Buffy Party in Waterloo

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

So what happens when a store decides to stay open around the clock and host back to back to back to back Buffy tournaments? You get a whole lot fun, a whole lot of Buffy madness and you get a whole lot of tired gamers. Nowhere in the world is the Buffy CCG played with more dedication or competitiveness than in Waterloo, Iowa. And more specifically at Pandora’s Box. When you head for a Buffy CCG event there, you know you’re heading for something special.

For me, it started on Saturday at 6:45am when my friend Keith and I started out from Wisconsin. After a pleasant ride, one extensive detour, lunch and hotel check-in we found our way to Pandora’s Box about 10 minutes prior to the start of Tabula Rasa. This was the first tournament in which the fabulous cards designed by metrodj were officially used.

The feedback on the tournament format was generally positive. There were a few games where the events were non-factors. When you place a “Curfew” on human characters and the two players are using evil decks with no humans, what are you going to do? But in general, players of this format have to learn to adapt each game to the changing conditions. I know in my games they both helped and hurt. In one situation I drew the “Curfew” Event against a Kakistos deck. Fortunately for me, he played Lust for Her Death during a day turn when I could still move Dawn twice to get her back over to my location. At night that would have hurt a lot. In the next game my opponent and I drew “Locations, the Weirding”. After he put The Wish Episode Part 1 in play, he was able to get the Charm bonus at were once Town locations, now designated as School. It’s sure nice to be able to get the text from Bizarro Sun Cinema and the extra Charm.

The following is the order of finish in Tabula Rasa

1^st – Nich Schmitz 9 / 81

2^nd – Riley Akers 9 / 80

3^rd – Keith Kusnier 9 / 63

4^th – Caroline Boehmer 8 / 58

4^th – Patrick Parker 8 / 58

6^th – Justin Francis 6 / 63

7^th – Dave Gerspach 6 / 46

8^th – Meldzan Isakovic 6 / 33

9^th – Cassie Cohen 4 / 31

10^th – Layne Magnuson 3 / 25

11^th – Chris Nichols 3 / 11

12^th – Jared Coffin 0 / 8

As you can see, it was very, very close between the top five finishers with no one going unbeaten through the four rounds. There were some very special prizes given out during the day that included not only the usual assortment of promos and a few ultra rares, but also some signed Buffy Bucks cards (Shhhhh signed by Camden Toy and Jenny Calendar’s Hall Pass signed by Robia LaMorte), a customized card portfolio and a special CD containing songs from the show. For winning, Nich also selected a complete set of Inkwork’s Women of Sunnydale. If anyone’s unaware, Inkworks will be releasing a Buffy and the Men of Sunnydale set this summer. Just in time for us to get some promos and other prizes for Gen Con (shameless plug)

Next up it was pizza and deck building. A very healthy supply of starter decks and booster packs was provided for the very minimal fee of $3, which just went for the pizza anyway. It was sealed deck brown bag style, meaning you don’t know what you’re going to get until you open the bag. I drew hero decks, which I wanted, although I could have made better decisions after that. My “Wish” deck was Bizarro Buffy/Oz, which meant I’d get Bizarro Sun Cinema. My PP starter was Giles and my CO99 starter was Willow, so my initial reaction was to build a deck with Giles as the main and challenges that needed Smarts and Weirdness. However, except for Dopplegangland and Lunch Special, I really didn’t have many challenges like that to choose from. After I drew a Faith (Hero) level 1 in a CO99 booster and a Kendra level 1 in an AC booster, along with a Run Fast from a PP booster I decided to focus on a Butt-Kicking deck.

I still didn’t have a good selection of challenges, so that meant I’d have to do more fighting. It was fairly ugly. If you’re going to fight, it means you need to move to the park and eventually to your opponent’s locations. Guess what, you’re not getting any bonus from Bizarro Sun Cinema after you move. Scratch that advantage. Well. In the first round I went up against a much better Cordelia deck, made something of a match out of it but lost. In the second round I went up against a Vamp Willow deck, again kept it close, but again lost. That earned me a bye in the 3^rd round, which I can’t remember the last time that happened. At least it gave me a chance to tweak my Highlander and Showtime decks which turned out to be a very good thing. I came back in the 4^th round with a park control victory. Whew! And then had to survive a very close 5^th round match. Like I keep saying, the players in Iowa are good. Here’s how they finished.

1^st – Justin Francis 15 / 125

2^nd – Meldzan Isakovic 12 / 107

3^rd – Matt Butterfield 12 / 100

4^th – RJ Boehmer 11 / 91

5^th – Nich Schmitz 10 / 91

6^th – Patrick Parker 9 / 96

7^th – Lee Finholt 9 / 93

8^th – Caroline Boehmer 9 / 91

9^th – Dave Gerspach 9 / 68

10^th – Keith Kusnier 6 / 74

11^th – David Truax 6 / 57

12^th – Jared Coffin 6 / 47

13^th – Cassie Cohn 6 / 43

13^th – Layne Magnusson 6 / 43

15^th – Riley Akers 3 / 40

16^th – Chris Nichols 3 / 36

17^th – Joshua Spieker 0 / 1

Now we’re off to Highlander and there can only be one. Of each card that is. Imagine, all this mayhem started around 1pm and it’s now going on midnight. The store is chanting “Four more rounds!” Their wish is granted. I’m playing a Buffy deck. At least it was a character with which I’m comfortable. However, the one card change I made during the previous tournament bye turned out to be the most critical card in my deck. It wasn’t easy but I fought through a veritable rogue’s gallery of Angelus, Anyanka, Collin and Spike for the tournament win. The most critical card I added? Join the Pep Squad. With my opponent active and poised to solve a winning challenge, I thought all hope was lost. He had just played a minion and three villains, along with his main character to the location of his challenge. His talents were way over what he needed. I had the Pep Squad, but he only had one minion, Ken, in play. What’s this? He’s at Band Candy Warehouse. Sudden relief as the Pep Squad did away with his entire army (except his main). That left me free to solve my challenge and win a very close game. Here’s the final order of finish.

1^st – Dave Gerspach 12 / 100

2^nd – Patrick Parker 9 / 79

3^rd – Keith Kusnier 9 / 80

4^th – Justin Francis 6 / 57

5^th – Caroline Boehmer 6 / 31

6^th – Cassie Cohn 6 /53

7^th – Nich Schmitz 6 / 38

8^th – Riley Akers 3 / 15

9^th – Meldzan Isakovic 3 / 14

It’s going on the wee hours of the morning and with an expected long ride home (and since we paid for the hotel anyway), it was off to grab a few hours of sleep. But by 11am on Sunday, it was time for “Showtime”. This tournament was eagerly anticipated, and it didn’t disappoint. Eleven players using eight different main characters battled head to head. It was vicious. It was fun. It was not for the faint of heart. I’m going to honor a couple of requests here not to discuss the decks and strategies used, as you’ll probably see some of these decks at Gen Con. If you’re thinking Slayers and Big Bads, you’d be mostly right. But there were some very good decks based on characters that don’t fall into either of those categories. One word of advice. Don’t ignore your selection of locations; they can play a critical role in how the game goes. Second word of advice, if you think all you have to do is load up with 30 action cards that boost Butt-Kicking by two, you’d be wrong. There’s more strategy to this game than you might think. Here was the order of finish.

1^st – Dave Gerspach 12 / 100

2^nd – Matt Butterfield 9 / 76

3^rd – Caroline Boehmer 9 / 51

4^th – Andy Iverson 7 / 58

5^th – Layne Magnuson 7 / 51

6^th – Meldzan Isakovic 6 / 53

7^th – Nich Schmitz 5 / 38

8^th – Chris Nichols 5 / 34

9^th – Keith Kusnier 3 / 26

10^th – Justin Francis 3 / 4

11^th – Riley Akers 3 / 1

Well, there you have it. After that, everyone from Iowa headed home to a long sleep. Except for Keith and I it was a long ride home. But it was well worth the trip. I’m sure this won’t be the last time I’ll make my way to Pandora’s Box. I don’t believe there is anywhere else in the world right now that you can get in as much Buffy CCG fun.

Gen Con 2005 Update #5

By Dave Gerspach (dgjedi), WCA Co-Chair

This is the final installment of Gen Con tournament reviews. This month we cover the Grand Patrol on Friday night and the “Showtime” tournament on Sunday. By now Gen Con event preregistration has started. I hope you’ve registered because this will be the biggest Buffy CCG event in the history of the game. We will have more tournaments and more prizes during this event than were previously available, even during Score’s run of hosting these tournaments. We will have the first ever Gen Con Dream Card tournament. We will have our second annual North American Championship Series. It’s very likely that several positions within the top 10 World Rankings will change during this event with the possibility of a new player claiming the #1 spot.

Saturday, August 20, 2005 – 7:00PM

Classic Buffy CCG – Grand Patrol

It’s Classic, so you know you can only use Score printed cards from the Pergamum Prophecy, Angel’s Curse or Class of 99 expansions. It’s a Grand Patrol, which not only sounds special, it is. Back in January 2003, Score created the Grand Patrol tournament format in which the winners were award foil sets of cards. For the remainder of 2003 they combined this tournament with their Protector/Big Bad format where players of the top Hero and top Villain decks were awarded the titles of Protector and Big Bad. These are highly coveted titles and the prizes for such a tournament are usually just as special. And, in keeping with the tradition of offering foil sets, this tournament will have more foil prizes than any other Buffy CCG tournament at Gen Con.

Here’s another bit of trivia. The very first Grand Patrol was held at Outpost 2000 and Beyond in Brooklyn Park, Minnesota. It attracted 38 players from around the country and to date is the largest Buffy CCG tournament ever held. So if you’re wondering why the maximum capacity for some evening tournaments are 42, it’s to allow for the hope that some day we might attract enough players to equal or exceed that total. While we might be a ways off from 38, I do expect some tournaments this year to attract over 20 players. Not too bad for a “dead” game.

Sunday, August 21, 2005 – 11:00AM

Buffy CCG Extended Type A – Showtime

Not much else to say other than this is one of the most talked about new tournament formats this year. There were nothing but positive comments after its debut at Pandora’s Box. The following paragraphs contain the rules and some additional dialog about how they came about and hot to interpret them. These were initially published in the Tournaments Forum, but are also represented here to complete our review of the Gen Con Tournaments.

The following rules are applicable to a tournament played under the “Showtime” format. For this tournament type only, these rules supersede all normal playing rules and cannot be modified by card effects (unless those card effects are specific to a Showtime tournament).

1.      You may only achieve a full win by either: a) winning six fights, b) maintaining control of Sunnydale Park for six consecutive turns or c) achieving a score of 10 Destiny Points.

If one player is the only player to actually have characters in Sunnydale Park during the End Step, they are considered to have achieved park control for that turn.

2.      The winner of a “timed” game will be determined as normal (Destiny Points plus two times park control). If the two players are still tied, the player who won the most fights will be considered the timed winner. If still tied, the game will be considered a “timed tie”

3.      No challenge decks are used in this tournament. However, the following challenge will be placed into play at the start of each tournament game.

Showtime
Good/Evil Challenge (0 Destiny Points)
13 BK / 2 SM / 2 WE / 2 CH
This challenge must be placed in Sunnydale Park and may be faced by players of any alignment. The player who defeats this challenge needs one less fight to win a Showtime Tournament Game.

4.      Deck size must meet the normal minimum of 60 cards; however, every deck must contain a minimum of 10% unique characters. Unique is defined as characters that legally could all be in play at the same time.

Examples: Since you cannot have a Level 1 and Level 2 of the same character in play at the same time, you should only count one copy of the Level 1 version toward the unique count. Likewise, since different personas of the same character (i.e. Rupert Giles and Ripper Giles) cannot be in play at the same time, you would only count one toward the unique total.

5.      During the setup phase, all main characters are placed in Sunnydale Park.

6.      Legally playable character cards cannot be intentionally discarded for any reason. Characters that lose a fight are discarded per normal rules. If cards are randomly discarded from a players hand or from their Resource Deck and it happens to be a character card. It may be discarded.

Examples: You’re playing an Adam deck. You draw Glory during a fight. You cannot discard Glory to use the effects of Balthazar’s Amulet and you cannot discard Glory at the end of the fight.

However, if a character cannot legally be put in play (i.e. you have a supporting character that is the same as your opponent’s main character) you can discard for normal reasons.

7.      During the Fight/Challenge-Discard phase, you may place directly into play at any of your locations, any character card in your hand that is legally playable. If you have sufficient Destiny Points and your character is at your location, this would include ascending your character to level 2 or level 3.

8.      A player may not play any action that would send their character card to the crypt. However, an opponent may send your character to the crypt per normal rules.

Example: Your character has a Glove of Myneghon attached. Your opponent plays Clumsy Fingers. The Glove is discarded and your character is sent to the crypt. However, since swapping the Glove of Myneghon would normally send your character to the crypt, you may not swap the Glove. Likewise, you cannot play Blood and Crumpets for its text, since that would cause your character to be sent to the crypt. Nor can you use Ken’s text ability, which would send him to the crypt.

What Were They Thinking

1.      Why suspend the “Golden Rule” that allows card text to override the rules?

The Showtime rules were created for one purpose, to encourage players to go head to head against their opponent in an all out war. In other words, fight, fight and fight some more. The rules promote this activity, but it became obvious that some cards could allow players to get around the rules. They may still find some ways, but they’ll have to look a lot harder.

2.      OK, so what cards are impacted by suspending the “Golden Rule”?

By no means is this a complete list, but these are the ones that came directly to mind.

Dark Willow – The Showtime Rules specifically state that you must have six consecutive park control turns to win a game. Dark Willow cannot change this to three. Nor can The Master level 2 reduce this to five. You must have six consecutive turns in the park to win. But you can use Dark Willow as your main character in this tournament and since the Showtime Rules allow for a full win by winning six fights, reaching ten destiny or controlling the park for six turns, Dark Willow can achieve a win using any of these conditions.
Primal Connection – The rules state you must have ten Destiny Points to achieve a full win. Primal Connection cannot reduce that number.
Thrown to the Hyenas, Circle of Kayless, Join the Pep Squad – The rules state that you cannot discard a character for any means other than losing a fight, so you cannot use these cards for their text.
Rivalry – You can play Rivalry for its text effect that causes your opponent to discard items on Heroes and Villains beyond their selected two, however, you cannot discard characters. Since you only lose 2 Destiny Points for each character discarded, you would not lose any destiny points.
The End – You can still play The End for its ability to crypt all the locations in play, but all characters would remain in play.
Manacles, Hypnotism – You can still play Manacles or Hypnotism, but you may not discard a character from you opponent’s hand.
Glove of Myneghon, Tome of Mediocrity – You cannot perform any action that would knowingly crypt your characters, so you cannot swap a Glove or Tome attached to your character, nor may you use Clumsy Fingers on your own character to make them drop the Glove or Tome, nor may you upgrade the Glove or Tome with another item. However, your opponent is free to take actions causing the Glove or Tome to become unattached and thus crypting your character.
Bizarro Streets of Sunnydale – Since the rules define a park control turn as a player being the only one to “actually” have characters in Sunnydale Park, Bizarro Streets can not modify that condition. Basically, the text for this card is nullified.
Ken – Since his text requires sending him to the crypt, it cannot be used.
Blood and Crumpets – Since this text requires sending one of your own characters to the crypt, it cannot be used.
Balthazar’s Amulet, Empty Puppet Case, Feast on Virgins, Studying – When using the text on any of these cards, you cannot discard a character card.
Unknown Outcome – If playing this card would intentionally cause you or your opponent to discard a character, it may not be played. Basically, if the cost to perform an action requires discarding, you cannot play the action if you are forced to discard a character or it intentionally causes your opponent to discard a character. If you have no knowledge of you opponent’s hand from ordinary game play, the contents of her hand may be ignored (i.e. If you don’t know what’s in your opponent’s hand, you may play Unknown Outcome even if it forces them to discard a character).

3.      Why isn’t the player with the most number of fight wins automatically considered the winner of a “timed game”? Isn’t winning fights what this tournament is all about?

Absolutely, but in the interest of promoting full wins, a more important consideration is encouraging more fights. If you’re up on your opponent by one or two fights and time is winding down, there is a strong temptation to retreat to your locations. Especially if your opponent now has the advantage in terms of skills and items on their characters. Well, find another way. If you let your opponent control the park for one or two turns, that will more than compensate for their winning fewer fights and you will give them the “timed win”.

4.      If this tournament is all about fighting, why allow other win conditions?

Basically, to help avoid situations where players aren’t sure they should fight, so they basically avoid you for 2-3 turns hoping to “beef up” their characters. They better be careful, if they don’t fight you until turn 4 and then they lose, can’t get back into play until turn 5 and then can’t fight you again until turn 6, they may end up losing the game. So the simple answer is, to help speed things up. Players may think they can avoid a loss by avoiding a fight, this helps mitigate those situations.

5.      OK, so I get that there are no challenge decks, because this tournament is all about fighting. So why have one challenge in the park?

Several reasons. First, this challenge is unique to a “Showtime” Tournament, so it can modify the printed rules and reduce the fight win condition by one. It gives you something to do in terms of card draw if you’re alone in the park. And while this challenge isn’t worth any destiny points by itself, you can make it worth destiny points through Offer of Ugly Death, Will You Go to the Dance, or other means and possibly win the game through 10 Destiny Points. That’s another reason for your opponent not to leave you in the park by yourself. Again, we’re trying to promote confrontation. This is not a game for timid players.

6.      Why place your main characters in Sunnydale Park during set-up?

Why not? Let’s get things going. There’s actually another reason. During play test it became apparent that card drawing was a little more important in “Showtime” than in many other tournaments. There’s way too much temptation to put your main character at Bizarro Sun Cinema and sit there. You could still do that, but not in turn one. It gives those decks that aren’t active in the first turn an equal chance to get out to a good start.

7.      Why do decks have to contain at least 10% unique characters?

Well, we didn’t want this game to be all about one character decks. Obviously, most decks would love for all fights to be against their main character. That’s likely who they built their deck around and will be the toughest character to beat. And sometimes, if they draw better in the early rounds they can get off to a good start and never look back. This way, they’re more or less forced to put other characters in play. Characters that you may be able to beat. I say “more or less” because nothing forces them to put a character in play, but since they can’t discard a character it will tie up a spot in their hand if they don’t. Plus, if you only have one character in play, your opponent can never win more than one fight in a turn and most games will likely “time out”.

Just remember, the 10% is minimum, so if your deck has 61 cards including your main character, then you’ll need to have 7 unique characters in your deck. At 71 cards you’ll need 8, and so forth. This prevents people from building 100 card decks and still only having 6 characters, thus lessening their chance of drawing a character they need to put in play.

8.      Why don’t you allow discarding of character cards or crypting of your own characters?

Basically, see the answer to #6. We want other characters in play to spice up the playing field and create a variety of fight matchups. But note rule #7, which allows you to basically put the characters in play for free during the Fight/Challenge -Discard phase. This way you’re not tying up your hand with character cards going into the next fight.

With respect to crypting your own characters, again, we don’t want players trying to avoid fighting by getting their characters out of Sunnydale. We’re not looking for Anya at the end of season 3, this is “Showtime”!

While not a rule, one thing that became apparent during our tournament in Iowa is that you need to make sure you bring enough die or markers to keep track of fights won, destiny points and park turns. That part gets a little confusing if not marked clearly. It’s not too bad, it’s just worth pointing out.

One additional comment that needs repeating, I can’t say often enough how gratifying it is to get the support of other companies producing Buffy products for our efforts. It’s easy for me to say to go out and buy their products, because I was doing so even before they agreed to support us. So one more time, please check out these companies products. They don’t have to support us. They just happen to appreciate a group of fans trying to keep a game alive.

Score Entertainment
Inkworks
Eden Studios
Diamond Select Toys
Cinequest.com

And finally, the rest is up to you. The success (or failure) of the Buffy CCG is highly dependent upon how many of you show up to play. Only through your continued interest will these tournaments be held. Please come with the intention of having fun. And PREREGISTER. It makes a difference and very much helps us promote the game. If you know you’re going to play anyway, what’s the harm? This is our showcase event and the one place where we can show the gaming companies and community that investing in Buffy is a good thing. I look forward to seeing everyone there.

The next Newsletter (Volume 2, Issue 6) will be released in August, 2005.

All logos, characters, and likenesses thereof are TM & © Twentieth Century Fox. All game mechanics and card likenesses are © Score Entertainment. Use of these are without permission and are not meant as a challenge to any copyright held.