Dear Yu-Gi-Oh community,
My name is Darren Stephenson, and this is my tournament report for YCS Milan 2018 where I managed to achieve Top 16!
So, let’s get into it!
I decided to play Altergeist for YCS Milan as I felt like the deck had the best overall coverage of any deck in the format. I felt since the format wasn’t very defined, I didn’t want to enter an event with Sky Striker and have to potentially play against mirror matches with loads of tech cards like ‘shared ride’ for the mirror. I did not feel in total control of the Sky Striker mirror match so I opted to play Altergeist instead. The reason for this is Altergeist has ‘win buttons’ in Secret Village and Imperial Order which can steal you games. Altergeist doesn’t have a hard match up against Thunder Dragon or Dark Warrior either. I also considered Thunder Dragon and Dark Warrior but I did not think the decks were consistent enough or have a reliable win condition. A detailed deck profile can be found on my YouTube channel DarrenStephenson (DarryJamStain). Which you can check out, here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_eAc1iU2Fcg!
If you don’t wanna’ do that, heres the list in picture form (You’re welcome):
Theres not much more to say really, so let’s get onto the rounds!
R1 vs Burning Abyss (won die roll) 2-1
G1: My deck wasn’t well shuffled so I drew a monster hand with no real play. He eventually wins the grind game and I get OTK’d
G2: I open Inspector Boarder and my opponent cannot out it so he concedes the game.
G3: My opponent used Red Reboot and Destrudo twice during the game and I won in time as I was able to defend myself, blocking attacks while generating card advantage.
R2 vs Sky Striker (won die roll) 2-0
G1: I opened Secret Village, my opponent could not out it and conceded the game.
G2: My opponent does the typical Shizuku plays. I activate Secret Village and my opponent could not out it.
R3 vs Thunder Dragon (won die roll) 2-1
G1: I did not open a play but I could defend myself with cards like Solemn Strike and other defensive cards until I drew into a play to eventually win the game.
G2: Opponent made me start, I did not draw playable, and my opponent was able to put up a board that I couldn’t deal with.
G3: Opponent has a Denko on field with some Thunder Dragon fusion monsters and I only have Hexstia. I crash Hexstia into Denko and searched Multifaker. End of Battle Phase I used Evenly and he left a Denko. I then summoned Faker on resolution and since time was approaching I was able to block his attacks as I was ahead on life.
R4 vs Gem Knight FTK (lose die roll) 2-1
G1: I don’t open a hand trap so my opponent had full combo and I got FTK’d
G2: I start and I have good set up but my desires was rough on me and banished most of my resources including 2 fakers. So I was stuck triggering the same faker turn after turn but couldn’t really apply any pressure. My opponent had Desired twice but he still had 2 Block Dragons that I had to keep removing. Eventually he ran out of rocks in grave and he conceded the game.
G3: I opened triple Artifact Lancea so I was able to stop him from making any plays that lead to the FTK combo so I eventually won.
R5 vs Thunder Dragon (won die roll) 2-1
G1: I open strong. A Solemn Judgement more or less ended his turn and I won from there.
G2: The game gets really grindy but he eventually applies a lot of pressure with his Colossus, making it so my Meluseek couldn’t search so I eventually got too behind on card advantage and couldn’t deal with his big board.
G3: I start. I have good set up and manage to stun him for a turn. I trigger Faker in my turn to deal a lot of damage with that and Hexstia. Time was approaching but I had Lost Wind set to defend myself if he went to Battle Phase before time was called but he did not had time so I won. Even if he had time to go to battle phase the Lost Wind would have halved one of the monsters attack which would have saved me from taking enough damage for him to win.
R6 vs Danger! Turbo (loss die roll) 1-1 (VS Joshua Schmidt)
Details of this match can be found here on the official Yu-Gi-Oh! yugiohTCGEU Youtube channel:
R7 vs Trickstar Sky Striker (won die roll) 2-0
G1: I don’t open playable initially but neither did my opponent as I had Striker for Candina. He flips Scapegoat but it doesn’t apply enough pressure as he still has seen no engine cards and I bounce his Link 2s with Silq. My opponent messed up OTK by not using Anchor and he was punished as I took away most of his cards and set up good defence and card advantage.
G2: Game is quite grindy, he only draws his Trickstar engine and is removing backrow with Lightstage, however the Trickstar monsters weren’t too threatening so I just slowly removing his advantage and stopping Candina follow ups to eventually gain control of the game.
R8 vs Sky Striker (lose dice roll) 2-0
G1: I lose the roll but my opponent makes me start. I activate Secret Village and my opponent can’t out it so concedes the game.
G2: I have no clue what I’m playing against but I assumed it was either Sky Striker or some Invoked variant. He decides to start game 2. He does typically Shizuku stuff. I attempt to play yugioh but the Sky Striker engine is just better so I end up on the back foot. He has pretty much every push with Area Zero, Hornet Drones and Raye so he ended his turn strong with: Shizuku, Engage in hand and an Anchor set for my Marioneteer that he saw me search, this was my only card in hand. I rip secret village, absolutely robbing him of the game. I use Marioneteer to set Manifestation to make sure I maintain a Spellcaster on the field. He could not out Village so I eventually won.
With this, I ended day 1 with a pretty strong record, I was guaranteed Top Cut day 2 assuming I didn’t lose every game.
R9 vs Thunder Dragon (win die roll) 1-2
G1: I start off strong. I solemn judgement his first summon which put me in control of the game.
G2: I have Artifact Lancea but he manages to end on a board that was too threatening for me to deal with so I just concede.
G3: I play around Denko Sekka but fall victim to Evenly Matched and it was over from there.
R10 vs Thunder Dragon 2-0
G1: Back and forth game which I eventually win.
G2: I have secret village which helped me secure the game.
R11 vs Dark Warrior Rhongomyniad (lost die roll) 2-1
G1: My opponent does full Rhongo combo for 6 so I concede.
G2: I start and I have too many defensive cards that he couldn’t push through so he concede.
G3: My opponent begins to combo, I use Impermanence on the Isolde because I have Faker. He uses Red Reboot. I set Lost Wind from deck. I goes for the Summon Sorceress point to Zephyros combo to summon Steam but he forgets that he hard drew Steam and discarded it off a Danger effect, He goes down a different route but then gets to the point of setting Shade Brigadine and then activating it, but since he used red reboot he now has a trap in grave so he could not use it and end on Rhongo, so he passes with a board of fog blade and some monsters. I flip up my traps to clear my board so I could use Evenly Matched to take away all his card advantage and I triggered Faker to set up Hexstia with a bunch of defence.
Top 32 vs Dark Warrior Rhongomyniad (lost die roll) 2-0
G1: My opponent bricks and passes turn. I don’t open an engine card so I set back row and pass. He passes turn again. I draw Faker and pass. His hand becomes playable but he is unable to push through my defensive cards and is left on no cards so I win.
G2: My opponent passes without a play again. My hand isn’t great either, I have 4 monsters in hand with Spoofing. I just end on Linkuriboh pass and a trap to trigger faker. He draws playable and pushes through all my defence and then has D.D.R to push into an Isolde. He can’t get to full combo but he ends on Phoenix + Unicorn so I have to deal with that or else he will draw 2 cards. I still can’t really push so I get rid of the Phoenix with Meluseek and pass. He sets up a play with Leviair, PK Link and Fog Blade set and tries to Borrelsword otk me but I block with Kunquary to negate Borrelsword. I still don’t have anything, no traps set to trigger faker. So I normal another Meluseek and try to attack directly, he stops it with Fog Blade. In his turn he tries to attack for game with Borrelsword forgetting he couldn’t attack Meluseek after my Imp got Red Rebooted. In my turn his life is so low after a Red Reboot and a few Destrudos that I can Lost Wind his Borrelsword and punch over it with Hexstia for game.
Top 16 vs Thunder Dragon (win die roll) 1-2
I play against my CCG team mate Federico Mecozzi. Who managed to end up taking 2nd at the event! Well done!
G1: The game is very grindy, I have stunned him with Solemn Warning but a judge call on whether you could spoofing away a Manifestation made me lose my train of thought. I had village up so I used Manifesation to get back a spellcaster, my opponent then chains Belle, I then respond with Spoofing to put it back to get a Meluseek for the following turn. However, during the judge call I forget the negate the activation part and search Multifaker thinking I could trigger it on resolution but I could not, this lead me to waste my Heavy Storm duster set just to trigger the Faker. It still worked out okay as I won a really long grind game.
G2: I go second and open Artifact Lancea. I was contemplating whether to blind activate it or not, but I really wanted my opponent to commit to a play first so the card would have a higher impact. I also considered the fact that he could have Desires or Allure, but I valued the impact and the information higher so I let him proceed to the Main Phase. He activates Pot of Desires which lead to my downfall as it meant he drew a Hawk which allowed him to play through Lancea and my hand couldn’t cope with double Colossus, Titan.
G3: Echos of Round 9 happen in this game. I commit everything to the field, flipping up my Protocol and summoning Faker to play around Denko Sekka. But then once again, I lose to Evenly Matched…There was a glimmer of hope though, as I left Imperial Order on the field which managed to hold him off. If I could top deck into an engine card I could have potentially won the game. But sadly I did not and I eventually lost.
Summary
Overall I’m fairly happy with my performance and the teams as well, getting 3 of us in the top cut and Meco making it all the way to the finals as well! I was gutted he lost as he really deserved it, but I’m confident his time will come soon!
Big thanks to CCG and it’s sponsors and to all those who I travelled with to Milan and to those who made the trip so amazing. A massive thanks to all the ‘Altergeist speilers’ out there that gave me loads of advice leading up to the event when I was honestly not sure at all what I was going to play. Shout outs to: Bohdan, Tayfun, Josh and Yaowei for helping me build and also played the deck and to Luke and Omar who gave me that insane last minute Lost Wind change in the queue which was honestly one of the best card in my deck. A HUGE thank you to Jonathan, Ryan, Aaron and Rob for lending me the cards for the event, I wouldn’t be able to play without them!
