# Flashpoint Finchley XVI - Report

by Tom Kassel
December 12, 1997

I was playing a variant of my Dragon thugs with Architects support which trimmed down the Architects and added some Lotus. Tortured Memories/Vivisector sounded fun as well as Evil Twins of Ting Ting or Golden Gunman. The latter was rather too much fun for users of Discerning Fire - I lost three 12 point Ting Tings to one in round 1.

Round 2

After a long tie break first round, this took about 30 minutes. Kun Kan/The Hungry/Glimpse of the Abyss decks have been popular lately. I screwed the balance of mine for the previous tournament by adding some Dragons but in pure Lotus form they can be pretty effective. Thivyan played his third The Hungry very early and announced that this game was going to be fun. Not for him. No one at the table was prepared for him to get 9 power so he never took a site. He had made himself look much too dangerous.

Final

This was just shortly after a fairly amusing moment. With a poor draw and just Lotus available, I was playing everything I could to turnover cards. I prefer a single column of two sites with this deck but sites were almost all I could play. The Evil Twin was another ludicrous result - I didn't mind too much as I use lots of Golden Comebacks so she could aspire to better things. Ivan on my right played a Plasma Trooper but thought better of using him - Dave had the most characters in play with just three which wasn't terribly tempting. On my turn, as I still had no Architects or Dragon foundation characters, I seized an opportunity to play some cards by playing Tortured Memories on the Plasma Trooper, enabling me to play a Vivisector and Scroched Earth. As the Plasma Trooper was ready to be sacrificed anyway, I thought I might as well attack so headed for one of Dave's sites. At this point some busybody pointed out that it was a winning attack and everyone started looking rather worried. The exact sequence is a bit fuzzy. Something like a few characters intercept the Trooper and die. When nearly dead, I heal with the Hospital which leaves him strong enough to take the site with the help of the Evil Twin (of Eunuch Underling). Daniel tries Fox Pass which I cancel with a Whirlpool and everyone looks grim. Then just as I was thinking that unlikely success might become possible, Nithiyan plays an Expendable Unit to divert the Trooper's damage. A close escape for the table.

>Tom played a Ting Ting and a Friends of the Dragon but, with a Fox Pass and plenty of power out there, this was not enough for a >winning attack and the game went on.

I got pretty close once or twice. Nithiyan stopped one by revealing his own Hospital for an auction, smoking mine just as I took the site. (A trick I was delighted to play on him later with my second Hospital) At one point with no defence on the table against my Gunman and a Ting Ting and power in hand, I thought it looked possible. As discussed in another thread, Dave then explained that he could stop me two or three ways so my attack would only setup some one else for a win. When pressed, (He was playing another Glimpse deck whose main defensive card - Tortured Memories - couldn't hurt me) he said it was a couple of Memory Reprocessing which had a wide choice of events which would do the trick. I correctly took him at his word and then spent the next hour trying to coax them out of his hand on someone else's attacks.
It was a long time coming during which the table filled with characters. He eventually Confucianed Daniel's Confucian (using the same card) with one but I forget what happened to the other.

>The game then ran for another 30 minutes - 3 hours in total. Dave had been amassing vast amounts of power with Glimpse of the >Abyss, Kun Kans and three Hungry. Players were starting to run low on cards and so he launched a major winning bid which just >failed. This was not a set-up but it provoked more action and when the dust cleared it was Daniel that had the brass ring.

I think I may have made the penultimate attack. It was a tragic misunderstanding between Dave and myself. Daniel was building up several heavy characters and looking dangerous. I had Gunman on the table and another in hand with enough power, so attacked Daniel intending to force him to expend a character in defence.
Unfortunately this was a not very credible winning attack, so Dave didn't feel he could rely on Daniel's defence and intercepted with an 8 point Kun Kan. No harm to me as I dropped the other Gunman, but Daniel hadn't committed anything and Kun Kan had copped it. If we hadn't been playing for three hours at this point I hope I would have had the wit to just attack Daniel's character.
Besides fatigue, decks were running very low at the end. I had about six cards left from my 60 ish card deck. I have since dismembered the deck as interesting but flawed. Three factions means a lot of foundation characters keep showing up in mid-game when you want juicier stuff (unless you use so few that they don't show up soon enough). The Evil Twins are enjoying life in my pure Lotus Abyss deck, while I have become very fond of Scorched Earth in the reconstituted Dragon/Architect deck. Some time in the last year, I got out of the habit of burning for power a few times before accumlating a victory pile. It's nice to just squeek a win when running off minimal power, but too often falls just short. On the other hand, burning for power a few times with Scorched Earth in play (and losing the odd site to reprisals as well), builds up a power and card surplus that can be used for an absolutely overwhelming series of attacks.
This is working well in club games with a 2-1 record though the Abyss is more consistent at 2-0.

Last modified: March 11, 1998.
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