Hi amigos, today I have the opportunity to interview the 4th Place team for the Bushiroad Spring Fest 2022 Premium event at Rosemont, IL! They are Ross, Jerry, and Eduardo! Let’s dive into it!
Interview
Team Name: Carnivore Wasps
Teammate A’s name: Eduardo Gonzalez (Not Available for this interview)
Teammate B’s name: Jerry Brock (aka One Pass on TCGplayer)
Teammate C’s name: Ross Rizzo (aka Duke Cardfight)
Jaime: First off, congratulations to Carnivore Wasps for 4th Place overall at the Bushiroad Spring Fest 2022 Premium event at Rosemont, IL! Today I wanted to do an interview with you amigos about your overall experience and even get to know you a little bit for the readers. Sounds good y’all?
All: Yes absolutely, thank you for having us!
Jaime: Tell us a little about yourselves. Where are you from? Are you from any specific Vanguard teams/communities? Any other events that you and/or team have done well? Etc.
Jerry: I’m from the southside of Chicagoland, and I don’t belong to any Vanguard communities. I also haven’t really played in anything bigger than a local ever.
Ross: I’m from Illinois. I’m not really from any specific community, the last shop I used to go to was a place called Top Cut in Rockford, IL before the pandemic. I last did well in the Chicago event back in August of 2019 with Giraffa going 6-3 and ranking in the top 40, still proud of that.
Jaime: Always a good thing to be proud of past accomplishments. During your preparation, what are some things that you mainly focused on? Certain matchups, deck builds, strategies, etc.
Jerry: In preparation for the event I mainly focused on the deck build and knowing my deck as well as I could. I didn’t know the specifics of the top decks in the format outside of their names.
Ross: I only focused on making sure I was comfortable with my deck while getting prepared for BSF. I wasn’t too concerned about certain matchups. I just went to have fun with my team was all there is to it.
Deck Lists:
Deck Logs:
Jerry: https://decklog-en.bushiroad.com/view/GWMN
Ross: https://decklog-en.bushiroad.com/view/H7A6
Jaime: Wow, you guys really just focused on optimizing the decks that you enjoy and ran with it. Awesome, let’s dive into your deck lists. With these builds, what were your Winning Images for most of your games? Like did you have a setup, game state, or strategy that you focused on?
Jerry: I would say that the focus of the Spino deck was to rush early and steal games. In a best-of-one format, I was aiming to catch people off guard and kill on the first stride or leave them in a state of high damage and low resources so they couldn’t mount a counterattack.
The main strategy was to kill with Nebiros, so that meant the whole deck was focused on being able to do his restanding skill as consistently as possible.
Ross: The focus I had was to search out my Giraffa parts as early as possible to deck thin and get a bigger hand size. I also just wanted to make sure I kept control of the game while stunning as many of my opponent’s cards as possible and being as aggressive as possible.
Jaime: Great, can you elaborate more on why you came to those choices/ratios for your lists? Feel free to beak it down by Grades or groups of cards, which ever makes more sense for your decks.
Jerry: The biggest thing standing out about the deck list was the fact that I was playing 4 copies of Spinodriver as my main grade 3, but no other grade 3s as a backup. I was playing the heal guardian but riding it was never considered a real option. Another big deckbuilding choice was that the whole deck was live turn 1. I wasn’t running any Generation Break effects so no matter what pieces I had, I could call my hand and start pressuring my opponent.
Ross: I was running only 7 G3s so I can make more wiggle room in my g2/g1 lineup so I can try to rush and pressure my opponent in the early game. I was running 11 crits and 1 OT to make sure I had a higher chance of closing the game quick.
Jaime: Wow, literally steal games with rushing! Love it! During your games, which decks/clans did you face? How were your personal records?
Jerry:
Game 1: Overlord W
Game 2: Bigbelly W
Game 3: Dudley W
Game 4: Granblue W
Game 5: Granblue W
Top 8: Jewel Knights W
Semifinal: Nightmare dolls W
Final: Nightmare dolls L
Ross:
Round 1, Dolls
Round 2, tachikaze
Round 3, Vanquisher
Round 4, Raging form
Round 5, Vanquisher
Round 6, Chronofang
Round 7, Granblue
Round 8, Ordercolony
My personal record was 4-4. some of the matchups were a lot tougher than I thought they would be.
Jaime: Was there a game you would like to highlight? Like your toughest matchup, best game, break or deal moments, etc.
Jerry: Round 4 against Granblue, we went to time and my opponent misplayed their kill turn, I had never seen the deck play out but I did know there was combo kill turn that involved the high power dragon. I lived, and my opponent decked out giving me the game.
I bring this up because the next round was against Granblue again and this opponent didn’t misplay. I had seen their kill turn this time so I was able to guard correctly and I lived.
Also, I miracle healed in the semifinals and killed my Nightmare doll opponent on the crackback, even though my team lost that round anyway.
Ross: That’s a tough one to answer. If I really had to pick one match up I’d say the Granblue one. We both played the g2 game, I was sitting on a 10k vg and all his units were unable to hit, so when he swung with his 9k vg to my 10k I didn’t bother guarding. However, he got a critical trigger and put me from 1 to 3 damage. After that, it was harder to fight off a Bad Bounty turn that ended the game. It was still a great game overall and I hope me and him can play again one day.
Jaime: Wow! Granblue was both your crazy games ha! During your games, what is something that you appreciated about your decks from the preparation you’ve done? The strategy of it, consistency, power, plays, etc.
Jerry: I absolutely loved the consistency of my deck to Nebiros with any hand the deck gave me. Restanding on the first stride with multi attacks felt strong.
Ross: Everything about the deck performed well, from the deck thinning of my Giraffa parts, thanks to Tryghuls top 5 search. To Master Beetle and Machining Armor Beetle skills of stunning in the early game. Both G and V Blisters helping me out of tight spots. I couldn’t
of had asked more from my deck that day and will never regret taking it for the event.
Jaime: That’s awesome, thanks for sharing. After the tournament, did y’all take some time to reflect? Anything that you learned from your experiences?
Jerry: We stood around and patted each other on the back for not scrubbing out and leaving early to get food.
Ross: We were just happy with how well the event went. After getting our certificate we stayed a bit longer and then went home.
Jaime: Glad you guys gave yourselves a pat on the back! Food is always good to have afterward. Awesome! Would you like to do any shout-outs to people that you know and/or have helped you along your journeys?
Jerry: Mostly the third member of our team Eduardo. He helped with the deck build and really cemented the idea of the deck, which was to rush early and steal games before my opponents could put their plays together.
Ross: For starters, you Jaime, you helped me test for this event and gave me some great advice to help me stay focused going into the event and during it. Then the people from Axis Vanguard gave constant support throughout the event, as I gave them updates on how my team and I were doing. Jerry and Ed were both great supporters throughout the event as teammates and friends.
Jaime: That’s all great stuff! Glad to be of help too! I’m always happy to see fellow amigos (close and local) do so well! I’m sure your other friends are happy and excited for your accomplishment too! Just one more question and we’ll be done amigos.
While preparing for your decks, did you use/see any social media to help you solidify your build? Such as blogs, YouTube videos/channels, Facebook, Reddit, etc.
Jerry: None, if you see any halfway decent Tachikaze decklists out there let me know.
Ross: I did not look at any build, websites, or anything like that. My Giraffa deck is built from how I wanted it to run and of my own dedication to the deck after all this time of using it.
Jaime: Wow impressive! Also, there are great Tachikaze deck lists from Tyfyghtr Vanguard! Thanks again for joining me in this interview! I wish you the best and hope to see more from y’all in the metagame! Till next time amigos!
Key Takeaway
Optimizing A Deck You Really Enjoy + Surprise Aggro Factor
It’s really cool to see a team made up of Great Nature, Tachikaze, and Megacolony. During this time people are expecting to see NMD, Regalia, Order Colony, etc. They literally did their best to optimize their favorite clans.
Normally, that isn’t the greatest plan if the decks being used aren’t really well suited for a certain metagame.
However, I believe them having a surprise factor and also a trying-to-steal-games mentality, actually paid off in this team league best-of-one format.
Always evaluate every element for an upcoming event. You may see your key to victory. Also, its stories and Cardfighters like them, help instill more belief onto other aspiring Cardfighters! Thanks to them for making it to 4th place overall!
Final Thoughts
I’m glad that my close amigos did really well. I also was happy to be there to encourage and even take pictures! They have great enthusiasm for the game too.
For those still not sure about attending an in-person event, I highly encourage you to do so. There are a lot of great memories that can be made.
They also did video deck profiles in case you want to see more of their thought process!
Ross (Duke Cardfight) for more Megacolony content:
Commander Jaime’s Social Media: