By Clint Oldridge and Andy Holt.
There were two UK National Championship tourneys this year, 3- and 4-player. The 3-player event was held in September and the 4-player in July.
Sam Roads (Cardiff Cartel) is the 3-player champ, Clint Oldridge (Cardiff Cartel) is the 4-player champ.
First, some highlights, or series of random memories, of the 3-Player championship tournament as reported by Andy Holt:
* The shop having taken the trouble to use some Chinese Lanterns for decoration.
* A total of 21 players including Happy - he recruited Clint, Ron, and myself as extra judges so that there was always one judge outside a game.
* Losing every game I played (I had tried to be too clever in my deck design - in the games that didn't finish quickly the deck was just beginning to get into its swing when time was called). But I was reminded of why I prefer 4 player games :-(
* The dominance of the Dark Traveller/Suicide Mission deck (backed-up with Killdeer, Covert Op, and (I think) Mole Network). This "one trick pony" could be relatively easily defeated with a deck that was expecting such but was devastating in a field of mainly quick/limited denial decks (even Alex's deck didn't always manage to hold them to full time). Apparently in the first round, however, Beth's Dragon/Vehicle deck kicked-in quickly enough to beat both one of the DT decks and Ivans vicious Bronze Sentinel deck - but that was the exception.
* I don't think there were any SSG cards in the DT decks.
* The new card that probably appeared in more decks than any other was Railroad Workers - I think there were 5 each in 3 decks (including mine). I did get two "textbook" starts: Play RW; play Eagle Mountain sac-ing RW; play
Little Grasshopper; play Mars Colonist.
* The greatest number of any new card was probably Fire Ants - Mark had 18(?) in his deck; nobody else played any.
* A couple of us made use of "Inconvenient Debt" - in my deck it was intended to help me win but it mainly got used as a version of "Total War" to stop a DT deck taking two sites in one turn (by making it use overkill on one).
* Devil's Mountain saw play; so did Sacred Wigwam (my one slowed Beth's deck down just enough - but I didn't draw one of my Avenging * until the turn after the Wigwam was seized :-(
* Exiled Monk and One-Eyed Chan both got played - but Chan got quickly smoked when people saw what he was doing with/to their events.
* I didn't see any Shurikens; nor any Six Guns.
* The London players arriving by 1030 (by three different routes), the Welsh by 1045, then having to wait until 1145 for the last of the local players.
And now, more details about the two tournaments, courtesy of Clint Oldridge. Note that in some places Clint is responding directly to Andy's recollections.
4-Player UK Championships (July 2006, London)
The final: Tim (Cardiff), Ivan , Yuit, Clint (Cardiff).
TJ (another Cardiff guy) got very close to winning after he played the Year of the Rat... :-) Managed to keep the danger deck (Ivan) out of the game (Enemy of my Enemy worked nicely there) and took advantage of a failed Bronze Sentinel attack by Ivan (Killdeer from me and kill) on Yuit's damaged Puzzle Garden to burn it for Power (TJ had a nightmare start - discarding most of his big hitters in his deck to get to an Architect foundation). After that I was public enemy getting a Drug Lab (Yuit's) later on as well with 3 FS + 1 Nuclear, TJ with 3, Yuit with 2 and Ivan on 2 power per turn. Quickly got knocked back to 3 sites after an early win attempt (if I had played Tong and Rig Dipped another character then I'd have won but TJ looked like he might have a stop so I went for a weenie attack on a WoB)- as usual had to fight all 3 players (! lol) and the YotR seemed to be the end but TJ drew no characters so I managed to claw back to a turn winning situation and the deck kicked off, with 6 Tongs and 3 sites burnt to win the game.
Very nice day, thanks to Rob for organising it. 'Particularly liked Dave's Manchu deck and Ivan's dragon deck and it would have been interesting to see more of the Hand/Ascended/Jammer deck.
Winning deck: Y Llaw o Filod Sarff (The Hand of 1000 Serpents), Clint Oldridge, July 2006
12 Ascended
2 Gangsters
5 Jade Wheel Society
5 Order of the Wheel
15 Hand
3 Buddhist Monk
5 Elderly Monk
2 Golden Candle Society
3 Little Grasshopper
2 Tong Su Yin
12 Ascended Events
5 Bull Market
2 Covert Operation
5 Operation Killdeer
22 Hand/Chi Events
5 Confucian Stability
1 Into the Light
2 Invincible Chi
2 Iron and Silk
5 Rigorous Discipline
1 Secrets of Shaolin
2 The Orange Principle
4 Wind on the Mountain
6 Edges
2 Art of War
4 The Enemy of My Enemy
20 FS Sites
2 Bird Sanctuary
5 Booby-Trapped Tomb
1 City Square
2 Desolate Ridge
1 Heaven's Peak
4 Mobius Gardens
1 Phlogiston Mine
1 Temple of Celestial Mercy
2 Temple of the Angry Spirits
1 The Blue Moon Club
3 Sites
1 The Bazaar
2 Nuclear Power Plant
Total 90 cards
3 Player UK Championships (September 2006, Manchester)
Thanks to Happy and everyone at Fanboy - thanks for putting up with us and putting us up - very much appreciated. I thought you both did a great tourney, well organised and efficient. Promos are cool btw!...21 players in total turned up.
The Final: Sam (Cardiff), Clint (Cardiff), Ian (last year's winner) Congrats to Sam, the new 3 player Man.... (Cheese), Clint came 2nd (that's me). Bad luck Ian and Ed (for meeting me in the 5th round - otherwise likely it would have been an all Cardiff final). The deck "Immolate to Accumulate", concept by Gaz Hooley, designed by the Cardiff Cartel was dominant. We tested around 25 other deck designs but none came up to the raw cheapness or versatility of this deck. 3 of the 4 Cardiff players played some variant of Immolate, Sam and I got through to the final winning all the games along the way.
Cutest deck I saw was Hippy Dave's Sam Simian, Mountain Fortress deck.
As always it was great to meet up with fellow SFisters and meet some old favourites and new decks as well.
>> This "one trick pony" could be relatively easily defeated with a deck that was expecting such but
was devastating in a field of mainly quick/limited denial decks (even Alex's deck didn't always manage to hold them to full time). I don't think there were any SSG cards in the DT decks.
Correct. No SSG in the Immolate deck none were appropriate enough for this deck (the stealth gain a power card for ascended was considered but basically the deck runs on 2 power a turn). We designed around 20 decks and tested them out (3 or 4 Jammer, 5 or so Monarch decks (including a recycling Sacred Wigwam/Ice Commandos deck, a recycling Thunder deck), a couple of Lotus, 1 Dragon deck [I nearly played that], 3 or 4 Purist decks [get off my land types], one Orange deck, a couple of Hand decks - Ed played my Sword Saint deck and came 4th, a cop deck or 3, 1 artillery strike deck with the Rise of the NeoBuro amongst others - actually thinking about it there were more than 20 decks tested in total).
As to it being a one trick pony - methinks I disagree - it covers most eventualities - bit like saying a dragon deck puts down a big lad and attacks - this has 10 of them [admittedly all the same] - the final saw 49 points of fighting vs 30... :-) There are weaknesses to the deck but we had 2 other main iterations [various minor iterations] of the deck that dealt with a different environment but they were felt not needed in the 3 player format. We'd also considered how to deal with that should it come up but mostly after a short period of time the deck went 2:1 so that's why we played it. I thought it was a bit of a basic deck but it's actually a very subtle deck - lots of options for play (one game had to sit and think for a couple of minutes to get the "best" play, and playing against Ed there was lots of interesting play options trying to get events past his Confucians for example).
> > The London players arriving by 1030 (by three different routes), the Welsh
> > by 1045, then having to wait until 1145 for the last of the local players.
Yeh, most amusing... :-)
Reports by (Andy's >> bits above)
Winning deck: Immolate to Accumulate, Sam Roads, September 2006
Ascended
6 Pledged (3 of each foundation)
3 Family Estates
Ascended Events
5 Covert Operation
5 Operation Killdeer
3 Mole Networks
5 Fake Death
5 Suicide Missions
No Faction
5 Dark Traveller
Edges
4 Art of War
FS Sites
3 City Square
2 Turtle Beach
2 Kinoshita House
2 Fox Pass
1 Temple of the Angry Spirits
Total 51 cards