What’s up Ballerz?!
I played Dark Broly in the Oct 18/20 Carta Magica webcam tournament and got 5th/120. I’ll do a later post on how I got to my list, how it evolved, etc. For now I’m just going to talk about my matches, tournament preparation, and pros/cons of webcam games.
My List/Locals players
I took Dark Broly to the tournament, relatively budget at $210. As you’ll see in the spread, there were only 6 Dark Broly players. In my opinion, this is an extremely difficult deck to pilot. I’ll do another article on the deck, how I got it to the list above, and some playlines.
Another guy from my local, Donnie, also got Top 8 with a Bulgeta (Bulma and Gogeta Br) list. I think it was a strong meta call against aggro, I know he beat a Reboot Gohan and a Vegeks. Both of our lists were tailored to be able to deal with Green Gotenks and Red Broly Br, which is what we were expecting an abundance of.
The third of my locals guy piloted a unique Green Gotenks build. He did very well, and went 4-0 the first few rounds. Unfortunately he ended up playing some rogue builds we didn’t test against (Green Goku hand control, Blue/Black Soul Striker Reborn) and didn’t break into the top 16.
My Matches/Spread
Round 1: Invoker (George Moniz) – Loss. This is probably Dark Broly’s hardest matchup. I tried to keep a high life total, negates, and energy up so he couldn’t blast me with Catastrophic Blows on turn 5. Unfortunately, I needed to see the Mechikabura to stop the 3 drop Goku, and I couldn’t find it in time. He ended up playing 4 catastrophic blows on me on his Turn 5 and I lost before I could awaken.
Round 2: Blue Baby (JT?)- Win. This seemed like a decent matchup for Dark Broly, playing a bunch of 6 drop 30Ks that are difficult to interact with, you control Baby’s hand and drop with the Rare that warps, and warp their battle cards with the SR. The SCR Baby Hatch did excellently shut down my kill-turn after he tapped out, but I ended up winning it in the grind.
Round 3: Green Gotenks (Set 11 – William) – Win. This was a matchup I had a ton of practice in, and I knew how to play it out. My opponent didn’t see his Unison on turn 2, so I was able to play the match a little slower, not needing to utilize my self-awaken and letting my opponent take me down.
Round 4: Red Gogeta (Set 6 – ?) – Win. I saw mechikabura, before my opponent’s turn 3 I played it and declared Gogeta 5, this left my opponent with a suboptimal turn. My opponent also didn’t realize my big Broly cards played from drop. He self awakened and I was able to take 5 of his life on my turn 3.
Round 5: Invoker (Brian Fox) – Win. This was my toughest win of the day. Playing slow at high life didn’t work in my first round, so I tried to go full aggro, swinging, popping my 30ks to play the blocker Gohan and swinging with it, using champa doublestrikes, etc. I got very, very lucky, in that my opponent had 2 life and I had 2 swings remaining. I swung, he took the life (after debating for a long time!), and I knew if he drew into a negate I was done. On my last 30K swing I dumped my hand (I had baited out the Emperor’s Death Beam earlier) and my opponent revealed his last life, which was the Toppo. If he had ripped the Toppo from life instead I would have lost.
Round 6: Dark Broly Mirror (Cedrick, from Quebec) – Win. I went first so had an advantage. He played the deck well and I was happy to play a Broly near top 16. Unfortunately, I feel he attacked me too many times early (taking me down to 4) so it let me awaken first, whereas I held off and only attacked with my leader to draw. Otherwise we both had the exact same playlines for the first 2 turns. I ended up getting Mechikabura out first and declaring “Dark Broly 6”, then started a rampage forcing him to awaken defensively. On my opponents next turn, he tapped out with 2 life (if I recall correctly) after also playing Mechikabura on me. Armed with a Champa I swung with my leader, he powerbursted, as I was unable to play a Dark Broly I used my leader skill to draw and found a Mira, Creator Absorbed. I played Mira and swung for game.
Round 7: Red Gogeta (set 11 – Eric Sellitto) My game with Eric was a blast. He did very well with Red Gogeta and it was close. Eric had an unlucky whiff off his leader swing, and didn’t want to awaken defensively so had to take a bunch of damage and was put to 2 life. Mechikabura was again clutch as I declared “Gogeta Br 5” on his turn 3. I sparking negated all of his big doublestrikes to keep my life reserve high, and swung with my leader after my 30K got hit by Violent Rays (stopping me from pressuring with Dark Brolys). Unfortunately he used Wolf Fang Fist to -15K my leader. He had 5 cards in hand, and I couldn’t risk him using afterimage technique on my unison swing. So on the leader swing I combo’d 3x 10Ks from my hand (including a Champa doublestrike) and every 5K I could, I think I got to 55k. My opponent had already used 2 supercombos so I knew he would only have a max of 2. Luckily, he only had 1, and I believe he could only get to exactly 55k.
Standings: I ended up going X-1-0, ending up 5th overall out of 120 registered players.
Top 16
Here is a snapshot of the Top 16 (courtesy of Carta Magica). I looked at a few of the lists, and I’ll say the fact that 2 very different Bulma lists (Bulma Gogeta Br and Bulma Earthlings) made it to top 16 was surprising, but I can see how its a strong deck in BO1. Vegeks was not surprising to see in top 16 as I still think its one of the strongest BO1 decks, if not a little RNG reliant. Invoker remains very strong against slower matchups, and I was surprised there were only 2 Gotenks, but I suspect this is due to list-tailoring (I know I tailored mine to deal with it). Its not surprising that only 1 Dark Broly made it into Top 16, given that it was only 6/120 players, but I’m happy that it was my list. Now that you’ve seen the top cut, I’ll talk a little about tournament prep, and then webcam issues.
Tournament Prep
My friends and I discovered this tournament was open registration on Thursday, Oct 15, 2020 and started making our decks. I was either going to bring Pilaf, which I piloted in the Channel Fireball tournament last month, or Dark Broly, which I had newly built but was having difficulties with. As far as listbuilding, I reached out to Facebook groups, Paul Demos of Team AOD, and my two locals players Donnie and TJ, who basically taught me how to play. The bottom line at this juncture, is REACH OUT. Ask people you’ve seen pilot the deck on stream or on Youtube videos, ask your friends what they think about your lists, ratios, etc. It was TJ who convinced me that I needed to main-deck Mechikabura, and I won every game I played it in. It was priceless advice. Donnie convinced me to add a second Champa and just increase my deck count, and I was stoked I did because the second doublestrike came in handy on multiple occasions.
Test against meta decks. If you don’t have the cards, proxy them, put them in the hands of some of your friends who are adept players and play against it to find holes/weaknesses in your lists. With Dark Broly I found I had no early game defense, and threw in Time’s Judgment and Petrification so that I could slow down early aggro and have an outlet to get value out of all the 0+0s on the unawakened side.
Watch gameplay, watch it on streams, youtube, your friends playing, etc. You need to learn plays, misplays, and either make mistakes or watch other people make mistakes so you don’t reproduce them! Example, don’t dump on a non-barrier battlecard doublestrike because your opponent can easily remove it mid-battle, save your Champa dumps for the Leader and Unison swings. Test multiple decks to find something that will give you the best results in the tournament restrictions (BO1, BO3, etc) and with the meta-call. We knew Gotenks and Red Broly would be prevalent going in.
Test your build for consistency. Ask your friends what they’d change, consider what your “flex” spots are, make sure you know what cards to charge in what scenarios, and make sure you know what’s in your deck. You should have a rough understanding of every card in your deck and how many you run in a tournament, you need to be able to review your hand and drop, and be able to make a determination on what’s left in your deck and life for you to draw into that might be able to assist you. Practice going first and second so you can learn your playlines.
Webcam Format
Obviously, this is not the most competitive format of the TCG. There are problems associated with camera cutting-out, not being able to see your opponent’s hand, not being able to see your opponent’s life, and more. I’ll give a few tips, and maybe some anecdotes.
-Ask your opponent how many cards in their hand and in their life in every one of your turns. This lets you know if they are adding/subtracting extra cards from their hand, and can help you make decisions on whether to dump your hand (I dumped on a doublestrike when I thought I had game on one occasion, only to find out my opponent had 3 life left! What a scare that was);
-Ask your opponent how many supercombos are in their drop area. This gives you an idea of the total combo power they might be able to muster and will help your math;
-If you think you missed something or there was a misplay, ask your opponent to repeat it, or ask the question about the card. In one game I had an opponent tap a blue energy for the invoker skill, and just asked if they were paying the full cost, he then realized he had accidently rested the wrong energy. It happens, and you should be understanding. Another game an opponent lost because he didn’t know my Dark Broly cards could play themselves from drop. If he had asked I would’ve read the card out;
-Relax, its about having fun. Some people are going to be less-than-savoury, some people are going to rule-shark, some people will let you take an honest mistake back. These are webcam formats… Appreciate the inherent issues and make the best of it you can. Getting mad or upset is just going to sour it for everyone. Have fun and talk with your opponents. I had a blast getting to know Cedrick and Brian Fox, as they both chatted with me for a bit after the game. Its nice to put faces/voices to people in the online groups, as really, we’re a global community.
Closing Thoughts:
I thought Carta Magica did an awesome job. The tournament was run fairly effeciently, there were judges on-hand, they answered questions when asked, they were up-front about prizing being delayed. I honestly had a really positive experience in both of my webcam tourneys, and look forward to playing again. Until then, Keep Ballin’!
Border City BallerZ 