Shadowfist Tournament Report: Kublacon 2010

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[posted 1 July 2010; updated 2 July 2010]

Kublacon 2010 (May 28-31 in Burlingame, CA) improved on 2009's Shadowfist attendance and hosted several tournaments. The winners were announced by Michael Stadermann in the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 31 May 2010. Read the original in the archive if you're a member.

Two reports for you so far:

Pete Bratach posted a report to the Shadowfist Forum. Reposted below, with Pete's permission.

Michael Stadermann posted a report to the Shadowfist Forum. Reposted below, with Michael's permission.

Kublacon 2010 Report
by Pete Bratach, 29 May 2010

Originally posted to the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 29 May 2010 by Pete Bratach. Republished with permission. If you're a member of the group, you can read the original in the archive.

Hey everyone,

Last night we had a better than expected turnout for the New Heroes tournament to kick off this year's Kubla Con. OK, that number was only 6 (Paul Gerardi, Jamie Lewandowski, Alfonso Lopez, Earl Miles, Michael Stadermann and me), but we went into it thinking there would be just four of us, so 50% better than expected is pretty good in today's market.

We did two rounds and a final. Michael has the actual results, but I'll give a quick recap.

The first round saw Jamie (Arc/Asc), Alfonso (Asc) and Michael (Hand) at table 1, and Earl (Lotus), Paul (Jam) and me (Hand) at table 2. Jamie won their round in minutes, while our game nearly went to time. We instituted an attrition rule where at the start of each turn after an hour of play, every card in play took a point of damage that couldn't be reduced or redirected. Earl's Lotus deck managed a well timed Infernal Army to march in and take my last site off the board. The other table managed two more full games in the meantime.

Round 2 was Jamie, Alfonso and Earl at table 1, while Michael, Paul and I played at table 2. This time, Alfonso won quickly, while our game again almost went to time, but I managed to squeeze past Michael for the win.

Final round was Jamie, Alfonso, Earl and me. Alfonso's deck amassed a lot of power quickly. Two Shadowy Mentors on Jamie's Agent Tanaka and my Shang Bojing and the game was over. So Alfonso is our New Hero.

Tonight at 6 is our Whirpool of Blood draft, and tomorrow (Sunday) morning at 11:30 is our Final Brawl, which is also the California state championship. If you're in the area and in the mood, come on out and play!

Thanks to Daniel and Shadowfist Games for prize support.

pete

[writeup by Pete Bratach]

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Kublacon 2010 Report
by Michael Stadermann, 31 May 2010

Originally posted to the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 31 May 2008 by Michael Stadermann. Republished with permission. If you're a member of the group, you can read the original in the archive.

Thanks again to Pete for running most of the tournaments, and to everybody who came out to play!

We had an OK turnout of 10 players that grouped into 6-7 people per event.

Throughout the weekend, we were using a new set of timeout rules which I'll describe later in more detail, but it basically involved damaging cards every turn to clear out the board and force the issue.

Friday was New Heroes, which Pete already described in good detail. Three people brought six decks, just enough for every player who showed. I had brought an Ascended deck and a Hand deck. I lent the Asc deck to Alfonso. Both decks worked pretty well... unfortunately, the Hand deck only worked well in games played between rounds, and never when it mattered. In general, I think New Heroes was well received. It was great to play with completely different sets of cards and new deck construction considerations. It might get stale if we played it every week, but given our current play frequency, I think we'll do this again next year.

Saturday was the Whirlpool, this time with seven players. I got a Cloaca, an Evil Twin and an Underworld Coronation, which formed a solid core for my deck and let me win the first two games. In the final against Jeremy Dale and Paul Gerardi, I was getting ready to wreak havoc again with Cloaca, but then got stopped by Paul's Price of Progress (Sewer Demons aren't very progressive, I've been told), and thus could replenish my power. Instead, Cloaca got visited by Mr. Paine twice in Paul's turn, and I never recovered from that. A bone-headed play of Underworld Coronation saw to it that Jeremy wouldn't get anywhere, either, and so Paul won handily.

Finally, we had the Final Brawl and State Championship on Sunday. Six people came to compete for the title, and Pete ruled that we would play until someone won twice. Since he grouped the winners in the second round, it was likely that the tournament would be over quickly. My first game against Jamie and Robert saw a steady stream of weenies pouring onto the table, and after 200 Guys and Habbakuk hit the table, every one of Jamie's 7 Masters netted me a return of 12+ Fighting. Add to that the Rent-a-Bat service that Jamie was running, and the game was over pretty fast. In the second game, it was Robert again and Earl. Robert and Earl were playing very similar deck, with lots of Underworld Trackers and Hopping Vampires. Robert's Vampires would typically kill something in their turn, returning a Vampire, then returning all of Earl's Trackers, which in turn brought back Robert's tracker. 200 Guys didn't work so well in this game: I would max out around 15 Fighting per use, but bump up the table Fighting by about 20. Still, through Earl's goodwill and Robert's hydrophobic Trackers, I managed to get up to four Sites before time ran out. At this point, every card would get damage at the start of every turn, which wouldn't bother Earl or Robert, but pretty much end my game. In a last ditch attempt, I mentored one of Robert's Trackers that had been boosted to ~10 Fighting with Twelve Thousand Skulls, and attacked with it, two Wisdoms, an Unspoken Name and a Heli Squad. There were 7 interceptors left, and I figured that between two Moonlit Raids and a Killdeer I should be able to squeeze through the necessary 4 points to win. Then Earl Misted the Tracker, changing the ratio to 4:8, and I thought I was hosed... until Robert decided to block with only his big Tracker to take out my Name, thinking Earl pretty much had me stopped. Two Raids and a Killdeer later, 6 points of damage hit the Site, giving me the win and a fancy plaque!

Other than Fist, I was happy to finally get a chance to play Chaos in the Old World, as well as Race for the Galaxy, Dominion and No Thanks!

All in all, Kublacon was a blast, and I'm looking forward to next year.

*** Kublacon 2010 Overtime Rules

Here are the overtime rules we used this year, along with a short critique:

The game runs for 60-75 mins (as chosen by the TO). After the time is reached, one point of damage that cannot be reduced, redirected, or responded to is inflicted on every card at the start of each player's turn. After every full round of damage, the victory conditions are reduced by one (you still have to take the last site to win). There is no time limit on the game beyond this, but the games typically end within 15 mins after damage starts.

We found that this time-out rule worked pretty well for constructed play: overtime is usually caused by an overpopulated board, and the damage clears everything out and creates a use-it-or-lose-it environment with lots of frenzied attacking, quite the opposite of what normal time out rules do.

The rule had the opposite effect in the Whirlpool, however. Here, one of the games went into overtime because no one had anything, and that just got worse as the damage rained down.

I think I will continue using this rule in upcoming constructed tournaments that I run. There is still some randomness involved as the starting time of the damage can make a big difference for the board state by the time your turn comes around, and some cards are improved (such as Infernal Army and Exiled Monk), but overall, there is no hosage in tournament points because of timeout and I find the end result generally more satisfying.

For Whirlpools, we will probably try Earl's (?, wasn't there to see who to credit with the idea) approach next time: when time is called, a permanent, uncancelable Hungry is in effect for all players until the end of the game. We'll see how that works.

[writeup by Michael Stadermann]

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