When was the last time Victory was achieved?

                 Damn it's been a long time since the last time I achieved something in life. My life is pretty much either mediocre or a complete cluster fucked up failure. Either way, this month ends my third semester of my college and 3 more sems to go... I'm still waiting for my results and while hoping for a pass, I started to focus more on developing my business growth on Cardfight Vanguard Stuff. This particular month started off with "Bullshitroad" (Bushiroad) announcing a new fight format called G-Regulation. It's basically telling you to go burn off your old cards because you can't use any of them from the Cross-rides to the Legion era. So I had to make some minor changes on my "Messiah X Deletor deck in order to join the Asia Card Championship 2016 Qualifier match located in almost every card shop in Malaysia.

                  Results: Started off 1st tournament at Littleakiba (my regular shop where all the strongest fighters gathered). Motherfucking tea, I lost the first 2 round (Note: You won't be able to advance to the Qualifier match when the moment u lost 2 rounds and there's only 4 Qualifier spots, 2 Qualifier spots per week). Well that started out great. So on the next day (Saturday), I tried out Decards Centre at Summit USJ (Won the first match, I can see the heavens are smiling upon me today X). Then get crushed on the 2nd and 3rd match. Fuck this shit, I'm out). Another opportunity arrived the day after that (Sunday) for me to grab a Qualifier spot came from another card shop at USJ 9 called "Kardz Collection" (I didn't know this shop existed since they focused on English stocks). So I probably had a wishful thinking that third time's a charm and I went for it. When I entered that shop the first time today, Holy shit the place was huge, enough to host big tournaments and a lot of other events. No wondered they were chosen to host the ACC Qualifier match lol. Anyhow, I saw some familiar faces around and they were pretty strong. But the number of participants weren't much so the stronger ones were cancelling each other out and I was left with the new fighters to play with (oh how I wish they hadn't done that >:) GG, get REKTED!!!!!!). I conquered the whole tournament without losing a single match. And that gets me to represent their shop's champion/ representative for ACC 2016.
                                           

Top 1 and 2

                   Back to topic. I won and after the tournament, I stayed back for a while to discuss a POTENTIAL partnership in the future since the location of their card shop seems good and it's near to a LRT to-be-complete. This could be the start of making Cardfight Vanguard Stuff into a shop while sharing it's good and bad with a business partner. Nothing better to do when I graduate.... So why not put that thought into consideration for next year's resolution :)

                      Oh and I have been thinking about during a deck profile for this post, but the clans hasn't been decided so I might consider about showing you guys my Messiah X Deletor deck build if it work out well in ACC 2016. Thank you for your contribution and stay frosty til then X)

Shit happens right after CNY

        Lately I have been seeing some ffk cases happening right after Chinese New Year... Not sure why it happened but I would probably guessed that some parents wouldn't want their youngsters to spend their ang pau money on cards. Well you can't really blame them because they have their own reasons to think otherwise. This would mean that they'll cancel most of their dealings and then a ffk case begins. Some are just small cases which not much of us would want to spend their time reporting the case but it does cause some signing depression which not many of us would like to have. So here are a few tips on how to avoid ffk cases which I think it might be helpful for you all. I'm pretty sure many of you have heard of these ideas but just to help out in case if you missed out some :)

1. Whenever a buyer wanting to reserve some cards, give them 3-7 days and if they go beyond that, ask them to at least pay a little deposit. within that period, keep in touch with them and see whether is everything fine over their side. Don't leave them be until the deadline for payment because they MIGHT have some minor issues coming up last minute. Simply start a small little chat to see if they're alright.
2. If you have many buyers that wanted the same item but they all say they'll bank in on some time later, you can either A.) Apply the "first come, first serve" basis as in whoever pays the money first, gets the item first or B.) turn it into an auction and start seeing who gives the highest price and the highest bidder gets the item (risks: option B would have a slight chance of ffk occuring so if it does happen, you just move on to the second highest bidder). Do ask why they ffk and hear their reasons, it might be helpful for you in controlling the bidding price in the future.
3. Whenever you got a buyer that offers an odd price for your item (high price, which is a good thing) do ask them for their age and which state they live in. And if they're 12 years old or below, request them to ask their parent's permission and have a little chat with their mother or father to see whether they are really fine with their child buying your item with such a price. (obviously you should try to convince them that your item is good and rare to find (promoting)).
4. If you're not sure whether a buyer is trustable or not (maybe they deposit half of the amount and wanted you to do postage on their item first, and then they'll only bank in their other full amount), you can copy and paste their FB links on the UTCC facebook group to ask whether if they're trustworthy or not (I know most of you did this, but just to leave it out here).
5. When a person is ABOUT to ffk or show signs of their plans to ffk, you know that you don't have to waste your time or persuade them anymore, just make this quick and see whether they want to ffk or not right out straight. You can either A.) Tell them that you have another buyer offering a higher price than his/her price and is planning to bank in today. This can make them decide a little faster and if they do ask for some time to think about it, give them 24 hours (standard). B.) back to Tip 1, ask them to pay a little deposit if they still want to keep the deal going longer.
6. When a person ffk, you can either report them or ask them why and hear their reasons (if they're just trolling around, next time just avoid dealing with them)...
7. If you do plan to meet up with them f2f, obviously ask for their contact info and by right, you should decide the location for the f2f. If they really could not meet f2f and does not know how to do a bank deposit, provide free postage (common courtesy to encourage them on doing a bank deposit) to give them specific instructions on how to do a SIMPLE bank deposit:
ATM deposit:-

step 1: Give them your bank details: Name of the bank, bank account name and bank account number and ask them go to the bank (the bank you specified).
step 2: Stand in line at the "Deposit" machine, NOT ATM machine (huge difference) and (if there is no queue, walk to the front of the machine).
step 3: Press some random buttons and wait for the machine to respond, follow the bank instructions which will lead you to key in the seller's bank account number.
step 4: The deposit machine will confirm with you on the account by showing you the user's bank account name. If it's correct, press "yes" and put in the money.
step 5: wait for the receipt and take a picture of the bank deposit. Send it to the seller to confirm your payment and wait for your item to arrived in 1-4 working days.

Counter deposit (for some reasons you might have sens or RM1-RM9 in you total price, maybe GST???? these are the instruction for them to do a counter deposit):-
step 1: (same as the step:1 from ATM deposit).
step 2: Take a number and have a seat. (if you don't know which button to press for the number, ask the service guy (the person standing in front of the number machine) to help you press the number for cash deposit).
step 3: Wait for your number to be called (while waiting, go to the "fill-up form counter" (the table with lots of paper and pen), take the "cash deposit" form/slip and fill up the seller's bank details.
step 4: When you're called, go to the counter and tell them the seller's bank details / give them the slip that you have filled up and hand over the amount that you wanted to deposit according to the seller's price.
step 5: Take the bank receipt and send a picture of it to the seller for confirmation on your payment and wait for your item to arrive.

I know, these things sound so easy and yet most of you thought that the buyer was trolling with you. (no offence, I thought the same thing at first) But turns out they really don't know how to do a bank deposit and sometimes you just gotta help them. Simply copy and paste these instructions if they really don't know how to do a bank deposit. And if they give some lame excuse like they're lazy, then don't bother meeting up with them (because if they can choose to walk out of the house to meet up with you, by right, going to the bank should be the same amount of effort).

             With all that in mind, I do hope these tips help you in solving some of your major ffk problems and do share some of them here if you think that I might have missed out on some of them. Thank you :)

The Start of 2016 and The End of 2015

           
                 And we're done with 2015. It was a good year and I did a lot of stupid things which gives me more experience. My friends and I opened a booth at Comic Fiesta 2015 and we were able to earn a lot of money out of selling our "doujin" stuff. The only down side was that it was jamming like hell when we're about to leave and we had to stay at my friend's house for both days due to the location setting too far without any cheap public transportation. At least the spacing is better than last year and they had an entire top floor reserved for food vendors which kind of makes it easy for us to eat.

                  As for my new year's resolution, hopefully able to make Anime Access into a company soon and travel to Japan if that chance even exist. I lost some friends and at the same time made new friends, but there were also times when it was hard on me when a family member passed away on my dad's side. Anything else would be to pass my Diploma in Business and make sure I survived a 3 months internship around August. Its all going to be a long way but if I can't accomplished something as simple as that, I don't think I would even need to start wondering about getting a degree.

                  I will still continue blogging, but not as much as last year and probably do a deck profile whenever I got a good deck build in mind. The rest of the year would just be me trying to survive year 2016 and get to WGP on time (arrived late last year). Now if you'll excuse me, I got an essay assignment to complete and a mid-term test I'll need to study for tomorrow. Thank you all for staying and reading this far from the beginning of 2015. Let's hope 2016 to be more awesome than ever :)

 

Quantity or Quality???

         
              You know most of the time when people plans to buy something, they would think whether the object they're buying is worth or not. That's about it.... Nothing much to speculate after that thought and they would commence with their decisions without a second thought.

               I don't think they would put a preference between those two these days since everything's already freaking expensive. Supposedly if there are a few of them, I'll consider myself to be a part of the "quantity" team.... But suppliers these days are offering mostly "quality" and "quantity" would mostly be sold cheap. However, "quantity" are difficult to find and most of the time you have to be able to commit a certain amount of time just to search for it.

                I wouldn't care much of these small aspects in life until something hit me when I realized how weird our "copyright" law works. If you think about it, whenever you wanted to sell something, don't you have to claim copyright or permission first or it'll be illegal? Let's say you wanted to sell some artwork. Most of the time, people will draw their own art, print it out and then sell it. But what if you can't draw? Sure, maybe you could hire an artist to help you draw while you sell them and split some of the revenues to them. But what if you can't find a suitable artist in time and you're really desperate to earn some cash due to a good opportunity coming soon through an event? Isn't the power of internet comes in handy on these desperate times??? I mean what else did google exist for? You can literally just go online and search on google image to see what are the available artworks that can be copied and paste. You can print them out and sell them to earn some money and in what way is this copyright considered that the artist posted their art out to the public. You didn't expect us to just see it and praise you for your work now didn't you??

                I mean is this a trap to test us and see who are the ones that marketed your art just so that you can sue us through claiming copyright??? It's like you purposely dropped a hundred bucks on the ground out in an open area with your little signature signed on it. While you hide in a bush somewhere near it while keeping a sharp eye on it to see whoever dares to pick it up. Of course someone is going to feel like it's their lucky day stumbling upon a hundred bucks out of nowhere on the ground. They are finally able to feed their family from starvation or maybe even save THEMSELVES from starvation..... BUT THEY CAN'T!!! Not after you jumped out from your hiding spot and screamed "THIEVERY" and called the police to arrest him/her just because they stole your hundred bucks which you purposely laid it out in the open.

                 Does this really entertain you these days??? Of course you won't do it physically because we're in a modern technological era, so why not do it online and wait for your next victim that saved your image into their PC and claim copyright right after they earned that cold hard cash from their hard work of marketing your art. You do realize that you can also print those artwork out and sell them right???? Is it really necessary to pick on someone who did the exact same thing just without your consent? Do you feel like they didn't draw those artwork and that they don't deserve the rights to use them for their own personal interest?

                  If you wanted to keep your art safe from them, why did you even bother posting them out on the net in the first place. You should know that this is something you have to be prepared for when you wanted to gain fame and popularity. I could understand if they abuse your artwork, but in what part of selling your artwork is abusing it???

                   We can't produce quality because we don't have the talents for it. So we had no choice but to quantify something from somewhere in order to survive. That's the differences between quality and quantity. "Quality" are granted for the talented and wealthy ones. While "quantity" are given to the poor and clever ones. Both have their benefits and weaknesses, discriminating either one will lead to conflict and it's going to be an issue that MIGHT start a genocide soon. I'm just saiyan....

                    Point is, don't act like a superior being to others just because you have something valuable in your skill set. The next thing you know, you'll lose something by the end of the day and realized that your strength was nothing compared to someone who can overpowered you in a matter of seconds. The same goes for the other end. Just because you spend a huge amount of time charging up your strength doesn't mean a thing for your opponent to be surprised or shocked.

                     It doesn't mean anything much to them seeing your process taking place. In the end, you could stand up and say "I am Spartacus" and another guy would also stand up and say "I am Spartacus" like how everyone in the movie "Spartacus" stood up and say "I am Spartacus" But you can't like say "No, that's not Spartacus, I... I am very specifically the Spartacus" because you'll just be ignore by the end of the day..... So good luck with whatever you're planning on ahead....

Back to Semester 3

                 Alright the last time when I last posted my blog, it was a month ago... So what I have been doing for the past last month is waiting. Waiting for my results to show up online. Around the 4th week of November, It was satisfying to see that I passed all of my modules while 80% of my sem-mates failed 1-2 modules. But enough about that, I've also been focusing a lot more on Comic Fiesta 2015 since I'm sharing a booth with my friends. I invited some of my friends to pitch in their stuff to give more variety of "doujin" to sell. It all went well and now I'm continuing my semester 3 without any problems.

                   Cardfight Vanguard Stuff page is about to reach 1000 likes and we aim to at least achieve it by the end of 2015. Since it was part of my new year's resolution back in 2014. With many things happening now, I became more active in the TCG community and started to expand my collection of decks. Bushiroad seems to be releasing a new card game.... like they did every year.... It's called Luck & Logic and everyone hoped that it wasn't as bad as Buddyfight... Although they did mentioned that it would combine all 3 card game's mechanics into one. But it feels like they're just copying and reusing whatever ideas they had before and combine it into this new TCG. I would probably learn it in their workshop and then never ever played it again.....

                   I've recently bought many decks which increases my collection. Now I need to sell some of them and upgrade the ones that I'm planning to keep. I don't think my deck profile would be focusing on Link Joker again. It would be something different. Of course I can't really tell which deck that I will be revealing about, but it would probably be a clan that got it's latest update from G-BT05. Until then, stay tuned and thank you for your patience :)

The Downfall and the Rising

               It was a sunny day.... ah who the hell am I kidding. These past few days has been raining cats and dogs non-stop. And I can't really go out much so I might as well write a blog about what's been going on these past few weeks. To start things off, my semester 2 at Taylor's University just ended and I have plenty of doubts in my mind that I can even pass my exams... especially Intro to Finance (that shit was hard). Right now I'm just enjoying my sem-break as much as possible before getting ready to seek for the re-sit test (If I wasn't chosen, thank you Jesus). Most of us in semester 2 are also experiencing the same difficulty in the Finance module, so it's understandable that shit happens and most of us decided to get drunk after the exam (that includes me....)

                Putting our exams aside, I've been awaiting for my chance to participate in the WGP 2015 for Cardfight Vanguard for a very long time. Top 1 winner gets a ticket to travel to Japan with accommodation provided just to play another tournament in Japan...... (and the participation is free, so why not). 1st day was for English players, so I just went there and took some pictures and stuff. Second day is when I had my Messiah X Deletors deck getting ready to make its appearance. I woke up early and got to the place on time, only to find out that the number of players has already reached above the max capacity over 300!!! (up to 460+, almost 500). Well, that was a waste..... I started thinking maybe I should have stayed near a hotel or something so that I could get there faster and earlier. Now I got nothing to do except watching other people play for one whole day... I did stick around for the events and sold a lot of my cards. In addition, I was finally able to obtain 2x Amnesty Messiah (a card worth RM100-150) after dealing with so many different people. However, I had to sacrifice half of my Deletor deck and rebuilt it from scratch (if I even had enough money to do so). But at least I can now prepare for G-BT05 to make room for Excelics Messiah (a card that needs Amnesty Messiah in order to use it's skill).

                   Overall, my time spent around WGP 2015 was at least worth it.

              Ayasa Ito (Voice actress for the series) is our special guest all the way from Japan and I also met the CEO of Bushiroad (company for Cardfight Vanguard).

         From that point on, I linger around the venue trading cards continuously until I've gotten everything I need. An even better deal just came to me when I saw a Facebook post that someone was selling their Amnesty Messiah, SCR version (an expensive version from the original card that's worth around RM200-250) and his selling it for RM150. I messaged him immediately and after some chatting, we came to an agreement that I didn't had to spent a single cent on that card. I only traded him one of my Omega Glendios deck for his SCR Amnesty Messiah (Worth it). In a nutshell, I traded old Link Joker cards for new Link Joker cards.

           This might probably mean that I would be doing a deck profile for Link Joker... again.... soon.... But others than that, this blog basically sums up what has happened these past few weeks in my life. Looking forward to semester 3, that is if I even manage to pass my semester 2 exams. until then, I'll be back.....

               

Deck Profile 03: We'll shall Stand and Burn.

               This time, I'll be revealing a hybrid Nova Grappler deck that has gained most of it's skills from the Kagerou clan. Nova Grappler was originally known as the deck that will not rest, but now it can retire your opponent rearguards whenever you stand a rearguard. To add into the mix, they also have a G-unit that can stand again after it finishes in attacking your opponent's vanguard (references from Dragonic Overlord's skill). But the main weakness is still there, they still need their hand size to pull off their play style or they'll not be able to do much in game without any rearguards. With that in mind, let's start with the G-units line-up.

                  As mentioned, you'll need 4x Victoplasma as your main G-unit to make your vanguard stand again. 2x Meteokaiser Tribute that burns your opponent's rearguards for whenever your rearguards stand and 2x Vic-Ten that pressures your opponent into guarding in order to prevent your rearguards from standing.

                  If your opponent play clans like royal paladin, gold paladin or aqua force which requires a full field most of the time, striding Meteokaiser Tribute is the best way to burn down their rearguards. While if they're the type to solo whack you such as Dimension Police, Shadow Paladin and Kagerou, you'll need to force them to waste their hand size just to guard your Meteokaiser Vic-Ten's attack (if attack hits, stand one of your rearguards and it gets power +5000).

                    Your grade 3 units are still the main cards that you'll need for playing this deck. Since it's a hybrid deck, a little bit of the Raizer series is added into the play style.

             Your main grade 3 avatar would be Meteokaiser Victor which allows you to stand a rearguard whenever you attack with your vanguard while in your G-unit. Just think of the sweet combo you can do with Victoplasma as your G-unit (stand your vanguard and your rearguards). Now meet Mega-Flare, the Ultimate Raizer which Legions with Dual-Flare. This unit takes advantage on it's units when 4 of them are rested, it gets critical plus 1. What's worst, if it's attack hits, stand one of your rearguards. This attack would definitely caused your opponent to waste one of his/her null guards. Combo it with Cat-Butler, they're screwed (we'll cover that later.) 

                Your grade 2's aren't important since I made this deck to purposely use grade 3 as your rearguards. But still, they are needed until mid-game and they are useful to at least guard for you.

                With the new units from G-BT01, you'll only need 3x White Hank and 4x Sazander to maximize your standing abilities. Although you can bet most of your standing abilities from your vanguard's skill and stand triggers sometimes, White Hank can be a great unit to help you in this play style. 3x Dual-Flare (we'll need the mates for Legion). A little bonus that I think it will be a good combo to gain your hand size early-mid game, Street Bouncer. The skill requires you to rest 2 of your units in the same column and you get to draw a card with it. 

                    Grade 1's are pretty standard at this point. I mean I used the same formula in most of my deck profile and I'm sure you guys will do the same thing as I did (4x null guards, 4x stride-assist....).

                  Nova Grappler are known to be a counter blast-heavy deck since the day it was born. Thus, you'll need at least 3-4 Clay-Doll Mechanic to make sure you don't run out of tricks in the game. you can change one of your stride-assist if you want to play safe with 4x Clay Doll Mechanics. But I preferred 3x of them since I got a special critical trigger to compensate back. The extra 2x cards would be Cat-Butler and since "Bullshitroad" wants to make sure we don't stand our vanguards too much, they'll only allow 2x Cat-Butler to be used per-deck. That brings us to have these 2 cats fill in as our last spot in the deck. 

                   By sacrificing Cat-Butler, it allows your vanguard to stand again if your attack doesn't hit and your vanguard must be in grade 2. The skill does apply to you when you Legion since you have a grade 2 unit in your vanguard circle as your mate. With Mega-Flare's critical still online after your opponent guarded it, kill the cat and your vanguard stands again which makes your opponent think "what's the point -_-" (you can end the game with this combo when your opponent is at 4 damage XD). 

Now for your trigger line-up...

                    As I said about a special critical trigger that compensates Clay Doll Mechanic's skill, Red Lightning allows you to counter charge 1 when you put him into your soul. You'll need 4x Energy Girl as your stand trigger to help you increase your standing abilities. After she boosts a unit, put her back into the deck and you can stand one of your rearguards (you'll be so lucky if you were able to drive check her again when your vanguard attacks). 4x draw triggers are essential to keep a good hand size. Up to this point, you can choose whether you want heal triggers or more stand triggers. For me, I prefer to have 2x Turboraizers replacing 2x heal triggers in my deck to get a good 6k boosts and then returns back to my deck which increases my drive check chances (Note: Turboraizer and Battleraizer's skills are the same). If you guys want to play safe, 4x heal triggers are standard to avoid you from taking too much damage (I just randomly put 2x Ring Girl Clara as my heal triggers. Any heal triggers is fine for this deck).

         Believe it or not, your grade 0 starter is actually one of the important aspect of your deck. 

                  You can either A: go for a grade 3 searcher which increases your hand size and saves your starter from getting burned from decks like Kagerou. Or if your opponent is using decks like Royal Paladins and Aqua Force, you'll need your rearguards to maximize your stand burning-stand power from your Meteokaiser Tribute. In which case, Extreme Battler Runbhol will be useful since you can stand him as long as the unit in the same column as him stands.

                Through this deck profile, I hope you guys find a good play style for your Nova Grappler decks. With WGP coming soon (November 1st), this should be helpful to all Nova players out there that wished to "stand" a chance in this tournament. My next deck profile would probably be covering the Deletor series in the Link Joker clan (since G-Comic Booster 01 came out, it should be interesting to see a different variation play style with their new units). Until then, hope to see you guys soon :)