to break it to everyone, but Dino Rabbit will win. They just have everything needed to win. The object to Dino Rabbit is to make your Main Deck as expensive as possible and you win the entire tournament. Are those RYMP Macro Cosmos? I GOT SUPER ONES! I WIN! I do also think that the winning Dino Rabbit deck will play a Banishing theme to it in the main deck. It kinda ruins everything if I'm not mistaken.

Well everyone, have fun this coming weekend. Don't punch holes in the wall if you get Future Fusion'd on turn 1.