We were pretty surprised to see a regional announced for Hungary this season, but it’s just a little further than Munich for us, so we threw some decks in the car and off we went 🙂
Set Representation
The event had 12 teams total, which is on the smaller side even for European events, but in the context of this being their first regional, I think the turnout was pretty good nonetheless. As seen in the table below, you can definitely tell that it was the first regional where Hololive was legal …. but also, MTI, RWBY, SDS, AT and MOB were not. So to say the specific meta of the event was a bit strange would be an understatement.
| Set | Decks |
| HOL | 5 |
| BD | 4 |
| DAL | 4 |
| 5HY | 4 |
| FS | 3 |
| SAO | 3 |
| KGL | 2 |
| MM | 2 |
| TSK | 2 |
| AOT | 1 |
| BNJ | 1 |
| GGO | 1 |
| KS | 1 |
| LSS | 1 |
| SY | 1 |
| KNK | 1 |
Thanks to Ben @ YellowCard Vanguard for the numbers!
Match Recap
I honestly don’t know how productive writing my recollections out will be this time around. Mostly because even after consulting my semi-comprehensive notes from the day, all I can conclude about the 4 swiss rounds is that they were damn weird: and the fact that I was playing 5 Pants / 3 Standby Bang Dream was only partially to blame for that, I swear.
My more reasonable teammates were on 2Soul Sunshine in seat B, and Pekora/Aqua Hololive in C. So, for the matches …
Round 1
I sit down against Jabi on (I think) the standard Korone/Marine Hololive build, and my deck decides that all my prayers for cancelling will be heard … in the first two turns of the game. So essentially, I’m not levelling anywhere, sandbagging a few turns and slamming climaxes all over the place because of course, as soon as you cancel three times, the law of RNG mandates you must draw a fourth CX immediately after.
But at least at the start, he was eating a good chunk of what my mismatched level 0s were throwing out – and then we got to level two, healers dropped, I got locked out of early-playing Chu2 and the catch-up was a walk in the park for Marine more or less. But at least my teammates both won (against DAL and Bandori), so I got nicely carried into round 2.
Round 2
So, about that early cancel thing … turns out it got carried along as well. We’re against Batman, DAL and Fate – no grappling hook, but the Batman deck was very shiny, much foil. Here, I briefly took a break from Weiss and started playing ping pong instead, because this game … man, this damn game. Literally just a back and forth of either of us being in a tragically bad deck state. I cancelled on the first two turns, he cancelled a lot later on, I milled a bunch of CXes, he triggered even more of them – a mess, basically.
The game boiled down to who could capitalize on the other being 7 out first, and in that regard, he got the upper hand eventually. But in terms of my own deck, I was happy with it performing as expected when needing to turbo myself out of a bad state – and I won’t fault the deck nor my building choices for not being able to do so three times within one game. I did get to set up my level 2 Mashiro shenanigans, but they were antichanged swiftly, which is probably what I’m most salty about even though I saw it coming.
Sunshine lost as well, so we were down 1 despite our Hololive winning again.
Round 3
Sat against Kaguya, AOT and Quints. I’m kinda blanking on this one, but I’d say it was the first semi-normal game I had that day? No one died super fast, no one cancelled significantly better, but I do think my opponent was struggling a bit more than me at some point, and I just did my part of snowballing the little advantages over the course of each turn into a win at the end.
Took this round 2-1 again, with Hololive scooping to Quints to save some time (I don’t suggest doing this sans-context, cause it might screw you over depending on the standings).
Round 4
My favorite round of them all, I think. Say what you will about the importance of high-level events where every single matchup you queue into is crem de la crem of the meta, but personally, I enjoy random rogue decks just as much (complete shocker after you’ve seen my list, I’m sure). Either way, I sit down, compliment my opponent’s Haruhi sleeves, cut deck, and then watch the man mulligan Asakura counter.
And as someone who played Haruhi when it came out in EN, that card puts the fear of god in me even now. There’s nothing like assembling your finisher board with the mutual understanding of yeah this isn’t happening, but let’s just entertain the near-null possibility that you’ve somehow not been holding the couner the entire game.
Long story short, no Kasumi combo for me, but at the end of the day, Haruhi is still Haruhi and this isn’t 2016, so I was able to close on that game pretty comfortably. Sunshine lost to Hololive, but our Hololive beat SAO, which meant we were 3-1 and heading into the top cut.
Semi-Finals
Due to the low number of teams, we only had a Top 4 cut. And this, this is where my star match of the day happens. Not like, intellectually or anything, it was utter clownery for the most part, but there is a personal aspect to it in the end at least.
Basically, we were against Slime, Quints and Fate. I figure this is cool, I am mostly comfortable with 8 Standby Slime – but then mulligan happens and I see yellow instead of red. 8 Choice it is then … which I haven’t played against at all, so to say I was a bit on edge is an understatement. I’m the kind of player who gets immense value out of practice matchups, but between our locals dying during the pandemic and my time being limited due to work and other things, I just couldn’t reasonably cover everything – and walking straight into an experience gap in the semi finals was not a nice feeling.
And to top it off, I’m cancelling left, right and down the middle from the start again, which hadn’t gone well for me so far. But at least my opponent was eating damage, so that was something? I shot him to level 1 in one turn, and then we had a “3 0s + CX” rapid fire round that didn’t actually deal me any damage in the end: I was still at 0-5 or something like that, playing my brainstorm and cleancut for little bits of damage that stuck again. So at 1-6, my opponent is finally doing his Shion combo, he has 2 open lanes and 1 reverse target to go into, and I have just 2 climaxes left in what could only be described as a concernignly fat deck.
I thought this was the famed turning point again, and I was about to get slammed into high level 2 like there was no tomorrow. But then he swings at empty lane for 4, I cancel on 3. Swing for 3, I cancel off the top. He seemed to consider just leaving me stuck at zero, but he probably needed the plus from Shion really badly at that point – and also, not knowing my list, I think anticipating Rikis was a fair assumption to make anyway.
So off to level 1 I went, and it was turbo all the way down. Toilets, Taes, brainstorms, top check 3, the Morfonica CX swapper, the whole shabang: if it milled, it went on the board faster than you can say “I’m 8 out.” I scraped together a near-refresh that way, and it wasn’t anything to write home about, but 7 in 30 is better than 0 in 20, or so I’ve been told.
And while I’m sitting there pouring cards from my deck to waiting room like en evening cup of tea, my opponent is still just eating damage. And I still am not, despite his next attack going through refresh (I had one card left in the deck). Now, I don’t exactly remember if I cancelled twice or thrice that turn, but I think we can both agree that either would be equally painful at that stage. I think by now, my opponent was at 3-0? Or 3-1, and he healed down. Not that he had much stock to do anything because he spent most of it trying (and failing) to mill himself out bad deck states, so I think there were two level 3s on board at best, and yet, my cancelling bullshit continues.
So on one side, we have Slime at 3-0 in shambles. On the other side, a mishmash of (not)idols wondering what the hell is going on. I clock myselt to 1-3, and would you look at that, it’s a Tae and some Jumpin’ Girls. Opponent has 3 full lanes, but with Tae + two shitters + CX, I probably have lethal. Maybe even perfect lethal?
Obviously, after using up the cumulative luck of of everyone on that side of Danube for the day, one does not simply expect to vanilla-kill their opponent from 3-0. I didn’t want to be cocky or anything, but mathemathically speaking, if you can put out lethal, I think you alway put out lethal. I just slammed CX and figured we’re going for mid level 3, and I can finish this next turn. But then 2 sticks. And 2 sticks again. And Tae combo shows a trigger, which I thought was getting insta-yeeted to my hand.
But I don’t know if my opponent kinda gave up by then, or miscounted his damage, or was strategizing to hopefully cancel a 3, or just plain got stuck in the mentality of giving shitty pluses to Tae players, because I got handed a runner instead. So off we went for 3, and it stuck – also, for the record, the trigger choice didn’t even matter in the end, because the next card also had a trigger, and it would have been perfect lethal anyway.
And this was easily one of the best games I’ve ever had by every metrc that matters to me. It was hilarious (very important), it got me a win (decently important), and I got to see some progress in my own ability as a player (ultra important). Like, I really need to be clear here that I don’t want to take credit for winning this game as if I was better than my opponent or I pulled some high IQ plays out of my ass when for the most part, I just got cosmically lucky and he didn’t. But I think in a lot of previous games like this, I would have panicked when the “early cancels = easy death” scenario started repeating itself for the 3rd time that day. I would have miscounted mills, or tried to balance them out with plusing or saving resoruces in a way that isn’t actually what the gamestate needed at the moment, or something like that.
Because when things go to shit with my games, I still often struggle to completely override the “this is how we normally play Weiss” with the “this is how we play Weiss right now if we still want to be alive in two turns.” Anyone else ever deal with that? The near-automatic pull to make what are usually smart choices that will benefit you later in the game, even when you know damn well that if you do make those choices in the current situation, there likely won’t be a “later” anymore? It’s a huge issue for me more often than I’d like it to be – but this game was a tiny yet (to me) important glimpse into the fact that I’m actually getting somewhere with my mental fortitude and flexibility when it comes to Weiss. And that’s nice. That’s the kind thing that makes me want to keep playing this game, regardless of the fact that we lost that round as a team.
3rd Platch Match
Our opponents were on Kanokari, Quints and GGO. I wish I could say we won this one, but we didn’t. It was quite confusing though, lots of judge calls and whatnot. After Sunshine won and Hololive lost, I thought I was in a pretty good position to cancel enough to not get killed by Ruka restanders from 3-0, but my climaxes cleary did not agree.
I’m trying to recall whether I had a freefresh counter in hand, and if using it would have made a difference, but I honestly can’t remember. Turns out that being the last deciding match of a top 4 table is a bit of a spectacle, and I do not perform well with being the center of attention.
So, uh, lessons learned? If I’m gonna eat 5 and die, I gotta do it sooner.
Final Thoughts
It was a really great event for me. I’m glad I went with the deck I chose, it felt fun and rewarding to play even when it bricked (or when I bricked it myself). But rest assured, I have so many Bandori cards, it would be a waste to play the same deck twice. There are four piles of spares sitting next to me as I write this, and I think one of them constitutes a deck by now, kinda? Either way, it’s full steam ahead for London!
Also, shoutout to Umbreon for being the team mascot ♥ On a completely unrelated note … anyone wanna buy me a Kyubey plush?
