Flashpoint Finchley XXIII

We met for the first time at The Elephant Inn.  This is the fifth pub in Finchley to house the monthly CCG meet - the Ferret & Trouserleg, the Queen's Head, the Catcher in the Rye and the Tally-Ho having all moved us on for one reason or another.  Still, I feel that each move has been for the better.  We now have a fairly pleasant function room at The Elephant Inn with good big tables and plenty of privacy.  Best of all, there is a Thai restaurant on the premises and their food is excellent.  Dishes like Weeping Tiger are a suitable accompaniment to Shadowfist - it sounds like a member of the Lodge, don't you think?

The Players

We had a fairly reasonable turnout of 16 players.  I had been a bit embarassed to win last month - it's a bit awkward to be playing while RetroFist is still being introduced.  I'd been hoping to just officiate this time but several regulars like Tom and Dave were away and the numbers made my participation essential.  Still, I had prepared a RetroFist deck for the occasion - a remix of the Triumvirate deck which I have been successful with in the past - this time placing a new emphasis upon the Illusory Bridge.

Other players were using plenty of RetroFist cards too.  In particular, Andy Holt and Stephen Biggs were itching to test their latest ideas on how to break certain of the RetroFist cards.  This must all have come as a surprise to newcomer Jonathan Challis but he took it all in his stride and seemed to enjoy himself.

Player	Deck	Factions
Alex Wargacki	Gorillas in the Mist
Andrew Davidson	Pontoon
Andy Holt	Abysmal Slaughter
Anil Das-Gupta	Independence Day II
Arthur Howlin	No Balls
Bill Dawbarn	Miscegenator
Colin Burton	Golden Hand Elite
Daniel Vandenburg	Candlelight
Daniel Victor	Shadowhand
Hedley Coppock	Life of Omega
Jonathan Challis	The Right Stuff
Michael Rogers	Goldeneye
Nithyan Thiruudaian	Lotus Hocus-Pocus
Stephen Biggs	Stand and Deliver
Thivyan Thiruudaian	2056: Mission Impossible
Yuit Sum Vong	COPS
= 16 players	faction popularity:	4	6	8	5	2	3	1

Round 1

Stephen's deck was built around the hoser edges Hill of the Turtle, Seed of the New Flesh and Tomb of the Beast.  He played three of these at the start of my first round game and the Tomb rather cramped the style of my magic-rich deck.  Thivyan was, in any case, hamstrung by the lack of a foundation character and this left Bill a fairly free field which he dominated with his Architect-rich deck.  This had plenty of High Tech cards but he shrugged off the effects of Stephen's two Hills of the Turtle to win the game easily with Homo Omega.  The full table of results was:

Round 2

This is a shot of the second round game between myself, Arthur, Nithyan and Yuit (click on it to see a larger version).  This is noteworthy for several reasons.  The game went on for some time and we all built fairly large positions - there were too many strong characters out for attacks to be worth trying.  At this stage, Yuit has 14 sites - 4 feng shui, 4 Police Station, 2 Family Estate, 2 Abominable Lab, 1 Secret HQ and 1 Drug Lab - a large beat for her SWAT Teams to patrol.

Arthur has several big edges - an Imperial Boon, a Safehouse and two Feast of Souls.   These provided a strong foundation for his horde of Lotus characters - Eunuchs, Guards and Demons.  Myself, I had a good few sites myself and my star characters were two Anomaly Spirits - the cards covered in green beads - one was now at 11 fighting.    Nithyan's position was more modest as he didn't have so much power generation.  We were generating so much power that I brought my Doomtown poker chips into play - the blue chips represent 10 power and Yuit has 3 of them here!

Arthur was the eventual winner of this game - a powerful attack by the Thing with 1000 Tongues.  There was much debate about the way that Soul Maze or Larcenous Mist might be used to stop the Thing but they were all deemed to be ineffective.

Semi-Finals

After the first two rounds, we were left with 8 players who had won one game each.   Playing two four-player semi-final games would then result in a two-player final.   I would normally try to avoid this outcome but, being flustered by Yuit's recriminations about the result of the second round game,  I decided to go with this straight-forward option, and see what resulted.

Alex made much of the running in his semi-final by playing lots of Who's the Big Man Now? and burnt many sites for victory.  He couldn't crack the defenses of the table though and it was Michael who eventually triumphed.

I spent more time watching the other game which featured an interesting struggle between the three Lotus decks in the tournament.  Arthur's deck was a retune of his tournament winning No Balls deck - heavy on Eunuchs and Imperial Boon.  This version made more of edges like Feast of Souls and would generally generate more power than it knew what to do with.  Nithyan's deck was built more around big events like Tortured Memories and Banish and relied more upon its Pocket Demons to generate power.  Andy's deck made the most of RetroFist cards and he played not one but two Nine Cuts to go with his Feast of Souls.  Between Arthur and Andy, Nine Cuts saw a lot of play in this game.  Thivyan was the odd man out, playing Architects only and his denial played a significant part in keeping the game going.

The game ran for about two hours and everyone had built a big position - lots of sites, edges and threats. When Andy was about to deck, he played two Vampiric Touch onto the Abysmal Daughter and dropped a Bomb to make her 11 fighting. She wasn't able to win the game for him because Thivyan was able to Arcanotech a Satellite Intelligence and this was enough denial to prevent the win.  The Bomb had cleared the table now but Thivyan and Arthur couldn't mount winning attacks themselves.  Nithyan could play the Thing with 100 Tongues though and this gave him the game and the other place in the final.

The Final

After the protracted 2nd round and semi-final, time was getting on and a two-player final seemed like a good idea now - a brisk conclusion to the tournament was what was needed.  We don't see many two-player Shadowfist games here but both Nithyan and Michael seemed to know exactly what they were doing - they both played in very confident, rapid style.

Michael's deck, Goldeneye,  was a classic Architect/Dragon mix - a typical combo being Golden Gunman/Vivisector/Golden Comeback.  Nithyan's deck, Lotus Hocus-Pocus, was the bigger deck - 100 cards to Michael's 75 - but was single faction Lotus.  It started slowly for lack of feng shui sites but otherwise seemed to manage fine.  The play in detail was:

So congratulations to Nithyan on another exciting win - his third victory at Flashpoint Finchley.  His prizes were a signed Imperial Boon and an engraved throwing star.  He is pictured here with his trophy and his MVP - the Thing with 1000 Tongues.  The Thing was the key card in many winning decks in 1997 and has now made a Golden Comeback.  Of course, the Thing needs no help from RetroFist and I asked Nithyan why his deck included so few RetroFist cards.  He said that, what with A-levels and all, he didn't get much time to play Shadowfist.   Watch out when he does get plenty of time to practise!

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