[FIST] Gencon 97 - Final Brawl tournament report
Andrew S. Davidson
GENCON 97 FINAL BRAWL
After the Sealed Deck tournament on Day 1 and the Theme deck
tournament on Day 2, the action stepped up with a Final Brawl
tournament on Day 3. It was my honour to be running this event
and the first task was to shepherd all the players to the
area for the event - you needed the program book's errata sheet to
find the right location - just like a game. Still, despite this,
we had a good turnout of 28 players - the biggest Shadowfist
tournament I've ever attended.
This event was the final qualifier for the Nationals and so it
was important to have a good ranking system for the players. After
some thought, I used a swiss-style system which has worked well at
all-day events back in the UK. Each game was worth 1 point per player
plus 1 point for a win inside the distance. This meant that a
standard 4-player win was worth 5 points to the winner and the losers
got nothing. If the game was timed-out, then the points would be
split between the leader(s) as assessed by the formula: feng shui
sites + (2 * burnt for victory). E.g. a game might be scored:
Feng shui BFV Tie-break points Tourney points
Andrew 3 1 5 1
Bruce 4 4 0
Charlotte 3 1 5 1
David 1 2 5 1
Note that fractional points are dropped - 4 into 3 gives 1 point each.
The benefits of this system are:
* it is a reasonable assessment of players' winning chances
* the premium for BFV rewards aggressive play
* a tie-break win is not as good as a proper win
* one gets a good spread of points which helps to separate the players
I allowed a time-limit of about 75 minutes per game and when time was
up, play stopped immediately - no final showers of killing rain or
orbital lasers. This time limit seemed about right - 20 out of 25
games finished inside the distance.
The overall winner was the person with the most points. I wanted to
avoid repeat match-ups and so winners were separated until the final
round when the scoreless players were out of contention. The four
rounds went as follows. The number at the start of each line is the
points scored by the winning player.
Round 1
2: Lance Guth &
2: Blair Lafferty beat Michael Nickeloff, Jim Ericson
5: Damon Schereck beat Robert Roberts, Kirk O'Brien, Charlotte Henkle
5: Joseph Livotte beat Ray Brown, Kevin Masterson, Stefan Vincent
5: Ken Kurpiel beat Janifer Cheng, Dan Deerwester, David Deerwester
5: Matt Widmann beat Brian Carty, Brett King, Jeff Williamson
4: Robert McNulty beat Matt Miller, John Rogers
5: Yuit Vong beat Michael Jackson, Danny Cruz, Jason Rownd
Round 2
5: Damon Schereck beat Danny Cruz, Michael Nickoloff, Brett King
5: Jeff Williams beat Blair Lafferty, Charlotte Henkle, Jason Rownd
5: John Rogers beat Dan Deerwester, Yuit Vong, Stefan Vincent
5: Joseph Livote beat Michael Jackson, Robert Roberts, Brian Carty
5: Lance Guth beat Janifer Cheng, Kevin Masterson, Robert McNulty
5: Matt Miller beat Ray Brown, Kirk O'Brien, Ken Kurpiel
5: Matt Widmann beat David Deerwester, Jim Ericson, David Mitchell
Round 3
5: Brett King beat Dan Deerwester, Robert Roberts, Matt Miller
5: Stefan Vincent beat Jeff Williams, Lance Guth, Michael Jackson
2: Ray Brown &
2: Yuit Vong beat Janifer Cheng, Jim Ericson
4: Jason Rownd beat David Deerwester, Robert McNulty,Damon Schereck
4: Brian Carty beat Ken Kurpiel, Michael Nickoloff
5: Matt Widmann beat John Rogers, Kevin Masterson, Charlotte Henkle
5: Joseph Livote beat Kirk O'Brien, Danny Cruz, Blair Lafferty
Round 4
4: Joseph Livotte beat Matt Widmann, Damon Scheckel
5: Robert McNulty beat Brett King, Jeff Williams, John Rogers
4: Ken Kurpiel beat Yuit Vong, Lance Guth, Ray Brown
4: Brian Carty beat Matt Miller, Jason Rownd, Stefan Vincent
It's a shame that two of the games in the final round went to the time
limit and so were decided by the tie-break. I did allow 80 minutes
for this round but I think the players were especially cautious at
this stage.
The top table was a three player game. Two of the players were
undefeated - Joseph Livotte and Matt Widmann. I have full details of
both of their decks and they are published in accompanying articles.
Unfortunately, I didn't get a close look at Damon Schereck's deck but
it appeared to be a very tight DE deck - to my London eye it seemed to
have hardly any cards in it. I didn't see much of the action - the
game seemed to be over fairly quickly and so must have been a
straightforward, brutal affair. The only detail I recall was some
banter about Joseph's use of Bzzzt! This is not often seen and Matt
didn't realise until too late that he could Hack this card. I'm not
sure that this was significant though - perhaps one of the
participants can tell us more.
The overall standard of play seemed to be quite high - there were very
few questions about the rules. There were a couple of inexperienced
players who exclaimed that they had learnt a lot about the game and
they seemed fairly happy with the experience.
At the end I was mainly concerned to get details of all the players
and their decks and the results are presented in this final scoreboard
(use fixed pitch to view this). The Dragons were easily the most
popular faction. They and the Architects nearly monopolised the
qualifying decks. Various players took note of this for the following
day...
Scoreboard & decks Scores Total Faction Theme/Name
Joseph Livotte 5 5 5 4 = 19 ..F.... Trinity
Matt Widmann 5 5 5 0 = 15 .D..... Smack Back, Yak Attack
Damon Schereck 5 5 0 0 = 10 ..F.... Dangerous Experiment
Ken Kurpiel 5 0 0 4 = 9 .D..... Independence
Robert McNulty 4 0 0 5 = 9 .D...J.
Brian Carty 0 0 4 4 = 8 .DF.... Godzilla + ITT degree
Lance Guth 2 5 0 0 = 7 .DF....
Yuit Sum Vong 5 0 2 0 = 7 .DF.... Butch
- - - - qualifying threshold - - - -
Brett King 0 0 5 0 = 5 .D.H... Drunken Style
Jeff Williamson 0 5 0 0 = 5 ADFHLJM XY Gambit
John Rogers 0 5 0 0 = 5 .D....M
Matt Miller 0 5 0 0 = 5 ADFHLJM Feast of Souls
Stefan Vincent 0 0 5 0 = 5 ...H..M Displaced Chicks
Jason Rownd 0 0 4 0 = 4 ..F...M
Blair Lafferty 2 0 0 - = 2 ..FH... Chi
Ray Brown 0 0 2 0 = 2 ADFHLJM Supercomputer
Charlotte Henkle 0 0 0 - = 0 AD.....
Danny Cruz 0 0 0 - = 0 A..H...
Dan Deerwester 0 0 0 - = 0 .D..... Comrade in Arms
David Deerwester 0 0 0 - = 0 ...H...
David Mitchell 0 0 - - = 0 ..F....
Janifer Cheng 0 0 0 - = 0 .DFHLJM Melting Pot
Jim Ericson 0 0 0 - = 0 .D..... Guns
Kevin Masterson 0 0 0 - = 0 .D..L..
Kirkpatrick O'Brien 0 0 0 - = 0 .D.H... Drunken Stance
Michael Jackson 0 0 0 - = 0 ....L.. Assassins
Michael Nickoloff 0 0 0 - = 0 .D..L.. Bronze Sentinel
Robert T. Roberts 0 0 0 - = 0 .D..... John Woo's a Wuss!
Faction popularity
14 Dragon
8 Architects of the Flesh
6 Guiding Hand
4 Peacock (all factions)
3 Four Monarchs
2 Ascended
2 Eaters of Lotus
1 Jammers
So, congratulations to Joseph and the other high ranking players.
Thanks to Daedalus for their support - Joseph was particularly pleased
to get a Ting Ting miniature as a trophy. And thanks too to all the
other players for supporting the event - better luck next year.
So, at this stage, the tourney score was one each to London, LA and
NYC - which city would triumph on the final day ...?
Andrew