Why do we have boosters?

Since most sales of Shadowfist are at the box level, why do we bother with the booster packs anymore.  Wouldn't it be more cost effective to buy a megabooster/box with 24 random rares, 72 uncommons, and 144 common cards?  This should cut down on packaging, artwork, and overall cost of the product. 

In fact, given the current sorting scheme being used with cards having basicly the same commonality within a box (dependent on where in the alphabet your box falls), the randomness comes completely from which box you draw and which part of the alphabet is missing.  Either the point of the randomness is to make it hard to track down certain cards and thus require more purchases to get a complete set or there is no point other than repeating history.  If the later is the case, we should just change to buying complete card sets.  Then you can trade with others to get more or less of the cards you want rather than rely on luck.

If you are running a draft event, just open your megabooster and randomly build pods to simulate 10 card boosters.  The cards would just have to be divided into the three commonalities within the megabooster so they could be shuffled without looking at them.

I think we are too stuck in the this is the way it has always been done, and this is the way Magic does it.  We really need to review the sales model for this game to thrive. 

Empire of Evil Collation

Here is the list of cards by booster pack that I got from my box of Empire of Evil:

Pack 1

Willow Warriors
Street Racers
Difficulty at the End of Things
Fingertip Razors
Street Doc
Desperate Measures
Superior Tactics
Tattooed Man
Tentacles of the Squid
The Alabaster King

Pack 2
Cocktail Waiter
Unholy Legionnaires
CDCA Spies
Suicide Squad
Data Mining
Bending Chi
Thingshot
Uncertainty Spirit
Weeping Willows
The Alabaster Palace

Pack 3
Ancient Stone Arch
Arcanowave Feedback
Back in Black
Bamboo Forest
Combat Engineer
Bandolier of Throwing Knives
Wriggling Skin Suit
36-Legged Horror!
Abomination Serum
Alexandre Chen

Pack 4
Blue Meditation
Brave Villagers
Bending Chi
CDCA Spies
Cocktail Waiters
Compromised Security
Abysmal Behemoth
Andy Di
Auspicious Thermite
Baron Volund

Pack 5
Consuming Darkness
Data Mining
Desperate Measures
Diffuculty at the End of Things
Echo Spirit
Fingertip Razors
Awesome Presence
The Blood of Heroes
Blue Master
The Shangshu Mansion

Pack 6
Escalation
Fire Engineers
The Great Wall
Prefect's Guard
Imperial Sycophants
Mirrored Lake
Bonebow Army
Mars Program Executive
Delaying Tactics
The Becoming

Pack 7
Mountain Monastery
NeoBuro Field Medic
Netherworld Librarian
Nomad Army
Origami Handguns
Out of the Barrel
Drowning in Blood
Dr. Hans Wulfjaeger
Embrace of the Snake
Damon Winter

Pack 8
The Price of Progress
Red Tape Assault
Spartan Warriors
Stoic Wanderer
Stolen Thunder
Street Doc
Endless Corridor
Explosive Motorcycle
Fire Falx
Dao Biotech Headquarters

Pack 9
Street Racers
Tunnel King
Suicide Squad
Under the Knife
Unholy Legionnaires
Vitality Shunt
Hell Hound
Heroic Converts
Hunger of the Jackal
Darkness Golem

Pack 10
Underworld Contacts
Equal Opportunity Butt Kicking!
Willow Warriors
Wisdon of the Owl
The Withering of Souls
Withering Touch
Martyr's Tomb
Synchronic Beam Emitter
Meditative Flight
Gnarled Annihilator

Pack 11
Out of the Barrel
Mirrored Lake
Origami Handguns
The Withering of Souls
Back in Black
Whelps
Paradox Archives
Potemin's Brigade
Preserving Chi
Hiroshi Kata

Pack 12
Whelps
Zen Ritualist
Echo Spirit
Spartan Warriors
Stoic Wanderer
Imperial Sycophants
Mountain Hermit
Mountain Sanctuary
Overzeolous Assassins
Hanging Gardens

Pack 13

Echo Spirit
Escalation
Fingertip Razors
Fire Engineers
The Great Wall
Prefect's Guard
Abysmal Behemoth
Alpine Squad
Andi Di
Commandant Barkhorn

Pack 14
Imperial Sycophants
Mirrored Lake
Mountain Monastery
NeoBuro Field Medic
Netherworld Librarian
Origami Handguns
Auspicious Thermite
Awesome Presence
The Blood of Heroes
The Petrified Man

Pack 15
Nomad Army
Out of the Barrel
The Price of Progress
Red Tape Assault
Spartan Warriors
Stoic Wanderer
Blue Master
Bonebow Army
Mars Program Executive
Platinum Upgrade

Pack 16
Stolen Thunder
Street Doc
Street Racers
Suicide Squad
Tunnel King
Under the Knife
Delaying Tactics
Dr. Hans Wulfjaeger
Drowning in Blood
Shihong

Pack 17
Unholy Legionnaires
Vitality Shunt
Underworld Contacts
Equal Opportunity Butt Kicking!
Willow Warriors
Wisdon of the Owl
Embrace of the Snake
Endless Corridor
Explosive Motorcycle
The She-Wolf

Pack 18
The Withering of Souls
Whelps
Withering Touch
Zen Ritualist
Echo Spirit
Spartan Warriors
Fire Falx
Hell Hound
Heroic Converts
The Spirit of Kongxiangsi

Pack 19
Stoic Wanderer
Imperial Sycophants
Out of the Barrel
Mirrored Lake
Origami Handguns
Back in Black
Hunger of the Jackal
Martyr's Tomb
Synchronic Beam Emitter
Underworld Coronation

Pack 20
The Withering of Souls
Whelps
Vitality Shunt
Ancient Stone Arch
Zen Ritualist
The Price of Progress
Meditative Flight
Mountain Hermit
Mountain Sanctuary
The Wireless

Pack 21
The Great Wall
Mountain Monastery
Consuming Darkness
Under the Knife
Blue Meditation
Tunnel King
Overzealous Assassins
Paradox Archives
Potemkin's Brigade
The Wrath of Kong

Pack 22
Compromised Security
Red Tape Assault
Nomad Army
Escalation
Brave Villagers
Bandolier of Throwing Knives
Preserving Chi
Probability Shift
Resistance in Numbers
Xin Ji Yang

Pack 23
Prefect's Guard
Withering Touch
Arcanowave Feedback
Stolen Thunder
Equal Opportunity Butt Kicking!
Netherworld Librarian
Secret Warrior Training Base
Shadow Seductress
Skin and Darkness Hunter
Yuan Chonguan

Pack 24
Combat Engineer
NeoBuro Field Medic
Underworld Contacts
Wisdom of the Owl
Fire Engineers
Bamboo Forest
Smoke and Mirrors
Spy Network
Strength of the Land
Akamatsu Mitsusuke

So first impressions: Good distribution of commons (2-4 each), uncommons (1-2 each) and no duplicate rares.  This seems all good.  This is great if everyone is buying by the box.  The problem is in the details.  The cards are with some deviations in alphabetical order.  If display boxes are opened for purchase or draft events, the card selection can be predicted with some accuracy.  If there is a specific rare that you want, buy the top booster in the box.  Open it up and look at the rare.  Count down the necessary number of boosters and buy the rare you want (or common or uncommon).  With drafting, you will have an idea of the other cards that will be available for draft for yourself and your opponents. 

This shouldn't be too big of a problem since almost all sales will be via Z-man or Potomac Distribution by the box.  Draft events are mostly for fun without significant prizes available, so the advantage someone gets from knowledge of the card pool really will not make much difference in the long run.  And with some forethought, draft organizers should randomize the boosters from a box before handing out packs.

Echo Distortion

Echo Distortion
Event
Cost: 1 [Pur]
Provides: [Pur]
Copy a Site's rules text to target Site until the end of the turn.

Here is my list of ideas for using or abusing Echo Distortion:

Copy City Hospital on to a Proving Ground. Play a 2 cost character. Attack and get smoked. Unturn the Proving Ground and repeat. Good in faction characters for this would be Children of the Sharp Knives, The Voice of the Unnameable, Christine Winter, and Morphic Spirit if you multifaction. Add some card drawing such as The Forest of Fallen Banners and you can go to town.

Copy your own Nine Dragon Temple on to itself to get 6 power when you lose it.

Copy a Battleground site on to another site you are going to seize to get power, or copy it onto itself to get lots of power. Or copy the City Hospital onto a Bandit Hideout along with the Proving Ground so you can get 1 Power with each attack.

Copy a Nexus Tower to turn a non-winning attack into a winner. Unfortunately Echo Distortion is not a [Mag] event.

If you are playing with Whispers in the Dark (which there is no reason not to be), copy an Arctic Fortress to any other site to foil an attack. There are a lot of defensive sites that can foil an attack or just prevent a site from being taken: Big Red Barn, Maze of Stairs, Diamond Beach, Ancestral Tomb, etc.

Copying a Temple of the Angry Spirits can ruin anyone's day.

Here's another janktastic combo: Family Restaurant, Scrappy Kid, ID Chop Shop and Echo Distortion. Slightly easier would be replacing the Kid and Chop Shop with Ninja Six.

A Mountain Fortress with some damage on it can make for a beefy wall of defenders if you copy City Hospital on it.

Copy your Festival Circle or other non-healing site on to an opponent's site in response to a healing effect.

Copy Turtle Island or Auspicious Termites to a site to prevent a burn.

Copy a Kinoshita House of Pancakes on to another Unique site to force an auction. Be careful if you are playing the KHoP with Misery. You might force an auction with yourself.

Critical Shift Purist Cards

So now I'm working on a Purist deck as the next in my playlist. I have Purist cards available from Dark Future, SSG, and now I'm adding Critical Shift.

Let's take a closer look at the Purist Cards from Critical Shift and see if anything comes to mind.

True Believer and Symphonic Disciples are good foundation which I need. Up to now, I've only had Purist Initiate, Purist Aspirant, and Arcane Scientist available. Since the only out of faction Purist cards in my card set are the Architect Purist and Rhys Engel, the Purist Initiate basically has no text. So it will be nice to have a 1 cost magic provider that does something, even if it's not much. The Symphonic Disciple will usually be better than the Aspirant. In my metagame, the Aspirant is not usually around when his ability would be useful.

Christine Winter is a 2 for 3 which is OK, and when she is smoked can be returned for the sacrifice of a 1 cost character. Again this is OK. If I mix Lotus for stealing other characters it can be better. I, however, don't want to build a deck around a 3 Fighting character.

The Blind is 3 cost for usually at least 5 Fighting and sometimes much more. Since the Art of War is common in my metagame, it could be 7-8 Fighting fairly often. Not bad, but not exciting.

Keeper of the Echos is another variable Fighting card. It can be really good, but to do so, you have to toss two hitters from your hand. Without the ability to recycle smoked hitters, this could be a major liability in a deck. If you aren't discarding big cards, you will only see fighting 4-6 which is OK, but kind of bland.

Probability Soldiers look like they can be fun to abuse. See how many times you can get one to unturn. My first thought was Occult Kung Fu to copy their ability on to a hitter. Add LaGrange Four and unturn the hitter to see how many additional attacks you get. I'll have to keep this in mind for a possibility.

Impossible Men look like a good control card. If it could get Superleap somehow, it would be very strong. Someone already pointed out the Tracer Implant combo, which is strong. The only real problem, it that at 4 for 6, I really like Mutator. And I don't see where the Impossible Men replace them.

The Gray looks like a strong character. A 5 for 7 is a little below the curve, but it will probably be a 4 for 7 or better because someone is going to pay to cancel his ability. I just don't see his as often hitting the board and being a threat to go for the win. Good, but not great.

Mystical Cosine is a card for various tricks - Twisted Horror, Netherworld Vet, Violet Meditation - but I don't have most of these cards in my card set. I'll shelve this card for now.

Temporal Anomaly could be good. I don't have any edges in my play set that look like naturals for recycling, but getting to play an opponent's Shield of Pure Soul for 1 power after my Symphonic Disciples get rid of it could be worth it. A high opportunity cost though.

Delay the Inevitable seems like a good card to either go for the win or stop a winning attack, but since it is only a delay, I don't have a strong feeling for it.

Echo Distortion looks like an expensive version of Chi Syphon. For the same cost, you copy a site for only one turn. But as I think about it, it has two huge advantages. One, it is an event so is much more flexible for a surprise factor. Two, the original text of the site remains. So copying a Feng Shui Site with a good ability when it turns on to a City Hospital which can unturn itself can be very good. This is the angle I'm going to work on.

Manchu Invasion

The last deck I played at Gen Con for the Faction Wars deck was a Manchu speed deck. I have had a fair bit of success with this deck in the past, but it is something of a one trick pony - speed.

Foundation (11)
Manchu Soldier x11

Characters (10)
Bad Colonel
Military Commandant x2
Manchu Officer x5
General Senggelinqin x2

Power Gen (7)
Moonlight Raid x3
Mole Network x2

Events (8)
Cry of the Forgotten Ancestorx2
Operation Killdeer x5

States (7)
Pump-Action Shotgun x3
Tommy Gun
Sword of the Master
Shadowy Mentor

Edge (1)
Everything Falls Apart

Sites (2)
Manchu Garrison x2

FSS (11)
City Park
Dragon Graveyard
Festival Circle x2
Hot Springs
Identity Chop Shop x2
LaGrange Four
Temple of the Angry Spirits
Whirlpool of Blood x2

Moonlight Raid and Manchu Officer is crazy good. As I wrote this deck up I see that I've drifted a bit from the original build. It needs 5 Moonlight Raids and about 2 Faked Deaths. I would also change the Tommy Gun back into a Shotgun.

100 Demons

This is the deck I used in the Comrades in Arms (23+ cards share a designator) tournament for Gen Con. It is also a 100 Names deck (no two cards with the same title). A bit of a fun experiment for me to combine two formats into one deck. This also happens to comply with my play list for Lotus, which further decreased the card pool. Obviously I still have some subpar cards in the deck (e.g. The Demon Within) that need to be upgraded.

Foundation (13)
Big Brother Tsien
Bloody Horde
Demon Whiskey
Earth Poisoner
Eunuch Underling
Palace Guards
Petal's Attendant
Shadowy Horror
Shamanistic Punk
Sinister Priest
Thugs
Vassals of the Lotus
Wailing Apparition

Characters (16)
Ang Dao the Corrupt
Cloaca
Eater of Fortune
Flesh Eater
Gnarled Horror
Huichen Kan
Reverend Zeb. Paine
Sewer Demon
Shu Kan
The Hand of the Underworld
Two Hundred Knives of Pain
Underworld Tracker
Demon Emperor
Desolation
Midnight
Sheriff Agathon

Additional/Alt Power (4)
Cannibal's Banquet
Evil Whispers
Pocket Demon
Insidious Plan

Events (7)
Infernal Pact
Demonic Plague
Die!!!
Farseeing Rice Grains
Flying Sleeves
Lateral Reincarnation
Tortured Memories

States (6)
Haunted
Improvised Weapons
Inexorable Corruption
Pump Action Shotgun
The Demon Within
Two-Headed Horror

Edges (2)
Demonic Alliance
Box of Bones

Sites (3)
Infernal Temple
Alchemist's Lair
The Dragon Throne

FSS (13)
Bird Sanctuary
Cave Network
City Park
Disco
Festival Circle
Forgotten Temple
Gambling House
Hydroponic Garden
Nine Dragon Temple
Proving Ground
Rainforest Ruins
Turtle Beach
Waterfall Sanctuary

One of the real limitations to combining the formats is that to get to 23 unique demon cards a large number of characters are needed. This really limits the the number of Events and States that can go into the deck. This is further pronounced by the limitation of the number of foundation which works to limit the overall size of the deck.

Overall a fun deck that I will probably continue to tinker with.

Play List Part 2

So here is the actual list. It lists faction, set, and rank. So the first entry is Architect from Limited. So I used just the Limited set with Architect, Magic, Tech, and unaligned cards. Once I won a game, I added the second rank card set (Monarchs from N2) to my play set. Playing this way, I am now on Purist 40.7 from CS. I will have to back fill when Empire of Evil comes out. Also, since I don't play just one deck at a time, I have skipped around a little bit for the different factions.

Faction Set Rank
Arch Limited 1
Mon N2 2
Dragon Limited 3
Lotus Limited 4
Asc Limited 5
Hand SS 6
Arch FP 7
Hand Limited 8
Mon NW 9
Mon RW 10
Dragon FP 11
Purist DF 12
Asc SS 13
Lotus TW 14
7 Mast 7M 15
Dragon BCL 16
Arch DF 17
Jammer 10kb 18
Syndicate S&SG 19
Lotus EoE 19.5
Arch 2FT 20
Lotus 7M 21
Lotus CS 21.5
Dragon SS 22
Jammer NW 23
Jammer DF 24
Syndicate CS 24.5
Mon 2FT 25
Jammer EoE 25.5
ASC 2FT 26
Arch S&SG 27
Dragon 2FT 28
Jammer 2FT 29
Jammer RW 30
Purist S&SG 31
Syndicate EoE 31.5
Lotus S&SG 32
Mon S&SG 33
Dragon S&SG 34
Jammer S&SG 35
Lotus 2FT 36
Mon CS 36.5
Arch EoE 36.7
Mon EoE 36.9
Dragon CS 37
Jammer CS 37.5
Asc S&SG 38
Arch RW 39
Jammer BCL 40
Hand CS 40.3
Purist EoE 40.4
Dragon EoE 40.5
Asc EoE 40.6
Purist CS 40.7
Hand EoE 40.8
Asc CS 41
Arch CS 41.3
Hand S&SG 41.7
Asc RW 42
Hand 7M 42.5
Arch N2 43
Hand 2FT 44
Purist 2FT 45
Dragon RW 46
Lotus RW 47
Arch NW 48
Hand N2 49
Dragon NW 50
Lotus BCL 51
Hand TW 52
Dragon DF 53
Lotus SS 54
Lotus NW 55
Hand BCL 56
Asc BCL 57
Purist 7M 58
Dragon 7M 59
Hand FP 60
Jammer N2 61
Arch 7M 62
Lotus FP 63
Hand DF 64
Jammer 7M 65
Hand RW 66
Mon 7m 67
Asc 7m 68
Purist RW 69
Asc N2 70
Asc FP 71
Dragon N2 72
Lotus DF 73
Jammer SS 74
Mon 10kb 75
Purist 10kb 76
Hand 10kb 77
Asc TW 78
Lotus N2 79
Mon BCL 80
Jammer fp 81
Asc nw 82
Jammer tw 83
Mon DF 84
Asc df 85
Mon SS 86
Arch 10kb 87
Dragon 10kb 88
Purist bcl 89
Jammer Limited 90
Asc 10kb 91
Arch BCL 92
Dragon TW 93
Arch ss 94
Hand nw 95
Lotus 10kb 96
7 Mast EoE 96.5
Mon tw 97
asc Yotd 98
Arch tw 99
7 Mast S&SG 100
Hand Yotd 101
Mon Limited 102
Arch Yotd 103

Play List

Once apon a time, I decided to try an experiment. Since I did not start playing Shadowfist until its revival, I want to try playing some Old Skool games. I started building decks from each faction using only the Standard Edition. Once I won a game with the deck, I would add in Netherworld cards. I would play with this until I won and then add in the next set. I did this for a while but then got to impatient to play with the newest cards.

So I came up with a method of rating all the factions in all the expansions. This would let me add the sets with the largest number of playable cards for a faction in order. With each win, I would add a new subset of cards.

I am still working my way through this new play list and it does sometimes limit my card choices in unusual ways. If some obvious cards are missing in some of my decks, it is probably because I do not let myself play with the cards at this time.

Sneaky Bastards

Here is my Lotus Stealth Deck that just missed getting into the finals of the World Championships

Foundation (13)
Sinister Priest x5
Wailing Apparition x5
Shamanistic Punk x2
Petal's Attendant

Characters (13)
Evil Twin
Xin Ji Yang
Reverand Adam Wither x2
Huichen Kan x4
Midnight
Cloaca
Sheriff Agathon
Seven Evils
Gao Zhang vPAP

Events (16)
Flying Sleeves x3
Inauspicious Return x2
Die!!! x2
Verminous Rain
Poisoned!
Curse of Discord
Pocket Demon
Infernal Pact
Tortured Memories x3
Bribery

States (4)
Amulet of the Turtle x2
Mark of Evil
Lunar Sword

Edges (3)
Insidious Plan
The Hungry x2

Sites (15)
Death Ring
The Library of Souls
Disco
Gambling House
Rainforest Ruins
City Park x2
Golden Mile
Fox Pass
Hot Spring
Nine Dragon Temple
Mobius Garden
Temple of the Angry Spirits
LaGrange Four
Coral Reef

The deck is basically designed to throw out hitters that are hard to intercept with event support to help them get through. It worked OK but could use some refinements. It might be better off with a Monarch splash.

The Politician

Here is the deck I used at Gen Con to get to the dueling finals. I lost to James Deto's 7 Masters deck in the finals.

Foundation (15):
Test Subjects x5
DNA Mage x5
Arcanomoth x5

Characters (9):
Rocket Team x 3
Geoffrey Smythe
Napalm Belcher x5

Events (23):
Dangerous Experiment x2
Orbital Laser Strike x5
Imprison x5
Nerve Gas x3
Aerial Bombardment x3
Artillery Strike x2
War of Attrition x3

States (1):
MegaTank

Edges (7):
Rise of the NeoBuro x3
Reinvigoration Process x2
Smart Missile x2

FSS (14):
Creche of the New Flesh x2
Desolate Ridge
Dragon Graveyard x3
Mah-Jongg Parlor
Monkey House
Moon Base x3
Sunless Sea Ruins x2
The Steam Laundry Company

This is a straight forward Architect control deck. Try to keep your opponent at one or two sites. Use removal to take out any characters. If you can spend 1 power to take out each character that costs 3+ power, you will have an on-going power advantage. The Napalm Belchers try to keep weenie decks at bay. Never attack an unrevealed site. Use the non-combat damage of your characters to reveal the sites and soften them up. The deck could really use more Dangerous Experiments. I would also swap out the Sunless Sea Ruins for Temples of the Monkey King before playing this again.

Same as the Old Boss

Here is my winning deck list for the Gen Con New Heroes tournament:

Foundation: (14)
Black Helicopter Squad x5
Coyote Clan Scavangers x5
Symphonic Disciples x4

Ramp / Utility: (4)
Corrupt Land Agent
Hit Squad
Gunslinger
Reassension Spy

Hitters: (9)
Probability Soldiers x 3
The Insidious Dr. Fermat
Frenzy of the Shark x3
Texas Jack Cody x2

Power Generation: (7)
Moonlight Raid x4
Bull Market x2
Yippie-Yi-Yo-Kiii-YAAAH!

Other Events: (4)
Lateral Reincarnation x2
Echo Distortion
Nothing Happens

States: (10)
Shurikens x2
Improvised Weapons x2
Feral Regression
Soul of the Wolf x2
Shadowy Mentor x2
Whispers in the Dark

Edges: (2)
Gunboat Diplomacy x2

FSS: (13)
Arctic Fortress
Forgotten Temple
Hydroponic Garden
LaGrange Four
Mah-Jongg Parlor x 2
Moon Base x3
Rainforest Ruins
The Iron Palace
University Library x2

In the New Heroes format, Ascended has the best additional power generation with Bull Market, Corrupt Land Agent, Gunslinger, and Moonlight Raid. I thought this would be the best route to victory - generate a lot of power, play hitters fast, and use stealth to get through to the target. I tried to combo Probability Soldiers with the Moonlight Raid to get multiple power per turn. So for I've maxed out at 3 in one turn.

Gen Con 2009

Gen Con 2009



End of June

I turn forty, and for a present my wife gives me a 4-Day badge to Gen Con. Awesome! Now I scramble for a place to stay, a ride, and what events I want to participate in. I send out some e-mails and find that Tony, an old college friend, still lives in the northern burbs of Indianapolis and is welcoming people to crash at his place for the con. Sweet I now have a room, and it's free. Driving, however, doesn't work out with anyone so I'll be doing this alone. I can handle this. It's only 6 hours by avoiding Chicago. Must remember to pack some music. For events, I sign up for the draft, the Final Brawl, and Faction Wars. I buy generic tickets to cover the other events if I decide to play in them. I want to play in the New Heroes if I can make it to the con on time. I'm ambivalent about dueling, and I don't want to be able to play in Comrades in Arms, as with any luck, I'll be in the Final Brawl finals at that time.



I set up some game times with Willow and the other Madison gamers to try some deck concepts. Willow is upset because just a couple days earlier she had shown me her deck lists for the two decks most likely to be played at the con. I tell her it was part of my master plan to beat her. MWAH-HA-HA-HA!!!



July and Early August

We get together and play some games. I decide on an Ascended/Purist deck for New Heroes. I had been thinking Hand, but I couldn't get past that the biggest Hand characters had only 6 Fighting. For the Final Brawl, I am waffling between a Manchu deck and a Hopping Vampire deck. Both have done well in three-player, but I question their ability to push through to win four-player games. Willow recommends the vampires. In the end I decide to build something complete new that has been rattling around in the back of my mind for awhile - Lotus Stealth. For CiA and Faction Wars, I will just play a deck from what I have available.



Dueling is a format that I rarely play, and when I do, it is not with a deck that is specifically for dueling. Willow and I ended up playing some duels at our last play test meeting. I was running a Swarm of Teeth / Donner Lake deck against her Punchy Hand deck that she was going to play in the Final Brawl. This one game inspired me to make an Architect dueling deck for Gen Con. I'm set for decks.



Thursday, August 13

I get up at 3:50am so I can get on the road before 4:30. With a six hour drive, 30 minutes for stops, and an hour time zone change, this should get me to Indianapolis with an hour to spare before the New Heroes event. Surprisingly, everything goes to plan and I'm walking up to the convention center right at noon. I panic briefly when I see the line of people wrapped half way around the block for registration. I'm told it's about a 2-hour line. Fortunately, it's for the poor souls who didn't preregister. I whip out my badge and walk quickly up to the booth for a badge holder and a bag of swag, and two minutes latter, I'm headed for the exhibitor hall.

After wandering around a bit, I head to the CCG area, where I would spend most of the next three and half days. Here I meet Daniel Griego, Braz King, Peter "Red" Trudell, and others whom I have only known through e-mails and the discussion groups. I pull out my New Heroes deck "Same at the Old Boss", and people comment on the Revised (3rd) edition Magic box it's stored in. I'm expecting to see Jammers, Syndicate, Lotus, and Monarchs and am not disappointed. The only surprise was one Dragon deck. When the dust settles five rounds later, I've won my first Gen Con constructed Shadowfist event! I tried taking some notes as to the game play, but looking at them now, they are nearly worthless.



After that, I played some Who Wants Some Games with various people while the invitational tournament was played. Congratulations to Willow who won by defeating some of the best Shadowfist players in the world. I left the convention hall around midnight. Ninety minutes and much cursing later, I finally found my way to Tony's house for the night. Damn Mapquest! Future trips only took thirty minutes like they were supposed to.



Friday August 14

After a few hours sleep, I rode back to the con with Jason, a friend from college, and one of his friends. Jason was going early for a 12-hour Civilization event, so I had some time to kill before the Whirlpool of Blood. I went to the Rio Grande room and demoed Dominion. Seemed like a fun game, with a lot of replay value, but it went so fast I did not get a good grasp on strategy.



I show up for Whirlpool ready to have some fun. There are 16(?) players. We draft in groups of 4. The card stock is one booster each of CS, SSG, TFT, 7M, DF, N2, TW, and FP. As soon as I see the card pool I decide to go mono Lotus if possible. I remember a sick mono Lotus deck Jan Malina drafted at my first Gen Con playing Shadowfist. Most of it came from Throne Wars, and I hope to have similar luck. I don't get close to Jan's deck, but I'm not disappointed. My hitters include: Kong Jun She, Evil Twin, Bloody Herd, Huichen Kan, and Reverend Adam Wither. It's a little light, but with a Twelve Thousand Skulls, and a Demon Tank, I think I can build a hitter. I also throw in a Plasma Trooper and a Rebel Consumer for extra beef. It turned out that the support characters: Purist Sorcerer and Yuen Sheng were key to winning. Yuen Sheng stopped the denial to allow my winning attacks to get through, and Purist Sorcerer grabbed control of a Plasma Trooper to get the Fighting needed. I win my first two rounds. At some point in here, Braz has started to call me The Beast, because of the smackdown I've been handing out. The third round, I play against Willow for the first time at the con. The third player has not played in a long time and it shows. I take the first site and am feeling overconfident. I seize it thinking the game will be over soon. Either I will win, or Willow will and I'll have enough points to win the event. Turns out I was wrong. Willow ends up winning the game and knocks me down far enough that I come in second to David Kempe for the tournament by 1 game point. Stupid me!



A quick dinner break, then it's time for dueling. I have no expectations going into this other than to try to learn more about dueling. I have my Architect denial deck. There are eight players. Everyone will play everyone else and the top four will go into a single elimination final. Surprisingly, I win my first 4 games, including beating Daniel Griego's Origins winning dueling deck. Then I meet the stiff competition and drop the last three games. It turns out that I get the number four seed to the finals. The other three finalists are all the players who defeated me in the round robin. I am tired (dueling is mentally exhausting for me) and sitting down to face the number one seed: Cavebear. We had just played in the round robin, and he had beaten me soundly with a Buffalo Soldier / Outlaw Bikers / Battle-matic deck. I feel like conceding before the game starts, but that would not be good form. Surprisingly all the luck is flowing my way, and I win! Holy Crap! I'm in the final!



James Deto's Seven Masters deck beat Kempe's Project Apocalypse deck in the other half of the semi-finals. So James and I square off. His deck preys on opponents making impulsive attacks. My deck only attacks when necessary. Unfortunately, he also has a lot of healing effects, and once Li Mao hits the board with immunity to Architect events, I'm in trouble. I am reduced to playing site destruction and trying to hold him off until he decks. It works for a while, but not nearly long enough. James wins the title. Congratulations. Second place is far better than I expected.



So I leave the con with my friends and get back out to the 'burbs in time for the midnight brat cookout Tony is putting on. I see Homey and Aber are there with some other people. We stay up past 2:00 eating, drinking, and reminiscing. At that point, I go to bed. Tony, Jason, Kevin, and John stay up to play a new game "Word on the Street".



Saturday, August 15

I head down to the con alone, as everyone else is still asleep. This is the big day, the World Championship Final Brawl. I've been psyching myself up for this for a long time. I feel that since Willow was able to make it to the finals the last two years (and win it once), I should have a chance to make it to the finals if I play well. I'm playing my new Lotus Stealth deck. First round against James Deto and Daniel Griego starts OK. I get lots of magic resources and Reverend Adam Wither comes out with a Lunar Sword. Daniel convinces James that Wither has to go at all costs. James commits everything to the cause and looses all of his characters because of it. This leaves an open board for Daniel, who plays the Ivory Goddess, and takes a site of mine for the win. I worry that the Reverend might be problematic. If he continues to draw this much hate, I'm in trouble. The second round was very fast. All characters were turned, Reverend Wither was on the board again. He attacked an unrevealed site, which was an Eagle Mountain. I played my fourth site, LaGrange Four, and attacked again for the win. Third round, I played Willow and Chris Tucker. I jumped to a quick lead and was able to win even though Willow almost failed my final attack by convincing me to attack Chris rather than her. I have no recollection now of the fourth round, but I did not win. This left me in fifth place and just missing the finals. Oh well.



Now I'll play in the Comrades in Arms. I decide to play a fun deck for this. I'm burned out being ultracompetitive. I pull out my 100 Demons deck. It is a CiA & 100 Names deck. I think I end up with one win and one time out win, but it is fun anyway. The most memorable event during the tournament is the fire alarm half way through. The whole building has to be evacuated for about a half hour. It turns out one of the pizza ovens had caught on fire. After the event, I find Homey, drive him to his hotel, and go back to Tony's.. Its an early night and I'm in bed by 1:00.



Sunday, August 16

Last day of the con and all I have on the schedule is Faction Wars. I pack up my stuff and head to the con. I still have to pick my deck for this event. I consider my ReAscended deck, my Manchu deck, or even the Lotus Stealth deck I played in the Final Brawl. When I get there, there will be 10 players for this. My Manchu deck works well in three-player and does not usually take a lot of effort to run, so I'll go with this. First round, I end up in the four-player game. It goes to time. Stupid Jammer site destruction. I miss being able to play a FSS on my turn by about 10 seconds, which would have tied me for the lead. Oh well. Second round, I end up in the four-player game again. This again goes to time, but this time, I do tie for the win. I am really hating Jammers at this point. The third round I am finally in a three player game, but it is with Red and James. Red is playing a Jammer deck that destroys its own sites, and James is playing his 7 Masters dueling deck. Here are two decks that are really hard to effectively attack, and I have my hyperaggressive Manchu deck. I get a suboptimum start and decide I have to throw everything out there if I want a chance. If I fail, at least this game will not go to time. I fail. I also stop Red from taking my LaGrange Four because it looks like he could go for the win if he seizes it and attacks again. His second attack was likely to fail because James had denial in his hand, so I should have let him take. James then plays a site and superleaps Li Mao at LaGrange Four and takes it for the win. Sorry, Red. At this point, I'm burned out and am facing the 6 hour drive home. I check with Daniel. There is no way I can place in this event with one round left. So I ask if it would be OK to bow out. He approves. I say my goodbyes, hit the dealer room quickly, and then drive off into the sunset on the way home to Wisconsin. And if I never see another Cyborg Mermaid driving a Steam-Powered Tricycle, it will be too soon.



Decklists to follow.

The Beast