Hello everyone! Cayce here and today I’ll be going over my Bushiroad Rumble Online experience (AO region), what I played, why I played it, and go over my swiss round matchups. To preface, I want to first express my gratitude for being able to participate in this. I didn’t get the chance to participate in BSFO 2021 so this was my first experience with a remote fight tournament held by Bushiroad. All of the staff was incredibly supportive and all of my opponents were great to talk with as well. Overall, even though I didn’t perform as well as I would have liked, I genuinely enjoyed myself the entire event and cannot wait for BSFO 2022! With that being said, let’s get into the details of the deck I took.
The Reason Behind the Deck:
I decided to go with a more popular pick for this event, Overlord. Originally, I had planned on taking Harri but a discussion with some friends made me look more into my circumstances and how it would affect what I would do best with. I knew that two things were quite apparent with my ability to playtest for this event. One, my university finals would be taking place around the same time as BRO. I needed something that wouldn’t be overly complex due to a lack of time on my part to learn every in and out of a deck. I also wanted something with a consistent winning image that I would work towards achieving every game. As much as I love Harri, I knew I didn’t have time to test into every match-up and learn how to re-play the deck after the ban list. Second, I knew that most likely, getting my heal guardians would not happen. I needed to play something that could function without them (even though I did end up getting them in time). Harri struggles immensely early game and playing in this format without heal guardians would not bode well for the deck. With the combination of these two reasons and a personal sentiment towards Overlord, I decided to go with it for this event. For those newer to premium, Overlord focuses on winning by using multiple vanguard attacks from your Dragonic Overlord “The X” (G series) and Dragonic Overlord the End (V series) legion pair. This would give your vanguard three attacks a turn with twin drive on each attack. Using other cards such as Wyvern Strike, Dekat to force your opponent to guard with more cards, and Calamity Tower Wyvern to power up your vanguard would make your legion turn into an incredibly powerful winning image. It was consistent, powerful, and more simple to play compared to some other decks. It fit perfectly into my situation and would be what I felt I would end up doing best with.
Swiss Round Match-Ups:
Round 1: Overlord Kagero (Win)
Starting this tournament with a mirror match was honestly quite funny but I knew that this would be heavily dependent on who ends up going first. I ended up winning the dice roll and going first, opening some incredibly powerful going first cards first like Striken and Calamity Tower Wyvern. I knew that I needed to push as hard as I could early due to Overlord struggling to have much resource generation. After my first grade 3 turn, he was down to just one card in hand. At this point, we both knew the game was over and I proceeded to win from my legion the next turn. My favorite part was when we both jokingly commented how the coin flip was the most exciting part of the mirror match, which was absolutely true.
Round 2: Beatrice Granblue (Loss)
This was one of the decks I feared most going into this tournament. With Granblues ability to reuse perfect guards and cards such as Shadow Elemental Bikkun, I knew that pushing through their hand would be more difficult than my more neutral match-ups. I had decided to start on G Conroe this game since I knew Granblue didn’t have access to early game retirement. Due to my opponent’s damage denying me after they went first, I was unable to find my Grade 1 Lizard General, Conroe. Without this key search, I was unable to get to my legion for the entire game. Due to the bad match-up and not seeing my legion, it was an incredibly difficult uphill battle, and ended up losing to his Bad Bounty kill turn.
Round 3: Luard Shadow Paladin (Win)
I knew that the Luard match-up is traditionally in my favor due to having access to cards such as Flaming Steel Wing, Denial Griffin to get around their battledore effect with Morfessa. I won the dice roll and was able to push quite hard during the early stages of the game. By the time his Morfessa kill turn came around, I had accumulated three heals in my hand to have ready for denial griffin. I proceeded to kill the next turn with my legion as I had exhausted most of his resources from turns prior.
Round 4: Dailiner Dimension Police (Win)
After winning the dice roll, I was able to get a lot of damage in on my turn 3. He ended up striding into Geomaglass and putting out quite some pressure, but I was able to search for a perfect guard early with G Conroe. Even though all of his grade 3’s were 20k shields each at this point, I was able to dwindle down his hand enough earlier in the game to make use of the Dekat I had resolved on my kill turn. Being able to rip out more cards and force him to waste shield during my legion turn ultimately won me the game.
Round 5: Daihouzan Nubatama (Loss)
This was a match-up I had felt fairly confident in after playtesting against it a good amount. I knew the powerful interaction with Mizukage and Rinne so I knew I needed to be careful during those kill turns. Even though I had successfully been able to push in the early game, him resolving a defensive OT and three heals made that basically obsolete. After his first stride turn, he ended the turn with 1 protect and 15 other cards in his hand. I had pushed as hard as I could during my turn but barely scratched his hand, and died to the Mizukage/Rinne combo.
Round 6: No Show (Win)
Round 7: Chaos Link Joker (Loss)
This was single-handedly my most frustrating game of the night. I felt incredibly confident about this match-up as it was the one I had tested against the most along with Highlander. Due to fatigue and misplays, I made two major mistakes that had cost me the game. The first one was not calling down a Lizard General, Conroe to find my legion for the latter half of the game. The second was forgetting to resolve the X’s (V series) skill to copy the End from my deck on turn 3.
Due to these errors, I couldn’t perform a proper kill turn and I lost to their deluge stride.
Round 8: Dropped
Lessons Learned from the Event:
While I know my ability to test was heavily affected by external circumstances, I still wished I was able to put more time into learning the meta and be able to come more prepared for the event. After speaking with some other players and their experiences, here are some key takeaways that I got from the event:
Energy and Sleep
The AO region for me began at 9 PM and went almost till 5 AM the next day. I was incredibly fatigued and tired by the later rounds, which I felt contributed to my massive misplays in Round 7. I feel understanding your deck to the point that your plays become habits will be quite beneficial. If I had practiced more with Overlord, I felt I could have relied more on muscle memory and habit in the last few rounds.
Preparation
Of course, everyone’s situation and the amount of time they can commit to a game are widely different. Personally, I’m hoping to start preparation earlier for BSFO in order to mitigate the end-of-semester obligations so that I can perform well in both. Starting to test earlier will also let me play some of my more favorite decks, regardless of how much preparation they may require.
Mindset
Honestly, I feel it would have been really easy to simply dismiss my losses to sacking and tiredness but my lack of preparation was primarily the reason for much of my losses. Be honest with yourself, review your games, and look forward to the next event! It’s often incredibly easy to get tilted in high-level events like this but remember why you’re doing this. Have fun, stay cool, and enjoy yourself.
That’s everything for now and I hope you all have enjoyed joining me in my BRO experience. Good luck to everyone participating in BRO overDress and I’ll see you all in the next article!