GenCon '96: The Sights, The Sounds, The Smells (or, "Look Out; Here Come the Vampires!") Part One: Wednesday through Friday Originally, I wasn't planning on going to GenCon, but Cip McMann talked me into it. So, Tuesday, August 6, I found myself driving up to Indianapolis to spend the night at Chip's place. The next morning, he, his brother Mike, Matt Turner, and I all headed out for the wonderful city of Milwaukee, WI, to attend GenCon '96. After a few minor hassles on the way there (is it just me, or is Chicago the most depressing-looking city you've ever seen?), we made it and checked into our hotel -- 15 miles from MECCA, where GenCon is always held. From there, we decided to go register early ($50... sheesh...). And then, it was off to the Movie Edition sealed deck tournament across the street at the Hyatt. Unfortunately, I forgot my notebook, so I don't have a detailed report (I don't even remember who won). The tourney wasn't sanctioned, but, hey, it was free cards. What gamer can pass up free cards? I went to the semifinals of the winner's bracket, but then got taken out by Mike McMann (Chip's brother), who drew 7 or so dodges. Sheesh. I then fought my way back to the semis of the loser's bracket (beating Mike Swailes along the way, as I recall). Also along the way, one guy plays a Ped: Hidden Attacks Only on me; I slap down an Honor Bound, look at the three cards in his endurance, and say, "Start exerting." =) I draw very few defenses in the semis and fall prey to a Charm. Icky card. That's all for me... The others decide to take in the... local sights, so I head back to the hotel to plot out my coup for the next day. Muwhahahahahahah... THURSDAY: 5:30 - Alarm. Ugh. Snooze. 5:35 - Alarm. Ugh. Snooze. 5:40 - Alarm. Ugh. Can't find snooze, so I have to get up. Yuck. Around 6:30, Mike and I take the shuttle from the hotel to MECCA; Chip and Matt decide to sleep in. Wimps. After a half-hour wait, they finally open the doors. Am I ever glad we registered yesterday, as the registration line takes an hour or so to clear out. We register for the day's events, namely the noon qualifier and the 4 pm Alternate Ironman. After figuring in where everything is, I head back to the dealers' room to buy ME from TCG. I encounter Chip and Matt along the way, as well as running into Terry Doner, Bill Chien, and Bruce Loebrich. I think about building a deck using ME, but decide to run a standard Xavier deck with three ME cards: the new Quality Blades and a Scorn. I meet up with Ben and the TCGers in the lower arena. Ben tells me he's going to be using the one PG Darius per card title, until Chip and I point out that this is a bit sudden notice (10 minutes before the tournament). Apparently, Ben forgot to post it to the list. In retrospect, I should've kept my mouth shut and swapped out my third Stalk for a Poison Gas. I get a bye the first round. Yay. Second round, I draw Jason Griffey. Jason's running a Connor mini-tower with 1 gold foil card and 1 TCG. My deck runs like this: Turn 1 - Forethought, Stalk Turn 2 - Sedarius/power blow (MRA); Forethought his Watcher: Treatment Turn 3 - Alliance Turn 4 - Stalk Turn 5 - ME Scorn Turn 6 - Plan Ahead Turn 7 - Poison Gas to finish him. Wow. This deck runs very well. I'm even impressed. Chip doesn't fare as well. He has his opponent down 15-1, when said foe (Joe Alfano, I believe), completes a Destruction. Chip plays Kirk Matunas to reduce him to zero. However, on his turn, Joe plays a Seduce (as he's playing Amanda) and exerts for an attack. He finds one, Chip doesn't have a Holy Ground, and that's all she wrote. Ouchie. As luck would have it, I pull Joe the next round. He's playing Amanda with a Xavier (twice the restricted # of plots) Quickening and Destruction. He wins the roll, but my first turn Stalk/Alliance hurts him badly. Another Stalk, a Sedarius, an actual attack (wow), and a Poison Gas finish him off. I move on to face Charlie Bernstein, playing a Xavier 6 Stalk deck. Talk about degenerate. He hits me with 5 Stalks and an Alliance before I run through my endurance. It's off to the loser's bracket for me. If I'd won, I would've qualified. Sigh. Oh, well, there's still hope. There I run into Tim Spangler, who has a Kastagir with 3 gold foils. He gets me down to 8, but I manage to Stalk him twice, Sedarius him twice, use three Alliances (after popping my Nexus), and then Poison Gas to finish him. Jerry Schattenburg is my next foe, playing a Slan Exploding Blade deck. I win the roll and do a 1st turn Forethought/Stalk. Unfortunately, that's about the exent of what I can do, as he Challenge/Shooting Blade's me to death. Ick. I'm out one spot short of qualifying. Before the qualifier, I'd asked Ben what types of decks he expected to see in the top slots. He predicted a Katana deck woudl take it all. This prediction bears no fruit so far, as Katana decks are destroyed. Slan and Xavier dominate, taking 5 of the top 6 slots. We also have a discussion about whether Khan's helmet stops vertical or diagonal slashes (last decsion I heard: It doesn't). The free promo card of the day at the TCG booth is Ancestral Blade. I grab a stack for myself, my brother, Eljay, and the Bowling Green newbies. I buy more ME (up to 2 boxes now) and scramble to assemble a viable Nakano deck. Five minutes before the alternate Ironman, Ben informs me that this is a real tournament (unlike the qualifiers) with first place getting a Quickening and qualifying. I think my scream of frustration could be heard back in Bowling Green. Ben was neglecting to tell me a lot of things this week... Anyway, I take the good old "deck o' crap" (with maximum card cycling ability via ME QBlade and Master's Strategem) into the tournament. I use two PG Darius to bring in a LE Caught in the Act and a Swords to Snakes. Yeah, yeah, enough with the snickering already. First round I face Loren Coleman. Didn't write down what immortal he played, but it was someone with a Master's Advice, since I Policed the sucker. =) Eventually, I get my Swords to Snakes and Ped: Hidden strategy down and ping him to death that way. He hits me for some damage, but I copy his healing to feel better. Next round is against Curt Arndt, playing his trademark Richie with Kurgan and Katana Quickenings. He literally beats me to death, as I forget to copy his Divine Intervention to kill his Katana Q. Mea culpa, mea lossa. Chip winds up winning the tournament, putting him 2 Quickenings up on me, as well as allowing him to qualify for the championships. Chip, Mike, Matt, and I grab Axis & Allies and draft a kid nearby into being our 5th player. The game ends in something of a stalemate, as we have to pack up and leave at midnight or so to catch the shuttle. We make it back to the Grand Milwaukee and crash. The next morning, I sleep through not one but two alarms and miss the 8:00 qualifier. I roll over and accidentally kick someone who wasn't there when I went to sleep. Sometime in the night, our other three roommates (a friend of Chip's and two friends of his) made it in. I ride the 8:30 shuttle over with Chip and co. We latch on to Bill Chien and head over to the mall to eat before the dealers' room opens. After a bit, Chip heads off to buy a backpack, while Bill and I head back to MECCA. There, I bum around the TCG booth. Bill plays Master's Challenge there; essentially, you pick a pre-made deck there and play him with it. So far, Chip's the only one to beat him. If you win, you get two packs of ME; if you lose, you get a Thunder Buck ($5 off any $10 purchase at the booth). Mike Swailes and I play him a few times. I lose the first match against his Katana deck when I try Nakano. At this point, my initial predictions of Nakano being the most viable of the MEs doesn't look like it's gonna happen. Fortunately, I do learn from my mistakes and take Kastagir the next time. Bill gets ripped on defenses -- and then I play Battleground, followed by Battle Priest. A few Power Blows later, he's at zero, and I head shot him. He exerts... nothing. I take the national champ's head. Probably the high point of competition for me. Bill wants revenge and switches decks with me. I beat him again, then decide to quit while I'm ahead. =) Mike Swailes sits down to play him. After they beat on each other for a while, Bill plays Holy Ground. Mike looks at the card, then looks up at Bill with an "Are you insane?" look on his face. I look at the card, then look up at Bill with the exact same look. It was a Holy Ground: Forfeit. Bill's never gonna live that one down, especially since it's the only mistake I've ever seen him make when playing. =) The free promo card of the day is Delusions, so I grab some. I also pick up another box of ME (3 so far) and build for the 4:00 qualifier. I decide to go with essentially the same deck I played yesterday (Xavier). However, at this point, it's coming close to do or die, so I pull out my secret weapon: my new Kane Quickening. I also fit in a couple of Master's Strategem to get that all-important element of card cycling advatage. ME combo of the day: Quality Blade + Master's Stratagem. I'm the #1 seed. Apparently, most every other high-ranked person has qualified. Makes me feel *sooooo* good. On the other hand, though, the #1 seed means I should have any easy time, right? At the last minute, I decide to make a near disasterous change in my deck by removing my Illusory Terrains. After all, I think, there weren't any location-based decks yesterday... First round opponent is Tim Metza, playing.... a Connor Cave deck with 4 TCGs and a gold foil. TCG has decided not to allow gold foils to stack after several of us plotted to build the ultimate Bassett & Hotchkiss deck. Drat. =) Anyway, I get the definite impression that Tim goes easy on me. Very easy. He remarks that he wants to play in tomorrow's qualifier (unlike at Origins, once you qualify at GenCon, you can't play anymore -- a policy which I disliked and will discuss more in part 3). I also underestimated him as a player, since he doesn't know -- or at least, seems not to know -- what several of the LE and ME cards do. Then again, maybe it was the medeival costume that threw me... I do a second turn Sedarius/Thrust, which he Holy Grounds. When I Forethought it, he uses Alertness on it. D'oh. A few Stalks and some direct damage later, and I have him to 8. Unfortunately, he heals, then does a Battle Rage -- but only draws 1 attack. Whew. I manage to knock him down to four, and that ever-popular Poison Gas finishes it. And I thought I was supposed to have it easier... Next up is Kevin Murray playing... Connor Cave. Sigh. He uses a Slan Q and 4 TCGs. I Divine his Quickening and Stalk him, then wear him down to below 10. When I get him down 2 more, I play an ME Scorn (awesome card). Unfortunately, it has to expire, but I get off a Sedarius/Thrust. Time expires. He did want me to quote him in the report, however, so here it is: "For list- posting purposes, I hadn't reached my ability adjustment, so the final score was 11-8, not 11-3." =) Next up is Joe Alfano, playing, yep, you guessed it: Connor Cave. Sigh^2. He also has a gold, 2 TCGs, and a Kane Q. I Alliance him, try an ME Scorn (which expires), stalk him, and police his Master's Advice (pulling one of his Excessive Forces with my Kane Q to do damage to him as well). He uses my own Divine to get rid of my Quickening, and then I nuke his the next turn. A Sedarius/Thrust gets through to take him down to 5, and then an Alliance followed by a Poison Gas finishes the job. Whew. Still no easy matches. Now my foe is David Vanden Noren. At leat he's not playing Connor Cave, I think. No, instead, it's Slan Catwalk. Sigh^9999. He PG Darius'es in a Watcher: Treatment, a Shooting Blade, and a Kirk Matunas. He makes mincemeat of me rather quickly, as my own stupidity finishes the job; not only did I take out my Illusory Terrains, but I forgot to use my Kane Q until the turn before he gets his Divine Intervention. And it's off to the losers' bracket again... Here I run into C.A.N.A.D.A.'s own Mike MacKinnon, running Xavier. Wow, not a location to be seen. He pulls in an extra Alliance, and has 2 TCGs to back it up. He kills my Q on his first turn and manages to work me down to 9. However, my Stalks, Alliances, Scorn, and Poison Gas finish him. ME Scorn is such a wonderful card to use with Xavier... Mike's really a very nice guy, and I feel bad about having to put him out to advance, but them's the breaks. We play another game while waiting for the next round. Now it's time to win. Whoever wins this match goes on to the championships. Whoever loses gets to try again tomorrow. My opponent is Steve Elliot. All I'll say about him as a person is that I came to agree with much of what I'd heard said about him. Take that as you will. He's playing Xavier with an extra Stalk, Alliance, and Poison Gas. My Quickening saves the day. On the first turn, I pull his own Forethought and Stalk him. He's rather petulant about the whole thing, demanding that I differentiate his Forethought from the rest of my cards (I'm playing with sleeves, he isn't, plus his cards are very worn, while mine aren't). After I bow to his demand and put it in a hard case I have nearby, he plays something he knew I'd discard the FT on anyway. In general, this marks the tone of his side of the game, doing everything possible to disrupt any concentration I might have, including trying to draw other people into conversations about me playing the game. I suppose I should point out that he never actually becomes rude, just distracting. I suppose it's not unsportsmanlike by most definitions, but it doesn't buy him any brownie points with me, either. I borrow another Forethought and an Alliance to use along the way, then rip a TCG to stop his Darius'ed Disappear when I play my Sedarius/Thrust. An ME Scorn finishes him off, and I'm in the championship. I get a PG Darius for my troubles. I bum around for a while, and finally meet Monique face-to- face. I trade with her and several others. I decide to join the MtG Arena and play Mike MacKinnon in that. I realize in the middle of our match that Chip took my room key last night, and I'm now locked out of the room -- and the others won't be back until late. Sigh. Mike and I play some more MtG, this time Type I; he has a really funky deck. I talk with Scott Jones for a bit, the head upstairs, where I meet up with Terry Doner. Terry's one of those people you like from the minute you meet him. He's not the highest-ranked Highlander player, but he probably has more people cheering for him than most anyone else. I take a look at his deck; it's a good concept (slim Connor WGW/ Honor Bound with Mountain Caves). I make one suggestion: Focus. Every deck needs six of these. Trading: Hot cards are Katana's Taunt, the gold foils, and those 3-4 rares that your 3 boxes didn't have. The nots include any Nakano or Khan cards, Nemeses, John Macleod, Spinning Attacks, and those 6-8 rares you got 10 of in your 3 boxes. The ultimate Katana deck Ben spoke of still hasn't materialized -- and neither have the ultimate Connor, Kurgan, Nakano, Khan, or Kastagir decks. Most everyone seems to be playing conservatively and sticking with what they know. I think that Ben's a bit miffed at the lack of creativity so far, if not the volume of complaints over relatively minor quibbles (collation aside). I spend some time considering deck design while waiting for the shuttle. So far, I've achieved all my goals. I've beaten the national champion (in Master's Challenge), beaten the #1 ranked player (in sealed deck), and qualified for the championships. As I joke to Bill, if I can just find the woman of my dreams, I'll be set. =) I get back to the room and luck out. One of my roomates is asleep on the floor and has left the door ajar. I decide not to go to the MtG type I tourney tomorrow morning, and instead sleep an extra hour or two. I lay down and am out in a second. CONTINUED IN PART TWO