# Mini-ManaFest - Report I

by Brad Solberg
June 15, 1997

This is a long tournament report of the Mountain View Match Play Mini-Manafest tournament held Saturday 1:00 PM, 14-June-1997. The 7:00pm tournament was cancelled - most of the players went off to have lives, having played 5 hours of continuous Fist.

We had 9 players - we probably could have fielded 12 but Bryant and Earl were out of town. The format was 3 rounds of 3 player, with the winner receiving 2 points for each win. The top 4 finishers went into the final game. A "wildcard" game was used to break ties for the 4th slot. The final game was the only one which used tournament tiebreaker rules, and only for 2nd and 3rd place prize distribution. Everyone still had a chance in the tournament through the final round and only one person was sure to make it into the final by the last round. I did not put a time limit on the games, because we were told we had the tables as long as we needed them. In retrospect, that was a mistake, as one deck caused very long 3-player games, about 2-3x as long as everyone else, which messed up the flow of action for everyone else.

#### The contenders:

Tomasi Akiyeta Jr, with his Backstabbing Politician deck (Bull Market + Sucker Rounds + Ascended/Architect Tricks)
Chris Vanhorn, with slow but powerful Architect/Ambush/Zap/Thug deck
Scott Safreed with a Hand/Chi deck (similar to Passive Aggressive Militant Buddhists, but with more Sacred Heard Hospitals and less healing events)
Bernie Hsiung, with a Monarch/Hand deck very similar to the deck he used in the late stages of the Mountain View Proving Grounds. (Mostly Queen of the Ice Pagoda and Chi stuff to keep her alive)
Jan Macina with a Monarch/Lotus/Magic deck, very similar to Kings and Things (Thing with 1000 Tongues, Monarch Queens & Evil Twins)
John Castelluchi (The Man in the US until next Gencon) with another version of Juicer (Bull Market, Sucker Rounds, etc)
Travis Reynolds, with a deck designed to beat the Juicer decks that are currently popular in San Fransisco (Jammers with Tunnel Gangers, Battlechimp, Demolition Experts, and, you guessed it, Bull Markets) Travis's deck was designed by Scott, and is very vulnerable to Final Brawl, but only Quan was playing Dragons so it was a good choice for this tournament.
Randall G! with his Suicide Mission/Dark Traveller deck, which was the deck that caused some very long and very strange games. He spend most of the day using the Suicides to prevent victory, and rarely had a chance to use them to pump his Dark Travellers and try to win himself.
Mike Miyaki played in the first round with an Ascended Speed deck. He had to leave early, so Quan took his place in round 2, with a Dragon Yak Enforcer/Final Brawl/Booby Trap deck.

### Round 1

Tomasi vs Chris vs Scott
Tomasi's deck clicked in the late stages of the game, and had a clear field for his Gruff Lt. with Sucker Rounds. He also had 2 foundation characters on the board. Opposing was one interceptor and unknown Hand denial. Chris had no power, so his Architect zaps were not an issue yet. Tomasi played cautiously, attacking with only the Sucker Round equipped Cop, and was stopped with a Kinoshita House. Had he attacked with everything, he would have won, because the Iron and Silk + Kinoshita House could have only stopped 2 attackers, with the Cop coming back to finish the job. Scott won on the next turn in spite of Tomasi's interceptors, and collected 2 points.

Bernie vs Jan vs Mike
This game was a clash of titans, as the Queen of the Ice Pagoda changed sides regularly, the Thing made his appearance, and the final battle was won by the Thing striding to victory, contemptuously rolling over a Mysteriously Returned Queen of the Ice Pagoda (with a little help from a timely Shattering Fire). Jan collected 2 points, and Mike retired from competition.

Travis vs John vs Randy
There was more power in this game than you could shake a stick at. The endless Bull Markets left Travis's Tunnel Gangers the masters of the playing field, and ensured that Randy could win any auction, since his deck was designed to run on very little power and could not possibly spend the influx. Travis was foiled turn after turn because there were not enough sites on the board for him to win, and he could only play one, and any site he played was taken or Suicided before his next turn. After a very tense game, where all three people were in danger of decking, (and the Art of War was moving around the table...) Travis put together a winning attack in a gamble which would have caused him to deck the next turn. Travis took a well deserved 2 points, and no one wanted to face Randy's deck.

### Round 2

Round 2 was easy to set up so no one played the same person twice. I put the winners at the same table to keep more people in contention for the final.

Tomasi vs Bernie vs Randall
Tomasi discovered the weakness of Bull Market which Bryant exploited at Pacificon. If you feed power to decks with really big thugs you will get pounded. Bernie, fed by his own excellent power generation plus Tomasi's deck (might have been only 1 Bull Market, but 5 power is 5 power) muscled past the Ascended and Architect denial for the victory. Bernie's deck is very resistant to events, so you have to get characters on the board. The Sucker Rounds were only large, not huge, and Wing of the Crane dealt with some of the interceptors. Bernie moved to 2 points, everyone else was still at zero.

Chris vs Quan vs John
Quan had a quiet game, partly because he was to John's left and John tends to pount the crap out of Quan whenever they are in the same game. The Man respects Quan's strength I guess. This game featured Homo Omega taking sites at will until the White Ninja borrowed some Sucker Rounds from the Buro and put a hit on him. John won the game without even realizing it, quietly taking a site and continuing his turn. Before he declared End of Turn, he realized he had won. I had to make a ruling there, since all 3 players had allowed the attack to succeed without any noticing that it was for the win. If John had declared End of Turn, he would have had to keep playing, although he would remain 1 site from victory even ifhe lost a site. Tournament rules are that if a mistake is missed until the next turn has begun, it stands. There is no rule that says you have to declare victory as soon as you take the last site, so John won and scored his first 2 points, with Quan and Chris remaining at zero.

Travis vs Jan vs Scott
The Winners table was decided by the draw, as Travis got a good start, and Jan and Scott failed to draw the required combination of sites + foundation characters. Travis proved yet again that you can't let Jammers burn sites for power early if you expect the game to go more than 5 or 6 turns. Travis moved to 4 points, and was reasonably assured of a spot in the final round. Jan and Scott stayed at 2 points. Round 3. I don't think I got the match ups quite right, as several people played people from a previous round. I was having trouble focusing on the issue, and finally just tried to ensure that the point totals were the same at every table so everyone had the best chance to get to the finals.

Randall vs Scott vs Bernie
Without the help from Bull Markets and with Scotts defensively oriented deck, Bernie was unable to force a victory the usual way. Randall had weird distribution, he spent the first half of the game with 4 Feng Shui's in play, lots of power and no Dark Travellers (his deck's only hitter). This game was a grueling affair, ending with Bernie decking both Scott and Randall. Bernie's deck is small, but his hitters are so powerful and hard to stop that Scott and Randall had to use lots of cards every turn to keep him from winning. Bernie advanced to the final with 4 points, Scott moved to the wildcard game with 2 and Randall was eliminated (much to the relief of the other winners, since it was nearing 5 and we had two games yet to play).

Chris vs Travis vs Tomasi
Chris's deck was in its element in this game. The game was decided by the following formula: 2 Bull Markets = 1 Reinvigoration Process + 1 Fusion Tank + 1 Desdimona. Expensive for 9 fighting and Ambush, but if your power is provided free from your enemies, why not. Travis, with 4 points made the final in spite of his loss, Chris moved to the wildcard game and Tomasi vowed to return with a different deck.

John vs Jan vs Quan
I should have separated John and Quan, since he had to play both games agains John, who proved a deadly opponent, even though Quan was to his right in this game. Jan was not the sort of opponent you could leave alone, and his Thug + Evil Twin combination won the day. He probably also benefited from the Bull Markets more than Quan did, since his deck was stuffed with big hitters. Jan made the final, John took his Juicer deck to the wildcard game and Quan went back to running his tournament for some other CCG.

### Wildcard Round

Scott vs Chris vs John
The wildcard game was over very quickly, and I did not see the ending because I was arranging prizes for the Final. Chris's Architects took the day, because both Scott and John's deck choked. Scotts deck, even though mono-faction choked twice, and Chris's slow but reliable deck got him into the finals, eliminating the second Juicer-style deck.

### Final

Travis vs Bernie vs Jan vs Chris
Everyone who made the final had to win 2 three player games. They played very hard to get there against excellent opposition. The final turned into a slugfest between big hitters, and was decided because Jan had to make a hard call and guessed wrong. Bernie described the finish like this:
"I got the Queen of the Ice Pagoda out by winning an auction, then placed a Fire Sled and took a site. I played a Contract of the Fox from my smoked pile using the Spirit Pole, which seemed to surprise people." (Bryant says people never check the smoked pile for states - he seems to be right) "I made the bid to win with 3 Fortune of the Turtles in my hand, the Queen and some Foundation characters. There was enough interception on the board only if Jan used his power to pump Big Brother Tsien. Instead he tried to use an event to remove the Queen and failed." Jan could have prevented the win, in a fairly certain manner, but in doing so the board would have been cleared and a very weak site left available.If his event had worked, the board position would have been much more stable. He gambled, and Bernie won.
Our local tie-breakers for second and third place are based primarily on feng shuis taken - either burned for victory or held until the end of the game. Jan had a clear second place, he had 1 site burned and 1 site seized. Travis and Chris were equal on the first tie breaker (I think they each managed to get 1 site), and were just as close to victory, but Travis had more stuff on the board (turned characters - Chris probably used all of his characters up trying to stop the win), so he got third. Chris got 4th, but got bragging rights for making the finals - he was less experienced than everyone else there, but held his own against some of the strongest opposition in the Bay with a deck design that would be unpopular around here. Thanks to Match Play for providing prizes - the winners seemed happy with the mix of Standard, Netherworld and Flashpoint boosters they received for their efforts.

Most of the players in the Saturday tournament can't make the Sunday tournament (real life and rpg's are getting in the way), but some promised to try to get new people to show, so Sunday we will either Fist for fun or have another tournament if enough people show.

Last modified: January 23, 1998.
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