Game 1 was the most “Midori” game I’ve played all month… in that I had a hand of powerful cards, and no way to dragonize them. The game begins typically enough, with me blocking a lot of Lum’s coins (to the point where I even discarded a card due to hand-limit), and trying to sneak in a couple of throws (which don’t work… I’m down to half health before landing a single hit). Eventually, I’m down real low (and my deck’s down to 17 cards), and finally draw a 2 (which my opponent promptly reveals using a Jackpot… instead of any of my four Aces). Of course, I immediately play Dragon Form and let rip a fully powered-up Final Dragon Buster for the KO.
Game 2 sees my opponent counterpick with Argagarg, and it works. Good hand management from my opponent means that all of his throws and normals lead to efficient big-damage combos. What’s worse is that I outplay myself by being too clever with my dragon moves. Despite neither of my two Dragon Forms getting countered, they are both promptly thrown, and I die with three Qs in hand (and a few other pretty cards).
Game 3 is tough, since my usual Argagarg counter pick is Gloria, and it’s quite intimidating to play Gloria in fast-timer. I go for Grave, instead (not much of a counterpick, I know), but I just play him like a grappler, throwing into Aces to make sure they do enough damage. That’s after spending, like, six turns in a row just playing nothing but Jacks, of course. Having sufficiently tilted my opponent, I dodge into a TPoS in the midgame (my opponent knew I had it but I knew that he knew, so I played it through the Joker bluff). Of course, VengefulPickle did have Jokers in hand (two of them!) so I spend the next few turns blocking those Jokers before eventually closing it out.
Game 4 has my opponent switching back to Lum, so I’m blocking a lot. And it pays off, since I manage two TPoSes in this game (of course, that means I win it). The second one isn’t quite as impressive as the first, since it only closes out 9 damage, but it’s still very dramatic. Of course, all of that powering-up-for-Aces meant that my hand ended up with no notable throws in it, so I was spending a long time afraid of my opponent’s Blackjacks (he certainly got me a couple of times), and it was still an extremely close “down to the last combat” game; a great end to a great set!
I think it may have been streamed? If a YouTube video or some archived Twitch footage shows up, I’ll add the link to this post. Good Games and Well Played to my opponent!
Semifinals: Cypher wins, 4-3, after a lengthy discussion about how Double-KOs work in this tournament.
Game 1 Caralad has started with Menelker before, and it’s a matchup I’m comfortable with, so I opt to start with Midori. Brother battle! Duffing his throw with an early straight keeps me fueled up, and despite getting hit with a few Black Face Cards, I do enough Dragon Things™ to win the game.
Game 2 sees my opponent counterpick with Argagarg, but it doesn’t work quite as well for Caralad as it did for VengefulPickle. The game’s really close, but I manage to wait out his Aces until he plays them as Blowfish Spikes instead of Bubble Shield, dodging them with a topdecked 9. I manage to take it, but it’s quite the nailbiter until the end.
Game 3 went great for me… right up until it didn’t. I’ve still got a lot of action in-hand, but a very brave throw from my opponent puts me on the ground, and then I get crossed up for the win. Very strong game from Caralad.
Game 4 I swap to Grave, and our spectator comments “second time this tournament I’ve seen Grave counterpicked into Argagarg!” and then promptly realizes “hold on, Cypher, that you the other time, too, wasn’t it?” It doesn’t go as well for me this time as it did against Vengeful Pickle, despite good throw timing on my part. Last turn I decide to go for a raw TPoS instead of the “high percentage” dodge, and I get blown up for it.
Game 5 is where things get crazy, as I decide “screw it, I’m doing fast-timer Persephone again!” and it seems like my opponent is just as excited as I am. I don’t play perfect (far from it, really), but I play well enough! The first two vortexes get stuffed easily enough, but one eventually sticks long enough to fill my hand and let me start mixing up between dodges and On Your Knees. Eventually I decide to chip my opponent down to 1 hp (even though I forgot to retrieve my Q from discard, earlier), and throw to close it out. I take a few minutes to compose myself, since fast-timer Persephone is stressful.
Game 6 sees the strong counterpick of Gwen. It’s (famously) Persephone’s worst matchup, but thanks to my match against MysticJuicer in Lum’s Lucky Lottery (in which his Persephone soundly bodied my Gwen), I now at least know how to play it from the Persephone side. I am helped immensely by Jokering a massive wombo-combo very early in the round. Eventually, it’s down to the final combat before time-out, Caralad’s got the Dreadlands Portal in hand (and two more hit points than I do) while I’ve got On Your Knees. Both moves are lethal. I desperately want throw what I’m reading as a dodge, but no throws in hand! So I dodge, rather than attack into Gwen’s dodge, and after the Shadow Plague evens up the life-totals 15-15, the game ends in a draw!
Serious GG;WP to my opponent, Caralad. An extremely tense set that literally came down to the wire. We don’t know if a double-KO counts as a win-for-both or as a win-for-neither, so we’ll set up a few more rounds if we gotta.
Oh? I remember VengefulPickle saying something about the Group Stage of the tournament being First-to-3, but the Final Stage being a First-to-4. It seems like this was discussed in the November 20th posts, on this thread.
Anyways, I think that Nopethebard and Vengefulpickle are the two Tournament Organizers? We’ll stand-by for a definitive answer from the two of you.
So, yes, we said up-thread that finals are Bo7. Secondly, we didn’t specify, but Standard Tournament Yomi (as defined by my copy-pastes in other threads) is that a double KO is a win for both, except when it’s the last match of the set, in which case, replay. So, y’all have at least one more to play.
You got it, thanks for the quick response! We’ll move forward with scheduling the final round(s) of our set. Just to make sure there’s absolutely no miscommunication, I want to ask for a couple of points of clarification:
The rules posted in Salary Cap, Balanced Team Battle, Lum’s Lucky Lottery, and Counterpick Cake all say “Double KO is a win for both players, unless it would cause both to win the set” (emphasis added). What you’re saying here is that the more-accurate rule should read “Double KO is a win for both players, unless it would cause either to win the set.”
Am I understanding your last post correctly? In our case, a “win for both players” would have caused only one player to win the set, not both, so I want to be totally certain that I’m understanding the intended rules correctly.
When we play the next round of our set, are we locked into the same characters that were used in the Double KO round? Is it a new double-blind pick? Something else?
Okay. That’s good news for me, I suppose. Thank you. Out of curiosity, what would the answer have been to Question #2 (about how character-selection works after a Double KO)?
(Also, if you want to add even more confusion to the mix, the rules for IYL 8 state different Double KO rules than the usual copy/paste rules have.)
I think when double-ko forces a replay, you replay the same characters (except in the stable formats, like Salary Cap, where it cycles back to the top of the order).
If my memory serves from my fighting-game-playing days, the “Double-KO is a win for both” rule that FS uses is fairly standard across most fighting games (the game will award a round-win to both players in the event of a Double-KO; the game will also consider the game a draw if the Double-KO results in both players attaining the last round-win needed to with that game).
[Edit: according to Hobusu, who posted below below, the way Fantasy Strike does it is not the way Street Fighter/Tekken/SoulCalibur do it.]
I, too, am happy to accept either choice by the TOs (and, a sincere “thank you!” to Caralad for the sportsmanship), I mostly want to make sure we’re doing everything properly (it’s clearly quite an edge-case).
To clarify, Fantasy Strike actually uses the rule that a double KO counts as a win for both players except that a player can never gain the final win they need to take the set that way (so if one player is on set point that player doesn’t gain a win and the other does, if both players were on set point neither player gets a win and it goes to an extra round).
The reasoning Sirlin has given is that if anyone ever wins an entire match on a tie round it’s super confusing and anti-hype (so a match win should only come from one player cleanly KOing the other), but every round should advance toward the match concluding in some way if at all possible.
For what my non-TO opinion is worth, I think going with how the rule was written at the start of the tournament is best for this time but then if you want to match FS you should update the wording of the rule in future tourneys.
Ok, so I had the FS justification backwards. Good to know. I think I will update for later tournaments, but for this tournament, we’re going to stick w/ the rule as listed in the majority of recent tournaments (which means, in this case, the 4-3 stands).
Round 1 – I’ve taken a close look at both of our rosters, and have already concluded that my opponent will start with his Argagarg. I’m quite comfortable in the Midori vs. Argagarg matchup, but if I start Midori, that’s all we’re gonna see all set, and where’s the fun in that? I decide to test my mettle once again and play some Fast Timer Persephone, who theoretically counters VengefulPickle’s entire roster (sans Setsuki). It does not go well. It takes me too long to adjust to my opponent’s anti-throw range, and while I eventually manage start a vortex-ey comeback, I’m too afraid to throw to keep Argagarg on the ground long enough and lose by about forty hit points.
Round 2 – Undeterred, I stick to my gameplan. There’s an old saying that the best way to win a Yomi match is to just win every combat reveal. Which I do! (Well, except for one, but I manage a facedown bluff to stop the combo). Put Argagarg on the ground and never let him get back up, while slowly degrading his hand quality with Bare Your Soul. It’s not even close to a lockout, though, as my opponent is never without options. I end up having to time my dodges, crossups, and throws (aka “both sides” crossups) and it works out for me.
Round 3 – VengefulPickle makes the expected swap to Setsuki, which will open up my Midori pick, in the future. This is a bad matchup for Persephone, but it’s a swingy one, so I’m just a few bold choices away from sapping Setsuki’s momentum and building my own. Expecting a throw-heavy range, I open by Power Lashing a throw and starting the vortex early. Wisely, my opponent Gold Bursts his way out of it. After getting hit by some big throw damage (more than once), I’m able to wakeup with a counterthrow (I’m lucky my opponent is trying to value trap me and didn’t play his final 7 throw). After disarming my On Your Knees, I finally manage to get more Dominance going by throw/dodging my way to a massive hand (even dodging a second wakeup Gold Burst). I end the game by embarassing myself by missing lethal by forgetting to put a 3 normal into my combo, using my Jokers to pump Rapid Lashes but missing lethal by 3 points. Boy oh boy. 3 combats later, I manage to land a Rising Pleasure to win the round, but man Fast Timer can be tough!
Round 4 – My opponent completely changes up his range, and lands some solid early damage. I manage to joker an AA combo, but it only helps a little. Setsuki don’t care! Eventually I manage to Power Lash one of Setsuki’s throws, mill both Jokers with a Bare Your Soul, and my opponent with an awkward hand that I’m pretty sure is checkmated by On Your Knees. Unfortunately, he topdecks a Ninpo Flash (no way I’m leaving those Jokers on the table for even a single draw step), and my momentum grinds to a halt. A very convincing win for my opponent!
Round 5 – Midori vs. Setsuki is probably my most-played matchup of all time, because my housemate mained Setsuki (and I mained Midori) many years ago when I first got my Kickstarter box of Yomi 2nd Edition in the mail. That doesn’t mean it’s free! I manage to trick my opponent into a throw-heavy range using early blocks, which allows me to land a turn two Wrath of Earth (20 damage) and to duff another throw with a 7 attack into a fully pumped Whirlwind (23 damage). Then I counterthrow
another throw attempt. Those last two throw attempts from my opponent were with 10s, which are Setsuki’s Smoke Bomb counter (a very valuable asset against Midori), so I correctly read that there aren’t any more throws coming and turtle up, dodging my way past a Ninpo Flash, Glimpsing my Q to beat out an Ace (since, you know, all the counters were gone), and then dodging some more (at this point, I’d drawn so many dodges I was following them up with 9 throws). Eventually, I just dodge my way to victory.
Round 6 – Well we all knew it would come down to Midori vs. Argagarg eventually, so here it is! I read a throw-heavy range from my opponent, and I just so happen to have this 5-6-7 straight in my hand, so why not try the big duff on turn 1? It doesn’t work, sadly, but I spend the next three turns throwing my opponent’s blocks and throws for good, consistent damage (even getting rid of a Bubble Shield attempt). By the third 5 throw, I’m actually all out of high normals, so I just leave Argagarg on the ground (it’s like healing 2 hit points!) and consider a crossup attempt. I don’t have good payoff from it, though, so I end up successfully blocking a bunch of pokes for 3 turns. I have a bare-minimum hand of dragon cards, but elect to wait until I draw my second Dragon Form to try entering it. Proves effective, since the first one gets countered. I try to Talon Swoop and get slapped across the face with Blowfish Spikes for my trouble. But the second Talon Swoop works! After that, I’m expecting more throws (since I haven’t dodged yet, this round) so I land a Final Dragon Buster. My opponent is rude enough to Joker the third Ace, though. Argagarg has 9 health left, and has just powered up for Blowfish Spikes, so now it’s time to dodge! I do a “big brain” play and just normal-throw after the dodge (in case the facedown was a second Joker, figuring if it’s not I have guaranteed chip-out with my Dragon Mountain). Argagarg is left on the floor with 1 hit point, and with only 3 cards in hand doesn’t have the fuel to power up for another Blowfish Spikes, so Midori’s Q is a checkmate!
Serious GG;WP to my opponent, VengefulPickle. Very fun finals of a very fun (and stressful) tournament! I’m sure he’ll have a video up soon!
Thank you! I think it’s my first legit tournament win. Granted, the Fast Timer format scared away a few of the regulars (and a number of competitors dropped out partway through), but I’ll take it!
