RVA Petit Cup Tournament Review- Austin Archer

Let me start by saying this was one of the most fun events I have been too in quite some time. Yes, I am part of the team, but my main goal was playing in the event (and helping with raffles). I had been tying around with mono fire leading up the event but didn’t get enough reps so I stuck with the earth ice build i was familiar with. YET, the morning of I completely scrapped the idea I had been running and changed it to a more typical build; no more crystal chronicles moogle, no Snow back up, no Serah to dull everything and 5 drop Lightning spice. Just good old Ice earth good stuff. While I ended up with a 3-4 record, I had some great games and learned a few things throughout the day that i thought my be worth sharing. Enjoy walking the through the lines of the day with me!

Round 1: Sam Prime- Earth Water Monsters

Starting out the day against Sam was of course a little concerning. You know going into the match that you have to be on your very best to stay matched up with the caliber of player he his. I wasn’t sure what he was on and truthfully didn’t get a good idea until around turn 4. Most of the match I felt like i was on the front foot. I had to do some careful maneuvering around his first Zaghnal, and was lucky to hit a PSICOM on his second. It was fairly close though up until a very pivotal turn. I had put him to 5 damage and had built a pretty sizeable baordstate with PSICOM, Dadaluma, WoL, and I believe a Terra or Celes. I had 3 backups and 3 cards in hand one of which was the Opus 7 Sephiroth, sadly, one of the other cards was Opus 2 Emperor. Needless to say, I needed the discard that turn as Sam had Opus 1 Cloud of Darkness in hand and the next turn he played it, wiped my board and was able to swing with the newly activated Zaghnal, another forward to kill the Opus 2 emperor, and a Gigas to close out the game. Lost 7-5

Round 2- Nate Horn- Strongest Sword Golbez

Nate is a local so I knew what he was on. Fun side note he has also been playing Strongest Sword Golbez since ARG Charlotte last year so where he top 4’d. He was able to get some early damage on me but I was able to stabilize and fight back a little. He broke a Golbez on me once, and then twice, as I had a Shantotto in hand but had to force out forwards to stave off the little guys. Again, the bad thing this game was being stuck on dark cards in hand (there were 4 in the deck) so never being able to cast Shantotto when I needed it. I was able to keep everything at bay until he dropped a Gadot with no cards in hand and I tilted thinking the 2 drops were 8ks instead of 7ks in which I could have lived an extra turn and cast the Shantotto next. Instead I blocked with my WoL thinking it was dead and extended the hand…….lesson in the first two rounds…..I suck and drawing dark cards at the wrong time. Lost 7-2

Round 3- Andrew Lane - Earth Ice

Andrew was playing a similar list to me, but he hasn't updated since Opus 4. Being the wonder twin of our very own Adam Lane, i knew he was going to be a great match up. I just happened to keep the board state better than he was able to with WoL and Dadaluma and force him into pitching cards he didn’t want to and make unfavorable trades. Galdes did well this matchup and so did Genesis. I got there 7-2 this match-up.

Round 4- Trevor Charbonneau- Ice Water

I love playing against Trevor because they are always fun match ups and he’s just such a nice guy. He started out with a time mage and 2 drop Yuna backup so he had nice cheap summons and the ability to flicker ready to go. He got forced into an early Nidhogg which allowed me to Shantotto to get rid of that. I turned the corner with a Kam’lanaut and a chaos and next turned played a Galdes…...then it happened…..the biggest blowout play I’ve been part of since 5 color ninjas…...He drops 8 drop Sephiroth and breaks my Chaos, which of course makes me have to put the Kam and Galdes into the break zone. OOOOOF. I honestly thought that was the end up the game, but I had WoL in hand and top deck a 2cp Hecatoncheir to be able to ping off the viking forward he had on the field and kill Sephiroth. At that point he was on the back foot and didn't get a chance to come back. I ended up winning this match 7-5

A side note i learned after the fact. Because the chaos was broken, it creates an illegal board state for the Kam and Galdes, Because of this, the Galdes death trigger DOES NOT happen so he can’t discard or reduce on exit. Thanks Nick Schnell for pointing that out.

Round 5- Phillip Jones - Scions

He had a great opening get allisae and alphinaud online with a krile as well. I however was able to get forwards out faster and stave off the initial threat to get to an early 5 damage. He ended up hard casting a 7 drop Odin to kill off my WoL which was saving me most of the game and i got greedy and cast a Dadaluma pre combat that was quickly removed with a Opus 7 Ramuh in damage.I never got a chance to see my 3 drop Hecha’s so it was pretty rough from there.  He then takes the game back handedly. I lose 7-5.

Lesson learned: Sequencing plays is a BIG DEAL!

Round 6- Sarah Chadwick- Mono Fire

Sarah is another another RVA local and is pretty darn good with the Mono Fire deck. She opened up with a turn 1 haste Tifa and Gadot, which i had to overextended into an early Shantotto. From there though she was really low on cards and was hard casting forwards but never saw any backups. It was rough for her form there on out as WoL and Dadaluma did their jobs and timely Glasya Labolas and Genesis finished the job. I win this 7-2

Round 7- Kyle Tollefson Mono Ice

Was happy to play someone I didn’t know at all in the final round. Come to find out he is a new local player within the last month. I got him to 6 damage fairly quickly and it as a fun matchup through and through, but I couldn’t get over his Duke Larg once he stabilized . I didn’t run any anthems so I was always losing forwards unfavorably and misplayed a WoL Ping into a Laswell on a buffed Celes that pretty much sealed it from there.Never saw any Glasya to help punch the last damage through and he was able to get some discard at that point that let him get way ahead. I end up losing 7-6

All in all, it was a fantastic day and i really cherished getting to meet all the players in person aside from mini pictures on facebook groups. The Jersey boys, the folks from Tampa, and everyone in between just showed by this game and community are top notch. Thank so much to some of the best teammates I guy could ask for in Adam Lane, Adam Duncan, and Chris Adams as well as the rest of the RVA and Virginia Community. A special shout out to the staff and team at Battlegrounds for being such an amazing store and letting us do what we love.