Kokoro Connect - Review

So I said I'd do this a while ago but I never really got around to it until now, but this will be a review of the anime series Kokoro Connect, due to a few people asking.

The five protagonists clockwise from top left: Iori, Inaba, Taichi, Aoki, Yui

Before I begin I just want to point out how confusing it was that some of the characters were referred to by their first names (Taichi, Iori and Yui), others by their last names (Inaba and Aoki). Iori in particular is referred to by both her first name, as well as her family name Nagase multiple times in the series, which was sort of annoying. But in the end it doesn't really matter, just something I thought I'd mention.

Anyway I probably shouldn't give a review without at least saying what this whole series is about - to sum it up, it's a drama/comedy slice of life piece with supernatural phenomena happening to the cast. First arc is body swapping, Freaky Friday style. Second arc involves involuntary actions. Third arc has the cast randomly de-aging, and the last (which is Blu-Ray only due to some controversy you guys are better off not knowing about) involves random transmission of thoughts. At its core, Kokoro Connect is about the five main characters. Imagine your group of friends, now imagine all these supernatural phenomena happening to your friends. What do you have? Drama.

And yes, Kokoro Connect is forced drama. It doesn't pretend to be anything else. This isn't a bad thing, and I have to stress this because often in dramas, drama happens for no reason at all other than to push the plot forwards. Kokoro Connect frames this drama with the character known as Heartseed, who is behind all of the phenomena happening to the characters. It is when you acknowledge that the forced drama is the entire concept of the plot that you begin to appreciate the minute details.

The most common criticism of Kokoro Connect (and one that I echo) is simply that the series failed to deliver. Ironically, this is related to the show's biggest strength as well - its first arc. Known as ヒトランダム (Hito Random), which roughly translates to 'Random People', the first arc opens boldly with interspersed cuts of the characters as they get ready for school. Their personalities and quirks are established almost immediately in a quite masterful fashion. We see Taichi as a mild guy with a white knight streak, Inaba as being intelligent and distant, Yui as being shy but determined, Aoki as the dogged nice guy, and Iori as your typical upbeat, popular girl. Usually, a character-driven anime such as Kokoro Connect would be hampered by such pigeonholing of the characters, but the stereotypes portrayed by the characters actually serve to add a more dynamic nature to the drama in the series. A deconstruction, if you will. I actually liked it - I think more slice of life shows such as Kokoro Connect could serve to deconstruct their genre a bit more.

I'll put it bluntly though - the series should have ended at Hito Random. No spoilers, but there is a moment of intense emotion near the conclusion of the arc, one that tore my heart out of my chest, played with it, tore at the heartstrings, before shoving it back in backwards. It is masterful. Were Kokoro Connect a simple five-episode (or maybe six, if more detail was put into Hito Random) series, there would not be a doubt in my mind that it would be the best anime of 2012. This is not an understatement - if you want to watch one of the best animated pieces of 2012, watch the first five episodes of Kokoro Connect.

The most heartwrenching part of the series.

But there's a catch. There's always a catch. Kokoro Connect hits that high note, then plays the rest of the piece in monotone, showing signs of wanting to break out, but being unable to. It truly is a pity. After Hito Random, the characters become more one-dimensional. The worst offender is probably Inaba, who turns into your typical tsundere for no apparent reason other than she's horny. Yui and Aoki, who had potential as a sort of 'alpha couple', are shoved backstage so Inaba and Iori can angst a bit more. Fortunately for Yui, a lot of character development occurs during Hito Random (and some almost-good moments in the second arc, Kizu Random), while her unfortunate counterpart Aoki gets one episode of development in the third arc, Kiko Random which doesn't really amount to anything.

Yui and Aoki are shoved aside for the climax of the third arc with Aoki turning into a baby for no real reason.

Some exposition in Kiko Random reveals the audience's suspicion - that Taichi is simply our eyes for the series. He reacts the least to the phenomena out of any of the characters, and is calm throughout. We see ourselves in him, and that can be a good thing, but sometimes we are left wishing for a more interesting character. Honestly, I don't like it. The series, especially towards the end, started to feel hollow and fake thanks to the gaping void that was Taichi.

"I guess I am just exposition in character form."

This leaves Iori as the only character with any real development and depth. She is very realistic, in my opinion. Though an internally troubled character, she deals with her problems with the same arrogance seen in most other 16-year-old girls, trying to take them on by herself. She doesn't really overcome her identity crisis until the end of Kako Random, the fourth arc. I'm not sure if it was the translator's fault, but the moment in which she overcame her internal struggle of identity ended up feeling like being hit over the head with a hammer called Character Development. It wasn't subtle. It wasn't pleasant, either. But I have to give the writers credit for being bold enough to actually do it in a series of otherwise mediocre characters.

Blissfully unaware of just how much faith the audience has in her.

But that's enough gloom and doom. What did I like about the series? Other than the first arc, I have to say the opening of the first few arcs was very catchy and pleasant to watch (it's sped up to avoid copyright, watch the series to enjoy it in its full glory). On top of that, Kokoro no Kara (I believe it's pitchshifted to avoid copyright) is probably the best ending theme I've ever heard. Ever. The way it builds tension for the next episode in the previews is amazing. Episode 4 especially - I had my heart in my throat.

Animation is top-notch, as to be expected. I love the use of colour and lighting in Kokoro Connect - day scenes are bright, while night scenes are coloured realistically. Lighting used to be an unusual technique in the past, but Kokoro Connect uses it well, with the sun shining on some characters in especially dramatic moments. Watch for its use in the opening sequence if you want an idea of what I mean. Overall, it's a very beautiful anime, well crafted. I do appreciate the recent stepping-up in quality of anime, and Kokoro Connect is no exception. It's great on the ears and eyes - the voice actors are perfect for their roles, and I have to give special credit to Inaba's voice actor Miyuko Sawashira (who even resembles her character somewhat), as some of Inaba's scenes do get emotional (one especially in the first arc).

So my recommendation? Watch it, if only for the first arc. It's a learning experience, for sure. You may even like the series on a whole. It's not a waste of time like some other series, it's worth a watch. It's not great, but it's not bad either. I'll give it a 7/10 and my thumbs up of approval. My bitter comments are more out of frustration than anything - frustration that the series didn't deliver on some unique and interesting concepts. But Kokoro Connect has no large flaws that make it a poor series - far from it. And in this day and age, sometimes that's all you need for a satisfying watch.

Changes to the blog

Hello friends, we haven't posted in a while but here is an update of what's going on:

• Banner ads have been placed on the blog. You are free to use AdBlock if you want, but just leaving them gets us a little bit of money (like pretty small amounts but it adds up). No obligation to view them at all!
• We have a new author in Luke "kd24" Miller! He plays on Dueling Network under the username Emblem. We respect him a lot over in #yugioh, so stay tuned for some of his posts!
• Mr. Dang will no longer play Yu-Gi-Oh! at a serious, competitive level due to studies and other factors - he's basically going to be me now. 
• Some non-YGO posts will be made and we plan to expand the blog to a more pop culture-based one, including but not limited to games (with a focus on League of Legends), music, etc.

Thanks for your patience!

Don't Space Out

Apologies for the terrible pun, but this article is about our good friend MST.

Mystical Space Typhoon may be one of the most versatile Spells in the game. It's close to Book of Moon as most versatile, in my opinion. The ability to instantly pop a backrow cannot be underestimated, and for a long time Mystical Space Typhoon was Limited due to its power. Times have changed, however, and we saw MST go from 1, to 2, and finally at 3. Being able to play Mystical Space Typhoon at 3, however, opens up a certain phenomenon that Alex and myself refer to as the 'Backrow Paradox'. If you open with two backrows, say a Solemn Warning and a Mirror Force, do you set two and risk losing them to a Heavy Storm? Or do you set one and have no protection after your opponent plays Mystical Space Typhoon?

It's easy to say that you'd rather set two because there are three Mystical Space Typhoons in most decks compared to one Heavy Storm. But losing two backrows puts you at a severe early game disadvantage. I have spoken elsewhere about how having your opponent Heavy two cards on their first turn has its advantages for you, but speaking strictly in terms of card advantage, it's not desirable. This paradox exists because we are in a format where Mystical Space Typhoon and Heavy Storm coexist at their full strength.

However, we're seeing a move away from Mystical Space Typhoon. The winner of the European WCQ only ran 2 MSTs in his deck. The reason for this was because recently, many 'no-Trap' decks have risen to the forefront. Traps are powerful, for sure, but they are often slow and clutter the deck. It's easy to get carried away with power cards like Bottomless Trap Hole. Chaos Dragons and variants of Monster Mash choose to forgo Traps. For this reason, Mystical Space Typhoon has dropped in usage.

But the irony here is that as Card X, the counter to Card Y drops in usage, it's more viable to run Card Y. We can apply this to the metagame in general, such as the recent Wind-Up phenomenon.

Increase in Maxx C -> Decrease in Wind-Ups -> Decrease in Maxx C -> Increase in Wind-Ups -> Increase in Maxx C

The cyclical nature of the metagame means that I could just be speculating in an uncertain period. However, there's no denying that the introduction of Chaos Dragons as well as Monster Mash being played more often has led to the decrease in Mystical Space Typhoon usage, and that those decks are here to stay. But with the decrease in Mystical Space Typhoon, isn't it more viable to run Trap-heavy decks focused on control such as Rabbit Control Wind-Ups or Dino Rabbit or even Gravekeepers? It's an interesting question for sure, and with no major tournaments left for this format, it may be a question that goes unanswered.

So, next time you draw a Mystical Space Typhoon, think about the influence that that little green piece of cardboard has over the metagame. And appreciate what you have, because you never know, come September 2012, you could be searching for a new deck...

On Wednesday I went to the tournament at Macarthur Square gametraders store and had a shot at winning their tournament. As always I spent the first half an hour scouting around to see what people would be playing and looking for any sweet trades or bargains. I managed to do some very good deals on Synchro monstrers that were no longer of any interest to me such as power tool dragon and ancient fairy dragon, for out-dated synchros like those I managed to get electric virus, tragoedia, sangan, super rare dust tornado and some other good staples. Also I got rid of an un-needed Shadow imprisoning mirror for a soul taker.  Later on in the night I also happily picked up an ultimate rare glow-up bulb for $10 , I know what you're thinking, "But why?, Glow- up is banned anyway". Let's put it this way, glow-up bulb was $50 at it's prime and now it's a measly $10, after the amount of criticism konami received for banning glow-up bulb it is bound to come off the banlist sooner or later, especially since Synchro monsters are way past their use-by date. Let's say glow-up bulb came off the list 1 year later from now. I won't even remember the $10 I spent to get it, but what I will remember is the $50 I will be putting into my wallet when I sell it. That being said I also plan to pick up another 4-5 more copies of Glow-up bulb when I have the money to spare. Right now I actually have another set of cards that I'm keeping my eye on but I'd rather not reveal that publicly yet, those who know me personally should know what I'm on the lookout for and I have very good reasons too.

Anyways I got a bit off track there, time to report on the tournament.

Match 1: Rogue Synchro deck
round 1: I opened with a bad hand and had to grind my way through half my deck before I drew into an Inzektor Hornet. Luckily I main deck compulsory evacuation device and I'm able to exploit the weakness of many Synchro monsters (bouncing them back to the extra deck).
Did not side
round 2: My opening hand was much better and I'm able to combo off and finish this round quickly, I try to pick up his effect veiler after the game which I assumed was going to waste since he didn't even sleeve his cards. But he didn't want to part with it so that was a shame.

After reporting my win I went to scout out any more bargains and at the same time I couldn't help but feel tempted to buy the merchandise that the store was selling, such as a monster binder at $30 ($5 cheaper than usual and the orange pack of sleeves that I've been after for a long time now) but I'll get back to that later

Match 2: Lightsworns
round 1: The guy isn't very experienced and I just sit comfortably using Dragonfly and Hornet to take control of the game.
Did not side
round 2: I open with a really poor hand of 2 warning, monster reborn, dark hole and mystical space typhoon but he doesn't make any pushes so I eventually manage to draw Centipede and Hopper and use them to add Dragonfly to my hand and later Hornet to win the game.

Match 3: Dino Rabbit
round1: This was perhaps the hardest match of the night, it was my friend Jason and we had actually vsed the day before with me losing 2-0. I open with a pretty sub par hand including centipede and hopper and solemn judgment and 2 MST. I'm going first so I use centipede and hopper to fetch dragonfly and I set all my backrow and end. He summons rabbit and goes into Laggia which I negate with Solemn. He ends his turn with 2 backrow set and I MST both of them. I fetch Hornet with centipede and Hopper combo and attack directly. My memory of what happens next is hazy but all I know is I won this match because I veilered his Tour guide.
Side in:
2 Dust tornado (this is a must, you need to side in extra backrow destruction to handle macro cosmos/shadow imprisoning mirror)
3 electric virus (regret, they're horrible against the Rabbit match up, don't bother siding these guys in)
2 Bottomless trap hole (Amazing card in general, it might find it's way into my main deck, can kill both their Rabbit targets or even just destroy a lone dinosaur in general is good enough)
2 Snowman eater (A must against Rabbits)
Side out:
2 compulsory evacuation device (pointless to use against Rabbits, Laggia makes this card dead)
2 Threatening roar (You don't need to stall for an extra turn against Rabbits, one extra turn will do nothing for you if they're sitting on a Laggia with 3 backrow)
1 Inzektor lady bug (Cannot afford to have this guy being a dead draw and you don't need rank 5's in this match up)
2 Solemn Warning (I was going second you don't want to have warnings in your main deck if you're going second, it will just be dead once they stick the Evolzar to the field and in a match up like this you really can't afford to be throwing 2000 lps away.)
2 Effect veiler (Horrible against Rabbit, the only worthy target is Tour guide, no point veiler-ing the Rabbit they're just going to set 4 to protect it and then you'll be down a card anyway.)

round 2: I open with centipede and sword and Giga mantis and it's hard to get out of the situation. Eventually he has Macro cosmos established with 3 other backrow and Dolkka and I just can't fight through that, I scoop very shortly.
Side in:
2 Solemn Warning (I was going first so I was betting on having an established field with Warning to stop him from sticking any Evolzars to the field)
1 Compulsory evacuation device
Side out:
3 Electric Virus (I found out the hard way that this does nothing to Rabbits)

round 3: I open poorly and he managed to summon Dolkka and stick Macro cosmos to the field leaving me in a really bad position. He xyz summons Photon Papilloperative and switches my set veiler to attack mode and hits me with both for 4400 damage along with some other battle damage before for a total of 6100 damage. I'm able to nuke the field with dark hole and xyz summon leviathan dragon and swing at him for 2500 and again. During the last few stages of the match he had macro cosmos face up with 4 set and I had 5 cards set along with my 2500 leviathan dragon. He summoned Sabersaurus which signaled to me that he had some sort of attack altering card such as Forbidden lance so I used compulsory evacuation device. He negated that with Solemn Judgment and he was left with 1500lps. I feared that he had mirror force so all I did for my turn was detach one more material from leviathan dragon to pump it up to 3000 atk so that it would take more than just one lance to run it over. He drew and switched  sabersaurus to defense mode and next turn I ran it over. He drew and ended, I drew and summoned hopper to attack directly, he smiled and we shook hands.

Match 4: Chaos dragons
round 1: The guy opens with a 'bad hand' but my friend says that he could have easily won with that hand has he known what to do. I just use dragonfly and hornet to pick apart his field and win the round
Did not side
round 2: I open with the dragonfly and sword combo to take this match.

So in the end I came first with my friend Jason placing second and some random guy placing third. The top 3 players received a playmat from the Battle pack epic dawn series which was amazing and as the winner I received $40 prize money to use in the store. Remember those sleeves and binder that I wanted?

This is a picture of the mat, I'm a little disappointed that it is only a half sized mat but at the end of the day a mat is a mat and I'm always proud of mats that I've personally won which to date is two. Oh and I also spent my last $4 on a battle pack epic dawn booster and pulled a pot of duality and starfoil rare heavy storm.

Deck profile: Evolsaurs

Hey guys, it's been a while since I've blogged but holidays is here and I'll kick things off with a deck profile of a theme that I personally enjoy playing. The Evolsaur/Evoltile archetype involves using reptiles and dinosaurs to xyz into the mighty Evolzar monsters Lggia and Dolkka. The theme is based on evolution with reptiles (Hence Evoltile a mixture of the words evolution and reptile) and Evolsaur (dinosaur + evolution). Some have compared the Evolsaur theme to the Gladiator Beast theme ( I shall soon be doing a deck profile of this deck too) in the sense that the Evolsaur monsters must be brought out by the effects of an Evoltile monster to gain their effect.

That is the first draft of my Evolsaur deck.

Evolsaur Cerato- A solid monster at 1900 attack points and a nice effect where if it was summoned by an evoltile it's attack goes up by 200 and every time it destroys a monster by battle you can search an evoltile to your hand. Sweet effect in my opinion.

Evolsaur Diplo- When this guy is summoned by an evoltile effect he destroys one spell/trap on the field. Useful for clearing the path for your Evolzar summons.

Evolsaur Vulcano- This is perhaps my favourite Evolsaur, when he's summoned by an Evoltiles' effect he can pull an Evolsaur from the graveyard. By summoning Vulcano you can instantly xyz into any rank 4 of your choice.

Evoltile Westlo- The recruiter of the deck and possibly the most solid opening move you can make in this deck is just setting Westlo and one other spell/trap. 1900 Defense makes this guy really solid and when he's flipped he brings out an Evolsaur monster for an instant +1

Evoltile Najasho- Najasho is perhaps the best and worst monster you can have. When combined with Enemy controller or Evo-force, Najasho becomes your best Evoltile monster but without those 2 spell cards he really is just a dead monster with a solid body at 2000 defense.

The only spell I'm really going to explain is Evo-force and Evo-Diversity since the rest are generic and you can tweak some spells/traps around if you find that they don't suit your playstyle.

Evo-force- A power card for this deck. When combined with Najasho this card can potentially be a +2 if used correctly, I'll explain a bit further down how this can happen. You can tribute any Evoltile monster for this card to bring out an Evolsaur but you'll most likely want to tribute Najasho if you can since Najasho will trigger and allow you to special summon another Evolsaur from the deck.

Evo-Diversity- This card adds so much consistency to a deck that lacks consistency. The general idea of yugioh themes is that any deck with their own spell search card is destined to do well. Well this deck has its own one too, Evo-diversity can search out any evolsaur or evoltile monster. The only drawback is that you can only activate one per turn but to me that's no big deal at all. You want most of your Evolsaur monsters in your deck unless you can guarantee an xyz summon and if you search an Evoltile you're most likely going to just set it anyway.

So as I said earlier the main function of this deck is to gain card advantage with the Evolsaur effects and using the Evoltile monsters to trigger those effects. You want to xyz into Evolzar Laggia or Dolkka as soon as possible to create pressure for your opponent to deal with it as soon as possible whilst drawing into more ways to make extra Evolzars to back your current Evolzar. Once you stick an Evolzar on the field you want to back it up with about 2-3 spells/traps. You don't need to fear petty cards like heavy storm as your laggia will keep you safe from it. And don't worry too much about your opponent using monster effects or trying to destroy your Laggia through battle because your back row will usually protect your Laggia. It's a you scratch my back I'll scratch yours situation. Once you summon Dolkka and Laggia and both of them have their effects it's usually game over for your opponent unless they have a crazy hand. Never be afraid to lose card presence to xyz into Laggia or Dolkka as they will usually make up for the -1 they cost you to summon with their negating abilities.

As I said earlier there is a combo to +2 with Evo-force and Najasho. Let's say you have two Evolsaur monsters in your graveyard.

-Summon Najasho and use Evo force (-2)
- Summon 1 Evolsaur Vulcano with Najashos ability and another Evolsaur Vulcano with Evo force's effect. (+/- 0)
-Use both Vulcanos' to bring back two Evolsaur monsters from your graveyard (+2)
 From there you could attack but I highly recommend you don't as the monsters brought back with Evolsaur Vulcano cannot attack. The best option is to bring out Laggia and Dolkka or double Laggia if you think that's what the situation calls for. In any case you just turned 2 extremely redundant cards into 2 massive bosses. One that is known as the 'walking solemn judgment' (Laggia)

Anyways I hope I managed to convince you of the strength and potential that lies within Evolsaurs. The deck does have its awkward hands like every other deck but it is one of the more efficient ways of bringing out Laggia/Dolkka.
See you next time on Gladiator Beasts.

Winning Games and Taking Names

Hey guys, how was your long weekend? Mine was pretty good. On Monday it started pouring in the morning and i honestly did not want to spend the day out in the cold so when my friend Jason told me that Parramatta would be holding an extra tournament for the long weekend I was like hell yeah. I showed up a bit early and did a bit of trading and pre tournament practicing. Finally everybody showed up and to my relief Wayne did not. Which meant that I had a legitimate attempt at first place today. I prepared myself mentally just like every other tournament I participate in. Then decided to go with Inzektors for the deck of my choice.
Match 1: Dino Rabbit
I was rather excited about this round as I had never versed Dino rabbits in real life before. Sadly the guy ran a really sub-par build and this is how it went.
Round 1:
He drew no monsters for the first few rounds so I beat him down with inzektor monsters while gaining card advantage. By the time he drew a monster I solemn warning-ed it for game.
Round 2:
This one wasn't too hard either, he summoned Cardcar D and drew two cards off it's effect and then from there i just beat him down with inzektors until he drew rescue rabbit which I solemn warning-ed
Match 2: Chaos dragons
The kid was talking about how he beat me yesterday (I joined a tournament on Sunday too) and how this is my chance to get revenge which I honestly did not care about lol.
Anyways onto business.
Round 1:
He hit me pretty hard early in the game with a REDMD and lightpulsar but I conserved my cards and began to combo off for the One Turn Kill. Sadly I misplayed and left him on 100lps. He did manage to recover a little but a simple swing with my Leviathan dragon next turn easily clinched the game.
Round 2:
After some intense thinking about what to side in and out, we started round 2. I managed to open up with some nice side deck cards such as Dimensional prison and my threatening roar (I main deck 2 though 3 is just for Chaos dragons which rely heavily on blasting out over 5000 point worth of damage in one go). A nice lock down with dimensional prison combined with multiple copies of threatening roar made round 2 rather simple for me.

The good thing about Chaos dragons is that they don't main deck traps so you'll be safe in that area and most builds won't run mystical space typhoon so feel free to set 2 traps or more if you're daring. In game 1 I like to trigger cards like threatening roar and compulsory evacuation device so that my opponent gets the impression that my traps are chainable. That way in round 2 I can side in continuous spells/traps such as dimensional prison or rivalry of the warlords. By the time they realise they need their MST's I would have already combo-ed off for game or assembled enough cards to play smoothly.

Match 3: Chaos dragons (again)
Round 1:
He over powered me with dragons and his in-hand effect veiler and D.D crow was too much for me to push through. He eventually just beat me down to 0Lps
Round 2:
This duel went on FOREVER. I drew some nice side deck cards such as fossil dyna, and my other copy of threatening roar, my dimensional fissure. Eventually he had a set monster, Lightpulsar, REDMD, Photon Strike Bounzer on the field staring me down. I managed to fend off two potential deaths with threatening roars and flipped Fossil Dyna to destroy all his monsters and swing for game.
Round 3:
This one was interesting for me because time ran out. Which meant that we had 5 turns before the winner was decided. Whoever had the least life points by 5 turns lost. I was freaked out because Chaos Dragons are notorious for dropping heaps of damage without notice. Thankfully for me dimensional prison kept him at bay and he drew no good cards. I attacked with centipede which he responded to with a Gorz drop. I used Dark hole and from there he forfeited due to bad draws. Close call !

Match 4: Lightsworn/Lightrays (Finals)
I had beaten this kid before so I didn't get too worked up about this match up
Round 1:
The guy summone Lyla on turn 1 and I set sangan with no s/t as I didn't want to lose any to Lyla. Little did I know that was  HUGE mistake as he took advantage of that next turn and killed me.
Round 2:
Some serious siding in went down on my part but he chose not to. I started an easy lock down with Dimensional Prison and Fossil Dyna which caused him to have nothing to do since he couldn't special summon or mill cards. His deck was in perfect lock down from where I sat. When the pieces were assembled I combo-ed off and killed him quickly.
Round 3:
He milled really fast, like over 1/3 of his deck was gone by his second turn. Luckily for me he decided to hold out on any big plays so I took advantage of that and combo-ed off for game.

So there you have it, I piloted Inzektors to first place and claimed my $20 prize money. I'm happy to win of course as I profited some money but I didn't beat Wayne which probably won't happen for a while. All in all it was a good day, I brought some cards at very reasonable prices and even received a few goodies off my friends.

Tournament Report - 10th June 2012

Alex and I went to Good Games in the city to participate in a tournament, with a $15 buy in. He was running Inzektors, and I was running a Chaos Dragons build incorporating Lightsworns and Judgment Dragon that we built on the train. Both of us ended up 2-2, pretty disappointing results overall for the both of us. Even for my first live event, I feel like I underperformed considering I did make a few misplays which I was able to pick out.

The tournament was in Swiss format, with the best 4 out of 10 participants moving onto the finals.

Match 1 - vs Nathan (Dino Rabbit)
Game 1: I don't remember if I won the diceroll or not, but he opened with Rabbit and Lance and I had no real mill outlets in my hand so his Laggia controlled the board pretty hard. I managed to mount a small comeback with a well timed Red Eyes, sweeping his monsters by baiting Laggia's negation with a Monster Reborn I didn't care about anyway, but he topdecked a Tour Guide into Leviair into Rabbit, and then the game was over.

Game 2: Once again I opened poorly (despite siding in three Mystical Space Typhoons, two Spirit Reapers and two Soul Takers), but going first allowed me to stall a little with Ryko. At one point I was ready to push for game with Red Eyes and Lightpulsar after baiting Laggia negations and reading his backrows correctly. However, when I went for game, I started out with Heavy Storm on his two backrows, straight into a Starlight Road. I lost Red Eyes on the next turn and the game was over quickly. I never saw any of my side decked cards.

Match 2 - vs Connor (Chaos Dragons)
Game 1: I lost the diceroll and he opened with Tour Guide into Zenmaines. I played Ehren, but he Veilered it and I lost Ehren on the next turn. I managed to push through Zenmaines by making it use its effect on itself, and had established presence with Lightpulsar, but he took it out while I had no Red Eyes in the yard and rolled me with his Red Eyes.

Game 2: I went first, and we went blow for blow. He had sided in three Electric Viruses and two Victorias, two of the Viruses were milled by he still hit me pretty hard with the Victorias. Eventually, a timely Chaos Sorcerer drop finally banished his Lightpulsar and I pushed for game.

Game 3: At one point I had an Eclipse Wyvern on the field with Honest in hand and Lance set. He had Lightpulsar, Zenmaines and Red Eyes on the field, and attacked my Wyvern. I made a misplay here - I should have used Honest, but instead I let it fall and every time I tried to come back, his Electric Viruses and Victorias shut me down.

Match 3 - vs Lucas (Blackwings)
Game 1: This guy was a kid and probably not very good at the game, but I decided I wouldn't take him easy. He had a pumped up Sirocco on the field at one point, and even managed to Dark Hole my field of Lightpulsar and Wyvern with no Darkflare or Red Eyes in the yard. I was dangerously low on Life Points at one point, but I dropped BLS and swung for game.

Game 2: He had stalled me for at least 5 turns with a Marshmallon. Instead of waiting for a good topdeck, however, he Tributed the Marshmallon for Sirocco to end the game by swinging at my field. However, I had Honest in hand and won.

Match 4 - vs Roman (Citadel Spellcasters)
Game 1: I won the diceroll and opened strongly, milling Wyvern on the first turn (and Gorz too...). He managed to use Arcane Barrier (or whatever the card is) to draw 4 cards, and nearly gamed me with a souped-up Arcanite Magician, but I just banished it with Chaos Sorcerer and he couldn't come back.

Game 2: I dispatched of his Citadel and Defender pretty early, and I constantly applied pressure with Lightpulsar. I had about 3000 points left from going blow for blow with him. A few turns in, he said "time to try something new..." and he ended up stacking about 4 Spell Counters in one turn on his Arcanite Magician and swinging for 3400 at my points. I was dumbstruck as I reached for my Side Deck.

Game 3: He had little outs to an early Jain, which managed to get some good enough mills that I was able to play beatstick after beatstick whenever he got rid of them and I eventually pushed for game and ended the day 2-2.

I was aware of my misplays in the four matches and I'm working towards rectifying them. I think live practice is very important - there's stuff you can't pick up on in Dueling Network (the wince on the other player's face when he gets poor mills, or the subtle encouragement of attacking into a Mirror Force - 'do you still want to attack?') that you can pick up on in real life. Overall it was a pretty good day and I did manage to get some more experience with Chaos Dragons, though I won't be using the Lightsworn build again probably.