Onyx Championships Adelaide 2011 Report Top Dragon

A week before the tournament and I haven't even looked at my deck. Since Alternate Worlds moved location in May, I have barely played L5R. I decide to concentrate on the costume competition instead. I spend the Tuesday before designing/drawing nine clan based illustrations to be made into stencils. I spend the Wednesday cutting stencils. Wednesday night, was the physical prep. Shaved my head clean, and removed my body hair so the stencils could be applied. (How do women do this all the time?). Thursday is back to 100% work, but a friend helps me out and air brushed the stencils with tattoo ink for me. I have five "clan" tattoos on my chest and five (four different) on my back. I get home about 10.30 pm and cobble together a deck based on cards I had originally pulled when they were released, my other five Dragon decks and some references to other decks I have seen. (Not sure if this qualifies as  Slugtech!) By this time its gone midnight and so I pack and go to bed. Jon Merteens, Neil Smithies and I  leave for Adelaide by car on Friday morning. We arrive early Friday evening, after social niceties and dinner we all settle down to finish off and tweak (in my case start) our decks. Since I really am unfamiliar with the current environment, building a deck without even playing almost half the cards in it is a real hit and miss. Jon and Neil offer some tips, which results in only one real change from what I had. Scorpion dishonour still seems strong and since I tend to face up to 66% of my games against Scorpion dishonour, I switch out three cards for enough talk. I sleeve my deck and don't think about it again. 

We sleep well, or at least I do. Neil dreams that he forgot his deck (again) and can't play with proxies. Jon tosses and turns constantly all night thinking how to tweak his deck against 40 different players, with different decks we have ever seen. This scenario continues through breakfast. Although there are more Melbourne players this year, team Vic is traditionally the regulars from Alternate World. These include us, plus Daniel Chlebowczyk and Dab Juleff.. 

Clan Breakdowns as follows:

5              Crab                                                       3              Crane                                     4              Dragon

1              Lion                                                        2              Mantis                                   4              Phoenix

6             Scorpion                                                 3              Spider                                    4              Unicorn  

1             Non-Human Unaligned (Shadowlands)                                                              33            Total

State breakdowns as follows:

3            New South Wales                                    6            Queensland                            15            South Australia

1            Tasmania                                                   8            Victoria

Round 1 – Martie Van Der Leest (Brisbane) - Outsider Keep - Unicorn Military

My name is called first for table one. My opponent is Martie. who lets out a moan when paired. Martie is a top Brisbane player having won major events and usually plays Scorpion dishonour. When he sits down, I ask why the groan. Martie replies he doesn't like me first up (as an opponent) as he hasn't beaten me in a tournament yet. This was a fact I was not consciously aware off. Martie switched to Unicorn instead of his regular Scorpion deck for this even, because his Unicorn deck has had an 80% success rate compared to his Scorpion rate of only 70%. Looks like my tweaking for Scorpion hasn't quite worked. T1 I get a pep and gold as does Martie. Turn 2 I duel and kill his pep and buy more stuff. Martie buy gold and pep again. T3 I repeat T2, duel and kill another pep for 7 honour. T4 I build more peps than martie and hit 28 honour. He buys Snow riders and Tsurachi Daikui and 2 more peeps, he now has 4. T6, I duel again, with Oki and another 4 honour pep in my provinces. Martie concedes. We are the first game finished. I am surprised at how well the deck worked, of course, getting a god draw does help.                                                              Win.                                        1 W – 0 L

Round 2 – Shane Pheeny - Brisbane (Slug) Shattered Peaks Castle - Crab - (Scout pep denial Deck)

I go to Adelaide to play Brisbane players? Slug has a funky deck (as always) that isn't any of the regular themes. T1 I get Haru and gold. By turn 3 I have 27 honour with two duels. Slug kills 2 minor peps with strategies and then he double Ambushes. He drops to negative six honour and kills my last pep on the board. T4 I buy two more, hit 33 honour with 4 provinces. He kills all my peps with strategies again and take a province (Jinn-Kuen with Imperial Treasury gives so much gold for these strategy actions). T5 I flip my provinces and get three holdings. I Border Keep and flip two more holdings and one pep (doh!). (I needed two to be safe from six cards).  He has five peps to my one although I cross 40 honour. He Ambushes with Jinn-Kuen. My first action (send home) is negated by his ability and then his plays a kill action (surprise). Over half his deck is kill actions. I have no peeps and only 8 prov strength. He needs to attack and take out all three. He Bamboo Harvest to draw three cards and unlike my luck, he scores and get a force pump which gives him just enough to take out all three provinces, as I have no presenceless defensive cards in hand. The Gods of the Law of averages did not like me in this game.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                Loss                                       2 W – 0 L  

Lunch Break

We have the costume comp after lunch. There are three competitors, Joshua Tomamak (Crab Trader) from Adelaide, Charles Thorp (Spider Shujenga/Samurai) from Brisbane and myself (Dragon Tattooed Monk). The local entrant Joshua won. I hope to post pictures with more detail on the tattoo later. 

Round 3 – Damian O'Dea (Adelaide) Temple of Purity (Enlightenment)

Damian is pretty much the father of L5R in Adelaide, although he has not been very active of late. I have known him for some time, when we both had more hair!. His deck is a patchwork of new/unfamiliar cards combined with his older style enlightenment deck. T1 I start with gold and a pep, while he gets a bad gold start. T2 I duel him and gain honour. By T4 I have more peps and 34 honour. Damian now finally, flips gold in his provinces. T5, I have crossed to 46, he has 4 peps to attack four provinces. He can't take 4 but may be able to enlighten. I defend one province, Wall of Honour and see what he can do to enlighten. He gets one ring out.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                               Win                                         2 W - 1 L  

Round 4 – Martin Kay (Adelaide) Embassy of the Crane - Crane honour/dueling

Turn 1 we both get high cost peps and we both border keep, resulting in a holding and a pep each. Turn 3 he duels, we both Hamstrung, I lose and he get more honour.  He taxes the Scum and drops me down to 9 honour. I finish the turn to 12 to his 16. T4 I duel him, he double Hamstrungs gains eight honour from the duel. I dishonour Shikishi, duel her and kill her (Causing him an honour loss) and I gain honour with another Hamstrung. I am behind in honour so I launch an attack. One of my two peps is favoured home, so I wall of honour the other. I get to 35 honour and go to the lead. T6 I hit 41, he now has Noritoshi and duels a few of my peps who all valiantly strike immediately. Martin has no way to cause me an honour loss and his honour gains now are irrelevant.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     Win                                         3 W – 1 L

Round 5 – Martin Bennet (Adelaide) The Forgotten Temple (Unaligned) - Playing Horde Oni/Goblins

T1 I get double gold, he double border keeps for double gold. T2 I get a pep, he gets two. T3 I duel, he refuses. I buys 2 peps and get to 19 honour. He gets another Bozu. Then Impossible Forces and kills my Taiko. Martin attacks. I defend and hold on to get to 32 honour and save the province, but I have lost peps. He has 7 big 'uns. He attacks again and I lose a province. I have 3 provinces on 35 honour, with 6 peps, he has 9. I Imperial Adjudication his Dish. He has an Only Action Speak in hand, but since I have already played one Hamstrung, he doesn't expect me to focus two, so he holds onto it for its second action, for the attack phase. He picks up another in his focus pool, so he focus's it so he can pick it up later with Scouting far afield. I have a Hamstrung in hand, but also pick up another in my pool. I focus both and cross. He is now forced to take 3 provinces. I defend one and manage to hold out. He was unlucky to loose this, I could not have survived another turn.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 Win                                        4 W – 1 L

Round 6 – Daniel Chlebowczyk (Melbourne) Kyuden Hida - Crab Scout Military

Pretty amazing that my first Team Vic opponent is not until now. T1 I double border keep for gold and Haru. Daniel gets double gold. T3 it is a slow build for us both (but this is worse for me). T4 I hit 27 honour. He attacks, draws  Satsu in with Scout trick, bows me and discards a card from my hand. From the five, he picks the only one that would have been useful. I loose Satsu. He draws another pep in. I try to hold out to get the honour from surviving the attack and save the province. T5/6 Multiple Only actions speak slow me down (More so when he recycles them with Seeking the Truth). I buy peps, get to 35 honour. He kills a province and I get to 39 honour next turn. He has 6 peps and I will cross if I can survive 2 attacks on 2 provinces. He splits his force 3/2 but also has two recruitment officers (retainers). I defend both and time is called. We finish the battle. He Shameful and Cowardly my two peps. I have no way to get them out or rehonour them so I loose 7 honour at resolution. Although I save one of the provinces, my chances of victory at this point are slim, so I concede.                                                                                                                                                           Loss.                                       4  W – 2 L  

Round 7 – Hien Pham (Alias H) - (Adelaide) Utaku Plains - Unicorn Military

T1 I get gold and Haru. He double border keeps for gold. T2 repeat of turn one. H flips Saibanken's Justice so no more favour lobbying for me. T3 I duel and kill a pep. T4 more dueling and killing, getting to 36 honour with 4 provinces. H has 1 pep and lotsa gold. H buys a pep in the limited phase, sneak attacks and kills a pep but not a province. T5/6 I cross with 43 honour and 4 provinces. H dishonours two of my peps (to prevent me from assigning them in defence). He attacks with 4 peps. I defend with my lone honourable pep, he assigns everyone there. He is out of sneaks. I "Fear ME" go to 44 honour. He Shameful and Cowardly my lone defender and then kills him, dropping me back to 41. He kills the province but I still have 3.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Win                                        5 W - 2 L

I finish 5^th overall. (third to eighth are all on 5-2) Only top 4 get into the finals. Team Vic finished Swiss on 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 8th.

The top four are

Dan Juceff (Scorpion dishonour), Neil Smithies (Unicorn military) Daniel Chlebowczyk (Crab Scout Military) and Slug (Crab pep denial).

FINALS

Semi-Final Dan Juceff (Sc) vs Shane Pheeny (Slug) (Cb)

Shane wins 2 to 1

Semi-Final Neil Smithies (Un) vs Daniel Chlebowczyk (Cb)

Daniel wins 2 to 0                                                                                                                        

Final - Shane Pheeny (Slug) (Cb) vs Daniel Chlebowczyk (Cb)

Shane wins 2 to 1

Contributions to Slug. Its amazing how much better you play when you are not exhausted or sick! His choice was to have Kuni Shikihime kill the Onyx championship (pending approval).

Thanks to the Adelaide crew (in particular Leigh and Andrew) for putting on the event, it was great to catch up with the local and interstate L5R community, had a ball.