Τι reportaki δηλαδή, μου βγήκε σαν το πόλεμος και είρηνη. Ελπίζω να μην σας πειράζει που είναι στα αγγλικά και ψιλοσοβαρό, το έγραψα έτσι γιατί το παλικάρι που είχε το αρχικό concept του deck θέλει feeback, οπότε το έγραψα για να είναι Kuroiban proof.
Righto, feels decidedly old school to write a tournament report after actually having played in a tournament instead of sitting behind a wall of monitors and running stuff, but what the heck, it’s a slow day at the office anyway (well not really, but writing a report somehow strikes me as more interesting than debugging 5 odd thousand lines of code)…
So, level 10 tournament. I hadn’t really played much since the beginning of the year, especially after my extensive card collection fell victim to a “domestic accident” (word of wisdom: if you are going to engage in a serious dispute with your significant other make sure that your desk does not contain dozens of neatly stacked card piles that can be flung at you with terminal velocity ~ on the plus side, they hurt less than other household items!). Still, after a bout of self motivation, I decided to give it a go.
I primarily considered 4 decks for the tournament, an SSK Heavy Attachment Magistrate military build, a straight Ninja attack, a variant of Bolt’s janky Ninja Zombies and my trusty PoCS dishonor upgraded for harbinger. I really didn’t have much time to playtest since I cooked up the decks 3 days before the tournament, so deciding to go with the Ninja Zombies was more of a hunch thing than any really informed decision (especially since the straight Ninja deck went through playtesting undefeated and the Magistrates seemed to have a much better middle game than the Zombies).
Anyhow, here’s the lowdown on how it went:
Round 1 – Big Oni
Pretty smoothly going game from the start, gold and people flow nicely, I manage to take one fast province with a pumped Shogetsu with Apprentice Shinobi + Shadow Play and sleaze the second with Walk in Shadow. Things become slightly problematic after that, cause I discover that things that negate their destruction are a serious pain in the behind (namely Arugai no Oni) for my deck, or at least for the way I play my deck. I stand back and lose a couple of provinces while breeding an army of zombies and digging through fate with all the card draw the deck can muster, join a battle and outaction the opposition to win the game.
(1-0)
MVP card: Peasant Vengeance (Daigotsu never saw that peasant coming)
Round 2 – Heavy Attachment Crab Uniques
Rather hard game that is kinda blurry now. We exchanged the first provinces then danced around making some failed attacks that killed people and wasted cards on both sides and after a considerable amount of time spent killing each other we ended up on 2 on 2 provinces with him having 4 big crabs with Taoists + Heavy Elites & Kuon and me having a smattering of Shogetsus, Arashis and the whole spawning engine of Suborus, Udos and Peasant Armor. Some rounds pass while we refill hands and I slowly drag him down with SSK and zombie spawn, but before I can safely claim that the game is mine time is called and it’s either big attack time or diplomacy time. Being early in the day, I’m not feeling very diplomatic, so yeah, have at thee mr. Crustacean! 10 minutes and several warnings from the TOs later, game is won, but serious mistakes had been made from both sides. I promise myself to keep a better track of time in the future (I blame the ninjas and their ton of limited actions).
(2-0)
MVP card: Shadow Play (game would have been over ages ago if all three weren’t stacked at the bottom of my deck)
Round 3 – Blitzy Crab Heroes with Items
He goes for a first round Tatsuma. I get gold. He gets war drums and smashes one. I put out Arashi and Takuma while he buys gold and comes again only to get hit by my single knife in darkness. I take a province, disrupt his personality flow with Bayushi’s Guidance, Silent Rot Tatsuma and game.
(3-0)
MVP card: I’d say Knife in the Darkness, but more on that later…
Round 4 – Cheese Loving Hippies Honor Rocket
Fast Cheese Loving Hippies deck with tons of +PS events and actions. He gets a bad start losing his holy site and well defended regions due to bad mulligan, while mine isn’t that great either cause there’s a remarkable dearth of province sleazing cards in my hand (3xBlowdarts kinda make you a sad Panda in this matchup). Thankfully an early Hisoka that I don’t use to blow up a province (it would set my gold production back a lot – besides plan was to Emma’o him back later for the nuke) stalls him enough for me to establish board control and steamroll him steadily with zombie hordes.
(4-0)
MVP card: SSK – I just love this box and I hate passive honor decks
Round 5 – Fast Breeder
The rather brutal typical breeder deck that doesn’t exist today thanks to the errata, but managed to spoil my day just yesterday. I get a terrible start with 3 rounds and two mulligans full of personalities that force me to play with a single tsubaki + apprentice shinobi that sleazes provinces with walk in shadow, trying to take him to -20 fast before he sets up. Still, playing with one border keep and nothing else, doesn’t really help in this setup. I manage to stalemate the game at some point with a couple of suborus on the table, him on -14, one oyo seido and lots of zombies on both sides of the table, then he drops might of the shadowlands and it’s gg time since I can’t really bluff into being able to mount a credible defense now that he can pump his minions. Regardless, even with this terrible one in a million start, the game was really lost by consuming the flesh that allowed the opponent to fend off two ninja sneak attack, while post errata I could easily stop his consuming with Tsubaki/Subtle sting. Oh, and a final lesson: if you suspect your opponent is packing determined force, play Suboru first .
(4-1)
Round 6 – Unicorn (can’t really classify this deck not so well versed in the ways of the Corn)
Well, apart from expecting just about everything from this deck (my opponent was notorious for his 14x1 fate decks that actually win – a lot) I was kinda sure that I’d probably scrub out on this one mostly because I’ve never managed to beat this particular unicorn kolat sympathizer in any official tournament the last 10 years or so. Everyone has his nemesis, I suppose. It’s a crazy game from the start, with lots of board control from my part with 1xTakuma and 2xSuboru and a couple of walk in shadows that stave off the first attacks, but I am really getting owned by the Eight Legions that he’s packing, which appear and disappear before I can arrange bad things to happen to the personality that’s running them. We exchange provinces with him having the upper hand, while zombies accumulate and I pop most of my fate hand to deal with Furumaro cause as I said earlier, things that negate destruction are bad for me. It goes back and forth, with the turning point being sacrificing one of my provinces to play 2xBHRB elsewhere and secure fate superiority. Fearing for a barrage of final duties, he attacked the Legions prior to attacking and Silent Rot makes them a problem of the past. After that it’s easy to control the board with the actual final duties and the odd peasant vengeance to secure the win a few turns later. Tough one.
(5-1)
MVP Card: Black Hearts Red Blades
Round 7 – Lion, Venerable Halls Hero Switch
Very fast deck with Phantom Blade katas, Seiden Sanzo and all the annoying reactive hero tech you can expect from this sort of thing. We’re both of a good start, with him getting the usual cheesy lion horde and me keeping him at bay with 2xNitsu and a steady supply of Blowdarts. It ends up being a 40 minute game with piles of corpses and at least 2-3 provinces threatened each turn, which in the end I manage to swing just by drawing more cards thanks to the inheriting/peasant armor/kaiu smith/blowdarts and stacking those poison tokens sky high. Great game, could have gone either way and most likely south of Heaven if it wasn’t for SSK keeping him at the low 30s while it rained poison from the sky.
(6-1)
MVP Card: The Blowdarts recycler combo
After that bit, I’ve placed second or third at the swiss, and since we’re 40 people it’s a nice and quick top 4, which is a great thing cause the beers have started stacking up just like the poison tokens.
Semi Finals – Lion, Central Castle Unique Party
Oookay, this is probably a pretty hard matchup for the poor ninjas. I get a god draw, he gets a good draw and the game is on. To my surprise, with a god draw the Ninjas are actually faster than the kities in busting things up, and they can keep up the tempo for some time. I put on the pressure kill people, play lots of actions and keep ahead of the game while dancing around the lions (in one turn my main unit packing apprentice shinobi and flawless assassin was actually hunted across three lion provinces before getting one down). Then I scrubed out :P by losing a province to a wrong play (a poisoned Hida Kosho discarding Ring of Earth to take it down ~ a play mistake that was missed by me and everyone watching the game) and then forgetting in another battle that I had already used my expendable resources that turn and I allowed my opponent to will a person back in the game. Pretty noobish mistakes but I was pretty tired by that time (or a more unbiased observer might notice that my beer per minute ratio was significantly skewed upwards then and there – but real men don’t blame the booze :P).
Anyhow, it was an awesome tournament, very demanding games and a great time overall. It actually felt great to play a rock solid deck with no apparent insta-lose matchups.
So, without further ado here’s the deck:
Ninjas, Zombies and a Stripper
Stronghold:
1x Seven Stings Keep
Dynasty deck:
Event:
1x Bayushi's Guidance
1x Emma-O's Guidance
1x I Am Ready
1x Inheriting an Heirloom
Holding:
1x Akodo's Grave
1x Barley Farm
1x Corrupt Officials
1x Counting House
1x Expendable Resources
1x Famous Bazaar
3x Geisha House
1x Kaiu Smithy
3x Secluded Outpost
1x Traveling Peddler
Personality:
2x Bayushi Arashii
1x Bayushi Hisoka - exp
3x Bayushi Suboru
1x Bayushi Tsubaki
1x Pokku - exp
2x Shosuro Nitsu
3x Shosuro Sogetsu
2x Shosuro Takuma
1x Soshi Miroki
3x Udo
2x Yogo Rieko
Region:
1x Private Shrine
Fate deck:
Action:
2x Black Hearts, Red Blades
2x Determined Force
2x Dramatic Assassination
2x Final Duty
1x Hasty Exit
1x Knife in the Darkness
2x Outer Walls
2x Peasant Vengeance
3x Shadow Plays
3x Silent Rot
3x Strike from the Shadows
1x Subtle Sting
1x The Thriving Light
3x Walk in Shadows
Follower:
3x Apprentice Shinobi
3x Flawless Assassin
Item:
3x Blowdarts
2x Peasant Armor
Ring:
1x Ring of Water
As you can see, it’s pretty similar to Bolt’s original design with some tweaks simply because some things just don’t work for me (like Knife in the Darkness, or playing Wisdom Gained or running RoV in a deck that isn’t chock full of battle actions). Most likely, post errata I’d pump BHRB to 3 at the expense of the singular knife in the darkness and actually change the way I block on the defensive (which might actually hoist the deck one more notch). I know there’s no dishonor meta here, and most likely the lack of Ohba puts you at some late game disadvantage against a straight ninja deck, but I don’t like making deck design choices with the Scorpion vs Scorpion matchup in mind (regardless of the outcome it’s a Scorpion win so cba :P).
I’ll wrap this up with a big thank you to Bolt for posting the original design, it really increased my motivation to sit down and play, cause it was intricate, scorpion-y and with just the right doze of corruption to make it shine, as well as the guys that helped me test it out. I’ll leave you with one word of advice, even if you play regularly and decide to run something similar for the kotei season, make a point to practice a lot. There’s too many options available to you each turn, and it’s so easy to make a mistake that you don’t realize until your units are committed and are a dozen actions down the chain.
Toodlepips!