I haven’t really done a post like this before, so please bear with me if I end up rambling more about the trip than the actual tournament itself – because if there’s one thing you should know about me and Munich, it’s that I absolutely adore this city. Between all the amazing concerts and sights I’ve already seen there, it’s no wonder I was extremely hyped as soon as it was announced that our closest Springfest will be in Munich this year.
Now, when I say closest, I use that word pretty loosely. It’s not a 10 hour drive like it was last year to Rome, but it’s still a good 5 hours or more depending on the traffic. On Sunday during the Weiss tournament, when our first opponents heard where we’re from, they asked how early we had to get up in the morning to come there, and we just laughed and said “oh no, we’ve been here the whole weekend.” Because that’s our usual plan for Springfest and BCS: get a hotel, get a van, take an extended weekend vacation.
This time, it was actually two vans, since we had 15 people. Aside from my Weiss teammates who actively play both games, we all main either Vanguard or Weiss, but know the other game enough to be able to play it somehow. So on Saturday, we managed to form 5 Vanguard teams (out of total 33) and on Sunday, we had 4 Weiss teams (out of total 31). Now let me get right into Sunday’s part of the event!
Weiss Schwarz Tournament Report
Our team (in that seat order) was me with Bang Dream (Kasumi/Yukina), then my friends with Love Live!! Sunshine! (Chika CXC) and Kantai Collection (StockSoul/Gate). We play at our locals all the time and they’re some of the best people I know – not just when it comes to Weiss Schwarz. I always say that if you’re in a team tournament and the guys you’re most scared of playing against are on your team, you have a good team – and these guys make a damn great team if I’ve ever seen one.
Round 1 – Finding the Superior Bang Dream
We were up against Bang Dream (Pastel Pallets/Arisa endgame) | AOT | SAO (Standby/Link Strike). I didn’t get to pay much attention to the other two games, but mine was odd from the beginning: I canceled two or three times at level 0, and the only reason I was level 1 before my opponent is because I managed to get him to 0-6, at which point he decided not to clock and just played more level 0s – presumably because he’d only get to play level 1s of one color, which wouldn’t make for too strong of a board in a PasuPare deck. I have no idea what he had in hand at the time so I don’t know if I would have made the same decision in his place, but it did at least give me some headway with board presence – not that it really mattered, because I kept drawing Pants instead of the Gate. Seeing how the game was going, I was pretty sure I’d get hit with two minus-soul Arisas as soon as he’d reach level 2, so I did my best to push damage, maintain hand and prepare anti-changers for when the inevitable Arisa wall happens. I knew I could maybe take one turn of dealing no damage, but not two. All things considered, it went pretty well until level 3, when I started drawing all Gates instead of Pants, because of course I did. Had I triggered Pants one turn earlier, I probably would have won off of Yukina, but as it was, I ended up dying majestically. At the start of his attack phase, I was at 3/0 with I believe 15 cards in deck and 1 climax. I pulled off a free-fresh, refreshed 6 into ~35 and then took 8 damage straight. Life be like that sometimes. KC won against SAO, but LSS died to AOT, so we lost round 1.
Round 2 – Sweet Double Yukina Redemption
We played against Sakura (Frog/Record) | SAO (Standby/Wind) | No Game No Life (B/Y). Whatever my climaxes were up to last round, they now came back to redeem themselves: I had triple Kasumis twice in a row and double Yukina on my end turn. My opponent had a pretty decent game too, I just think that between Hagumi disappearing into stock and Rimi moving my level 1 pieces around the board, she didn’t get to reverse as much with the Frog combo. Though she was also out of climaxes pretty fast on her first deck, so that probably also played a part in why I had the upper hand in that game. We went 3-0 that round.
Round 3 – The Salt Crystallizes
We went against ReZero (B/Y) | Persona 5 (Y/B) | BangDream (B/R/Y Book/Pants). I honestly still have no idea what happened in that game. My start was okay, I had my Kasumis when I needed them, but my opponent also had triple Emilia and the climax out as soon as he hit level 1, and his deck seemed to stil have a lot of climaxes left in it. I got my anti-counter Saya stuck at the bottom of the stock, but I also didn’t see a sac counter anywhere in his cards, so I kinda dared to assume that at best, he’s only running the tap counter (which I did see in his waiting room) and that maybe, I’d be alright finishing with Yukina either way. But then, I think he drew like 2 climaxes right before refresh (or he had them in hand the whole time and didn’t manage to get them out), because he refreshed with just 4, and he wasn’t compressed at all. After I anti-changed his Rem on the first turn, that seemed to be the last nail in the coffin. For two turns, he had such a low damage output that I was stuck at level 2 just crashing my board and then canceling his direct attacks. He reached level 3 first with 3 stock, played one Emilia and two other random cards. I thought he’d come at me with Puck, but he didn’t – I’m not sure whether he wanted to save up stock or keep me locked at level 2 for another turn or both. Either way, I crashed something into his Emilia and had a Kasumi and a Hagumi survive in the other two lanes.
And then the fun begins: he moved the Emilia that was already on the board in front of my Kasumi, then played a new one in front of my Hagumi. At that point, I’m picking the card up and reading it again to make sure that yes, he can only call out Puck on the turn the Emilia is played. I put it back on his stage and think “well I guess he’s not playing a climax this turn,” but then he plays a random level 0 character before slamming down the Book CX. Now, I’m thinking he forgot what Hagumi does, but as I pick it up and put it into stock, there’s really no surprise or anything on his face at all. It then occurred to me that maybe, just maybe … he thought the other Emilia still had the effect. And sure enough, he reverses my Kasumi and starts paying the cost, at which point I remind him that he can’t do that. Ouch. I think this was the first time I saw something like this happen to someone I was playing against, and I made sure to tell the guy afterwards that if it’s any consolation … I would have canceled the Puck attack too. He died to Yukina next turn, we won 3-0 again.
Round 4 – The Good Bad Game & Fairy Tail in 2019
Oh boy, that one was spicy. Our opponents had Revue Starlight (mono blue Claudine/Maya) | Fairy Tail (Lucy key build) | Bang Dream (8Book Yukina + Ako endgame). My opponent and I both had pretty shitty games: both canceling fine, but drawing absolute shit. I didn’t get a single Kasumi combo off, she only had one Claudine on board when she played the climax for her combo: we were both bleeding hand like crazy (I wasn’t hitting any of my brainstorms, she was hard-encoring level 0s and 1s) and I determined pretty early on that this was gonna be one of those games where I’ll have to brute force it through, or else. I think I won that game for two reasons: first, I was at least marginally lucky at level 0 by getting two Chisatos with markers on the field, and those lovelies acted as my lifeline while I spent my entire level 1 flopping around like a spastic fish on land. And second … well, we were both having a bad game, but I think I’m better at playing bad games than she was.
The thing is, I don’t really have too much confidence in my innate ability as a player: I’m not good enough at keeping track of everything I should be keeping track of in a regular game, and most of my attempts at statistical calculations mid-game result in my mind drawing a complete blank for the rest of the game. But that’s precisely why I’ll do almost anything I can to make up for that – and that includes playing bad games, intentionally. I know that if I get into a really bad game state for the first time, I probably won’t be able to see a way out of it until after that game is already over – and one of such game states was bad compression combined with lack of level 1 plussing. So call me crazy, but for the last two weeks before Munich, I purposefully started all of my games with only 3 random draws and then 2 Pants: and I didn’t stop until I got used to it. Judging by how that game went, it definitely helped. A month ago, I think I would have still panicked, but now, the only thing on my mind was “at least I didn’t open with double Pants in hand.”
So by the time she’s going into her level 3 turn, I’m looking at her stock and hand and realize there’s literally no way she can deal enough damage to win even if she plays a climax and triggers 3 times. So I let her figure out her turn and gaze over to my teammates, which almost gives me a heart attack: KC was level 3 when his opponent was level 1, and LSS was dying to Fairy Tail in that very moment. Believe me, you haven’t lived until you’ve seen Sunshine crash and burn under Fairy Tail. In 2019. But luckily, Kashima pulled through at the end and we won 2-1.
Round 5 – “BACKUP!!”
Before this round, we went outside to talk to our other teams. It was at that point we learned that our friend from Top Deck Heroes and his team were 4-0, and we were 3-1. We had to win one more to safely get into top 8, so we were dead set on doing just that. And round 5 was about the be the most fun I’ve had in the entire tournament.
Our opponents were playing SAO (Standby/Link Strike) | No Game No Life (B/Y) | Gurren Lagann (Sunder build). Right away, I got a serious “good player” vibe from my opponent, but as we started playing, I saw that he had no idea what any of the Bang Dream staples did, which I found kinda odd – until he called the waiting room a drop zone, and then I realized he must have been brought over from Vanguard. It ended up being the kind of game where experience with different sets matters a lot: the guy played his (objectively very good) deck absolutely perfectly, but I was able to respond to his plays better because, well, I knew the deck he was playing. I happened to have the anti-counter Saya out at level 2 already, but from his reaction upon hearing the effect, I couldn’t quite tell if he had the anti-damage even in hand or not.
Regardless, I set up for the kill next turn: double Yukina and a Kokoro drop searcher in the middle slot vs. his (I think) 3/2 Lisbeth and two 1/1 Silicas. Saya’s effect goes on the first Yukina, I get him to 3-5. I then go to side attack the 1/1 in the middle for 2, but he cancels. Finally, I attack with the second Yukina: I trigger and say the amount of damage he has to take, and he’s just … staring at my trigger for a moment as I move it to stock. Then, he snaps out of it, loudly exclaims “backup!!!” and … proceeds to slam down a Standby climax onto the character I was attacking. I start laughing like an idiot. Everyone around us just heard him yell “backup!” and then me laughing, so now my team is staring at him, his team is staring at him, the table next to us is staring at him and the judges who were standing near are looking over now but have no idea what’s going on. The guy laughs it off too and proceeds to apologize as he scurries to take the climax back and take out the anti-damage counter instead – he just grabbed the wrong card before, no big deal (to me, at least). So he’s left at 3-5 and I’m at 3-0. He carefully plans out his stock and sequencing so that he’s able to attempt a Sinon restand while I’m counting that I have 3 climaxes left in 12 cards, and that I can also potentially use the free-fresh counter if I’ll somehow need to. Spoiler alert: I didn’t need to. I canceled all 3 attacks (he didn’t get the restand) and then went at him with two random characters and a Musashi – and even then, at 3-6, when a lot of people would have just given in to their inevitable loss, this guy remembered to use the Leafa counter as a last resort to maybe cancel something. Mad respect for the guy, especially since I later heard that he was indeed a Vanguard player who got brought into Weiss not too long ago. Oh and yeah, we won that 3-0 too.
So at that point, we’re guaranteed a slot in top 8 and I’ve personally achieved the goal I set for this tournament – to, at the very least, get into top 8.
1st Top 8 Round – The Beginning of the End
Well, the good thing was that us and the other Slovenian team weren’t in the same side of the bracket so we didn’t have to play against each other. Our opponents were playing ReZero (B/Y) | Konosuba | Bang Dream (Book/Bar). The not-so-good thing was that I was having a sizeable problem with how many climaxes flew out of my deck in the first few turns. I managed to salvage the situation haha get it, salvage???, but either I shuffled like shit or RNG just wasn’t on my side that game because the second deck went about as poorly as the first one. I was so behind on damage that my opponent leisurely survived one Yukina to the face, and then I died. Sadly, we ended up losing that game 1-2.
In total, our KC player went 6-0, I went 4-2 and LSS went 3-3. Last year in Rome, we were 12th, and this year, we got 8th place – I’m more than proud of our progress. Next year, we’ll hopefully get into top 4!
Conclusions
Fairy Tail is meta.
After the tourney, we went to get some amazing dinner and I have been enlightened: apparently, marshmallows on top of whipped cream on top of a donut on top of a chocolate milkshake is a thing that exists and it’s absolutely delicious.
Food aside, it was a great Springfest. I loved visiting Munich again! I swear, I could spend hours just looking down at the city from the Olympia Tower – but I also made time to go see the Allianz Arena up close, and take a walk through the streets near the main cathedral.
As for the tournament itself, I really think that team format is one of the most fun ways to organize a tournament, and I’m glad Bushiroad continues to do it that way. Now onwards to the BCS!
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