So I mentioned in the Regionals report that I would post the results of the upcoming Upcon Cities event if I won, so here it is. Upcon Cities is a gaming expo that houses a myriad of gaming events, including all the top card games, Magic, Pokemon, Warcraft, and of course Yugioh. As usual my goal was to win a mat, however, for this event, only 1st place would receive one, which meant I had to win. I will say that it was extremely intense, I had alot of very tough matches but a previous practice session the day/night before with Matt (aka Bam Bamz) helped give a bit of an edge going in on the day.

Swiss Rounds
Now unfortunately straight after the event I had to leave for the coast for a couple days which included a total of 16 hours of driving, staying over a day before and a day after, which means that my memory for all that transpired won’t be very clear. I will try my best however.

1-0 So round 1 I got paired with someone I’ve never played before. While talking he told me he went 7-0 at the Battle City tournament we had a few months ago which made me weary. He played a Challenger deck to make +1000 atk rank 4’s every turn, and 2 per turn when he gets what he needs. What made this tough was the otk aspect he geared the deck towards which actually got me in the 2nd duel. Another thing was the 2800 Maestrokes he was putting down which really gave me a hard time since I couldn’t kill them, negate them, or destroy them with the larger trap line up I opted to play. Luckily game 3 I pulled through and went 1-0 for swiss ready for the next.

2-0 Next up facing a guy I lost to during swiss rounds at Regionals. He was using Machina Gadget with Grandsoils and mained Maxx “C”s. This time went in my favour winning both duels and going 2-0 for swiss.

3-0 Time for the expected mirror match. I faced Mono Mermails now while still using my Undine build. Game 1 I was on the ropes and about to lose, he had Gaios face up and I had Sphere and Controller in hand, I was 1 second away from scooping when I decided to make Acid Golem and see if I can somehow turn it around. By some miracle I not only pulled through but had advantage, making use of that to take game 1. The rest of the match is a bit of a blur but I think we did go to game 3 and I managed to take the match.

4-0 Second mirror match, (oh joy) this time facing the National champion. He was running Mono Mermails as well so I really had to play carefully. I really wish I could remember more of this match but alas I won and time for final round.

5-0 I ended up facing Bam Bamz now who was running Heroes and knew my deck well from the day before during practice, even trying to gear his deck to beating Mermails specifically. I won’t lie, I had draws that would make Poseidon proud, but then so did he with double Miracles and some other crazy Hero antics. My god hands prevailed though leaving me undefeated for swiss rounds.


Top 8
6-0 Facing the same guy I faced in top 8 at Regionals. For some reason I have a REALLY tough match up against his deck where he either otk’s me with any hand he as, and even going Gaois doesn’t seem to help. It was an intense duel and I thought I’d lose after he raped me in game 1, but luckily I pulled through to go through to top 4.

7-0 Got paired up with Bam Bamz again in top 4, and I was wondering if I was going to luck out this time. It was a great match and in the end, my updated side from the night before won the entire game 3 by itself, Imperial Iron Wall, winning me the duel while he had a face up Dimensional Fissure and 2 face-down Miracle Fusions.

Rejoiced that I’d have a crack at finals and a renewed hope that I might actually win the playmat I moved on.
Seeing my opponent made my hopes drop slightly. I was up against the National champion again going into a mirror match with him using Mono Mermails. What’s worse is he actually beat me during finals the week before during the pre-Upcon tournament to win free entry for the expo. This puts the count of losing finals in a mirror to 2 so I really didn’t have high expectations going into this, except saying to myself that I’ll do my best and see how it turns out in the end. Things were off to the worst possible start when I opened 3x Sphere and 2x Linde. Seeing this hand I almost scooped to move onto game 2 but I played it out anyway. He put a Gaios up early in the duel and things went from bad to worse, however I baited out Gaios with a Diva, and a misplay by him negating it allowed me to use my Sphere and the face-up Teus I had from the previous turn’s Sphere (on end phase) to make Big Eye and take his Gaios, allowing me to take game 1. I got overly excited wondering to myself how the hell I turned that into a win. Game 2 I don’t remember but it went in his favour leading the way for a very tense third duel. This ended up being a back and forth grind game and I remember desperately trying to keep enough resources to Black Rose the field and try win from there since most of his resources were in the grave. He still had a full hand (previous Maxx “C”) which had me worried, but I saw him trying to make a big play with discards and Divas and the second I saw that I just smiled inside and thought to myself that I’ve won. The reason is... I knew that as long as I survived the turn, that I could clear the board and take control since he now only had 2 left in hand. Come my turn I opted for Gungnir since I had held onto my resources well enough to clear his field and put a 2500 repeatable effect on the field instead of a Megalo. With that I made short work of his Leed, Catastor, and won the duel after my next turn still having a Marksman in hand.

Result
My final score was 8-0 and took 1st place at Upcon Cities. I was mostly happy for winning all the mirror matches. Out of 3 events I had 8 Mermail mirrors, only 2 of which I lost and always in finals unfortunately, but not this time! I was happy to see my 2 Megalo Undine build win 6/8 mirror matches against decks supposedly faster and more explosive than mine, and also beating anyone I lost to during Regionals. I was also happy to go undefeated at the event which was a first for me doing so during swiss and all the way past finals. The mat I won is cool but to be honest I am thinking of selling it so that I can buy the Elemental Lords playmat which is the mat I want the most and both are worth around $100 so it shouldn't be too hard. I didn’t pull anything too significant from the packs, just a few supers and useless ultras.

Upcoming
So the next few weeks will just be a few local tournaments but on the 25th of May we will be having our National Championship. To be honest I’m not sure what I plan on running. I might stick with this after more testing and tweaking, I might go Mono Mermails, I might go with something else completely like Fire Fist as I have placed an order for the deck. Time will tell but win or lose I’ll post the results to Nationals regardless.

Decklist
So I did make a few changes since Regionals, changes I think definitely made a difference. I switched out Mist Wurm for a Black Rose, made sure I had a side for Machines, ready for a mirror match seeing as that would be one of the hardest match-ups, and then also being more prepared for sided macro cards. I opted for more traps, so I took out Moulinglacia, and put in 2 Bottomless Trap Holes. Yes, this did put my main deck at 41, which was intentional. I was close to taking out a 3rd Linde, but blazing through my Linde’s during the event I’m very happy that I didn’t. The deck has 23 searchers/deck thinners, and the fact that I was running normal monsters made the 41 build viable. My ratios are also in a way that my draws were still varied and I had what I needed when I needed it, never a turn late. The only ratio that was a bit out was the Megalo’s, but the deck still had enough search and a stand-in Teus to cover that, being hurt only with Teus being unsearchable by Dragoons, but not too detrimental with it being searchable with Sphere and Linde. But enough about that... here’s the build I entered with...

Monsters: 26
2x Mermail Abyssmegalo
3x Atlantean Dragoons
3x Mermail Abysslinde
3x Genex Undine
3x Atlantean Marksman
3x Deep Sea Diva
2x Mermail Abysspike
1x Mermail Abyssteus
2x Atlantean Heavy Infantry
1x Tragoedia
1x Mermail Abyssgunde
2x Genex Controller

Spells: 8
2x Mystical Space Typhoon
2x Salvage
1x Heavy Storm
1x Dark Hole
1x Monster Reborn
1x Pot of Avarice

Traps: 7
3x Abyss-Sphere
2x Bottomless Trap Hole
2x Torrential Tribute

Extra Deck: 15
1x Mermail Abyssgaios
1x Number 11: Big Eye
1x Bahamut Shark
1x Abyss Dweller
1x Wind-Up Zenmaines
1x Number 30: Acid Golem of Destruction
1x Number 17: Leviathan Dragon
1x Mermail Abysstrite
1x Gachi Gachi Gantetsu
1x Gungnir, Dragon of the Ice Barrier
1x Black Rose Dragon
1x Dewloren, Tiger King of the Ice Barrier
1x Hyper Librarian
1x Ally of Justice Catastor
1x Armory Arm

Nice write up man and good to hear you took first place.

Would you run 42 cards when/if you get a third Megalo or would you take some cards out - if you go with this again?

awesome, can't wait to hear about nationals

NickV wrote:

Nice write up man and good to hear you took first place.

Would you run 42 cards when/if you get a third Megalo or would you take some cards out - if you go with this again?

Nah when I get my 3rd Megalo I'd go Mono Mermail, unless it really disappoints when testing irl in which case I'll take out Teus for the 3rd and stick with Undine.

What was nice about Teus though, is I can go Linde into Teus when they try OTK me in the mirror and they couldn't get past it, so I take 0 dmg during an otk, and they can't suicide Megalo which guarantees him staying on the field till my turn which really puts pressure on them for a possible Gaios or Big Eye. For that reason I'll TRY to keep 1 Teus but I don't know what I'd remove for it.

UUhhmm Just a question where do you order your decks from as I run a Six Sam deck in real life and am hoping to run a mermail deck in the future.

I used to buy singles from Troll and Toad and Ideal 808. However, I buy most of my stuff from Yugioh Mint now, and only get Jump Promos and cards they might be out of stock with from either T&T or Ideal.

I am planning on selling a full Mermail deck soon, which will have 3 Megalo, 3 Teus, Leed etc, just without an extra deck, but with some extra deck cards like ultimate Gaios, ultra Gaios, Dewloren, and Abyss Dweller available.

Uhmmm hoe much do you buy these for and could you link me to the shop where you buy them frombig they have a website but if its irl I am not coming to south Africa for yu gi oh cards