Budapest Kotei

Budapest - My first Kotei

Friday
We - me, Michael Tancos, Lukas Verner and Jana Korinkova - left Prague in the morning. The trip wasn't that long but I have to say that the temperature was quite a problem - it was 30 degrees of Celsius outside. Anyway we arrived safely to Budapest. We stayed in the city for a while. First we needed cash and then we just walked around the originally Jewish part of the town. We found a game store there near the Kotei site as well so we went there to check it out^_~. At seven we were supposed to be at Aron's place. We arrived late but still managed to meet. We stayed there overnight. During the night we made the final changes in our decklists, played few games discussed some cards and then went to sleep.

Saturday
The next day we got up and wanted to go buy something. We were told that it is a five minute walk and we were given the direction. But well...we did not find the store we were supposed to get to. We found a different one though but it was much further than we expected. We were simply pretty late for the kotei.

We eventually arrived to the site and there we found out that the start is not at 10am as we thought but at 11am. That was a good news^^. We pulled out our decklists, registered and waited for the first pairings. In the meantime I walked around and scouted some decks (when people were writing down their decklists). I saw 2 LSC decks, MANY Crane honor decks, several Crab decks and Scorpion dishonor decks. I did not feel well after seeing this...I decided that I would be playing Last Step Castle Honor. (I'll post the decklist later)

The TO gave us the pairings for round one but a minute later he said that we would get different pairings. So we waited for new ones...

Kotei
Round 1 - Crane Honor dueling

In my first round I encountered a crane deck out of Embassy of the Crane. I did not feel well and couldn't concentrate much. I was in such a state that I would be able to forget to tap a personality to the stronghold. Hopefully my opponent was writing down my honor gain and this kept me more focused. I got Haru in play and Public Records and I did not really know what to hope for. The first personality my opponent played was Hideo XP and I did not really like that as that's additional honor gain. He also got 2 My Father Shrines and I couldn't really catch up. I made several mistakes even though not usre if I could win the game anyway. I got Yodo in play and forgot about her ability for some reason. She was also the first target to get challenged. I did not realize that getting her dishonored would most probably mean a Peaceful Discourse being played a bit later. I HAVE NO IDEA WHY, because I wanted to dishonor my opponent's personality and actually PLAY my own Peaceful Discourse which was the top card of my library..erm Fate deck. After this failure I lost the game. I would have 38 honor at the end of my turn but my opponent got 42 in my turn already. Thanks to me. I felt terrible after this game...my self confidence was nowhere to be found...

0:1

Round 2 - Faceless Honor out of SoC
In my next round I was paired against Jana Korinkova with whom I arrived to the tournament. I knew her deck and I knew that I should most probably win. But I also knew that if she would play the deck correctly she could gain much more honor than me in her later turns (that means about 12 honor per turn). So well I just aimed to gain as much honor as possible. She got a playset of Houhous so I actually had a chance to challenge to a duel each of them once and get honor from that as well. I also dishonored one and played Peaceful Discourse on it. (I couldn't kill it at that time).

1:1

Round 3 - LSC Honor
In my third round I hoped to play against military but was paired with Nikoletta Nagy (a very nice person who let us stay in her flat for the remaining two nights). Nikoletta loves enlightment but plays Honor as well. Not a person I should expect something like Dragon Kensai or military Monk. It started to go wrong from the beginning. I was the one NOT starting to play which wasn't a good news to me. I got a better start though and managed to keep up with Nikoletta's honor gain. My only solution for this was to try to kill something dishonorable. Even with Hamstrung thrown in I should be able to out-honor her. That was my idea. She had Otomo Seimi in play and this guy would also give her additional 4 honor which I couldn't allow her to take. So I tried my luck - I dishonored that personality and challenged it to a irrefusable duel. Too bad for me... Niki showed me two hamstrungs which got her to 31 and I was at 28. Anyway I caught up with that again. But when I reached 40 Niki had 38 and I would be able to destroy a province with my little guys so she won. It was a really nice game, but I have to say that I did not really like the outcome of it. But it was a really good game and experience.

1:2

Round 4 - Outsider Keep
Finally I got to play against a military deck. I knew that two cards can make a hell for me - Tamago and Moto Chen. Tamago was played on turn two after my opponent used up his border keep but got to Blessed Herd. I wasn't really sure what to do with him so I cycled as much card as possible to get to something like Writ of Reprimand + Restoring Order. I drew Distractions at Court though and this helped me a lot to stop Tamago from attacking. When he finally managed to attack I already had Tamago dishonored and Restoring Order on my hand. So I just killed him from my first action (my opponent did not have Sneak Attack). Next Chen came, but I had Kitsuki Hanbei to make him 7F maximum which works with Outer walls even against Determined Force. This way I got a lot of time to get my 40 honor and win.

2:2

Round 5 - DGC Commanders
Playing against Daniel Nagy was really nice even though I did not like what was coming out of my provinces nor my fate cards. I knew that DGC can move freely and destroy provinces unopposed easily. Also they don't have a problem with force and usually can get to more cards than I do (sadly). I hoped to draw Hamstrung for such occasions or get some that would help with get the honor more quickly. My opponent also got slowed down because of playing Yoritomo Naizen, but even that did not really helped me. When I had two provinces left and 42 honor, my opponent turned the first card face up - Imperial Census. Too bad this card would actually mess my (already hopeless defense) so I played Forewarning. The second turned card though was New Order which just sealed my fate (Crossing the forbidden sea resolved as well but I did not care about that one). It was an interesting game and very valuable to me. Thanks to Daniel.

2:3

Round 6 - SPC Berserkers??
Um actually I don't remember this round well, I did not take notes except of my honor gain.
My opponent played Shikoujins, Ikarukani and Hida Yui (the one that bows). 1-3 personalities on my table usually ended up bowed or not being able to perform actions. But in the last battle where I had to go and defend I was able to kill all the personalities but one. I challenged two to a duel and I used Ring of Fire on another one. Ikarukani killed himself and took another two personalities with him. But hopefully I had Outer Walls for the Determined Force scenario. It happened and it was sufficient. A win for me.

3:3

After all those six exhausting rounds I ended up exactly in the middle. There were 30players and I my final standing was 15. Good for first Kotei, isn't?

Sunday
Second Chance Tournament

Round 1 - SPC anti-crane, anti-LSC deck
This WAS BAD. Kuronada XP in second round, Akeno and Kuronada followed. I couldn't do much with Kuronada except try to bow him, but with SPC that does not really work well^^. So it was one province down soon and then my opponent attacked all three remaining provinces. I could try to defend one personality but had only two people for that and well...I just died and couldn't do anything.

0:1

Round 2 - bye
after being beaten so hard I got a bye ... I felt so beaten...

1:1

Round 3 - Thunder Dragon Bay
Well Moshi decks are usually slow and I did not expect many thunder actions that would raise the force of the personalities in the battle to take a LSC province down. So I won rather easily. I wasn't really happy about beating a Mantis player.

2:1

Round 4 - Hidden Moon Dojo
In the last round I also played against military deck. It was a Ninja deck. My opponent got Nishus and Suboru early. I managed to control the game though and was able to slow my opponent so much that he did not have enough force to even attack my provinces when I got to 41 honor.
But I have to note this. I felt terrible, couldn't concentrate. I had My Father's Shrine in play, Shrine to Hotei and even when I could use it as I would not simply go defend a province I did not use those holdings. I did not even realize that I have Well-defended border in play and I made few more minor mistakes during this game. Really some *face palm* plays. Not that the previous games wouldn't be similar...But it was the worse in this round.

3:1

5th place out of 20... which meant no prizes^_~
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Later I will upload some photos and I might write a bit more.

Anyway, thanks everyone for making this trip possible. Thank you. I really enjoyed it.