Water has the goods to nab a top spot. There's an absence of civ hate for it, it has some legs versus blocker hate, solid matchup versus all the other mono-decks (with Darkness and Light being particularily annoying), great matchups versus the current top contenders, more draw power, more Liquid People, ways to deter a Ballom drop, can survive not casting its spells versus Alcadeias--especially if the players has ways to draw from creatures other than Hulcus and some bounce creatures, and annoyances in unblockables--chiefly Lancer. It does have a potentially horrific matchup versus HH if the Water player is not running enough bounce like Paladin.

I won't be surprised if the following decktypes make a top 5 finish (NOT IN ANY ORDER):

Mono-Water

Water/Nature splash

Darkness/Fire/Water--very underestimated. I would have run a D/F/W deck at some of the events at SoCal if I could attend.

Fire/Water--not Rush but removal and draw aka Control

Hydro Hurricane

Darkness/Water/Light

Darkness/Water

Darkness/Nature

I'll be shocked if any of the following decks win:

Diamond Cutter

Any Rush without fatties/mana gain/draw power

Any completely mono-deck other than Water

I'll put my money on a Control-style deck taking top honors.

and think about it, despite all the nerfing done to blue cards it is still the best all around civ...

Well, with 12 people, there was no real meta. However, amidst all the people at Gen Con, few people ran evo hate like pouch shell or corile, and so Fighter Dual Fang and Paladin, as well as Lancer and Barkwhip, overran the area. Two brothers ran these decks, one spashing T pit, one splashing Holy Awe. Surprisingly, i lost vs. both of these guys 2-1, but they unfortunately had to play each other in the finals, and so i got to play only one of them. What was even weirder was that Terror Pit did better over Holy Awe, something that most of the people didnt expect.

And cecill's prediction/wish/w/e you wanna call it did come true-Merfolk did do well. I ran it with Marinomancer and emeral (wish i had used corile instead of marino, but too late now) and got 2nd.

What's more is that about 3 decks (including me) ran Lost Soul, and it turned out to be very useful. It wasnt always helpful though, as it showed up at the wrong time very often.

Congratulations Mohammed...any chance you could release your deck list...I like to see lists of winning decks...

CONGRATS MOHAMMED1111! :) Realms folk are nearly owning these Championships--coming just a tiny bit short of first. But, one of us will place 1st next time! Muahahaha! When Knives told me about your deck, I knew it would place. LOL. :)

Very weird deck environment it seems. So, did a Water/Nature win? And, btw, I am so happy that you ran Merfolk and placed 2nd. So happy. I've been running Merfolk, Ultimate Force and Lost Soul in my decks since Indy. I had a feeling some of those cards would be worth re-examining and decking. With Emeral Merfolk is great draw power.

On a side note, 12 people as a turnout is disappointing. I really hope this game picks up--that Origins 2005 sees at least 50 players. I wonder if anyone got a top 4 decklist. Wizards doesn't report the events. Ah, I really hope someone got lists because like zip was said about Origins--do we even know what deck won there lol--and only the stuff I reported about Indy was available.

Thanks everyone. Ill probably release the decklists of the decks by Tuesday-Wednesday. Monday ill be flooding with homework, so i wont be online the whole day.

I hope one of us wins next time. Anyway, i lost to Water/Nature w/Pit Splashed (seems like all good winning decks have been running pit). It was close, and i would have won had these guys come earlier. Their surprise jump on the tourny gave them a good advantage.

Also, UDE owned this Con. 1/8 or more of the area was given to YGO alone, and VS had a lot of area too. They also had the Shaman King Demo, which i must say was a very good experience, as the game is very original. Wizards on the other hand had to many games to deal with, and had a small section to demo 4-6 games. Also, as usual, Magic was pretty big. There unhinged tourny generated more than 20 people per day.

I really hope Wizards changes its look/objectives with Duel Masters and tries to increase its popularity some more. I hope they can balance it out, not burn out the games popularity, but not make it too slow so everyone leaves either.

WATER/NATURE OWNS ALL!!!!!!! I knew it was the winner. It got some things in Shadowclash, and most importantly, no hate that it can't work around. We won't be rid of the build anytime soon it seems--yaay for W/N lovers--like me! I'm obssessed, what can I say.

Great, you got the decklists. You're wonderful! Post them up somewhere then I'll put them on the front page of DMRealms. If you write a summary of the meta I'll post that on the front page too (won't change anything you write--just reposting it for the news). I wonder if the winner used Paladin and if focus was on Lancer over Fighter or if they were equals. I'm also wondering how much of the new set worked it's way into the winning builds. My current W/N is a bit different from what I ran at Indy--trying out Torcon, Jolter--really it's a mess of shield triggers. Anyway, I digress but just wanted to say that I'm digging some of the shield trigger creatures and wonder how many found their way into the top decks, especially in my fav decktype (because deciding between Jolter and Solider kinda depends on the meta--wonder what the winner chose).

Yeah, the YGO Championship event received 309 players!! I really wanted to compete in that event too. UDE pours a lot into their games--the whole setup. Wizards does for Magic, DM still in its infancy. I have high hopes for iDM's representation at Origins. It's starting to pick up a bit of steam in my area. new store I go to has some of my 'old crew' coming regularily. I really want this game to be huge on the local and national level.

Oh, Shaman King sounds interesting. I hope it's good. I'm going to hold back on getting into any new games for a while. I've heavily invested in Inuyasha (which has some 'broken-ness' already), YGO & Pokemon (both which are huge in my area), and DM (but I get a lot of product for cheap or free). Just don't want to get let down in terms of gameplay/player base for Shaman King.

Im happy as well that Water/Nature won Gen Con, and im wondering the same questions as Cecillbill, i have been testing Torcon out lately but to tell the truth he never really made that big of an Impact in playtesting since he never came up as a Shield Trigger, and when played he was only a threat due to the fact that a possible Barkwhip was lying and waiting.

I havent played Jolter yet since for this simple reason...i dont have any...lol. Anyways depending on my meta, ST Creatures have done good at times, cause they seemed to come up in vital situations (how come i dont have lucky like that :() but i can see Jolter seeing some play in the near future, since Mono-Blue is kinda detering away from the blocker heavy builds due to vast blocker hate roaming around lately and they could always use an extra Liquid Person for Lancer...

All in all, glad to see W/N win once again...:)

Hey, I think I met some of you on this forum. Mohamed1111, I played in the second round of the Top 4. Also this other guy Josh that ran mono-black. The showing at Gencon DM championship was kinda disappointing. My main priority at the event was to play the VS 10k, however I didn't feel that I had enough practice against that meta so I choose to play DM. I'm kinda surprised that Mohamed1111 was the kid I played, I think I tried to trade with him before.

Oh yeah, BTW that guy that you thought was my "brother," was just a friend that came with me to Anahiem. Kevin, should've beaten me, and he should've taken 1st, and I should've taken 2nd. However they wanted a Top 4 single elimination. The night before when we played we were 50/50. But I know that my deck only does about 40/60 to his deck for various reasons.

This is LifeStream from the So Cal Gen Con event. If any you attended the Saturday and Sunday Contructed events you may remember me. I was the kid took 3rd on Saturday and 1st on Sunday. I ran a Blue-Green Control. I came with unsunghero the guy who took first on saturday.

On Saturday I ended the tournament in 3rd place with a 11-3 record. 5 matches won and 1 lost. What i didn't understand was how could the tournament could suddenly switch from swiss to single elimination. I was undefeated at the end of swiss. Afterwards we were put through the single elimination where I had to play my friend again where i lost the match 1-2 causing me to fall to 3rd place. Thus moving him into the Championship game where he won the trophy. What was intersting in the tournment was that i had won against both players in the Championship during the swiss portion of the tournament.

On Sunday I won 1st. Nothing else.

If you have any questions of me and my deck. Ask away. As long as its not "Can you post your decklist?"

If there is anyone interested in Challenging me and my friend, come play at World of Books in San Leandro, CA. Message me at a2nSt3r3oTyP3 on AOL instant Messenger.

Lifestream I played you in the Sunday event. You beat me by putting two Holy Awes in your shields. I made second place in that event with a Water/Darkness that I am still tweaking.

I did horrible at the Sat event though. I totally misjudged the meta lol. I had to go back to my hotel room, and make a good Darkness/Water for the Sunday event.

I disagree with mono-water.

Though water may have both drawing power and field disruption, it lacks speed and efficiency. The field disruption in water is only temporary. The mono-water player only rids of a monster temporary, where i believe is a kind of waste of mana and hand. I have yet to see a mono-water overtake me in a duel.

The color with the most potential in my mind is red. However, red cannot win alone, there must be a mix of colors for structure to create an end advantage for red. I have yet to figure this out. Red is the fastest making it able to destroy the most shields in the beginning, however, it lacks the ability to destroy shields efficiciently in the end. I am currently building a similiar red deck to the one im describing. If you're interested in my progress. ask away. Or better yet message me on a2nSt3r3oTyP3 on AIM. Or come down to World of Books in San Leandro, CA.

I did not win by putting 2 holy awes in my shields. I won due to my deck. Its composed of top decking cards. You may have noticed I always had the right shyt to put down. As if the entire deck was in my hand.

When Gen Con posts my decklist. You may notice that the deck is strange one. Hands suck ###, seriously. I play it i kno. This may contradict the paragraph above, but its true. Decks throw out top decks, all decks throw out top deck cards. Your hands just have to be ready from them. My playing style.

I was just stating how you beat me. I wasn't trying to use the "you had two Holy Awes" as an excuse for losing. And yes you did say how you made the deck for topdecking. It had Paladins, Holy Awes, Nexus, etc, etc. Lots of good stuff to topdeck with.