Montreal Tournament Report
Greetings Rulers!!
I thought I would give you all a little tournament report from
how things went for me this past weekend at GP Montreal. It was a great
experience and it felt good to get back out into the competitive scene myself
and try my hand at getting an invite to worlds. Not only that, but I couldn’t
pass up the opportunity to meet all the awesome members of the Canada Force of
Will community and hang out with some fellow friends from the US who were also
making the trip.
So what did I take for the event? Well, I knew that Pricia was
going to be the deck to beat, and a lot of people were also saying that Turbo
Fiethsing with Gwiber and Alhama’at would make strong showings as well. For
this reason, and the usual Team Ogre mentality of wanting to bring things that
are counter to the main decks rather than following the curve, I decided to
bring a Valentina 2.0 list that myself and fellow Team Ogre member Saito had
worked on called “Val 2.0 Myths.” Here is the list typed up for your
convenience!
Valentina Myths
Main Deck
4x
Laevateinn, the Demon Sword
3x
Deathscythe, the Life Reaper
1x Heavenly Instrument Hydromonica
2x Horn of the
scared beast
1x Interdimensional Vessel Apollo
1x Marybell, the Steel Doll
4x Artemis, the Gods Bow
4x Sacred
elf
1x Ryula, Alabaster Dragon
Princess
4x
Izanagi, Keeper of the Seal
4x Spinning Myths
3x Millenia bond
1x Heavenly Gust
2x Charlotte’s Water Transformation
Magic
2x Wind-Secluded Refuge
2x Barrier
of Shadows
Stone Deck
4x Kaguya’s Stone of Sorrow
4x Ruler’s Memoria
2x Magic Stone of Black Silence
Side Deck
7 Kings from Seven Kings of the Land
3x sha wujing
1x Millenia Bond
1x
Heavenly gust
2x Odin the Omnicient
1x
Charlotte, Wielder of the Sacred Spirit
Our
thought process with this deck was the fact that Valentina gave us a way to
always have Deathscythe in order to be able to deal with Pricia’s early game,
while also being able to search up Artemis before we flip to prevent her from
pushing to win the game through the use of her God’s Art. Not only that, but
with Ryula being able to heal Valentina in matches with dark rulers like
Alhama’at we were not nearly as afraid of Black Moonbeam and other J-Ruler
killing cards. Combine that with the strength of being able to play a torrented
Spinning Myths into Izanagi on turn 2 against creature heavy decks and you have
a recipe for success, or so we hoped.
First off, huge
thanks to Carta Magica Montreal for such an amazingly run tournament. Even
though it was going to be a very long event due to everything being played on
the same day, the environment was very comfortable and close to necessities
like food and water to keep us all going. 108 players showed up for the event,
so we were going to be playing 7 rounds and then cutting to top 8! So let’s see
how it went for me.
Round 1:
Alhama’at Angels
So just
like I was hoping to have happen, I was paired up against a dark control list
for round 1 (huge sigh of relief for not having to deal with Pricia right off
the bat). My opponent was utilizing a Darkness Wind Light style deck with
Angels like Rachel and Celestial Wing Seraph as his win condition. Game 1 went
pretty quick, as I completely forgot about the fact that he was probably using
cancel spells, and ended up having my entire simply shut down and overrun. Tapping
out against control decks is never a smart move, and my game 1 is definite
evidence of that. Game 2 and 3 however, I slowed down my pace, took my time,
and made sure to have my own cancel spells ready to go so that my major plays
were defended. Valentina herself ended up putting the finishing touches on both
games, after successfully landing an Izanagi early in order to remove usually
2-3 angels from my opponents field both games. In game 3, I even did 4000
damage exactly by using Izanagi to put in 2000 damage, judgement with Valentina
and swinging for 1800 with Artemis Bows to destroy his blockers, and then
sacrificing my own Izanagi for one more activation of Laevateinn to finish the
game.
Record: 1-0
Round 2: Valentina
2.0 Regalia Rush
I was
placed at table 1 for this round, and I was sure that I was going to be playing
against a Pricia player. However, once we both revealed Valentina 2 as our
rulers, I knew things were going to go my way. This proved to be true very
quickly, as my opponent was not utilizing any form of addition/regalia removal
or cancel spells, so I spent a large portion of both games purely locking down
and clearing his board with cards like Barrier of Shadows, Izanagi, and
Heavenly Gust. Both games ended fairly quickly and I moved on to round 3.
Record 2-0
Round 3:
Pricia OTK (On Feature Match)
The first
thing my opponent said to me, was that he had seen me play earlier in the day
and had never been able to beat my ruler in his testing for this event. This
gave me some hope, but as soon as he revealed his Pricia, I knew that I was in
for a workout. Game 1 I managed to stop him from starting his assault turn 2,
but eventually he was able to find his Heavenly Gust and wipe my board of all
my regalia and then swing for lethal with Pricia. Game 2 went in a similar
fashion, with an early judgement on my side proving to be too much for him to
handle and preventing him from being able to use his Pricia as intended, thus
giving me the game. So moving into game 3, I knew the first few turns would be
very important. I looked at my opening hand and saw the following cards:
Barrier of Shadows, Deathscythe, Spinning Myths, Izanagi, Sacred Elf. If there
was ever a perfect hand for this deck, this was it. My confidence was very very
high that I could win this game. My opponent simply played a laevateinn, called
a stone, and passed. Moving to me, I drew into a SECOND Barrier of Shadows. Not
wanting to risk having a Ruler’s Memoria come into play tapped, I played my
Deathscythe. Unfortunately, my opponent had a Wall of Wind ready to cancel it.
My heart sunk, when I saw it, but I knew that all was not lost if I could just
call my Magic Stone of Black Silence off the top to land a Barrier of Shadows.
Unfortunately it was not meant to be, as I called a Kaguya’s Stone of Sorrow,
thus leaving me completely open to my opponent’s aggressive turn 2. After
taking nearly 3000 damage from Pricia, I had to scramble to catch back up and
unfortunately could not find what I needed to survive. Pricia had bested me, and
I left to lick my wounds before moving to the next round.
Record 2-1
Round 4:
Darkness Wind Fox.
Color me
glad that I was not going to be playing against Pricia again after what I had
just dealt with. While normally Fox is a pretty easy matchup for Izanagi and
Valentina, my opponent was unfortunately came prepared to answer Pricia’s
regalia and found those very quickly. Barrier of Shadows, it turns out, is a
very good card against Valentina and dealing with them took me way too long. I
lost game 1 and then unfortunately ran out of time in game 2 and so I conceded
to my opponent. It was a hilarious back and forth though and I thanked my
opponent for such great games.
Record 2-2
Round 5:
Gwiber Combo Pricia
Well Well
Well Pricia, we meet again. This time my opponent was not trying to kill me
turn 2 with Pricia, but slam as many Gwiber the White Dragons into my face as
fast as possible. While normally this would not be a problem due to Izanagi,
Pricia’s ability to give resonators Swiftness proved too much to me game 1 and
I quickly admitted defeat. Game 2 went almost exactly the same way as my
previous game 2 against Pricia had gone. I was able to find my Barriers and
Spinning Myths early, clear the board of resonators without taking too much
damage, and then followed it up with Valentina to seal the deal. However, just
like my game 3 with Pricia in round 3, my opponent was able to simply go faster
than I was and I believe hit me for 2600 damage on his turn 2 or 3. With no
Spinning Myths or Izanagi’s to be able to clear the board of the 2 Gwibers
before me, I accepted the fact that this GP was not going to be where I earn my
invite to the World Championship, thanked my opponent for the games, and
admitted defeat.
With 3
losses to my record, I decided my time was better spent hanging out with
players and getting footage for my personal Youtube Channel, so I dropped from
the event.
Final
Record 2-3 Drop to get Youtube Footage!
While I
didn’t win the event, or even top for that matter, I still had an absolute
blast. I was able to meet so many awesome players from the new community, many
of whom recognized me from the channel, and thoroughly enjoyed all of my
matches during the event. The time I spent getting footage, watching other
players crazy build ideas, and conversing with everyone was truly a rewarding
experience. I did learn one thing however from the event, it is better to BE
the problem deck than to try and spend time ANSWERING the problem deck. I
thoroughly intend to incorporate my testing for GP Ohio so that I can do
better, so you all better watch out!
Once
again, huge thanks to Carta Magica for such an amazingly well run event, plus
the live stream. Thanks as well to all the new players I met and my friends who
let me stay with them. I definitely will be returning to their next event in
Toronto later this year, and look forward to writing more tournament reports
for all of you moving forward! If you would like to see footage of the Val 2.0
Myths list in action, be sure to go check out my Youtube Channel, DM073, and
subscribe because it will be coming up soon!
Until next
time Rulers!
DM073