So, this past weekend we had our first Wixoss Tournament of the month. Would like to know how it went?
So, Lets start it out!
Something that I loved to see was the turnout, we where able to have a 10 people tournament this weekend and it was wesome!
Tournaments, as usuall went with his Normal Rounds Followed by Top Cut. Since we had 10 people we had 4 Rounds, 30 min each with 5 min extra time!
For decks we had a pretty varied lot, we had the following combination of LRIGs (Assist / Center / Assist):
1st: MC Lion / Madoka / Machina
2nd: Madoka / Dr.Tamago / Umr
3rd: Machina/ Deus / Toko
4th: Mahomaho / Piruluk / Dr.Tamago
5th: Madoka / Tamayorihime / Deus
6th: Hanayo / Tamayorihime / Midoriko
7th: Lion / Machina / Rei
8th: Midoriko / Bang / Dr.Tamago
9th: DJ Lovit / MC Lion / VG Wolf
10th: Ange / Yuzuki / Machina
From these, of course a few would come on top, it's a tournament after all!
So, before Top Cut, our Top 4 decks where:
1st: Madoka / Dr.Tamago / Umr
2nd: MC Lion / Madoka / Machina
3rd: Machina/ Deus / Toko
4th: Mahomaho / Piruluk / Dr.Tamago
These deck then, battled between each other for 1 to come out on top!
Just so we don't go straight into decklists without much information from the players or decks we decided to reach of to Top 3 and ask some questions about their deckbuilding decisions and their matchups!
Lets start with 3rd Place!
3rd Place - Airflare - Machina/ Deus / Toko
Hey!
So, recently you got 3rd Place in our Weekly Tournament and I would like to ask you a few questions about your deck and experience if you wouldn't mind!
So, for starters, i would like to know a bit more about your deck!
1- Is there a specific reason why you picked these specific LRIGs for your deck?
R: I really wanted to use the card Lucifer, and the best way to play her is to just run mono black. Then I decided Deus center was the best black lrig because souls and OPG are pretty crazy to use, this left me with using Bind as my block damage and Toko as my Machina line replacement since she gives -12k.
My lrigs were Deus center, Toko -8k assist, Toko -12k assist, Machina Wingslash, Machina Bind.
2- Did you decide your LRIGs or main deck first? and what where your thoughts going into the building process for this deck?
R: I decided my center first then deck built. I decided removal over mill because i felt mill was slow compared to just opening lane and taking a life cloth. Cards like Tama and Lucifer, Phalaris/Death Deck offer enough mill on their own as added effects to always take 1 life cloth. This leaves lots of room for cards like Caeser, Iona, etc.
3- Are there any cards in your list that you would treat as Tech Choices for certain match-ups?
R: Iona is good for mono white, pay 2 kills Remember downed and Luvdabi when someone tries to wall up.
Karasawa is good if i need extra damage on something, -5k when I exceed hardly ever used but comes up once or twice, I play 2 Underattractive that also hardly comes up but does turn my lucifers into -12k each that turn.
Now lets get into the playing side!
4- What do you feel like are your best/worst match ups and why?
R: My best matchup I think is discard decks. Either mono blue or mostly blue decks, mainly because the deck likes to discard your hand and I only need my hand with Servants for turn 1 and maybe turn 2 if I'm lucky. After that i have OPG, Death Deck and Myu for recurssion so not having a hand doesn't matter with my deck, my graveyard becomes my hand. Also with lots of decks drawing a lot it makes my Death Deck easier since they do half the work for me.
My worst matchup I would say is more of a signi, specifically 2 Exias on the field, using a three stop and two exias kind of slows down my endgame alot. I also just played pretty poorly around them recently.
5- During this tournament, what did you end up playing against and how did it go?
R: During this tournament I played against discard decks only.
I did have pretty tragic hands most of the tournament but for the most part adjusted pretty well. Like i mentioned above, the 2 matches I lost was mostly from one or two misplays and not adjusting to deal with Exia knowing she was coming on the board at some point.
And for the last question:
6-With the decks performance on this tournament, are you thinking about making any changes to it?
R: Not really sure on what changed to make yet. Maybe adding Ereshkigal since when dealing with the Exias I was in the position where I could have used 2 lifecloth for her non targeting effect.
That's all, thank you so much for answering our questions and good luck for the next Tournament!
2nd Place - Bubbleperson418 - Madoka / Dr.Tamago / Umr
Hey!
So, recently you got 2nd Place in our Weekly Tournament and I would like to ask you a few questions about your deck and experience if you wouldn't mind!
So, for starters, i would like to know a bit more about your deck!
1- Is there a specific reason why you picked these specific LRIGs for your deck?
R: I specifically chose Tamago, Madoka, and Umr because they synergize well together and offer a strong amount of resources and defense. I like having a mono colored deck so that I am not too heavily reliant on any particular color for any effects or cards that would require another color.
2- Did you decide your LRIGs or main deck first? and what where your thoughts going into the building process for this deck?
R: It was a little bit of both for me. I really like Tamago and wanted to see how to build a deck around her but I’ve also enjoyed a discard and freezing strategy.
I was searching for other Tamago lists from older Japanese lists for possible inspiration and I noticed the mono blue version was not nearly as common. That in itself encouraged me to want to try a different Tamago variant knowing that it isn’t played as often and because people likely would not be expecting it.
3- Are there any cards in your list that you would treat as Tech Choices for certain match-ups?
R: A tech option I have in the deck is running two copies of Primora, Code: Maze. Primora is really helpful against aggro match ups due to the fact they generally want to vanish signi on my board and she sort of acts as a roadblock for the opponent has to play around because she downs and freezes a signi when she is vanished. There are still ways to maneuver around her, but the opponent ultimately has to exercise some level of caution whenever I place her on the field.
Now lets get into the playing side!
4- What do you feel like are your best/worst match ups and why?
R: My best match ups are a mix of some mid range and aggro decks and my worst match ups include other discard decks and any deck that has can consistently refill their hand. Going up against mid range or aggro feels a bit favorable in my experience because I’m generally able to extend and draw out the game while depleting my opponent of resources. I have often found they tend to either lose steam or do not have much momentum to bounce back over the course of the game. By that time, they have no hand and or are relying on their top decks to try and fill out their board, which likely puts the opponent in an unfavorable situation.
On the contrary, I have a difficult time against other discard matches because the game turns into what feels like a grinding stalemate. Both players are trying to accomplish a similar goal of card denial via discarding and it really comes down to how well you manage the resources you have in your hand, knowing that it will inevitably be discarded. Discard mirrors almost always go into an extreme late game so therefore, planning ahead and strategizing of when to push and pull when it comes to having a slight bit more of an aggressive push is another factor to consider in these types of matches.
Regardless of the deck type, if one can find methods to always refill their hand, I tend to struggle a bit because the premise of my whole deck revolves around trying to strip the opponent of their resources via hand destruction and I also have some card effects that rely on the opponent having minimal cards in hand. It is not impossible to play against, but it does make the game feel like a slight uphill battle.
5- During this tournament, what did you end up playing against and how did it go?
R: First I’m going to summarize which decks I played each round and then I will go in depth about how each match went. Round one I faced a Bang center with Midoriko and I believe Tamago as the other assist. Round two was Piruluk center with Mahomaho and Tamago assist. Round three was Madoka center with Lion and Machina assist. Round four was Deus center with Machina and Toko assist.
Round one was a bit awkward in the beginning. I wasn’t able to discard my opponent’s hand as fast as I would have liked to have and I wasn’t able to draw into my cards that would clear lanes for damage. The game felt it dragged out longer than I initially anticipated but I eventually got to a point where my opponent was able to burn up all his assists and wasn’t able to bring back his larger signi to try to clear my field. I managed to eventually find momentum mid game and had access to my cards allowing me to push for damage.
Round two was quite a long game since it was a discard mirror. One advantage I felt I had was that I was already familiar with Piruluk and realized doesn’t do too well against discard matches. Her whole gimmick revolves around discarding the opponent’s hand while maintaining a large hand size. We both kept discarding each other, breaking even on the gap between our hand size, and my opponent wasn’t able to fully utilize his center’s main auto effect. I managed to strip his hand on turn one I believe and he essentially kept having to play catch up for the remainder of the game. It did not help that during the game, they did not have much access to their draw cards to refill their hand.
Round three was yet another discard mirror. I was able to start my discarding early but eventually we both were low on cards in hand. One major advantage my opponent had on me was he would continually have ways to refill his hand despite how much I would try to discard him down and he also could threatened to refresh my deck. It ultimately came down to me having two lifecloth on my opponent’s turn and I needed to be able to survive to try and push for game during my final turn. I barely managed to scrape by with a win and it was an extremely close game.
Round four was also another close match. My opponent would consistently deal damage every sturn and would play right through my discarding strategy knowing that he had multiple ways to bring back cards from his trash, which kept negating all of my discarding I tried pulling off. At the end, it came down to me having two life cloth remaining and one of them needing to block at least one attack but unfortunately I was not able to and he secured the win.
During the top 4 cut, my semi finals match was up against my opponent from round two earlier and it more or less went similarly. This time he was much more cautious and conservative by saving his assists and trying to accumulate more cards in his hand to combat against my discarding. Recalling from before that he didn’t have as many discard effects that occurred during the main phase, he did declare his center’s once per game at trying to snipe out cards in my hand, and that was my optimal time to use one of my piece cards, Zeno Cluster, to bring back the momentum into my favor and I was able to secure the win.
My finals match was against my round three opponent and it was yet another extremely close game. It was more or less a similar outcome, we both would take turns discarding each other and dealing damage. This time around, I felt pressured to use my piece, Zeno Cluster, early to try and maintain some hand. Again, it really came down to the wire and both of us exhausting nearly all of our resources but my opponent just narrowly came out on top.
And for the last question:
6- With the decks performance on this tournament, are you thinking about making any changes to it?
R: I don’t think I’ll make too many changes because I feel that what I have at the time effectively accomplishes what my deck’s main strategy encompasses. I think if anything, I might play four Royal Blue, Natural Crystal Brilliance instead of three solely because the lifeburst is really strong and is one of my main ways I’m able to consistently threaten to deal damage.
That's all, thank you so much for answering our questions and good luck for the next Tournament!
1st Place - Pigeon - MC Lion / Madoka / Machina
Hey!
So, recently you came out on top, getting 1st Place in our Weekly Tournament, Congratulations! and I would like to ask you a few questions about your deck and experience if you wouldn't mind!
So, for starters, i would like to know a bit more about your deck!
1- Is there a specific reason why you picked these specific LRIGs for your deck?
R: Madoka is one of my favorite LRIGs to play in the game, and one that I think is incredibly well positioned in the meta right now, especially with Tama being as popular as it is and how strong it is to freeze her on enter. As for my assists, since I knew I wanted to play blue/white/black I chose the probably pretty standard white and black assist line of MC Lion Dig/Disrespect and Machina Wing Slash/Smash to help me find the cards I need in the early game and give me enough defense to survive until late.
2- Did you decide your LRIGs or main deck first? and what where your thoughts going into the building process for this deck?
R: LRIG deck for the most part, but a bit of both: this deck was specifically made in response to the Esper Tama deck that has been going around online and my idea on how to beat what it's doing. Among other things, Esper Tama is a strong control deck that is able to keep itself alive with early discard, strong defensive level 3s, and Miasma Labyrinth/Super Helesta Saber to help it get back servants to make sure it can guard every turn. However, after both playing the deck and going against it, I've found that a lot of the defensive strength of the deck can be circumvented if you can force the esper player to discard the servants they salvage back to guarentee that your LRIG attack goes through--but, at least in the mirror match, discarding out your opponent's entire hand is not something you can consistently do every turn, which is what pushed me towards the idea of playing a similar list but with a blue main LRIG to further push the esper list towards discard. My first thought was to use Tamago, but I decided against her as I felt she didn't exactly have the push I needed to out-tempo the Tama strategy. From there, I decided on Madoka which, along with her enter being amazing against Tama and similar decks centered around attacking with their LRIG like I mentioned in the previous question, has built-in removal in her once per game.
As for the main deck and pieces, I ran a very similar core to the Esper Tama deck between the Manomins, Brunos, Random Drains, generally powerful white/black level 3s, and the Miasma Labyrinth/Super Helesta Saber piece combo. I feel like at the moment these are the most effective cards you can possibly be running in a control strategy, and didn't want to stray to far from the already very functional esper gameplan, though notably, I decided to take out Remember//Memoria. While this might seem incomprehensible for a white esper deck to do, in this deck with how often you are discarding your opponent out and preventing them from guarding entirely, you lose out on one of the main perks of playing Remember, and after testing found it wasn't doing enough outside of matchups like DXM to be worth fielding compared to cards like Coela and Exia. Then, to round out the blue that I needed for Madoka I decided to play a small atom package. There are two primary reasons for this. One: Ga's life burst is absolutely incredible in the control mirror, and against Tama--a deck that gets most of its damage through LRIG attacking and has a much easier time playing around life bursts that affect the field--a draw 2 force 1 discard is about as good of a tempo swing as you can get and works very well towards furthering your gameplan. And two: having BP to potentially clear lanes in the first few turns is fantastic in a deck like this that's trying to out tempo the opponent, especially in aggro matchups and in games where you are made to go first and have to push damage to stay ahead.
3- Are there any cards in your list that you would treat as Tech Choices for certain match-ups?
R: Just about all of the Level 3s are pretty match-up dependent: Coela to stop decks that push damage through attack effects, Exia to stop decks that rely on targeting to open lanes, Tama//Memoria to play around other Machina Smashes, H2O in match-ups where you just want to be annoying...as a deck that runs Smash, Miasma, and Helesta Saber, I can afford playing tons of 1 and 2 ofs for my level 3s and not sacrifice consistency due to how much reach I have when it comes to the cards in my trash. I'd say probably the most amusing "tech" is the 1 of Gae Bolg which despite everything else the card does well, is mostly just there as a way to out Remember after cutting my own Remembers and prevent the card from from taxing me for guarding every turn.
Now lets get into the playing side!
4- What do you feel like are your best/worst match ups and why?
R: Maybe a bit overly optimistic, but at least from my experience I feel like this deck does well into pretty much everything honestly. Exia and Coela allow me to build incredibly defensive boards against pretty much every conventional aggro deck out there, while I have enough discard to keep up with other control decks and the draw, recursion, and damage needed to out-grind even the latest of late game decks. In every game I've played with this deck that I've lost, I could always pinpoint something I could have done better as opposed to anything that the deck fundamentally failed at, which at least to me is a good indicator that the deck is powerful. That said, there are specific situations and cards that this deck can definitely struggle with: due to how much of its strength lies in its recursion, forcing an early refresh can potentially kill its ability to find the cards it needs. Additionally, anything that can play around my assists can potentially be fatal if not properly respected--while I haven't tested much against these decks, I could see Ener Burn and more toolboxy DXM decks being trickier matchups.
5- During this tournament, what did you end up playing against and how did it go?
R: Round one I played against Esper Tama. The first few turns go more or less to standard, though I definitely do lose the discard war by more than I would have liked. However, around the third or fourth turn, I make the huge mistake of both using Miasma way too early to mill, which ends up backfiring when I am milled out next turn with next to nothing in my ener and hand. After having to end my turn with a board that does next to nothing, my opponent makes the mistake of attacking all of my signi resulting in me having enough ener to come back into the game. From there, I am luckily able to draw into a Phalaris after the refresh, deck them out, and force them to play with an empty trash themselves, eventually resulting in the win for me.
Round two was against Mono Black Deus. Compared to the first round where I messed up in the mid game, I somehow mess up even worse in the early game of this match by both having to use Helesta Saber on turn two just to have a full field, and by failing to grow to level 3 due to being garbage at managing my ener. However, somehow my opponent has an even worse start between hitting zero life bursts and not having a full field on turn two to the point where it virtually didn't matter! Very silly game, and one I am luckily able to eke out as I'm able to shut him out on the final turn with a double Exia board.
Round three was against Mono Blue Tamago. He is able to get a very strong lead with a turn 1 bradamante/random drain/snow myu/Umr assist combo, putting me at next to zero cards before my second turn and forcing me to play the rest of the game on the back foot, playing pretty much entirely through my recursion and consistently ending turn with zero in hand, which, in this matchup is something you're mostly fine with since while you can't guard, they can't use Tamago's auto to freeze your signi and you can eventually force out all their servants and outdamage them over time, which I nearly manage to do over the course of the game. Eventually, I put them at two cloth with zero servants remaining and see an opportunity to win with a Phalaris line that played around both life bursts and madoka break, however I make the mistake of using Madoka's once per game to return Royal Blue to deck instead of the Primora that was on the field--this was absolutely critical, as the only way for me to use Phalaris was to attack over Primora, which would activate her effect to down whatever signi I had that was going to attack in the empty lane, making my play if I still wanted to attempt to close out the game that turn incredibly reliant on not hitting a lifeburst. In the end, I decide on taking what I deemed as a slightly safer route by letting Phalaris get breaked and to try again next turn (which was probably correct, as neon petra was the next burst) but ultimately this doesn't pan out as he's able to close out the game on the next turn and put me at 2-1.
For round four I play against Machina/Rei/Lion. I've played against this player a few times earlier on the same deck, so I was pretty familiar with how his deck functioned. Specifically, it is very good against discard and has enough mill that you potentially need to be concerned about refreshing twice. However, as someone who's played against it before, I also realized how strong a card like Coela is into a deck that aims to turbo out Phalaris, and by ending just about every board I can with it, I am eventually able to win the game and end at 3-1 and tie for first.
In the finals match, I am back up against the Mono Blue Tamago player. In this game, he gets a noticably worse start and I am able to push my own discard gameplan much earlier, even going out of my way to choose the discard enter effect as opposed to the freeze one once Madoka hits level 3. From there, despite losing out a bit on damage, I decide to just slowly play the resource game and force out all of his draw effects while also denying as much ener as possible. Eventually I'm able to force out the Madoka Break, end my turn with three cards in hand and two servants, and win on the next turn with a Miasma play after they are unable to board a full field, winning the tournament.
And for the last question:
6- With the decks performance on this tournament, are you thinking about making any changes to it?
R: There aren't too many immediate changes I can think of making. Before the tournament, I considered running just one BP, however I decided against it and afterwards am very glad that I did. Tama//Memoria felt pretty underwhelming, but I'm not sure what life burst card I would replace it with. Once set 7 comes out in a few weeks, I would be interested in trying this deck out with some of the cards there--specifically Can't Stop Pretty and Nanashi's assist line.
That's all, thank you so much for answering our questions and good luck for the next Tournament!
Ending Thoughts
I feel like it was, overall, a really nice Tournament, We where able to get 10 people this time around and I'm pretty sure everyone had a great time!
I just want to thank everyone that came to our tournament and stays around the store making it a lively place!
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