F & S Pre-release--San Bernardino CA

[David Newell]

You might want to check the cards before your next
tournement.  There is one little line on that Fox
stronghold that kept me from playing it and was
bitched about the entire tournement.  Wizards made
another faux pas and had set (All our YA got them)
Masasue and Takuni.  The Fox won't let the Mantis come
into play though.  I have tried out the new stronghold
with both my dueling deck and tattoo deck and
slaughtered everybody I played.  The unicorn didnt
have a chance unless he got to go first and even that
didn't help much.  What does everybody else think
about the new strongholds and cards?  Does anybody
else hate the Temple of the Crow/Hantei Sensei combo
yet?  It happened once in the tournement and almost
lost me the game.  There has been a lot of talk about
about Dark Moto honor runners thx to Sagoten.  I saw
Oni no Kamu w/o the Unique trait still but he is still
in the rule book as unique.  They just can't seem to
get that right.  Check the back of Proposal of Peace
if you need some koku.

--- JoshnMolly at aol.com wrote:
> Most of the tournament was spent having fun and
> playing with the decks.  Only 
> 9 people showed up, and with an 8 person final
> play-off, the four rounds of 
> Swiss were pretty anti-climatic.
> 
> I drew the Fox.  My wife drew the Dragon.  How
> ironic.  My wife has always 
> loved the Fox ever since she found out they were the
> Ki-Rin that stayed 
> behind when Lady Shinjo left. 
> 
> During the constructed phase, I noticed a few
> things.  No rallying cries, as 
> others have noted.  The Fox had no Superior Tactics,
> which meant that any 
> terrain I dropped against another Fox was going to
> stick.  No Confusion at 
> Court either, so the favor will be powerful.  I had
> a mess of defensive cards 
> and ranged attacks.  I got a lot of "Duel support"
> cards but no actual cards 
> to duel with, other than Bayushi Aramasu.  Mara
> rocked.  I figured my only 
> way to win was to honor run, and the only honor
> producing holdings I had were 
> one Hawks and Falcons and one Sanct. Temple.  I
> hoped that, along with Asako 
> Sagoten, would be enough. 
> 
> Round 1:  Vs. Monks ("Bean")
> 
> Don't know his real name, he's a middle school kid
> who comes to play and we 
> teach him the game.  He's gotten a lot better over
> the past few months, but 
> really doesn't have the cards to compete in a
> regular tournament.  But I 
> wasn't going to underestimate him in sealed play.
> 
> This one was pretty easy.  He was playing with that
> sensei that means you 
> can't be targetted with spell effects.  Nice against
> the Monks, but against 
> me all that meant was I couldn't use Stifling Wind
> and he had one less 
> province strength.
> 
> Masasue comes out first turn.  He leaves Takao
> clogging up his provinces.  
> Second turn I drop a spearmen on Masasue and hit the
> province that has Takao 
> sitting in it.  I charge, and the province goes
> bye-bye.  He eventually 
> managed to get a few people out, but I had the favor
> and the province lead.  
> Oh well, I gave him a bunch of rares that I haven't
> been able to trade 
> (Mostly exp. TotV stuff) so he was happy anyway. 
> (1-0)
> 
> Round 2:  Fox (Gary Kirby)
> 
> Gary is a good player and his deck is almost
> completely identical to mine.  
> The biggest difference is that I have Mara and Asako
> Sagoten and he doesn't.  
> And I went first.
> 
> Second turn I make the big decision to bring out
> Ryosei instead of gold, 
> figuring that I'd better get mine out before him. 
> He doesn't press an early 
> advantage, knowing that I have all the same
> defensive cards that he did.  I 
> brought out Mara and launched an attack.  Mara gets
> sent home with the favor, 
> but now, thanks to Asako Sagoten, I have the high
> honor and he's not getting 
> the favor back.  Essentially we spend the rest of
> the game staring at each 
> other and running to 40 honor, but with me having
> Asako Sagoten, he really 
> never has a chance to beat me. (2-0)
> 
> Round 3 Monks (Mitch Teague)
> 
> Mitch is from our old Vegas play group, and is
> certainly the strongest player 
> in Vegas.  This was one of the funniest games I've
> ever played.
> 
> Third turn, I bring out Asako Sagoten, bow for 5
> honor and take the favor.  
> On his turn, he brings out Asako Sagoten, and bows
> for 5 honor.  Oh yeah, 
> well I'll bow for five honor.  So he bows for five
> honor, etc., etc.  Anyway, 
> he made it to 40 before I did.  I tried to attack
> with what I had, but the 
> offensive capabilities of the Fox are low.  The only
> game I lost that day.  
> (2-1)
> 
> Round 4:  Fox (Robbie Mardis)
> 
> This game I get gold hosed, and I'm sure I'm going
> to lose.  I drop two 
> provinces early, and I can only get two Mukamis into
> play.  The Mukamis 
> manage to hod the fort and, with attached spearmen,
> are able to whittle down 
> his army and I drop Entrapping Terrain (No Superior
> Tactics, I remember) to 
> keep from losing the last two.  Mara comes out and
> takes out his Farmlands 
> province, which was making his Tsuruchi a pain and a
> half.  Then he gets the 
> Foiled Oni no Kamu (?  Zipperhead) out and I think
> I'm done for.
> 
> But then he keeps attacking the Akui Cliffs, which,
> with the favor and Mukami 
> knocking out one follower a turn, kept him from ever
> having enough force to 
> take out a province.  I suppose he wanted to take
> out the hard province 
> first, but after two failed attempts, I had gotten
> enough personalities into 
> play to stand up to him now, and Oni no Zipperhead
> was about to go bye-bye.  
> He attacked (Robbie's not a bad player, but he'd
> almost rather lose than run 
> for honor.  He only knows how to attack) and with
> the favor, two block supply 
> lines and a handful of ranged attacks and Arrows
> from the Woods, I had the 
> most force on the board.  I won the battle and was
> now over 40 honor. (3-1)
> 
> Well, we had just played four rounds of swiss to
> eliminate one person from 
> the 8 person final.  As it turned out, there was a
> tie for 8th and they had 
> to play it off, so our tourney essentially became
> single elim rather than 
> swiss.
> 
> Finals
> Round 1:  Monks (Bean again)
> 
> Bean had actually gone 2-2 in this tournament, which
> was his best placing 
> ever, which made him quite happy.  But his second
> shot at me was no better 
> than the first.  This time he gets personality
> screwed, a situation not 
> helped by his dumping Mitsu early (probably because
> I advised him that he 
> should have dumped Takao in our first game--I felt
> pretty bad about that.)  I 
> am able to get out Masasue again, stick followers on
> him and start crushing 
> provinces.  My two victories over Bean were my only
> military victories the 
> whole tournament.
> 
> Round 2:  Fox (Gary Kirby again)
> 
> The biggest difference between this game and our
> first one was that he got to 
> go first.  He certainly got off to the faster start,
> but a first turn Masasue 
> also drained his fate hand.  I got off to a pretty
> good start too, and he 
> knew that with me having twice as many fate cards as
> he did, my little 
> Kitsune Shudo could probably hold off his entire
> army. (He was right, he 
> could have.)  So he didn't attack, and I got out an
> early Hawks and Falcons 
> and Sanctified Temple.  We spent the rest of the
> game staring at each other 
> and bowing for honor, but I was faster.  Eventually
> he attacked, knowing he 
> couldn't win on honor, but I had two entrappings in
> my hand and I knew he 
> didn't have any Superior Tactics (because I didn't
> have any).  Two 
> entrappings and it was all over.
> 
> Round 3:  Dragon (Molly Timmers)
> 
> Yup, got to face my wife in the finals.  The first
> time we've ever played 
> each other for a title.  They told us that we didn't
> have to play off, since 
> we were going to split the 1st and 2nd prize anyway,
> but we came to play so 
> we did.  But they brought us two matching his and
> her F&S T-Shirts and 25 
> 
=== message truncated ===

=====

 __         ___              ___________    __
|  \       /   \  \        /      |        |  \
|   \     /     \  \      /       |        |   \
|    )   /-------\  \    /        |        |    )
|   /   /         \  \  /         |        |   /
|__/   /           \  \/     _____|_____   |__/
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Talk to your friends online with Yahoo! Messenger.
http://im.yahoo.com