Hey everyone, this is The_SynchroGuy, and I’m here to share with you something that happened a few weeks ago. You see, I was taking part in one of the beta tests for Cimo’s monthly Patreon tournament (and if you’ve seen his videos like the Progression series, History of Yugioh, or Sealed Only Showdown, it’s no surprise that I’m one of his Patreon supporters). It was a fun tournament that had some good duels, and some that really challenged me. But the finals though, that was a really fun and memorable moment, especially how it ended, so I thought I would share that moment with you guys. If you read the title, which I’m assuming you did, then you know that when it was time for the finals, it was me vs MBT!
(Also, be sure to check out MBT if you haven’t already. Link to his channel here: https://youtube.com/c/MBTYuGiOh)
I can tell this was going to be fun. Especially because in the top 4 match, he beat the guy that was the only undefeated player in the tournament. I didn’t know what to expect, but I felt confident with my deck and my skills. It was time to duel!
Game 1
(Real quick, I am playing Tri-Brigade Zoodiac in this duel.)
I won the rock paper scissors and elected to go first. I wasn’t sure what MBT was playing, but I felt pretty comfortable with my starting hand. My hand consisted of: Pot of Desires, Imperial Order, Solemn Strike, Ash Blossom, and a Zoodiac Thoroughblade. I started off by activating Pot of Desires in order to get more options available to me. Unfortunately, I didn’t get the ideal draws I wanted to see. I drew into a Tri-Brigade Kit and an Effect Veiler. However, I still felt confident with what I had. I didn’t do much after that but set my Kit, Strike and Order before ending my turn. (Looking back at this, I probably was able to make my ideal first turn board, but didn’t see it at the time. Oh well.)
On MBT’s turn, he Normal Summoned Diviner of the Herald and attempted to activate its effect, but I chained my Effect Veiler in an attempt to stop it. He then tried to stop my counter by chaining Herald of the Orange Light (at that point, I figured out he was playing Drytron), but I met it head on with my Solemn Strike. With that, his Diviner ended up getting negated by my Effect Veiler. After that, he tried to make his play go through by activating Drytron Nova, which automatically gets met by my Imperial Order. He then decided to try and beat over my set Kit with his Diviner, which caused him to lose 500 LP. After that, he passed.
During my turn, I immediately had to pay the 700 LP for my Order’s maintenance cost. From there, I used my Kit to make Salamangreat Almiraj, which triggered my Kit’s effect since she was sent to the GY. I used her effect to send a Tri-Brigade Nervall and activate its effect to search, but before I could do that, MBT automatically surrendered. (Man, let me combo off first!) With that, I take the lead!
Score: 1-0
Game 2
MBT chose to go first this time. I felt good though as my starting hand consisted of: Tri-Brigade Revolt, Skull Meister, Infinite Impermanence, Pot of Desires, and a Kit. Anyway, MBT started by activating Cyber Emergency and searcheed out a Drytron Alpha Thuban. He then activated his Alpha’s effect, tributing a Drytron Gamma Eltanin in order to special summon the Alpha and search out a Cyber Angel Benten. He then activated Gamma’s effect to tribute the Benten and special summon the Gamma onto the field. Since Benten was tributed, he tried to activate Benten’s effect, but then I chained to it with Skull Meister to attempt to negate his search, only to have my card be met with an Orange Light. (Darn it.)
With his search, he went and added the Diviner. Then he used his two Drytron monsters to Xyz Summon into Drytron Mu Beta Fafnir and activated its effect to mill a Drytron card. (Now in hindsight, I should’ve activated my Impermanence here, but opted to save it for the Diviner.) He sends Drytron Delta Altais to the GY and then activates the Ritual Spell, Meteonis Drytron. He used one of Fafnir’s Xyz Materials as the cost for the tribute and summoned out the Benten. He then used the GY effect of Meteonis to add it back to his hand and then activated Delta’s effect, tributing the Benten and getting a draw by revealing the Meteonis he had in his hand. With his Benten tributed once again, he adds Cyber Angel Idaten.
He then finally summoned the Diviner and activated its effect, which got met by my Impermanence. But that was fine for him as he still had plays he could do. He activates Meteonis once again, using Fafnir’s other Xyz Material to summon out the Idaten from his hand. And with Idaten’s effect, he got to add back the Meteonis, which he then uses again, tributing his Delta, in order to summon back the Benten. With his two Cyber Angel monsters, he Xyz Summons into Beatrice, Lady of the Eternal.
With his Beatrice, he sends a copy of Eva to the GY, activating its effect to banish his Benten and Orange Light to search and add another copy of Orange Light and Diviner (basically, he’s making sure he has a negate available for my turn).
Now this is where I didn’t see this next play coming. He uses both this Diviner and Fafnir to Link Summon into Predaplant Verte Anaconda!
With the effect of his Anaconda, he sends Red-Eyes Fusion to the GY and sends both Red-Eyes Black Dragon and Dark Magician to summon the infamous Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon! After which, he passed his turn to me.
(Well this is going to be very interesting for me to deal with, I thought.) I drew for turn and it was another copy of Tri-Brigade Revolt. Not exactly what I wanted to see, and I needed to do something or else I was screwed. I activated Pot of Desires, which MBT let through, and drew into a Zoodiac Ratpier and Fantastical Dragon Phantazmay (which was not helpful in my current situation). Again though, I had to do something. I normal summoned Kit, used her as Link material to make Almiraj, activated Kit’s effect to send Nervall and added Tri-Brigade Kerass to my hand.
I used Kerass’s effect to pitch the Ratpier to special summon him out and then tried to use his effect to summon out a Link-3 monster, but MBT knew the perfect timing to hit me and activated Dragoon’s effect to negate my Kerass. And for some reason, I panicked a bit and activated Almiraji’s effect to protect my Kerass from being destroyed, but its effect still got negated. After that, I set my two copies of Revolt and passed.
Now see, this is where I should’ve let my Kerass get destroyed. During MBT’s turn, he Normal Summoned Diviner and used her effect to send Elder Entity N’tss to pop one of my Revolts. (Even if I chose to activate it, I wouldn’t have been able to summon out my Tri-Brigade Shuraig the Ominous Omen since I only had 3 monsters I could summon at the moment, and I doubted he would just negate it knowing that piece of info too.)
He then popped my Kerass with Dragoon’s effect, used his Anaconda and Beatrice to make Knightmare Unicorn and activated its effect to try and shuffle back my other Revolt. I chained to it with my Phantazmay, followed by activating my Revolt, which he negated by using Dragoon’s effect. However, I thought by summoning out my Phantazmay, I could possibly keep myself alive, but in the moment, I forgot he could use Dragoon’s pop effect twice. So he popped my Phantazmay and swung in for game with all of his monsters.
Score: 1-1
Game 3
It all came down to this moment. After this, someone was gonna be declared the winner. And you can bet I had my sights set on winning this! I chose to go first, and my opening consisted of: Nervall, Kerass, Kit, Imperm, and a Shared Ride. I started off by using Kerass’s effect to pitch the Kit in order to special summon it. I then triggered Kit’s effect to send Nervall and add a Tri-Brigade Fraktall to my hand. I then use the effect of Kerass to summon Tri-Brigade Ferrijit the Barren Blossom (that was another misplay on my part as I should have gone for Tri-Brigade Bearbrumm the Rampant Rampager). I used Ferrijit’s effect to summon out Fraktall and then use all 3 of my monsters to summon Apollousa, Bow of the Goddess.
I then activated Ferijit’s effect to draw a card (where if it was Barren Blossom instead, I could’ve gotten myself the Revolt). I drew into Imperial Order and thought this was perfect as I now can shut down a good majority of his plays. So I kept the Order and put the Nervall on the bottom of my deck. I then set my Order, Imperm, and Shared Ride before passing.
MBT attempted to start his turn by activating Drytron Nova, which I chained Order to and thought, “this is perfect. I’ve got this in the bag.” Then he chained Twin Twister.
(Dang it!) He discards the Alpha in his hand and targets my Order and one of my set cards. Fortunately for me, he hit my set Shared Ride, which I immediately activated. With the chain fully resolved, his Nova got to go through and he summoned out a Gamma. He then tried to activate the effect of Alpha from his GY by tributing the Drytron Zeta Aldhibah that he had in his hand. Looking back at this, I probably should’ve let the Alpha go through, but opted to negate it with my Apollousa. He then goes into the Battle Phase and attacks over my Apollousa with his Gamma.
During his Main Phase 2, he used the effect of Zeta to tribute his Gamma, summoning it out and then adding Meteonis to his hand. And because he searched and added a card to his hand, I got to draw a card thanks to the effect of my Shared Ride. He then activated Gamma’s effect, tributing the Zeta and summoning out both itself and Alpha. He then used those two to make Fafnir. He activated Fafnir’s effect, but this time I activated my set Imperm to negate it, which hurt him quite a bit. With his combo play interrupted, he went for the only other play he could make. He normal summoned an Eva and used it to make a Linkuriboh, and then used both it and Fafnir to make Verte Anaconda and summon out Red-Eyes Dark Dragoon. After that, he ended his turn.
I drew for turn and this was not looking good for me. Especially since my hand was only a Fire Formation – Tenki and an Ash Blossom & Joyous Spring. If MBT knew what my hand was, all he had to do was negate the Tenki and then I’m SOL. But if I didn’t do something then I’m dead. So I figured, if I’m dead either way, I might as well go for it.
I activated Tenki and…he let it go through. (Woo!) And thinking back on it, he didn’t know what my other card was, so he figured that if I drew into a Tri-Brigade monster and he chose to negate my Tenki, then I could go into Shuraig and banish his Dragoon. If that happened, then he would be SOL.
Anyway, as to what I searched with my Tenki, I couldn’t go for a Tri-Brigade monster, knowing what my other card in hand was, so I decided to get Thoroughblade. I then normal summoned it and used it to Xyz Summon into Zoodiac Boarbow and immediately went into my Battle Phase. I could’ve attacked him directly to get more damage in, but didn’t want to have this Anaconda sticking around, so I elected to attack over it instead. I then went into my Main Phase 2 and used my Boarbow to go into Tigermortar, then Chakanine, and finally into Divine Arsenal AA-ZEUS – Sky Thunder!
I thought about passing my turn with just that, but next turn he would just use Dragoon’s pop effect to pop my Zeus, so I decided to activate my Zeus’s effect now. He then chains to it with Dragoon’s negation effect, discarding the Meteonis in his hand. I then chained to it by activating Zeus’s effect again (no hard once per turn clause on this guy). As the chain resolved, I got rid of his Dragoon, but his Dragoon’s negation effect still went through and destroyed my Zeus. At this point, we went into a top decking war. We both had 1 card in hand, and neither one of us had any cards on the field. The first one to establish their main combo play successfully will win the duel. I passed my turn.
MBT draws for turn and activates Cyber Emergency. I then chained to it with my Ash Blossom and successfully negated it. After that, he ended his turn. This was my chance. All I had to do was draw into a Tri-Brigade monster and victory would be mine! I drew for turn and saw that I had drawn into a…Revolt.
(No! Bad timing. Bad timing!!) It was okay though. With it, should he be able to make a play, I could use this to disrupt him by summoning out Shuraig and banish his card. Plus, since I’ll be summoning back a Nervall, I would be able to search out a Tri-Brigade monster. Which means, on my next turn, I had game. I set the Revolt and passed.
MBT drew for turn and activates Drytron Nova and summons out Delta. This was my moment. If I don’t activate my Trap now, he was gonna be able to combo off. I activated my Trap, summoned Shuraig, banished his monster, and won the duel!…
Or, that’s what I hoped would happen. Shortly after I activated my Revolt, he chained Ghost Bell & Haunted Mansion.
If I could describe that moment, it would be something like this:
(The one getting blasted was me at that moment.)
With my Revolt negated, MBT was able to go full combo without any interruption and established a board that consisted of: 2x Fafnir, a Beatrice, and Drytron Meteonis Draconids. With all four of his monsters, he attacked me directly for game.
Score: 1-2
Conclusion
So close! I was so close! But, that’s Yu-Gi-Oh! for you. I, no doubt, made some misplays that probably cost me the match. Still though, it was fun nonetheless. I gave it my all and did the best that I could do. And that last game was so intense, I couldn’t stop laughing about how fun that was. No one knew what was gonna happen. It could’ve gone either way. However, luck seemed to have favored MBT that time around. I’ll get my revenge on him though. I will not let this end with him getting the one up on me!
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post! Again, this duel was just so much fun that I wanted to share it with everyone. Let me know in the comments what you thought of this! Did you like it? If so, would you like to make more like this in the future? If you didn’t like it though, let me know what it was that you didn’t like so I can work on it in the future. I would love to hear your thoughts!
I’ll see you guys in the next one! Hope you have/had an awesome day today!