[OverPower] Tournament/convention report
Frank Yue
Wow. What a weekend. I drove down to Virginia for the Tuff Stuffs
sports/card show. Fleer/Skybox with Steve Domzalski (running solo!) set
up a booth and ran demos all weekend and two tournaments. I helped out a
bit running demos and getting other hapless folks hooked on this great
game and played in one of the tournaments. Thanks to Steve, Fleer/Skybox
and everyone else involved in the convention for a fun time. Anyways, now
that the schmoozing is out of the way, onto my experience.
We arrived on Friday afternoon and the day was pretty slow at the show
since a lot of folks were at work/school. I ran some demos for folks and
happened to meet several OverPower players, including some I had met on
the net.
Saturday would turn out to be an important day. I was scheduled to help
out Steve running the tournament and running demos so I did not play in
the event. The rest of my family did play, though. David Marotta and his
son, Brendan showed up and were primed to test their new B3GO decks. I
cannot give a round by round analysis, but here are the results and
opinions from that day's event:
There were 11 folks playing in the tournament. A good mix of my family
and local players :). We decided to run double elimination, but after
round 4, we decided to go to single elim brackets of the top 4 players due
to time constraints.
1) Anthony Winters with his E/I deck.
2) David Marotta with his B3G0 E/I deck.
3/4) Brendan Marotta (B3G0 deck)/Trish Winters-Yue (E/S deck)
Amazing sidenote (forgive me David, but it was one of the worst draws I
have ever seen...): David and Anthony in the final game. David has 1
hero, Anthony 1 or 2(wounded)?. David draws and discards 2 Unusable Power
cards, 3 Teamworks and 1 unusable Special. He has two cards in hand. He
places one, which is White Queen's Telepathic Manipulator. Anthony in
response, places an AO (negate) on Scarlet Witch. Oof!!! 1 Card in hand
and 1 negatable Special placed. Needless to say, David lost that battle.
Steve handed out some awesome prizes for this tournament! The winner
received and uncut sheet of IQ cards (mostly R heroes), a full set of IQ,
A set of Adam Warlock cards and a set of Holo Heroes! Wowzers! 2nd place
received a full set of Holo Heroes and Adam Warlock cards. 3/4 got 2 Holo
Heroes and Adam Warlock cards each.
What a day. One more day to go!
Sunday, I was allowed to play and Anthony took over helping with the
tournament and the demos. Prizes were the same as yesterday so folks were
nervous as things started. As usual, I got the unlucky circumstance of
playing my wife first round. This time, though Trish was able to avenge
her other losses to me and beat me in a very tough match (more comments on
this below). Well, with one loss, I did not have much hope (any, I think)
of winning the first prize. Luckily, though, since the tournament was run
swiss, I had a decent chance to place in top 4. Well, I was able to win
my next two games, one against a newer player and one aganst Forrest who
had the most amazing hangover I had seen in a long time. Every battle, we
drew our cards and he groaned for quite a bit. I was never sure if he
groaned because of a bad hand or because of his headache.
Coming in at 2-1 with one game left, I was poised to play Brendan Marotta,
who had beaten Trish in a previous round this day. We had equal records
and the winner would share 3/4 place while the loser could walk away empty
handed. Well, with a little luck and some tough play, I was able to get
Brendan in a Power Pack game where I was able to play a Savage land and
take more hits. Overall, not a bad day for me and a whole lot of fun.
Interesting note on this day: I gave my daughter, Kriztina, my Gencon
Strength deck (tweaked a little) with the change of IQ Juggernaut in place
of the older one. She went through to sweep her first three games to set
up a finals matching her with David Marotta with his B3GO E/I deck. She
ended up winning in 3 Battles. Wow.
Final Results:
1) Kriztina Winters (Strength deck!)
2) David Marotta (B3GO E/I deck)
3/4) Frank Yue (E/S deck)/Trish Winters-Yue (E/I deck)
Afterwards, I played a game with David since we never got a chance to play
each other that weekend. I got lucky and he didn't. Sometimes OverPower
goes that way. I wish that luck had been in my first game against my wife
(I think).
A great weekend and, again, hats off to Steve Domzalski for a greta time
for all.
Important technical note:
The card of the weekend: Power Leech.
Runner-up: Teamwork.
In over 75% of the games, when asked why they one or lost, the answer was
"Power Leech." This is a card that is too powerful in its current
incarnation. It was designed to stop single skill decks from domination,
but what it has become is a card that is a game winner. Example: In my
game against Trish, I thought I had the upper hand, since I had some
palced cards. We were 2 vs 2 and she Power Leeched. I negated. Next
battle, she ventured for the win. First turn, she Web-Headed. I
conceded. Oof.
In other games, it was similar. Person Power Leeches and forces 4 cards
to be discarded (including placed cards). They win that venture and most
likely win the next venture since they now have a significant placed card
advantage. The concept of the weekend was "He who Power Leeches first,
wins."
Almost every deck out there had 6-10 Teamworks in them. I am not sure if
this is good or bad, but it certainly makes for a very lively game.
The dominance of the single-skill deck is definitely over. It may play
well and win tournaments, but you will no longer see everyone playing
similar or identical decks. The addition of the 4th stat has made
dual-skill teams viable and quite worthy of play. As time progresses,
expect to see more different deck strategies out there.
--
Frank Yue (Network Administrator) "I didn't do it."
Swarthmore College Computing Center -Bart Simpson et. al.
y...@swarthmore.edu
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