Mini-ManaFest - Report II

by Brad Solberg June 17, 1997

This is a long tournament report of the Mountain View Match Play Mini-Manafest tournament held Sunday 1:00 PM, 15-June-1997.

We had 8 players with only three players from the Saturday tournament. The format was intended to be 3 rounds of 4 player, but the same two people won the first two rounds of 4 player, so there was a round of 3 player games with the remaining 6 players to determine the final. The final game was the only one which used tournament tiebreaker rules, and only for 2nd and 3rd place prize distribution.
I did not enforce time limits, and that again was a mistake. The play style was violent, but no one could hold a lead long enough to win. I heard that some of the players are from an environment where burning for power is not allowed. I think that made everyone's judgement a little off kilter - I saw sites seized that should have been burned (could not be defended), and sites burned for power that should have been seized or burned for victory because they had power they could not spend. I do not believe these results were just from inexperience, as the rest of the play showed a good appreciation of deck design principles and tactics

The contenders:

Tomasi Akiyeta Jr, with "Men in Black" (formerly Backstabbing Polititian) (Bull Market + Sucker Rounds + Ascended/Architect Tricks)
Jan Macina with a Monarch/Lotus/Magic deck, very similar to Kings and Things (Thing with 1000 Tongues, Monarch Queens & Evil Twins)
Ken Ho with a very fast Architect speed deck
Abe Gardner with "Phoebe" an Architect/Jammer thug deck
Doug Gardner with "Hookers in the Netherworld" - Bloody Hordes, Feast of Souls, Thing with 1000 Tongues, Monarch Queens & Glimpses
Robert Klemik with "New Blood" a standard set Dragon thug deck with most of the good dragon events & some Flashpoint foundations.
Will Kane with "3 for 4", a Dragon/Architect deck consisting of mostly 3-4 resource requiring medium hitters.
Quan, with a Dragon/Hand deck which included Vivisectors and Tranquil Persuaders among its tricks.

Round 1

Quan vs Abe vs Doug vs Will
This looked like it was going to be a long game for Will, as he got to a very slow start. The game degenerated into someone gaining a 4th site, and immediately having it removed. In the carnage, Will achieved parity with everyone else. The game was decided because Abe took a Secret Headquarters off of Will, instead of a feng shui. Abe was probably counting on denial from the to other Architects and the Lotus player, but he miscalculated and Will was able to force a win. Abe was more careful in later games.

Robert vs Jan vs Ken vs Tomasi
This game featured Ken bringing out 3 Char's on turn 4 (followed by an immediate Neutron Bomb) and an empty board for a while after that. So empty that Jan had to Evil Twin a Sinister Priest. Jan started accumulating power during the lull, and attempts to destroy his site structure only kept up with his growth. Finally, at a time when the Architects did not have 3 power, he unstuck, playing a Thing with 1000 Tongues, and its Twin. Together they convinced Robert's Marisol to join the winning side, as they stomped their way to victory.

Round 2

Tomasi vs Robert vs Will vs Abe
This game became unstable when Tomasi played a combination of cards that would have created a 28 strength, 2 toughness with Ambush, immune to Architect Events character. Will played event after event, running Tomasi out of tricks before he ran out of denial. Robert spent the 10 power from Tomasi's Bull Markets on thugs which were stopped by the rest of Will's hand. Will then used the remainder of the power Tomasi provided and a respectable site structure to put out a formidable attack, which prevailed against the weakened field. We did work out later that there was no way Tomasi could have timed the playing of his cards that would have kept his character on the board. Will finished with 2 wins.

Jan vs Quan vs Doug vs Ken
This game was a victim of everyone being hungry and the length of the games so far. Another inconclusive game was shaping up, and the victor of the other game was known. Ken wanted another chance to play, so he allowed Jan to win, forcing the wildcard rounds (if a third player had any victories, I would have had the final between them.) Quan had been in a hard set of tournaments, since on Saturday he had one game ended by all three players forgetting that John was one site from victory, one game ended because a Neutron Bomb went off at the wrong time due to a player error (that the player admitted to later), one game ended because the wrong site was taken (against the advice of everyone at the table) and this game ended because of the tournament timing. Still, he was a good sport about it and stayed in the wildcard tourney, even though both days he was also trying to run Battletech tournaments. Jan finished with 2 wins.

Round 3 - Wildcard rounds

Tomasi vs Doug vs Robert
Robert spent 90% of the game with 4 feng shuis and no resource characters. Tomasi and Doug were soon both at 4 sites, and spent the next few turns denying each other the win. Robert finally unstuck, played a Ting Ting and took a site, just when Tomasi and Doug exhausted themselves.

Quan vs Ken vs Abe
Abe won this game in a most convincing manner, providing Quan with the only satisfying ending of a tournament game this weekend, even if it was not his victory. Abe made a very strong bid to win, which at the end was only prevented by a Neutron Bomb. Abe then grinned, played his Gorilla Fighter and sent the Flying Monkey over to the weakened site, with his opponents helpless to stop it.

Final

Jan vs Robert vs Abe vs Will
This game for a while looked like many of the other violent but endless 4 player games seen earlier in the tourney, with alternating Neutron Bombs and Architect Thugs ravaging the board. Robert sat quietly in the corner, not contributing much as his deck was a bit slower than everyone else, and lower in denial. Biding his time, Robert waited until the denial had exhausted itself, played his third site, some characters and won. I saw the last few rounds, and the ending was not so much that Robert just made the bid and everyone had run out, it was more that they started ignoring him, and forgot to beat him up. He walked off with first place, Jan held second on the strength of sites seized or burned, and I can't remember who got third or fourth, as my notes failed me here.

Thanks to Match Play for providing prizes in the form of many boosters, a mix of Standard, Netherworld and Flashpoint.

Last modified: January 23, 1998.
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