Today was the 2003 Doomtown World Championships. Started at noon and runs forever, so it kinda blows out your whole day. Rhonda and I hustled to the vendor hall around 10:30am so we could get a little pre-tourney shopping in.
Picked up a starter and a couple boosters for the Spongebob TCG. I've been through the rulebook but haven't actually read it yet. It was cheap. That might not be a good sign.
Also finally demoed Portable Adventures and Testimony of Jacob Hollow. Our demos were delivered by former Doomtown World Champ Jason "The Kid" Jung; Rhonda had him autograph her outfit card sleeve for good luck. PA and JH were pretty cool. Third World is quickly becoming a much-trusted game designer in the Fourhman world. PA is so much like Battle of the Bands that you can get into it fairly quickly. There's some new intricacies and some better design and the coolest bit is that the game decks are uniquely themed yet entirely compatible. The initial releases are Lair of the Rat King and 8th Grade, so you can mix a fantasy realm with cutthroat junior high. Or you can opt not to.
Jacob Hollow is very much in the genre of Resident Evil or Eternal Darkness. Everyone plays a supernatural investigator fighting nasties and exploring dank unpleasant locales. Again, the demo was great... we bought all three games plus the Bands expansion set. Whoo. One hour in and already out $$$.
Doomtown. Here's why it takes so long. First everybody plays five games, each timed to roughly an hour. So you know you're in to sixish no matter what. Then the top eight players go to quarterfinals... four games, two games, one game, presto, one new World Champ. Last year my Whateley deck went 3-2 in the prelims and was blown out in the quarterfinals.
This year: after the five rounds, here's how we did:
Rhonda, Blackjacks, 2-3
Mike, Sweetrock GLR, 3-2
Scott, Law Dogs Mob Justice, 0-5
Shannon, Texas Rangers, 1-4
Joe, Whateley Extended Family, 5-0
Yes, that's right. I was undefeated in five rounds of play. The only undefeated player, out of twenty-some participants. And thanks to a complex scoring system, your opponents always get better throughout the rounds, to ensure a continual challenge. I'm awfully proud of my showing! Now, Mike would say I'm playing a pretty cheap deck, but it is tweaked pretty hard so it's not what the normal Doomtownie would expect from a Whateley deck. I know you probably don't play the game (WTF) but here's a layman's explanation of the Trading Card Game set in the Weird Wild West. The deck's central card is a location called Lord Grimley's Manor. (I hear any Doomtown players out there grumbling already.) The game works that you have to have more control than your opponent has influence. Control translates to property and physical strength, and influence indicates the power of the cowpokes in your gang. Grimeley's yields a vertiable shitload of control, and there's next to no way for your opponet to take it from you. Mike calls that cheap, and he's probably right. Tellingly, if I get Grimeley's out, I probably don't even need any people. In fact, my last two rounds here ended with me having no dudes in play, but winning anyway thanks to Grimeley's.
The balancing factor for my deck is that I try to make it shoot well, which is slightly unusual for the Whateleys. (This being a western card game, there's plenty of shootouts at high noon.) Several players today were kinda surprised to see me fight back so well, which was gratifying in a small way.
So, like wow. Undefeated. So I ended up ranked the top player, and Mike placed number five. One of Mike's losses was to me in round three of the preliminaries. It sucks to have to play against your pals, but it's bound to happen sometime.
After a dinner break, the top eight players reconvened for the quarterfinals. My first match was a picture-perfect play for my deck. I got nearly everything I needed in my starting draw to get Grimeley's out right away. So I won that one. Six wins in a row.
Top four players: Me, Mike's Sweetrock GLR, and two Sioux Brawler decks (a popular deck type involving Indian warriors and a nearly unstoppable shootout combo.) The placements were chosen: Sioux vs. Sioux and me vs. Mike.
It's a less than ideal situation. Mike and I play Doomtown quite a bit, and often these exact two decks against each other. Obviously one of us will not walk away a winner. It's unfortunate; neither of us want to be responsible for knocking out the other.
Mike won. He genuinely outpaced me this time, pushing out a ton of cards in the first turn that weakened me to the point of no return. I also pulled a pretty bad opening hand, giving me next to nothing I could utilize right away... and it goes without saying that I didn't get Grimeley's into play. But if I had to be knocked out of the finals by anybody, I'm glad it was him!
So Mike faced a Sioux deck in the final game... actually he was facing a past U.S. Doomtown Champion, Charlie Hooks. Kind of an interesting battle, since the Sioux are bred to fight and Mike's Sweetrockers really don't want to fight... and the Sioux probably aren't going to play much control at all, while Mike will drop a bunch on the table before the end of the first turn.
And so Mike did. He won, beating back a Sioux tide. My buddy Mike Fell is the 2003 Doomtown World Champion! He received a trophy plaque in the shape of a tombstone, a shiny gold sheriff's badge, and an authentic 1887 edition of Hoyle's Book of Games. (Which actually is quite apropos, given the timeframe and nature of the game.) In years past, major event winners also got their own card added into the game, in the form of a dude card with their name and a painting of themselves in full Weird Western gear. But since the game is no longer being produced, Mike isn't likely to get that anytime soon.
So way to go, Mike! I'd have rather it was me, but I'm glad it was you. After all, that Hoyle's really ought to be in the hands of a hex-slinging Whateley.
All eight of us (Meg's husband Raff finally joined us) went out to dinner in uptown Columbus at a diner that had exactly one employee for most of our stay. Then back to the convention center for more late night gaming and watching our numbers dwindle as people bailed out for bed.
