Jasco Games - Forums > Universal Fighting System > Tournament Reports > 5th Place Dave Wagoner US Nationals report/deck breakdown.
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Hey, I got to play myself for the first time in a major and made Top 8 as a 7HS with trash symbols and a really good form. Here’s some stuff about it.
The list is on the T16 decklist thread, I wound up 5th. Check it out here. (http://forums.jascogames.com/forums/showthread.php?12089-US-Nationals-2016-Top-16-Decklists).
Deck’s fun. My F is great, Shield Ram still hurts people, Robot Masters continues to be drastically overlooked as a wallbreaking card because it has garbage (ie, non-Summer Heat, and Evil is basically unplayable outside of Nehtali) symbols, Breaker: 2 on Smile and Missile’s high block is more relevant than it’s ever been, and Chasm Buster is no longer good enough to play in this list because Homing Missiles T2 is frankly better due to being able to threaten Ram behind it. What a world.
I was fried - 14 hours of travel the day before and a 6 hour jetlag headscrew - for teams to the point where I don’t really remember the first two rounds at all, and used it as a testbed for the deck for Singles because I hadn’t really gotten to play whatsoever since the Atlanta PTC, being out of the country for 2 months on a work assignment. Teams list had no Flash Lightning which was a mistake - I cut 1 Napalm Bomb and 1 Yamibarai to fit them back in - and no Toofis maindeck which was also a mistake. Also it ran Diplomatic which did basically nothing, and was shot out for better 1/5 or 0/5 spam pieces to increase the offensive consistency of the deck. With those changes made, suddenly the deck performed like it should have in the first place for Singles - it solves problems, cracks walls, blocks and reduces damage a lot, and messes people up on the regular.
Strengths of the deck? This list has solid defense with its DR and speed reduction package, consistent offense with Robot Masters/Improved Design/Saw Blades/Dave Wagoner E, good blocks on most of its attacks, a low attack difficulty curve that can generate a lot of damage, and most importantly can cheat assets down to do a lot of really strong stuff like dig up attacks with Drew, seal foundations, or boost checks. Errands for Grandma/Wall of Goro/8000 Degrees is still a great defensive damage reduction package to have.
The BIGGEST strength of the deck is its balance, really. It’s not all-in aggro, it’s not full control, but it can play at being either if the circumstances dictate. I’ve had T2 wins with this deck, I’ve also had wins after cycling with it, and I’m pretty comfortable playing this deck either way.
Problems with the deck? You run a LOT of Assets, obviously. The big issue with my character is that you’re sacrificing build consistency for the raw power of my form, and sometimes this’ll bite you T1. You have to be very careful with your mulligan, and sometimes you just have to dump a 2-asset, 2+ Attack hand to make sure you can build 3-4. Going second, you can form/flip Saw Blades to get yourself a free foundation if you have to, and Toofis providing speed hate can act as a pseudo-foundation on defense, which helps. You’re also still a 7HS who I think has to straight-up race Napalm Man, which isn’t always the easiest proposition, it’s a matchup I honestly didn’t have time to test but managed to dodge this weekend. You also have no draw hate or real defensive draw, so you have to portion out your blocking and DR well against decks that can grow a huge hand and threaten to combo you out.
Also you can’t play Summer Heat, or any of the -really- degenerate attacks like Scorch Wheel or Tengu Dive or Flying Yamato Spear. So, y’know, there’s that. Shield Ram is really good, but I don’t think it’s on that level as there’s like 40 different ways to disrupt it that this deck has to respect.
Couple changes I’d make, I’d put Evil Impostor back in the deck somewhere, probably over S-Class Hunter which was dead more often than not, and should only have come in for the All or Earth matchup to commit Koppouken Training if I’m going first. Probably go up to 4x Heart of the Mountain and move an Errands for Grandma to board, maybe bring in Forgotten over one of the other 0-5s, because being able to consistently block Tengu Dive, Flying Yamato Spear, and Scorch Wheel is pretty important, and that -2 speed can matter a lot on Turn 2. Other than that I’m pretty happy with it.
Lot of 2-1 wins. I had no cakewalks the whole tournament, and faced off against some very talented and experienced players with some very strong decks. I don’t have comprehensive notes, but I’ll give some little blurbs.
So, my two swiss losses were blowouts by All Ryu decks trying to hustle momentum with Hurricane Upper and dunk me turn 2 with Flying Yamato Spears, played by Matt Childress and Jeffrey Kahn both playing very similar All Ryu/Etincilles/Hurricane Upper/Yamato Spear lists, both of which hung around top tables all weekend. I have to get really lucky to beat that deck, and the adjustments I mentioned should help that matchup a little.
Form Saw Blades, Flip Saw Blades put in work against Scott’s super cool Earth Andy and let me go off unimpeded, and the asset package otherwise helped me contain most of his defense. I’ve played against All Andy a good bit, and Saw Blades is the MVP here for obvious reasons.
Good high blocking beats Kicks Kim, Tengu Dive Rikuo and Scorch Wheel Yellow Devil. Breaker: 2 Smile and Missiles was the MVP in every single one of these matches, so, so many of the best attacks in the format are currently highs and this card puts in so much work to stop the bleeding.
Toofis containing Ever Hopeful put in a ton of work against Felicia and let my offense keep humming so I could run her over with Robot Masters.
Check Variance: The Matchup was the story of all of the games I played with Phil’s Jiffany list - the matchups basically boiled down to whose deck crapped on itself the least. His did in singles, mine did in top cuts, and both of our lists were explosive enough to capitalize on bad checks pretty easily and count to 20 to push for kills, which is exactly what happened whenever either of us bombed a turn.
Going forward, I’m going to move away from Fire and build myself off of my other two symbols, Death and Evil. There’s a lot of potential in my character and a LOT of design space I haven’t had time to explore yet. I got within spitting distance of finals on 3 hours of sleep, jetlag, adrenaline, and zero testing, and I’m going to be back with a vengeance my next major, better prepared and ready to dunk people.
Any thoughts or comments, I’d love to hear them.
I'm curious if we can break the Ryu matchup. Evil Imposter trumps Etincelles. Flames Restored + Breaker can disrupt him even if he's stacking. Fear of Women forces him to actually make control checks like the rest of us, and this deck probably doesn't mind +3 speed when it can get it?
Maybe we can fight over his momentum? Crescent Moon Hook is the only card that I think Fire has for this purpose, and even with Hsien-Ko (looped Reactive Styles and other toys) I wasn't really able to keep up.
Let it go without saying that I love this deck and everything it stands for in this sea of bull:):):):) metagame we have right now.
A big reason we came into majors with so many All and Air decks was that we felt that really was the only way to hang with Ryu at all without relying on sheer luck of him not drawing any kind of attacks. Koppouken for the momentum attacks that matter, High Seas for the attacks that he wants to enhance the hell out of, Templar and other breaker blocks to run along this absurd tightrope of a game, and pray to God you find 30 damage ASAP to put him in the ground.
Pharaoh Man and Vincent Grey seem like the only really strong options to keep him from scoring checks all day, but Pharaoh gets sad from Avarice, and the Pres has a rough time chain blocking everything if Ryu gets the nuts and probably takes a little too long to count to 30.
I love the run of yesterday's meta decks that ran into high spots, sort of proving that you can't just discount everything in favour of a shiny new bike. I had a long series of posts on Facebook with Keenan a while back about theorycrafting an Evil Wagoner, and I agree that there is a lot of unexplored space here, mostly just cause Fire's basically been your baby since Shield Ram became a thing.
Honestly, the only crime this deck committed was that it fights too fairly.
As someone whose only moderate successes have come from playing stoic control I've learned a lot from netdecking researching the PTC winning Pharaoh Man list. I was originally thinking about playing Dave to avoid the artifice avarice/hannya/megaman-6-check-a-palooza and it would also give me some of that sweet control tech/consistent saw blades action but was reminded a week before where exactly Nationals was being held lol. Glad I decided to main pharaoh, and even gladder I decided to side DW in case there was trouble.