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I Went To Seattle and All I Got Was…

THE BEST TCG TOURNAMENT EXPERIENCE EVER!
August 14, 2013
By JMatthew

This past weekend featured Kaijudo’s very first championship tournament. By now you likely have heard about the results. How Bobby Brake managed to pilot his “Leviathan Control” deck through a somewhat rough start with an unfinished game two in his first match (which still went to him as a 1-0 win) and then losing his second match against mono-fire rush. After that round 2, Bobby’s deck was warmed and he went on to prove that being number 1 in the rankings isn’t just about “attending a lot of tournaments.”

Unfortunately for me, I did not manage to qualify as consistent 4-2 records with not good enough tie-breakers seemed to be my bane for the entire KMC season. On the flip side, my son did qualify so I had the chance to participate in the awesomeness that became the first Kaijudo “Champs Weekend.”  Being at the Champs Weekend I learned a few things about Kaijudo. The following is a rundown of those things I learned... 

Kaijudo players are a really cool, nice and a great group to be around.

Meeting this crew in person was not only a pleasure, but an honor. With 19 years of TCGs under my belt including A LOT of competitive play in more games than I care to mention I have literally NEVER met such a wonderful, fun and exciting group of people. Everyone was friendly, welcoming and simply great to be around whether they were simply visiting the tournament site, but not participating, playing in the Champs weekend or there as a representative for WotC.

Rob Gruber and the Good Times Games crew are a good example of this as everyone knew who they were before Friday’s LCQs were completed and it wasn’t just for their thick Canadian accents, eh? There wasn’t a moment they were not a blast to be around and I believe the majority of the people felt the same way about the group of players and WotC folk in general.

As for WotC representatives, they made sure that they were a plenty. You couldn’t throw a Hybrobot Crab without hitting one, each of which were always more than willing to chat with you or even throw down for a game or two.  

Kaijudo players are a group paranoid, annoy, pathetic people.

Or at least some of them are unfortunately.

I’ve seen a lot of pathetic people claiming to be Kaijudo players tearing each other apart all over the internet and over the stupidest things. While I really didn’t see so much of that in person during the Champs weekend, such ridiculousness did emerge on the internet almost immediately after the Champs weekend was concluded. One player who was in attendance decided it was a good idea to start bashing on the hard fought skills of a 14 year old kid and claim that he didn’t earn his spot in the top 8. While this complainer disguised his “concern” as “he wanted to make sure the system wasn’t broken” the fact that he bothered to sit down and do the math to SEE if that the kid had made it in legitimately demonstrates to me that this player was specifically LOOKING to discredit the young Kaijudo Master.

The claim was that the kids tie-breakers were altered to ensure that he would make Top 8 if he ended up with a 4 – 2 record. So, this player’s means of thanking WotC for supporting the game and giving the players a great weekend was to accuse the company of pushing in a kid so that they could show that even a kid could make it. Despite these accusations that player’s age has never been mentioned by WotC. WotC did not perform a special interview with that kid in order to trot out to its hopeful, younger players. WotC did not perform a deck profile on this kid’s deck. The closest thing to any “special attention” this kid received was for his feature match versus Robert Hebert. I say “special attention,” however both players were high up in the standings by this point.

 How do I know this for sure?  Because I happen to be that kids dad. I can assure everyone that no foul play ever occurred. Ryan is an extremely strong player – one of the best in North America, I’m sure. He has proved himself in the rankings, KMCs and finally in at the Summer Champs itself. He plays and practices in the very same local meta that brought us both the 1st AND 2nd place finisher of the Summer Champs tournament. If you are player who didn’t make it to the Champs, don’t be salty. Step it up and prove yourself. Made it to the champs, but didn’t do as well as you would have liked? Don’t be salty. Step it up and prove yourself next time.

Rush proved itself strong.

The Champs tournament saw three mono-Fire Drakon and three mono-Light Enforcer decks in a field of 46 players. That makes for 13% of the field being rush. Based on those statistics even odds would say that no rush deck stood a chance of making it into top 8. In real life 2 of those decks made it into top 8 would makes for 25% . That’s nearly twice the success ratio that would be expected.

For a long while people have claimed that rush decks simply didn’t have the chops to make it consistently into the top spots. Those same people pointed to the numbers of rush decks entered into the field during the KMC season and how few of those made the grade. My argument all along has been that it has not been the decks, rather it has been the pilots simply making bad choices. I believe that the Champs tournament was the ultimate test of this theory as any player running a rush deck during the tournament surely would be a capable player. Sure enough, rush beat the odds as they found themselves pushing their way into Top 8. While one was mono-Fire and the other mono-Light both deck archetypes are essentially the same.

WotC will not be banning Bottle of Wishes anytime soon.

“Variance” was the word of the weekend! During the WotC panel the designers explained that they felt that Bottle of Wishes was good for the game as it included just that bit of variance to the game making it more exciting. They went onto explain that while they do believe that Bottle of Wishes can create explosive results, (such as the turn 2 shield into Tritonus that I experienced during the LCQ) though there are so many MORE stories that people don’t tell regarding when bottle hit something such as a bird or a Stormspark Blast with nothing worthwhile to tap on the board.

 

WotC is concerned about Keeper of Laws.

Speaking with the head of R&D with regards to Keeper of Laws we found out that the card was intended to give agro decks a weapon to use against control. Of course, the first seriously competitive deck which players shoved Keeper of Laws into was…a control deck. Sounds like this had WotC face palming and now Keeper of Laws IS run in agro as planned, however it is seen in just as many, if not more, control decks making it the 3rd most played creature card amongst the top decks through the post-Clash KMC season. WotC states that, unlike Bottle of Wishes which they seem completely unconcerned about, they are watching Keeper of Laws effect on the metagame carefully carefully.

WotC wants to seriously create a game that is about the community and the experience.

Words to this degree where spoken regularly throughout the weekend. WotCs focus is on the “the experience” of Kaijudo. With that Kaijudo is never intended to be a big money game like Magic: The Gathering, rather the “profit” one will see in the game will come mostly from the sense of community and fun the game provides.

That’s all good and well, but words means nothing without actions, right? Champs weekend firmly demonstrated to me that WotC is not only saying those words – they MEAN them. By Saturday afternoon the regular chatter throughout the room was about how awesome the experience had been so far. The majority of the players did not even CARE about the tournament the next day. Sure, they wanted to play, but the tournament had now been relegated in their minds to “just another even that weekend along the way.” Players created cards together, ate lunch all together, chatted it up, joked, played unlimited drafts/sealed mini-tournaments and just generally had a great, relaxing, memorable time. I doubt a single person walked away from the experience without making at least one new friend. For the majority of us we made so many new friends from all over North America that we simply can’t bother to count.

Additionally reinforcing the “experience” philosophy WotC gave away prizes to people they feel truly exemplified what they are looking for in the Kaijudo community. In fact, the prizes were rather surprising and nearly equal to what the top competitors received on for the Sunday Champs tournament. Each person received a signed, from copy of the Infernus the Awakened art work and an iPad Mini!  

In closing , I’d like to say. Great job WotC! I have only compliments on your event. For a once jaded Duel Masters player I have all the confidence regarding your seriousness of this game and most especially after witnessing the greatness of this past weekend.

 


 


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