Preview Kotei Final Write Up
Having finally
gained some sleep after the Birmingham Grand Kotei I thought I would do a quick
write up on some points concerning the final match between the Shogun (Erik
Baalhuis) and the Crab (David Hoyland).
Before I start a few
caveats. For the final I was standing around a metre behind Erik so I was out
of his sight line to the clock and hopefully not close enough to be a potential
distraction to either player. This means that I heard nothing that was said -
only the two players and the active judge have that knowledge. I was also
typing live updates to the discord channel so would be looking down and
furiously typing on the phone - again this could miss stuff especially as
things would happen and I would guess what caused them and therefore could be
wrong.
Here is a practical
example. At one point after a crab conflict I looked up and Yakamoro was being
unbowed. I type an update along the lines of 'swh unbows Yak' when what
probably happened was the Crab said,' Yakamoro doesn't bow at the end of
military conflicts can I unbow?'. The key thing being I am guessing what
happened from the card states and can be wrong.
Secondly I am fairly
familiar with Erik's deck. He was the only person to beat me all competition
(and as I promised stopped me getting Hatamoto twice! Twice!!! - I promised I
would dine of this for the next year) so I felt the painful end of it and his Paris
deck was the originator for mine (with some changes) and though our decks were
different they probably share 90% cards. I had no familiarity with the Crab
deck beyond that being the same Crab-Unicorn thing they've been running for
what seems like eternity. It is not a good match for pre-Crane pack Crane (and
possibly post).
Thirdly I do not
consider myself one of the elites of the game like Erik or MindsDesire so any
comments on play decisions have to be weighed up against the fact that they are
better players so perhaps just know the better approach.
Finally I could see
odd flashes of Eriks unplayed fate cards. But that is not all the cards. I also
could not see any of the Crabs unplayed fate cards so any assumptions saying,
'this could have been done' could easily be countered by, 'yes but the Crab could
have done this'
Crane Deck
Erik's deck is a
wonderful thing. It prioritises mid-late game board state over early strength.
The key to it early is that you can buy someone with as much fate as possible
(Toshi with 3 or challenger with 3-4) defend one attack (hopefully that hits
Shameful Display or Magistrate) and in 3 out of 4 cases that attack will
provide one extra fate (2 seeker fate provinces and Manicured Garden) which
then allows you to buy one of the six one cost conflict chars in the deck or
Fumiki at two (passing fate dependant). Second turn you can normally also rely
on an extra fate from a ring as well so you normally 'have' defenders.
Once past the second
turn your board is now getting larger than your opponents and by soaking
attacks you should have been able to use your own provinces to strengthen your
position whilst not being weakened by your opponent's province line up. By
round four onwards plenty of power chars should be out and the Crane player
then gets to apply considerable pressure - allowing they haven't been
overwhelmed by that point.
Usually you want to
discard every character you do not intend buying to try and get characters you
do out as quickly as possible regardless as to who they are. A Toshimoko
sitting in a province for three turns is less useful than a live Whisperer
really (trying to attract a fight to a province notwithstanding).
This does change
slightly against Crab. The risk of Way of the Crab means you want a weenie 1
coster out for a round or two just as protection. At least until you get Voice
of Honor live. This can make the first two turns delicately balanced. When
playing against Crab the Crane (and probably other clans) absolutely need to
try and take them out quickly. Crab are the one clan who can out board dominate
the Crane due to their huge number of 'I don’t die effects'
Game Summary
In general terms
both players had good dynasty flips but Erik rapidly took control and
established a very strong board that was efficiently taking the Crab apart. It
was a game of two halves though and as it was a final one additional wrinkle
here was that the game was an hour and forty minutes and not an hour long. At around the hour the
crab was down three provinces to one had three-four honor left and Crane had
the favor. This though is where it all started to go wrong though. Crane's
board cleared bar a Nerishma and the
Crab board was getting stronger and stronger. A Steadfast Witch Hunter with a
spyglass played round two (I think) with a spyglass was still around and Kisada,
Yakamoro and Satoshi were also out. Crane's flip that turn was a bunch of
weenies ( another Nerishma and two whisperers if I remember correctly). Erik
let Crab take a province unopposed (Keeper ring so several keepers arrived to
defend) and then spent some time thinking before deciding to go all in and
dropping two fateless political rivals to covert out the two better political
defenders and attacking the Stronghold. The Crab defender had a bunch of
smaller dudes but lots of them (Keepers helping). He used the Stronghold to up
them all by one. Erik had to use something (Nerish of Formal Invitation) to
soak up Kisada's action which gave the Crab an action to play rebuild and
brining a Kuni Laboratory into play putting all the Crab defenders to three
political minimum and out of range of the Crane Stronghold. Crane was still
breaking after a couple of cards played (KD duel by a challenger on one of the
keepers I think) but then the third Fight On brought the 2nd turn Steadfast
Witch Hunter with Ornate Fans and Spyglass to draw a card and prevent the
break. Erik then sent the Challenger home to defend the Crab's next attack (he
was only two provinces down at this point). There was some talk on discord that
Challenger could have pulled one of the strong at home political peeps in
before running but that's allowing that it had not been used already (and I may
have missed it) or would have made a major difference (perhaps he wanted the
ring)
From then onward the
Shogun was almost totally on the defensive and the Crab player built up a huge
hand of conflict cards and even honor.
The key turn (to me)
was the one when the Shogun went all in on the Stronghold and the key two
defensive plays were the rebuild for the Kuni Laboratory and the fight on both
enabled by the fact Kisada needed handling. You could see from the players body
language that the Crab player was suddenly more relaxed and Erik was not as
calm as normal.
Anything Else?
Well apart from the
usual order comments - if Kisada had not appeared or if a different province
had not been hit. Which to be frank applies to both players I did have another
interesting conclusion. Erik, and many other
elite players, have the wonderful ability to make cards work for them. By this
I mean they never waste a card use for minimal gain. To give a practical
example involving Erik specifically (not in this game - I think this was a
discord game with the hand cards played the next combat). If Erik is attacking
a province and winning with 6 military
to 1 and his opponent plays a Banzai. Erik has two for shames and a voice in
hand then he will not use the voice OR the for shames. He is still winning the
conflict and when he uses those cards he will get a better use out of them
later. This seems , to me, to be quite a key skill set that Erik has mastered.
Using an example in this game Erik's opening hand contained two Way of the
Crane a Court Games and (I think) a Voice of Honor a Let Go and Ancient Master.
Erik did not splurge out on honouring but used just the Court Games on Doji
Challenger. Even when this was removed by Crab he did not instantly Way of the
Crane back but waited to see what his next turn dynasty flip was in case there
was a better Way of the Crane target.
This led to the case
that Erik had around two voice of honors in hand and honoured peeps and weenies
with one fate to soak up Assassinate and Way of the Crab yet allowed the Crab
to use two Fight ons (and a couple of Mountain does not fall - one of those was
censured *I think*) which were used by the Crab player to prevent the break but
not the ring loss. Erik then attacked into a face down Upholding Authority and
broke it and yes both Voice of Honours were discarded. Now I don’t know if preventing one of those
earlier 'fight ons' would have enabled the Stronghold attack a turn earlier?
This is all 'post game' with hindsight and 'in game live' you want to save the
Voices against WayofTheCrab or for that very 'fight on' or 'rebuild' that
blocked that final attack but I think that that decision - which is not a bad
decison and was possibly the best decision made at the time turned out to be
the key thing that turned the game.
Fascinating and it
was a privilege to see the game. David Hoyland the Grand Kotei victor was a
skilled Netrunner player and finalist at some of that games major competitions
and proved he's quite an asset to the scene (that’s info from the Crane chat
which may or may not be correct). He also played a blinder and the only reason
this is so Crane focused is because that is my own primary interest. Well
played to both anyway,
Tournament
Was beautifully run
so thanks to the Judging and Umpiring team from Ireland (I think) which also
contains several of the Imperial Advisor team. Numbers were decent but I won't
bother to run down those as ImperialAdvisor will do a far better job.
Footnotes
Though I was
irritated by the lack of the Crane pack things are what they are and FFG keeps
costs down (and thus in business) by having to make shipping decisions that
involve the container ships waiting till its full before leaving so 'meh'. It
probably helped me though. Crane numbers were drastically down and I think it
also takes months for a new pack to settle in and for people to work out the
'best' way to play it. Therefore I went into the competition with (almost) the
same deck I have been playing for months. With the Crane pack available
familiarity would be less and thus play mistakes more common. I am looking
forward to starting to work out the best way to use if. Perhaps not pure
duelling though as I think you can get duel focused and not win focused.
Thanks for reading
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