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!

Ban List

August, the biggest time for the September Yu-Gi-Oh! banlist. As many of you, Konami is capable of throwing Screw(you)balls when they want to, especially with the new holiday wave 1 tins. Coming out with GAOV and PHSW packs, but reprinting PSHW and GAOV cards in the 6 promotional cards as well. Also, last years ban list was a big confusion as they semi-limited Reborn Tengu when OCG didn't get their Reborn Tengus (the old saying is, if it is exclusive, it won't get touched, WRONG).

Here are my ban list predictions:

Inzektors -

This deck is huge in OCG and dominant in Regionals/Locals in TCG. People say that limiting Inzektor Hornet will help the situation, however, after playing the deck for a few months, thinking about how the deck works, and talking to a few more experienced players, Inzektor Dragonfly is what makes the deck so OP'd. Yes, the Hornet is a key component, but if you look at OCG, they run 3 Inzektor Ladybug because it creates more targets for DFly and Centipede. So anything, Konami will be limiting DFly.

LS/Chaos Dragons -

We all know that decks that has to do with milling are the luckiest and one of the most sac-iest. As a player in my local always tells me, "You're such a sac. You would have all the answers" well, maybe if you built a deck that aimed for your locals, then you'd win your locals more often, just saying. Anyways, tangent. Future Fusion (or FuFu) will get banned. Not just because of this particular deck, but with future cards coming out, such as Mermail (mermail E. Heros = win) and countless other things. I was thinking FuFu, Cyber Eltanin, and cyber monsters in the deck. Ridiculous. Lightpulsar must be hit, going to semi(2) or limit(1). Same with Red-Eyes Darkness Metal Dragon. Lightpulsar = recycle of REDMD or said other dragons. REDMD for obvious reasons, but from what I'm learning, they might just put him to semi-limited because Konami is still trying to push for XYZs, (Gustav Max). Chaos Sorcerer may go back to 1 or 2 maybe even back on the ban list with Black Luster Soldier - Envoy.

Wind-Ups -

Well, guess we saw this coming. With Wind-Ups topping a lot of the World Championship Qualifiers (or more known as Nationals to the older generations), we can see why this deck is getting hit by the ban list. First off, it destroys your hand turn one, leaving you with max 2 resources left in hand and worst case scenario, you're top decking yourself to a victory. 3 very main key cards are in this deck, Wind-Up Hunter, Wind-Up Zenmaighty and Wind-Up Rat. You may ask, "which one is going to get hit?" Personal Opinion, both Wind-up Hunter to 1 and Wind-up Znemaighty to 1. This way, you'll have dead Wind-Up Rats in your deck and you can only loop the hand max 2 times. Some say to ban Hunter and problem is solved, but I think there's a larger problem. To kill the deck, no, to force the player to play other cards, yes.

DinoRabbits -

I personally don't think Konami will do too much about this. Maybe force the Evolzar Laggia to 1 and Evolzar Dolkka to 2 will make the deck less viable. My reasoning of not touching Rescue Rabbit is because of Konami's push for the XYZs and the usage of Normal Monsters. This may sound silly, but in all good business perspective, it does make sense. Maybe in another year, we will have a different type of monsters, Maybe a RED colored card!? Who knows? *cough Konami cough*

Miscellaneous -

Mystical Space Typhoon is going to go to 1. With Night Beam out, there's no point. Also with so many new archetypes requiring backrow support, I can see this being quite possible.

Tour Guide From the Underworld is another really popular target for a lot of players. Especially after Konami really sold on the Battle Packs, they have a good push for the next meta and they can semi-limit/limit this card for no reason. Some people have told me that Sangan was gonna get banned, but 75% of people would just XYZ into something.

These are what are going to get hit by the ban list. Just my own personal opinion of what is "OP'd" in this meta. What's your opinion?

Judging in Long Beach

Wow, I didn't think I would be a judge for such an important event. Even though it is a normal YCS (Yugioh! Championship Series), I think it will be a huge event because of the things that are given out to the players and after all, it is the 100th one being set out in the YGO community. I've talked a lot about being a judge with my local TO (Tournament Organizer) and other various RC-1 qualified and other judges around my locals. It was interesting. Not only that, people started noticing me that I was a judge and a reliable source of information. That is not how I wanted it to go since I did get back into YGO last year (2 formats) and I have just gotten back into YGO from a 4 year break. I think I need to get myself accommodated to the huge database of cards out there before I can do something about it.

From the current experience in locals, I've learned that a lot of casual players do not read the card text that is in front of them and that aggravates me. The problem solving text is right there in front of them. There are game mechanics that a lot of people don't know like how optional effects and mandatory effects fall in a chain (e.g. Catastor vs Grand Mole) that I can understand, but where as can I special summon this from my hand, that's a different story, that is based on text and what was activated on the field.

Hopefully, this will carry over into the Judging experience in Long Beach because if I can see a YCS as a large locals rather than any thing else. The only thing I feel sorry for is the amount of people that might be playing Inzektors or Wind-Ups because their opponent will cry a lot because they might as well lose first turn to Wind-Up or lose turn 2 to Inzektors. The Inzektors are an aggressive type of deck and the wind-up as well, but they thing is that if the wind-up goes second, it can hardly make a come back if they have some sort of back row. With wind-up out, it really depends on who goes first that will determine who wins the match rather than who has more skills.

Until another post about my YGO adventures and blogging. Hmmmm, maybe something that will help you guys out next time. :P