Pop Quiz – The Answers

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

Thank you again to those of you who responded to September’s Pop Quiz. Consider yourselves all graduates of Buffy CCG 101. The winners were previously announced. So what were the answers? Off we go.

1.      Everyone correctly calculated that 550 stake points were needed to receive the listed cards under Score’s Redemption Program. However, no one caught on to the second redemption method available to receive the same cards, plus more, for only 450 stake points. How? Well, under the final Redemption #1 all of the listed cards (except the non-foil Primal Connection) plus Candy Tactics, Deputy Mayor Allen Finch and three of the Buffy Bucks cards could be obtained for 250 stake points. Add the 200 stake points for the non-foil Primal and all of the above could be obtained for 450 stake points. No bonus points here.

2.      Except for the stray, Columbus, Ohio, everyone else correctly pointed out the first Grand Patrol was held in Brooklyn Park, MN. Had to give a bonus point to the-big-bad for adding the name of the store (Outpost 2000 & Beyond), the date (1/18) and the time (5 pm). Now does anyone remember who won the tournament? And how late into the night it took to play six rounds and hand out tons of prizes? And what promo card debuted at that tournament?

3.      November 18, 2002, the official release of the last printed expansion of the Buffy CCG. Hard to imagine it’s been almost two years since we’ve had any new printed cards.

4.      This one had to be a freebie. Who could forget Joshua Smith and his devotion to one Amy Madison and her running mate, Lady of Buffdom. It should be noted that both candidates were elected to Hero of the Week status.

5.      Most answers supported the answer I was originally thinking myself, that the player with the most minions or companions in play would win the tiebreaker. But if you really read the guide, only Krista noted the correct answer, “Flip a coin.” Since I had already scored this correctly for others, additional bonus points were given to Krista.

6.      March 28, 2003. But since when did Buffy ever stay dead?

7.      Check out the Collector’s Crypt in the original web-site. The rarest Pergamum Prophecy promo was Studying. And there are not too many left for prize support from the WCA, so don’t throw these away too fast.

8.      This was actually Sci-Fi Magazine and a bonus point to Ripper for pointing out which issue featured the promo.

9.      Yes, yes, Abe Frulman is the Sausage King of Chicago and another bonus point to Ripper for noting the RJ connection. But if you truly want the full story, you’ll have to ask RJ (Watcher X) to enlighten you sometime.

10. Everyone correctly noted that James Marsters and Juliet Landau helped kick-off the Buffy CCG announcement. Too bad there wasn’t any product to sell for another 4-5 months.

11. Everyone answered this one a little differently, but all were basically correct and received the five points. Officially, the intent was to make the product last through Gen Con 2005. At this point, it’s pretty safe to say there will be some prizes available for some time period after that.

12. If a timed out game ends in a tie, both players get one tournament point.

13. Everyone correctly noted Jena as the site of the 2004 German Open.

14. Because of the timing of the current release, any answer related to September or December of this year were accepted as correct.

15. The correct answer was Angel and Collin. You had to dig deep into the postings for this one, because I did inadvertently leave Spike off the list in the Gen Con newsletter. So that was minus 1 point for believing everything I write. Not much of a penalty because everyone lost this point.

16. Finally, I can check off one goal in life. I’m the answer to a trivia question.

17. Another easy one, everyone paid attention to the current CRD and no, you can’t go get a level 2 companion or minion using A Friend in Need.

18. Surprisingly, not a single card in the Pergamum Prophecy expansion (including promos) contain talent icons that can be used to raise Smarts by 2 and Weirdness by 1. Everyone got this right.

19. Congratulations to Ripper for having the only entry to correctly name Cordelia as the winner and correctly explain how. While everyone’s answers were theoretically correct, the other’s all assumed Kakistos would win if Cordelia played her cards a certain way. The correct answer made no assumptions. Here it is.

Cordelia must first play Attack of the Stunt Doubles. She needs to neutralize the skills and items in Kakistos’ hand to prevent him from boosting Butt-Kicking or Charm. He can start the fight by using one item or skill for a boost, but Cordelia can neutralize the other three, which is all she needs.

Second, Cordelia must neutralize the Crushing Blow in Kakistos hand. To do so, before she places any cards in a talent stack she needs to play Bad Alcohol to fatigue Kakistos and lower his Butt-Kicking by one. She also needs to use Balthazar’s Amulet and discard two cards in her hand that can’t ordinarily boost Butt-Kicking and raise her Butt-Kicking by two. With Kakistos only in the Butt-Kicking lead 3-2 (talent stacks not included), Crushing Blow is neutralized.

Lastly, Cordelia simply needs to use all other cards in her deck that can be placed into a Butt-Kicking Talent Stack. By using A Friend in Need, Hair Flip, Hair Flip and I Quit she can raise her Butt-Kicking to 8 (remember the Amulet). Because of Bad Alcohol, Kakistos can only use Grounded, Superior Fighting and possibly one item/skill if he started that way to get his Butt-Kicking to 7. Cordelia wins!!! If she had tried to Hair Flip Kakistos, he would have out-charmed her for the win. If he had used Testosterone after she used Hair Flip, it would have been a tie. If she used a second Hair Flip, it still would have been a tie since Kakistos would have given up the Charm boost he needed from the Testosterone action card.

Does anyone believe I actually sit around thinking about things like this? Next goal in life – get one. Congratulations to everyone who participated, congratulations to Krista for receiving the elusive “Black Card” and to Krista, Ripper and the-big-bad for all winning a complete set of the Angel’s Curse essences

HELP!!! Fading Fast

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

That statement may apply to this newsletter in the near future. Life factors have intruded upon the ability of most within the WCA to contribute to this newsletter. Thus the unavoidable delay in the October version, even in it’s abbreviated state. The purpose of this newsletter is to keep some version of communication open not only between the player committee and the community at large, but also within the community. If anyone would like to submit articles to the newsletter, there’s a very good chance you can see it published. Share what’s going on in your area in regards to the Buffy CCG or just Buffy in general. Share a strategy you developed or of which you became a victim. There were a lot of fun Buffy Halloween activities. It would be nice to see or hear about them.

Gen Con Update

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

Indianapolis, Indiana – August 18-21, 2005

Plan are already underway for what is unarguably the biggest Buffy CCG event of the year. 2004 produced many highlights, we anticipate 2005 will generate even more. This article will become a regular feature leading up to next year’s event. Since Event Registration starts in January or February, we’ll need to decide upon all the tournament details by that time. We expect some similar formats and some new formats to be used next year. In general, we’ll run 9am morning tournaments on Friday, Saturday and Sunday, afternoon 2pm tournaments on Friday and Saturday and 7pm evening tournaments on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The morning and afternoon tournaments will be limited to 16 participants to allow us to complete them within 4 hours. The evening tournaments (except Wednesday) will be limited to 32 participants to allow us to get some sleep. So don’t forget about preregistration, which normally starts in April.

So what’s in store. Here are a few details. The Wednesday night tournament will be open to the first 16 who show up, it will not be on Gen Con’s registration list. Like this year, it will be a sealed deck tournament, but with a little different format. Since most of our prize support is from Pergamum Prophecy, this will by a Classic Buffy CCG Sealed Deck Tournament – Old School. “Old School” referring to the fact we’re going back to our roots and will play with Pergamum Prophecy cards only (starters and boosters). We’ll go through the details later, but this event will be set up so that you’ll receive multiple level 1 characters (good or evil) with no duplicates. We’ll also structure this to maximize the variety of main characters that will be used.

Keep in mind that the second ever North American Championship will be held at Gen Con. Of the nine tournaments that will be held at Gen Con, your top four scores from those tournaments in which you participate will be used to determine your championship standing. So, the more tournaments you play in, the more chances you have to maximize your finish. And like last year, we’re already trying to gather non-CCG prizes. For example, while holding our Halloween Event at the Lair of the Master, Mark Metcalf was kind enough to autograph two additional cards, which we will use as prizes (a PP limited foil Master Lvl 3 and a CO99 Essence). We still have a Buffy RPG Corebook or two to give away and we have one extra, hard to find, “Dingoes Ate My Baby” Willow Action Figure. We also have some Buffy Inkworks cards including a couple of autograph cards. And we still have nine more months to continue gathering prizes. You can only imagine the treasure trove we’ll gather by next August.

Slayer Strategies

By (This Could Be You)

Let everyone else know how creative you are and share your strategies.

The next Newsletter (Volume 1, Issue 10) will hopefully be released sometime in November, 2004.J

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