Thursday, December 20, 2012

Spotlight: Eboshida Hiromi/烏帽子田拓海

Fighter's Spotlight is an ongoing project concerned with tracking real-world professional cardfighters across the globe.

Eboshida Hiromi/烏帽子田拓海
Age: Unknown; Juniors Division
Titles Won: Kanazawa Regional Champion (Junior Class, Summer 2012), Kanazawa Regional Champion (Junior Class, Winter 2012), Fighter's Climax 2012 National Champion (Junior Class)
Current Status: National Champion (Reigning)
Deck Type: Kagerou (Dragonic Overlord-The End)
Eboshida Hiromi is the reigning junior national champion for Winter 2012. A former participant in the Fighter's Road 2012 tournament, Eboshida left his greatest impact on the Fighter's Climax 2012 event of the same year. He is the first, and by all estimates last proper national champion to represent the Dragonic Overlord-The End deck; following his victory, The End was heavily limited for tournament play in Cardfight's first extensive restricted list. Eboshida is considered one of the defining cardfighters of the format, as his seizing of the title played a key role in the restrictions coming into play. Along with his two-times opponent Rikino Sakura, Eboshida is regarded as one of the strongest fighters to come out of the juniors' division.

Decks and Play Style
At his debut in Kanazawa, Eboshida made use of a fairly standard The End deck, using Conroe to retrieve his grade 1s while gradually building up to The End's 13000 base by riding Dragonic Overlord on the turn beforehand. To counter the general slowness of this play, Eboshida sought to slow his own opponents down by retiring their grade 1s and 0s with Gatling Claw to force them to spend more time on setting up their field. Although a typical play from Kagerou cardfighters is to use Conroe to retrieve Barri, Eboshida instead left two single-copy targets in the deck, Heatnail Salamander and Flame of Promise, Aermo. Heatnail, as a card that retires the opponent's rearguard then cycles back into the deck, put pressure on the opponent to guard the attack that he boosted and could also be retrieved with Conroe for a second run if he were drawn and used early in the game. Meanwhile, the Promise Aermo variant was a custom booster for his Overlord vanguard, helping Dragonic Overlord climb up to 26000 power and making The End hit a similar baseline of 23000. The main purpose of this was to bring their initial attacks through, so that the Overlords' on-hit skills could go off and further press the game.

Summer 2012 Regional Tournament, Kanazawa Regional Tournament
Card Pool: TD01-EB03, PR 0001-0066
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe (FVG)
x2 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
x2 Dragon Dancer, Monica DT
x4 Dragon Monk, Genjo HT
x4 Gatling Claw Dragon DT
x4 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
Grade 1
x3 Wyvern Guard, Barri
x3 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara
x1 Heatnail Salamander
x1 Flame of Promise, Aermo
Grade 2
x4 Dragon Knight, Nehalem
x4 Wyvern Strike, Tejas
x3 Burning Horn Dragon
Grade 3
x4 Dragonic Overlord
x4 Dragonic Overlord The End

At the subsequent Fighter's Climax, Eboshida brought a modified version of his previous deck that omitted both Flame of Promise and Heat Nail in favor of a fourth Bahr and the Flame of Hope. This was to work more closely with Garp and Burning Horn, who could act as fifth and seventh Nehalems or in Burning Horn's case, powerful 20000 lines for pressuring base 10000 units. Like his previous deck, this one placed emphasis on Tejas rather than Berserk Dragon, due to Berserk straining his already-choked pool of counterblast while Tejas encouraged the opponent to defend earlier to protect their rearguards, potentially allowing The End's attack through more easily. The use of the original Aermo over his successor was done to increase Eboshida's ability to search for extra copies of The End; factoring in the draw and drive check, he would be searching three to four cards every turn for copies to persona blast with, possibly as high as six on his initial run as Dragonic Overlord.

Winter 2012 Kanazawa Regional Tournament, Japan
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe (FVG)
x2 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
x2 Dragon Dancer, Monica DT
x4 Dragon Monk, Genjo HT
x4 Gatling Claw Dragon DT
x4 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
Grade 1
x3 Wyvern Guard, Barri
x4 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara
x1 Flame of Hope, Aermo
Grade 2
x4 Dragon Knight, Nehalem
x4 Wyvern Strike, Tejas
x2 Burning Horn Dragon
x1 Cross Shot, Gaarp
Grade 3
x4 Dragonic Overlord
x4 Dragonic Overlord The End

Eboshida's Kanazawa deck went unchanged for the national tournament.

Fighter's Climax 2012 National Tournament, Japan
Grade 0
x1 Lizard Soldier, Conroe (FVG)
x2 Embodiment of Spear, Tahr CT
x2 Dragon Dancer, Monica DT
x4 Dragon Monk, Genjo HT
x4 Gatling Claw Dragon DT
x4 Blue-Ray Dracokid CT
Grade 1
x3 Wyvern Guard, Barri
x4 Embodiment of Armor, Bahr
x2 Dragon Monk, Gojo
x4 Demonic Dragon Mage, Kimnara
x1 Flame of Hope, Aermo
Grade 2
x4 Dragon Knight, Nehalem
x4 Wyvern Strike, Tejas
x2 Burning Horn Dragon
x1 Cross Shot, Gaarp
Grade 3
x4 Dragonic Overlord
x4 Dragonic Overlord The End