Birmingham Grand Kotei 2019 - Final Match Write Up

Turning point?

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)  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 or Formal Invitation) to soak up Kisada's action which gave the Crab an action to play rebuild and bringing 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? [note: this was apparently not possible - see Erik's comments below] 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 Upholding Authority break turned out to be the key thing that turned the game back towards the Crab.

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.

Finally Erik has kindly read through the above and his own comment are as follows (spelling issues mine as I am cross typing from discord). I have spelt out some abbreviations as well and changed a couple of words for sense. As can be seen subtle differences in play can make an important impact.

Could be important to know that I saw his deck list beforehand and he did not have any way of the crab. It was not possible to spend the voice of honor sooner at any point I think . That Stronghold attack with two Political Rivals was my second attack that turn? Or first? I'll see if I can read it back. 

Yeah looks like the first conflict. Not pulling in Kisada was a big blunder then. Also maybe more subtle but turn one  I played Ancient Master with one fate, attacked water to unbow my Challenger. Playing it was a good move obviously but putting my last fate on it was a mistake with Yoshi showing in provinces and favor coming my way. This way I could only put two on Yoshi (and it happened to be meditations so the fate went off anyway but that was 1/4) 

And thank fully for some balance David, the Crab Grand Kotei winner has also kindly attempted to remember as much about the match as he can. His description is below.

The first two turns were about as bad as it could have been for me. Some of it likely due to misplay by me. I flipped two Envoy and normally am happy to just buy one and store fate. Looking across the board and seeing Yoshi I knew I needed to do something but my dynasty flips didn’t really allow it. I decided to attack with my Envoy since he has Challenger out and a Favourable Ground, normally I wouldn’t attack but I felt I needed to do something or suffer Yoshi. I walk into Shameful, turning on Voice for free, he then Favourables out. He attacks and breaks, then plays Ancient Master and attacks, for a second conflict, I decide to try an assassination as while a risky play if it works it means he doesn’t get favour and I am in a solid place going into turn 2. He Voices it and I suffer 3 turns of Yoshi smashing me while on low honour.

On turn 2 I put out a Witch Hunter with 4 fate and an Envoy, my Spyglass gets Let Go’d and my second conflict flips Magistrate Station. Erik quickly breaks 3 provinces and I’m struggling. My limited card draw is kind however giving me a Spyglass and Watch Commander that stick and the tools to drag out the province breaks long enough for Yoshi and some other characters to die. My large fate accumulation allows me to put out Kisada and Yakamo with a large amount of fate, Yakamo in particular is an all star while at 3-4 honour allowing me to attack and defend in equal measure.

The key parts of the game for me were:

Where I am allowed to break Magistrate Station so that Erik can do an all in attack at my Stronghold, the Box and Kuni labs plus the 3rd Fight On give me a lot of outs. I did expect him to drag Kisada in using the Challenger, I cannot remember what the answer was now I think it was Mountain but it may have been Rebuild for Favourable Ground, but I remember knowing I had it covered.

Erik attacking into Upholding Authority for his second break having played two cancels and having the last two in hand meaning I know I could freely play events from then on.

Couple of other points:

I only won because I was able to drag the game out so long that I had board dominance and only because it was a final and I had a longer on the clock to play with.

Erik was amazing to play against, making great plays but also fun, really honourable.

I am indeed a former Netrunner player with high placing Worlds finishes

Finally..Finally I am going to repost a facebook picture that speaks a thousand words which was taken at the Kotei - just because it deserves to be shared for posterity. Seperated for the more serious above section concerning the game. The below section has NOTHING to do with the game or EITHER of the finalists.

We have a touching painting of Kachiko and Hotaru - which I think appeared in one of the RPG books

and at Birmingham we had the 'real' thing

the caressing was obviously about to occur.