Tournament Report: Bricks Play (09-01-2016)

Hey everyone and welcome to the new year. I wish that it is a fruitful year to everyone both in terms of their life in general and of course to another great season of Vanguard.

It's been a while since we last posted and the reason is because school has started for us. Today, I'll like to provide a tournament report of the tournament I have attended in Bricks Play (Toa Payoh, Singapore) last Saturday on 9th January. Besides just providing a breakdown of what occurred in the tournament, I hope to also provide some insights that we have gleamed in the process.

3 of the blog authors (Adrian, Samuel and Zhi Wei) as well as yours truly attended the tournament.

Here is some general information.

Tournament Language: JAP but ENG allowed.
Format: Swiss
Win Condition: Best of 1, but once going into the top 8, best of 3.

Decks used
Samuel-Machining
Adrian-Nightmare Dolls
Zhi Wei-G-Genesis
Me-Machining


 My Tournament Report

1) My first fight-Ripples. The feared Ripples was my first opponent. I sighed inwardly and did not rate my chances too highly from the onset. However, I was able to start first and coupled with the fact that my opponent failed G-Assist on his G2 turn, meant that there was one turn when I was already G3 and had access to twin drive while he was still at G1. In my opinion, that probably cost the Ripple player the game. He played a G2 gradelock game based on the Pavroth so I was never able to stride at all. I also made the mistake of guarding 10k for 1 pass to prevent restand and he checked a critical precisely on that turn. However, twin drive enabled me to sustain my defence and my strategy of repeatedly riding Stag Beetle to call additional rearguards finally allowed me to break through his defences.

In all honesty, it wasn't very honourable win. Thankfully, Machinings had a decent pre-GB1 game based on stunning RGs and Stag Beetle that made it possible for me to actually do something at all. The tactic of playing a gradelocked game to deny your opponent any chance of legioning/striding is a clearly strong strategy for any GB1, stride or legion dependent decks.


2) Brawlers. This wasn't a particularly memorable game. I was able to call out 2 Machining RGs with my Stag Beetle so I chose to ride G3 first. On his next turn, the Brawlers player was able to get rid of most of RGs although I had conserved some replacements in advance. I was able to stride Destroyer successfully to stun his Vanguard and he wasn't able to stride from then on. By 3rd stride I was able to overwhelm him.

3) Brawlers. Yet another Brawlers game. This was a game that I was happy to lose because I obviously met a superior opponent. It was clear that the opponent was able to maximise the potential/retiring mechanic of Brawlers to exploit Carapace Destroyer's reliance on RGs. I made the mistake of riding a G3 with no obvious benefits for myself and opened myself to a devastating Brawler stride that sniped all my Machining RGs. Being unable to stride Destroyer due to insufficient Machinings (I had to discard 2 machinings to stride), I was forced to stride Paraspear. I knew at that point things were not going well for me. Although on 2nd stride I was able to stride Destroyer, by then the damage had been done. The opponent was able to re-ride and perform Legion. While I was able to guard the Legion attack, the two powered up RG columns from Big Bang Slash Buster broke through my defences.

4) Seekers. The opponent played Seekers based on a G2 gradelock strategy and maximising offensive G1 10k attackers and G2 12k attackers. Besides denying me the ability to stride and paralyse his Vanguard, his seeker rush (3 full column attacks) was very powerful. I was forced to ride G3 and gain access to twin drive because I did not have Tarantula on my VG circle and it was obvious I could not keep with the G2 game. When he had successfully whittled down my hand, he rode and strode to win me, although Legioning would have been a valid strategy as well. I suspect he did not have Thing Saver in hand.

5) Messiahs. My last game was against a Messiah player. Messiah as a GB1 was obviously slower than Machinings to come into play. I did some early RG stuns with Tarantula and the Messiah player chose not to ride G3 for one turn to stride first. I did not oblige him and played gradelock since I was sitting on Tarantula. Obviously he could not keep up with the tempo and was forced to ride G3 a turn later when he was already disadvantaged. First stride allowed me to gain massive advantage, and although he was able to re-ride and stride, the damage had been done and I had enough hand to easily defend myself. I was able to whittle Messiahs down and eventually defeat him.


After my Messiahs game it was 3 wins and 2 losses and I was pushed into the top 8. Adrian (Nightmare Dolls) and Zhi Wei (Genesis) had been eliminated by this point and only Samuel (Machining) and I headed to the top 8. Thus, the tournament had the unusual distinction of having 2 Machining decks in the top 8. At this point, the tournament changed to a Best of 3 format and I will briefly summarise it.

I fought against a SP player using PBD breakride and Abyss. It was a lose-win-win. In the first game I was surprised and got owned by the restanding glory attack combo that the SP player pulled off. I only managed to win in the two subsequent games because of a combination of luck and some careful guarding.

Next, I fought the Seekers player again who had advanced to the Semi-finals as well. It was a complete rout with me losing 2 games consecutively. I was unlucky and checked no triggers but the strength of his anti-stride/legion tactic was clear.

That concludes the tournament report. I'll now give some comments and observations in brief.

Feast your eyes on the Stun Beetle, a card that could have been the God of Megacolony but ended up  becoming the troll. On the other hand, the tournament convinced me to get 2 copies of Stun Beetle that I could probably use in extreme situational conditions.

Some Findings

1) Weakness of GB1 Decks-The extreme weakness of pure GB1 decks becomes apparent when of all the GB1 decks available in the tournament, only Brawlers made it to the top 8 (the 2nd Brawler guy). Although he was a great player, he could ultimately do very little against his Ripple opponent which never rode a G3 but was still able to keep up in terms of guarding and offensive power. Zhi Wei's tried and tested G-Genesis deck did not make it to the top 8 because it could ultimately do very little until he was able to stride.

2) Gradelock-In many ways, this is similar to guerilla warfare. You choose not to directly confront the opponent where he is strong and instead exploit his pre-stride weakness. There is virtually no way to counter this when your deck is one constructed to stride/legion against another deck that is constructed to fight without needing to stride/legion. Despite having a decent early game, both Samuel and I played Machining decks that required access to stride in order to pull of VG stun reliably (Machining's key winning mechanic). This meant that we were badly disadvantaged against the G2 Seeker and Ripple game that we both fought against, leading to us clinching third and fourth against Seekers and Ripple.

I think one of the key takeaways from this tournament is that while you may have a very strong GB1 deck, it may pay to prepared to face opponents who will never give you the chance the stride and thus force you into a vanilla game and a battle of attrition. Would I thus recommend everyone to abandon their G-era decks? No. What I am saying is that this might and can happen because denying Stride is too devastating in this meta. After weighing the pros and cons, one may have to see if their slower Stride focused decks but stronger in the late game is worth it if one cares about playing competitively. Which is why I feel that currently Limit Break decks with their revival strides suddenly becomes very potent being able to activate the late game power of Strides while not caring if their opponents are at G2 or G3.

Overall, it was a pretty honourable fight and showing for Machinings. Hope that my experience may have provided some insights to everyone. Happy new year!