Volume 1, Issue 5 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - July 10, 2004

 

Buffy and Spike Dominate German Open

By Carsten Freining (cfreining), WCA Co-Chair

The German Open is over and with it the flair of family, good friends coming over a long distance to show their skills in 3 tournaments. All ending with the standard playoff to become the best player in Germany.

Already on Friday Alain Sarti, Cathleen Schulz and Christian Palmer arrived at our house. Early in the morning (7am) Alexandra Podzely and Sven Rammisch arrived as well. When I went over to the Convention Frank Josupeit and Manfred Sax were already there waiting for me. All players were there at 9am. Saturday was going to be the longest day. We had 2 tournaments on the program. The Sealed and the Extended including all virtual cards (even the 4th Season set released on June 5th) except for the Broken Link cards. Each tournament with a multiplayer final.

Before anything started there was big trading for standard and extended cards.To the left you can see Katja and Michael (left side) trading with Cathleen and Alain.

The first Tournament, the Pergamum Prophecy/Angel’s Curse Sealed with 1 Starter and 1 Booster PP and 2 Boosters Angel’s Curse. But not the standard Sealed rules. No, we used the boosters for a draft. This way everybody had a chance to get the only cards he wanted to play. This was really amazing because it seemed everybody could beat each other. It was a very close call for the first 4 spots to get into the Multiplayer Final. At the end the finalists were Frank Josupeit, Christian Palmer, Alexandra Podzelny and Michael Spalek. For the multiplayer final each player got one The Wish Theme Deck and was allowed to reconstruct his deck with the new cards. Even changing the main was allowed.

At the end Alexandra Podzelny won in a close game, closer then any other multiplayer final I ever saw. She just won the game because she was the active player and was first to get to her winning challenge. In this turn Christian Palmer and Frank Josupeit could have received their 10th Destiny Point as well. We congratulate Alexandra for winning the Sealed Tournament.

Result:

1.      Alexandra Podzelny

2.      Christian Palmer

3.      Frank Josupeit

4.      Michael Spalek

The Extended tournament started right away. Most players played the same deck as in standard, so we saw only few Virtual Cards being played. The mostly played mains where Buffy and Spike. And Frank Josupeit, the German Champion from 2003, ran his deck from last year with only few changes and made clear why he was the champion last year. Without losing a game he made it to the multiplayer Final. With one bye and 3 full wins after that he collected important points towards the playoff. Even in the Multiplayer Final he left the others (Alexandra Podzelny, Manfred Sax and Christian Palmer) without a chance. Winning the title of the Extended tournament.

1.      Frank Josupeit

2.      Christian Palmer

3.      Manfred Sax

4.      Alexandra Podzelny

The next tournament started on the next day at 10am. It was the last tournament until the playoff. The players stood ready to start at 9:30 am on Sunday morning. The people checked their decks for virtual cards, not allowed in the Standard tournament and then the last tournament of the German Open started. It was a bit boring, since Frank just won all his games. This time he needed no bye in the first game to make it 4 full wins. He as well dominated the multiplayer final against Manfred Sax, Sven Rammisch and Cathleen Schulz. With this tournament the multiplayer finals were set and ready to go.

Result of the Standard Tournament:

1.      Frank Josupeit

2.      Sven Rammisch

3.      Cathleen Schulz

4.      Manfred Sax

 

 

The Ranking after all 3 tournaments was:

1.      Frank Josupeit 287 TP, 33 Points

2.      Christian Palmer 198 TP, 24 Points

3.      Manfred Sax 193 TP, 22 Points

4.      Alexandra Podzelny 183 TP, 22 Points

5.      Sven Rammisch 157 TP, 20 Points

6.      Michael Spalek 147 TP, 17 Points

7.      Cathleen Schulz 143 TP, 15 Points

8.      Katja Lang 105 TP, 11 Points

9.      Alain Sarti 110 TP, 10 Points

10. Heidi Freining 33 TP, 6 Points (played only the Sealed)

With the First Round Playoff Pairings:

Frank Josupeit – Alexandra Podzelny

Christian Palmer – Manfred Sax

Buffy against Buffy and Spike against Spike in the Semi Finals. Christian Palmer won his game in a hard fight, while Frank made his first and only mistake by not paying attention to the Bad Girls Episode Card. Alexandra had it out and with Faith and Buffy out she won a fight against a human in play. Both players didn’t pay attention at this moment that the Bad Girls part 2 would come into play. And Alexandra defeated the Buffy main of Frank in the next fight. In the same Conflict step Frank had to shuffle his Discard pile to get a new Resource Step. This wouldn’t have happened with the part 2 in play, because Alexandra couldn’t have started another fight.

The decision that the game would go on as normal, since both players didn’t pay attention, got Frank into the situation of losing his Semi Final. I am really proud that he did take the decision without bigger complaints (well he had made the Judge test short before the playoffs and knew I had to decide this way), since it shows how family-like this community is.

The final then was made up by Christian Palmer and Alexandra Podzelny. Spike against Buffy, a final we all expected….. well at least you could count on such a final. And Alexandra showed Christian how easy a Buffy fight deck can run out a Spike deck.

So congratulations Alexandra, our new German Open Champion!

 

From Jena live for the WCA: Carsten Freining.

 

 

 

What I Did on My Summer Vacation (Part 2)

By David Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

Wow! Summer certainly got off to a bang in Europe. Back here in North America things were just getting warmed up. While John Stephens (DenverSpike) was back and starting tournaments up again in Colorado, John Bruno continued to crank things up in California. Players in Maryland continued to slay each other and an intrepid band of players refused to let Origins in Ohio pass without a tournament or two.

In Norwalk, California, John Bruno brought a group together and showed how evil a Drusilla deck can be against the likes of Xander the Zeppo (played by Gaeta), Buffy (played by Geoff), Ghost Willow (played by Jennifer) and Willow (played by Eric). Afterwards, John commented that “…players are coming out, new players are joining and the game is fun again.” No doubt in large part due to the efforts of John and other Watchers and Judges putting these events together.

In Maryland, Sean, Ken and Krista played a variety of decks and plotted for a Buffy mega event in September. A lot can be learned playing with this group and we’ve got at least one tip from them in this month’s Slayer Strategies.

At Origins we saw two tournaments played on successive nights. On Friday, Dave used Adam to keep Josh (Riley), Aly (Tara), and Behrooz (Drusilla) under control. Yes, the same traveling Drusilla deck that dominated at Pandora’s Box in May. Once again loaned to a player without a deck. Saturday night’s tournament saw six players from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Missouri and Wisconsin play for some awesome prizes. In the end, it was a four way tie for first that even the new guidelines didn’t fully resolve (we’ll be taking a look at that). So let’s just say Dave (The Pack), Josh (Riley), Aly (Cordelia) and Krista (Sid) all ended up winning two of three games and having loads of fun.

As we move into July the Buffy CCG action heats up along with the temperatures. More tournaments in California, Colorado and Illinois are on the schedule. On July 17th Aly Greaves and Dave Gerspach from The Metroplex will present the Buffy CCG before 100 fans at this year’s Slayathon. It’s 12 hours of Buffy fun from watching the most popular episodes to auctioning off loads of Buffy related merchandise, some of it autographed by the show’s stars. Even the WCA supports this event by donating sealed starter and booster boxes to the auction. And all proceeds go to the Northern Illinois Make a Wish Foundation. Buffy and a good cause. It doesn’t get much better. And with a tournament the next day in Niles, we’re hoping we can attract a new player or two.

By the time you read this, John Bruno will likely have held his next tournament at Comic Cult in Norwalk, CA (7/10) and later this month John Stephens has scheduled a tournament at Valhallas Game Center in Wheatridge, CO (7/24).

And of course that’s all a warm up for the big events to follow. There’s the San Diego ComicCon from July 22 – 25, Wizard World Chicago from August 13 – 15, Gen Con from August 19 – 22 and more Buffy fun at a Mystery Camp in Germany. San Diego and Chicago tournaments will be run similar to Origins (players in attendance gathering for tournaments as available), but Gen Con is shaping up to be the one convention players don’t want to miss. Preregistration has already guaranteed that all four tournaments will be legal and if you haven’t checked out the prizes yet, you have to go to the web-site. With the unscheduled Sealed Deck tournament being held on Wednesday night, there will be five tournaments held at Gen Con this year. Five Buffy CCG tournaments is a first for any convention held in the U.S..

But the biggest announcement is that the tournaments at Gen Con will comprise the first ever Buffy CCG North American Championship. The player accumulating the most tournament points over the four days of tough, grueling and varied tournament formats will be named the Buffy CCG 2004 North American Champion. A historic event for the game and one in which every player at Gen Con can say they took part.

You can continue to stay up to date on the latest news regarding past and future tournaments by checking out the Tournament and Player Groups Forum.

 

Slayer Strategies

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-chair and Sean Jones, WCA Member

This month we promise you an extended version of Slayer Strategies.

First up, if you haven’t tried playing Mr. Trick, you might want to try some of the strategy seen employed by Krista in Maryland. You all know how Mr. Trick’s essence allows him to boost talents on your challenges, but if you move him to the park with a few minions he becomes extra nasty. First you can attach skills to the minions and use Transpossession to move the skills to Mr. Trick, further increasing his challenge disruption. Then, if your opponent goes to the park to fight Mr. Trick (not an easy fight to win once he has all those skills attached), Mr. Trick can simply discard one of the minion vamps to stay on the board and continue his evil, um…, er… tricks.

The next series of strategies deal with ways to enhance your card drawing ability. I’m sure you may have seen most or all of these already, but they bear repeating as I’m sure you’ll see all of them employed this summer.

Here’s an annoying one that you can use with any evil deck. It requires that two of your locations in play are Band Candy Warehouse and the Hospital. You place Drusilla at Band Candy Warehouse and Chris Epps at the Hospital. Once in place, you can cycle this for three new cards each turn. You fatigue Drusilla to draw a card. Since she’s at Band Candy Warehouse, she’s considered a minion. You fatigue Chris Epps to refresh Drusilla. You can then fatigue Drusilla and draw a second card. By now you should have an action card you can live without. Discard it to refresh Chris Epps. Fatigue Chris Epps to refresh Drusilla. One more time, fatigue Drusilla and draw your third card this turn.

Here’s any easy one many people already employ. Once you use an Empty Puppet Case, play Trading Clothing to discard it and then return two Empty Puppet Cases to your hand. You then attach both and use their effects. By now you might have a second Trading Clothing. You can discard another fatigued Empty Puppet Case and return two unused ones to you hand. You need to have a few cards in your hand to discard for the Empty Puppet Case effects, but you can cycle quite a few cards this way. Giles, with his ability to get the first Puppet Case in play is perfect for this strategy.

Here’s a seldom used strategy. Once you’ve attached Gone Binary to a character, you obviously can fatigue that character to draw a card. But you can also play Transpossession to move that skill to another refreshed character and then use the ability to draw a second card. If you attach Gone Binary to a character at the Football Field or Lair of the Master, you can start using this ability right away. Jenny Calendar is another good character to use with this strategy.

One more tip this month. When you start a game and you’re the active player first, does it make a difference if you start with Day or Night? There are rare occasions when you may want to start with Night, but in general most players will pick Day. Why? Two reasons. If you’re evil, you won’t be able to play your supporting vampires until the Resource Step where you can place them wherever you want. You’ll want to be able to move them in turn 2. The other reason? Snow. Just in case your opponent is packing Snow, you won’t be able to start any fights or challenges until the turn following the end step of the next Night turn. Which will be Day. You’ll get one or two turns to set your challenges and players and then you’ll be active on the first turn in which play resumes. This alone has decided the outcome of many games.

That’s it for this month. I hope we’ve made up a little for the extended absence. And if anyone has any other Slayer Strategies they’d like to share, you can either post them or leave me (dgjedi) a private message on the board.

 

The next Newsletter (Volume 1, Issue 6) will be released sometime in August, 2004.J

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