Cactus Game Design Message Boards

Thursday:

T1-mp:
Unfortunately I'm probably fuzziest on this event, but I'll try my best.  The first round was against Jon Greeson (ouch) as well as my 8-year old daughter and her friend Hannah Wills.  This turned out to be an interesting game as neither Katrina nor Hannah were very experienced with multi-player, and so made some interesting decisions.  For instance Hannah started the game with the most LSs, but instead of picking herself to start chose Katrina instead.  This was nice for Katrina, but not so nice for me as that made me go last.  It was a quick game, and Jon was able to get to 5 before I could even get into 2nd place so I ended with 0 pts.

In round 2 I was paired with Keith Lance and Andy Wills, and as a 3 person game there were no points for 2nd place.  Thankfully I won, so I got the 3 points and moved back up the rankings.

In round 3 I was surprised to find myself at the top table.  Chris Ericson and Josiah Beers were both running super fast decks with Josiah drawing all but 1 card by turn 2.  Chris, Josiah, and I all seemed to focus all of our attention on each other, and Drew Wills used that to his advantage.  He still had most of his deck left, but was able to get to 3 LSs shortly after Chris and Josiah were tied at 4 (having played SoG/NJ).  I was also at 3, but had too much deck left as well.  Drew finally came in on Josiah for LS number 4, won the battle by numbers, and played SoG for the win.  It turned out Chris has Mayhem in his hand, but was waiting to play it, and by the time he decided to, it was too late due to not being able to play anything when a battle is resolving by the numbers.  Again I had no points, so I dropped down to the bottom again.

In round 4 I played Connor Magras and Chris Egley.  This could have been a tough game, but I got a great draw and was able to get to 2 pretty quickly.  I didn't have GoYS so I decided to try to race to 5 before they could draw a FA.  My SoG/NJ got me to 4, and I went in for a rescue on Chris for the win.  It was another situation where the battle ended by the numbers, and first Connor was OK with that thinking that it would be a stalemate.  However upon closer inspection it turned out that I won the battle (and the game).  He tried to use his UW at that time, but it was ruled too late, and I bounced back up to the top again.

In the final round I played Tim Maly, Brian Jones, and my 10-year old daughter.  I actually don't remember a lot about that game surprisingly since I knew that I had to win it in order to place.  I remember that Tim and Brian were both ahead of me, and Tim was far enough that even if I won, I couldn't catch him.  So his main goal was to not let Brian win.  He also needed at least 2nd to stay atop the overall standings.  What I remember most was the finish.  I was coming in for my 3rd LS, and won it while holding SoG/NJ in my hand.  But instead of playing them I quickly passed the turn to the next player.  My thinking was that I didn't want anyone looking at my hands to have a chance to play Vain Philosophy (which it turned out after the game that Tim did have in his hand at the time).  After the next player drew their cards and I waited a couple seconds, I played the combo for the win, and ended up with barely enough to wind up in 3rd place overall.


I was also pleased that Brian Jones (8th), Drew Wills (9th), and Katrina Underwood (10th) also finished in the top 10 in this event.

Booster:
I really don't know much about this event other than that Kyle Waugh (lots of great battle-winners) and Matt Townsend (lots of great banding) showed me their decks mid-tourney and I was very impressed with both of them.  In the end Kayleb Matthews (6th), Kyle Waugh (8th), and Biruk Fisseha (10th) all finished in the top 10 of this event.

Friday:

T1-2p:

Round 1 was against Roberto Villanova.  He was a great host, and a relatively new player to the game.  I tried to use it as a teaching game since he has a deck that is similar to mine (Genesis/Herods).  There were a lot of ruling questions, but we were still able to finish before time with a 5-0 victory for me.


Round 2 was the top table against last year's champion Martin Miller.  I also played him last year when he was running the FBNB and I was playing Gen/Gold defense heavy.  I lost last year on a really poor draw and felt like my deck really should've won that match-up.  So I was looking forward to the rematch until the first time I attacked with a prophet and Hidden Treasures to take out an EE from his deck.  Suddenly I realized that he was playing something completely different (balanced with a lot of grey) and I thought I was in big trouble.  Thankfully my defense held up despite several mistakes on my part.  I tried to capture an angel with Egyptian Warden (duh) as well as forgetting to draw at least a couple times with 7YoP (duh again).  Martin naturally didn't let me take any of those mistakes back, but in the end I got the win 5-4 after an intense game.


Round 3 was against Justin Sanguillo, who I'd never met before, but had heard of as a National Champion from many years past.  This game ended up all coming down to 1 decision.  Early in the game Justin (playing full Disciples) put his New Covenant down in his artifact pile by accident instead of his Chariot of Fire.  He said that he didn't mean to, and I let him take it back.  In general I like to let my opponent's take things back unless they have already NOT let me take something back in a game.  I just think it makes the game more fun and people don't feel like they lost due to something cheap.  Anyway in this case it cost me the game as at the end he used that covenant from hand to heal Thad from being Beheaded, and proceeded to just walk in with him for the LSs to win the game.  Without Thad for even a couple turns (for me to get one of my other answers to him) I would've easily won that game.  I was frustrated, but at the same time, I think I would still make the same decision.  Justin's been out of the game for a long time, and if I'd been him I would have wanted my opponent to let me take something like that back.  Golden Rule for the win.  In the end I lost 5-1.


Round 4 was perhaps the most fun game of the whole tournament.  I was playing Andrew Wester, and both of our decks worked just how they were supposed to.  It was a close game the whole way, and we both were tied at 4 LSs having already played SoG/NJ.  He was running out of firepower on offense, and his defense was exhausted.  My next turn I'd walk in for #5 so it was do or die.  He came in with a CotH (10 attack) after counting up to make sure that he's have enough.  I blocked with Dreaming Pharaoh banded to Egyptian Magicians banded to his Foreign Wives (17 defense).  He played Striking Herod to get his attack up to 17.  I played Egyptian Horses to get up to 19 defense hoping he was out.  But he had Live Coal to get up to 21 attack.  I just needed 3 more points of defense to hold on and win the game, but unfortunately my draw 3 off Dreaming Pharaoh was 2 cards short of drawing my Moses Kills Egyptian.  So I took my 2nd loss at 5-4.


Round 5 was my last chance.  I knew that if I won the rest of my games, I could still make Top Cut.  I should've probably switched at that point for my boring speed deck, but I wanted to give the defense-heavy one more try.  I was playing against Gretel Coverdale, who had beaten me in my last game of my first Redemption Nationals (KC) years ago.  We had a good intense game, and at the end she was up 2-1 as time was about to expire.  I knew that a timeout would knock both of us out of contention completely.  I also knew that I had completely locked out her offense (she had already played SoG/NJ as well, and I had an untapped 3-liner just in case).  I also knew that her defense was out of steam and I would just walk in for the win if given the time.  But there wasn't time.  I tried to convince her to concede due to the circumstances, but she felt like she wanted to keep the timeout points that she had earned (which is understandable).  So that ended up being a timeout loss 2-1, and with that both she and I were out of the tournament.

Saturday Continued:

TEAMS:
Each year I team up with one of my students for TEAMS at big tournaments.  It is a good chance to teach them some nuances of deck-building as well as playing.  It is also a lot of fun.  Last year I teamed up with Brian Jones to come in 5th place, so it would be hard to top that.  This year I teamed up with Kayleb Matthews, and going into Nats we were undefeated as a team, even winning a Regionals.


Round 1 was against the team of Samson Afolabi and Michael Iurilli.  I think they're both pretty new players, so it was another chance to have kind of a teaching game.  It was a pretty fun game and we let them take back some mistakes.  In the end it was a 5-0 victory, which jumped us up to the top table.


Round 2 was against the team of Andrew Wester and Alex Olijar.  They are of course a top team, and it was one of those games where it really came down to the draw.  They played half a dozen dominants in the time that we played 1.  That included Falling Away 1 of our saved souls, and GoYS their own so that we couldn't return the favor.  Neither team really made stops on defense, and I was actually happy that we were able to still get to 3 LSs before they were the first to draw SoG/NJ for the win.  Taking a loss dropped us a bit, but it was to a top team and the differential wasn't bad, so we still had high hopes.


Round 3 was against the team of Jon Greeson and his son Ryan.  They are also a top team due to the constant coaching of Jon.  This was a pretty slow game due to the many Pokemon code words for every card that the other team had to keep using   However it turned out to be a fun one anyway.  I did make one huge mistake that game.  Jon was playing with the Shuffler LS for some reason, and I think he was coming in for LS #3 on us.  I asked if my teammate had the block, and since neither of us did, I decided to go ahead and SoG the shuffler to get rid of our LSs.  Neither Jon nor I thought of the fact that the new SoG negates the shuffler, so nothing would happen, but John Earley happened to be walking by at the time and corrected our error just in time.  Since neither one of us would've caught it otherwise, I asked Jon if we could take it back.  He deferred to his son, and Ryan agreed to let us.  I appreciated both of their actions.  Jon figured his son would let us, so it was generous of him to let his son make the call.  And Ryan was generous to let us take back such a costly mistake.  In the end we still lost the game 5-2.  But it ended up being a much more fun game than it would've been if we'd spent the rest of the game kicking ourselves for being idiots

P.S.  No Connor didn't replace my teammate Kayleb for this game.  I just forgot to take the Greeson's picture until after the next pairings had already seated.


After 2 losses I knew we had no chance to win it all, and very little chance to even place.  But there was still a chance, so we didn't switch to our crazy backup decks yet.  Round 4 was against the team of Brian Jones and Andrew Wills, so I had to play against my former partner.  They were running a TEAMS version of the deck Josiah had used to win T1-2p.  It had some really nasty combos, that we were blessed to be able to deal with.  We were never able to deal with Naz so searching was out (but that also stopped their Golden Cherubim).  We were able to shuffle away their RBD with Captured Ark, and were able to discard their 7YoF from their territory.  This let us do enough drawing to get the firepower to end up winning 5-2.


So as if beating a former teammate wasn't bad enough, Round 5 we were paired up with none other than my own daughters.  They had been having a great tournament and were 3-1 at that point, and were ranked higher than us.  But I still felt pretty confident going into the game.  My confidence turned out to be misplaced as they played a great game and broke through our defense multiple times to get to 3 LSs without playing SoG/NJ.  The race was on and the turning point was when Alecia set all her heroes aside with Pentecost allowing me to discard them with Darius' Decree.  Thankfully that slowed them down long enough for us to sneak our way to 5 LSs before they could draw the big 2.

P.S.  Yes, I know that pic of my girls is a repeat from the train earlier.  But I forgot to take their picture during TEAMS, and that one is so cute it's worth putting up twice

Round 4 was perhaps the most fun game of the whole tournament.  I was playing Andrew Wester, and both of our decks worked just how they were supposed to.  It was a close game the whole way, and we both were tied at 4 LSs having already played SoG/NJ.  He was running out of firepower on offense, and his defense was exhausted.  My next turn I'd walk in for #5 so it was do or die.  He came in with a CotH (10 attack) after counting up to make sure that he's have enough.  I blocked with Dreaming Pharaoh banded to Egyptian Magicians banded to his Foreign Wives (17 defense).  He played Striking Herod to get his attack up to 17.  I played Egyptian Horses to get up to 19 defense hoping he was out.  But he had Live Coal to get up to 21 attack.  I just needed 3 more points of defense to hold on and win the game, but unfortunately my draw 3 off Dreaming Pharaoh was 2 cards short of drawing my Moses Kills Egyptian.  So I took my 2nd loss at 5-4.

This was a really good game. From my perspective, that last turn rescue was still really shaky. I played Birth Foretold during preparation phase to search for Son of God, and Prof U asked me if I was playing it. He faked a Vain Philosophy or Mayhem in hand, but I knew he didn't have either because I looked at his hand. The bigger question was the impending Draw 3 from The Dreaming Pharaoh. If he draws Vain Philosophy or Mayhem, I lose my Son of God and New Jerusalem, ultimately losing the game, but if he draws the 2 Liner lost soul, I lose if I play Son of God and New Jerusalem. In the end I realized that him drawing VP/Mayhem would likely make me lose the rescue attempt anyway, as I wouldn't have both Live Coal and Striking Herod for the rescue, so I played the big 2. Thankfully he drew offense and I was able to win what was the best game of the tournament.

Our game against you in Teams was less fun, but we started with a pretty bad draw, supplemented by dominants. I do remember forcing you to Christian Martyr my solo Gideon and tap and Bury against a solo Aaron because nobody had defense. After that it was all walk-ins and a few clutch dominant blocks, as well as underdecking your SoG, that won us the game.