YCS San Diego was just last week, and it brought something new and interesting to the table. Over 1500 duelists traveled from across the world to participate in the first US Battle Pack Sealed event. Each duelist received 50 cards from 10 booster packs and built a 30+ card deck in the 20 minutes they were given. These duelists then played 9 long rounds of swiss until only players with 19 points or more were left. A win is 3 points, a loss is 0 points, and a draw is 1 point. So that means anyone with these records would make it to day 2:
9 wins-0 losses 9 (27 points)
8 wins - 1 draw (25 points)
8 wins - 1 loss (24 points)
7 wins - 2 draws (23 points)
7 wins - 1 draw - 1 loss (22 points)
7 wins - 2 losses (21 points)
6 wins - 3 draws (21 points)
6 wins - 2 draws - 1 loss (20 points)
6 wins - 2 losses - 1 draw (19 points)
5 wins - 4 draws (19 points)
If you had any more than 2 draws the judges would most definitely be keeping an eye on you, because unlike in some other card games, yugioh does not allow planned draws in tournament play. It is actually extremely frowned upon and even considered cheating. I'm sure quite a few duelists tried to draw when anyone with a record of 5 wins and 4 draws could make it to day 2.
Here's an example of a deck created from the 10 packs. I will provide the deck I built
Main Deck - 30
Monsters - 16
1 Ambitious Gofer
1 Dark Dust Spirit
1 Chainsaw Insect
1 Slate Warrior
1 Luster Dragon
1 Gogogo Golem
1 Chiron the Mage
1 D.D. Assailant
1 Breaker, the Magical Warrior
1 Dekoichi, the Battlechanted Locomotive
1 Exiled Force
1 Tour Guide from the Underworld
1 Tanngrisnir of the Nordic Beasts
1 Des Mosquito
1 Night Assailant
1 Cyber Valley
Spells - 7
2 Graceful Charity
1 Bait Doll
1 Swords of Revealing Light
1 Horn of the Unicorn
1 Fighting Spirit
1 Darkworld Shackles
Traps - 7
2 Prideful Roar
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Miracles Wake
1 Magic Cylinder
1 Skill Succesor
1 Solemn Judgment
Extra Deck - 5
1 Grenosaurus
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Wind-Up Zenmaister
1 Gem-Knight Pearl
1 Tiras, Keeper of Genesis
Side Deck - 15
1 White Night Dragon
1 Ancient Gear Golem
1 Buster Blaser
1 Vampire Lord
1 Airknight Parshath
1 Backup Warrior
1 Theban Nightmare
1 Big Shield Gardna
1 Mad Reloader
1 Wind-Up Dog
1 Helping Robo for Combat
1 Hardened Armed Dragon
1 Level Eater
1 Twin-Sword Marauder
1 Damage Gate
As you can see from my deck, I had a solid ratio of Monster/Spells/Traps. I didn't think my deck was overpowered, but I didn't really think it was underpowered either. I would say it was just about average. I had a lot of players telling me,"WOW! 2 Graceful Charity?!?!?! How on earth did you lose?" Graceful is obviously an amazing card, but I believe it is only as good as the cards it is digging for. I didn't have the most removal in the world, nor the best tribute monsters, but I tried to make due with what I was given. It is also important to note that Graceful Charity can be a pretty scary card to use at times since my deck is only 30 cards and I have 2 copies of it in my deck... but that's enough about Graceful Charity, lets get into my tournament experience.
Round 1
The game starts off with me attacking directly with a D.D. Assailant. I have a Swords of Revealing Light and Dark Dust Spirit in hand and an already on field DD Assailant, so I don't mind attacking into a Gorz. He actually does have the Gorz, as well as a Mystical Space Typhoon for my Swords of Revealing Light. He crashes his token into mine and I just cant get over the Gorz. Game 2 I get a lot of advantage off of my trap cards and the game ends early with some big beaters. In game three, my opponent tries to drop his Gorz when I attack my D.D. Assailant into his face-up attack position Worm Barses. After I eventually prove to him that he can't drop Gorz there, I end my turn and he sets a monster. I draw Graceful Charity and I discard Night Assailant and Slate Warrior. Night Assailant grabs me back Slate Warrior and I summon it. My hand has like six or seven cards in it at this point to my opponents 3 (I know one of those is gorz) I attack my D.D. Assailant into his set Morphing Jar and he just discards the Gorz. I am pretty astonished at this point that he would make a play like that, but it works wonders for him as I attack my Slate Warrior into his second Gorz! At this point I am thinking to myself "Am I really about to lose to someone who doesn't even know how to play Gorz?" I get my head back in the game and before I know it, I actually defeat him and his second Gorz with a timely Prideful Roar.
1-0
Round 2
This is one of the quickest matches I have ever had in yugioh. I thought Battle Pack would be a slower, more back and forth format, but My opponent has a deck consisting of cards like Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, Injection Fairy Lily, Cyber Dragon, Pot of Greed, Change of Heart, Magic Cylinder, and United We Stand. It is just way to aggressive for my slower paced control deck to handle. I get 2-0ed in 20 minutes.
1-1
Round 3
Game one gets to a point where I have around 18 cards left in deck and I'm not feeling good with the cards I have on the field and in hand so I use my Graceful and I manage to draw into graceful and some other bland cards. I use the other graceful, and draw into better cards and then I attack into my opponents set morphing jar and lose my whole 7 card hand. Next turn he sets a cyber jar and I just deck out... Game 2, I attack into a cyber jar later in the game and he flips 5 monsters off the top of his deck to my Cyber Valley and Exiled force. I just can't handle the brute force of 5 big guys attacking me so I just lose.
Another quick loss!
1-2
Round 4
I honestly don't remember too much of this game, but I manage to win with Chainsaw Insect 2 games in a row. I know it lets your opponent draw a card, but 2400 is no joke!
2-2
Round 5
Game one my opponent starts off with 3 sets spells/traps and a monster. I summon my Slate Warrior and set 2 Spells/ Traps since I have a strong feeling his set monster is a Morphing Jar. I attack into a grave Squirmer and it destroys my Slate Warrior. Next turn my opponent uses Harpie's Feather Duster AND sets Morphing Jar. He is up way too much in advantage and I can't come back. Game 2 I draw barely any monsters and lose rather quickly to his big guys since I can't fire back with my own.
2-3 drop
I didn't make it to day 2 as you can see from my record, but everyone that made it to day 2 had to play 5 more rounds of swiss with advanced format decks. A lot of Water, Fire Fist, and Dino Rabbit made the Top 32 and my friends Angel Ascencio and Mike Steinman made it to the finals in a Water vs. Fire matchup. Angel ended up taking the win with Water, and that ended the weekend with a bang. Regardless of what anyone says, this event was most definitely a gauntlet. The winner, Angel, had to play 19 total matches throughout the weekend. That is a whole lot of rounds, so a lot of respect goes out to him.
Before the event, I was very excited for something new. I was telling all my friends that our opponents couldn't open up Mermail Abyssmegalo + Atlantean Dragoons. We even tested the night before and I liked the way it was going. After the event, I have much different feelings. Sure, Battle Pack: Epic Dawn is filled with a lot of cool banned cards and staples of the current format, but it also has a lot of big problem cards. Some examples are: Gorz the Emissary of Darkness, Cyber Jar, Ring of Destruction, Tragoedia, Harpie's Feather Duster, etc. There are too many to count, and I am actually fine with my opponents having these cards. They aren't the problems. The problem is that we all get 50 random cards, and in these 50 random cards, we can or cannot get multiples of theses overpowered cards. As you can see from all of the games I lost (and even some that I didn't lose), I lost because these certain combinations of cards were just too powerful to handle. My first round opponent had 2 Gorz. The first can be pretty easy to play around, but the second will always catch you off guard. My second Round opponent dropped Cyber Dragon, Change of Heart, Injection Fairy Lily and Call of the Haunted all in one turn to beat me one game. My third round opponent got Morphing Jar and Cyber Jar; a deadly combo when every player only has 30 card decks. and My fifth round opponent had Morphing Jar + Harpie's Feather Duster; a combo that is almost impossible to play around. At the end of the day, I would consider my 50 card pile around average, and I think if I had not been so unlucky, maybe thing could have gone a better way... but it is what it is and there is always the next event. I'm not sure how I feel about the Battle Pack Sealed event after this weekend, because I honestly didn't get to play too many games. I would definitely like another YCS like this; maybe we can get one with the release of Battle Pack 2: War of the Giants, when it comes out in June. Until next time, peace out guys!
-Paul
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