Roar of the Beast

Plattecon 2011

2011-07-26T15:41:00.001-05:00

Back in March was the Wisconsin State Championship held at Plattecon. We had a record turnout of eight players this year. Our regular crew of Willow, Tim, Rebecca, John, and me were joined by Chris and Jeff from Milwaukee and Matt who drove all the way in from Chicago. So we had two rounds of two 4-player games and then a 4-player final.

Round 1:

Table 1:

Chris (Hand/Dragon goodness)

Jim (Jammer Rebel)

Tim (Lotus Detonating Corpses)

Rebecca (Monarch Fire)

Table 2:

Willow (Dragon / Monarch goodness)

Matt (Darkitect sacrifice)

John (Architect)

Jeff (Dragon hitters)

Willow won at table 2, and I won at table 1 with a Violence Junkie taking Chris's Arctic Fortress with the assistance of a Disco Inferno.

Round 2:

Table 1:

Willow, Jim, Jeff, and Rebecca.

Table 2:

Chris, Tim, John, Matt

Chris won at table 2 to get into the final. I secured my spot with a second victory. Two Deep Cover Rebels were able to sneak past the King of the Fire Pagoda and Dr. Amanda Snow using "Trust me, I've got a plan" to take Willow's LaGrange Four. Rebecca had enough Game Points to sneak into the fourth spot in the final.

Final Round saw Chris push his way to victory with a Big Bruiser against Willows damaged Temple of Celestial Mercy. Congratulations to Chris, the "Big Cheese"!

My deck was a slightly modified Rebel site destruction deck. I chose this deck for the protests (rebels) going on in Madison and across the state for the two weeks before the convention.

Kill the Bill:

Foundation (13)

Just Another Consumer x5 (state workers)

Punks x5 (students & TA's)

Rebel without a Cause x3 (nonunion protesters)

Characters (12)

Buffalo Soldier

Curtis Graham

Two-Face (protest drummers)

Violence Junkies x4 (troublemakers planted by GOP)

Johnny Amok

Deep-Cover Rebels x4 (police and firefighter protesters)

Events (16)

Monkeywrenching x3 (senators leaving the state)

Disco Inferno x4

Who's the Monkey Now? x2 (FOX news discredited reporting – there are no palm trees in Madison)

"Trust Me I've Got a Plan"

Close Call

"There's Always One More"

Scrounging (Ian's free pizza)

Potlatch

Uprising x2 (Do you know what is actually in the budget repair bill? You would rebel too)

Edges (6)

Frag the G! x2

Payback Time x2

Black Market Connections

Burn, Baby, Burn

Sites (2)

Bomb Factory

RedGlare Chapel

FSS (13)

Rust Garden x5

Ancient Stone Arch

Family Home

Hydroponic Garden

Pinball Arcade x2

City Hospital (UW Hospital)

Nine Dragon Temple

City Park (The Capitol Square)

The deck plays through a slow build up. Attack sites where possible. Disco Inferno can make an underpowered attack into a site taker. Get some Violence Junkies into the smoked pile. Build up to Deep Cover Rebels then start throwing waves of characters at the opponents. With the fighting that comes back from the Rebels going down can be overwhelming. Then use Uprising to start the attacks over. Control the board with site destruction as needed. The big weakness in the deck is its vulnerability to having the Uprising cancelled.

Gen Con 2010 Ritual of the Unnameable

2010-08-19T12:53:00.000-05:00

Sunday's only event was a Ritual of the Unnameable. I had two RotU decks made before GenCon, a BAD Architect deck and a BAT Monarch deck. I got an idea for an Ascended OMG deck, but did not have time to pull it together before the event. I ended up playing the BAT deck, which I have fun playing.

Nine people showed up for the tournament, so there were four rounds of 3 3-player games scheduled. My first game was against Red and his CDCA deck and someone else's Monarch BAD deck (I think. It's amazing how much I forget in two weeks.) I was able to win this game with the Thunder Bird in Butterfly Armor leading the winning attack against Red's Devil Mountain.

In the next round, I faced Josh's Monkeys In Black deck, and I think another BAD deck. If memory serves (which I would not bet on at this point), Josh won this game.

The third round I faced Willow's PMS Jammer deck and Daniel's CAD Architect deck. Willow won the game, but I had one of my favorite in game moments here. On Daniel's turn, he played an Abomination Serum on my Butterfly Knight. In response, I played Bear vs. Fox to start a Faceoff with Dr. Klaus Herrbruck. Daniel tried to save the good Dr. with a Cellular Reinvigoration, which I Brain Fired onto the Butterfly Knight. The Knight won the Faceoff and played Daniel's Arcanovirus to smoke Willow's Professional Killer. I love being able to mess with other peoples plans in unexpected ways. It is one of the best parts of the game. Later in the game, Daniel attack me to the right. I told him was going to use everything to stop him and leave the board open for Willow. He continued with the attack. I stopped him. Willow won. (Willow, I have one of your Safety Third cards from this event.)

After this Willow left thinking the tournament was only three rounds. So for the final round, I ended up in a four player game with Braz, playing a DIE Lotus deck; Joey, playing a PIS Monarch deck, and Red again. I'll give Braz credit for playing the most interesting deck in the tournament. I started fast, but could not maintain the momentum. Red cleared the board with an Arcanovirus, and I couldn't come back. We went to time. It was a fun game, but I don't remember who won. Josh, I believe, won the tournament.

I apologize for the inaccuracies that I am sure are this report. By this time all events were blurring together along with who I was playing and what decks were being played. Any corrections people have are more than welcome.

Blood And Thunder

Foundation (12)
Thunder Gladiator x5
Thunder Knight x7

Characters (14)
Thunder Squire x4
Thunder Captain
Butterfly Knight x4
Bonebreaker Jun x2
Thunder Bird x2
Avenging Darkness

Events (15)
Blood and Thunder x5
Bear vs. Fox x2
Tiger vs. Crane
Brain Fire x3
Blood Lust x3
Avenging Thunder

States (3)
Thunder Sword
Butterfly Armor
Bandolier of Throwing Knives

Edges (2)
The Book of Wrath
Blanket of Darkness

Sites (2)
Thunder Pagoda vPAP
The Thunder Dome

FSS (13)
Birdhouse Cafe
Bird Sanctuary
Blessed Orchard
Ancient Stone Arch
Temple of the Angry Spirits
Temple of the Monkey King
The Blue Moon Club
Thousand Sword Mountain
Turtle Island x2
Turtle Beach x2
The Pinnacles

A simple straight forward attack deck. Build an army and attack using Blood and Thunder to pump it up and avoid a lot of redirection / damage reduction denial. In this tournament, I avoided redirection from Devil's Mountain, and damage reduction from Diamond Beach and Puzzle Garden. About half the games I have won with this deck have been with the Thunder Bird with Butterfly Armor. I really like that this deck lends itself to the out of faction Faceoff events.

Gen Con 2010 Comrades in Arms

2010-08-16T22:20:00.000-05:00

Saturday night was the Comrades in Arms tournament. To me this was a fun, relaxed event. I am interested in the deck designs and designator choices. I choose an old standby Monkey deck. I wanted to try Beast but the card pool is too small (Alpha Beast, Beta Beast, Gamma Beast, Paradox Beast, Jigsaw Beast, Roar of the Beast, and Tomb of the Beast) with some marginal cards. Nine people showed up for the tournament, which had four rounds. So everyone played everyone once.

First round was Braz and John Wengler. Braz was playing his Paradox deck from Origins, and John was playing a Darkness deck, which he had played earlier in the World Championship. At one point, John attacked me to the right to try to get a vulnerable site. Braz then Discerning Fired and had I wide open board. John and I couldn't muster a defense. Braz won.

Second round, I played John Monnett and Josh Kronengold. John had a gun deck, and Josh had a Pawn deck, which I think was the most unique designator in the event. I came out hard and fast and was able to overwhelm them. When Josh got his Stand Together in play, it became more difficult, but I still pulled it off. Two Buffalo Soldiers helped keep the Monkey horde safe in this game.

Third round, I played Tim Lindon and Jeremy Dale. Tim's deck I think was a Rebel deck and Jeremy had a Student Deck. Again, the Monkey horde was able to overwhelm the opposition and claim victory. I am foggy on the specifics of the the game, however.

Final round, I faced off against Red and Daniel. It turned out that Red was the only other player with two wins going into this round. So in a way, this game was a true final unless Daniel won. Red was playing a Fire deck, and Daniel had a Secret Deck. This was a long game with lots of sites (mostly mine) being burned. In the end, time was called just after I played Potlatch to get enough power to launch an attack against Daniel. When the points were tabulated, Red came in first for the tournament, Josh sneaked into second, and I was third by a single game point. If I hadn't played Potlatch, I would have been second. Oh well, it was still a fun tournament.

Deck Eunuch Monkeys

Foundation (11)
Big Macaque Attack x5
Marmojet x5
Rebel Without a Cause

Characters (12)
Brass Monkey x2
Funkey Monkey x2
Furious George vPAP
Gorilla Fighter x2
Buffalo Soldier x2
Orango Tank
Wild Gorillas
Monkey Pirates

Events (18)
"There's Always One More" x4
Close Call
The Ape is Loose! x2
Who's the Monkey Now? x3
IKTV Special Report
Scrounging x5
Potlatch x2

State (1)
Single Action Devolver

Edges (2)
Mo' Monkeys, Mo' Problems
Payback Time

Sites (3)
Ape City
Bomb Factory
Genocide Lounge

FSS (13)
Eagle Mountain x4
Monkey House x3
Proving Ground x5
Whirlpool of Blood

This deck is simple play monkeys and attack. Use Proving Grounds to pump out the two cost Monkeys. Generate power through Monkey House, Scrounging, and non-FSS sites. Recycle Monkeys with There's Always One More. Worst case is you get a Marmojet or a Buffalo Soldier, either of which will help the Macaques. For the CiA tournament I subbed in 2 extra Who's the Monkey Now? for Close Calls. Discerning Fires can wreak this deck by taking out monkeys or Proving Grounds.

Gen Con 2010 World Championship

2010-08-16T17:22:00.000-05:00

Saturday was the Final Brawl World Championship. I felt woefully under prepared for this event. Leading up to Gen Con, most of my decks had been greatly modified to try out Empire of Evil cards, and none of them were well tuned. I was working on Lotus recycling deck ideas (Hopping Vampire with or without Mysterious Return, or Unholy Legionaries with Dragon Throne) but nothing seemed like a solid build. I finally decided to go back to an old standby - Yakuza Enforcers and Final Brawls with a few updates. Again, the deck is not well tuned, but the basic concept is simple and simple to play.

First round was against Robert Stetler and Greg Zimmerman. I got off to a good start and wrapped this up quickly. Robert was quite upset when he found out that Sword of the Master cancelled the fighting bonuses his Twelve Thousand Skulls put on Feng Kan. Then when is cancelled the Escalation bonus, it added insult to injury. I ended up with a 10-Fighting Hacker going for the win.

Second round was against Willow and Braz. Willow was playing her Ballad of Jade Willow deck. I warned Braz not to burn any of her sites or a free Jade Willow would come flying out of her hand. We were able to make her pay full price for Jade Willow, but we couldn't quite put stop Jade Willow from dominating the rest of the game. Willow won the round.

The third and fourth round games I was able to win to lock a seat in the final. The other finalists were Julian Leighton playing Eating Brains in the Service of the Lotus deck, Tim Lindon playing a Morse Code Poet deck, and Mike Lansinski playing a Monarch deck.

I got a quick burn with two Redeemed Gunmen taking Mike's front row turned site. I burned for victory, which was a mistake. I really should have burned for power, which I needed over the next couple turns. Julian build up a formidable army of undead and vampires. He was taking Tim's battleground sites to fund his army. Tim played a long site structure of big FSS (The Great Wall), Hall of Portals, and battleground sites. In front, he had up to three Morse Code Poets. Mike was having a hard time getting started. I don't think he ever quite got back from my taking his site.

During one of Tim's attacks, which I believe was an early attempt for the win, Julian asked for help stopping it. I foolishly mentioned that I had Final Brawls available. Julian then Tortured Memories the Poet to stop the attack. I believe Julian then spent part of the rest of the game trying to draw out the Brawls. Because most of his characters were four fighting or lower, the Brawls potentially could devastate his position. On his last turn he attacked me to the right. I had seized his Death Ring earlier and he claimed he was coming back for it. No one intercepted. At the last minute, he revealed and turned an Endless Corridor to switch my back row unrevealed FSS with the Death Ring which now made this a winning attack. I still sat on the Brawls. He hit for 7 and left the Disco with 1 body left. Tim when next. He took my damaged Disco and then launched the winning attack. When I tried to Brawl (twice), he had two Delay the Inevitables to save his attackers and win the game.

Looking back I made several mistakes that I remember (I'm sure there are more that I don't)
1) Burning for victory rather than power when I took the early site. This would have funded at least one hitter and given me some sustainable forward momentum.
2) Revealing that I had Final Brawls in my hand. Unfortunately between when I spoke up and the final turn of the game, I did not draw any additional ones or Equal-Opportunity Butt-Kicking.
3) Not playing the Brawls earlier. There were a couple opportunities (When Julian started a Face-Off with Lin when I played her, when Julian played Sword of the Master on a Hopping Vampire before attacking the Death Ring, when Julian attacked the Death Ring) that could have been more advantageous.

Ah well, live and learn.

Deck - Last Man Standing (57):

Foundation (11)
Brave Villagers x5
Redeemed Gunman x3
Hacker x3

Characters (10)
Yakuza Enforcer x5
Lin
Marisol
Big Bruiser x2
The Spirit of Kongxiangsi

Events (20)
Final Brawl x5
Equal Opportunity Butt-Kicking x4
Escalation x3
Dirk Wiseley's Gambit x3
Never Surrender
Ashes of the Fallen
Is That All You Got x2
Kiii-YAAAH!

State (1)
Sword of the Master

Edge (2)
Pony Express x2

FSS (13)
Sacred Heart Hospital x2
Whirlpool of Blood
Temple of the Angry Spirits
Festival Circle x2
LaGrange Four
Gambling House
Disco
Ancient Stone Arch
Cave Network x3

A somewhat updated version of an old deck. The basic core is play Yakuza Enforcers and Brawl/Kick-Butt as much as possible to keep other characters off the board. One new combo that I like in particular is Escalation with Sword of the Master. My character's fighting is doubled until the end of the attack and you get nothing.

Gen Con 2010 New Heroes

2010-08-16T13:00:00.000-05:00

Friday night was New Heroes. I was here to defend my victory from last year. I fell into the alluring trap of trying to play a Syndicate deck as they look like they have even footing with all the other factions in this format. I, however, think the Ascended with all of the additional power generation available and Shadowy Mentor are the faction to beat. Mars Program Executive looks to be the key to ramp up the power with the Syndicate at this point.

Games were three-player games (Daniel is particularly fond of 3-player for conventions as fewer games go to time). My first round was against two other Syndicate decks. John Merrill ended building an unassailable fortress of Great Walls backed by The Steam Laundry Company. From here he was able to fight to victory.

I don't remember the other rounds well. John Wengler was playing Ascended. Daniel was playing Hand. Greg Zimmerman was playing Ascended/Jammers. A few people were playing Monarchs or Monarch / Lotus. Overall though Syndicate was the most popular faction. Purists and Dragons were absent from the tournament as best as I can recall. I believe John Merrill went on to win the event, but I'm not sure.

My Syndicate Deck:

Foundation (13)
Mars Colonist x5
Triad Punks x5
Street Racers x3

Characters (19)
Mars Program Executive x4
Street Doc
Rei Okamoto
Tattooed Man x2
Nihilist x2
Song, the Little Dragon
Akamatsu Mitsusuke
Devendra Chalal
Hiroshi Kata
Xu Mei, the Dragon
Salaryman
Zero-G Sumo
Jessica Ng
Hirake Kazuko

Events (11)
Data Theft
Reprogramming x5
Smoke and Mirrors
The Price of Progress
Catching Bullets
Inconvenient Debt
Data Mining

States (4)
Synchronic Beam Emitter
Hyper Alloy Blade
The Hegemeister
Platinum Upgrade

Edge (1)
Corporate Warfare

Sites (2)
Cybermod Parlor
The Wireless

FSS (13)
LaGrange Four
Moon Base
Hydroponic Garden
Rainforest Ruins
Mah-Jongg Parlor
Ancient Stone Arch
Martyr's Tomb
The Iron Palace
University Library
Endless Corridor
Bamboo Forest x3

The deck really needs a 5th Mars Program Exec. and another Martyr's Tomb. If you can continually recycle the execs, the power can keep on flowing. I also really like the Reprogramming in this format because almost every character has some special ability that is worth canceling. The best cancel I had in the tournament was Shao the Killer, which allowed my winning attack through. Platinum Upgrades also paid the bills in this tournament. Some people were questioning if this state is overpowered. For me it often made a Mars Exec into an impromptu hitter. Cost 5 for 6 fighting with toughness 3 is not over the curve. (But I suppose if you discount the Exec by the 3 power he paid back, it was cost 2 for 6F with Toughness 3. I think this points more to the power of the Exec than the Upgrade.)

Gen Con 2010 Draft

2010-08-16T12:53:00.000-05:00

Friday morning was the draft event. Eighteen players showed up to draft from Six Guns & Shurikens, Critical Shift, and Empire of Evil. Seven boosters were drafted with two foundation pods and one Feng Shui pod being provided after the draft. The structure of the draft was somewhat disappointing. We drafted in groups of three, which meant you were sure to get stuck with lots of cards out of the main factions you were drafting. You would also see a much smaller card pool from which to draft. I would have preferred to draft in groups of six. The second problem was that the tournament rounds were setup as two separate groups of nine players. So the nine players of group A never played against the nine players of group B. It gave the feeling that even though we could not play all other players, you could not control your destiny. At least there were enough players within each group so that you never played against the same opponent more than once. A more personal annoyance was that the first round of games was with the same three people with whom you drafted. You pretty much knew what you were in for the first round. In draft I expect a greater element of surprise.

I drafted Jammer / Hand and when I was done found that I had good amount of Architect as well.

Draft Deck:

Foundation (11):
Kamikaze Cosmonauts
Suicide Squad
Edge Warrior x2
Mad Scientist x2 (I am fuzzy on this foundation, It's listed to be in Pods but I don't remember)
Rebel without a Cause
Dump Warrior x2
Willow Warriors
Celestials

Characters (10):
Dr. Quentin Higginsbotham
Tunnel King
Turing Machine
Potemkin's Brigade
Andy Di
Monkey Pirates
Cyborg Mermaid
Johnny Amok
Jayne Insane
Shihong

Events (9):
Isothermal Zodiac x2
Out of the Barrel x3
Ape Shall Kill Ape
Auspicious Thermite
The Willow Bends... x2

States (7):
Fingertip Razors
Buzzsaw Arm
Explosive Motorcycle
Steam-Powered Tricycle
Single-Action Devolver
Shurikens
Simple Paper Fan

Sites (2):
Hot Zone
Mountain Monastery

FSS(10):
Ancient Stone Arch
University Library
Forgotten Temple
Moon Base
Mirrored Lake
Arctic Fortress
Endless Corridor
Grove of Willows
Family Home
Blessed Orchard

I only won one of the four round I played in. The first round Josh Shadowy Mentored my Turing Machine (which I should have seen coming). After that he was able to push ahead to win. The second round, I got SEVEN power from an attack on my Grove of Willows. Some how, I squandered that advantage, and failed to win. The third round Shihong attacked as time was called an just took the last site needed for the win. I am drawing a complete blank on the fourth and final round.

Gen Con 2010 Invitational

2010-08-11T12:40:00.001-05:00

This year I was invited to the exclusive invitational event at Gen Con. I was selected for ranking in the top 10 for most points scored in the Secret War Society for the previous year. All of these point had been earned the previous year at Gen Con.

I wasn't given much notice for this. The final list was published the week of Gen Con. I had not been keeping track of the points year to date, so I did not know if I would make it. I had thought about harassing Daniel about getting an invite for winning New Heroes at last year's Gen Con, but I didn't want to pressure him into extending an 'unearned' invite.

As an aside I think the method for earning an invitation should be somewhat different. Anyone who won a world championship or won the invitational should get a lifetime invite. I find it hard to believe someone like Jan Malina (among other previous champions) would not be considered a worthy opponent at this type of event.

Back to the topic at hand. I did not have time to try to develop a new deck with which I would be comfortable. I decided to update my Lotus Stealth deck that I played in the world championship last year. As it turned out, I could have made a brand new deck and not done any worse. I lost all my games and ended as the Gimp. Well it was an honor to just be invited and throwdown with the best of the best. I'd like to take this time to thank my coaches, my parents, and my creator.

Willow won the tournament for the second year in a row. Her deck was a Monarch fire deck with maybe a Dragon splash.

Here is the deck list (notice that the Stealth was removed):

Knife (As in I took a Knife to a Gun fight)
Foundation (13)
Sinister Priest x5
Wailing Apparition x5
Shamanistic Punk x2
Petal's Attendant

Characters (13)
Eater of Fortune
Reverend Adam Wither x2
Destroyer
Xin Ji Yang (F7)
Madam Yen
Infernal Army
Midnight
Gao Zhang
Cloaca
The Alabaster King
Sheriff Agathon
Evil Twin

Events (15)
Flying Sleeves x3
Evil Whispers x2
Die!!! x2
Verminous Rain
Poisoned
Pocket Demon
Tortured Memories x3
Discerning Fire
Infernal Pact

States (5)
Tommy Gun
Amulet of the Turtle x2
Mark of Evil
Lunar Sword

Edges (3)
Insidious Plan
Throne of Skulls
Twelve Thousand Skulls

Sites (2)
Death Ring
The Library of Souls

FSS (14)
Disco
Gambling House
Rainforest Ruins
City Park
Hydroponic Garden
Golden Mile
Fox Pass
Hot Spring
Ancient Stone Arch
Mobius Garden
Temple of the Angry Spirits
LaGrange Four
Coral Reef
The Alabaster Palace

Gen Con 2010 Dueling

2010-08-11T12:19:00.000-05:00

This year I was again playing The Politician with a few minor updates. My main concerns going into this event were two-fold. One, I still felt that a Project Apocalypse deck and a 7 Masters deck with it's event protection (Li Mao) and ubiquitous healing would be difficult. I had really thought that a good control Ascended deck would be the way to go, but I didn't have time to put one together. The main tools I was looking at for Ascended were Lodge Machinations for Project Apocalypse and discard and Shadowy Mentor to deal with the 7 Masters.

The field was only six players. The event was supposed to be a full round robin with each player playing each other twice with each person getting to go first once. No time limits were set because dueling is supposed to be fast enough to not require them. This did not quite work out, but the final standings were not affected.

The first deck I played against was Project Apocalypse run by David Kempe. Shit! I lost both games. I don't think it was so much because my deck can't beat it as my strategy to beat it. I was focusing on taking down the PA site. If I had tried to go into a fast attack mode and play sites quickly, I could have won through conventional victory conditions before PA would have timed out. I was saving my resources to try to take down PA and lost site of how to win the game. Next year.

Second match was against John Merrill and his deck that tied for first at Origins. It was a Hand deck with Sword Saints and Spear of Destiny that did not stand up. He had at least one bad draw also.

Third match was against Julian Leighton. He was playing a slightly updated SWAHT deck, which he had won the Gen Con dueling event with a few years ago. First game, he won as he was able to field threats faster than I could remove them. The second game his first two sites in play were Whirlpools of Blood. I was able to take advantage of their low bodies and win the second game.

Fourth match was against Jeremy Dale, who was playing a Big Red Button deck. I beat him in our first game. Unfortunately, he had to leave for a miniatures painting contest, and we did not get to play the second game. When he played Greg Zimmerman in the previous round, he got off a janky combo that was amusing. Jeremy had no cards in play. He played a Desire Manipulator on Greg's Battlechimp. He then played a Newest Model on the Manipulator. This netted him 2 power per turn along with 1 counter on his We Have the Technology each turn while his Supercomputer was filling his hand. Finally, he had enough power and cards to bust out with a Big Red Button and destroy everything Greg had in play.

Due to time constraints, I did not get to play Greg. The final standings were Julian in first and me in second. I had the distinction of being the only player to beat Julian even one game. So I had that going for me.

Deck: The Politician v 1.1

Foundation (15)
Test Subjects x5
Combat Engineer x5
Arcanomoth x5

Characters (11)
Napalm Belcher x5
Rocket Team x3
Dr. Curtis Boatman vPAP
Gnarled Annihilator
Commander Corliss

Denial (22)
Imprison x4
Nanovirus
Nerve Gas x3
Artillery Strike x2
Aerial Bombardment x2
Wave Disruptor
War of Attrition x2
Overzealous Assassins
Orbital Laser Strike x3
Smart Missile x3

Support (10)
MegaTank
Rise of the NeoBuro x2
Evil Brain in the Jar
Reinvigoration Process x2
Dangerous Experiment x4

FSS (15)
Creche of the New Flesh x2
Mirrored Lake
Dragon Graveyard x3
Mah-Jongg Parlor
Monkey House
Moon Base x3
Temple of Celestial Mercy
Temple of the Angry Spirits
Waterfall Sanctuary
Ancient Stone Arch

Strategy is to build resources to get the Napalm Belchers out and blow away opponents cards. Always keep one power on hand to get rid of any big threat that comes out. Never attack unrevealed sites. Once your ahead in power and fighting, just deny anything that hits the board and maintain your advantage.

Plattecon Final Brawl Deck 2010

2010-05-28T16:16:00.001-05:00

This deck was designed for the Wisconsin state championship. I, however, did not get a chance to play it. It is designed for four-player and favors a long game. Some of features of the deck are Occult Kung Fu and Martyr’s Tomb. The Occult Kung Fu could copy the Mountain Hermit on to a Master and allow it to be unturned using a Wah-Shan Clan Warrior, Wudang Mountain, or the Mountain Monastery. It could also copy the Coyote Clan Scavengers on to a hitter to get Ambush against non-foundation characters, which should be all you need. The Martyr’s Tomb would be used to reload a hitter before playing Unexpected Rescue. It would also reload Red Bat once an opponent got to 8 Events in their smoked pile. Free Red Bat every turn does not suck. This deck really needs some tuning as each combo seems too unlikely to come up.

Foundations (13)
Wah-Shan Clan Warriors x5
Mountain Hermit x3
Black Helicopter Squad
Coyote Clan Scavengers x3
Queen of the Ice Pagoda (old)

Characters (10)
Wudang Monk
Monsoon
Ghost Wind
Li Mao
Red Bat x2
Gold Lion
Wu Man Kai
Jade Willow
Hunger of the Jackal

Events (20)
Kunlun Clan Assault x5
Unexpected Rescue x4
Monkey Fools the Tiger x2
Wing of the Crane x2
Violet Meditation x3
Beneficent Tao x2
Operation Killdeer x2

States (5)
Occult Kung Fu x2
Living Legend
Fortune of the Turtle x2

Edges (1)
Balanced Harmonies

Sites (1)
Mountain Monastery

FSS(14)
Wudang Mountain
Martyr’s Tomb
Bamboo Forest
Puzzle Garden x4
Grizzly Pass
Ancient Stone Arch
Fox Pass
Devil’s Mountain
Cave Network x2
Temple of the Angry Spirits

One of the person goals of this deck was to try to beat Willow with her card: Jade Willow.

Ascended Empire of Evil Sampler Deck

2010-05-27T17:00:00.000-05:00

This deck uses all Ascended cards from Empire of Evil except for Horus, the ReAscended hitter who needs more of a specialty deck. The two points that were emphasized were adding a wider variety of events to help the Tentacles of the Squid and having lots of discard effects to get the most out of the Wisdom of the Owl. Both paid off. I had to discard a large portion of my deck to get to my hitters. If the deck had not been designed for additional discards, I never would have gotten to them. The game winning attack was with a Tentacle doing 10 damage, which was enough to prevent healing and redirection tricks from preventing him from taking the site.

Foundation (13)
Whelps x3
The Pledged x5
Student of the Bear x4
Liquidators

Characters (12)
Wisdom of the Owl x2
Tentacles of the Squid x2
G-Man
The Petrified Man
Hunger of the Jackal x2
Adrienne Hart
Juan “El Tigre” Velasquez
Natraj Thalnasser
The She-Wolf

Events (15)
Red Tape Assault x2
Murder by Night
Operation Killdeer x5
Spy Network
Cover Operations
Bite of the Jellyfish
Mole Network
Realpolitik
Cry of the Forgotten Ancestor
“Throw Me the Idol”

States (4)
Embrace of the Snake x2
Compromised Security x2

Edges (3)
Delaying Tactics x2
Paper Trail

Sites (4)
Family Estate x3
The Bazaar

FSS(13)
Palace of Virtual Light
Boot Hill
Perpetual Motion Machine
Coral Reef x2
Dragon Graveyard x2
Tangram Alley
Ominous Swamp
Mobius Garden
Monkey House
Field of Tentacles

After the fact, I realized that Murder by Night does not combo with the Tentacles since it becomes Toast It.

Casual Play Report

2010-05-26T22:35:00.001-05:00

After a long hiatus due to a little family accident, I was able to get together with Willow and Tim for a few games.

Game 1:
Willow played her willing deck from Plattecon featuring Jade Willow.
Tim played his standard detonating Destroyer deck.
I played a 7 Masters / Ascended deck that I was going to take to Plattecon. I'll post the deck later.

Willow got out the White Ninja but wasn't able to muster enough fighting to take a site. Tim Tortured Memories the Ninja and burned Willow's front row site for power. This let Willow drop Jade Willow for free. I dropped the Queen of the Ice Pagoda (old) and attacked the Ninja. We exchanged Monkey Fools the Tiger and both characters were smoked. Jade Willow then got Fortune of the Turtle and went on a rampage. Shortly after that Willow won the game.

Game 2:
I played a Darkness Deck,
Willow played a Syndicate Deck
Tim played a Dragon Deck

Willow got a fairly fast start using a Bird Sanctuary to good effect to get an early Song, the Little Dragon. I could not get a second Monarch resource to save my life. By the time Tim was able to play a Big Bruiser, Willow had Hirake Kazuko in play, which would make the Big Bruiser a big mistake. Again, Willow was able to win this game in short order.

Game 3:
I played a Jammer Deck,
Willow played an Architect Tank Deck,
Tim played an Ascended Tentacles of the Squid Deck.

On Tim's first turn, he played a Gangster and attacked Willow's undefended Feng Shui Site. I played Out of the Barrel to drop a free Cocktail Waiters. I joined the attack with the Waiters and Just Another Consumer. I thought putting 5 damage on the site would soften it nicely for me to take it next turn. Nope, it was a Maze of Stairs! Tim got a burn for power on his first turn. Fortunately, for Willow and me, he could not get a second resource right away. I was able to get some more cheap characters and burn Tim's front row site and was lucky that Tim did not have a Bite when I burned it for power. After that I was able to roll to a quick win.

Game 4:
Tim played Willow's championship Punchy Hand deck
Willow played her Monarch/Dragon deck
I played an Ascended Wisdom of the Owl / Discard deck

I was able to play a Wisdom of the Owl on my first turn. Willow and Tim attacked it repeatedly, but were foiled with multiple Operation Killdeers. I used a Coral Reef, Coil of the Snake, and the Palace of Virtual Light to cycle through my deck to get to some big characters. Finally I got Adrianne Hart and went for the win. I was decimated with the denial that came out. Willow came on strong with the Queen of the Ice Pagoda (new) with an Ice Sword. She took some of my sites over then next few turns, but stalled at victory conditions. Tim had two damaged sites in his front row, and Willow's front row site was also damaged. I was able to superleap "El Tigre" over the Queen to take Willow's site. I then played a site to put me at victory. I then dropped Liquidators and Tentacles of the Squid who were up to 10 damage at this point. They were able to take a site from Tim for the win.

Overall a fun night after not playing for 3 months.

Plattecon Prize Support

2010-02-05T22:48:00.002-06:00

Here are all the cool prizes Inner Kingdom Games provided for Plattecon. Actually, there are two uncut sheets from Empire of Evil that aren't shown. Very generous. I think I'm going to have to work seriously on my decks this year so I can get the plaque to hang on my wall. Barring that, I would like an uncut sheet or a mouse pad with Ting Ting.

Anticipated Metagame Shift

2010-01-21T05:32:00.000-06:00

After playing a few games with Empire of Evil and seeing how things went down at Gen Con, I am anticipating a need for a shift in the metagame. More and more there are new cards that allow for penetration during attacks. This is either by Stealth, Superleap, cannot be intercepted (e.g. Hegemeister or Scramble Suit), stop intercepting (e.g. Blue Meditation, Dust Storm), or healing (e.g. The Willow Bends...). Relying on interceptors to stop attacks is becoming far less reliable. I think this is going to necessitate a shift back towards more direct removal. Zap denial had fallen out of favor somewhat because of the amount of counter denial with some of it even being punitive, Who's the Monkey Now and Brain Fire being the biggest. I, however, think that without zap, it will become increasingly hard to mount effective defenses. So either zap will need to come back or more creative (most likely site based) defenses will evolve.

Hand Empire of Evil Sampler Deck

2010-01-20T17:11:00.001-06:00

Foundation (13):

Willow Warriors x3

Golden Candle Society x5

Shaolin Student x5

Characters (12):

Peasant Leader x2

Stoic Wanderer

Yuan Chonguan

Shung Dai

Wei Fong-yi

Yen Fan

Sun Chen

Shihong

Blue Master x2

Fong Sai Yuk

Events (9):

Blue Meditation x2

Resistance in Numbers

Rigorous Discipline

Difficulty at the End of Things x2

Superior Kung Fu x2

Natural Order

States (11):

Meditative Flight

Awesome Presence

Rain of Fury

Dim Mak

Hand without Shadow x2

Butterfly Swords x4

Flying Windmill Kick

Edge (1):

Strength of the Land

Sites (3):

Mountain Monastery x2

Bandit Hideout

FSS (14):

Temple of the Shaolin Dragon

Hydroponic Garden x2

Disco

City Park x3

Mirrored Lake

Mobius Garden

Ancient Stone Arch

Bird Sanctuary

Festival Circle

Fox Pass

Golden Mile

Since a lot of the characters in the set have some type of evasion, the deck just wants to get damage adders on the characters and sneak past interceptors to take sites. A secondary theme was to get the Peasant Leaders so they could take control of opponents' characters.

Jammer Empire of Evil Sampler Deck

2010-01-20T16:55:00.001-06:00

Foundation (13):

Suicide Squad x3

Just Another Consumer x5

Edge Warrior

Resistance Squad x4

Characters (12):

Cocktail Waiters

Tunnel King

Dump Scrounger x2

Andy Di x2

Potemkin's Brigade

BattleChimp Potemkin vPaP x2

The Wrath of Kong

Furious George

King Kung

Events (21):

Out of the Barrel x3

Back in Black x3

Close Call x2

Auspicious Thermite

Scrounging x4

Death-O-Rama x4

Who's the Monkey Now x2

Street Riot x2

States (4):

Thingshot

Explosive Motorcycle x2

Homemade Tank

Edge (1):

Payback Time

Sites (8):

Bomb Factory x2

Rebel Camp x2

Killing Ground x4

FSS (9):

Nightclub x2

Hot Spring

Whirlpool of Blood

Fox Pass

City Square

Disco

Coral Reef x2

Here's my deck to try out the Jammer cards from Empire of Evil. Note that I did not get a copy of Jayne Insane or Johnny Amok, so both are missing. With Out of the Barrel and Back in Black, I felt that event recycling to pump out lots of characters would be a strong strategy. The BattleChimp vPaP is just the card to make it work. Lots of the other cards are then used to maximize the damage they do. Use the City Square and Fox Pass for defense, and it should play fairly well.

Play Results

2010-01-18T06:45:00.002-06:00

So we had six people show up at my place for some casual play and as a warm up for Plattecon and the Wisconsin state championship. We broke down to two three-player games.

Table 1 was Collin, Jeff, and Tim. They played three games. Tim won the first two with his Detonating Destroyer deck. I think Collin might have won the third. At one point he was playing a Dragon / Jammer gun deck. I saw Jeff playing his Ascended Bounty deck one game, and an Architect deck in another game. Obviously I don't have many details overall.

Table 2 was John, Willow, and me. Game one, John played a Jammer coin flip deck; Willow played an Architect tank deck; and I played my Lotus Empire of Evil sampler deck posted previously. Willow and I had good starts. She got a Tank Commander and Commandant Barkhorn each with a Panzer X, and I had the Demon Emperor, his Evil Twin and Xin Ji Yang. Fortunately, I got my Waterfall Sanctuary in play, and that slowed Willow down. She had to drop the bomb to slow me down. The Alabaster King, however, showed up in place of the Demon Emperor. My next turn, a Hell Hound showed up to protect the King. His Evil Twin then showed up. Once Willow realized that the Hound protected both from another Bomb, she convinced John that the Hound had to die. He obliged and smoked the Hound with "Do You Feel Luck, Punk". Willow then dropped the Bomb. The only survivor was Commnadant Barkhorn. It looked like Willow as going for the win, but John stopped her with Safety Third. I played my fourth FSS and waited. I could have spent all my power on a hitter and gone for the win, but Willow had power and most likely an Imprison in hand. Instead, I passed thinking my two Tortured Memories would be enough to win next turn. John played Jayne Insane and attacked Willow. She was forced to Imprison Jayne. Willow attacked me for the win with Barkhorn. I took control of him to end the attack and Willow's turn. I then took control of him on my turn and played Jueding Shelun, which was enough to take a site to win.

Game 2, I played a Hand Empire of Evil sampler deck, Willow played a Dragon Is That All You Got deck, and John played a Dragon/Purist coin flip/gun deck. There was lots of character build up in this game. Willow had a very defendable position with a Maze of Stairs in the front row and a Kinoshita House in the back row. I was not able to crack this egg, but John broke it down with his Wild Spirits and Zen Ritualists to move the sites around. Willow made a push against John with her Big Bruiser and Good Ol' Boys backed up by Lin for healing. John was able to stop them by recycling an Origami Handguns through his chain of interceptors. The final and crowning moment was when the final defender was smoked, the Handguns went on the Big Bruiser to reduce is fighting to zero and fail the attack. John then played some foundation and launched a longshot attack against me, which failed to take my site. I then played my fourth site and attacked with Shung Dai a Butterfly Swords and Flying Windmill Kick to take John's site for the win.

At this point, Collin, Willow, and Tim left. Jeff, John, and I played one more game. John played Syndicate/Ascended ReAscended; Jeff played a Dragon gun deck; and I played a Jammer Empire of Evil sampler deck. John got stuck with a Proving Ground as his only site and could have been shut out of the game because I had a Whirlpool of Blood. I, however, needed his help to shut down Jeff, who had an early burn for power. With Andy Di pumping my weenies, I was able to pull down Jeff. My City Square with lots of non-FSS limited his ability to attack effectively. Once I seized Jeff's Fox Pass, I had to tools to hold off attacks and build to a win. One of the keys was Battlechimp to play Back in Black to bring back chump targets for Fox Pass to limit effective attacks.

Empire of Evil Lotus Trial Deck

2010-01-12T17:06:00.000-06:00

So we are going to get together to play some games finally with the Empire of Evil cards. Here is my first deck. It is pretty much a sampler of the new Lotus cards that I drew. I'm missing the promo cards for now. Once I get some play time with it, I'll tune it up.

Foundation

Imperial Sycophants x3
Prefect’s Guard x3
Sinister Priest x5
Eunuch Underling x2

Characters
Unholy Legionnaires x3
Eater of Fortune
Hell Hound
Evil Twin x2
Demon Emperor
Xin Ji Yang
Jueding Shelun
Xin Kai Sheng
Seven Evils
The Alabaster King

Events
Drowning in Blood
The Withering of Souls
The Becoming
Larcenous Mist x2
Flying Sleeves
Die!!!! x2
Underworld Coronation
Tortured Memories x4
Pocket Demon x2
Inauspicious Return

States
Under the Knife x3
Withering Touch
Abysmal Behemoth

Sites
Alchemist’s Lair

FSS
The Alabaster Palace
Martyr’s Tomb
Mirrored Lake
Mobius Garden
Ancient Stone Arch
City Park
Hydroponic Garden
Nine Dragon Temple
Disco
Gambling House
Golden Mile
Petroglyphs
Waterfall Sanctuary
Temple of the Monkey King

Why do we have boosters?

2009-12-15T11:15:00.000-06:00

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

2009-11-25T06:10:00.001-06:00

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

2009-11-05T06:48:00.001-06:00

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

2009-11-05T06:23:00.001-06:00

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

2009-10-28T05:49:00.003-05:00

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

2009-10-21T05:53:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-19T06:44:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-18T17:51:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-18T17:00:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-18T16:53:00.001-05:00

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

2009-10-18T16:50:00.000-05:00

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

2009-10-17T07:17:00.006-05:00

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