Hello Yugioh Community! The first ever ARG Circuit Series took place this past weekend in Ft. Worth, Texas and I want to give a big congratulation to Patrick Hoban for taking it down. He has just been on fire lately, is he ever going to be able to be stopped? Sadly, I was not able to take home the first place prize, but I still managed to make the top 16 cut losing out to my teammate Frazier Smith in the first round of the top cut Sunday morning. Frazier and the eventual winner Hoban ended up being my only losses all weekend, leaving me with not too much to complain about. The event was run very well and the set-up was incredible. This was one of the most competitive and friendly atmospheres that I have ever experienced at a higher level tournament, and trust me, I have been to quite a few. The judge staff was great, I didn’t hear anyone complain about a ruling all day. The coverage from the ARG media staff (Not just a couple of guys, a whole team of people) was also just amazing. There were multiple feature matches every round of the player’s most duelists wanted to see; always someone running around taking pictures, even a red carpet was set-up for photo-ops. Overall I would give this event a 9/10 hands down and this was just the first one so it can only get better, if that is even possible. I know I will be trying my hardest to make sure I attend every ARG Circuit Series in the future, hopefully I will see you there!
Question of the Article: Are you going to be attending any ARG Circuit Series in the future?
The Deck that I chose to use for the event was Blue-Eyes Dragon Rulers because let’s be honest, who wouldn’t want to win a major event with a couple copies of Blue-Eyes White Dragon in their deck. The deck has a really solid draw engine that not only gets you deeper into your deck, but also fills your graveyard with Dragons ready to be banished to summon the Dragon Rulers. Also thanks to my friend Robert Boyajian, my favorite card of the weekend : [ccProd]Trigon[/ccProd]. This Fire-Dragon and Debris target opens up the decks plays in so many ways simply because you can automatically send a [ccProd]Debris Dragon[/ccProd] target from the deck to the grave with a [ccProd]Dragon Ravine[/ccProd]. Trigon also being another card you can discard with Blaster to destroy problem cards on the opponent’s side of the field isn’t half bad either. Instead of just talking about the deck, let me go ahead and show you the list of what I used.
Monsters: 20
[ccDeck="Main Deck"]2 The White Stone of Legend:3 Blaster, Dragon Ruler of Inferno:2 Blue-Eyes White Dragon:1 Debris Dragon:1 Trigon:3 Redox, Dragon Ruler of Boulders:3 Tidal, Dragon Ruler of Waterfalls:1 Flamvell Guard:1 Dragunity Corseca:3 Tempest, Dragon Ruler of Storms:2 Cards of Consonance:2 Trade-In:3 Dragon Ravine:3 Sacred Sword of Seven Stars:1 Mystical Space Typhoon:1 Terraforming:1 Raigeki Break:2 Vanity’s Emptiness:1 Castle of The Dragon Souls:3 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast:1 Return From The Different Dimension[/ccDeck]
[ccDeck="Side Deck"]1 Swift Scarecrow:2 D.D. Crow:1 Deck Devasation Virus:2 Debunk:3 DNA Surgery:2 Mind Crush:2 Mystical Space Typhoon:2 Xyz Encore[/ccDeck]
[ccDeck="Extra Deck"]1 Ancient Fairy Dragon:2 Mecha Phanton Beast Dracossack:1 Number Eleven Big Eye:1 Hieratic Sun Dragon Overload of Heliopolis:1 Colossal Fighter:1 Gaia Dragon,The Thunder Charger:1 Star Eater:1 Azure-Eyes Silver DRagon:1 Scrap Dragon:1 Black Rose Dragon:1 Armory Arm:1 Thought Ruler Archfiend:1 Crimson Blader:1 Stardust Dragon[/ccDeck]
For those of you who think the Blue-Eyes version of Dragon Rulers is just gimmicky and not very good, I would have to beg to differ. Of the five players who entered this tournament with Blue-Eyes in their deck, two of them made top 16 with a third (Robert Boyajin) coming in 17th just barely missing the cut off. Those numbers should speak for themselves, but if you don’t trust them I implore you to sit down and try it out yourself, the deck is quite fun. While there are a few changes I would make, I was overall pretty happy with the list I used. If you notice I did not Side or Main any copies of the ever popular cards Maxx “C” or Effect Veiler. While I do feel that both of these cards can be effective in their own way, I have been on the fence if they are even needed this format. I just feel that the top decks of the format: Dragon Ruler, Dragunity Ruler, and Spellbooks; They all have a point that they can stop under Maxx “C” if they played correctly and it will almost nullify anything you were trying to do, whereas, if the Maxx “C” were the correct removal card you could stop their play entirely no matter the situation. They are both still very good cards, I just think it might be better to dedicate that spot to something more detrimental in that match-up. Let us take a look at the different decks I faced at this event.
Round 1 - Fire Fist - Won 2-1
Round 2 – Zombies – Won 2-1
Round 3 – Prophecy - Won 2-1
Round 4 – Lightsworn – Won 2-1
Round 5 - Blue-eyes Dragon Ruler (Frazier Smith) – Lost 2-0
Round 6 – Constellars – Won – 2-0
Round 7 – Dragunity Ruler (Patrick Hoban) – Lost -2-1
Round 8 – Dragunity Ruler – Won 2-1
Round 9 - Dragon Ruler - Won 2-1
Final Swiss Record – 7-2 - - 15th place
Top 16
Blue-Eyes Ruler (Frazier Smith) – Lost 2-0
After 10 rounds of play my ending record was 7 wins with 3 losses for the weekend, but I guess the silver lining to this event for me was that I only lost to my ARG teammates, one of them twice! As you can see by the game count however, even the round I won were far from an easy for me. Every single round was a very tough and an all out battle due to everyone bringing their A-game to the ARG circuit series. As I mentioned at the top of this article, the atmosphere for this event was unlike one I have experienced before. Everyone seemed to be in a great mood, just excited at all of the cool things ARG had put together for the event, but at the same time when the clock started for each round everyone seemed to get down to business. It was easily one of my favorite tournaments that I have ever attended and I can’t wait for the next one in Columbus in October.
Conclusion: The first ever ARG Circuit Series was amazing. It was ran well and I really feel like they out did themselves, going up and beyond what I could even imagine for the media staff, the judging staff, and even had a great venue for the event. I was quite happy that I chose to use the Blue-Eyes version of Dragon Ruler’s since it was able to nab me a stop in the top 16. The deck easily has room to grow and I hope many players start picking it up to use in the future with their own unique techs. [ccProd]Trigon[/ccProd] was easily the MVP of my deck, he makes [ccProd]Debris Dragon[/ccProd] so much more effective and useful. Perhaps I will take a new revamped version of the deck to the next ARG Circuit Series in Columbus, Ohio in a couple of weeks and try and get my first Circuit Series win there! Only time will tell!
Thanks for Reading! Feel free to leave comments down below!
-Billy Brake
Latest posts by Billy Brake (see all)
- Billy Brake 3rd Place YCS San Mateo – Trigon Dragons Explained - October 10, 2013
- ARG Circut Series Ft. Worth Overview – Billy Brake’s Blue-Eyes Dragon Ruler - September 26, 2013
- ARG Circut Series – Billy Brake’s Decks to Test – Blasting the Axis - September 20, 2013
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