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