Torrance Fisting - September 1997 Report

by Michael Nickoloff
September 27, 1997

The South Coast Gaming Association was nice enough to host a Shadowfist tourney at their newly opened store in Torrance, CA. And to boot, better prizes than recent Daedalus offerings ;)
We showed up at noon for demos, but there was no new players to get sucked into the game. So, while some people ate and tuned decks, the rest of us played the demo decks for fun. We played until 2 pm, to give enough time for late people to arrive.
10 people showed up: 

Caroline Liu      a     What's mine is mine, what's yours is mine
Stefan Vincent    f     Chewing my cud/Back for seconds
Lissa Sabia       a     I'm huge! (no rares)
Matt Widman       f/m   I hate Tim, v.1
Victor Luk        m/d
Tim McCann        d/f   A "Stitches-like" deck
Frank Bustamante  e
Ray Clouse        d/j/h States of Strength
Corey Garrett     a     "Straight ascended"
Michael Nickoloff h/j   Unnatural order
We used our almost-out-of-beta version of the tournament rules, with 4-3-2-1 points for 4 player game, 4-3-2 points for 3 player games, plus number of feng-shui sites controlled/burned at the conclusion of the game (or time).

Boring round-by-round stats:

Round 1

Lissa  9
Ray    6
Frank  3
Tim    2

Carol  9
Corey  5
Victor 4

Matt   3
Stefan 9
Mike   6

Notes

Lissa and Carol, playing straight ascended, work over the competion easily in the first round. Stefan rolls over 3 other players when his architect recycler deck starts rolling...

Round 2

Lissa  9
Stefan 3
Carol  5
Tim    9
Frank  5
Matt   3
Mike   5

Victor 4
Ray    9
Corey  7

Notes

Lissa beats out Carol and stops Stefan from starting in the second round. Tim stays strong and beats out denial to take this round, and Ray squeaks in under the huge dragons and hand with tanks to take the 9 points.

Round 3

Carol  9
Tim    7
Ray    2
Lissa  5
Stefan 2
Mike   9
Corey  5

Matt   7
Victor 3
Frank  5

Notes

Carol's lodge politics hurt Lissa alot, and that allows her to steamroll over the other players. Mike takes an easy win as Corey stalls, and Stefan isn't allowed to play, again :( (Well, payback's a bitch :) Matt takes a time-out win, and stops Victor and Frank in reaching the semi-finals.

At the end of Round 3, here were the standings: 

Carol  23
Lissa  23
Mike   20
--- Above in finals ---
--- Below in semi-finals ---
Tim    18
Ray    17
Corey  17
--- Above in semi-finals ---
--- Below eliminated ---
Stefan 14
Matt   13
Frank  13
Victor 11

Semifinal

Tim     Won
Ray
Corey
Tim wins the berth for the final round.

Finals

Tim   1st
Mike  2nd
Carol 3rd
Lissa 4th

Notes

Lissa wrote about how she won her game in round 2:
>Caroline had positioned herself well, with four sites, a Paper Trail and Stefan's Art of War. Carol Operation Killdeered Stefan's Prototype X to protect her Cave Network, and in response, he Helix Chewed the Student of the Shark that popped out of the Cave Network. Unfortunately, she was out of additional denial, so I just played my third site, and snuck under the Chewers to grab the Cave Network. Both Stefan and Carol forgot about my Feng Shui site burned for Victory.
Here's exactly what happened in the Ting Ting battle:
Tim controlled Ting Ting. Carol controlled Shinobu. Ray took part in the events as well. Ting Ting (as a 10) was going after Carol's Inner Sanctum with one damage counter. Shinobu intercepted Ting Ting. Carol Operation Killdeered Ting Ting. Tim Imprisioned Shinobu. Ray Confusion Stabilitied the Imprision. Tim then Final Brawled to clean up the spuds. That sequence of events was generated. Tim didn't want Ting Ting to die, so he revealed his Kinoshita House and turned it to save Ting Ting. Ray revealed a Whirlpool of Blood and canceled the Kinoshita House. Tim revealed his own Whirlpool of Blood and canceled Ray's. Ray revealed another Whirlpool of Blood and canceled Tim's Whirlpool of Blood. Tim then revealed a Sacred Heart Hospital to heal Ting Ting on her way to kick the ass of Shinobu Yashita. Whew!
Final round was very intense. Tim stalled early with only 1 feng shui site and little resources. Mike took away Tim's early whirlpool from the greedy ascended women. This led Tim down a darker hole. On turn 4ish, Carol Lodge Politics Lissa's Family Estate; a repeat of earlier matchups. However, Lissa had tricks as well, and immediately Lodge Politics the site back under her control. Characters, Lodge Politics and Operation Killdeers flew all across the table until Mike, Lissa and Carol all had 4 sites and were ready to win. Tim had been saving up some power and stopped Carol's bid to win with a Neutron Bomb. Mike lost 4 hitters, and was in range of decking. Both Carol and Lissa lost numerous Mights of the Elephant. On Tim's turn, he Golden Comeback Ting Ting (who died from the Neutron Bomb) and seized Mike's Orange Senshi Chamber. Tim took another site the following round and burned it for power. Lissa Bite of the Jellyfish Tim. Tim Hackered it. Lissa repeated, and it resolved. However, Lissa was unable to do anything with the 10+ power in her pool. From there, the other players could not hold off Tim any longer, and took two more sites over the next two turns to seal the championship!
Congratulations to Tim McCann, and all the finalists for a great job! Our next tournament will be on October 18, 1997. Same place, same time. Hope to see you there!

Tim McCann's winning deck:
A Stitches-like deck (Tim had no name for his deck, but this was appropriate :)
4 Proving Ground
1 Monkey House
1 Ring of Gates
1 Kinoshita House
1 Sacred Heart Hospital
1 Fox Pass
3 Whirlpool of Blood
3 Friends of the Dragon
5 Hacker
5 Test Subject
1 BuroMil Grunt
1 Plasma Trooper
2 Orbital Laser Strikes
1 Art of War
1 Ting Ting
1 Iala Mane
2 Imprison
2 Neutron Bomb
2 Nerve Gas
3 Vivisector
1 Arcanotechnician
2 Back for Seconds
5 Golden Comeback
2 Now, You've Made Us Mad
2 Dirk Wisely's Gambit
2 Final Brawl
2 CHAR
2 Golden Gunman
-- 59 cards
If you like Andrew Davidson's neat-o statistics on the decks, ask him to do it ;)
Tim just moved out to Los Angeles from the East Coast, and this was one of his only tournament decks put together. It is a varient of the Stitches concept; Big hitter/Vivisector/new hitter or Golden Comeback. Tim posted three 1st places, a 2nd place and a 3rd place with the deck throughout the day. The deck was solid and tuned, but needed some updates. Tim had problems with foundations in two of the matches, including the finals. Mike pointed out that the body of the sites was on the low side, so it made him an 'easy target' in the early stages of a round. Tim also noted that he wanted additional Vivisectors and Arcanotechicians in the deck.

Last modified: March 11, 1998.
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