# Flashpoint Finchley X - Report

by Andrew Davidson
June 21, 1997

Many of the Magic players were away at a Weatherlight preview but the Shadowfist numbers held firm at 16 plus myself and other hangers-on. One welcome face was Richard Sands who normally role-plays on Saturdays but, thanks to a wedding party, was able to join us. Now we would see whether his fabled 5 White Ninjas could earn their keep. Nothing came of the proposed change in format and so we played the usual Final Brawl - two rounds of 4 x 4 to start with. These were timed rounds and for the first time, the tie-break rules caused a little trouble.
Stephen Biggs was, as usual, playing a deck rich in denial. This was his Soul Cutter - a Architect/Hand discard deck designed to stall the game while running everyone out of cards with Dunwa Saleem and recycled Curtains. In the first round his game went the distance and he and Yuit were tied on the first three tie-breaks:
1. FS sites + 2 * burnt-for-victory
2. The asset register - all assets except FS sites valued at cost
3. Total fighting score
I couldn't remember what the next tie-break was and had forgotten to bring the Daedalus tournament rules. Steve seemed to have the edge but I decided to defer the decision until necessary. For the record, the next tie-breaks by Daedalus rules v1.0 are:
4. Total body of feng shui sites
5. Remaining cards in deck
though I have reversed the priority of these in past local rules - I must write these up again.

Here is a summary of round 1:
Richard Sands beat Daniel Vandenberg, Ivan Hartley and Glenn Cannon
Stephen Biggs / Yuit Sum Vong beat Steve Salmon and Anil Das-Gupta
Alex Wargacki beat Tom Kassel, Arthur Howlin and Jonathan Pickles
Dave Martin beat Andy Holt, Ron Wheelhouse and Andrew Davidson

The second round was notable for a game between Richard, Arthur, Andrew Trickett and Anil Das-Gupta (last month's winner). Richard was playing his Dr Who & the White Ninja deck - rich in White Ninjas and Evil Twins. Anil had lots of Evil Twins too and White Ninjas and their twins flourished to the extent that it was hard to keep a feng shui site in play - all of the players had several burnt for victory. It even reached the stage that Arthur (playing a Cop deck) threatened to win just by playing a feng shui site - none of the other players had one in play! In the event, Arthur won the game in the regular way.

The results from round 2 were:
Arthur Howlin beat Anil Das-Gupta, Andrew Trickett and Richard Sands
Daniel Vandenberg beat Tom Kassel, Andy Holt and Stephen Biggs
Alex Wargacki beat Ivan Hartley, Yuit Sum Vong and Ron Wheelhouse
Dave Martin beat Glenn Cannon, Steve Salmon and Jonathan Pickles

This meant that we had two double winners, Alex and Dave, and 4 or 5 other survivors. After consultation with other Old Masters, it was decided that the two double winners would get a bye to the final game and the rest would play a game to see who joined them in a three-player final. Having established this, it was further decided that both Steve and Yuit could play in this semi-final - neither had been properly eliminated.

The eliminated players plus the double winners and myself made up three consolation games. The results of these were:
Tom Kassel beat Steve Salmon, Glenn Cannon and Andy Holt
Andrew Davidson beat Alex Wargacki, Jonathan Pickles and Anil DasGupta
Ivan Hartley beat Ron Wheelhouse, Dave Martin and Andrew
Trickett Tom and myself are old hands and are used to winning. Ivan, on the other hand, is new to the game and did well to beat three experienced players - well done.

Meanwhile the semi-final took place with:
Stephen Biggs - Demonic Inquisitor - Soul Cutter
Daniel Vandenberg - Hungry Kid - Protection Racket
Arthur Howlin - Grizzled Vet - Bent Coppers
Richard Sands - Wandering Dilettante - Dr Who & the White Ninja
Yuit Sum Vong - Moon Avenger - Keep the Faith

Steve's deck, Soul Cutter, is described above. Daniel is one of our young Finchley players and his designator comes from his hearty youthful appetite. He was playing a Dragon deck whose key concept was to play characters with self-protection like the Yakuza Enforcer and Marisol and then clear the table with Final Brawl/Carnival of Carnage. Arthur was playing the latest tune of his usual Cop deck.
Richard was playing a parasitic deck with few sites - just 5 Inner Sanctums and one Monkey House. This was named for Dr Who (the box used to hold it) and the many White Ninjas it contained. It contained all the factions to go with its Orange Senshi Chamber and the best big hitters in the game - White Ninja, Ice Queen and all the top Dragons. Richard reckons that he could have won if he had fully understood the tie-break rules but, as he had to leave for the wedding, it is just as well that he didn't.
Yuit was playing her latest enthusiasm - an all-Architect Purist deck. The Purist element has been steadily diluted as the deck has been tuned and now there are only two cards left - Rhys Engel and a Purist. It now consists of a large variety of Architect cards and a typical combo is the Plasma Trooper backed by a Buro Official or Satellite Intelligence. This got off to a good start with an early Vivisector and was able to burn two sites for victory quickly. Stephen's denial deck then shut Yuit down with Soul Maze - this caused some debate but was agreed to work against the Plasma Trooper and Colonel Griffith. The time limit crept up and Yuit's main rival, Richard, didn't fully understand the need to top her tie-break total. We play with a secret alarm clock - the Black Box - to avoid an artificial end-game and when this sounded its death-knell, Yuit was the winner.

So the finalists were:
Yuit Sum Vong - Moon Avenger - Keep the Faith - Architect
Alex Wargacki - The Baron - Ultimate Evil - Lotus/Monarch
Dave Martin - Jovial Master - Suicidal Tendencies - Ascended/Lotus

Three player games are often short and brutal but, like last month's final, this was another long game - about 2 hours. Part of the reason was that two of the players were packing plenty of victory denial - Yuit had Satellite Intelligence while Dave had Suicide Mission. Neither Dave or Yuit were playing with any big characters and so the Evil Twins and Tortured Memories that Dave and Alex were using didn't have much to bite on. For a long time the biggest character in play was Alex's Destroyer.
The game had no time limit and the end of Alex's deck approached - down to his last 8 cards. He had been waiting to draw a Thing and when it appeared at the end, he made his move, twinning the Thing and attacking to win. This attack went down in a flurry of denial and then Yuit had a shot. This attack failed too and then it was Dave's turn. Dave took over Alex's Thing with Tortured Memories and made another Twin - his winning attack was now unstoppable.
This is Dave's second victory at Flashpoint Finchley and together with his major tournament win at Card Wars 96, this makes his designator of Master even more well-deserved. Well done.
This victory shows how the Thing with 1000 Tongues sometimes betrays those who would be its master. It did not appear in Dave's deck but it was happy to change sides in order to maintain its winning streak.
Who will come forward to defeat this most devious of Demons? See parallel posts for details of Dave's winning deck, a small photo of the Jovial Master himself and some discussion of Soul Maze. And see you again at Flashpoint Finchley XI ...

Last modified: January 16, 1998.
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