Secret HQ
art (c) Mike Trap
KublaCon had a pretty decent turn out -- there were 16-20 Shadowfist players (old and a few new).
There were several loosely run tournaments, but most of the weekend was straight up fun games. I must have played close to 40 games all weekend.
I think I need to use a little space to rant about how much I hate Shadowfist tournaments. Especially dueling. They bring out all the cheese. There are only two decks to play: Ascended and anti-Ascended. Dueling is too often decided by who goes first and needs a revamp. The worst games of the weekend were all tournament games -- they just weren't fun, and I think they caused some hard feelings and negativity among usually cordial players.
What was popular:
Mono-Lotus Pawn/Eunuch: Everyone seemed to have this deck, and it was as annoying as ever. Definitely not fun to play in a game against. This seems to be the same deck everyone has had since TW came out.
Mono-Dragon Hitter/Comeback: Another deck everyone had one of -- there was a fair amount of variety in them, yet they were all the same.
Ascended: We mostly saw these guys only in the tournaments, where they did well.
Mono-Monarch: Everyone seemed to have one or more Monarch decks -- they were amazingly alike.
Jammers were splashed around, with several mono-Jammer decks with new cards.
Saw a few Architect decks, some variety, lots of Gas, Imprisoned and Bombs.
The Guiding Hand was conspicuous by it's absence. The may have been partially due to last years GamesCon (post TW) where there were tons of Hand decks.
N2 cards were splashed around, but most people hadn't had them long enough to get a lot of decks. Some cards I saw:
Waterfall Sanctuary: Everywhere. Leave your Tank deck at home.
Prisoner of the Monarchs: The Monarchs sure have big jails.
Maze of Stairs: The Gunman still hasn't found his way out.
Bounty: The good Bounty decks work just as well without Bounty because of the jank.
Fire King/Ice Queen: Actually, everyone was playing the old ones since they are superior.
Suong Xa: She fit right in to all those dragon decks was administering Beats
Once and Future Champion: This guy is a house if he lives.
Fanaticism: Seemed to be doing it's trick whenever we remembered to figure it in (we must have forgotten about it 20% of the time).
Decks I got to play:
I won the Dueling tourney with a cheesy Asc/Jammer deck. Jammers is just Consumers, 1-2 Jockeys, Payback Time, Scrounging, Entropy and WTTMN? Ascended was straight up Pledged beats. Oliver Chen was serving big time, with Adrienne, Shinobu and Phillipe as cream. I need to pull this deck apart because it ain't no fun.
I had the unluck to open 6 Chiu Fa's from N2, so I had to make the deck. He was pretty bad, and you were always hoping not to draw him. I played him a few times with Feeding, and felt obligated to use his ability, but I would have rather attacked with him. Duodenum was pretty bitchin' -- he reveals Sites faster than Quai Li. I never got to use my secret tech of Seven Evils independence, but I will one day. What was really rocking is the Old Fire King -- with Feeding the Fires, he can actually pops out with regularity, and the new fire cards make his ping ability nasty (go go Fire Acolytes!). People were impressed by the fury of Avenging Fire =)
I also made and Ice gun deck with Spirit Poles (as did several other people) -- this one wasn't as fun as the other Monarch decks. Spirit Pole is too cheesy. My deck was especially bad and needs a lot of revision.
At least 3 people made the Thunder deck -- it was also pretty bland by itself, and I reworked mine a couple of time but it never seemed to work well.
(Quyen made the only Darkness deck I saw, and it was nasty. General Fung + Netherworld Portals was a beating stick). Darkness Warriors were especially confounding -- they were always doing their trick!
My ArcanoRat deck did well, but then again it's full of Gas and Imprisoned (gotta make sure your rats don't get picked off).
Most of the other decks I played were old with just a few new cards thrown in for spice, so I wont go into detail.
It was definitely a fun weekend, and I can't wait until GamesCon at the end of summer when everyone will have had time and access to N2. Once again the North Bay players talked the talk and walked the walk, while the South Bay players were schooled. I am looking forward to their pitiful attempt at revenge =)