Shadowfist Tournament Report: GenCon 2007

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[posted 8 Jan 2008]

Shadowfist Games ran many tournaments at GenCon 2007, celebrating the release of their second set, Critical Shift. Thanks to Braz King for posting the winner's list on the Shadowfist Forum on yahoogroups. I'm surprised that Shadowfist Games didn't announce the winners on their website, considering this is the flagship 'world championships' but given how long it took for me to get this page up, that's a bit of the old pot/kettle/black routine...

One pictorial and one report for you so far. More is unlikely at this point, but I can always dream :)

GenCon 2007 report from Willow Palecek

Photos! from Willow Palecek

GenCon 2007 report
by Willow Palecek

Originally posted to the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 20 Aug 2007 by Willow Palecek. Republished with permission. If you're a member, read the original in the archives.

So here's my World Championship report.

A quick note on the other two events I played in- I played a fairly janky Hero deck in the Commrades in Arms- Wandering Hero is an awesome card when all of your characters are Heros, but it's really fragile, especially if your opponents are playing Brawls.

In the draft, I got a lot of good Syndicate cards, but my secondary faction, Monarchs, suffered from a lack of event support- I had a lot of 3 for 4s, but little to back them up. For big big characters, I had a Song, and a Mistress of Bloated Midnight, and the deck performed decently- but decently isn't enough.

Oh, and I just kind of sucked in Dueling. Dueling is a harsh, harsh mistress.

So, now the big event.

I was playing a slightly modified version of Nazi Cheeze, the deck I used to win the Wisconsin Championships (Who's the Big Cheese Now?) at Plattecon earlier this year. It uses Dangerous Experiments or burns to get power to play a five or six cost hitter, and then uses Golden Comebacks to bring them back. And a lot of denial- 18 cards, in a 70 card deck.

Game One-
Me- Nazi Cheese
Chris- Dragons
Gavin- Syndicate
???- Architect Abominations

It's unfortunate that I don't remember the name of the player to my right, because he was rather nice, and rather good, and he also won this game. This game was rather strange, with some early burns, and lots of power all around, and then the game just stalling for lack of people drawing hitters. I had a CHAR in my hand, but no tech resources. Memorable moments included Stormtroopers attacking and unturning from a LaGrange Four (spawning the "Nazis in Spaaaaaace" meme), ??? playing a big Arcanomoth, waffling on whether or not to attack me or Gavin, and then me Arcanovirusing to kill it just to make the decision easier, and Gavin getting out a Xu Mei (she ended up eventually getting Imprisoned) ??? won this one- the characters got down really low, and Desdemona Deathangel attacked... from Spaaaaaace.

Game Two-
Me: Nazi Cheese
???- Syndicate
???- Hand Swords
Chris- Dragons

So here's my big turnaround- I got a CHAR early, and then got another CHAR. Chris was slowing me down with his brawls, but CHARs still kick ass, especially with people playing stuff like Devil's Mountain. I partially attribute this win to knowing when to discard LaGrange Four.

Game Three-
Me: Nazi Cheese
Joshua: Monarch Fire
Julian: Purist/Architect crazy Rama Singh/Reinvigoration Seed brokenness

I think Julian should have won this, since I was running the wrong denial to face his deck- Aerial Bombardments, instead of Imprisons. At the end, he had five hitters on the board, but I believe it was going for two sites a turn that allowed Josh and I to use Nerve Gasses and other denial to fail his small attacks (but not really kill his characters). At this point, my denial was essentially punch-through, letting me get interceptors out of the way. Rama Singh/Reinvigoration Seed is indeed scary. I'm pulling a blank on how I won this game- I know it involved something impressive with Elsa Winterhagen.
(Fun moment- I brawl, and put three damage on Elsa instead of 2 to put 4 on one of Julian's characters.)

Game Four- the Finals-
Me: Nazi Cheese
John Merril: Monach Good Stuff
Julian: Purist/Architect crazy Rama Singh/Reinvigoration Seed brokenness
Joshua: Monarch Fire

This game was loooong. There was waxy, waxy buildup- John had an unkillable Cassandra he was using to mine his deck for good cards, and Puzzle Gardens up front. He ended up with a Thunderbird and some midrange characters. Julian had parts of his combo, and a Father of Chaos. Joshua had a King of the Fire Pagoda, protected by the Fire Pagoda (played at discount due to Spirit Pole!) I had a Queen of the Ice Pagoda. There was at least a good 60 fighting on the board, and denial was building up in hand. Julian had Devil's Mountain and Fox pass, and I kept Whirlpooling Joshua's Gambling House. Josh was in a hard place- anytime he played a new Feng Shui, I'd come over and take it. (I had a Cellular Reinvigoration that was on the table from a Delay the Inevitable for about, oh, an hour.)

After a long while of this, with the game in a rather dreadful stalemate, Josh negotiated for Julian and John's noninterference in attacking my Maze of Stairs with the King and some other Fire stuff. I dropped my Neutron Bomb (I was holding on for another denial event I could play in response to Josh's Fire Pagoda to win on a cleared out board- I also had two Golden Comebacks in hand- but the Fire King would be turned in any event. Julian wanted the Fire King dead too, so he busted out some denial in response to Josh's turning of the Fire Pagoda- and a Scroll of Incantation to get more in response to his Fortune of the Turtle.

The dust settled. Julian had two turned guys from his Reinvigoration Seeds. The rest of the board was clear.

I dropped two golden comebacks- one for the Queen, another for Bonechill, chilling a Thunder Bird. I think I burned for power or something. There may have been a Snowblind.

Back around to me. John's dropped a weenie, and Julian's been taking stuff too on the open board. One of my hitters might have gotten killed and Comebacked, maybe not. I've got a CHAR now too, and I go for Joshua's undefended site- a Kinoshita House, as it turns out.

Lots of rather frustrating negotiation and posturing about denial and using it. This was probably counter productive, since John intercepted with his weenie when he should have Chop Shopped a designator onto it so he could Discerning Fire- we were all tired, and I think the banter made him misplay.

Even so, the denial turned out to be possible Chop-Shop discerning, Julian's Fox Pass and Devil's Mountain, and Josh's KHouse. I had a Whirlpool and three hitters, so it's difficult to say if that would have been an unsucessful attack or not, even with John's Discerning. In any case, a little damage was done, and an unturned CHAR (with weenie support), went and took the site for the win.

-Willow

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