I had a business trip to the US just before Christmas and so made an
effort to attend the Friday-night Proving Ground at Neutral Ground in Manhattan.
I'd not been to NYC before and missed my planned route through the Holland
Tunnel, getting snarled up in an awful traffic jam going through the Lincoln
Tunnel. This part of the journey took at least an hour - is it always this
bad?
My hotel was in the World Trade Center and I found this without too
much trouble - but then fought the one-way system for a bit before I could
unload and check-in. A yellow cab then rushed me down to 26th St and I
started wandering along it, looking for Neutral Ground. This is just one
anonymous floor in an enormous city block but I recognised a familiar landmark
- Steve Fritz smoking a cigarette outside the entrance. He did not recognise
me at first - New Yorkers must be instinctively wary of being accosted
by strangers - but then memories of Gencon came back to him and he gave
me a warm welcome, using his influence to get me a free pass to the gaming
area.
Neutral Ground is split into four areas - retail shelving full of games
and books; a computer gaming area; a central counter for staff and single
sales; and a gaming area, well-equipped with tables and chairs. There must
have been about 50 gamers there that evening - Magic, role-players and
Star Wars for the most part. Steve took me over to the Shadowfist crowd
and introduced me as Andrew Dawson - close but no cigar. It was now about
20:00 - about two hours later than my original plan - but it turned out
that this was perfect timing - this is when the Proving Ground usually
starts.
This was 19th December and, because of the holiday season, it was a
quiet night. Attendance was low and some of the Shadowfist regulars had
become involved in other games. This left just 5 of us to play in the Proving
Ground and there was a little grumbling at the prospect of a 5-player game.
This may have been because there is now no time-limit for the Proving Ground
games - they have been abolished in response to player feedback. I approve
of this move and have been trying something similar in our Finchley tournaments.
This eliminates arbitrary tie-breaks but the downside is that five-player
games can take some time to complete. Still, now that I knew the ground
rules, I was definitely going to play my Tickertape deck and its Bull Markets
and Bombs generally ensure that the game does not stagnate for long.
The players were:
Chris Choi - D - mono-Dragons starring Kar Fai
Kevin Lighton - ? - can't remember much about this deck
Wayne Thiessen - F - mono-Architects
Julian Lighton - D/M - Mark of Fire, Final Brawl, Carnival Carnage
Andrew Davidson - A/F/H - Tickertape
My experience of Gencon made me expect an especially fast and aggressive
style of play but I found this game to be very similar to the games we
play back in London. Players concentrated upon building a good site structure
at the start and Chris continued to develop his throughout the game - lots
of House on the Hill to go with his feng shui sites. There were soon plenty
of attacks though and plenty of banter to go with it. I was a bit subdued
because of jet lag and don't have a clear memory of the sequence of events.
I played a Bull Market and a Paper Trail and so started power flowing my
way. I kept missing whether players were discarding cards but forbore to
ask - didn't want to attract attention. Even so, it was disconcerting to
have Julian correctly name my deck even though it has only been mentioned
in passing here. I wonder how many other players like him lurk here unseeen,
absorbing all this intelligence? I had a similar experience at Gencon -
very eery.
After some skirmishing, I think that there were some winning bids by
Chris and Wayne but these were stopped by cards like Nerve Gas and Neutron
Bomb. I brought out a Queen of the Ice Pagoda then Julian made a big winning
bid. The table stopped this without too much trouble but then couldn't
handle me on my turn and so I won.
The organiser, Matt Li, then presented me with my prize - a White Ninja
- many thanks. I suppose that I've been put in the rankings but haven't
seen these - does anyone know the current score?
We then played some friendly games. My Pulp Fiction deck suffered its
first defeat as it drew little but sites. It was amusing to play three
Trade Centers into a massive site structure and this gave scope for some
banter about how I was staying at a Trade Center and that's why the others
had bad feng shui. Still, this all encouraged a big backlash and my meagre
Hoods couldn't withstand the onslaught. My Whirlybirds deck (Grease Monkey,
Attack Helicopter, Melissa Aguelera) did better - no nasty Lotus/Ascended
tricks to contend with here - just a straight-forward slugfest.
Finally, we wound up with a few quick duels in which I matched my Kung
Fu Students against Julian's Monarch/Dragon deck. He won the first game
to my surprise but then I won the next two in short order and, as it was
now 02:00 am, we called it a night. Thanks for the games, guys - it was
well worth the trip.
After a welcome night's rest, I did some sight-seeing from the top
of the Trade Center - isn't the Statue of Liberty small? I then tried some
Christmas shopping around Time Square. I soon gave up shops like Macy's
as a hopeless crush and went back to Neutral Ground to check out their
singles folder. I bought half-a-dozen useful cards - Turtle Beach, Queen
of the Ice Pagoda - that kind of thing. I also picked up a starter for
the Mythos expansion, New Aeon - check out the Chaosium card for a supposed
likeness of Rob Heinsoo - author of the Player's Guide and one-time Shadowfist
netrep. Best of all, the main man was kind enough to give me a demo deck
for Babylon 5 - many thanks for a first taste of this interesting new game.
There was no more Shadowfist action, though - just more Magic and a
teensy bit of Overpower. Still, I hear talk of another Proving Ground over
at NYU - perhaps I should check that out if I visit again.
Wayne talked of coming over to the UK in 98 and I encourage any such
US visitors to get in touch - there's plenty of Shadowfist action here
in London too.