WCQ Discussion

Today, i am gonna be writing what i think would be the most important article i have written this whole year, or probably one of the most in the history of my blogging days.

The title is very very vague and does not go into depth the 2 issues i am mainly going to talk about today.

Today, i am also going to address 2 very VERY sensitive issues, which could be very well regarded as the 'racism' or 'religion' topics of yugioh, if we had any.

Today, i am also going to be as frank as i can be, hence there will be no metaphors in my words, no "hinting" or shooting anybody indirectly. In fact, i will be doing the exact opposite: i will be criticising directly.

The first thing i am going to talk about is the OCG vs TCG argument with regard to the WCQ retrospect.

It first occured a few weeks ago when Yugioh edition Singapore FB page congratulated Irwin Arogo for his victory in the Phillipines.

A loud mouthed German player by the name of Nick J Lloyd (whom some of you may have heard of) instigated an OCG-TCG verbal war when he uttered something similar to the likes of:

1) if i was in OCG I will win everyday.
2) Its so easy to top in the Asia region.

This immediately got various OCG players shooting him down for his words. I can easily find the picture source for this, but i am not going to provide it here.

There are 2 sides to this argument. OCG players have every right to boast because generally, ALMOST every year of WCQ has been won by OCG players. You also have to take into account, most rulings are favoured towards the OCG where rulings which conflict in OCG/TCG follow the OCG rulings in worlds.

It is very obvious that Nick was being a douchebag by saying that. His reason for that is that in Asia (not including Japan) , the player base is so small (less than 200, some are just a little above 100), and that makes it easier to top.

The arguments OCG players brought up was that OCG > TCG and just because he thinks its smaller, does it necessarily mean that he will win all the way? Some comments even pointed out that he cannot make it past round 1/2 because of various reasons such as single elimination format etc bla bla

Now, i am going to give my point of view.

No doubt Nick was wrong to say that, but he had some valid points too. As a person who has played in Asia (Malaysia) and TCG (Australia), i think my opinion will be quite accurate.

So, the first thing i would like to say is :  Nick is right !

With TCG events going over 500-1000 players and even 2000 (for USA!), it is going to be very hard to make the top cut. Why?

The variance is so strong that you will very likely meet some randy deck which will sack the shit out of you (thunder family fml), or something else which you will cause you to lose out. Even if you win the remaining matches, the fact that a randy who beat you early who would probably lose out in the remaining swiss rounds, means your tiebreaks will be terrible. So even if you go X-1 or X-2, because you lost to a nobody who probably dropped after round 4/5, there is no way you can make it into the top 16/32/64.

At the same time , even if you do very well as in you do go X-1 against decent opponents, there is a chance that you do not make it in too due to a large number of players, so there will be many X-1/X-2s, and thus, you will lose out coz their other players have good tiebreaks. For example, my friend Jono Ritzau (OC worlds rep 2012) went to 1 of the YCS (the 1 which satoshi topped), and went X-2 but did he top? No. Thus, due to this, luck plays a huge part where you have to meet good players and beat them to get better tiebreaks.

Looking at it from Asia's POV, to go to top 16 or whatever, you just need to go X-1, or X-2 with about 120 players (average). Furthermore the chances for variance drop alot, and you also have to consider the fact that with a smaller playerbase, our players know what the potential opponent is playing before even playing them , so you can avoid certain plays etc. You also have to play lesser rounds in swiss or single eli, (usually 5), however Malaysia had a 7 swiss round for this yr's WCQ which was an interesting change.

So, to go to the top 64, (32 from day 1, 32 from day 2 are seeded), with a playerbase of 90 players, you only need to go 5-2 to be safe , or 4-3 to even qualify. This makes it relatively easier. Is this painful to hear? Yes, as an Asian player (originally) too i have to admit it is, but we have to accept it. Our Asian qualifiers are RELATIVELY EASIER.

However, there is the other fact that OCG> TCG. In my opinion, i would also have to agree. While the qualifiers are easier, so to top you can easily go into top 16/top 8 bla bla, but the cream of the crop in OCG are better than cream of the crop in MOST TCG regions (take note i said most not all). Is this painful to hear? Yes it is, but we also have to accept it.

Back to the point above^: whereby OCG > TCG, however you cannot disregard TCG players (i have come to learn this the hard way), some TCG players are really really good. I am going to bring up 2 instances. For example, i will say that TCG dragon players are better than Asian dragon players. When playing against Chris Mattiske in the final round of Swiss in Nats, i had a shock as he was really good. "Unreal, he had the tuner!". Fellow HLG teammate Wesley Seek also told me, it is funny as the reason why he can breeze through alot of his dragon matchups more easily in his WCQs is because most of the practice he had on DN were with TCG players which were really good. These players include players with the IGN of Crimson Flare, 902, rapture, and many more which i cant rmbr. I also have to admit this, because dragons are a very grindy deck, and we all know TCG players are generally more grindy and conservative in nature compared to OCG players.

I am done with the first issue now and i will talk about the second issue.

The second issue regards the Singapore- Malaysia WCQ phenomenom.

For some of you who do not know, for MASWCQ, many Singaporeans have headed down to MAS for a shot at the trophy!

This has gotten many many complaints from the mas citizens as they felt that they have been invaded with players who do not belong to the country. Naturally, for MASWCQ, its just fair to assume that malaysians should have the right to compete on their own without interruption.

However there is 1 fact that i would need to address. Everybody knows that Singaporean players are generally looked up upon by Malaysian players. MAS players cringe at the sound of a SG pro or if they are paired up against SG players in a match. MAS players feel inferior to their SG counterpart. There is no need to deny it, because its true. Hence, an invasion of SG players usually mean that they are afraid that the singaporeans will disrupt their wcq and knock out some of their chances of winning their matches or topping.

It is true because last ACQ, the top 8 was dominated by Wesley, Putra, Sam, and Alex who are all Sg players, and today in MAS WCQ, about 11-12 players in the top 32 in swiss are Singaporean players. That is a huge chunk considering a little less than 20 players travelled down from Sg to play.

So do i blame my fellow malaysians? no i dont. In their situation, i would hate it if my chances were destroyed by players who were from another country. However, in the TCG, konami has a policy whereby each player can join any wcq of their choice, but only 1. This means disregarding your nationality, you can play anywhere you like but you can only play 1 wcq per year. There has been nothing (to my knowledge) regarding OCG so singaporean players have every right they want if they wanna play in Malaysia.

But then, you have to look at it from the bigger picture. Scrolling through the images of standings, pairings, and just overall the entire tournament in play, i found out 2 very different things which can only be viewed from a 3rd person's POV, without biasedness.

The first is that with SG ppl coming down, its actually a blessing in disguise for our players. In this case, malaysian players actually have to increase their skill in order to win, and this creates a more competitive environment. This basically appeared to me when fellow players like Shahmir, Kyde, Johnson, and many more defeat some very big names and appear in the top tables. Good job to ma bois who topped ! (many which i cannot name all). Does it mean Sg players are all better than malaysian players? Maybe generally, but definitely there are instances which are not the case. Our players have also adapted (slowly adapting) and becoming better and better.

Give them some time, i guarantee the malaysian players will become better. Those who continually give excuses or just give up do not deserve to top. This shows they do not want it badly, and they aren't serious about the game and just want the plate handed to them on a silver platter. If you are serious, you will change for the better.

Its also good experience to play with somebody who is not of your country. You get to see various playstyles, various techs, and its basically just a good eye opener.

Malaysia has often been involved in articles relating to the brain drain, which means many citiziens are moving out of malaysia for a better living environment. Usually they move to Western countries or to more advanced Asian countries commonly, Singapore.

The phenomenom now is opposite to the brain drain. Instead of good resources leaving us, we are having good resources enter the country !

The second thing is how Malaysians and Singaporeans are integrating together and getting to know each other personally. This is good because it can lead to card discussions, bringing out the best of both worlds for both countries' citizens, and it gives malaysians a chance to learn from them. Making more friends is NEVER a bad thing, and its beneficial to both sides. This gives malaysians a chance to talk with them, and establish a calm and cheerful environment. No doubt a little bit of tension will always exist (because they are of a different nationality), but who are we to  regard that?

There have been many comments on our FB pages like "is this really MASWCQ looks like SGWCQ to me" but 1 particular comment from Sung Lee showed that there were people who also looked on the brighter side of things. He said something like "its ok, lets all work hard tomorrow, and support each other".

Before i end, i want to say nobody bribed me to write the fucking retarded article, i wrote it just because its fresh off my thoughts and i think it would be a waste not to point this out. I mean every single thing i said in here, and i know it could cause potential arguments or flaming, but i still will post it up.

The bottom line is, if something occurs, you can choose to look at it negatively, or to take it as something positive.

I am not flaming people who dislike the singaporeans coming in, i know how you feel because i was once skeptical of it too, but sometimes you should just have to look at it differently you kno.

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