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