By Lars Strobaek
Glasgow University Gaming Society first started playing Shadowfist sometime in the mid-early 2000’s, when members Tom and Al saw a bunch of cards on sale for cheap in the local gaming store and decided to try it out. They got hooked soon after, convinced others of the game's greatness, and the rest is history. Tom is currently our Silver Band representative, and he regularly runs tournaments and demos and helps people get started with the game. In total there's about a dozen of us who own cards and regularly play. Here’s a list of the usual suspects, including trivia about their (according to me) Favourite Faction, Signature Card and Characteristic Quote.
Tom Hendry – Purists; Vivisector; “Victory is mine! MWAHAHAHA!”
Al Hutton – Monarchs; Explosives; “What’s that sound? Could that be a Pump-Action Shotgun?”
Lewis Ross – Lotus; Hopping Vampire; “Trust me, I’ve got a plan… oh crap.”
Brian Dawkins – Architects; Glimpse of the Abyss; “I think I’ll Glimpse… again. Heeee heeee.”
Lars Stroebaek – 7 Masters; Beneficent Tao; “Don’t hurt my sites!”
Molly Iliffe – Dragons; Tough as Nails; “I’m doooooomed!”
“Snap” Lauder – Unknown; Unknown; “What does this card do again?”
Dave Milne – Ascended; Paper Trail; “Sky Dragon would look good with a Mentor.”
Adam Brown – 7 Masters; Golden Comeback; “Dude, check this out.”
Grant Girvan – Architects; Nerve Gas; “Does this deck have Nerve Gas?”
Most of the gaming takes place when the club gets together, which is Tuesdays and Saturdays during term time, but we often play games outside of the club as well. Mostly we play at Brian's or Al's house when we schedule games outside of GUGS gaming nights.
Unlike a lot of older groups, the people in our group don't tend to have huge collections with cards from every expansion - a lot of us are newbies when compared to more serious collectors, and just play with what we have. There are certain expansions in particular that only certain people have bought cards from, which makes for quite interesting differences in decks between the people that play them. Shaolin Showdown, for example, is an expansion that only really Al and Molly have any substantial amount of cards from, so hardly anyone plays cards from that set other than them. Tom is the only person in our group that bought Dark Future when it was available, so he is coincidentally also the only person that regularly plays Purists. Obviously people trade cards with each other, so it's not as bad as it sounds, but there are definitely trends when it comes to what player uses cards from which expansion.
Because most of our collections aren't that large, there are a lot of cards that might be considered essential in other playgroups that we just don't see around here because people just don't have them or know about them. The best example is probably Fortune of the Turtle, the Chi State that makes its subject immune to takeout Events - it's one of the most talked-about cards in the game in many playgroups, but I have never seen it played, or even seen a copy of it, here in Glasgow.
Our metagame tends to be dominated by a lot of character removal as the Architects of the Flesh are very popular, but the fact that the 4 Monarchs are also quite common, and Brain Fire was in the easily available Netherworld 2 expansion, helps with this somewhat. I would say that, generally speaking, the most popular factions are probably Architects, Lotus and Monarchs, and the least popular are the Purists and 7 Masters - obviously because of the difficulty of getting foundations for them. The cards we see played most often are ones like CHAR, Nerve Gas, Blade of Darkness, Plots and Intrigues, Discerning Fire, Shattering Fire, Walking Corpses, Die!!!!, Flying Sleeves, etc. Other classics include Final Brawl, Secrets of Shaolin, Operation Kildeer, Shadowy Mentor, and the ever-present Temple of Angry Spirits. Although we love building decks around new cards, the power cards from Standard still rule in our group, as well as the good cards from Throne War and Netherworld 2, since most people have lots of cards from these sets. Designator-themed decks are popular with a couple of people, notably Brian and Lars, but although Discerning Fire is a common and powerful card, it isn't considered a problem. We don't ban any cards, and the only card that tends to be actively discouraged is Inauspicious Reburial (although heavily defensive decks are frowned upon as well for their game-stalling qualities).
Our group is very varied, as we never really know when people are going to be available or not, so there are very few set expectations about who, where or how we play. One thing we don't tend to do is play free-for-all games when more than four people are involved - in our experience, this makes games take far too long to finish (denial denial denial), so for larger games we tend to play in teams. Tom originally made up rules for 4 and 5 player team games, and they have been so successful that they are the default whenever we play and four or five people are around. The way we play it, the players that sit across from each other are on the same team, and have to get to 10 sites between them to win. This works for any even number of players, but I think we have only tried it with six once... with five players, each player is on separate teams with each player across from them, and can win with either teammate. It's crazy, but great fun!
Overall, the GUGS group is a very relaxed and back-to-basics bunch of Shadowfist players that play for fun whenever people are around and feel like it, either at the club or elsewhere.