Krim's GA Blog

Hey guys, ready to recap Worlds now that I've finally gotten to unwind at home after such a long and fun event. I had bought Worlds tickets when they first dropped and intended to enter with people I joined Grand Archive with back then. Alas, things happened and I was the only one left playing. Thus, I had resigned myself to not going anymore and since I felt very alone in the community, it was a big factor in why I had quit between November-February.  "Peter is the Chaperone" - 6th best GA team in the world! I honestly can’t remember the reason why I came back other than, “it seems fun, so why not?” I’m very glad I did. I ended up becoming much better friends with local players Justin and John, and the former also had teammates drop on him, so he ended up recruiting me to join his Worlds 3v3 team. He thought Luke would also be a great fit. The only impression I had with Luke was from CardArt’s Store Championship in which we were both X-1 and I ended up winning a favorabl...

We last left off on taking a bit of a break from GA. This mostly meant skipping the Final Cut TCG Store Championship as I still attended 4/8 locals before Regionals along with the 2 GA Academy Learn-to-Plays. It was a very difficult decision to skip Final Cut because I knew it would be my last chance to win a Store Championship and that sweet Lurking Assailant. However, a 2+ hour drive on a Sunday and my poor mental state after losing the Sparks SC were enough reasons to make me skip.  Since Day One I brought the so-called "Blog List" to CardArt Sunday and Magitek Wednesday. I wanted to make sure I had enough practice with the deck so that I wouldn't be rusty for Regionals on Saturday. I ended up going 6-0 which was great for the confidence. I wanted to go to Game Kastle Redwood City to try to get a 9-0 sweep of locals for the week and to see some SoCal players, but I decided it would be better to stay home and save my mental energy for the big day. On Thursday night, I d...

Great event, great store, great staff! Hey guys, I wanted to give a little tournament report for the Sparks Store Championship. I was within one throw from getting the job done at VPC, so I figured I should still go to these Store Champs until my hot streak ends. Justin offered to drive John and me, so the Scourge from the South Bay, the Mememeteers, literally the 98 Chicago Bulls' Big 3 if there were 3 Michael Jordans (Jordan's number was 23 btw :)) were headed to Stockton! The tough part about these competitive seasons is that each event happens within a week of each other. That's not enough time to come up with a new idea, explore the matchups, and fine tune it. I was pretty confident that I was just going to run my Wind Allies deck back because it's such a solid list and I feel very comfortable on it. It's really important to know what your gameplan is in every situation and stage of the match and I felt like I understood how to do that on this deck. I asked Jus...

Christian is the true Allies master I've basically been grinding Allies decks exclusively since the ALC season started. I was always impressed with the decks, but realized it takes a certain level of technical skill and a solid game plan to truly succeed with them, so I avoided playing it in competition during FTC. Even for a so-called "easy" deck like Wind Allies, I've found I was able to still put a lot of thought into my plays and have seen great players able to demonstrate their skill with the deck. I've also grown to truly enjoy and appreciate playing Allies mirrors because you can grind with your opponent until an endgame where the winner is finally decided by who drew better, and you can tell if you were equal in skill with your opponent or not. A mistake in an Allies vs. Allies matchup usually leads to a blowout. If you have ever played Chess and watched the advantage meter move one way or the other when a move is made, that's how I feel when I make pl...