What was "Moonless Nights"? Moonless Nights was a fan-based global tournament for Legend of the Burning Sands that ran from 17 September 1999 to 10 October 1999. The goals were to get sanctioning forms into the DCI, and to create a more visible 'Net presence for the game.
The inspiration came from Netrunner. Netrunner players held a "grass roots" world-wide tournament to support the game long before L5R players stormed Morikage Castle.
The name for the event came from the fact that when the tournament was held, there was no moon in the sky of the Emerald Empire, the setting for both Legend of the Burning Sands and Legend of the Five Rings. In Rokugan, the Moon (known there as Onnotangu) was slain by Hitomi, Champion of Dragon Clan. But in the land of the Burning Sands, where the sun is feared as nothing else, the moon is perceived as benevolent. What events were set in motion in the City of a Thousand Stories by the death of the moon?
The Ashalan were declared the overall winners. After discussion with Patrick Kapera, we decided, based on these results, that an Ashalan hero will become the next Sultan of the Jewel of the Desert.
| Faction | First place finishes | Second place finishes | Third place finishes |
| Ashalan | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| Assassin | 3 | 2 | 3 |
| Celestial Alliance | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| Dahab | 2 | 1 | |
| Ebonite | 1 | ||
| Ivory Kingdom | 1 | 1 | |
| Jackal | |||
| Moto | 1 | 1 | 4 |
| Qabal | 1 | 1 | |
| Ra'Shari | 1 | ||
| Senpet | 1 | 6 | 1 |
| Yodatai | 1 | 1 |
A more lengthy report will follow, but in short, the Sydney Moonless
Night
tourney ended up with:
1. Ivory Kingdoms
2. Assassins
3. Celestial Alliance
From: David R. Henry <dhenry@plains.NoDak.edu>
Subject: Moonless Night Reward Possibilities
> The winner of the Moonless Night tournament will have their Faction
> be the person this new holy man (or woman, since we're equal opportunity
> Ashalan here) be a member of their Faction. Or they are supporting
> this holy man from behind the scenes for their own nefarious purposes.
> Now since we can't print new cards in Player Storyline, we can't
> put out a new "Sahib" card to celebrate their victory.
If this is so, this tourney nominates Kyurhi as the new holy man. At
least
he isn't a Ruhmal cultist.
David Naseby
-The Seventh Arm of Kali-Ma.
http://www.users.bigpond.com/naseby/lbs.htm
Managed to run Moonless night in Sydney yesterday and, while the turnout was disappointing, we all had fun. And that is what counts isn't it? Well ISN'T IT?
Well, hrmm, yes. Anyway, in terms of actual participants, we only
ended up with 3 people rocking up. Some people who I expected to
come had "better" things to do (working eh? Bah!). So, I ended
up playing anyway, despite organising and judging it to make up the numbers.
So while this tourney report is about how I went, my results won't show
up in the
"official report."
Anyway, I was running a Qabal deck with a quick Jinn horde, some dueling
aspects and a backup story victory. Yes, this may sound like a lot
but I actually only ran with 60 cards in the deck and was nowhere near
the biggest deck in the game. I really need to get the LBS community
here in Sydney to get more practice I think. Anyway, with only the
4 of us playing, I decided on 3 rounds of one on one worth 1 point each
and a final multiplayer with 2 points to the winner and 1 point to the
runner
up.
1st Round vs Matt's Assassin deck
Matt's Assassin deck was running about 90 cards and was typical duelling
as far as I could tell. I say that because I saw very little of the deck
as the Jinn just flew over and killed and killed and killed. In fact,
I artificially extended the game 10 minutes so Matt could get more gaming
experience. In his defence, he'd only played the game a few times
previously but it was a tournament...
Result: 1 win
2nd Round vs Dave's Ivory Kingdom's deck
Now Dave's deck was strong militarily. Unfortunately, I had the
flying units to just constantly deplete his resources. It got to
the problem stage where he had only the one City section left and he had
the edge on me in brute force. It ended up that I won on time with
him on one water left. Some interesting events werea duel between
Kamal (I think) and a Jinn of Desire. Kamal managed to successfully
parry from his deck 4 of my thrusts - including a thrust using Hekau with
his only Kali Ma. Mwuhahahaha.
Result: 2 wins
3rd Round vs Vincent's Celestial Alliance Deck
Now Vince's deck was huge. Not big, huge. It was running
140 cards plus. Now the thing with a deck this size is that you never know
what's going to happen with it. Mainly it was a drought deck with
Jinn in there but the oddest thing was that he was running with a couple
of Onaja's in there. For a while in the middle of the game, I had more
water than I started with yet with a Jinn army. Now Vince was running
with some powerful jinn like Tahir and The Jinn of infinite eyes so I was
very reluctant to
attack in the early rounds. I only managed to kill off Tahir
by sacraficing Hekau (fortunately I had another one in my hand raring to
go). His early Jinn of infinite eyes was well, early, so it was pretty
easy to kill. His second one, though was a monster (~13 jinn on the
table). Thank god for Tempted by Fate. Once they were out of the
way, though, things went rather smoothly.
Result: 3 wins
I'd just like to mention that it was in the middle of that game that two of my friends who said they'd come decided to show up. Seems they "forgot".
The situation with everyone else was Dave on 2 wins (he played Matt 3 times over the time I played), Matt on 1 win (from just having more water when time was called against Vince) and Vince on 0 points (well someone has to be!)
For the final battle, we were really starting to be pushed for time
so I limited it to a 1 and half hour game. Considering I was the
only one sitting on 3 points before the game began, the general agreement
was for me to be crushed and crushed I was. Part of it was because
for the first time in the entire day, I either had no money or no sahir
to bring out the Jinn. In fact, on the second turn, I got out a Bonepicker
and that was it so I was OK for attacks but way open to raids until about
turn 5 or 6 when
I managed to get Hekau out. Either way, everyone crushed me while
I sent people's discards to be buried. Yeah. Anyway, after
some infighting and backstabbing, I was depleted sufficiently so that when
time was called, I lost. Dave had the best defence so I didn't even
try and attack him while Matt and Vince got into occasional skirmishes
with me.
Final standings were
Dave -Ivory Kingdoms
4pts
Eugene -Qabal
3pts
Mathew -Assassin
2pts
Vincent -Celestial Alliance 0pts
Dave, being the winner, got the Assassin mon-backed stronghold, Dinari and a "Harem" Xena action figure (yes I couldn't get Fatima's soul but it was the closest thing I could find). Matt got the Dinari and a chance to make his own Mummy with one of those new adventure lego sets and Vince, with his drought deck, aprropriately got the canteen (and dinari).
I had a great time. See a win-win situation.
Eugene Chan
Sydney Ambassador, Deputy, Silver Pack member etc.
--
"We exist in a world where the fear of illusion is real" The Tea Party
"A disillusionment for any value whatsoever; a general distrust of
philosophy, a fear of thinking altogether. Many artists
and thinkers
today have abandoned this for what they feel is safest:
incomprehensibility. Or to critique and destroy, with nothing
to
offer in place.
The best of us have become comedians." Este
Looks like the Moto, with their links to Rokugan, have knowledge of what happened to Kaleel...
Zen Faulkes
Hey there,
Our moonless night in Melbourne had a marginly better
turn-out than the Sydney one (4 players and a judge) but the day was a
great deal of fun. The decks were
Me (Paul) - Celestial Alliance
Adam - Ashlan
Lyndon - Moto
Martin - Senpet.
My first game was against Martin, this was one of the first games he'd played but his deck was very good. Standard Senpet Crush deck, with lots of really good cards. First few turns I was people starved and went down under a horde of Qer-Apets and Abrasax. The only person I got all game was Nim (normal). Score 0-1
Second games was against the Ashlan, who were a very good and obscenly fast attack deck. Luckily Adam had a bad start (about the only time in all the games we've played) and I was able to get a few Nims and all my Jinn of Virtues out. I just overwhelmed him then and he went down. score 1-1
Third game was against the moto who I'd played in
Multi-player. I wasn't overly concerned about the raiding factor. This
game while not the official final was basicly the final and by far the
most interesting game of the day. The game got to the point where he had
1 city section and I had no water and two city sections left. Although
I had obscene force on the table he had Kyoshi w/sword, Marik and one other
person. I attacked hoping to crush him with my hordes. For the first time
all day
I attacked without an attack at dawn and he played his last belly of
the desert. I had just had to discard my Desperate Reserves and he was
able to kill me cause all my units were bowed. It was a stupid mistake
on my part because I wasn't going to send Lurza but I ended up sending
him. score 1-2.
This left the Moto undefeated but everyone else on 1 win and 2 losses. So we had a multi-play for 2nd 3rd and 4th. After a very long and worn out battle I was able to beat both the Senpet thump and the Ashlan Speed. I couldn't believe it as I had no water for most of the game (gotta love that ability).
End result
Moto 1st
Celestial Alliance 2nd
Ashlan 3rd
Senpet 4th.
Everyone agreed that the games were good all day and lots of fun was had by all. A larger turn out would have been better.
1. dahab (4-0)
2. senpet (3-1)
3. dahab (2-2)
4. assassin (1-3)
5. senpet (0-4)
Oh well the turnout was disappointing with only 5 players but I had fun despite the 30-odd hours I had been up.... We played until 3-4 the night before with my Rashari control deck laying waste to everything except Curt's Old Friends deck which is crap since I have 7 omens and used the living memory twice for 10-11 cards each time without drawing an omen...
Anyway I'm tired of Rashari and want to play Qabal flying/magic beatdown but have traded/lent most of my qabal cards to one of the local kids (not playing...). One extended Dreamcast session later I manage to not build a deck... so I figure if they're already starting I play Rashari. I cruise down the shop and throw it together while we all worked on our decks and waited for 1 person...
Turnout:
Kimo: Dahab fast attack. Beats everything except a few odd decks.
He took out the Efendi/blood money for Shiva and duels apparently.
Curt: another Dahab deck, Old Friends using all the high influence people; I'm not too current so he may have posted it to the list.
Brian: Assassin defensive control. Something like 65 cards but they were all good (who doesnt love madness?)
Chad: new player playing an OK senpet cheesy jinn deck.
myself: abrasax/words of glass, backed up by sahirs and stuff (a few jinns, curse of rot and hariks ruby (awesome with my 2 Sewers). My entire deck is centered around getting abrasax/words of glass out which if it were easier to play would be extremely cheesy (I have a nasty habit of saying "game" when I get this combo out...).
Anyway we decide to play round robin...
round 1, curt: I get Abrasax out 2nd turn with followers (qadamn, scout) and lay waste to one city/turn. He basically puts out one 3-5 influence guy/turn. Cuts it tight but I dodge his seductions with fast attacks and eventually words of glass and slowly overwhelm his cities. I drew a camel and so jos counterattacks were either non-existent or they bounced off bowed followers. He was pretty close to 30 influence but forgot about my Sh ability and keseth wasted him. I also had nepherus for omens though so I wasnt worried.
In the other senpet-dahab game kimo edges out the jinn deck.
round 2, bye: I decide to watch the assassins deck vs the jinn deck: assassin's are getting it handed to them when the sandman finally takes hold of me. Wake up to an assassin win, guess the old man and haroun were too much.
the dahab - dahab game was kimo winning, probably with shiva cheese.
round 3, chad: We both get nepherus first turn and lacking a spices
or gold mine I play him. He gets desire out and me decay. Neither
attacks while I hope his deck is lampless. Next turn I draw no abrasax
(I had enough for him with a wheat fields
and a scale man) so I curse of rot his nepherus and throw out a few
followers on decay. no attacks.
turn 3: he drops another jinn and sahir. Me: more followers , nepherus, and holdings. We trade attacks, he tkaes the MQ down to zero and two more water off of a Thieve's Q. I kill one of his thieve's quarters with my jinn and maybe a SH-pumped sahir. He's ahead of me in water but I am 1 section up and has maybe 1 force total against the sewers. I'm also holding 2 hariks ruby.
turn 4: another curse of rot turn, I drop abrasax and slowly add followers. He blitzes some water off of a thieves quarter, I take 2 sections, taking him down to 6 hand size.
turn 5: he drops an elephant on one of his sahirs, changing the games complexion a bit. Attacks, no infantry. I defend various places, sound planning in to kill one of his jinns after it bows. I add some followers (incl desert warriors) to the big a and assign him and desire to his last two provinces. He defends abrasax with everything (bunch of sahirs) so I sound planning him into the other section which dies.
turn 6: I weather his attack and sudden strikes and then steamroll him. in the other game the assassins drew no holdings and by dahab cheese.
round 4, me and kimo for the title. Chad leaves, brian concedes to me knowing kimo and I have to get to the UH football game. Anyway this is the last round: Curt rolls over brian before our game even starts...
Anyway it goes like this.
1: Me: nepherus, desire. Him: lamp, gold.
2: Kimo drops a Ghiyath who promptly catches the runs... I respond
with keseth who raids him for one. No abrasax yet.
3: sahirs, some followers, no abrasax. Him: drop giant with desert
warriors. Ghiyath and the giant waste my cities. I defend
the giant and engage for one to kill his desert warriors. I
counter with the SH and some mild force. Draw no abrasax but his
giant blows up.
4: Him: Indira. Me: curse ghiyath, manage to get no attacks this turn.
Heck I even draw abrasax.
5: His first action is to play a follower... great, abrasax hits
the table. I follow with slaves and some followers for both of us.
No attack this turn, I toss a jinn at him.
6: He is bringing out followers and me slaves and such. Either
this turn or next there is a Big Attack by kimo followed by an equally
big rules controversy over his rashari mystics. I had 2 cards in
hand, and he was engaging 2 mystics. The question was whether the
mystics resolved before I get a chance to discard the cards for damage.
The wording for the two effects is identical (mystics: when engaging
the mystics...; rulebook: when engaging you must absorb...)
Anyway my main point is that the mystics say "the player who is absorbing
..." which is present tense so it goes to the player with the blessing...
oh well it was an important point still fairly unresolved. Kimo goes back
and bows the mystics one at a time killing and dropping my cards, I bow
3 3S followers to kill his 2/3 dahab guy and some of his followers, wheat
fields. He kills my bowed followers. I forget to use
the SH ability on abrasax before bowing him so I dont kill ghiyath.
7: he adds followers to indira, I kill a province with desire, add keseth, followers. Draw camel at end of turn.
8: he drops shiv, leaving him with 1 water on two sections. I kill another province with desire.
9: I curse ghiyath, kill another city section with desire and he raids 1 of my 2 water.
10: I nail another section with desire (4!). He raids me with a five-fate. And I try to raid back but he has shiv and no matter what I draw I die. Great game -- even though it was decided by shiva cheese it was a nailbiter and I was thoroughly exhausted by it.
So the dahab win but IMO the story of the day is that Curt left the house without his trusty Gaheris.
Stef al-Rashid
Ra'shari Slam Dancer
Ok, here is the report for the Moonless Night tournament in Seminole,Fl. It was held September 19th, at about 5pm. We did three rounds of swiss, with a single elimination round with the top 4 players. We had 8 attendees, and quite a few no shows. Listed below are the factions that came out to play:
Celestial Alliance
Ashalan
Jackal
Senpet x2
Dahab
Moto
Ebonite
The outcome of the event was:
1st place - Mike Mullins, Ashalan. This deck was quite a cool deck. It hit you hard with military while locking down your holdings with Effendi, and attacking them outright with Show of Force. He then went as far as Lurking in the Shadows as most Ashalan do to take out even more of your holdings. Very tough deck, congratulations once again Mike!
2nd place- Conrad Jackson, Celestial Alliance. This deck was primarily a Khadi deck using the Alliance stronghold. He attacked quick, using unaligned personalities and even at times could not be stopped if water shorted. Congrats to Conrad also!
3rd place- Tracy Loveday, Senpet. Tracy came ready to trounce with his Senpet speed deck , taking advantage of Re the Keeper. Lots of Jinns and force, but he was put into third by the Ashalan holding smasher.
4th place- Dennis Quearry (Myself), Jackal. Mainly a Jackal duelling/water depletion deck. I didn't take the Celestial Alliance into consideration much as I hadn't played against it before. It stomped me quite well.
The rest of the players enjoyed playing in the tournament, and everyone
walked away with some Dinari just by joining up in the tournament. I think
i speak for everyone that a fun time was had by all!
Bayushi Koda * Honorable Scorpion * Qabal Spy * Scribe of the Obsidian
Empire
"Let them think we are weak. Underestimation makes revenge that much
easier."
L5R Code (2.0) SC++ S+ G++ Y+ P:M-/H-/D+/E(0)/O+/EJ+/SJ- I? C++ E--
!M T
D++ K+++ H TK++ !IC U++
Gargoyle@intnet.net
(The Obsidian Empire)
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/obsidian/index.html
(Kyuden Saru: Official Monkey Clan Page)
http://www.angelfire.com/fl/obsidian/monkey.html
(Junshin - The Honorable Scorpion Home Page)
http://www.members.xoom.com/Yojiro/index.htm
The tournament was held Sunday at Emerald City Comics in Seminole FL. The tournament report is first followed by the deck listing.
We had eight participants representing seven different factions:
1x Jackal
1x Moto
1x Celestial Alliance
2x Senpet
1x Ashalan
1x Assassin (I think)
1x Dahab (I think)
We played a modified Swiss style of three rounds. I saw modified because each rounds pairings were based on records rather than random draw. After three rounds of Swiss, the top four players entered a playoff.
I was the sole Ashalan player in attendance and I played a holding prevention, raiding, attack deck.
Round 1 vs. Tracey (Senpet Jinn Crush)
He got an early Jinn of Decay and proceeded to stomp on me a bit.
I am personally scared of that Jinn's special ability, so I am careful
how I guard against it. Eventually I get out enough force to balance
the game. He has more city sections than I do, but water is pretty
even due to his rapid use of it in order to swarm me. Nim helps me
block his flyers. Also, he used the Keeper of the Marble Flame to
give his Jinn followers, turning them into ground units (this saved my
butt something fierce). Time went by and I got out Kara exp. and
Anbari Khalil, and I began to raid the last of his water. After I got my
three city sections almost up to full water (Anbari destroys Doctor, I
gain 4 water), he conceded. The amazing thing about this game is he never
had a single holding, and I have ten cards in my deck to deal with holdings.
1 win, 0 losses
Round 2 vs Conrad (Celestial Alliance Khadi deck)
Conrad had a rough time with holdings and I got the necessary Lurking
Shadows and Show of force to slow him down. This is the game I realized
how wonderful Effendi really can be as a quick attacker. He gets
a Khadi and the corresponding omen and life begins to get tricky.
Slowly he runs out of water and I began to find ways to get rid of his
Scalemen. Effendi ties one down and I eventually use Lurking Shadows
on the other. No water, no return of the Khadi and Eyla is given
the opportunity to pillage. Conrad's deck used the Roc, which can
be an extremely annoying card, expecially when the Roc defeats Eyla in
a Knife Fight due to a Khadi Command.
2 win, 0 losses
Round 3 vs Dennis (Jackal water depravation)
This game starts off with me performing a lot of holding destruction
with little effect on him. He gets tons of early holdings.
We both get some heroes down, and he uses War in the Streets to keep us
both at very few heroes. (I have learned to hate War in the Streets
with a passion due to this game). My deck begins rolling and I get
Anbari and the raiding fun and Doctor destruction gets me some water back.
Everything flows smoothly from their and I take the game.
3 win, 0 losses
At this point I am the only player at 3-0. There are three players at 2-1, Dennis, Conrad, and Tracey. All three want revenge on me, and the draw is taken for the first round of the finals. Dennis palys Conrad and I play Tracey.
In the first round of the finals, Dennis ends up surrendering to Conrad because his deckl cannot account for the Celestial Alliance special ability.
Ashalan (me) vs Senpet (Tracey)
We already knew each others deck and we both knew I had a bunch of
useless cards in my deck. The Jinn horde heads straight at me and
I allow him to destory city sections while I build up forces. Very
early in this game, heroes became more important to me than city sections.
I launch a few assualts to keep his water low, but fail to destroy more
than one city
section. We get to what we both know will be the final turn of
the game, I have a Merchant Quarter with 2 water, he has three city sections
with one water on one and two water on another. He launches all of
his heroes at me, I defend with all of mine. We pretty much blow
the heck out of each other, he discards to no cards in hand, I destroy
most of my heroes, discard two
cards and lose one water. I end up with one unbowed hero, who
I chose not to engage when he can't destroy the last water. I play
Nim from my hand (no water cost), attack the city with two water and raid
the city section with one water. I win the game with one water on
one city section. This was my closest game of the night.
Finals:
Ashalan (me) vs Celstial Alliance (Conrad)
I get the God draw: 2 Safiyya's Sweetwater, Weight of Dreams,
Lurking Shadows, Effendi, and I have the Caliph's Blessing. Everything
goes smoothly. This is the most one sided game had all night.
Things slow down, but I never feel worried about losing the game.
I systematically kill water and he systematically uses Ghiyath to kill
my heroes. I, however, replace heroes as quickly as Ghiyath destroys
them and he is never able to get out more than Ghiyath and Roc. I
eventually win, ending up 5-0.
I won 170 dinari, a full set of faction back stongholds (Senpet, Assassin, Moto, Jackal, Qabal, and Ebonite), and a Jackal starter deck from Black Hand, Black Heart. On a side note if anyone has an Ashalan mon-backed stronghold, contact me and maybe we can work out a trade.
My deck:
1x City of the Seventh Star
1x River Quarter
1x Merchant Quarter
2x Duqaq's School of Astronomy
1x Thieves Quarter
1x Anbari Khalil
1x Kara exp.
3x Eyla
3x Mendi-Duad
2x Katani
3x Nim
3x Effendi
2x Bonepicker
3x Afshin
3x Keeper of the Marble Flame
3x Burning Marketplace
3x Small Well
3x Wheatfields
2x Doctor
2x Library
2x Blacksmith
2x Safiyya's Sweetwater
1x Nehayah
1x The Khadja
2x Purity of Conquest (most useful card in the deck)
1x No Escape
1x Ambush
3x One Dinari
3x The Weight of Dreams
1x Truth of the Prophecy
3x Show of Force
1x Retribution
3x Lurking Shadows
Any comments on the deck design are happily welcomed.
Hola,
Friday 9/17 was our local Moonless Night tourney. The tournament format was constructed deck, 5 rounds of Swiss style play followed by a single elimination round for the 4 players who had the most wins during the Swiss rounds.
Participants (total of 11 players... a bit less than we had hoped for, but a few players were busy with other plans and we also had a couple "no shows"... oh well).
1 Ashalan
1 Assassin
2 Da'Hab
1 Ebonite
1 Ivory Kingdoms
1 Jackal
2 Moto
1 Senpet
1 Yodatai
Standings for the final four
1. Da'Hab.... Congratulations go to Randy Eaton for his tourney winning
"I draw 12 cards on turn one (6 City Sections total with 2 Secret Wells)
then smack you around with Wagi and/or the Pet Gorilla" Da'Hab deck. Well
done, Randy.
2. Senpet.... young Jack Sterling, one of only two teenagers playing in the tourney, captured second place with his Speedy Jinn horde deck.
3. Assassin... yours truly departed from normal practice (i.e., playing Ebonites during tourneys) to try something a little different... an Assassin "holding denial with a dab of dueling" deck.
4. Moto... Fred Wagener captured 4th place with a Moto raiding deck that could handle itself militarily as well.
I don't think I'm going too far out on a limb when I say that a good time was had by all. We may even try to pull off another Moonless Night tourney in early October.
Triplemuncher
Ebonite Anvil of the Sun
For the Moonless Night Tournament I scheduled noone showed up (excluding
myself). There were several people that had LBS (either they used
to play or had had just started) but didn't bring a deck (the older players
had given up on LBS during it's hiatus between BH/BH and Awakenings while
the newer players didn't feel they could compete with non-existant older
players because they have no access to the older cards).
SO... it was a bust in my area.
--- Tai-Sho JOJO
NAGA Warlord
On Sunday afternoon, September 19th, 8 players representing 6 of the 12 factions of the Burning Sands showed up in an attempt to rescue Onaja, the Ashalan baby from the clutches of the evil Jinn.
The split amongst the Assassins was evident as they had three parties all contesting to be the chosen ones to retrieve the infant. Parties representing the Ashalan (to get their baby back), the Ebonites (who sought the baby as a way to try to heal the city), the Ra'shari (who were mysteriously quiet about their intentions), the Ivory Kingdoms (I think Kali-Ma was licking her lips!! Stew!), and the Senpet (looking for a bargaining chip to regain power). The missing factions were the Jackals, the Qabal, the Moto(!), the Dahabs, the Yodatai, and the Celestial Alliance.
When all was said and done, Haroun, at the whims of his Qolat Masters, has grabbed possession of the baby, Onaja! What will Haroun have planned for the infant? Only time will tell.
The prizes were:
1st place - Signed print of Onaja and 100 Dinari
2nd place - Senpet faction card and 50 Dinari
3rd place - Signed Onaja card and 20 Dinari
Contestants:
Ashalan - James Krull (Ashalan military)
Assassins - Mike Arlington (Assassins duelling)
- Robert Bain
(Assassins duelling)
- Michael Vomacka
(Assassins Military)
(Yes, Michael, you can keep the Exp. Fatima)
Ebonite - Dave Arlington (me playing gave us 8, so I played, more on
that later - Ebonite Defensive Counter)
Ivory Kingdoms - Davidas Marathe (Ivory Kingdoms military)
Ra'shari - John Foster (Ra'Shari duelling)
Senpet - Lissanne Lake (Senpet military)
Raiding did not appear to be a major strategy for any of the decks. Nary a Jinn to be seen. No Story decks, raiding decks, Goddess decks, water deprivation decks or influence decks. I think my Ebonite deck did the most spell casting, not much of that either.
Lissanne showed up with our main prize but was also carrying a Cut-out standup from the movie, Prince of Egypt that looked great since she was playing Senpet again.
We managed to get in four rounds and in the final standings, the Assasins
did quite well, taking first, third and fifth. Ivory Kingdoms finished
second for another strong showing and last time's winners, the Senpet,
finished fourth this time. The final standings were based on WOTC tournament
guidelines, going to who had the strongest record of opponents, though
the winner, Mike Arlington (yes, my son) was also the only person to make
it through the first three rounds undefeated as well. The
third round game was a rematch of last time's championship match with
Mike topping Lissannes's Senpet this time. Second place, Davidas Marathe
lost only to Mike's winning Assassins deck (posted later in the article
- Davidas, any chance of getting a deck listing for your Ivory Kingdoms
deck? I'm sorry I didn't think to ask at the time). Third place, Robert
Bain, was the only person to beat Mike all day, and his only loss came
to Lissanne's Senpet deck.
Standings: (W-L) (Opp. Record)
Mike Arlington 3-1 9-6
Davidas Marathe 3-1 8-8
Robert Bain 3-1
6-8
Lissanne Lake 2-2 10-6
Michael Vomacka 2-2 7-8
Dave Arlington 1-3 7-8
John Foster 1-2 (one forfeit)
James Krull 0-3 (one forfeit)
Mike was playing pretty much the same Assasins deck that he played for second place in June with some minor tweaking due to Awakenings. The water cost of Faith led it to be replaced by By Force of Will Alone and some other little use cards like True Name went out for 3 A Better Worlds and The Cleansing.
Davidas' second place deck involved Kali-Ma getting big and ugly and I saw Omal a lot but Conquest was the card that looked like it helped the most in his games. Since there wasn't much raiding going on at all all day, it didn't really hurt him.
I didn't really get a chance to see Robert's deck, so I can't comment much there. Lots of duelling though.
Lissanne's deck was the Senpet I had built and I didn't really change that one at all due to Awakenings that I remember, but I did remember to point out to her the Hensatti-Spices ruling before the tourney. That deck also has Khadi that keep coming back for her as well.
Michael's Assassins military deck used just enough duelling to whittle down defenses so his attacks worked. The best card for him was a card he got at the last minute before the tourney, experienced Fatima, who he used quite a bit to get people to attack when they didn't want to.
Uhhhh, something my Ebonite deck was *supposed* to do... OK, I don't
want to make TOO many excuses, but I thought if I was going to play, it
would be with my Ashalan story deck or maybe my new Ivory Kingdoms deck.
But when I saw we had three Assassins and I knew I was going to play, I
did not want to choose a faction that anyone else was playing. So, since
I AM
registered as Ebonite and it WAS a storyline tourney, I decided to
play Ebonite. Unfortunately, my main Ebonite deck, a silly influence tricks
deck was in the shop awaiting major re-tooling due to all the cool new
Council cards from Awakenings. I tried to build a Counter Defense deck
to just have an Ebonite deck to play but I threw it together and it just
wasn't tourney ready. (Here's a clue - don't ever put in a holding [like,
oh let's say Festival Grounds :)] that you can't bring in off the stronghold.
The really silly thing is I didn't even have any Omens in this deck [ for
the Festival Grounds].) Oh well, I don't want to make too many excuses
like I said. Everyone played really well and I'm sure I deserved to be
1-3. And hey, I DID build the first place deck (though maybe I couldn't
have played it as well as Mike played it! :)).
John's Ra'shari deck looked to be an awesome duelling monster and every time I looked over he had people with like 11-12 Ka sitting there. And he sure likes Tomb Raiding! But all his games were very close and he could have been one of the 3-1s as easily as he ended up 1-2.
I played Jame's Ashalan deck and he seemed to have all the right pieces
(Eyla, etc.), but in the game against me, every time an Eyla hit the table,
I seemed to have a Dust to Dust in my hand. I also hurt him (and a few
people) a lot with the new spell, Soul Stealing. He seemed to think he
was doing really bad (well, OK, he was 0-3), but as with John, I don't
really think there was all that much difference between the top of the
pile and the bottom. It was a great pleasure playing and finding a room
full of knowledgable (no ruling questions really came up all day) and
skilled LBS players. I could easily see another day where the standings
would be totally reversed. (And after trading John the one card he needed
so bad for his Dahab deck, Kasib el Atif, he vowed to return to wreak his
vengeance with the Merchants! We shall see, Sahib!)
All in all, it was a great tourney and a much more pleasant experience than recent Doomtown tourneys I've run/played in where every game ends on the first two turns. In LBS, everybody got to play with a good portion of their deck and games were long and fun and intense and strategic, everything we expect of great games.
Here is the Contents of Mike's Winning Assassins deck:
The Hidden Keep of the Assassins
CITY SECTIONS:
Jewel of the Desert
Merchant Quarter
Shadows Within the Walls
Thieves Quarters x 2
5 City Sections, 23 Water
HOLDINGS:
Belly Dancer x 3
Blacksmith
Burning Marketplace
The City of Orphans
Den of Iniquity
Harem x 3
Lady Sun's Temple
Library
Wheat Fields x 3
HEROS:
Chandra x 2
Faida
Fatima
Fatima Exp.
Haroun
Marishka
Old Man of the Mountain
Sabina
Shala
Takiyah
Adnan
Adira
The Eye of Night
ITEMS:
The Wicked Moon
FOLLOWERS:
Bodyguard
Masters of the Blood-Red Tiger
Spy x 2
ACTIONS:
A Better World x 3 (Combined with Poison, ouch!)
A Handful of Sand
Blind Luck x 2
By Force of Will Alone x 2
The Cleansing x 2
Contest of Wills x 3
Dark Alley x 2
Knife Fight x 3
Let Him Bleed x 2
Martyr
Poison x 3
As I said, hopefully, we can get a listing of Davidas's second place Ivory Kingdoms deck as well.
Dave
----------------------
Dave Arlington
Telcordia Technologies
ISCP AIN Development
RRC 4A-365 732-699-4941
dja1@iscp.bellcore.com
----------------------
Well, last weekend was Albacon, where I was to run Moonless Night. It didn't happen. I showed up to judge it around noon. Eight hours later, not a single person showed up. Not one. I didn't even get to play a friendly game, let alone run the tournament. Sigh. Despite my best efforts, the game simply refuses to catch on locally. It seems that if I want any chance of even playing again, a bunch of you are going to have to move to Albany or I'm going to have to move to somewhere where there is a bunch of you. And frankly, I don't see either happening. But I will continue to buy and collect cards, and running demos. And I will hopefully make it out to some convention or something in the following year where there will be an LBS tournament I can play in.
Ide Osamu
Unicorn Clan Historian
It was won by a Senpet follower deck. ( By a person who owns no LBS cards, who hadn't played in 6 months, with a deck he never saw before.)
MotoKirbdog
Subject: Moonless Night
From: Dylanterry@aol.com
Here are the results of our Moonless Night tournament in San Bernardino, California.
September 17, 1999
First Place - Steve Keck (Senpet)
Second Place - Peter Gray (Ashalan)
Third Place - Ed Hernandez (Ashalan)
Fourth Place - Gray Kirby (Moto)
A few comments on the tournament are that Steve won this tournament while learning the rules for the first time, and that Gary came in last when I was fairly confident that he would smash all the opposition and take first. Unfortunately, my Celestial Alliance/Khadi deck couldn't make an appearance due to lack of participants.
I'm working on the local level to bring up more interest for LBS and
on the 30th this month I will be running another tournament. Thank you
for giving your support and ideas for the Moonless Night tournament and
for LBS.
I look forward to more tournamnets in the future, fan based or not.
The Kamakazi Driver,
Dylan Terry
Since the T.O./Judge is not on this list, I'm posting the results for him (it didn't take much for me to convince him to run the event-he's definitely a fan).
As for me, I placed 4th with an Ebonite Defensive Duelling deck (Um... have I mentioned I play the Dragon Clan in L5R?). The shining moment was the final game, my fastest game, where I gained a decisive victory over an Assassin at his specialty. As for the other games... well, let's just say that *every round* everyone was waiting for me and my opponent to finish our game (told ya it was defensive). The standings from Alf Granger:
> I ran the Moonless Night Tournament on Saturday at Apocalpse Gamer's
Guild
> in Aurora and had 7 players show.
> The Ranking and Faction
> 1st Qabal - (Dan Hernandez) - Few Jinns but still had the clout to
do
> Battle (Flying) and win. Did well in duels (by luck) and had
Barda the
> Hawk to do some raiding
> 2nd Senpet - (Ethian don't remember his last name)- Straight military,
> came in big and heavy.
> 3rd Moto - (Brian don't remember his last name) -Big tough personalities
> with heavy raiding
> 4th Ebonite - (Jeff Dasler) - Defense and Dueling
> 5th Senpet - (Eric Anders) - Horde; Followers, Heros, Jinns
> 6th Senpet - (Ray) - Speed military
> 7th Assassin - (Jamie MacLeod) Straight Dueling
>
> Ran 7 rounds of 3 games ,one bye. Everyone got to play everyone else.
>
> Some interesting events of the 21 games.
> Dan played solid games only losing to Ethian. He almost lost to Jamie.
I
> left the table after seeing the Assassin dominate and expected him
to win.
> 5 miniutes later I come back astonished I watched the Qabal manage
to kill
> Haroun in a duel At this point both have a personality, and then
Dan
> proceded to rally and crush the Assassins.
> Jeff had the closest games. When it comes down to no one having any
water
> it's not good to be blessed. Or after an intense exchange of battles
all
> personalities being bowed and neither having any water, it's nice
to have
> a river quarter. Unfortunately both losses were his.
> Quickest game went to Ethain and Brian in round 6. It might have
lasted 5
> minutes. It was a straight slugfest. City sections being lost from
both
> players rapidly. No raiding just City section destruction. The Moto
> emerged victorious, with one city section and 3 water remaining.
>
> -Alf Granger
SO, this(last?) weekend in Ottawa, Ontario, we held our Moonless Night tourney. Two irritating/interesting things happened:
1) a bunch of people on friday night said that they'd kill stuff to come play an LBS tourney, then didn't show saturday.
2) since all of 6 people showed (three with decks), we decided to play sealed Awakenings.
In any case, it went like this:
-I played an Assassin deck, while stating my allegiance as Ra'Shari.
I would have played Ra'Shari too, but deck availability was limited. :P
I couldn't even find an Ashalan deck.
- Jason Van Wert played a Moto deck for Moto. (whoo)
- Jeff Kyre chose a Yodatai deck for the Yodatai.
- Pat G-something (sorry, dude. ;) played the Ra'Shari deck I wanted.
- Ian played Celestial Alliance for the Nagah. (he said he plays
for the Naga no matter what game he's playing. Suits me)
- a guy (oops, observant me) played Qabal.
Ten minutes into the second round of the tourney a bunch of guys showed up saying "Wow, Burning Sands? I wanna play!" and we muttered bitterly things about reading the convention program and being here half an hour ago. Well, friendlily bitterly. They stayed to play the 7th Sea sealed tourney afterwards.
AND SO THE FUN BEGAN.
Round one:
Celestial Scariness vs. Qabal
Moto Cheaty Raid-Crap vs. Assassin Victims
Enthousiastic Yodotai vs. Ra'Shari
Those damn Moto took every drop of water I had and there wasn't a damn thing I could do about it. He had people with like three pigeons (peacocks, whatever), the steed of the godess and stuff. There's only so much bad dates can do. I dueled him and he had to give me two water. Which was cool, but he'd just stolen six or seven. Argh.
Ian adjusted well to his Celestial Alliance deck and said stuff about how cool it was that he didn't need to play Senpet anymore to get those Jinn he loves so dearly. This was his first look at Awakenings.
Though the Yodotai cheered and tried some war songs, and said stuff about being the world's mightiest empire yadda yadda, they lost mightily.
Round Two:
Slightly Less Enthousiastic Yodotai vs. Assassin Mightiness
Moto vs. Qabal
Ra'Shari vs. Increasingly Effective Celesitial Scarriness
I felt bad. Jeff just hadn't played enough LBS to really make his Yodotai legions do anything. He spent water like pennies and accepted duels, the silly man. It didn't last long.
The Qabal guy munched those Moto fairly well with Jinn and Spells. Can't raid much when your guys got eaten by demons during the day. You know.
And the Celestial Alliance made a fine meal of the Ra'Shari.
Round Three:
Qabal vs. Assassin Dueling God Deck
Moto vs. Ra'Shari
Resigned Yodotai vs. Celestial Overlords
I don't really remember why, but the Qabal fell apart in front of me. Jinn don't have very high Ka or Influence, as it turns out.
After a long, trying game, the Moto got the beat down on the Ra'Shari by like one water.
The Celestial Alliance crowned themselves overlords of all present and no one felt up to protesting.
***
In the end, Ian's Alliance won, my Assassins came second and the Moto came third; through no real solid scoring system, but really concensus. Ian was the only undefeated player, and Jason and I fought over who would get 20 daniri and who would get 50; but resigned and took it home when it was pointed out to us for the fifth or sixth time that both prizes would end up back at our house regardless, in the communal Koku box. I took 2nd place because I wanted it and Jason had to drive the four hours towards home in the same car with me on long, dark, deserted country highways.
I apologise because we didn't take the tourney as serious as some might have, but it *was* a good time had by all and we had quite a number of audience members who insisted on being told what the game was, where to get it and how to play. So there. We accomplished something for the betterment of the game.
But, uh, yah. The Nagah won. Can we get that in the story somehow?
Shaharlet, Nagah Warrior Gypsy Princess, 1st Chronicle Dancer of the One Tail and Many Scales.
Sorry about taking the only Ra'Shari deck, but I've been itching to play this for weeks. : }
>- Jason Van Wert played a Moto deck for Moto. (whoo)
>- Jeff Kyre chose a Yodatai deck for the Yodatai.
And unfortunately got remarkably few Yodatai guys. I felt a wee bit sorry for the invaders.
>- Pat G-something (sorry, dude. ;) played the Ra'Shari deck I wanted.
Gamblin. S'okay, very few people remember it. : } I must say, I had a blast. I *love* the Ra'Shari. They've got a lot of cool people and so many strange/neat abilities. Same reason I started playing Yoritomo's Alliance in C&J.
>I apologise because we didn't take the tourney as serious as some might
>have, but it *was* a good time had by all and we had quite a number
of
>audience members who insisted on being told what the game was, where
to get
>it and how to play. So there. We accomplished something
for the betterment
>of the game.
There was just so much coolness there, between the three card tournaments and all. Oh, and shooting Bosun Pretty. : } Many thanks to everyone involved. It was worth the 11 hour ride.
>But, uh, yah. The Nagah won. Can we get that in the story somehow?
Ooh, now that would be neat. Are there any actual Nagah cards in the sets so far?
>Shaharlet, Nagah Warrior Gypsy Princess, 1st Chronicle Dancer of the
One
>Tail and Many Scales.
Abd-Ra'Shari
Aka Arashi Kaze
-Keeper of the Tradeposts of the Mantis
-Member of the Hida O-Ushi Fan Club
-President of the Yoritomo Yukue Fan Club
-Killer of Bosun Pretty
-http://www.geocities.com/area51/lair/1961/
-copernicus@brunnet.net
Another small turnout to my second Moonless Night tournament: 4 players again! Oh well, consistency is a virtue. :)
I'll cut to the chase:
1. Yodatai played by Paul Nicholls
2. Senpet, played by Martin Friedrich
3. Celestial Alliance, played by Stephen Radcliffe
4. Ra'Shari, played by some loser named Zen Faulkes
Stephen has just moved to Melbourne, had no cards, so I leant him a Celestial Alliance deck. Despite being nominally affiliated with Ashalan, I went with Ra'Shari, even though I knew the deck was weak, because -- well -- Ra'Shari hadn't been too well represented at Moonless Nights, and I was curious to see what I could do.
Round 1: vs. Stephen's Celestial Alliance
No Heroes, no game. 0-1. We replay while waiting for the others, and I pull off a win with a couple of well-timed Belly Dancer duels.
Meanwhile, Paul and Martin are slugging it out in a *brutal* military match-up, with Paul squeeking out a win. Every time I looked over, I saw Martin's Abresax getting larger and larger. Martin uttered the phrase, "I engage for 20-something damage" at some point in the match -- all Berserk, too. Looked like a pretty intense game. You know it's tough going when you seen Aurelian on the table, engaging on defense, and taking *one* follower out.
Round 2: vs. Paul's Yodatai
This game wasn't as badly lopsided as the last one, but there was never really a moment when I thought, "Hey, I could win this." I manage a few fun curse to keep me alive, but Yodatai outforce me.
Round 3: vs Martin's Senpet
This was actually my closest game. Baqiri comes out early (turn 2, I think), and I was able to kill off Martin's first Qer Apet with Dust to Dust. Then, I manage to kill off Abresax in a duel. Martin's deck spent water so much faster than I that I actually have more water than him for most of the game. I think I had about 12 to his 3 at one point. But in the end, his big units attack my Thoroughfare, and the dice don't favor me by commanding that he kill Hensatti. I didn't have enough Hero control to clear the way to take out his last few water tokens.
In the end, Paul is undefeated. First win for Yodatai in
Moonless Nights, as far as I know!
Zen Faulkes! * Ashalan Investigator
Hi there!
I´m writing from Vienna, Austria, Europe.
We had our moonless night tourney yesterday and the results were as
follows:
1. Wolfgang Metz: Ashalan
2. (tied) Christian Mayrhofer and Hannes Haselböck (both Ashalan)
4. (tied) Irene Vonasek (Jackal) and Steve Danksagmüller (Moto)
5. Anita Wittmann (Moto)
6. (tied) Thomas Metz (Assassin) and Walter Floth (Moto)
So we had 3 Ashalan (the most popular faction by far in our area), 3 Moto,1 Jackal and 1 Assassin. And no Dahab! (We decided before the start of the tournament that we didn´t want to play with that ugly deck)
The Ashalan took the first three spots and WE WANT TO GET OUR BABY BACK!!!
Some memorable events occured:
I guess we had the most powerful Hojyn ever. As Chris got no other hero he equiped him with Elephants, Khadja and Nehayah - that was enough to win the game.
I was very lucky two times with some sudden strikes. Anita was forced to discard a Matyr and a Gaheris (she had a 8 card hand and enough copper), and Chris (also 8 cards in hand) lost the Blood of the Jinn and War in the Streets combo.
It was a very cool event and we are already planning our next tournament.
--
Hannes
- when all you have a hammer, everything start to look like nail
"the fouty-seven sayings of mekhem
Greetings Everyone
Just thought that I would give you the details of how the Moonless Night went for Dundee.
Firstly six players is not a particularly good turnout for our LBS tournaments - we usually manage about eight. This is unfortunate when it is for storyline. Still we only got seven for Morikage for L5R. A lot of our players work and if it happens to be a bad day work-wise then it is a bad day and there is little we can do about it. The trouble is a lot of them will also not know that they have to work until that week.
Anyway we had representation for Dahab (Gary), Assassin (William), Senpet (Silas), Moto (Darran), Celestial Alliance (me) and Yodatai (Doug).
We played four rounds to determine a winner. In no particular order here is my description of the games:
Assassins
William is one of our younger players and has a fairly strong Assassin
deck. He has to borrow the doctors and one or two other cards for tournaments,
but he then has plenty of good stuff to support that. I got a very early
A Coming Storm and although he managed to get down Shiva the Destroyer
and kill an Effendi in a Duel of Wits, his second attempt resulted in me
pulling Let Him Bleed (only one fate value) for his Shiva, which let me
win the next Duel of Wits. He got Weight of Dreams early, but I had Gazing
into the Rift. Assassins are not very speedy to attack and I managed to
get a fair number of weenies to attack with. I lost one to a duel but used
War in the Streets to kill off his Chandras and Fatimas when he defended
with them. The damage
they did together with the other general water bleeding did the damage.
Dahab
Gary is another one of our younger players and is >very< new to the
game. However, he had borrowed William's Dahab deck that I had lent him
cards for. This included three Sudden Strikes, three Attacks at Dawn, two
Secret Wells and three Routeds. So I guessed it was going to be pretty
brutal. What I hadn't realised is that William had put absolutely no omens
or omen removal in the deck. I got a first turn A Coming Storm and Effendi
and locked down his first turn copper holding to prevent any gorillas next
turn. Another Effendi second turn and him losing four water to his two
Duqaq's and Secret Wells and this one was pretty brutal but not in the
way I had expected it. I actually felt pretty bad about what was happening
but unbelievably couldn't
draw any of my own omens to remove ACS for another three turns by which
time it was pretty much over. When I did it was The Face of a Child!
Moto
Darran is an occasional LBS player, but has been playing occasionally
for a while now and knows his way round the cards. I was worried because
he was using my Moto deck and I knew that the deck would be unaffected
by ACS. I also knew that if Moto Marik got going on me I would be in big
trouble! I was going to have to rely on fast attack and slower water depletion,
and the Duel of Wits with Effendi should be fairly reliable against Moto.
I got early Adnans and Dharr and Effendi and was able to do some damage.
He got a second turn Kiyoshi and was returning the complement though I
had Purity of Conquest to keep myself safe. Next turn he attacked again
with Kiyoshi and I defended with the Adnan/WitS/Jinn Blood combo but he
martyred out Gaheris and I knew things were going to get tough. I had two
cards to deal with Gaheris and both were in my hand. I also knew that both
were vulnerable at the present time. Still I had to go for it. I had done
some damage last turn and was in a position with Adnan, Dharr and Effendi
to take out two city sections (he had two first turn Sweetwaters and had
had to use one for Kiyoshi, plus I had gone in for an early attack). So
I played my first Blockade and prayed. He played Sandstorm and so I had
to play my second. He passed (phew!) and my guys sneaked in round the Blockade
and I dropped a Library. Next turn I immediately Faithed and failed to
get Gazing into the Rift, then I went to the Library and got one. Meanwhile,
Argoun and Yesugai made an appearance. Eyeslicer then ate a basic Adnan
and I attacked again losing Effendi and an Adnan but it took down an Argoun
and reduced a city section to no water (though Gaheris was stealing it
back at a rate). He only had two with water left now - a Thieves and a
Duqaq's. But would the Blockade hold? My next turn I took another city
section and I had to use the GitR on A Coming Storm that he played. I managed
to destroy the Duqaq's, which just left him with an empty Merchant's and
Thieves with two or three water. Though I lost some guys in doing it (mainly
temporarily!). Next turn
I was the blessed and just attacked the Merchant quarter straight away.
Two Argouns defended. The first one killed an Adnan but Purity of Conquest
hit the second one and so the Merchants bit the dust. Now at least he could
not
raid and get the water. It didn't matter that much as a Sandstorm caused
the blockade to be lifted and my River Quarter bit the dust as Gaheris
was finally freed from his shackles. Next turn Gaheris came and battered
my Jewel of the Desert. I didn't feel that I had enough to go straight
back over so I put some more guys down and dropped the key card Face of
a Child. Darran had to sack his two Sweetwaters to put some water onto
the Thieves and I could just defend my way out of the situation, if needed.
As it happened I was able to generate enough force the next turn as Darran
had to attack with Gaheris, realising that he could only now win through
attacking. After this I was able to destroy the Thieves, which now only
had two remaining water, with the aid of my final Purity of Conquest, which
he had not accounted for.
Senpet
Silas is a very good player and we always have some serious tussles.
It is usually his Assassins versus my Moto. But we had both agreed to play
something different today, as it was Moonless Night. His Senpet had been
tested against the Dahab speed and had done very well. But like all Senpet
decks is vulnerable to ACS. It is slightly more Jinn than Crush but has
elements of both. I got a blister of a start with Effendi and Adnan where
he had to Faith. I attacked and did three quick damage. He bought gold
and then dropped Nepherus and a Jinn of a 1K Midnights. I pounced on the
opportunity of a bowed Nepherus and dropped the ACS he used Strange Bedfellows
but I was able to Gaze at it! So by the start of turn two he was minus
eleven water and there was very little way back. He played Qer Apet and
I attacked with Effendi , Dharr and Adnan. I went for the cheese as he
engaged for five with a Wisdomed Apet and I played WitS then Jinn Blood,
but he was ready for me and Routed my BoaJ causing me to lose all my guys
(like I said WitS can work both ways!). His Jinn and Nepherus attacked
but a Purity of Conquest kept Nepherus from doing his stuff. I rebuilt
quickly with more Adnans andEyeslicers and when he did destroy ACS I just
replaced it again. After that went Face of Child followed and Jinn were
effectively going to be a non-issue. He destroyed the next ACS as well
but by this time had only Nepherus, two Keseths and the Jinn left as well
as one water token. I was
down to two city sections but one was a Jinn-proof Sewers. I got a
brass Lamp anyway and then hit him with the killer Last Oasis which just
destroyed all bar one city section. As that was a Thieves Quarter my successful
raid of it was enough to win the game. A real tight one.
Final result:
1st Celestial Alliance
2nd Senpet
3rd Moto
I played CA because no one had won with a pre-constructed CA deck as
far as I was aware. I was thinking of going for Jackal but did not just
get enough time to tweak it ready for the tourney. It would have been nice
to get a Jackal win on the board as I have a soft spot for them. My deck
is a variant of the one I posted a few weeks ago but I will re-post if
people would like
to see it, as there have been one or two changes. The main one being
the addition of the Last Oasis this is designed either for the kill or
at least to very much even up the situation as the opponent is often depleting
my city sections as I deplete his water. Of course if we are both out of
water (i.e. another CA deck) then I play it the turn before he is the blessed
so that I can beat him next turn. (I am assuming that in a situation like
this the blessed player would check first.)
Mark
Hello Zen,
I don't know if Ken Wang sent you the results yet, but I thought I'd at least send you the top three finishers
First Place was Ra'Shari
Second Place was Celestial Alliance
Third Place was Assassin
If he has not sent out a detailed tourney report by tuesday, I'll type up a report from what my brother and I remember.
-Phil Jaros
Greetings desert dwellers! It's a little late, but here is my Moonless Night report from last Sunday. . .
Yay!! Actually got 4 players! (Of course, I had to bribe my roommate Phil by paying his entry fee; I showed him the game the week before by playing two games with him.)
Sealed Deck tourney
The standings were:
1st--George(me) playing Ivory Kingdoms for Assassins.
2nd--Walter playing Assassins! for Ashalan.
3rd--Benny playing Ebonites for Celestial Alliance.
4th--Phil playing Moto for, well, Moto:)
We played round-robin and the numbers turned out nice. I went 3-0. Walter's only loss was to me. Benny's only win was against Phil. Phil knew it was going to be rough going in. He was unfamiliar with the game and he knew all three of us had solid sealed deck skills from playing M___c. He had fun, but he's not really a Card Buyer, so I'll just have to get him a couple of starter decks so he can show the game to others:)
Here are some quick notes on some of my games:
Game 1 vs. Ebonites:
Basically, Benny got copper-screwed.
I started with two playable holdings, two guys from my faction, and my
one Pantheon card: Conquest (I can't Raid. All heroes
of my faction gain +1S. Cool card!) I first-turn a Wheat Fields
and a Silver Merchant. He does zip. I second-turn my 2/2 Sarna,
play Conquest, and hit him for 3 Water. He repeats his first turn.
I third-turn my 1/3 Yuna, a Trade Route, and hit him for 5 more water.
He plays a Wheat Fields. On turn four, he plays somebody, I forget who,
with a 1S. My heroes charge in and start taking City Sections. .
. One of those really good draws vs. one of those really suck draws,
basically.
Game 2 vs. Assassins:
My closest and most fun game! Not surprising
since Walter and I take turns beating each other in sealed decks for that
"other game." We both do nothing on turn 1. On turn 2, he plays
Wheat fields and I play Faith--losing my Conquest and a holding (Trade
Route.) It pays off, because I draw my Scale Man!! and a Belly Dancer.
He plays that Assassin chick off his Stronghold, hits me for a water, and
I play holdings. Third turn I play Galon Trillius and dare him to
attack! (Gotta love archery!) He plays holdings and we Raid each
other. We get into a bit of a holding pattern. I manage to
get Jinn of Decay out
while he only has three heroes, and I eat some of his water.
He gets out more heroes and I get Kumpal! and put the Kali-Ma Idol on him!!!
(Nice item!) A couple of turns later, he plays Kara. Doh!!
If not for special tricks, I was going to die to Raiding! Two turns later,
he has the Blessing and I make my play. . . I'm down to 1 Water,
He has 5 Water on one City Section. His plan is to simply Raid my
last water. Attacking is not really an option. I attack with several
dudes (go Kumpal!) and J'li'lu's Fire!! four of his Water dead! In
Night Phase, he Raids and I don't defend. My first Night action is
to play Guerrilla Tactics!, bowing Badr al Din and destroying one of his
two Water. He passes and I play Forbidden!!!, destroying Badr al
Din and Walter's last Water token! Whew!! That was a close
one folks! He kept me from totally smashing him earlier by dueling
away a few of my heroes. (I don't think Kali-Ma drinks Milk.) However,
stalling with archery and then using nasty water-destruction tricks worked
like a dream!
Game 3 vs. Moto:
We both got out heroes. Mine had archery
or 3S so he didn't attack. I did point out to Phil that he could
probably steal more water from me than I could steal from him, but then
Kumpal hit the table. Then the Idol hit Kumpal. Then I hit his City
Sections/heroes and the game went downhill for Phil:(
This was my first experience with Ivory Kingdoms and I liked it! (Evil smile) I'd have to say that building the deck was probably the funnest part. I played 56 cards, including 2 A Call to Arms. (Gotta love cantrips.) Conquest is a kick-ass Pantheon card! My favorite card in my deck had to be Forbidden, though. Sneaky!! That Kali-Ma Idol is bad to the bone! Two of my twelve holdings were Ivory Markets. Talk about coaster fodder! This was my first taste of the Awakenings cards, besides this list, and I can't wait for more!
Stay cool everybody.
George Land
Assassin in the dark<.><.>
Certified Level I Judge-MTG
MTG Playtester--Council of Estark
Future Math Teacher
" . . . worrying is about as effective as
trying to solve an
algebra equation by chewing bubble gum."
Hi all I know it's late but here is the results of my Moonless Night tourney.
It had looked like ours would have been the biggest turnout of all of them but it fell to the usual wishy washeness of gamers like everyone else's. Our neighbors to the north didn't come down. Several players who swore on their lives that they would be there didn't show. Same as everywhere else.
Oh well here is the base results. If any my players would like to make this sound better please feel free.
I had five players.
Mark-Ashalan 1st place
Billy -Moto 2nd place
Lee -Moto 3rd Place
Kacey-Qabal 4th Place
Dan -Ebonite 5th Place
Broken down by player
Mark won all his games.
Billy only lost to Mark's Ashalan deck.
Lee lost against the Ashalan and Billy's Moto but won against the Ebonite
and Qabal.
Kacey and Dan unfortunatly didn't have any wins.
If you can't tell I can't write tourney reports to save my life.
Amy Marie Sawyer
Tournament Coordinator and Judge for
Legends of the Five Rings, Legends of the Burning Sands, Magic: The
Gathering, Pokemon, Young Jedi
A Moonless Night Tournament was held in manchester England on Saturday. There was quite a low turnout for the tournament, for reasons unknown. The 4 people who turned up are as follows, and these are also the final results.
1) Me - Assassins
2) Steve - Yodatai
3) Adam - Ashlan
4) David - Ebonite
I decided to just run a roundrobin so that everyone got 3 games and a prize at the end. It was a little one sided to be true.
A more detailed report will follow later.
Cheers
Goju At-The-Oche
Lion Clan Spy, Ninja Clan Thwater, Sun-tanned Assassin, Enlightened
Jinn Freeer, Mancunian Ambassador, Deputy to Nate and Offical Founder
of the "I Hate One Life, One Action" Fan Club
L5R(2.1) LN++/NJ-- S++ G++ Y+ P:M+/H-/D+/SJ- I+ Sc(72) C++ E++ M---- T+ K++ H- TK+ !IC U++
I'll send a longer report when I can find the time. Had five players finishing as follows:
Miles 1st Ebonite(using my Turtle deck) 3-1
Dan 2nd Senpet (Senpet Crush) 2-2
James 3rd Qabal (Jinns, Jinns and more Jinns) 2-2
Warren 4th Dahab (Dahab Speed) 2-2
Craig 5th Moto (Moto Raid) 1-3
Semi-Finals: Miles beats Warren
Dan beats James
Consolation: James beats Warren
Final : Miles beats Dan