Tales from a Sneak Preview probably not near you

Recently I attended the sneak preview for Starstrike Blast, and it was pretty entertaining. One of the cool things that I like about the sneak previews is the number of players who don’t regularly go to tournaments.

This time around it was a bit odd to not really know anyone at my local for the first time in years. My local does things strictly by how Konami wants it done. For the most part the name of the game is getting 5 packs, opening them, building 20-card decks, playing and trading. What usually ends up happening is players play a few matches and then just stick to trading.

What I like about the non-usuals is that they actually play the matches, and enjoy the event rather than using it as a buffer for their collections. I won’t say though that I don’t try and get good deals at sneaks because that is just part of the game, but I do not try and rip people off. One of the problems with this sneak preview was the lack of good cards pulled, just in general.

The overall event was fun. One of the cool things was playing the matches, it’s just not something that happens too often anymore, unless you find a store running an old school sneak preview tournament. One of the fun things about deck building in this format is using card combos to overcome big monster. I played a few games where my Power Giant got ran over due to some cards my opponent set-up.

I’ve never had a problem with deck-building this time around. Even if you pull a bunch of archetype specific cards with very few related monster, the cards are still usable due to the 20 card format. There are some disadvantages though as players with good pulls (and in tournament’s players who cheat) can make the format hard.

Although we weren’t required to play, I definitely had some all-stars in my 20-card deck.



It’s sad that most of these cards wont see the light of day outside of the random fun time at the sneak preview, but I guess that’s how the game works. Maybe at some point I’ll make a casual deck based on what I felt were the key cards that I used, but for competitive play and even at locals, I can’t see myself using most of the stuff.

Anyway I feel like I’m killing the mood with all of that kind of talk.

Until next time, don’t cramp my style.

~E.P.B.