I’m back! And it’s like I never left you at all! Thanks to some of my Facebook friends I’ve decided to do a tournament report of my YCS Dallas experience. Here goes nothing!
*BEWARE! THIS ARTICLE IS MASSIVE!*
I came to Texas thinking that I would be playing Inzektors but that quickly changed when I had entirely too much of a struggle beating my good friend, Stephen Silverman, and his Rabbit deck. I asked him to save me because I had switched my deck to Wind-ups and then back to Inzektors in hopes of escaping what had happened to me in Long Beach. I didn’t want to play Rabbit because I had an extremely hard time drawing the card in my 12 rounds of swiss at the previous YCS. I told Steve that I needed him to be my Rope of Life in this situation and show me that I was making a mistake by not playing Dino-Rabbit for this event. After he smashed me in enough games to win a whole tournament I decided that I would be playing Rabbit once again. In the morning, right before the tournament began, I decided to add back in the 3 Guaibas that I took out the night before. I realized that it was foolish to not run that card when I expected more Inzektors than any other deck. At the player meeting I was shocked to be called out to be a bounty. It was a big surprise to me because I assumed—without a doubt—that there was no way I would be a bounty for Texas but it happened. Oh and before I forget, here is the decklist that I used:
Monsters: 20
3x Tour Guide from the Underworld
3x Rescue Rabbit
3x Sabersaurus
3x Kabazauls
3x Jurrac Guaiba
3x Effect Veiler
1x Sangan
1x Gorz
Spells: 13
3x Mystical Space Typhoon
3x Forbidden Lance
1x Smashing Ground
1x Mind Control
1x Heavy Storm
1x Pot of Avarice
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn
1x Book of Moon
Traps: 8
2x Fiendish Chain
2x Solemn Warning
1x Torrential Tribute
1x Mirror Force
1x Dimensional Prison
1x Solemn Judgment
41 Cards
Side Deck:15
3 Macro Cosmos
3 Snowman Eater
2 Gemini Imps
2 Maxx “C”
2 Royal Decree
1 Shadow-Imprisoning Mirror
1 Smashing ground
1 Electric Virus
Extra Deck: 15
2 Evolzar Laggia
2 Evolzar Dolkka
2 Leviair, the Sea Dragon
1 Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1 Number 20: Giga-Brilliant
1 Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1 Number 39: Utopia
1 Number C39: Utopia Ray
1 Submersible Carrier Aero Shark
1 Wind-up Zenmaines
1 Wind-up Zenmaister
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
Round 1: Dino Rabbit vs. Inzektors
Game 1: I can remember going into Laggia on my first turn and then attacking into a Ryko shortly after which surprised me and made me a little salty. However, it was a Guaiba that attacked into the Ryko so all hope was not lost. Eventually he ends up setting another Ryko and destroying my second Laggia then he proceeds to drop BLS on me which was too much to come back from.
Game 2: I basically won with the typical Rabbit + Macro Cosmos shenanigans. There was nothing particularly special about this game.
Game 3: The game was long and drawn out back and forth thanks to his set monsters scaring me so much. I was too afraid to go into Laggia so I made a Dolkka but it got caught with a Dark Hole. In the late game I made a Laggia that was backed by Solemn Warning and Macro Cosmos but he end phased a decree which I let go because he had more backrows than me. He drew, set a backrow, and passed for the next few turns which led me to believe that his own decree was destroying him. I won by attacking with Laggia constantly and never had to negate anything. After the match he told me that his backrows included 3 copies of Call of the Haunted which would have surely been game for me if he didn’t flip his decree when he did.
1-0
Round 2: Dino Rabbit vs. Gladiator Beasts
Game 1: I win the roll and open Rabbit with some other goodies to make this game end quickly.
Game 2: He opens with 2 backrows and a set monster. I MST one of them and hit Mirror Force then I summoned Rabbit and debated for awhile before making Dolkka which he negated with Black Horn of Heaven. I set warning and passed. He then set a monster and proceeded to contact fuse for Gyzarus which I negated with Warning. I had a hard time drawing monsters for the remainder of the game and he came back with a contact fusion backed by a Chariot.
Game 3: I set Snowman and Solemn Judgment. He plays MST and sets a monster and a backrow. I’m nervous that it’s a gladiator beast because I had no defense against a contact fusion. The only thing I can really remember about this game is having 4 monsters for Pot of Avarice and never drawing a 5th for the entire game. It was extremely frustrating because I had Heavy Storm, Dark Hole, and Smashing Ground to go with it. He misplays and makes a Utopia with a defense position Retiari sitting on the field and then proceeds to set 2 backrows without protection. I drew a Lance for my turn and then cleared his whole field (just to scare him) and offered the handshake because he decided to search a Laquari with Proving Ground on the turn before so I knew he had a monster to kill me. I was too low to survive even with Lance.
1-1
Round 3: Dino Rabbit vs. Lightsworn
Game 1: This was by far the funniest round I played today. I opened Laggia, Warning, and Lance and I have an Effect Veiler in my hand. He played Charge of the Light Brigade, grabbed Ryko and then summoned Lyla. I opted to let the summon go through because I had Effect Veiler and I played the probability that he didn’t have Honest. He thinks for a long time and then activates Foolish Burial to send Plaguespreader Zombie to the grave. I started to chuckle to myself because I just couldn’t regain my composure. I never laugh during a match but seeing this unfold was unreal. He puts a card on the top of his deck and then Synchro summons for Brionac. He pitches HONEST of all things and targets my Laggia but I chained the Effect Veiler. He ends his turn and I win shortly after. The reason why this was so funny to me was because he pitched Honest which means that I was supposed to get devastated this round. If he were to activate Lyla’s effect I would’ve surely played Effect Veiler and she would’ve stayed in attack position. Then if he would’ve just declared an attack and used the Honest there would’ve been nothing that I could do to stop my Laggia from being destroyed with both materials. It was just funny because my correct plays would have gotten me punished. Oh Yu-Gi-Oh.
Game 2: He plays Charge of the Light Brigade which mills a Necro Gardna and a Ryko. He grabs Ryko with the effect of Charge of the Light Brigade and then summons Kycoo the Ghost Destroyer and ends his turn. I opened with Kabazauls, Jurrac Guaiba, Macro Cosmos, and Lance. I thought for a minute about the events of game 1 and then quickly realized that I would get bold and trick him. I summoned Guaiba and declared an attack in a seemingly unaware sort of way.
Opponent: *lifted one eyebrow with a confused look on his face* “Ok sure, you take a hundred?”
Me: “Oh crap wait how strong is Kycoo?”
Opponent: “It’s 1800.”
Me: “So you’re not negating the attack with Necro Gardna?”
Opponent: “Nope.”
Me: “Okay. Proceed to damage step?”
Opponent: “Sure…”
Me: “Activate Forbidden Lance.”
Opponent: *Spreads his grave and stares at the Necro Gardna* “Alright so how much do I take?”
Me: “Kycoo goes down to 1000 so you take 700. I’ll also activate Guaiba’s effect. Is that fine?”
Opponent: “Yeah go ahead man.”
I made a Laggia and set Macro Cosmos, and then ended my turn. He draws and activates Monster Reborn to bring back Ryko in defense position. I thought for a second and then chained Macro Cosmos to the Reborn. It wouldn’t be Yu-Gi-Oh if he didn’t tribute for Celestia and try to mill 4 cards to destroy my Laggia and Cosmos. I told him he couldn’t activate her effect because the cost is sending 4 cards to the graveyard which isn’t possible with Macro on the field. Some guy sitting next to my opponent tells him that he can activate her effect but they’ll just be removed and I kindly told him he was completely wrong and called a judge to settle the misunderstanding. The judge ruled in my favor and left us to finish the game. My opponent then declared an attack on my Laggia which caused me to chuckle again because I knew exactly where this was going. I said, “no response to the attack” and he activated Honest. I told him he couldn’t use the effect of Honest because of the same reason that he couldn’t use Celestia’s effect. I win shortly after.
2-1
Round 4: Dino Rabbit vs. Heroes
Game 1: He goes first and summons Stratos which catches a Veiler because I know it’s the only thing worth Veilering in this matchup. He plays Duality for Starlight Road and I think to myself about how much of a misplay that is because I simply wouldn’t activate Heavy Storm if I ever drew it. He’ll just have a dead road and I’ll have a dead Storm. He sets 3 backrows and passes. I draw and summon Sabersaurus to attack Stratos and then end my turn. He summons Alius and crashes it into my Sabersaurus and then passes. I have a Tour Guide that I was waiting to summon because I needed to back it with an MST just in case he had Skill Drain. I summoned Kabazauls and attacked him for 1700. At this point I’m wondering what those backrows could be because he should have used them by now, assuming they aren’t all bluffs and a road. He flipped his facedown E-Emergency Call and searched another Alius and attacked my Kabazauls. I drew MST which is just what I wanted (or a Lance, but MST is better). I summoned Guide, he chained Skill Drain just like I suspected, I chained MST, searched Sangan, made a Zenmaines, ran it into his Alius, set Torrential and popped his Road on the end phase. The only reason torrential hadn’t been set yet was because I was playing around Gemini Spark but he didn’t have it. It wasn’t a big deal. I prefer to be wrong about my pessimistic assumptions. He draws and ends his turn. I turn Zenmaines to defense and pass. He Miracle Fusions for The Shining and I chain Effect Veiler to the summon and then flipped my facedown Torrential Tribute to force him to miss his timing. I eventually won with a Rabbit into Laggia.
Game 2: My opponent mentions how much he doesn’t want to get 2-0ed because he hasn’t been 2-0ed in a YCS and I said, “oh nice.” This game gets absurdly complicated when I make 2 Evolzar Laggias against his 3500 attack power Elemental Hero the Shining. He was too afraid to attack because I had 4 backrows and he thought one of them was Dprison. My backrows were actually Fiendish Chain, Forbidden Lance, Solemn Judgment, and a faceup dead Fiendish Chain. I realized that I could set up a kill when I drew into Decree with my hand of Mind Control, Sangan, and Kabazauls. He’s at 6600 lifepoints. I set Kabazauls and Decree and passed. He draws and ends his turn. I end phased Decree and he had no response. I drew for turn, summoned Sangan, flipped Kabazauls, activated my facedown Forbidden Lance on one of the Laggia(s) to clear up space so I could activate Mind Control, took his Shining, and offered him the handshake (2400+1600+1700+1000=6700).
3-1
Round 5: Dino Rabbit vs. Anti Meta
Game 1-2: I opened with Laggia and 3 backrows so I expected that this game would end quickly no matter he was playing but little did I know. My opponent reads Laggia and I’m noticing that he’s just taking entirely too long to do everything. It became quite annoying after awhile, especially when he read Laggia for the third time because he “Compulsed” it back to my extra deck earlier on. After I won game 1—which was about 25 minutes—I called a judge. My opponent was side decking and it was taking him more than 3 minutes just to choose cards. The clock hit 10 minutes when the game finally started which means it took him at least 5 to side deck. I told the judge to stay and watch him for slow play because it was unreal what he was doing. I really should’ve called the judge during game 1 but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. I tried to tell him to play faster but he just kept moving oh-so-slow. Once he realized that the judge was going to watch the whole match he began to play incredibly faster and his mannerisms sort of changed which led me to believe that he had been intentionally stalling. It didn’t make it any better when I ran into a Ceasefire, Magic Cylinder, and Marshmallon before I won. Nice try buddy. I’m not that guy.
4-1
Round 6: Dino Rabbit vs. Dino Rabbit
Game 1: I noticed that my opponent is wearing sunglasses which instantly sets off my protection from the dark arts. I shuffled my deck and told him to keep my deck face-down while he shuffled since I couldn’t see his eyes. He seemed nervous but it had to be done. I hate when people try to look down at my deck while they shuffle. It absolutely infuriates me. I also noticed that his sunglasses were highly reflective. I shook my head and began the first game. I won the roll and opened Rabbit with all the shenanigans to match. It ended on turn 2.
Game 2: He opened with Rabbit and I chained Maxx “C.” I drew Electric Virus and Sabersaurus with the effect. I drew for turn and debated for a second before I decided that I would be going for game this turn. I took his Laggia with Electric Virus, summoned my Tour Guide, he chained Fiendish chain, I chained Forbidden Lance so that it would stay on the field in case he had Gorz, Xyz summoned into Leviair, used his Rabbit to bring out 2 Sabersaurus, and attacked him for exactly 8000. He didn’t realize that it was game and I mentioned that I wrote an article about this awhile ago called Rabbit Season. In the article I talked about how Dino-Rabbit can have exact game on turn 2 if you have an open field.
2400+1800+1900+1900= 8000
5-1
Round 7: Dino-Rabbit vs. Lightsworn Chaos Dragons (Alexander Reed)
Game 1-2: He won the roll, played a couple Solar Recharges to go along with his Charge of the Light Brigade, milled Eclipse Wyvern which removed Judgment Dragon from his deck and then passed with a set monster. Eventually it gets to a point where he overpowers me with a Lightpulsar Dragon against my Laggia and he forgets to add the Judgment Dragon back to his hand with Eclipse Wyvern’s effect. He ends his turn and when I draw he tries to quickly add it to his hand but I wasn’t having that. He said it was mandatory and I told him it wasn’t. He read the card and realized that he was wrong but it didn’t matter because my hand of Normal monsters wasn’t good enough to stop his thrashing dragons. Game 2 was quite fast as well because he opened with MST on my 1 backrow and played Future Fusion. You can fill in the rest in any way you see fit.
5-2
Round 8: Dino Rabbit vs. Inzektors
Game 1: He runs into my Sangan on turn 1 and I searched Rabbit to go with my Heavy Storm. I won pretty quickly after that.
Game 2: I opened with 3 normals so I made a full price Laggia (meaning I had to summon normal monsters back to back), and protected it with my faithful Macro Cosmos. He loses and talks about how he got “sacked” by Rabbit to his friend sitting next to him. I smirk and wish him well. With all those Normals I drew I thought it was funny that he said he got “sacked.”
6-2
Round 9: Dino Rabbit vs. Herald of Perfection
Game 1: He wins the roll and opens with Manju of Ten Thousand Hands which catches the quickest Veiler and gives that card a serious case of Carpal Tunnel. He ends his turn with no further play. I summon Tour Guide but she gets Veilered. He summons a Senju this time and I Fiendish Chain it which causes him to overlay into Utopia and kill my Guide. He passes his turn. I dropped a Rescue Rabbit and went into Dolkka and then declared an attack on his Utopia which he let go through and then I activated Forbidden Lance to destroy it. The Dolkka finishes the game by itself for me.
Game 2: He catches me with a vicious Decree and Hyperion which was all protected by Herald of Perfection and Gachi Gachi Gantetsu. I scooped when I counted 0 outs in my deck.
Game 3: I chained Macro Cosmos to his Dawn of the Herald and then flipped Snowman Eater on it. He couldn’t negate it because of the Cosmos so the rest of the game was pretty easy.
7-2 End of Day 1
I placed 70th at the end of Day 1 but I didn’t care about standings, considering that I had to win both rounds Day 2 to make top32 and I was sure that I would be fine as long as I won both.
Round 10: Dino Rabbit vs. Dino Rabbit
Game 1-2: He was coming fresh off a top at YCS Long Beach and we exchanged small talk about his top64 mat which he said he was keeping. I won’t lie, both of these games were very much so freebees. I won the roll, opened Rabbit, Guide, and Heavy. In game 2, I opened Rabbit, Guide, and Heavy again. He was salty, needless to say. I mean I would’ve been too if it happened to me, but the weird thing is that it actually DID happen to me. In Long Beach I lost on the bubble in the same manner so I think it was just karma balancing out the universe. Oh well, that’s yugs.
8-2
Round 11: Dino Rabbit vs. Wind-up
Game 1: I lose the roll and he opens up pretty good with Hunter and Shark but I have Effect Veiler for the Zenmaighty. He ends his turn and I summon Guaiba but he activates Effect Veiler before I can enter the battle phase. I decided that it would be best for me to set all of my cards since they were all spells because he had many ways to go off next turn and if he had Heavy Storm I would lose them all regardless. I set MST, Smashing Ground, Mind Control, and Dark Hole. I eventually win because Guaiba continued to dominate the field and evolved into a Laggia for game shortly after.
Game 2: He barely wins with Thunder King Rai-Oh and one-for-one removal. It was one of those losses where if I had a Rabbit or Tour Guide the game would’ve been so easily in my favor but I simply did not draw them.
Game 3: I opened 3 Rescue Rabbit, 2 Effect Veilers, and Sabersaurus. On my third turn I controlled 2 Laggia and a Dolkka with all their materials. He offered me the handshake and said, “at least I lost to a good player in the end.” After wishing me good luck I awaited the standings to see if I made it into the Top32. I knew that a few players with an X-2 record would be tasting tears and I figured that I could easily be one of them because my only losses were to Gladiator Beasts and Dragons (at this time I had no clue that Alexander Reed finished swiss X-1 so he turned out to be an amazing tie breaker).
I walked over to Alistar, Billy, Joe, Pat, and everyone else who I consistently talked to that weekend and I found out that Billy had lost again with his Wind-up deck so I made sure to salt him down a bit. Joe and Alistar finished X-1 so they were guaranteed to get in. I told Alistar that I lost my last round just like I did in Long Beach and he gave me a hug to console me lol. I stood by him while they called out the names of the Top32 and the second they called “Frazier Smith” his eyes just slowly turned to me and he said “snaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaake.” We laughed really hard for the next like 5 minutes and then we tried to figure out who we were playing against. I had no idea what my opponent was playing but I was hoping that it was a real deck since I always lose in the playoffs to non-conventional strategies—at least in the format that I lose to them—which is absurdly annoying.
Top32: Dino Rabbit vs. Dino Rabbit
The only thing that I remember about this whole match was that neither of us opened Rabbit or anything broken like that. It was a very slow grind but my Mind Control on his Kabazauls combined with my own Kabazauls allowed me to take control. He had Gorz in game 1 on my Kabazauls attack but I had enough backrows to not fear that thing attacking me at any point. He won game 2 pretty easily and then game 3 was another slow grind but my Heavy Storm ruined him when he set 2 backrows to my 0.
It takes the judges a very long time to deck check us and I started to get nervous until I realized that none of the other players had gotten back their decks either. I’ve never had a penalty in Yu-Gi-Oh in my entire life so I’m not used to anything happening when I get deck checked and even that doesn’t happen very often to me. I’ve probably been deck checked less than 10 times in my career which is pretty good considering how many tops I have. Nevertheless, something did happen with my deck in Top16 and the judge said he would have to give me a warning (minor) for 3 of my cards because they needed to be changed. It was a Tour Guide, a Smashing Ground, and Mind Control. He mentioned that there was no pattern to it which is why I didn’t get a game loss or anything and then he said I needed to change them. At first I panicked because I thought about how hard it could be to find a Tour Guide on the spot but then I quickly came to my senses and realized that I know just about every good player who went to Texas and someone had to have an unused Tour Guide on them. I walked over to Joe Giorlando who was re-sleeving his deck to play against Nizar and he gave me a Smashing Ground or a Mind Control (I don’t remember which). Whichever of the two that he didn’t give me I found in my own binder. Then I asked if he knew where I could get a Tour Guide and he turned me in the direction of Paul Clarke who happened to be sitting right outside of the playoffs area. I walked over and asked if he or anyone had a Tour Guide I could use and Scott Page instantly gave me a copy out of his deck. Scott had become my favorite Texan before this had even happened just because he speaks nothing but the truth and I enjoyed his company all weekend. After Scott gave me a Guide I went over to the judge and he said that that Guide was also no good. I ran back over and asked for another one from Scott and the judge said that it was fine. Basically, the problem with the 3 cards in my deck was that they all sat up on the table. They weren’t flat. If any of you have ever had cards in the heat, especially holographic cards, you’ll know that they tend to curl up a bit. That’s essentially what it was. I swiftly re-sleeved for Top16 and had small talk with my opponent. I also remember my opponent, Ben Garcia, saying to the judge that, “Even if Frazier gets a game loss I don’t want him to have it. I want to play all 3 games because I don’t want to win like that. So if he’s getting a game loss I will play out the whole match instead.” I thanked him for that notion and told him that even though I respect him a lot for that gesture, there is nothing a player could do to prevent someone from getting a game loss. A penalty is a penalty. However, the judge spoke up and told Ben that I was fine and we were playing a full game since it was only a minor warning.
Top16: Dino Rabbit vs. Heroes (Ben Garcia)
Game 1: Before the game actually started I asked if he was playing Joe Giorlando’s build and he said “yeah” which told me exactly what cards were in his deck, or so I thought. This would actually come back to haunt me because I made a play thinking that he didn’t have Honest in his deck since Joe didn’t run it at Long Beach, but Ben did run it. I remember on like my second turn I made a play where I played Monster Reborn on Guaiba and attacked his seemingly defenseless Thunder King. I used Lance on it and he activated Honest. I was devastated but luckily I had a Tour Guide and Sangan on the field before I made that play. I can’t remember the exact details but I know that his lifepoints weren’t very high and he played Miracle Fusion for The Shining but I just activated Dark Hole or Smashing Ground to kill it and then finish off the rest of his lifepoints despite the ridiculous recursion effect of The Shining.
Game 2: I opened Kabazauls and 5 spells/traps. I lost this game after he overpowered me with Miracle Fusion.
Game 3: This game was pretty good because I was playing around his backrows and forced him to use Super Polymerization early on to make an Absolute Zero which caught a smooth Smashing Ground in main phase 2. Then later on in the duel he runs his Beast King Barbaros into my face-down Snowman Eater while he controlled a face-up Alius. In that same turn he also played Duality for another Super Polymerization so I was happy knowing that I wouldn’t have to worry about that card when he passed back to me since he didn’t control any Heroes. On the next turn I dropped Tour Guide and went into Leviair and Laggia to go along with my set Solemn Warning and Book of Moon. I destroyed the Beast King Barbaros and began to panic because he didn’t activate either of his 2 backrows, although I knew that 1 of the 2 was Super Poly. I soon realized that it was most likely a counter trap. I also had 3 cards in my hand which I believe were Dark Hole, Kabazauls, and Mind Control. He decided to summon Alius next turn and I thought about using Warning but then the fear that the other backrow was a counter trap took over and I opted to negate the summon with Laggia instead so that he couldn’t use Super Poly. If I tried to use Solemn Warning and his backrow turned out to be Solemn Judgment or Dark Bribe it would force the summon of Alius through and then Super Poly would go off. After I negated the summon of Alius he asked the judge if he could activate Super Poly with a face-down Hero and the judge said “yes, you can.” He offered me the handshake and realized his misplay. We talked about the match and he said he didn’t think he would’ve won anyways because I had Book of Moon for his Nova Master and the Leviair would have still been on the field. I asked what his set backrow was next to the Super Poly and he confirmed that it was a Dark Bribe. He wished me luck and I moved on to Top8.
Top8: Dino Rabbit vs. Dino Rabbit (Nizar Sahan)
Feature Match Time! The judges tell us that we would be moved to the feature area and I’m like “Oh this is gonna be epic I see.” You can read the feature match at the link below:
http://www.konami.com/yugioh/blog/?p=8891
So that’s how it all went down! After my Top8 match I collected my prizes, talked to Frank Debrito and thanked him for making me a bounty for this event, did a video with my favorite Yugi-Tuber, Jarel Winston,and proceeded to go out to Pappadeaux’s Seafood Kitchen with Ryan Spicer, Austin Kulman, Billy Brake, Bobby Brake, Jonathan Weigle, Scott Page, Robert Boyajian, Barrett Keys, Christopher Bowling, Kyle Bowling, and a few others. It was an awesome dinner with really good seafood. I highly recommend it if you’re into that kind of thing and happen to be in Texas.
All in all, this trip was a huge success for me because I had a great time with the ARG crew and the Texans. Not to mention that it’s always good to see everyone again. Yu-Gi-Oh events are like parties to me in a way because they’re huge social gatherings of people who you’ve never seen before and some that you’ve seen many times before. It’s always a therapeutic escape from reality when you get to travel the world to play the game you love the most. Thanks for reading this super lengthy tourney report. I’ll see ya in Chicago!
Remember, Play Hard or Go Home!
-Frazier Smith
-YCS Atlanta Champion
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