Gundam NTC Tournaments - What are they and how did my last one go

So this is going to be just off the top of my head no planning of any kind. You might go, well there never is and I like to say there is a general outline normally but not today lol. I want to talk about a year of playing Gundam NTC Tournaments and helping grow the local community and seeing those players do better each week.

So what is an NTC for Gundam? Well it is a step up from a Weekly Tournament. You don’t need judges but one can be on site for the tournament to help with anything happening, we normally don’t have any actively judging but we had one last week cause someone wanted to help out instead of playing, they are a registered judge as well don’t freak out people. The tournament normally has a Winner Alt Art Card, click there to see the current winner card. Then there is a Top Cut Alt Art Card, here is that card. Then there is a Participation Alt Art Card, which can be seen here.

Now normally Top 6 I believe it is gets the top cut card, while the first place player, or winner of the tournament, gets the big prize, and showing up gets you the participation card. These winner prizes as you can see go for a lot of money. And it brings people from outside the normal local scene at the store to the events. I like this, I am one of those players who goes to different stores to play at on these tournaments, cause you get to play against people you normally wouldn’t see and you get to travel a little bit, even if its only like an hour away. Second its a big night for the local community we get to see each other and test our skills against each other, its a lot of fun with that. At locals we tend to mix it up and test decks out more frequently, you can get tired of using the same deck over and over again. But at NTCs we tend to bring our strongest deck out to see how well we crafted the deck and how well we know what to do with the deck as the matches play out.

Now onto my main thing about this, my last NTC I just played at. I won the event shocking myself. I am not going to give out my deck list until after the NTC season since feel like I am the only one doing something with these cards this way. But I will talk about my matches.

First round I played against a friend whose deck he has been working on for a few weeks. He had a Blue Purple Strike Freedom/Tekkadan deck, its a lot of fun cause there is a lot of options you can normally do. It tops out with Strike Freedom. I had the perfect setup for this game, I drew my first hand and the cards I drew made it so I can rush starting on turn 4, and not leave cards on his side of the field, I know this might be boring since I am not saying what I played. Then finished it off using my Boss Unit, which I will say since everyone here knows it, Wing Gundam.

Second round was my other friend who ran Blue Purple Strike Freedom/Tekkadan, if “Raise Your Flag” doesn’t play in your head its ok I will link it for you. This deck scares me cause my friend normally runs Purple White for a while and I couldnt beat him for a month. Now I did the same thing just rushed him down by turn 6. He had to drop a Widespread Annihilation to clear my board then I just played 2 units, one of them Wing Gundam again. Then he played Lupus to ping off one of my cards, not Wing. I then Linked my second Boss Unit and took game with those 2 units.

Third round was a newer player who just got done getting his second win of their time playing, and I was extremely happy for them and sad cause if my deck worked, and it did, I was worried about crushing their will to play. My deck made it so they couldn’t do anything and turn 6 I had game. They ran Victory/Strike Freedom deck, which is normally really good, a lot of these decks have Strike Freedom in them.

Fourth Round was a good friend of mine who ran Blue Purple. But it wasn’t Strike Freedom/Tekkadan, it was Tekkadan/Victory. We both had a hard fought match going to turn 8 and I ended up pulling the win at the right moment, I believed in the HEART of the CARDS for the win. We were trading back and forth the entire time, but my trades were a lot better. I was taking away their draw engine away as soon as they played it so they couldn’t use it. When we see each other at tournaments we normally have very good matches, and both of us were happy to play each other in the final round.

On a side note two of my friends who I played, ended up playing each other in the Third round. With that I was worried cause if I lost the final I most likely would get dropped out of the top cut since one of them won and the other lost. The way the tie brakers work in this game is weird.

But that is how my my last NTC went and what they are. I really enjoy this game cause every few months a new set comes out and you have to rethink how you play, and if you don’t you fall behind.