Shadowfist Tournament Report: Australian Nationals 2011

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[posted 18 Feb 2012]

The Brisbane, Australia playgroup hosted the inaugural Australian Nationals the B&S Brawl at Good Games Spring Hill in Brisbane on Sep.24-25, 2011. The winners were announced by Leonard King in the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 25 Sep 2011 (read the original in the archive if you're a member) and posted at the event blog.

Report and photos from Leonard King. Thanks!

Australian Nationals 2011 report from Leonard King

Originally published in the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 25 Sep 2011. Republished with permission. Members can read the original in the archive.

Another epic chapter in the secret war took place in Brisbane over the weekend as Secret Warriors flew in to take part in the inaugural B&S Brawl.

As a stand-alone Shadowfist event, not affiliated with any convention, we were able to expand the scope a little and turn it into a weekend of Fist-related activity.

Casual games got underway from 10am Saturday morning at Good Games Spring Hill, the new home of Shadowfist in the city. Despite sharing the facility with Magic players doing pre-release tournaments, a good number of arriving Fisters allowed us to fill the room that had been set aside for our use.

The first official tournament was a Brisbane special, "Try My Kung Fu!", where participants build a deck, then spend the event playing everyone else's decks, sharing them between rounds.

Still in development as a format, the game met a few hiccups but rolled on throughout the afternoon with tournament organiser Gareth Willcock taking out the combined score for player and deck.

Best player was shared between Randal Wales and Brisbane Fist icon Brad Daniels, with newcomer Kirill Radvanskiy taking the best deck and highest voted deck for his Dragons Nomad Army build.

After prizes were awarded the Brisbane Shadowfist community took a moment to pay tribute to the tireless efforts of Brad Daniels for running and promoting the game for so many years. As well as our grateful thanks he received a framed "Big Trouble in Little China" movie poster which apparently immediately went up on the wall upon his arrival home.

After a dinner break participants kicked back to experience the Japanese action/horror awesomeness of "Versus", made all the more fun by the participation of (and occasional good-natured derisive comment from) the audience.

Sunday started early, with participants arriving for the Whirlpool of Blood draft event. Using Shurikens and Six-Guns, Critical Shift, Empire of Evil and rounded out with Boom Chaka Laka, decks were always going to be an interesting mix, and this event was no exception.

The draft was made particularly fun with the addition of generic (i.e. 7 body, no rules text) Brisbane-themed feng shui site pods handed out to players, thanks to the awesome talent of Steve Darlington. While having paper pasted to the front of cards did make it easier to know which were pod FSS and which were not, there was a certain satisfaction in sending the Flesh Eater in to take care of Lang Park Stadium, Isis Fox guarding Toowong Cemetery or a Blasting Crew attacking the Storey Bridge. As a flavour for special events, we seriously suggest it.

The winner was Matt Barker, who told me before the weekend his ambition was to finish somewhere in the top 50%, playing a mish-mash of factions that just seemed to work out for him. Congratulations also to 2nd place Kevin Lowe and 3rd place Penny Carpentier from Sydney.

Special mention must go to newcomer Mike Garvey who had only picked up Shadowfist a few weeks before and played the draft as his first actual non-training game.

After a short lunch break it was time to kick off the big one - the 2011 Australian National Championships. After not having had a Nationals since the last GenCon Oz two years ago, participants were keen to test their skill against the best in the country in this 3 player Final Brawl event.

After three rounds of action the points were tallied and the final table was set with highest-placed player and current Queensland state champion Mitch Haggman being met by current New South Wales champ (and perennial finalist) Ben Carpentier from Sydney and Kevin Lowe, who had returned to the game recently after a long period away.

The finals were a hard-fought, but timely affair with Kevin's Jammers backed up with Battle-Matics and Thingshots taking the victory and the title [deck list].

Kevin was also awarded the special "New Recruit/Old Master" prize for highest placed player starting or returning to the game in the last year.

2nd place went to Mitch Haggman with Ben Carpentier taking out 3rd.

And so with the prizes awarded, and plane flights awaiting, participants left the field of battle with a promise we'd have another go at it again next year.

Special thanks must go to the following people;

Randal Wales for his organisational assistance, running the draft and listening to me rabbit on through countless lunchtime games over the last six months as we put the event together.

Gareth Willcock for running the "Try My Kung Fu!" tournament and staying calm in the face of scheduling turmoil.

Kevin Lowe for being the official tournament rules-monger, a role he capably took to with equal parts vigour and aplomb.

Mitch Haggman for supplying us with AV facilities for the movie. Given he was unable to actually attend the movie himself due to family commitments he gets special points for awesome.

Steve Darlington for his inspired creation of the Brisbane FSS for the draft event.

The Sydney crew, Penny & Ben Carpentier and Dave Smith, who flew up for the weekend to play Shadowfist, and to Marselan Wignall for providing billeting.

And to the crew at Good Games Spring Hill, particularly Corey and Cassie, who let us take over a room and let us run our little event over what was one of their busiest weekends ever, gave us $50 store credit to use as a prize, and basically provided a home for our game in Brisbane since opening earlier in the year.

Congratulations to all the winners, and to those who missed out. We look forward to Qld State Titles early next year, another "Ride of the Flying Monkey Squad" hopefully sometime soon, and seeing people return for B&S Brawl in 2012.

[writeup by Leonard King]

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