I am typing this up on a Sunday afternoon with an immense feeling of vindication and elation. On Saturday, myself, Mike, and Julian (collectively known as TwoToPass along with Felix) woke up at around 4:30 in the morning to catch and early train to Cardiff Central for the Vanguard Team League. This is a relatively long article that will detail the deck I played (as well as a small insight to my teammates decks) and our journey to the top finish.

The first part will consist of the decks and various discussions on card choices and metagame considerations, the second part will be the tournament report of each individual round plus a diary-style entry about how we fared throughout the day.

Deck Choices

At a glance, our team was the following:

Player A: Julian – Aqua Force (Ripple)

Player B: Myself – Kagero (Overlord X/End)

Player C: Mike – Megacolony (Machining)

I’ll briefly go over some details of the other two decks before going into deep detail about mine.

Ripples was your standard list, except instead of Unruly Ripple Lapis, he was playing High Tide Sniper for two reasons; scarier on Genovious turns, and helps to consistently soulblast for when you are trying to do Odysseus-Legion shenanigans. Playing Stacia and Tidal Assault to help enable Lambros, it runs just as you’d expect. Even with only two Odysseus, the deck is still very scary as unlike most modern Legion builds, you don’t lose any tempo from performing Legion that turn, as Odysseus draws you a card and countercharges, meaning you can bridge the gap between stride turns (Prodromos and Lambros) quite easily. Not much else to say except for the fact that I noticed people tended to underestimate the power of riding Tidal Assault into Odysseus to fix the ride chain and then have an 11k Tidal Assault boosted by Odysseus, followed up with Pavroth’s on-hit skill (which you should always no-pass). While it loses a little bit of extreme late-game push such as Nextage or Phantom Blaster Diablo, the fact of the matter is that by the time other decks are forced into going for their Hail Mary, Ripples should still be comfortably in control.

Megacolony seems to be a rather rogue clan, which is curious given that it’s extremely strong against so much of the field right now. The main weakness is that the top decks at the moment (Golds, Angel Feather, Royals, Great Nature, Gear Chronicle) refill their board so quickly and so effectively that it you lose some of the value you would otherwise get from the traditional draw-paralyze of Darkface, but Machining has much more early game, and one of the single scariest strides in the game. A turn 3 Machining Stag Beetle followed up with Little Bee is just a huge beatdown, especially for a deck that runs a high number of critical triggers. Once Destroyer comes down, your opponent is effectively forced to draw a Grade 3, or they lose the game on the spot. This in turn makes them less likely to stride, which is also advantageous. Mosquito Mk2 is probably the best card in the deck. It’s an extreme snowball sort of deck, meaning the second you lose control, you never get it back. While it can be hard to force Megacolony onto the back foot early, you have to force them to continually fill up their field. This in turn prevents them from making those final pushes to finish you off. If you let up for even a second, they will continue to grow the lead.

Decklists should be going up on the Bushiroad website soon. I’m not about to teach people how to beat our decks just yet, but be aware of what gameplan each of us is trying to achieve. Also please don’t Google my deck’s name unless you’re 18+ years of age.

Overlords

So I actually posted a tournament report not too long ago of the Nationals Qualifier in Chimera. I was playing a very similar deck, with a few critical tech option changes. I’ll discuss everything in detail after. As said, the list will be going up on the website at some point, but I figure I’ll throw it out here in case people want to netdeck me.

Grade 4 4x Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Overlord “The Ace” 2x Flame Emperor Dragon King, Root Flare Dragon 3x Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Blademaster “Taiten” 1x Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Vortex Desire 1x Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon, Defeat Flare Dragon 3x Flame Wing Steel Beast, Denial Griffin 1x Air Element, Sebreeze 1x Metal Element, Scryew Grade 3 4x Dragonic Overlord, “The X” 3x Dragonic Overlord, “The End” 1x Dragonic Overlord, “The Legend” 1x Perdition Emperor Dragon, Dragonic Overlord “The Great” Grade 2 3x Emperor Dragon Knight, Nehalem 3x Perdition Dragon, Dragonic Neoflame 3x Dragonic Burnout Grade 1 2x Lizard General, Conroe 3x Calamity Tower Wyvern 1x Energy Flame, Aethonic 2x Lava Flow Dragon 2x Perdition Dragon, Rampart Dragon 2x Escort Dragon Attendant, Reas 2x Lizard Soldier Bellog Grade 0 1x Lizard Hero, Undeux 1x Lizard Soldier, Conroe 4x Gatling Claw Dragon 4x Dragon Knight, Jannat 4x Heal Triggers 4x Other Unique Critical Triggers I played unique triggers, so I won’t actually name all of them.

Why this deck isn’t the same as the deck I played at Chimera

Other than BT-07 getting its EN release (and thus bringing us a lot of fun new toys such as Denial Griffin, which I will inevitably misspell as Denail Griffin at some point during this article), there were a handful of changes I acted upon during testing.

The first major change that will stand out if you read my previous article will be the bumping up on Nehalem from 1 to 3, and the cutting of Bahr altogether. The reasoning for this was twofold; testing online showed me more people playing the 4x Legend, 4x Great build using several Nehalems and Berserk Lord to gain aggressive tempo, as well as handful of people using Spherical Lord Dragon to push early game. While I am personally not a fan of this style of play (because you are unable to reclaim card advantage as quickly and easily as other decks), I can see why people would do it. Unfortunately, being a late-game style control deck, you don’t have the tools to deal with early aggression that much, and so the best way to fight back is to do the same. Nehalem gave me that bit of aggressive pressure I needed to pick up the slack on turns that were less sure to swing the game in my favour. I noticed that by relying solely on VG attacks for pressure, I was giving my opponent a bit too much time to breathe; Bahr wasn’t strong enough without a booster, and while we do have Reas in this set, it wasn’t anywhere near as reliable as Nehalem.

The other thing is that you will notice The Great returning to the deck; personal testing, as well as experience at Chimera have reinforced my belief that The Legend isn’t as good as people think he is. The main benefit is that he is a first-ride that draws you a card and sets you up nicely for the next turn (fetching either a stride fodder, The X, or a G2 retire piece). I rarely found myself using his GB2 skill (in fact I think I only did it twice throughout the entire day). The reason I don’t like it as much is because it’s relatively easy to play around; if they don’t call rear-guards, you don’t get to dig for more triggers and they have more shield values left in hand to guard with. Which means that if you don’t stride, it basically becomes a vanilla, which really sucks. The X at least can always Legion to draw you a card, and is still a 22k that if it hits can restand.

We switched the starter from Undeux to Sadegh because of the new support in BT07. Denial Griffin or Defeat Flare chained with Sadegh just makes your defense so much stronger. While Undeux was nice for fueling those aggressive turns where you’re looking to force their guards or risk getting triple VG’d by The End, it helped shore up that consistency and guarantee your other two copies of The End were in hand. However, Sadegh helped massively to improve the early game where you aren’t doing anything; suddenly that Burnout on T2 becomes immense value. And if you drop a Neoflame on T2, your opponent basically has to guard otherwise they lose the game on the spot. I used Sadegh almost every game, and he was worth it every time. While there were times that I wanted to go into The Ace but was unsure because I couldn’t guarantee that Overlord to discard, the strength of the G3 and Stride lineup is that you always have a backup plan, which is why Undeux was not needed as much. This is the change I am most happy with, incidentally.

The G2 lineup was dropped down to only 9 Grade 2s, which to some is risky and suicidal, but to me, was a needed change. The thing is that unlike most decks, Overlords are not rear-guard centric. You only need one or two because your VG does most of the work. While obviously we need to ride, I never had to G-Assist all day. Because we have Conroe and so many options for Level 1, all of which are useful, it was better to give up a tiny bit of consistency for the option of having whatever was needed at that time. You’ll notice the increase in Calamity Tower and the reintroduction of Aethonic. Aethonic was a very last-minute sort of call, but one that I was infinitely glad I made. The Aethonic vs Conroe debate may seem very one-sided, and usually it is a clear option, but I do want to put these facts out there so that people aren’t as quick to dismiss Aethonic anymore.

The first is that Conroe’s countercharge is during the attack step only. This means any use of main phase counterblast is gone. I found myself often during testing that I wanted to go into The Ace but couldn’t afford the counterblast to activate his skill. Even Neoflame was sometimes difficult. The addition of Taiten, who is another main phase CB cost, made this even more important. Another key factor is that Conroe retires himself, whereas Aethonic goes into the soul. With the addition of Reas, this becomes more relevant, but even if I had kept it at 4 Rampart Dragon, there were times throughout the day where I wish I had more soul so I could aggressively use Calamity Tower and Burnout. I wanted to run 2 copies actually, but space was too tight, and Conroe won out on the basis that he had the added benefit of digging for G3s (which ended up making a lot of difference through deck thinning), plus I had Conroe to search out Aethonic for when I really needed it.

Four Jannats were added due to Taiten giving them a chance to actually be useful; again, going into soul really helps fuel Reas and Burnout more effectively. People tend to run 6-6 more often, which I think is a mistake; you really don’t need draws that much, and I’m only playing Gatling Claw because of how good it is. I feel that having more crits gives you that early game damage race which means your opponent has to fight back harder, giving you more room to abuse their rear-guards. In fact, throughout most of the day, I lost most of my games because my opponent was forced to go into their haymakers so quickly because they were on 5 damage from me constantly critting them. While I was unable to respond appropriately to such huge plays so quickly, the fact that you are the one dictating the pace of the game as a control deck is worth so much more than you can imagine.

People might see three Denial Griffin and wonder why I’m not playing any Asyl Orb; while Asyl Orb is nice, and probably would have been useful, there wasn’t much space for it, as I felt that the times I would need it, 99% of the time Denial Griffin would do the job, or I would need to perfect guard at that point anyway. Denial Griffin is probably one of the best cards in the deck right now, so having constant access to it is extremely valuable. While I didn’t use Defeat Flare very often (the threat of it alone was enough to prevent opponents from overcommitting), I felt that it is still useful to have. The two times I did use it, it swung the game very hard in my favour. Similar to L’Express or Phantom Blaster Diablo, the threat is fine, but you do need to have something to follow through with. Denial Griffin combined with Bellog means that this deck is effectively never getting blown out. Bahr was good for drawing attacks, but it never dealt with the problem, whereas this setup gives you all the defensive pressure you need.

Speaking of Nouvelle Vague L’Express, I cut him for one primary reason; I needed something to bridge the mid-game gap, and L’Express was not good at doing that. 80% of the time, The Ace does what L’Express does already (draw heavy guard use), and 20% of the time, it wouldn’t have made a difference. The issue with Vague is that you are best off using him when the opponent is at 5 damage, at which point it should be highly likely that they have a heal trigger in hand to G-Guard with anyway. Taiten at the least is constant pressure, even in the midgame. It feels quite bad striding L’Express early, and doesn’t really advance the game plan any further, so I ended up cutting it. In fact, before Taiten, I actually considered the second pair of Root Flare Dragon, but it was too dead against too many matchups.

The one thing people tend to forget is that Taiten and Vortex Desire flip any G-Unit, meaning that if you G-Guard and first stride Taiten, you can flip one of your unused G-Guards or the Sebreeze. You lose the retire, but you can still get the plus crit. Alternatively, using Vortex Desire to flip the first Taiten, your second Taiten can flip Sebreeze and the third Taiten can flip the G-Guard. Again, you lose out on retires, but you get more crit attacks, which can help seal the game if needed. Most of the time I found myself flipping the third Taiten because I needed the retire, but the option is there, and you should not overlook it.

The only changes I would have made would have been another Bellog, probably over a Calamity Tower. Bellog was super valuable all day, and more would have been excellent. 2 of each perfect guard might be questionable; I went through with that setup because I wanted to be able to fetch a perfect guard with The Ace when I needed it, while still wanting to use the fact that Reas was a reliable soulblast effect that could also boost while guarding. If I would have switched to 4 of a single perfect guard, it would have been Reas, but I only had three Reas, and 3-1 is not a good idea. The final other change would have been adding a fourth Taiten over the Defeat Flare; I already mentioned why there might be room for Defeat Flare and why I’m keeping it anyway, but there are a huge amount of hidden merits to a fourth Taiten in this build; the first being that you can use the first Taiten to flip a second, and then that gives you overall three Taiten crits to work with (assuming the other two flip other G-Units), but then this would involve removing Root Flare and playing probably Iresist and another Vortex Desire. I don’t think this is worth it, but you can experiment without Root Flare. Taiten gives you a much more aggressive line, so you’ll also want to adjust the deck to capitalize on that. Neoflame was a little underwhelming this weekend, so going down to 2 for a fourth Nehalem could work, but at this point, you want to ride Neoflame and keep Nehalem up, which is quite different to what I said last time.

Expect to see a lot more of this deck, as people realize that Blademaster Blaze isn’t really working, and that the dedicated Legend/Great builds have very weak in-between turns which you capitalize on.

Metagame

Going into the weekend, we drafted up a large list of what clans would play what builds. I won’t be sharing this with you, but I think I can probably at least mention the top five we were most afraid of and why.

1. Angel Feather – Gavrail/Nociel

Refros has still yet to be restricted in EN, which means that a Nociel-Rescue build can run 12 stands and perform insane shenanigans with Zabaniya and Maalik. An already strong deck that gets support in the form of an even stronger Glimmer Breath clone, for the two early aggro decks, this would be very hard as the rush would just help fuel their stride turns which are almost impossible to deal with.

2. Royal Paladin – Sanctuary Guard Blaster

The Blaster Engine still remains the best early game right now. What it loses in being a little inconsistent, it makes up for by absolutely lambasting your opponents when it matters. You might scoff at the Benon-Richard combo, but it’s part of what allows Sanctuary Guard to function so well; the fact that you have guaranteed Grade 1s, while also not being consistently minus in hand-size like Royals usually is. I personally was also afraid of Thing Saver purely because it has a far stronger late-game than Sanctuary Guard (which is where Overlords fights its battles), but it is rather difficult for anyone else to deal with first stride Regalie after being hit by the Blaster Engine.

3. Gold Paladin – Gurguit

Two Start Decks plus a handful of commons from this booster already makes the deck extremely viable in an open field. Adding the GRs and the RRRs and the deck becomes one of the fastest G-era decks in the game. Combined with the fact that the entire deck is rather autopilot (you fill your field, you give them power, you swing), it’s actually extremely difficult to disrupt their tempo, because of how hard they can push you and how easily they refill. The fact that a large number of the new cards go into soul giving you no room for punishing in your turn makes it all the more difficult.

4. Shadow Paladin – Revenger

If you go through the tournament results of most of the other SpringFest Team Leagues, nearly every single team has a Revenger player in it. And for good reason. Having endless amounts of scary strides, plus both your G3s restand (Raging Form and PBAbyss) means that any “no guards” could turn into game-over at any point. All of this while being extremely light on counterblast, and the fact that good handful of units are +1 or card neutral, meaning you won’t be down in hand size too often either. This was a matchup I could deal with a bit more effectively given that I had Defeat Flares and Denial Griffins, but it’s still one of the most represented decks in the game for good reason.

5. Link Joker – Chaos Messiah

This is potentially one of my easiest matchups, because they will deck themselves with no real way of pressuring me in the meantime (because of how non-dependent I am on my rear-guards). However, this is absolutely a nightmare matchup for Aqua Force and Megacolony, meaning that care needed to be taken so that the game wouldn’t suddenly disappear from grasp after a single Chaos Universe stride. Aqua Force loses all of it’s strengths, and Megacolony becomes unable to pressure through without more power backing it.

A few other honourable mentions include Gear Chronicle, Dark Irregulars, Granblue, and Neo Nectar. Gears wasn’t really much of a threat because there is a very noticeable, polarizing line in that all Gear Chronicle players are either very aware of what they’re doing and are actually good at the game, or are just plain terrible and easy to manipulate into giving up a win. Dark Irregulars got a lot of scary new support, but Blade Wings remains a mediocre deck without Sullivan, and Scharhrot needs too much setup to really pressure that well. Granblue, namely Seven Seas, has always been a good deck since the new support came out, but I still feel that the deck is lacking any real push. All you really do in order to force game is try to sack a handful of crits after filling up your field and trying to go for multiple attacks. There’s just not enough of a singular burst to really pressure anybody. Neo Nectar, in particular Ahsha bloom, should be underrepresented enough that we could have gotten away with (and did), but a well-played Ahsha can put out such high numbers extremely consistently that it would have been a very tough fight to pull through.

On the day, we noticed there was a distinct lack of “meta” decks being played. That didn’t mean none, as there were a few Shadow and Royal players floating around, but there weren’t as many Angel Feather boogeymen to go through. Our decks were tuned mostly to take advantage of any misplays our opponent made, which is exactly what we did on the day. Playing a handful of rogue decks really helped, as they were even less-well equipped to deal with our onslaught than any meta deck could hope. While some decks did put up a fight, very rarely did we feel like we were unable to take on whatever came at us. While this was less about the metagame, I feel that had we faced teams of Angel Feather-Shadow Paladin-Granblue/Link Joker every round, it would have been infinitely more difficult.

Day Report

We woke up at 4:30 in the morning because our train was leaving London Paddington at 6:12, which would get us to Cardiff Central for 9am, which left plenty of time to register and sign up, as well as relax a little. We left the house a little late and got to Paddington for 6 on the dot only to find out that our train had been cancelled due to derailment. That legitimately might have been the first time in my life I used the word “derailed” in regards to an actual train rather than a conversation or a thread. We sat down to grab some breakfast, and waited for the eventual 7am train that would get us there for 9:45. Cutting it a bit close, but we eventually sucked it up and got on our train. It would eventually transpire that registration ended at 10:30 and the event would start at 11, meaning we never had any issues anyway. But the sinking feeling was definitely there.

Once on the train, we began the long and arduous task of filling out decklists and such. You won’t believe how tiring it is to write the words “Supreme Heavenly Emperor Dragon” a handful of times all in super small handwriting. My decision to run a total of 10 different triggers did not help, and in fact, I ended up going down to the very last line of the deck sheet. Deck names and a team name were also on the table, and that took up basically the entire discussion of the journey. At first, our plan was to name our decks after various gentleman’s specialist interest Japanese literature thinking that “well it’s not our fault if people google it from the Bushiroad website”, but a quick flash ended up with Mike choosing a borderline racist pun that we are still impressed that he got away with. Team names were a bit harder. Things ranging from The Toxic Squad all the way to Make Eradicators Great Again were in the air. We really wanted to go with “Team Brexit” for the purposes of maximum controversy and if nothing else, spark discussion when we sat down opposite our opponents, but it was just a little bit too risky.

This is where I need to perform a quick flashback. Last night, Mike came over to stay at our place since it was easier to get to Paddington from ours, and it gave us one last evening to make sure we were all sorted. In a stroke of genius, at 9pm, myself, Mike, and Felix decided to go out for burgers. This was not a good idea. I highly recommend you do not do this. Unable to even eat breakfast, Mike looked like he was about to die on that train. In his words, “it has to come out at some point, one way or the other.” I won’t go much further into this, except for the passing statement that nobody ever gets onto a train because of how nice the toilets are.

While the event was supposed to be a fun weekend away, it already seemed like catastrophe was looming on the horizon. Here, I would like to give a shoutout to James and Aleks of Cow Chop for providing the team with endless laughs and confirming with us that we should never go camping together, or consume high volumes of ice cream brownies. Taking inspiration from their Cow Chop videos, we put forward the team name of VANGUARD DISASTER, in preparation for how the eventual tournament would go, if the journey was anything to go by. This was too ominous and ironically “edgy” for us though, and the tournament hadn’t started yet, so there was no point giving up hope. In the end we went with ROAD TRIP DISASTER, as that had more accurately portrayed our plight in getting to the event.

Firestorm Games is by far and away the nicest gaming store I have ever been in. As loyal as I am to Dark Sphere, this place blows DS out of the water. So much open space, so easy to navigate, and a kitchen INSIDE THE SHOP. If it weren’t so far away I would love to visit again when there is less to be serious about. We settled quite quickly, trying not to draw attention to ourselves. It wasn’t really worth scoping out the competition, as we were a bit tired and just wanted to get underway. Despite a handful of delays and the inability to hear some announcements, the tournament was extremely well-run overall, and once we all got into the groove of playing, it was hard to stop.

[Insert Tournament Here]

The atmosphere was great as well. Everyone seemed to be having a good time, even though there was actually something on the line. Even the guys who we lost to that ended up calling a judge for a rules debate were amicable afterwards. Even the guys we knocked out of the Quarterfinals came up to us, cheering us on to win it all. Even the judges who were good for banter throughout the tournament and stared in horror as he saw Megacolony work its magic for the first time on the top tables. I will never forget his face when the third Machining Destroyer came down.

The journey home was a lot more uneventful. Napping, some Tyrell’s Veg Crisps, and just content silence while we rode the highs on the direct train back to London were more than enough for us.

Tournament Report

I’ve gone through most of the overview already, but I do want to say again how immensely well run this event was. Everything was smooth, there was very little to complain about, and we all ran relatively well. For what is effectively my second ever Vanguard tournament, I feel a first place finish is something to write home about. Of course, getting there was far from easy. While I don’t recall well what my teammates were facing, I hope you’ll at least enjoy reading about each of my games in particular.

Round 1 – vs Kagero – The Legend/The X

This was effectively a mirror match. Our decks were relatively similar at the core, but it was clear his build was going for more aggro, and he played it as such. T2 Tahr, T3 calling double Neoflames, it was as if he was just begging to be blown out. Usually this matchup is decided by whoever commits first, as unless you can finish them on that turn, the game will be over for sure. While it was extremely easy for me to wipe his field, it gave him the time to hit his mid-late game pace, which was hard for me to keep up with. By the time we got anywhere, I was having to use Vortex Desire to claw back a lead against Nouvelle Vague L’Express, and in the end, I was all set up ready for The Ace, but never got there.

I lost, teammates won, putting us 2-1 victory. Personal: 0-1, Overall: 1-0

Round 2 – vs Aqua Force – Pure Thavas

We sat down, feeling good off the first win, and my opponent weeps upon seeing my mat and sleeves. This is a very tough matchup for him, and one that I should have been able to abuse easily. No Blue Wave starter, no Maelstrom starter makes this game very linear for me. Unfortunately, he draws his Skyros in a very timely manner, immediately shutting off my punishing tools. Combined with Orthia, he had three rear-guards that I couldn’t touch, making my mid-game Taiten almost worthless. I tried to compensate by being a lot more aggressive than normal, and it seemed like victory was almost in sight once his hand was reduced to nearly nothing, but in the end, Thavas is the most expensive Aqua Force card for good reason.

Another loss, Julian win, Mike loss, putting us at 1-2. Personal: 0-2, Overall: 1-1

Round 3 – vs Oracle Think Tank – Soulless Witches

While we weren’t expecting an easy run, to lose early was a little bit demoralizing, but we kept our spirits up, knowing that we were all in good positions. Clearing our heads stopped us going on tilt, and sitting down this game gave us a bit of a chance to relax. That isn’t to say our opponents were easy, but we were not staring down the barrel of a gun either. My opponent seemed to not know what a handful of the new cards do, in particular, the Denial Griffin-Sadegh combo caught her by surprise and ended up buying me lots of turns to set up. She ended up guarding nearly every single one of my attacks, which was surprising, but being Oracle Witches, she wasn’t exactly low on cards either. Her Witch strides put a little bit of pressure on me; I got a little cocky and let myself go up to 5, but in the end, the cards I had saved meant that she couldn’t stop The Ace and the Legion from ripping into her.

Win, with a clean 3-0 across the board. Personal: 1-2, Overall: 2-1

Round 4 – vs Narukami – Big Bang Knuckle

This is a deck I have faced online a handful of times. Sometimes it wins, sometimes it does nothing. However, I know that Narukami is never a deck to disregard. While he doesn’t have the insane numbers that Kaisers pushes, or the endless crits that Eradicators throws at me, he does have late-game, as well as the ability to suddenly take control if I try to push too hard. While he doesn’t set-up the god-turn of 30k columns, he does stride every turn, which meant I had to risk a handful of crits in order to actually be able to throw anything back at him. I got off a bit lucky, and the fact that he wouldn’t call rear guards eventually allowed Taiten to get to the better of him. He ended up having to no-guard a lot of my attacks in order to be able to threaten a kill next turn, which gave me ample time to go for The Ace, which he ended up having to all-in to stop, but it wasn’t enough.

Win, Julian win, Mike loss. Personal: 2-2, Overall: 3-1

Amusing anecdote here; Felix also plays Raging Form, which is what Mike’s opponent had this round. Mike tends to always dismiss Raging Form as a threat, and ends up getting triple-VG’d in one turn, usually unable to guard as well. You should almost always guard the first one, because the second one will get you otherwise, and the third one usually goes out of range. Well, Mike doesn’t believe in that theory. There was a good ten minutes of “I told you so. It always happens.”

Round 5 – vs Royal Paladin – Altmile Blasters

We mentioned before heading into the round how strong Royals was, but had never actually faced it up until now. It is possible that I am overhyping the deck and am more afraid of it than I should be, but I knew that against a Blaster deck that had come this far, I definitely needed to be cautious. I started off by 1-passing a Blaster Blade-Wingal Brave column, because I knew I needed to delay the Blaster Engine as long as possible, and immediately got punished with a crit. This already put me on the back foot, but my constant crits also meant that the heals I ended up seeing didn’t proc. This was one of the few times I needed L’Express, but because of his constant striding plus draw triggers, he was able to maintain card advantage and survived Taiten after Taiten and The Ace, leaving me with almost no options against any attack after the third.

Loss, Julian and Mike win. Personal: 2-3, Overall: 4-1

Round 6 – vs Angel Feather – Gavrail Aggro

Another running “no meta” joke was the lack of Nociel-Gavrail Angel Feather running around. So as luck would have it, of course I see Azrael when I sit down. Preparing myself for the worst, my opponent shows a good character and is willing to constantly banter as I steel myself for repeated stand triggers and mega rescue turns. To my surprise, he ends up doing none of that, and not a single Nociel is seen all game other than for striding. Instead what I see is two back-to-back Raphaels, followed by all-in crits on the Vanguard after a three-pass. He knows what my deck does relatively well, but without any of that intense rescue pressure, he can only go so far against Root Flare and The Ace.

We talked for a lot afterwards; he mentioned how he was playing more crits and less stands because he wanted to win the mirror match outright by killing them before they could get anywhere; this is where Raphael comes into its own; it basically rewinds time and forces your opponent to continually commit to get anywhere, which in turn allowed him to punish and out-damage them. His team was very positive about it all and were humble in their defeat. In particular he mentioned that his build gave up a bit of strength against my deck, and he had hoped that I wouldn’t be able to repeatedly The Ace against him. It was a bit harder, as he was able to respond to my aggression very well, so to have gotten that far I think is a testament to how well they actually play. I believe they were Team MFM, Team 1 out of 2, but shoutouts to all 6 guys for being really swell folks all the same.

Win, another 3-0 sweep. Personal: 3-3, Overall: 5-1, guaranteed Top 8.

A quick break to collect ourselves. We had done it. We made Top 8. That was our goal coming into today and we did it. “Anything else is a bonus”, we told ourselves. “Happy to go home at this point”, we told ourselves. But in the end, I’m sure we all had a feeling inside that maybe, just maybe, we could go all the way. So we all calmed down so that our emotions wouldn’t cloud our play, and got ready for the slugfest of a lifetime.

Quarterfinals – vs Link Joker – Freezeray Messiah

This is a deck that had been floating around Japan for a bit. Very curious, and an extremely powerful defensive deck, one that’s able to catch a lot of people off-guard and pull out wins from nowhere. He was also teching a small Deletors package for even more surprise tactics, which I really was not ready for, but Gatling Claw Dragon is a boss. This is normally a positive matchup, as he is extremely reliant on his rear-guards to get anywhere, but lots of early criticals along with heals that never fired set me back quite hard, and his ability to constantly throw out Arrester Messiah meant that he had more than enough aggressive pressure to stop me from committing to anything major. At one point, I have two heals in damage and two more in drop, and I’m basically forced to Legion if I plan on surviving, but at this point, I’ve given him enough time to set up that it’s very hard for me to break through his momentum. I ended up taking a bit of a risk and two-passed an Excelics Messiah and got punished very hard. I had hoped that by taking a bit of a risk then, I could start dismantling his power using Root Flare and The Ace, but it was not to be.

Loss, wins from Julian and Mike keep us afloat. Personal: 3-4, Overall: Semifinalists

Semifinals – vs Shadow Paladin – Blaster Revenger

Again, credit where credit is due here; the opposing team being such great sports. We sit down and even exchange pleasantries before getting started. Timeleap Academy were the number 1 seed going into the Top Cut, so this was probably our biggest challenge yet.

The game starts off like any other Revenger sort of deck, but as he strides into Aurageyser, I suddenly start seeing pieces from the legend deck; the new Claudas/Dorint as well as the Trumpeter lead me to believe I might not be facing off against any normal Shadow Paladin deck. Despite riding into PBAbyss and discarding the breakride Phantom Blaster, he still has a lot of Blaster engine pieces floating around. While Legion never comes off, there’s enough threat from Phantom Blaster Diablo alone that means I have to be careful. As the game goes on, he starts to pull out the Phantom Blaster Diablo, but ends up making the critical error of throwing his rear-guards first, giving me a target for Bellog and effectively making him waste his PBD. That turn and perfect guard I used bought me enough time to stride into The Ace and pressure him while also digging for those precious heal triggers I so desperately needed. Fortunately, Gatling Claw comes through for me again and I draw them. This time, he learned from his mistake and won’t make it again. He goes straight for PBD, committing his entire hand, and throws just the VG at me, proccing PBD. At this point, I was forced to keep most of my cards in hand because I had to potentially discard a G2 and a G1 to stride next turn if I survived; it wasn’t worth it committing cards to avoid dying given that he had Blaster Darks all ready to go. This time, a Scryew and a vanilla Defeat Flare puts me up to a three-pass, and my heart leaps as he reveals the first crit. “It could all be over now”. The second crit comes down and I see everything going down the drain. The third check misses and I heave a sigh of relief. He didn’t check a perfect guard and only has four cards in hand. The Ace finishes up the game.

Again, I have to respect Zak here; he not only didn’t get upset about his mistake and gave up hope, but he actually learned from it and even put me in a position where I could have lost the game there and then. We found out later that they ended up winning the 3rd place decider, and I could not be happier to see Team Time Leap Academy again at Germany.

This was the match where the judge at the end of the table just sat, frozen in terror as he just watched Megacolony do it’s thing to someone who just couldn’t draw the Grade 3s he needed. Top bantz.

Win. Personal: 4-4, Overall: Finalists

This was it. No matter what, we were guaranteed an invite to Europe. What started out as the pinnacle of what we thought we could achieve ended up turning into the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. We had to ground ourselves to reality once again to make sure that we were in the optimal mindset going into the final round. If we had come this far, why couldn’t we win the whole thing?

Grand Finals – vs Gold Paladin – Gurguit

Less than four turns in, Julian turns to me and says “I’m done.” Pavroth and Tidal Assault did their thing, and crits just made it faster. I don’t think his opponent even got to stride. So now there was less pressure, but at this point, I felt that I had to win, for myself if nothing else. It didn’t help that not too long later, Mike turns to me and says “it’s all up to you.” So with the world on my shoulders, I buckled down for what would be the game of my life.

My opponent was very good, and it showed. He played in a way that gave me little to no room, and forced me to go for the big plays all the time instead of building incremental advantage like I wanted. I ended up playing this game like I would classic Overlords; sit back and let the VG do the dirty work. It almost worked, and he was constantly losing cards as the game went on. However, between Rising Shine and Scourge Point, it became increasingly harder to guard his attacks, especially as I wasn’t seeing my perfect guards, and it became riskier to stride as I would lose access to The Ace if I wasn’t careful.

Eventually, he asks a fateful question. “How many Overlords in your drop?” I answer “Three.” and he immediately pushes his backrow forwards, much to the amazement of the crowd. And just when you think it’s all over, when he only has four cards in hand and four cards left in deck, I throw a Legion attack at him in order to recycle my perfect guards, and he drops not one, but two Sleimy Flare. Except he chooses to not to call anything with them, thus padding his deck and giving him one more turn to attack with. Another play that draws a “wow” reaction, and for good reason. While I don’t want to blow my own trumpet, this is the sort of play that because we would have made, I felt put us on a sort of level that made it fair that we were competing against these guys in the final round; I don’t think that’s a line of play many would think about let alone consider otherwise.

It gets to the final turn. He has five cards left and strides into Ray Breath. He used up all of his resources on Gurguit last turn, so now he just needs to push. I spend a good 5 minutes counting his triggers and determine that out of his five cards, there’s a stand and a crit left. Both of those will end me outright. My hand is just Perfect Guard, G3, and a Heal. I have no more Denial Griffins. If he hits a Stand, I will have enough shield to stop the rear-guard. If he hits the stand and the crit, then it’s game over. I have to perfect guard the VG attack because the threat of outright losing is there, and hope that he doesn’t get enough to force the rear-guard through either. Luck smiles upon me, and he whiffs all of his drive checks, leaving him with nothing to guard the final Ace that comes his way.

And just like that, I had won. The most tense game of my life ended in my favour, and our team had emerged victorious.

Julian won. Mike lost. 40 minutes later, I win. Personal: 5-4, Overall: Winners

It still hadn’t settled in, even as we were signing our forms, that we had come first place at Team League. Hugs and tears, followed by photos, smiles, and cheers. We had spent all day keeping a lid on ourselves in order to play to the best of our abilities, and now we were able to let it all loose. Even the judges joined in our celebration and our opponents were gracious in losing. Everyone who stuck around congratulated us with genuine happiness, and for that moment, we were on top of the world.

After some photos and some paperwork for our travel stipend reward for first place, we all called our families to share our victory. We came to Cardiff looking only to Top 8 and prove to ourselves that we weren’t scrubs, and left as champions, vindicated in our abilities and ready to take on the world.

That’s All, Folks

It’s 3am on Monday as I finish writing this article, and still hasn’t fully sunk in yet that my friends carried me through 6 rounds of swiss all the way to a first place finish at what was supposed to be my “second game” after Magic.

I cannot express my joy and gratitude at the Vanguard community for not only being so friendly, but even willing to join in the crowd, root for us, and celebrate with us throughout the entire thing. I have to thank absolutely everyone again here from the top; the store for being an amazing store, the staff and judges for a well-run event, the players and our opponents for being great people, and finally, Mike and Julian, for carrying me at the beginning and not giving up faith in me. I can honestly say I made you guys proud in the final stretch.

For everyone else reading this, thank you for joining me in this rather long post. Hope you didn’t get too bored throughout. Thanks for reading this far, and thanks for continuing to read the garbage I put out. Hopefully I can keep producing enough good material that everyone can enjoy. There’s a very meaty Weiss Schwarz article that I’m just putting the finishing touches on now, so look out for that if you’re interested in WS Statistics.

Once again, and not for the last time, this is me signing off. I’ll see you guys next time.

~ Z