Trials of the Zodiac Braves: Trial 4 - Mateus

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Greetings! This past weekend our fourth Trial of the season, Mateus, was hosted at Anime Imports, giving us a chance to once again come out to Pacifica and join our awesome San Francisco community. Twenty-one players participated and we were happy to welcome Noah S. and Alson W., who both made their Zodiac Circuit debuts! We also welcome back Jason H. and Russell P. who returned to the circuit after some time away. Also a special welcome to newcomers Jeffrey T. and Jimmy J. who participated in the All-Star Draft side event.



This was our last event in the Opus VII meta, so we were very excited to see what decks everyone brought to win it all. While the last event held at Anime Imports saw a huge majority of Earth decks, there was a wide array this time around. Earth/Wind, Mono Water variants, Ice/Fire, Mono Fire, Warrior of Light, Mono Wind, Mono Ice, Lightning/Ice, Mono Earth, and Scions were among some of the decks our players brought.


After 3 rounds of very competitive swiss, we found 4 familiar players at the top 2 tables by round 4. Bryan ("Blue") Lue  vs. Brian Gerbi and Peter Dang vs. Nghia Tran. These players were among the group that participated at the Dark Crystal Cup and North American Championship in 2018 and are considered strong competitors and mainstays of the NorCal community. Blue and Gerbi fought it out in a Mono Water battle of different philosophies. Gerbi's deck was more standard, featuring Vikings, Knights, and other commonly seen Water cards. Blue's deck was a "big" Water deck that contained Refia, Arcanist, and no Vikings. Peter piloted his Earth/Wind deck against Nghia's Fire/Ice deck that saw a 2nd place finish at Trial #3 last month. Nghia pulled off the win against a highly unfavorable Earth/Wind matchup and delivered Peter his first loss of the day. Blue was able to take down Gerbi after a long, grindy match and was the last undefeated player.


 

After all 5 rounds of Swiss concluded, the top 8 players and matchups were as follows:

Blue (1) [Mono Water] vs. David B. (8) [Ice/Lightning]

Brian G. (2) [Mono Water] vs. Michael Mamon (7) [Mono Wind]

Shawn O. (3) [Mono Earth] vs. Nghia T. (6) [Fire/Ice]

Peter D. (4) [Earth/Wind] vs. Michael Morgan (5) [Mono Fire]

Nghia with his Fire/Ice deck was the first to proceed to the semifinals after triumphing over Shawn's Mono Earth deck 2-0. Peter and Michael Morgan faced off again after Peter narrowly won their previous match 7-6 in the 2nd round of Swiss. The games went in similar fashion as Swiss, with Peter playing a timely Shantotto after accumulating heavy damage. Peter was then able to stabilize and control the board, even capping off his match against Michael with Dadaluma after Dadaluma and reaching 3 Cactuars on board. Gerbi was able to take down Michael Mamon after a long, hard-fought match with his huge Knights and replaying Cagnazzo multiple times in a turn, proving devastating. David pulled off an upset as the 8th seed and took down Blue with his pet Ice/Lightning deck--a top-decked Shiva and Serah combo sneaked out a win!


The top 4 semifinals played out like this:

Brian G. (2) [Mono Water] vs. Nghia T. (6) [Fire/Ice]

David B. (8) [Ice/Lightning] vs. Peter D. (4) [Earth/Wind]

A star-studded top 4 with familiar names to top cuts!

David took an early advantage of Peter not drawing any forwards and won a quick game 1. Peter struck back in game 2 by decimating David's hand with his Zidane backed up by Chaos, Walker of the Wheel and Carbuncle, and then proceeded to control the board with Dadaluma + Cactuar. David rushed Peter down in game 3 with 5 points of unanswered damage from Angeal Penance and Illua. Peter was able to stabilize with Y'shtola, Dadaluma, Cecil, Zidane, and Wol on board. However, David dove for the win by casting a Shiva with Terra on board to attempt to dull 3 forwards. Peter canceled 2 of the dulls from Shiva with Y'shtola, but the Terra still dulled 1 from the cast. David then dropped a timely Serah and dulled 4 more characters for a total of 5 dulled forwards for the turn. He  then gave his Serah haste with his Lightning backup and also attacked with his on-board Emperor for the win!


Nghia was able to take a quick victory in game 1 by rushing Gerbi down before he was able to stabilize. Aigis/Sol, Shelke + Fritt/Warrior of Light/Sol proved to be devastating combos to accumulate quick, early damage. Game 2, Gerbi was on the backfoot at 6 damage, but was able to stall out and have a huge board with over 7 forwards. Game 3 followed suit as game 2 and Gerbi was able to defeat Nghia with an army of Knights, Vikings, and Cagnazzo protecting Gerbi at 6 damage.

After a long day, we had our finalists!

Brian G. (2) [Mono Water] vs. David B. (8) [Ice/Lightning]

Gerbi took a quick victory in game 1 by doing what Mono Water does: he reached critical mass and took over the board after a Cagnazzo clear and flooded with Knights, Vikings, Lenna, and Cloud of Darkness. David took back the second game with early aggression and then locked Gerbi out with an array of dulls. Game 3 went the way of Game 1 and we had our champion...Brian Gerbi!

Our side event was All-Star Draft with 6 players participating. Our next Side Quest will also be All-Star Draft, so we hope to see everyone there!



Congratulations to Gerbi for winning the entire event. He is no stranger to being a champion, but this is only his second event attended this season. He has managed to get 2nd and 1st at those events and those points have catapulted him into 1st on the leaderboard for Season 5. Congratulations to hometown hero David for reaching his first ever finals and having a very strong tournament overall. Congratulations to everyone else who topped as well and thanks to everyone who participated. We hope you had fun! Special thanks to Jared for running a smooth event and to Anime Imports for hosting.  An additional thank you to our Sacramento crowd for making the long drive to Pacifica!  For anyone in the area, check out the starter-deck tournament they are hosting up there next month, something fun for both new and experienced players! (Check the Facebook Bay Area page for a post by Russell P. and more information coming soon.)

As is tradition, our NorCal FFTCG crew had our family dinner after the event. We opted for burgers and beers at Devil's Slide Taproom this time around. Great food, inside jokes, intellectual discussion, degenerate discussions about anime personalities, and more!


There are only 2 more Trials left this season before the Championship. Come on out so you can earn points and make a push for Top 12 (and earn white deckboxes!), or even Top 4 for the coveted first round bye. There's been a different champion at each event. Will you be the next one? Will you be one of the Zodiac Braves? We'll find out next time!

Below are the Top 8 standings and decklists:

1st Place
Player Name: Brian Gerbi
Deck Name: Water Stuff
Deck Type: Mono Water

Forwards (26)
Backups (16)
Summons (6)
Monsters (2)

Semifinalist
Player Name: Peter Dang
Deck Type: Earth/Wind

Forwards (19)
Backups (19)
Summons (9)
Monsters (3)

Semifinalist
Player Name: Nghia Tran
Deck Name: Icy Hot
Deck Type: Fire/Ice

Forwards (27)
Backups (14)
Summons (9)
Monsters (0)

Quarterfinalist
Player Name: Bryan Lue
Deck Type: Mono Water

Forwards (24)
Backups (18)
Summons (8)
Monsters (0)

Quarterfinalist
Player Name: Shawn O'Looney
Deck Type: Mono Earth

Forwards (21)
Backups (17)
Summons (10)
Monsters (2)

Quarterfinalist
Player Name: Michael Morgan
Deck Name: Look at me go fast Daddy!
Deck Type: Mono Fire

Forwards (24)
Backups (18)
Summons (7)
Monsters (1)

Quarterfinalist
Player Name: Mike Mamon
Deck Type: Mono Wind

Forwards (26)
Backups (18)
Summons (6)
Monsters (0)

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