My Stubborn Soul Card Follower-Chapter 434 - 380: With Yang Liguang Gone, I Am the Emperor of the B-Class Tournament! (5K)
Previously, the AB class tournaments in Huaxia have generally had these problems.
The Class A tournaments were a showdown between You Wenqi and Tan Song, with An Hai’s rise being a recent development.
Class B tournaments, on the other hand, were a battle between Wang Hongjing and Yang Liguang.
Occasionally, a dark horse like Feng Lindu would emerge, but they were generally fleeting, soon disappearing into the crowd after being penalized by the Forbidden Card List.
In fact, Tan Song, as a Life Card Master not from a prominent family, has not been spared from the penalizations of the Forbidden Card List since his debut. However, he managed to hold his ground, quietly becoming one of the domestic duo competing with You Wenqi—although he lost more than he won in domestic competitions, he was usually either the runner-up or placed among the top few.
Tan Song managed to stay strong under the heavy hand of the Life Card Association’s Forbidden Card regulations before, relying on his impressive Soul Card. His Soul Card, similar to Alice of Shen Sui, had many forms due to its risky tendencies, allowing him to stubbornly challenge the Forbidden Card List as its core.
In contrast, the Class C tournaments highlighted a diverse competition, with competitors sometimes even performing tricks.
With the Exploration Bureau taking over the review of the Forbidden Card List, this phenomenon should improve a lot, but such improvement won’t manifest rapidly, as even though the previous bans by the Life Card Association were arbitrary, the Exploration Bureau’s idea of lifting all previous bans is not something that can be accomplished overnight.
"Of course, if it’s other domestic B-class tournaments, Wang Hongjing might be the most popular champion favorite, but the Huashan Invitational’s B-class tournament is somewhat different," said Xinyuan Tanchun.
"Are you referring to the foreign players?" The point of distinction for the Huashan Invitational’s B-class tournament from other domestic B-class tournaments likely lies in using many foreign Life Card Master competitors.
Xinyuan Tanchun nodded: "The price of Life Cards over there is very high, but once price is linked with Life Card strength, many Life Card Masters over there choose to sell their powerful Life Cards. As long as you have money, you can completely find strong Life Cards suitable for your deck on the market, so it’s easier for them to build powerful decks. Our competitors often perform poorly in the World Championship because of these slight differences in strength."
The low price of Life Cards domestically means that many people are unwilling to sell their powerful Life Cards for money, opting instead for a card-for-card exchange method of trading, which makes concentration of powerful Life Cards more difficult.
Although you can still find a suitable Life Card for your deck through trading, the aspect of strength is completely left to chance.
The different pricing strategies of Life Cards have led to two completely different phenomena, which is very evident in the World Championship.
Huaxia’s Life Card Masters rely on cheaper Life Cards to build a decent deck, often achieving good rankings, but they always fall just short in terms of deck strength, often losing by a hair’s breadth in the finals.
Sometimes, you can even see three out of four in the top four are Huaxia Life Card Masters, yet the champion is invariably not one of them, which is quite embarrassing.
With such a precedent, people naturally pay attention to foreign Life Card Masters when selecting the championship favorites.
Due to the increase in rankings, there are also quite a few foreign Life Card Masters participating in this year’s Huashan Invitational, with the most famous probably being Cezar Malfoy from America.
Upon hearing the surname, Shen Sui immediately thought of Theis Malfoy, the current number one ranked Life Card Master in the world.
"Yes, he is Theis’ younger brother," Xinyuan Tanchun confirmed Shen Sui’s thoughts, "With this connection, you now understand why Wang Hongjing wasn’t the top favorite to win the championship, right?"
Cezar, as Theis’ brother, is a rising star over in America.
Although he uses a completely different dueling style from Theis and not even the same Soul Card World, the impressive records he’s set in American domestic competitions are hard to overlook.
He is also a powerful Life Card Master maintaining an undefeated record, just like Yang Liguang.
Before coming to compete in Huaxia, he had just finished his Promotion Tournament, crushing his opponent without any suspense, and progressed to being a seventh-ranked Life Card Master.
"Undefeated again, huh."
"Yes. Although some matches were won dangerously, a streak is still a streak, and it’s even slightly longer than Guang’s streak, showing signs of dominating domestically like his brother," said Xinyuan Tanchun, "Maybe by the time he reaches the eighth rank, you could witness the Malfoy brothers dominating the Life Card world."
"I think what you’ll more likely see is a picture of me using them as stepping stones," Shen Sui casually quipped.
Xinyuan Tanchun was taken aback and was about to say it was impossible, but considering what Shen Sui had done since his debut, it was really hard to say.
Aside from Cezar, there are some other relatively famous Life Card Masters in their respective countries, which Xinyuan Tanchun roughly spoke about, mainly competitors from Europe and Japan.
"Looks like I won’t be seeing any old acquaintances," Shen Sui sighed.
The New垣 Sisters were eliminated early in the preliminary rounds, Yang Liguang advanced to the eighth rank, and Vivian did not participate in this competition.
"Hmm?" As Shen Sui scrolled through the schedule, he unexpectedly saw a familiar name, "Did he make it to the main competition too?"
Shen Sui chuckled as he saw Xu Tianzhi’s name.
"Xu Tianzhi, huh." Xinyuan Tanchun leaned over, also saw Xu Tianzhi’s name, and with some jealousy said, "Damn, why can he get in, but I can’t?"
