GenCon Zoro Deck Experience (Update: August 7th) (Patreon)

GenCon starts tomorrow, so content gonna be a lil slow till after next Monday, but here is my GenCon list!

I’m just showing the decklist for now, but explanation will be given in the form of an update when I actually have time 💀

Day 1:

Typing this on my phone so bear with me, but I finished 38th today 😢. Not the best result, but I felt very good about the deck. If I change the list for tomorrow, I will likely be to test out 9Beard for the Green/Blue matchups(it can also flown Whitebeard if seen on curve). I’m also thinking about testing out one more Strawhat build tomorrow, I am going to speed test tonight(I only have 2 hours lol), then decide.

https://twitter.com/cross_aii/status/1687233545859653637?s=46&t=Mwv4G08ELbnTlA7Da1A-yw

Day 2:

This is the list I'll be taking in for Day 2! I ended up using Magura very little yesterday(It was often better to chip for 5000/6000 than use Magura's skill and buff), I did use it for lethal like once, but I figured 1 Fiery doll has more value than having to combine 2 Makino/Magura. I also decided to add in 9Beard because there was a lot more Blue/Green than expected. 9Beard can also help with mediocre or bricked-up hands and allow for some easier games. In my mind I also thought that 9Beard was inferior to the 4Marco strategy(because 4Marco was faster), but now that 4Marco is at 1, I think there's much more incentive to include 9Beard again!

Tournament starting soon, hopefully we don't lose round 1 lol.

Day 2 Results:

This is how day 2 ended up going:

https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1687588920429547521?s=20

My round 4 was against WillToWinGaming's Doffy(he's probably the best Doffy player tbh), and not seeing Otama/Gordon early-game threw me off. Truthfully, I probably could have made slightly better attacks and better ordering, but that game we played was doomed. 

My second loss was to Whitebeard Round 9, it was actually a player I did pushups with at the regional I won(https://twitter.com/Cross_Aii/status/1647268153469050880?s=20). I barely lost the game, I literally went 4-1 against Whitebeard the whole weekend and just managed to fumble R9 😭.

The deck was good but I think there's some final adjustments I want to make:

• Less Rush Zoro(I ran 1 Rush Luffy instead of 2-4 Rush Zoro prior to Marco's ban for the sake of running more utility, and I might do something similar again)
• Blamencos coming back(Makes the blue matchup much better even if I go second, and helps seal in the green matchup)
• -1 Fossa +1 Counter event, Fossa is too unreliable and having more counter events will make Buggy stronger, and my defense at the end of the game 10x better
• Magura? - I think Zoro's role will now be as a finisher and Magura is way better in the mid-game and can combo with makino in the late-game to make Whitebeard easier to beat
• 2-3 Gordon and 3 Otama - With Blamenco being added to the deck I'm fine with reducing the counts of my Gordon to 2-3, I still think the cards very strong
• No Fiery Doll? - I'm still deciding on Fiery Doll, in theory if you see it at the right moment against WB it's nice, but I don't think I used fiery doll in any of the WB games I won lol
• 1-2 Pistol, due to the lack of Marco Blocker I think it's more important than ever to find more ways to deal with the opponents board, the card is also very strong into Blue/Green

I went 7-2 once again, 7-2 isn't a bad record, but I was definitely aiming for a X-0/X-1 finish. The deck once again felt very solid, and after having these two tournaments, and seeing Jackson and Noman's list, I think I'm going to be locked in for the next tournament. After this weekend, I can very much say that Zoro is a very skillful deck. Even with my deck still being a little unoptimized, I felt like I could beat any deck, if you look at my match-ups I beat just about every possible match-up there was to beat at least once.

My biggest regret this weekend was cutting Blamenco, I thought it was weak against Whitebeard, but it actually seems very strong against every deck if dropped at the right time. Alternatively, you can run the 1-2 4 Cost Brook like Jackson Hoang does, but if you don't draw that card at the start of the game it will lose a lot of value except against green.

Here's the Zoro decks that two of my friends who are really good at card games got Luffys with this weekend for refernece:

Jackson Hoang(https://twitter.com/ClydeTCG/status/1687600683501973504?s=20)(Winner at X-0):

Noman(X-1):

Since I lost to Doffy twice, I will be testing against it with Zoro on stream to make sure I am locked in. Then after all my Zoro matchup testing is squared away, I will make a deck guide for Zoro! I really think that Zoro is the best deck. if build and played at max proficiency, but there is a lot more room for error than people give it credit for. One of my locals just got top 32 with it at one of their first online tournaments, and a bunch of people in my discord(VBY) had X-1/X-2 finishes with it this weekend(and then Ig there's also Jackson at X-0 lmao)!