Preparing for Top Shop

Its this time again, me looking through my cards and decks, trying to figure out what am I gonna bring to the tables this Sunday. Top Shop is a few days ahead and to me, this would be my last big tournament for the year. I'll be going on a trip and would most likely miss out nationals at the end of the year. I'm not retiring from the game or anything, unlike Mike.

Lets talk about Top Shop. This would be a tournament only for 56 players with invites, Gamers Arena holds 28 of the invites if I'm not mistaken. Duelist playing in this event are all qualifiers from their respective local's Top Shop Qualifiers. So, I guess the chances of playing against randoms are lesser I guess. Now, what does Top Shop stands for? To be honest, I have no clue. Last year, it was to decide the so-called Asia's best trading card game hang out, which Sam won and crowned Gamer's Arena with that title. But this year, no such event would be taking place, so effectively, we're just playing for the fame and glory I guess. Don't let me start on the prize support, if TCG players are complaining about their prizes, let me say, you would rather kill yourselves than admitting the gifts they provide are the grand prizes.

Now, what deck am I gonna play this coming weekend. I'm not sure! I'm currently leaning towards Hieratics, but that all depends on the whether M7 is legal for the event. I know the set would be officially release by Saturday, but I'm still not sure if the cards would be legal. This is because we have some events where cards are legal on the day it was release, and other where we need to wait a week or two before we could play them. If the card isn't legal, guess I'll stick with HEROs. Don't get me wrong, I love HEROs, but their matchups against Dark Worlds are horrible, and game 1 against Mermail Atlanteans heavily favors the opposition. DWs are a lot more popular than I initially thought.

I'm still testing out both decks at the moment and trying to figure out a good side deck for the META. Luckily, Firefist (lame ass name) still seems to be off the radar at the moment and Mermail Atlanteans didn't change their playstyle even with the new support. Wind-Ups, being Wind-Ups, are still too expensive for the majority of the community and would likely be low in numbers. Not that you could avoid siding for them. The ever present Countdown is still as annoying as ever, you really don't wanna lose just cause you play someone with Countdown.

That's all I guess, hope I could do better this time, I've yet to capture a win for an official tournament yet, and I really hope to add that into my achievement sometime soon, especially since I'm leaving for the US mid to late next year for my Masters programme (TCG, here I come?).