My Time at CanCon 2011

CanCon 2011: The Gaming Convention in the Nation’s Capital – A Report
By Jamie Alexander

CanCon is a gaming convention run over three days (Saturday, Sunday and Monday) during the summer (there is also one during the Winter, called WinterCon, but, as far as I know, there’s no Yu-Gi-Oh! at that one); it has been going for thirty-three years, so it’s a Canberra gaming institution – all of the serious gamers go there. Now, I was sadly unable to attend on Staurday, because I work Saturdays, and, due to the rubbish bus service I was unable to make it yesterday. (On Sundays, and after six o’clock on weekdays, the bus service completely dissolves – just one of its many flaws.) However, I’m lucky in that I don’t work Mondays, so I was able to make it today. I was a little annoyed at missing Saturday and Sunday, but, as I keep saying, this is a rubbish format, so I got over it pretty quickly.

Anyway, I managed to catch the bus okay in the morning (Steve and his mates were going to give me a lift home, because Steve lives in the suburb next to me), and I arrived at about nine o’clock: the tournament didn’t start until eleven, and registration opened at ten-thirty, so I had time to have a poke around. CanCon takes place at Exhibition Park, which is the equivalent of the Adelaide Show Grounds. So I walked into the main hall, and it was literally completely full of table-top miniature games, mostly Warhammer but some other ones that I had never heard of before: there were hundreds of tables set up in the middle, people playing around them, and then stalls all the way around the walls, all devoted to the individual table-top games. I had a wander around, not really interested but having a look nonetheless to kill some time, and then I went to the GoodGames stall. They had a few Yu-Gi-Oh things there (if anybody remembers from my GoodGames report, the store doesn’t really stock a lot of Yu-Gi-Oh! product), including the UltraPro Pro Binder, UltraPro’s version of the Monster Protector Binder. I you guys have never seen them before... they are rubbish. Monster Binders are so much better.

After putting the Pro Binder down in disgust, I left the main hall and went into the secondary pavilion; it was full of more stalls, this time devoted mainly to board games. I was a little disappointed, to say the least: I was expecting a lot more Yui-Gi-Oh! stuff, but there was practically nothing, and nothing worth noting. I had a look around, though, and found a stall which only sold dice. I got myself a really cool six-sided die with Chinese numbers on it, and then went to the cafe to have a cup of tea. I almost had a heart attack when the girl who served me didn’t know what Green Tea was.

It was about quarter-past-ten by that time, so I went back and found the Collectible Card Game room, and small room off the hallway that leads from the main hall to the smaller hall; there were about fifty tables all set up, one half of the room for Magic and the other half for Yu-Gi-Oh!, and there no stalls. None. At all. There were a few noobs there playing and looking through each others’ binders, so I went over: I left as soon as one kid flipped over a common Kunai with Chain. Some other people started rolling up by then: Steve and his friends came, and then some more of the good players showed up. I traded my spare Absolute Zero and $10 to one of them for a Gungnir, and that was the grand total of my trading for the day. I don’t care about trading anymore, to be honest: I just look through people’s folders and see crap, there’s nothing I ever want anymore.

Registration finally closed at eleven-thirty (why can’t people ever roll up on time?), and we got underway with an underwhelming twenty people. Again, I was slightly disappointed, but, well, this is Canberra – it does have about half the population of Adelaide.

Round 1

So, round one started and I had to play Gravekeeper’s. Shit. I was soundly thrashed during Game 1 when he opened with Necrovalley and Royal Tribute to my three Monster hand, and then proceeded to destroy him after siding in Game 2. Then in Game 3 I opened really well: Necro Gardna, Morphing Jar, and four Spells and Traps. I set everything except Gardna, feeling confident that I’m going to gain advantage over him so early. Then he proceeds to negate my Morphing Jar with Divine Wrath, and then gains massive plusses with Recruiter to beat me down.

As if that wasn’t enough, he was using all commons and rares (I hate that!), and then he drops out half way through to play Pokemon, giving me rubbish Tiebreakers. What a tosser.

Record: 0-1

Round 2

I get paired against an older guy playing Zombies. It was a really easy match: he made some strange plays, and Zombies have no strength anymore. I just spammed Synchros much faster than him and beat him down.

1-1

Round 3

Feeling a little more confident, I discovered I was up against the person who Steve considers to be the best player in Canberra. He was playing Blackwings, so I was pretty happy: Blackwings can’t gain advantage like they used to, so I’m not quite sure how they keep topping in the OCG. Anyway, I opened poorly in the first game, and he easily beat me with Bora and Shura taking advantage of my tiny Monsters. Second game, I open decent and we make even trades until I manage to win. Third game, he opens horrible, and I just spam Synchros to take advantage of his bad hand. Overall, he was pretty good and a really nice guy.

He was very impressed with the CP and TP holos in my deck, so he asked to take a look at my collection binder: he went mental, saying I had the best collection he had ever seen. I showed it to everybody else, and they agreed that it’s the best collection in Canberra.

Record: 2-1

Round 4

In this round I was paired up against Gladiator Beasts, another horrible match-up for me: all of my small Monsters just give them free tag-outs, and it was a dreadful match. I sided heavily against him, and somehow managed to draw nothing.

Record: 2-2

Round 5

Last round. I knew that we were doing a Top 4 cut-off, and also that very few people had perfect records; if I won this round, I would have a chance to make the cut. I was paired against Six Samurais, and, at first I was completely downtrodden, but then I Trap Dustshoot’d him and saw Jutte Fighter in his hand, and my spirits lifted. He was really bad, forgetting at least one Grandmaster search, and made some awful plays (not the least of which was deciding to play Jutte Fighter in the first place). He opened really well in Game 1 and beat me, though. I sided for Game 2, and simplified the Duel as quickly as possible, making even trades as soon as I could, and quickly whittled him down to nothing (that’s a note for next format: Six Samurais top-deck rubbish, so you need to simplify the game-state straight way – Gadgets will be a good deck to play against them). Game 3 went the same, and I won the last round.

Final Record: 3-2

The standings were announced, and I ended up, of all places, fifth. One spot! It’s probably because of my tiebreakers from that arsehole in Round 1. The Gladiator Beast player from Round 4 ended up winning the tournament. All in all, despite the relative lack of scale and trades, it was a good day, and I would like to have gone all three days. Oh, well, maybe next year if I ‘m still here.

The Deck

I had been fiddling around with a modified version of Quickdraw for a few days now, one which dropped all of the unstable, inconsistent and low-utility cards in favour of ones which are more synergistic and more consistent. After testing, I decided to play the deck, because it was very fast, very powerful and very consistent, far more so than the average Quickdraw build (and, after the last tournament, it was plainly obvious that I wasn’t going to play Plant Synchro again).

Monsters: 19

2 Quickdraw Synchron
2 Dandylion
2 Lonefire Blossom
2 Destiny Hero – Malicious
2 Krebons
1 Card Trooper
1 Spore
1 Glow-up Bulb
1 Plaguespreader Zombie
1 Necro Gardna
1 Sangan
1 Dark Armed Dragon
1 Spirit Reaper
1 Morphing Jar

Spells: 12

3 Book of Moon
2 Mystical Space Typhoon
1 Monster Reborn
1 Dark Hole
1 One for One
1 Mind Control
1 Emergency Teleport
1 Giant Trunade
1 Foolish Burial

Traps: 9

2 Bottomless Trap Hole
1 Mirror Force
1 Torrential Tribute
1 Call of the Haunted
1 Seven Tools of the Bandit
1 Solemn Judgment
1 Trap Dustshoot
1 Phoenix Wing Wind Blast

Extra: 15

2 Stardust Dragon
2 Formula Synchron
1 Chimeratech Fortress Dragon
1 Scrap Dragon
1 Junk Destroyer
1 Black Rose Dragon
1 Drill Warrior
1 Brionac, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1 Goyo Guardian
1 Magical Android
1 Ally of Justice Catastor
1 Armory Arm
1 Mist Wurm

Side: 15

2 Cyber Dragon
1 Gorz the Emissary of Darkness
1 Nobleman of Crossout
1 Nobleman of Extermination
3 Dimensional Prison
2 Mask of Restrict
2 Dust Tornado
1 Mind Crush
1 Royal Oppression
1 Starlight Road

I hope everybody is well, and enjoyed reading my second report. I'm not sure if I will do another one, because there are no more big tournaments. Most likely I'll just play a fun deck at locals and post the build and results in the Deck Discussion Forum.

-Jamie

Good to see your still enjoying Canberra....

I'm fairly sure you'd be the best player there. Most of them sound like scrubs.....

They should come to SA and see the shiny stuff we have.......

It's a shame you had horrible luck during your games.... sounds a bit like me lately......

How did the Malicious + E-Tele engine work you?

I'm sure you are happy with the "best collection in Canberra"

Jamie, your dark quickdraw deck is very very very very very similar to my dark quickdraw deck i have been playing for the last three weeks DEJAVU

Nick: like I keep saying, it's this format. The top tier decks are too inconsistent to really be any good.

The vast majority of players here are scrubs, much more so than in Adelaide. It's not much of a challenge, to be honest, but it does give me the opportunity to play fun decks (for example, next tournament I go to I'm going to play Gem Dude, Crystal Beasts with Destiny Hero - Diamond Dude).

The Malicious were amazing: they let me go into Scrap Dragon and Stardust Dragon so easily, they won me a lot of games. I'm realy looking forward to getting Destiny Draw back to at least two so I can play a full Destiny Hero engine in Quickdraw (I will it, "DestinyDraw").

The Emergency Teleport engine was pretty good, but I do think those three slots could be used for something better. I'm not sure what, though.

Mikal: yes, that made me feel awesome.

The scrap guy: really? Fascinating.

-Jamie

except his was good ^_^

such an original name for destiny hero quickdraw....... -.-


but i completely agree with the inconsistencies of this format.

Blackwings are the only deck i believe that can be somewhat consistent....

Sephiroth_The_Legend wrote:such an original name for destiny hero quickdraw....... -.-

I know, right?

Blackwings are consistent, I agree, but they don't have a lot of power anymore. They're too easy to beat.

Tyson: Why would you suggest a deck to me that is standard Plant Synchro, which you already know I hate, plus two copies of Chaos Sorcerer, which just makes it even more inconsistent?

-Jamie