YCS Miami

Hi all! It has been a while since I posted something up on this page and I start it off with the first YCS of the year! SO EXCITING! Before I start, I will post up some pictures for everyone to see!

The Hostel I stayed in on Thursday night! One of the best hostels around on South Beach

Fences to the beach!

All over that beach! ;D

So many palm trees!

It was a really good day! The sun ALMOST came out... haha

My friend Galo pre-registering for the YCS.

Getting seated for round 1 of the YCS Miami!

Mid round bantering with players. 

View from hotel room! It was such a sunny day on Sunday, but chilly for Miami. 

Judges assembling! Michael Lee!

After day 2, we were exhausted. A few good judges here, except Uzo... ;P 

It was a fun time, especially getting out of the cold weather in Boston to go to Miami. It was 3 times the difference (20 degrees F to 60 degrees F). I had my small bit of traveling up and the beach and then walked through the "shopping district" although there wasn't much to shop for because they were all small local stores. I was carrying around a 20 pound duffle bag at the time too. I didn't volunteer this time at Miami because I wanted to look around Miami and hang out with a friend who came down with me to Miami (Galo). I saw a bunch of the older judges and greeted them as I ran into them. We went to the judge dinner after the Pre-Reg was over and I was super excited to get some food in my belly.

The dish I ordered sounded better than it tasted. There were inedible tissues left on my steak and I just left the rest on the table for the chefs to deal with it. I understood that there was a huge party that the cooks may not have been prepared for, but the group made a reservation ahead of time. Why was the restaurant not prepared? I'm not sure. But we got out of there relatively late. The manager tried his best to help out the waitresses to no avail, the group was just too overwhelming for such a small restaurant.

Day 1! 

The amount of people trickling in was any typical YCS. Big waves of people, then small amounts, and then big waves of people again and then the stragglers. Those who just like to get the round 1 loss. hahaha, no, the whole day went pretty smoothly. There were a few issues and hiccups that came up. I had to bring up a few of the issues with the TOs and the judges. It was a rough day for me, but I pulled through. It was definitely a HUGE learning experience for me. Player management, rules knowledge, and many other aspects of the community I learned more from this YCS. Afterwards, we went back to the hotel, got some food, looked at some trade binders and went to sleep. Luckily, I didn't catch anyone trying to intentionally draw to make it into day 2.

Day 2!

Players were excited to play for day 2. Some people were completely dominating and some... forgot to wake up. Sadly, with this loss in the beginning of day 2, the player didn't make it to the top 32. I stayed in as a floor judge for all the top tables and also was a feature match on a top 16 table! Fire Fist versus Wind-Ups! It was a close battle, good communication from the players and everything went smoothly. This was my first time judging a feature match. And from that, I learned a bunch! ^_^ Our top tables Lead, Natalie, did a great job, especially from all the experience she's had. It was a smooth top tables! I've heard that side events went pretty smoothly. Good job Uzo and judge staff!

Our Winner?

I'm sure you've heard already, Wind-Ups! It was a WU mirror match in the finals, so there was no chance another deck would have won... haha. There was a bunch of other good decks out there, including Billy Brake's 3rd place water deck (Water deck w/out Undine engine), and 4th place Karakuri deck (w/ Solar Wind Jammer + Emergency Teleport techs for first turn shenanigans). Congratulations to all those attended and I hope you learned as much as I have in this event, judges and players alike!

Rules I learned and told to YCS

• Wind-up Rabbit still banishes the card even though the monster is targeted by Book of Moon afterwards. It will be banished facedown due to the wording of WU Rabbit that says "banish it" rather than "banish that target". It will also return back facedown. 
• Although agreed upon by judges, Altantean monsters should not get their effects if it was returned to an area of private knowledge before they activated, it was ruled at YCS that they still get their effects. (Broken much?) We hinted on a sense of Konami trying to push for the water deck. But this ruling was in a limbo for a while. 
• Dark World Dealings doesn't make both players discard at the same time, instead, it is whenever one player discards and then the other. Players can "change their cards of selection" after seeing that it was a Dark World match up (discarding their Moulinglacia). 
• There is less incentive of a double game loss, instead, it will more likely be an "accepted game state" instead of handing out game loss/warnings to players. (I know, this is less of a ruling than a judge/player management thing)

And here's the last and one of the most important picture around, the judge staff! I believe there was a few people missing. :[ But that always happens for the judge photos. :P

Stolen From Julia! RUV U!