Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Once we got to the church, I was honored to finally get to meet, in person, the famous "Wild" Bill Voight who was the host of the National Tournament.  I want to just say right off the bat that his reputation for being one of the best hosts in the game is well deserved, and the biggest tournament of the year by far was extremely well organized and therefore ran very smoothly.


After getting my guys settled in at the church, my daughter and I actually had the privilege of staying with the "other Professor", Jordan Alstad, and his lovely wife.  It was also a privilege to get to meet him in person for the first time, and I really wish that we lived closer together as I think we would really enjoy hanging out together a lot more often.

On Friday, I decided to try to do the impossible and be the first person to win Nats with a defense-heavy deck.  I had relatively high hopes due to earlier success in winning a State level, and placing at a Regional tournament.  However I knew that the time limits are a HUGE problem for defense-heavy decks, and so I took a backup deck in case things didn't work out.


My first round was against Greg Miller, and things went according to plan.  He only took LSs with SoG/NJ (my Altar of Ahaz wasn't out yet), and I was able to pull off the complete win.


The next round was against Josh Brinkman (JSB), and didn't go as well.  As I recall, he was running Judges or something that I'm really unfamiliar with, and so he pulled off a couple surprises before I locked him down at 4LSs.  However, that game timed out before I was able to come back for the win, so I only got points for a timeout loss.

The third round was the last that I would play my defense heavy deck.  It was against Reyzen, who is a friend and someone I have huge respect for.  He also has beaten me the only 2 times that we have every played together (both being at Nats).  I had him locked down completely about halfway through the game, and would've soon been able to start going in for the win.  But then he played A New Beginning and suddenly it was as if we were starting the game over from scratch.  He was able to break through once (before my defense could set up), and played SoG/NJ to get to 3.  I never even redrew my NJ, and ended up with another timeout loss 1-3.


My fourth round opponent was Kevin McIlrath, and it was at this point that the tournament made a complete 180° turn for me.  After the frustration of the last match, I had decided to switch from my well-thought-out deck that fit my playstyle.  Instead I was going to run a speed deck that completely depended on the draw and just see what God had in store for me.  The effect was immediate as I won this game quickly 5-0.


I unknowingly helped my fifth round opponent, Chris Carlson, build his deck the night before when I noticed Gabe giving him some pointers and decided to also chime in on some card ideas.  It was another quick game though and ended up with me on top 5-2.


At this point, I'd worked my way back up high enough to be playing people who I recognized, and my 6th round was against Eric Wolfe.  Eric is a great player, and actually beat me for the championship of the Live Online Alternative Nationals in 2010.  But this game, I was blessed with everything I needed to get the quick 5-0 victory.


Round 7 was against the Hall of Famer, Tim Maly.  It was this game that broke the unbeaten streak with the speed deck as Tim played great and gave me a 2-5 loss.


Round 8 was against my own student, Brian Jones.  He had been up as high as 2nd place earlier in the tournament, but had faded a bit to drop down to my level.  He had beaten my deck before, but this time it was my turn for victory.  God blessed my draw again to get the win 5-2.


Amazingly my round 9 opponent was ALSO a student of mine named Isaiah Johnson.  He has also beaten my deck before, but again the draw was in my favor and I ended up with the win 5-2.


My last round was against Ryan Ertmer.  I don't remember much about the game other than the fact that I won 5-3.  It was enough to lift me 4th place out of 98 and actually with a better LS differential than 3rd place (but 1 victory point behind).  It is the best finish that I've ever had at a National tournament, and felt extremely blessed to be up there.

I was also proud of my students in this event.  Isaiah finished in 11th place, and Brian ended up in 26th.

Overall, I found the tournament to be a great example of the wisdom of man being foolishness to God.  I came into the tournament feeling pretty confident in myself in Booster and discovered that I really couldn't do that well without the grace of God being generous in what cards were available in the packs that came to me.  I also felt pretty confident in the brilliant strategy of my defense-heavy deck in T1-2p, but really didn't start succeeding until I swallowed my pride and played the rest of the way with an outdated deck that would lose to a starter deck if it had a bad draw.  It was only when I depended on God, that victories started to pile up.  Finally I felt pretty confident that our TEAMS strategy was also unstoppable, yet it was stopped multiple times, and the "improvements" that I thought seemed so great ended up not working out.

Speaking of humbling, I found it to be God's sense of humor that after coming into the National tournament in striking range of the RNRS titles for several events, that the only one that I ended up placing in was the one that I didn't even play at Nats (T1-mp).

Another lasting memory of Nats is that my daughter was introduced to the Angel Wars movies, and absolutely fell in love with them.  All these months later, she still talks about them OFTEN, still daydreams about them, still organizes her cards based on whether they have pictures that come from those movies, etc.  Now I know what to get her for Christmas

And as always I really enjoyed just getting to hang out with people who I haven't seen in years (since the last Nats I attended).  I'm sure I'll forget some people, but other than the people already mentioned in my posts above, it was great to talk again with Rob Anderson (thanks again for creating the game that brings all of us together), Bryon Hake (I wish CA was closer to KY), Chris Bany (thanks again for keeping the tourney running smoothly the whole time and doing it with humor), the Delarosa twins (who I'd never met in person before, and who really have a heart to expand the ministry of this game), Tyler Stevens (who has great plans with Chris Fachman to bring Nats to TN next summer), and so many others.

I feel so blessed to have been able to attend, and I highly encourage all of you out there to really make an effort to come to a Nats yourselves as soon as you can

Great report!  I loved being able to pick your brain on the ride up.  It's amazing what God can teach you through a card game.

Thanks, and I totally agree.  You are another person who I really enjoyed meeting in person for the first time on that trip.

We ended up in 15th place, and back to the old drawing board for deck design.  It was still fun teaming up with John Earley though and I'll always remember some of our coded messages, like "The doctor is in the house!"

One of my favorite moments in the tournament was in the game Craig and I played against you and John.

Is the doctor in the house?

Well, the doctor could be in the house if children's protective services don't show up.

Whadyathink is it maybe time for some sweet chin music?

I'm not sure. I could sure use a helping of sweet baby Ray's world famous ribs, though.

Are you sure you want the ribs and not the brisket?

Snort the banana--devil bunnies, devil bunnies.

<three or four minutes more of similar exchanges>

You like your hand?

Not really.

OK...Mayhem.

Aaaah,  Good times. Good times.