#CFV - Week 04/15 Results & Battle Log

Great news! I learned this week that there is actually three local Vanguard tournaments in my area per week in different places. Unless I feel very lazy, I'll probably be able to go to each of them every week, so instead of posting long (and tedious) battle logs & thoughts about the tournaments, I'll just post results and score for each of them.


Monday Tournament @ GameKeeper (12 players)
Battle Log
- 1st Round vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Lohengrin) 0-2
- 2nd Round vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Charger) 2-0
- 3rd Round vs. Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 2-0

Results:
1st - Aram D. (Royal Paladin)
2nd - Judes R. (Royal Paladin)
3rd - Jonathan M. (Spike Brothers)


Saturday Tournament @ BD Cosmos (8 players)
Battle Log
- 1st Round vs. Kagero (D.Overlord/B.Core) 2-0
- 2nd Round vs. Kagero (D.Overlord/Goku) 1-2
- 3rd Round vs. Spike Brothers (Juggernaut) 2-1 (forfeit)


Results:
1st - ??? (Royal Paladin)
2nd - ??? (Kagero)
3rd - Judes R. (Royal Paladin)


What is written in bold in the results is how I placed. Unfortunately, not enough people showed up at the Thursday tournament this week so there are no results for that this week. 

#CFV - Angel Feather's Nociel Trilogy

So, Angel Feather's second, and I think last (hopefully not), RRR card got revealed yesterday and believe it or not, it's a Grade 1 unit. It's pretty rare to see a Grade 1 unit offered that kind of rarity - the last one being Heatsnail Salamander in Japanese's BT04. In Angel Feather's case, their new RRR Grade 1 unit is called Defender of Love, Nociel.

Auto: [Choose an <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] When this unit is placed on the Guardian Circle, if you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose a card from your Damage Zone, and add it to your hand.

With this card revealed, we can clearly see how Angel Feathers will be a defensive clan and how they will be able to manipulate their damage zone. Defender of Love, Nociel is exceptionally good because, unlike her other incarnations which I will talk about later, her effect activates when you guard with her. By guarding an attack, you can dump what you don't need in your hand in the damage zone un-flipped and pick up something else you need from that said damage zone whether it's un-flipped or not. For example, you can go pick up 10k guard or a Null guard to guard the upcoming attacks, a Grade 3/2/1 unit that you're missing for your next Ride phase or simply go look for a unit that benefits from having an un-flipped counter for it's effect. With this card in this clan, the way we will use our counters and which card we flip face-down will be extremely important because we will want to get the most out of Nociel's effect (Which, in Defender of Love's case, is guarding an attack, dumping a useless card in your hand, take something you need from the damage zone and flipping a counter back up). So, in the end, when using counter blasts with other cards, we'll have to basically flip the cards we think we'll need later on in the game. It's definitely a card with a lot of utility and I can see this card be played a lot in upcoming Angel Feather decks.


Her two other incarnations are a Grade 0 and a Grade 2 unit. The Grade 0 being called Happy Bell, Nociel and the Grade 2 being Love Machine Gun, Nociel. 

Continuous 【R】: If you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, this unit has the following ability, "Activate [R]: [Move this unit to Soul, choose an <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] Choose a card from your Damage Zone and add it to your hand."

As you can see, they all kind of have the same effect - the only difference being the timing of each. Happy Bell, Nociel goes to the soul from an activation effect when she's in a Rearguard slot. That alone would not be very good and justify her place in a deck. However, her being a Stand trigger gives her a bit more utility as not only this clan relies on un-flipping damage, they also already have a unit (Armaros) that benefits from Stand triggers because of their effect that only activates when their attack lands. The fact that she goes into the soul also benefits Angel Feathers as some unit work with souls.

Auto: [Choose a <Angel Feather> from your hand, send it to your Damage Zone] When this unit is placed on a Rear Guard Circle, if you have an <Angel Feather> vanguard, you may pay the cost. If you do, choose a card from your Damage Zone, and add it to your hand.

As for Love Machine Gun, Nociel, it's kind of like the opposite of her Grade 1 counterpart. While Defender of Love can go look for something in the damage during your opponent's turn, LMG, Nociel can go look for something in the damage zone during your turn. That said, you can pick up units to apply more pressure like a booster or a beatstick while dumping something you don't need in your hand.

This new line of unit definitely adds a unique vibe to Angel Feathers and the game in general as this kind of strategy is pretty new to the game. What I'm really hoping for is to see a Lozenge Magus incarnation for Angel Feathers to add up on the fact that this clan is all about medics & healing! 

#FGC - Skullgirls. It's a good game, buy it!

For those who don't know, it has been exactly a week since Skullgirls released on Playstation Network & Xbox Live and I have to admit, I've had a lot of fun with the game thus far even though my opinions about the game before the release were somewhat negatives. Indeed, before the game came out, I didn't like the characters that much and I didn't like how the game played/felt. After trying it though, I fell in love with some characters that I never thought I'd like and started to enjoy the flow of the game once I got used to it. I guess the lesson of the day is: ''Never judge a fighting game by the pre-release gameplay videos/trailers...?''


Anyways, if you're into fighting games or you just like Darkstalker-like characters, I'd recommend buying this game as it's really cheap ($15 on PSN/XBL) and it really feels like a complete fighting game. It's also very important to support because unlike other popular fighting games on the market, the game was made by a member (Mike ''Mike Z'' Zaimont) of our own Fighting Game Community who listened carefully to his community & to the hardcore fighting game fans. If the game does well, I believe it will open doors to the creation of other solid fighting games!


http://skullgirls.com/

#CFV - 16/04/12 Results & Battle Log

Just came back from my local store's Vanguard tournament and I am happy to say that I reached my goal for this week. Placed higher than 6th place this time.. Yup, I actually got 2nd place which is way better in general and also for myself (did not leave the tournament super salty)!


Battle Log & Thoughts
First Round: vs. Royal Paladin (SSD/Lohengrin)
First round was against the guy who places 1st almost every time. First match of the set was pretty convincing for him mainly because of the heal triggers he pulled. Every time, I managed to somewhat take a lead in damage, he pulled a heal trigger and heal himself while I never drive check'd critical triggers to even it out. He eventually took a lead and finished me off. As for the second match, it was very close. At the end, he misplayed by riding Lohengrin over his SSD for no reason which allowed me to block and live for another turn. Unfortunately, he had all the necessary resources to block that extra lucky turn I had and finished me off with a clutch Blaster Blade (who retired the Galatin I needed to be able to resist one more turn) for the win. 0-2


Second Round: vs Royal Paladin (SSD/Gigantic Charger)
Another mirror match but this time, way easier for me since she played Gigantic Charger as a backup Grade 3 and who, in my opinion, is a pretty bad card. Anyway, first match was pretty one sided as she had a horrible hand and missed a ride. Was able to pull off the Barcgal+Llew+SSD combo before her, took an early lead and rush her down. Pulled out a critical trigger for the win. 2nd match was pretty on her part because she played so many of her cards wrong. Close to the end of the match, almost none of her attacks were a threat: she had a Gigantic Charger (R) in front with Barcgal boosting him which makes a  horrible number for an attack (13k), SSD as Vanguard with only Flogal boosting her and finally, another SSD in Rearguard with no one behind her. Pretty bad field and unit placement gave me an easy win. 2-0


Final Round: vs Oracle Think Tank (CEO) 
This guy pretty much gave the wins away to me by not attacking the first turn to avoid the infamous SSD combo. It would be a legit strategy if Royal Paladin's strategy wasn't about rushing and if they had no other Grade 3 to work with. By not attacking first turn, I always had an early lead and this is what you want to avoid when playing Paladins. First match, he didn't even get CEO and was obliged to use Apolon as his Vanguard and even if he didn't give me the counters to soul charge early with Barcgal/Llew/Flogal, I still managed to pull SSD's roar with Margal and Pongal soul charging Alfred during the game. First round was pretty convincing. Second round was a little closer, though. He got CEO as his Vanguard, but the fact that he still didn't attack me first turn gave me an slight advantage. Not only that, his field was far from being the best with two Apolon (with no boosters) as his Rearguards. He managed to stall enough to use CEO's Megablast, but it was not really a game changer as my field and hand were just better. 2-0


So yeah, pretty happy with my placement. Next time, I will try to aim for 1st place. Even though I placed high, I still want to try a Lohengrin/SSD build because I still feel Alfred does not support SSD well. Hopefully, I'll get the cards before next week!