Tournament Report: NY Kotei 2000

Hey everyone!

Kakita Taketoshi here with a rather long story about the Northeast Kotei, held at Neutral Ground Games in NYC this past Saturday, June 10th.

Bear with me as I travel back rather farther than the beginning of the tournament, back even before the morning when I should have awoken to begin the journey to
NYC from Boston, further back still than that, further than the previous evening when I was already far from home, and further back than that, to the Thursday
before.

It's important to go back that far so that everyone understands fully the events that transpired in the days following. Thursday evening I came back from informal
play at our hangout with my packing and tradestock-gathering to do, and didn't get to sleep till around 2:30 or 3am. Got up early the next morning to finish packing,
and headed out to work. That night set the tone for the entire weekend.

Work was hectic and tired me out rather significantly, as I had lots of stuff left to do before going out of town both with regard to my job and on a more personal
level. I headed out straight from work at 5pm to meet with Peter, Alex and Paul, my traveling companions for the trip. When I arrived at the store where we were to
meet, the only person there was a local regular, Marty Lund. He pretty much only plays T.A., and I had actually never seen him play anything else. Still haven't. He
had no plans to go to the Kotei, and he mentioned as we started playing a couple pick-up games that he wished he could go except that he hadn't made
arrangements for a ride or anything. I felt bad for him but as we had no open slots in our car it was pretty much just bad luck for him.

His luck turned when Peter, the driver, showed and said that Alex had bailed as he was renting a car to go down tonight, chill with his parents, and go to the Kotei
the next day. He would not be joining us for the trip to Gardner, an hour west of Boston, our first stop. This provided us with the perfect opportunity to press Marty
into actually coming. He struggled, and he struggled hard. Finally, we convinced him that it would be worth trotting off to NYC for the weekend, getting very little
sleep and meeting lots of strange people. Exactly how we convinced him of this, I think we'll never discover. I'm thinking about going into hypnotherapy so that I can
uncover the secret of our success and use it for personal gain from now on. As you'll see later, it had incredible effects.

So we made the trip to the Knight's Quest in Gardner upon Paul's arrival, Marty in tow, and it was only after we had been on the road for twenty minutes that he
realized he didn't know how he was going to get home on Sunday morning/ Saturday night, as he lived a good hour from where the rest of us, and no one was going
to be in the mood to make a long extra trip at 3am or so. I adopted the Zen approach and cackled madly as I determined not to think about it. Everyone else
advised the same for Marty, as he was pretty much stuck at this point anyway.

Once at Gardner, we had a good hour or two to wait till the final Kotei-prep tourney was underway (yeah, you heard me right…a sanctioned 40/40 open
tournament starting at 9pm the night before Kotei, a 5-hour trip away), so I started trading with everyone I could find. I raped trade binder after trade binder
searching for anything that would enhance my cardbase for when I reached NYC. I was convinced that, as the larger the tourney gets, the better the trading gets
along with it, once I reached the city it would be heaven for trading. I managed to pick up two Swords, two Foci, two Kolat Masters, an Inheritance, an Imperial
Gift, two Paths of Wisdom, etc that night. I was assured of grand things come the next afternoon.

So, at 9pm the last stragglers (Chris "Rakki Yaro" Burns, Monkey clan Guerilla, and Tim Smart, Naga Shady Dealer) showed, and we could get the tourney
underway:

My deck was Esteemed House of the Doji, with Hantei sensei. It's honor tricks, with Ki-Rin, Lady Kitsune, poets, and Remember What you Have Seen (which
freaked out an opponent the week before when it got me 10 honor in a single turn, after which I sacrificed Lady Kitsune in a defense and gained 10 more to win the
game).

Round 1: Dan Keene, Ninja lockdown

This game was rough. I had a pretty decent start, but as I was playing a quasi-weenie deck my chi didn't get high enough to take early provinces, especially as he
had a great start with lockdown. Early Areru, Yogo Asami, I Hantei'd Ninja Kidnapper, Kolat Servant locks down the stronghold, and I start to crawl to honor. I
manage to get to 40 without losing my fate deck (Doom of the Dark Lord Death Deck), only to see Kisada's Funeral show on his turn. Due to Hidden emperor
coming up earlier, I'm unable to attack him (figured I'd just run for honor) to use up my military-based hand and play the Ring of Void that's just sitting in my hand
already, and I concede, knowing my death is assured. I later realize we were almost at time, and if I had just played it out I probably would have won on
tie-breaker points. Dan's deck was good, very tight, and highly scary/irritating. Good game, Dan. Remember this face, you'll see it again later.

0-1

Round 2: Spawning Grounds madness with Nio sensei (sorry, I forgot your name!)

I came off fast and was able to deal with the slow start my opponent was getting. By the time the Ki-Rin hit the table, it was almost unnecessary. He managed to
steal it in time to make one attack but I decimated his army anyway, stunted as it was by his low gold production and lack or personalities in the second half of the
game.

1-1

Round 3: Chris "Rakki Yaro" Burns

I faced off against Chris, as he had had a bad previous game, and I witnessed his growing dissatisfaction with his deck as we played. Basically, it came down to me
defending myself multiple times, each time sacrificing personalities to save provinces and poeting them for a small honor gain each time. Eventually I had worked my
way up to 33 with three poets in play and the Favor. I had two provinces in play, and Chris rightfully thought that now is the time to attack. The poets were the only
guys I had in play, but through an unexpected move I managed to throw an Arrival of the Emerald Champion in the way, who was promptly crushed by the army
(also losing the province), but he was poeted for 9 honor (bringing me to 42), and Chris was unable to move units over to take the other province so that won me
the game. It made him a little bit mad, but that's understandable.

2-1

Round 4: Ryan Jensen, Crane cheeseboy

I have to say that Ryan is probably consistently the best Crane player in our area, and it's unfortunate because ever tournament I go to at KQ I end up paired off
against him at one point or another, and I always lose. Except the one time he played Fox and I played a deck a lot like his style and beat him with his own torn-off
arm. You can probably guess how this one went. I had no illusions.

2-2

At this point, I was pretty sure I wasn't making it into the quarter-finals, as I had to win the next game to even have a chance. My situation is that I often end up 3-2
and with a mediocre strength of record so I get 9th or 10th, just low enough to not make the top 8. 

Round 5: I can't remember for the life of me who I played in my final round, all I remember is that I won. By this time it was around 1am, maybe a bit later, so my
head was a bit fuzzy.

3-2

Amazingly, I make it into the quarter-finals. Hooray! My first quarter-finals finish in a constructed deck tournament, after six or seven attempts! I'm very happy, so
happy that I don't even really care about winning my next game, which is good because I end up paired up with Tim "Shady" Smart, Naga player extraordinaire. I
had played a near-copy of his deck the week before played by Hida John and been beaten senseless by it, so I had a rather bleak outlook on the game at its start. I
had made a few changes to my deck in the meantime but was under no illusions that they would save me. Purusha was the thing that killed me then, and it would
continue to do so now. I played well, and he played well, but my cards just managed to come up a teensy bit better. It came down to me at 42 honor defending my
last province. I went into the battle with more force (!?!) though he had some personality destruction and mine was limited to a single duel. He had two units left at
the end, and I handed the game to him by dueling the wrong one when all I had to do was take out the weaker one to win. He won the duel and took the province,
thanks to my bad play. I kicked myself for a while, then went back to trading and getting more cool stuff. Remember this face also. You'll see it again.

The game finished around 2:15, and people started crashing in the back room and on the floor in the front of the store as the final games took place. The finals
ended up being Vince Sosa, one of our resident ninja players and co-owner of the store, and our very own Marty Lund, in his second ever sanctioned tournament.
He conceded the game before starting it to Vince, in exchange for the tournament prize. Vince agreed, as it won him his pajamas!!! (For those not in the know, in
order to register as a Ninja player with the IA, you must win a sanctioned 16+ player tournament with Ninja. We had 17 that night.) Everyone was surprised by
Marty's presence in the finals, as he had gained the nickname "Fanboy" earlier in the evening for his devotion to Chris Burns and Chris's dedication to the Monkey
Clan Movement (the MCM), and no one respected him too too much as they had only just met him, and really who's going to respect a Monkey Clan Fanboy? It
didn't gain him a huge amount of respect, but it was definitely building. Remember this face. It, too, you will see again.

A large number of us stayed up the entire night, and I at least was surprised when I saw it start to get light out at 5am or so. There comes a time very late at night,
when even the moon is no longer out, when you really start to believe that if you stay up the sun will never come back. Especially when you're already
sleep-deprived and on the verge of hallucination. I wasn't quite there yet, but stay tuned. It gets better.

The bus showed sometime after 6:30am, and it gave everyone time to wake up and get ready for the trip, which generally involved little more than changing your
shirt and making sure your hair wasn't flying all over the place, although some pansies had actually gone home to take showers at some point. Then, we were off.

(Part II: The Bus Trip, soon to come)Kotei Tournament Report: Part 2

A quick note before I resume: I got an email from the wonderful fellow that I played in the second round of the Friday tournament…his name is Aaron Osborne. A
great guy, very nice, and we even talked for a while after the tournament and on the bus, I just blanked on his name for some reason. He was down from Maine
with Dan and Roger (Yogo Ono).

To continue:

If the night before was bizarre, with unbelievable trades, a total lack of sleep, and my first quarter-finals finish, along with my first totally-blown game in a
tournament, then the bus ride could only be, as Chris described it in his report, surreal. It all seems to make sense in retrospect, but obviously I'm still suffering from
the effects of my weekend as one of my co-workers told me a few minutes ago that I was acting very oddly. It wouldn't normally affect me, as I am a very strange
person, but she's the sort of person I usually tell stories about to amuse my friends. So it comes as a bit of a blow.

Anyway, to continue with the story:

We all hopped on the bus, all 41 of us, and headed south for Neutral Ground NY. I was sitting in the back with my buddy Paul, with Yogo Ono, Marty, Peter,
Ryan, and Matt (another Crane player) nearby.

After we had been on the road for 20 minutes or so, a guy up in the middle of the bus discovered that he had forgotten his deck! I laughed out loud, as many
people on the bus did, and people started scraping together cards to help him build a deck from scratch. Way to go, team! I'm really proud of everyone for pulling
together to help him out. I didn't catch his name, but I'd like to see a tournament report from him to see how he did.

The bus trip was relatively normal, with the sort of conversation you'd expect out of a couple score of gamers, mostly L5R story-related stuff, interspersed with
conversations about the viability of different cards, dominance of deck archetypes, and general Phoenix-cheese bashing that I even heard some of the last time I
went to visit my old grandmother in the nursing home.

Things were vaguely normal until we hit our rest stop, near the junction of the mass pike and whatever highway takes us down to NYC. We stopped at a gas
station and their restroom was busted, so we split up, a half dozen of us heading over to a diner and the rest to a HoJo's. On the way out I decided to grab
something to eat (having had nothing since 8pm the previous night, it was now 8am and I hadn't slept so I was burning fuel fast the whole time. Unfortunately the bus
was waiting, so I couldn't get something normal to go, so I got a fountain root beer and a chocolate chip cookie. I have blood sugar problems so it was just what I
needed. Well, maybe not what I needed with no sleep, but it kept me moving at least, and I wasn't quite a zombie. Zombies are scary, but they're not as weird as
me with no sleep and lots of sugar.

While I was getting my cookie and drink, Tim came over to me and asked if I had any quarters. I handed him my only one and asked what he wanted it for.
"Pikachu," he called back over his shoulder, "to stick on the front of the bus for our own Terrible Standard." Great idea, I thought dimly, still waiting for my sugar
infusion. It never occurred to me how he planned to buy a Pikachu in the middle of nowhere for a quarter, but I was soon to find out.

He came back around the corner a few minutes later with a bright blue plush dog. "How cute," I thought, realizing a few seconds later that he was going to get
Pikachu, and that was definitely not Pikachu. It was then that I learned how he got it. There was a toy-grabbing game, the kind with the claw that you maneuver with
precious little dexterity and attempt to grasp some sort of prize. He had failed to grasp the Pokemon toy, but managed to snag the dog instead. It wasn't yellow and
annoying, but it would work nonetheless. Tim became Peter's hero from that moment on, as it only took him two tries to snag something from an almost-impossible
game. I have to say I was already proud of our accomplishments on the Kotei trip. We didn't even need to get to NY.

Once back on the bus, I immediately scarfed down the cookie. It would be my only food for the next 12 hours, though I didn't know it at the time. Boy am I glad I
took the chance to grab it. The dog soon earned a name and a place in the hearts of our little rag-tag band. Bossneegee, or Boshnigi, or Bosnigee, or however you
want to spell it, became the poor tyke's name, given to it by Kyle. I'm not sure where it comes from, but you can be assured that, wherever that place is, it's dank
and probably smelly.

Bossneegee quickly became our group's mascot, and we were impelled to chant his name over and over in a disturbingly cult-like manner, along with cries of
"woooooooo!", which is Bossneegee's sacred word. All those who seemed reluctant to adopt Bossneegee as their patron saint, spirit, or deity were bombarded
with intense peer pressure and snide comments, such as "Matt didn't say Bossneegee! Let's hear a 'wooooooo' from you right now, before we smack you around,"
and "Say 'woooooooo,' dammit!" Eventually we converted pretty much everyone that we noticed not participating in our little rituals, except for Paul who was sitting
next to me trying to get some sleep and thought we were all stupid anyway. I thought about giving him grief but he would probably just hit me so I decided to leave
him be.

At this time, Bossneegee started to develop more distinct qualities. He became vengeful and jealous, and would only let certain people touch him. He refused to be
insulted and would impel his followers to violence upon any who besmirched his name. He didn't tell us any of this but we figured it out pretty quickly nonetheless.
Did I mention that many of us were acting on little or no sleep?

Back to the story:

(the following section may not be suitable for younger readers)

Somewhere in Connecticut I had the realization that the amazing "missing helmet" enigma surrounding Doji Hoturi and The False Hoturi was the result of Kachiko's
plot to ruin Hoturi's reputation by sending out the Egg of Pan'Ku to give lousy head in the guise of the effeminate young Crane Champion. This revelation was
greeted with a rousing cheer from the other travelers, who wondered why they hadn't realized it earlier. Some of just have a mind for these things.

Just over the border into NY, I decided to start waving at our fellow travelers, assuming that people were more willing than they actually turned out to be to share
themselves and be friendly toward a twenty-something year old man in a school bus. It's tough to think things out properly sometimes. We all realized we must look
like some sort of cult, so I posted a helpful "Not a Cult" sign in the back window of the bus for the benefit of other motorists, just so they could be sure.

After a barrage of bad smells and insulting comments while traveling through the Bronx, we finally made it to Manhattan, where we noticed that someone was
having a parade running north-south that would separate us from the part of the city where the tournament was to be held. Uh-oh. Fortunately, that was 85 blocks
uptown, and the parade wasn't quite that long. Phew, a close call.

It seems like it would be a bad idea to build a city with only one-way streets, at least if you plan on letting people get places. Our bus driver seemed to agree, but
we made it to the store with a half-hour to spare after spiraling around the location for a few minutes. In we went, prepared to demonstrate the power of
Bossneegee to the infidels who waited within.

End Part II

(Part III: the tournament)