Sun Dec 06, 2015 10:46 pm
Round 1- Crab Iemasa Sensei Fortification Honor
This one ended quickly through a combination of a number of factors. The roll off for go first went in my favor, so I got to start out. My start was unspectacular, not bad, not great, but my opponent wound up with a whole bunch of Honor fortifications and not a lot of gold, having to use a Building Contract just to grab some gold production. I got out a Province-taking unit by turn (4,5?) and was swinging, in which time she only had enough gold for one personality. Since I had a Thundering Death and a ton of anti-movement in play (Armor equipped, Unsafe Passage in hand), I attacked opposed at the one province showing a unit. After shrugging off the send-homes, I had dishonored the unit with Ending the chase and fear-trampled it with the Thundering Death, taking the province in the process. Without any units, her honor fortifications were defunct, and she conceded. We proceeded to play a friendly while waiting for the round to finish, where her deck went off this time, and I think she would have had the game, but time was called.
MVP: Thundering Death (Non-bow kill), Ending the Chase (Dishonor)
1-0
Round 2- Scorpion Hisako Sensei Military Kensai
Hoo boy, I went into this round scared. Traditionally I have had trouble against Dragon Kensai decks, and didn't know what to expect from the Scorpion. But, I got a solid gold start, and managed to take a province undefended before he bought and equipped 3 different kensai. I held off on attacking until I had managed to bring more guys in, which was a good move as it turned out, because he attacked a province the very next turn. I normally wouldn't defend the first province, but I had a large Resilient unit (Jengzan, baby.), a ton of strong battle actions, and the Ring of Earth in Hand. He bounced my Junghar Regulars back to my hand via Swordcatcher (My inexperience showing), but I was able to take out his big kill actions by shooting the personality nerfed by the Regulars before they went and blowing up weapons with Superior Assault. Using Incapacitated to bounce a bowed naked unit home, I lost the battle with 0 losses (other than the Regulars sent to hand and burning the resilient Keyword), and brought Earth into play. The next turn, he has bowed guys (He had to use the sensei for the force bump rather than conqueror just to win the previous fight), so I equip up and sweep two more provinces. His last ditch attempt is a pair of Toshigoku's Blades, but since they have to attack, their personalities are bowed and are unable to prevent the horde from striking him down in the next fight using much the same tactics as the first.
MVP: Moto Jengzan (A Resilient Unit of absurd force is just the thing to get out the Ring of Earth), Superior Assault (Attachments fall before my Commanders!)
2-0
Round 3- Scorpion Hisako Sensei Military Kensai
Two Scorpion, both Kensai, and I get them back-to-back. This one, piloted by my good friend Ryan who helped me build this deck. I honestly don't remember much about this game, because it went down like this: Ryan has never had much luck against Unicorn to begin with, and having helped build the deck, knew how evil it could be. I found the best possible gold start (Pair of stables, Cloth Market showing for next turn), he found both of his Forgotten Legacies. From that point he basically said "that's game, so let's say I concede and play it out for the hilarity." Which we did. And it went down exactly as expected. Much laughs were had.
MVP- A super-consistent Gold scheme
3-0
Round 4- Lion Seijuro Sensei Military Dueling
If there is one thing I fear with Commanders, and especially with this deck, it is Duelists. Also, being a fairly new player, I just don't have much experience with the existing Duel cards. And didn't have any Spirited Dispute to put in the deck. And didn't get a great gold start, Cycle twice betraying me. And had planned on beating duels by bringing Death Priests running Chi enhancing weapons. And. And. And. Needless to say, this went poorly. After my unspectacular start, I utterly forgot that I had Forgotten Legacy in my deck, and screwed over what would have been a maximum-efficiency turn bringing my gold back to par. The irony of forgetting Forgotten Legacy does not escape me. New-ish player, as I said. From there, I took one province, then lost my unit to a kill-duel and was unable to recover.
LVP- Any number of factors, mostly inexperience.
3-1
Round 5- Crab Aranai Sensei Military Super-Unit Shugenja
This was a weird deck to fight. I had heard about it because of hearing people talk between rounds about a 3 Stones of Purity Komori Taruko with Stepping Behind The Tapestry, so naturally, I was more than a little concerned going in. I got a fairly good start, but every turn my opponent was bringing in Temple of Destiny, playing card-cycle and search effects, and so on so forth. managed to get a 8-force Yao Tsu unit out and Taigo to take out a pair of provinces, which he did not attempt to oppose despite having a un-invested Tonbo Jairyu and a Komori Taruko out. I found out why the next turn, when he did more card-searching, then spent all his gold to slap two Zazen Meditations, 3 Stones, and an Oriole Katana on the Taruko. He chose to go for the Katana for the conqueror instead of Stepping behind for the untargetability because of the Conqueror, and as I would later learn, the cards he planned to stop my next attack with, and he takes a province with his now 30-force Conqueror Unit. The next turn, I attach a Legion to Taigo, and out of options, I dive in at both provinces, scared out of my wits. Jairyu was bowed for a search the previous turn, so he had Taruko defend one. I take one province unopposed, and then in the other battle, it goes as follows= I Sneak Attack, and try to send her home with Incapacitated, blocked by The Sun Returns. He Fears the Legion. I unbow the Legion with Ring of Air. Taruko straightens with the Stronghold (bowed for The Sun Returns). I Necessary Sacrifice one of my Incapacitated's back, and send her home. No answer for it this time. I force bump Taigo with Tactician, and take the second province for the win. Asking about the deck afterwards, it was entirely made of cycle in order to build that super-unit, and Aranai was purely for The Sun Returns to protect it in the early stages before he had a chance to stick Stepping Behind on her.
MVP: Necessary Sacrifice (Recurrence and action snowball), Incapacitated (Unicorn Tactics/Indirect Warfare: If you can't fight a unit head-on, don't!)
4-1
Thus ends the play-ins. My friend Russ and I get matched against eachother for the first round of the Top 8, so we decide to take lunch then play our games.
Top 8- Dragon Jinai Sensei Military Commander Shugenja
Russ is a ton of fun to play with, just a great guy. We are chatting about our decks and the things we love about the idea of Military Shugenja the whole time. Having heard (incorrectly as it turned out) that we could chose to do a best of 3, we played our first and second game, but got the third interrupted.
First game- I get a great gold start and win the roll off, and he gets good gold as well. However, I got lucky enough to see Jengzan and create my Super Resilient Unit by turn 4, and swing out Cavalry be damned. Commander cards win me the opposed battles, as well as the battle actions on my followers killing his. We fight for a short while longer, but Russ concedes the field on account of my breaking his big units. On an odd note, this is the only game all tournament that I saw my BabyCats.
MVP- Battle actions on Followers.
Second Game- MISERABLE gold start, and it just goes terribly from the start on, plus I went first so second Cycle can't save me. Of note is that his deck has a ton of personalities with killer Courtesy effects. I have a Forgotten Legacy and a Forward Encampment to work with by turn 3, and that's it. I scoop after a few turns of getting wrecked in every fight. As we both put it, call it early, move to game 3, because this is ridiculous.
Third Game, sorta- This time we both got decent starts, and we are fighting neck-and neck before I take two provinces by the skin of my teeth, breaking one of his strong units in the process. At this point, the judge comes over and tells us that, because we took lunch, we were supposed to do this Best of 1, but we could finish this one if we wanted too. We think it over a bit, and Russ concedes based on the fact that I lost the second game to gold luck more than anything, and I am looking like I am going to win this game. I reluctantly accept, because as much as I like moving on, Russ is just fun to play with.
Semi-Finals- Mantis Ohsuki Sensei Shugenja Honor
We are supposed to do this one as a Best-of-3, but everyone is tired so we agree on one game. What proceeds is just a mess of nonsense and bad decisions on my part, partly due to exhaustion, partly due to inexperience, partly due to bad luck, and I can think of no less than 3 separate occasions where I would have won this one if I had made a different decision. However, tired as I was, I made the wrong decisions all of those times, and saw exactly 1 of my anti-honor tech to boot. So... Bleh. Unfortunately, as I was indeed tired, I don't remember much of the goings-on of this game.
LVP-My brain, Resolving The New Order too early, Not getting any of my cards, any number of things really. As I said before, bleh.
Final Standing: 3rd Place, Top of Unicorn. 6-3
Moto Khedai, WC IV
Wielder of too-many words.
"Khedai casts Castle of Earth, calling seven raises. Success. A massive, sturdy, imposing wall of text rises forth at his bidding."-Iuchi Chiwa
