Tournament Report – Top64 – 200th YCS: Utretch 2018 by Kian Shahbazi

On September 30, 2018 by Valerio Zucco

Hi! My name is Kian, I‘m one of the newest additions to the United Gosus roster and today I will talk about my experience at YCS Utrecht. First of all, this was a very special tournament, not only was it the 200th but it was also the first YCS that I played for this team. I felt nervous starting Friday, but I had tested a lot and felt well prepared. My deck choice was well thought out and the build was perfect in my eyes, many of my teammates gave their input so I felt confident. I chose to play Sky Striker which I played since it came out here in the TCG. I thought that not a single other deck could capitalize on the speed and power cards of the archetype. After the Forbidden & Limited list dropped, we focused on a heavy backrow removal build, which Khang thought would be a good metacall. Since there were 2,356 participants we had to play nine rounds of swiss on Day 1 and three rounds the following day with a final cut to Top 64.

Swiss Rounds:

1. Crusadia: 2:0 (Win)

This was a quick 2:0. I knew the match up very well from several local games.
Game 1: I did‘t expect the deck so I went first made my monster, but I didn’t get punished by Kaijus so I saw the Crusadia engine and could adapt into game two.
Game 2: Just simply not make a monster and negate worst case Equimax OTK with an Anchor which was not needed. Then I started to poke him with my links and sent them away with roll.

1-0

2. Tricktar SS 2:1 (Win)

One of my matchups i feared because we prepared the deck for the mirror with shared rides main and not mind crush.
Game 1: I had the upper hand he couldn‘t capitalize on my speed and plusses.
Game 2: I simply got overwhelmed by reincarnations.
Game 3: He made the mistake to attack with Lilybell while my Shizuku was on the field so he couldn‘t deal any damage and I won from there.

2-0

3. Spyral 2:1 (Win)

Game 1 & 2: He combo’d twice, once I got to stop him the other he just OTK’d me.
Game 3: My Evenly Match broke his Trigate board after I baited his negation.

3-0

4. SkyStriker 2:1 (Win)

Game 1: With my knowledge about the mirror and the mained backrow removal, I was confident about this match. I broke his 3 set board really easily and connected my Hayate for the follow up Engage play with Kagari. He could not come back from there.
Game 2: I got Shared Rided it was really insane and I was not able to beat his plusses.
Game 3: Went really smooth he couldn’t get an Engage and I simply won by that factor.

4-0

5. Altergeist 1:2 (Loss)

Game 1: Even without a Raye start, I could stop his backrows with severeal MSTs and I went off after I had raye for Hayate into Kagari for Engage.
Game 2 & Game 3: Were simply unplayable and I was really sad. These are the downsides of the deck that without Raye/Drones start you are limited by the draws from the top. My teammates cheered me up after my upset and I forgot the match really quickly and just focused on the next round.

4-1

6. Cyber Dragon 2:0 (Win)

I have to say after I realized I had to play against Cyber Dragon i got a bit scared because I didn‘t know all of the new cards.
Game 1: I won by a nice play. He attacked with his highest monster first. I activated my set twin discarded a spell and targeted my own multiroll (only target that I could pop that wasn‘t an Anchor) and then I took his monster with it, so he couldn‘t deal damage. My follow up was 2 Engages that I set up earlier.
Game 2: He simply bricked with multiple dead cards and I closed that game pretty fast.

5-1

7. Altergeist 2:1 (Win)

A regular Altergeist match up wouldn‘t be enough I had to play against my good friend Joshua Oosters. I had to play against him at the German Open but with a new list I didn‘t expect Altergeist.
Game 1:. His set up was perfect and my hand was supoptimal i lost in just 1 turn.
Game 2: He set 4 cards and passed. I had Engage with Raye and Aera Zero so I went for roll for Raye which he responded with a Solemn Strike on Kagari. I went for an mst into a backrow because I wanted to make another raye play and expected more counter traps. I sniped another Strike and went for a Raye normal summon which he Solemn Judgmented. I passed, he passed again, I got into my engine with Drones and it was over.
Game 3: I had multiple removals for his backrow and he wasn‘t able to hold his gamestate and lost. I was really happy that i was able to beat a player of this caliber.

6-1

8. Cyber Dragon 1:2 (Loss)

Game 1: This time the OTK came faster than I expected.
Game 2: Took a long time because we both didn’t have optimal starts, eventually I took it.
Game 3: In time he was able to press some damage against me and took the win but I couldn‘t do much against it even if i had more time my hand and my boardstate wasn’t good enough to follow up. So I took the loss and just forgot it, because now I was once again on the bubble.

6-2

9. Sky Striker 2:0 (Win)

Game 1 & 2: This match would have been a good example what happens if one Sky Striker player has multiple Engages and the other doesn‘t. I pressed 4 Engages on him in a single turn and he couldn‘t do anything about it.

My record at the end of Day 1 was 7-2. I was kinda unhappy with that result because I dropped two matches that I could have potentially won, but I kept myself from tilting trying to maintain a clear and relaxed mind. I am pretty used to being on the bubble so I just focused on the other day, reminding myself to play one game at a time.

7-2

10. Paleozoic 2:0 (Win)

Game 1 & 2: Normally my record against Paleo isn’t that good but the main was built to beat backrow and it did more than just well. I had both games multiple msts and twin so he stood no chance to play against me.

8-2

11. SkyStriker 1:1 (Draw)

I don’t recall specifically how the games went this round but I remember I played against someone who had beaten a significant number of Gosus players so I had an idea of what I could expect in his main. Still it was a good match where the time gave us a draw so I couldn’t avenge my teammates.

8-1-2

At this point I was super nervous, felt the pressure of winning or losing is the difference between topping or not. Again, I tried to keep myself as calm as I could to go in the last round as focused as I could.

12. Gouki 2:0 (Win)

9-1-2

After my last win in swiss, I was more than relieved for a moment. All the work was finally showing results and I could taste my first YCS top. I felt ready and energetic. I also realized that without the team and their preparation I wouldn‘t have done it.

After the match, the first one that I celebrated my very first YCS top was with Leonard König from Team Trent. He was just in the proximity and I couldn‘t contain myself to tell him immediatly. Suddenly, I had a new pressure on my side, the knockout portion of the event. Regardless, I was ready to rock it!

Top 64:

Sky Striker (Dinh Khang Pham) 0:2 (Loss)

I was shocked after I heard I had to play against my teammate, testing partner and friend. He won the match but I honestly felt happy with it. Despite the 2:0 in Khang‘s favor, we had a good match and he deserved the win.

All in all, it was a great tournament and a wonderful milestone for me. Getting my first top after many failures made me realize that hard work will pay off. I had a lot of fun with all the United Gosus members and all my friends. I also want to dedicate my first YCS top to my close friend and teammate, Khang. Without you I wouldn‘t be where I‘m at right now and I hope we can still learn from each other for the future. Also I would like to thank all my friends and United Gosus for their support.

I hope my tournament report gave all of you a nice inside look of my experience and I‘m looking forward to the next one.

Kian