The KC Grand Prix preselection has been in full swing these past couple of days.
Players from all around are eagerly signing up, participating in the preselection process, making both the game and the forums lively and bustling.
Competitions are taking place fiercely across various regions, so widespread that Youyu naturally couldn't possibly keep track of everything.
However, he did pay a bit of attention to the local preselection status in the Domino Region whenever he had a chance.
With the advantage of earlier account creation and more main storyline experiences, players in the Domino Region certainly have greater advantages compared to those who joined later from other areas.
In contrast, players from outside regions might still be stuck in versions with only a few fixed early constructions, while the more advanced players here in Domino have already begun to explore unique decks with limited combinations.
Youyu took some time to check out the preselection situation and indeed saw some refreshing deck constructions.
Sure enough, the imagination of card enthusiasts is boundless. Some player-created constructions indeed open one's eyes — especially to the game's native NPCs.
NPCs who are accustomed to following the rules and honestly tribute summoning are caught completely off guard when faced with a bunch of unheard-of flashy strategies from the players.
Nani? Cards can be played like this?
Sometimes, when NPCs see players executing operations that seem extremely unreasonable (in their eyes), yet unexpectedly effective, they furrow their brows one by one, feeling that the players are playing the game wrong, but unable to pinpoint exactly where it's wrong...
Of course, top players don't necessarily gain much advantage against equally top native NPCs.
Firstly, the biggest unavoidable issue for players constructing their card decks is the possibility of dead draws.
Perhaps mainstream high-level decks in the real world can rely on excellent card draw and search capabilities to mitigate this issue, but with the card pool severely limited now, any deck players manage to create faces the primary concern of dead draws.
If all starting six cards are unusable, even fighting against random street NPCs could go awry.
Another huge disadvantage players face against strong NPCs is their godly draws...
Players only get one legal chance per match to draw by "Destiny Draw". However, not only does this require meeting certain disadvantageous conditions to trigger, but it's also very rigid.
After all, you can only draw the card you've predetermined, and there's no guarantee that card will turn the tide.
High-level NPCs are different.
Their miraculous draws aren't restricted to a specific card, and not even they know what they'll draw before doing so. However, as long as they're still breathing, they always find a way to turn the tables.
Being the most devoted little leek around him, Youyu still paid attention to Xue Lang's qualification progress.
With Xue Lang's leveling speed and resource amount, he could have formed several decks long ago.
But he won't; he insists on being a Hero.
This guy relies on his exceptional luck and high drop rates, plus the occasional unintentional assistance from Youyu behind the scenes, otherwise, Heroes wouldn't even be feasible for players at this stage.
But Xue Lang doesn't believe that. He thinks the most important thing is that the "Hero" series is the most complete in his hands among all players, a testament to him being the fan club president of Youyu, his pride!
He's long decided in his heart.
Even if I, Xue Lang, starve to death, can't afford food, can't afford housing, I'll still play Heroes!
Youyu observed and found that although this tool man usually left him with the impression of being "very lucky and sycophantic", his card play actually...
...isn't bad?
Xue Lang won throughout the preselection, and Youyu thought he won quite beautifully.
It was evident that this guy's card skills weren't inferior. It's just that he usually loved performing tricks, giving off a very comical misunderstanding...
In some ways, trick players aren't necessarily inferior to mainstream competitive players.
It's a very realistic and normal thing. Youyu himself had tried "rubbing shoulders with mainstream evil forces" in the past, but after playing with high-level decks for a while, he found he almost couldn't perform tricks anymore.
Card enthusiasts spoiled by those powerful card advantage and operational capabilities of mainstream decks even consider three-for-two trades to be catastrophic.
In the preselection qualification's critical match, Xue Lang unfortunately ran into his own — another local, Nora Tatsu.
This match was already considered a battle among gods in the current competitive environment.
The duelists represented the liver emperor and luck king on one side, and the pay-to-win RMB Warrior on the other; justice and light Heroes on one side, and solitary darkness on the other...
Truthfully, no matter how much Nora Tatsu could spend, certain specific cards, including Youyu's goodwill, weren't purchasable.
Moreover, his leveling speed was far slower than Xue Lang's.
However, the Elemental Hero's resistance when facing serious pits was average, and Xue Lang got pitted repeatedly; if not for the game's system restrictions, he nearly wanted to jump in himself right then...
Our Xue Lang player saw his Flame Wingman and Grand Tornado Hero taken down one after another, and at the brink of life and death, firmly believed in the bond between him and his deck, suddenly like Yuki Judai himself, and executed a divine draw...
...and drew an Elemental Hero Wildman!
Elemental Hero Wildman, a low-level Hero with only 1500 attack points, but with a powerful "unaffected by Trap Cards" resistance, an absolute bane of solitary players!
Indeed, as soon as this Wild Hero appeared, Brother Tatsu was dumbfounded, pointing at Xue Lang from a distance, swearing, saying, 'You damn cheater, knowing the match up, you intentionally put three trap-immune Wildcats in your deck for me specifically, sneaking up on a veteran who only has a deck of full trap cards to play with!'
Brother Tatsu was at a loss.
So Wildman directly ignored Brother Tatsu's two set cards and flew in for a clean strike to the forehead.
Brother Tatsu, whose field was full of pits, couldn't draw a single monster. For two consecutive turns, he took two hits from Wildman, totaling 3000 damage points, leaving him with just 1000 Life Points!
The next turn, just one more hit, and he would be slashed to death by Wildman!
Brother Tatsu internally cursed his luck.
He had never regretted like this before, having a deck full of red pits but barely any monsters.
If I had just brought along one 1600 attack point Hero Electrum as cannon fodder, I could have knocked down this cursed Wildman...