Just this evening, I realized that Titanium Johnson was yet another Jammer punny name.  Boy, do I feel naive.  It's taken five years for that to register.  My friends must really laugh at me.  Oh wait, they do already! 

 

So, I'm going through Shadowfist stuff (obviously) this evening while preparing for CopperCon XXV, where I'll be doing Shadowfist demos and tournaments, giving out free Shadowfist boosters, and otherwise celebrating Shadowfist's 10th anniversary.  However, I have decided to take a break from all of that to tell you a little bit about GenCon.  As I go through the cards, memories are fresh in my mind of their last use (GenCon, keep up with me here!). 

 

Here I am getting a demo of Santiago from Ben and David at the Z-Man booth.  Santiago is a great game of aggressive capitalist strategy.  I'd own a copy if I wasn't actively reducing the clutter in my home.  I do recommend it for people who like board games.

 

I had also just picked up my Who Wants Some Cards, which you see on the table.  I won the two games I won with the deck I later built by getting out the Mother of Corruption you see on top there.  Once she's got an Evil Twin , there's no stopping them!  Muah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah hah! 

 

OK, so I also played some Shadowfist.  I bet that surprises you.  What surprised me was how much better a player I was a year later.  Especially considering how few opportunities I had to play bettwen GenCons.  Last year I won Most Losses for the Both Guns Blazing Tournament, and was ridiculed for my deck design strategies by the big players during and after each event.  Jim Pai and a few others gave me some advice, which along with my experiences with all new metagames and their players made me the player to fear locally. 

 

This year I tried to get Ken to avail himself of their knowledge, but only succeeded in getting him there for Both Guns Blazing and Comrades in Arms.  To be fair, he was GMing T&T 7.0 demos and otherwise working the Flying Buffalo booth.  While I had a 4-3 record in the Both Guns Blazing (with my Jammers' Monkeying Around deck which was undefeated locally), Ken was lucky enough to win Most Losses.  If he'd have been able to continue beyond Comrades in Arms I'm sure he could have learned a lot. 

 

Comrades in Arms also used Monkeying Around (what a surprise!).  Here we all are gathering for the event.

 

The World Championships saw my entry of my Architects of the Flesh's Sinister Scientists deck.  It lost two games legitimately and lost two games in time outs.  While sounding bad, the time out games were this game pictured below against Sarah, Tor, and Michael and one against Julian, Ben, and Allen.  I believe Sarah made it into the final round (despite being in our timeout game!), and Julian, as people know, is on the design team and is keeper of the OmniFAQ.  In both of those games, people feared my deck so much that they actually commented about it throughout the whole game and adjusted their play in response to their fears.  While I believe Sarah or Tor was most likely to have won the one game, I believe I was most likely to have won the other.  However, timeouts being a necessity in tournament play, we'll never know.  It's just the fact that I was actually considered a threat by Julian (and others) who thought me unconsequential just a year before that boosted my spirits. 

 

During the Championships we paused for 10th anniversary cake!  It was delish.    It had the Flying Kick Ting Ting with Shadowfist in background that we see on the Shadowfist card backs, and a fairly good adaptation of the border effect (when switched from portrait to landscape).  Each person that took a piece of cake was given a box of Netherworld 2:  Back Through the Portals booster packs!    Is Z-Man the most awesome, or what?!    I know people took pics, but I can't find any at the moment.  So just image the cake and let the wailing and grinding of teeth for those who were not there begin. 

 

While at the con, I spoke to Zev about running Shadowfist events at CopperCon, despite not being in the Silver Band.  He was so excited, he thanked me several times at the convention and even promised prize support.  How cool is that?  What's amazing is that he remembered me on sight a whole year later.  That's a great businessman.  I wish I could do that for my customers. 

 

 

 

But, of course I did things other than Shadowfist and Santiago.  In my next installment, let me regal you with tales of T&T 7.0, True Adventures, and some of the best LARPs I've played!  In the meantime I'd best get some sleep before work tomorrow!

 

Thanks to Sheila for the follow quiz.  My only questions:  How'd I get pegged as the lame one?  And how'd I get picked as a leader when I didn't answer any of the leadership questions with affirmatives?

You scored as Cyclops. Cyclops is the team leader of the X-Men, and a skilled one at that. He loves Jean Grey very much. He's a strict and sometimes uptight leader, but he believes in his cause and he knows what he's fighting for... Peace between Mutants and Humans. Powers: Optic blasts Cyclops 85% Gambit 70% Jean Grey 65% Storm 60% Nightcrawler 60% Rogue 60% Colossus 50% Emma Frost 50% Iceman 50% Wolverine 35% Beast 35% Most Comprehensive X-Men Personality Quiz 2.0 created with QuizFarm.com