Shadowfist Tournament Report: Origins 2008

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[posted 20 Aug 2008; updated 25 Aug 2008]

Shadowfist Games sponsored several tournaments at Origins 2008 (Columbus, Ohio, 25-29 June 2008). Daniel Griego posted the list of winners on Shadowfist.com.

* this was called the National Championship prior to 2006, then the North American Championship in 2006-2007.

One report from James Hovey and some photos from Steve Hammond. Thanks!

Originally posted to the Shadowfist Forum on Yahoogroups on 2 Jul 2008 by James Hovey. Republished with permission. If you're a member, read the original in the archives.

Origins 2008 Report by James Hovey

Someone asked for an Origins report, so here goes my quick version:

I won the Nationals (non-dueling) playing a Monarch deck. I entered spur of the moment, and didn't have a deck built for the format, so I tweaked one of my fun decks (Fakhir You!) I'd brought for playing games with on the roadtrip to be more 3 player oriented... usually we play a lot of 4-6 player games. [Greg Z. commented that 9 people played in the tournament, and it was run straight Swiss style for points - ed.]

Round One: vs Greg Zimmerman (Ascended Killer/Assassin) and James St. Andre (Purists kitchen sink)
I jumped out front I believe using a MahJong Parlor to get out a very early Anastasia. Greg foiled her attacks twice with Killdeer's before she finally got a BFV. The following turn I played a 12 Fighting Thunderbird who was promptly Entropy Sphered breaking up my shot at the win. James St Andre dropped an Ivory Goddess and went for the win right after me, and was stopped by Greg's Cutting Loose Ends. Next time it came around to me I was able to get the win after a Dark Sacrifice cost Greg his Kinoshita... the character not the site! (We finished quick, and started playing a second game for fun.... Greg's deck was murder in that game... and I couldn't even get started!)

Round Two: vs Peter Shah (Dragon/Guiding Hand/Asc/??), Joey Ferriera (Guiding Hand/7M), Daniel Griego (Guiding Hand Toughness deck)
My brain turned off between rounds and I played horribly in this one... not that it mattered... on what seemed like turn one Joey had out Wu Man Kai and Golden Lion and they were out ALL game. I don't remember much other than Peter Confucianing a Thunder in the West I played to try to open up the 7M, and being shocked that Daniel's mono-Hand deck had niether Iron&Silks nor counters. Oh and Peter played a Blue Monk very early and chose the designator Master which was gold... at some point every character on the board was a Master... WMKai, GoldenLion, and Daniel's Acupressure Master (?). I'd never played in a tournament before and I guess the one smart thing I did in this game was decide to burn the one site I managed to take for Victory instead of Power... the game was ending soon regardless and those 3 points wound up making a huge difference in the end.

Round Three: vs Peter Shah, Tim Linden (Dragon/7M Senorita-fu), John Merrill (Lotus)
Moebius Gardens on turn one followed by a MJParlor on turn 2 gave me mad power in this one. I won on my 5th turn without really seeing Tim's deck or Johns. I thought Tim was primarily a 7M deck at this point, and didn't find out different until Round 5. I believe I played Fakhir Al Din on my 4th turn and BFV on turn 4 and won on turn 5.

Round Four: vs Peter Shah, James St Andre
I honestly don't remember anything about this round other than James played a ShadowLegion for his first resource and had to search for a Mathemagician to play for his second so got off to a slow start. Oh yeah... and I remember Daniel urging everyone to 'beat James, beat Joey!'

Round Five: Tim Linden, Joey Ferreira
Daniel was cheering for Tim in this one, but Joey came out smoking. He had a swarm of Wudang Monks in play... 3 at one point I believe. He had 4 sites while Tim and I each had 1 or 2. My deck was flat... all I had cooking was a Feeding the Fires which I tried to use every turn. I'd attack Joey's front site and hope he'd intercept... he let my Darkness Priestess through a couple times then started intercepting to let me put tokens on it. Later he played ShangDai (?) and I was suiciding 1 Fighting characters into his Toughness 1 so that my one power would be 2 power later when playing a Fire Card. Eventually I was able to play a 'free' King of the Fire Pagoda using 3 tokens from Feeding the Fires. I joined attacks with Tim every tun he was able to attack just to hope to weaken Joey, but usually it just got me another token on my Feeding the Fires! I was never in it to win this one... if time hadn't run out I think Tim would have won. I had a fist full of denial and power to use it, but he had event immunity on his hitter (Amanda Snow) and he was taking at least one site a turn using her and his Legrange 4 to untap her. Joey might have had a shot, but I think I had the denial to stop him.

In the end I think whoever won our game would have been the champ, but since it went to time it came to tie-breaker points and I beat John Merrill by a single point. It seems like John's game in the final round was pretty amazing... hopefully he'll post a report about it. I can post a decklist if anyone wants to see it, but it wasn't that special of a deck... I was helped a lot by quick power generation and the amazing lack of zap. I lost one Thunderbird to an Entropy Sphere, one hitter (I forget which one) to a Monkey Fools the Tiger, and a 1 Fighting Darkness Priestess to a Cutting Loose Ends... that was it in 5 games as far as I can remember. I'm used to a lot more zap than that in one game yet alone five!

It was a lot of fun, I wish more people would have turned out for it. Also, thanks to Daniel for spending most of 5 days at that table!

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