Deck vainqueur à Tacoma

First the goods:

Outsider Keep (40/40)

Dynasty

Celestials (2):
Daikoku's Guidance
Shinjo's Guidance

Region (1)
Plains of Resolution

Holdings (17)
2x Border Village
Chugo Seido
3x Clan Estate
Dark Oracle of Fire exp. 2
Kitsune Den
3x Stables
Traveling Peddler
2x War Encampment
3x Wooden Barricade

Personalities (20)
2x Ide Kin
3x Moto Jeng-Yun
3x Shinjo Hwarang
3x Shinjo Yamauchi

Iuchi Katamari exp.
Moto Chen exp. 3
Moto Choon-yei
Moto Jin-sahn exp.
Shinjo Hwarang exp.
Shinjo Ki-Chang exp.
Shinjo Kodama
Utaku Fujiko exp.
Utaku Yu-Pan exp. 2

Fate

Strategies (29)
3x Claw and Shell
2x Fall Back!
3x Imperial Command
2x Inexorable Defeat
2x Kami Unleashed
3x Muscle and Steel
2x Only Actions Speak
2x Retribution
2x Rout
2x Sneak Attack
2x Superior Mobility
3x The Cost of Pride
Ultimate Sacrifice

Ring (1)
Ring of Water

Attachments (10)
Chagatai's Armor
3x Modifications
3x Moto Hunters
3x Rising Sun Blade

Swing for the fences starting turn 3 and go from there. Ye old buy two holdings turn 1, and a guy and a few more holdings turn 2. Nothing fancy obviously, abuse the crap out of Wooden Barricade and the draw cards attachments. I rarely wasnt discarding at the end of my turn. Card draw is yummy and all.

Deck has some surprisingly high chi with the weapons (5 on Chen and Katamari, 4 on a few others). With no 1 focus value cards in my deck and being up two chi sometimes on duelists with a large amount of 4s and 3s, I regularly focused out duels and won a good amount of them (awkwardly won 4 duels during the tournament that I had Muscle and Steeled).

Changes I would make:
Routs are out. Regularly just discarded them the whole tournament (I know right?). Take 1 out for the 3rd Superior Mobility and a single Fearless Defense (noooo a 1 focus action!).

Here is the actual tournament report. Sorry I dont remember names too well, or if I did post them you were pulled out of Diana's reports. Or your name is Kevin Rhymer from South Carolina. I get in Friday morning, waiting for Case to pick us up. We wait for Kevin Rhymer to arrive and then we go to Case's, play some L5R, go get sushi and then sleep. Get up and go to the tournament. Sorry I dont remember more details from more games.

1) Ninja (1-0) Kevin from South Carolina

So get one of the guys I was staying with first round? Awesome! We both sleaze provinces, I draw cards but all my guys have the AIDS by this point so I am forced to build for a turn or two at the end in order to not lose the game. Dark Oracle of Fire only comes out in this game for the whole tournament for some reason. I defend successfully against his attack (something like bow ninja, redirect silent rot, bow ninja, bow ninja, etc) and eventually push through.

2) TST (1-1)

He buys turn two Ochiai, I buy Chen turn two, he buys Masakazu, I slap down Modifications on Chen take province and buy Kodoma. He bows Kodoma with Ochiai and Touch of Death Chen (derp!). Game goes quickly south there.

3) TST (1-2) Kyle Anderson

Kyle goes swinging quickly with his guidance out and multiple created guys and Masakazu. I see no Claw and Shells and no rets. Try to save one province but my bow tech is overwhelmed by Fight as One.

At this point I am a sad 1-2, needing to win out in order to have a chance to get into top 16.

4) Ninja (2-2) Bobby Sarnowski

I go clunk turn one, double border keep into one holding. Bobby offers to let me reshuffle, but I refuse. I apologize now for not nominating you sir for sportsmanship award for this generous act and thank you again for the offer. I buy Hwarang and holding 2nd turn, he Out of Nowhere to early blitz a province with the free ninja. Hwarang takes one, he steals another two on his turn, I take another one and Fall Back! to activate defense mode. He swings all in at my last province. I am extremely lucky he doesnt have a silent rot am able to wipe out his army then and there.

5) Unicorn (3-2)

Dont remember much this game but I go first and get get a ret off too so tons of tempo for me? Yeah!

6) Breeder (4-2)

All day I was wondering why I was running Jeng-yun. Oh yeah. I get an early Jeng-Yun and another guy. I drag his shugenja into battle and kill them. I limit his zombies with claw and shells. I play through 3 Unfamiliar with straighten tech.

7) Breeder (5-2)

See round 6. I play around his Unfamiliars, waiting a turn for my Shinjo's guidance to be eaten by Daikoku's and dont use my box ability to avoid his unfamiliars. Only to learn he doesnt play them. Jeng-Yun loves himself some Udo.

Seeing after round 6 I was in 19th place, I was pretty sure I made it into top 16. I finish up 15th in Swiss, which is huge relief after starting 1-2.


Top 16 Zack Bradford
Unicorn (2-0)

Game 1: I lose the die roll and I will play second twice in a row. His deck goes clunk and doesn't give him an attachment. I see and draw a few of my own. I ret at some point to sleaze an extra province.

Game 2: Alot closer of a game. I end up taking the first province because Chag's armor cheats and stuff. He takes two back on his turn with attachments. I Inexorable into a province with Cavalry for Hire hoping that he sends me home with that. He routs me instead , destroying chags armor. I ret with a tactician I just bought and take one back. I attach RSB to Kichang and a Moto Hunters to Jen-Yung, force his only defender to defend Kichang with Jengyun. I Rout him he heights and negates his followers destruction with his innate ability. He destroys my RSB, I Superior Mobility his last guy away and tactician and take both of his provinces.

End competition for the day, go get dinner at IHOP and go to sleep! Get up at go back to the tournament the next day.

Top 8 Greg Wong
Dragon (2-0)

Straw Dog v. Dynasty match up! Greg is playing Wong military/Claiming the Throne/Enlightenment (or the same deck hes played for 4+ years?). 3 rules to playing Greg Wong.

1) You cannot make mistakes.
2) See rule #1.
3) Kill Satsu (and remove him from the game if possible)

Game 1: I believe this is the game where Greg got two Bokuko as his first personalities. I break through with an Imperial Command and attachment to take the first one. Key point in this game is when I have a bowed out team and Greg attacks with Satsu with an Obsidian Hand and Balances of water to drag in one of my guys and reacts for additional action with his box. I use up Shinjo's Guidance to react to move in Ki-chang with a RSB so he cant use the Hand to kill my guy. He uses a Steel on Steel instead which I muscle and Steel in counter. I Kami Unleashed to kill Satsu. Greg moves in two guys with Buoy (total of seven force). I fall back and Greg Falls back but I have about 6 cards in hand and Greg has 3 or 4 at this point with a dead Satsu. A few province swaps later, I attack almost full force at Greg's last province with an almost full hand. I barely win the battle regardless of Greg having zero cards in hand by the end of it and with Ring of water as his last action.

Game 2: Greg doesnt see any Bokuko in this game which is a bonus for me! I get an early Chen who gets some Moto Hunters and runs amok drawing cards and taking provinces. Key point in this game is Greg has Shiori with Sisters of the Flame. With a sneak in had, I use Jeng-Yun to target her. Greg uses barricades to attach RSB to Shiori so Chen cant trample her. I drop RSB from hand on Chen in order to have enough force to indeed Trample. I swing take Shiori and the province. Greg doesn't recover from that loss of resources.

Top 4 Phillip Koop
Crane (2-0)

Game 1: Turn 2 Chen, Turn 3 Chagatai's Armor on Chen. Philip doesn't even cross.

Game 2: I dig aggressively for Chen, buying a 2nd turn Yu-Pan and gold. Philip Impromptu's Yu-Pan and I OaS and accept the duel and die. I border all four provinces turn 3 for Chen and get him. Purchase him and Ide kin and some gold. I attach a modifications to chen and I get through Philip's guidance via Plains of resolution and a Muscle and Steel. Buy Hwarang and a chugo. Philip has a Nenkai, two Yosuga and Ekei. He bows out my Hwarang with Adjucation, sets Nenkai's Force to her chi and swings at my Plains of Resolution with Nenkai and two Yosuga. After about 3 minutes of thought (and no Muscle and Steel in hand) I Inexorable Chen into the battle. Draw focus pools and focus it out. I end up winning by 1 or 2 but Philip double Hamstrungs for 8 honor (!!). I trample the other Yosuga and Philip passes. I mod to draw a card and retribution for a province. Philip gets to about 38 by the end of my limited phase and I take an unopposed province. He crosses the next turn but cant stop my team next turn.

Top 2 Kyle Anderson
TST (2-0)

Kyle rolled me earlier in the tournament but it allowed me to see what he was running and prepare mentally for this round. In both games, all of my Ide Kin's die horrible deaths to Enough Talks!

Game 1: He buys Ningen and generic 3 force dueler turn two. I get Hwarang and gold. He Ningens and after thinking about it for a minute I Claw and Shell the additional personality. Kyle opts to go to Dynasty instead of attacking. Next turn I attach Modifications and take a province. I buy Jin sahn and Barricade the modifications over to jin Sahn on his next turn. I top deck the ret by mod at a different province during his attack and knock him down to two. I take one on my turn and lean on my 3 to 1 province advantage. He tries to attack a province with just a few guys later in the game but I block and wipe out a few of them. I attack with a superior position the following turn.

Game 2: Kyle's deck goes clunk on him. He buys a holding and a boxable his first turn. The next turn he only gets two Tsi Mokutsus. I get two Hwarangs. He gets the create two guys shugenja and another boxable duelist. I claw the created guys, burn all my gold to attach two Moto Hunters to each of the Hwarangs and take two provinces. Kyle doesnt attack the next turn and I get push him down to one the next turn. I build up some guys and he attacks a province. I defend with a full team and he sneaks with the one duelist guys and Awe Witness one of my guys. I end up winning the duel and create a guy on my side which completely destroys his battle plan. It also gives me a redirect target later in the battle. After the broken attack, I swing back into double inspiritional victories and a shiba's Guidance giving all of his guy's +5 Force. I have jsut enough kill and bow to buy of the cards out of his hand and win the game and the Kotei.

Hooray for monkey off my back!