A Monkey in Seattle
Representing LA at Everything to Gain

Plane Ticket to Seattle: $172.50
Crappy digital camera I didn’t know how to use: $142.43
Sleeping bag I didn’t pay for: $31.26
Walking in the rain middle of the summer: Priceless

So begins my little tourney report (its gonna be long btw). Wait, let me introduce myself first, I don’t think anyone knows me or have heard of me before, I stopped posting to the listserv and mIRC a while ago. My name is, Monkey Boy! Well, Paul H. Li if you want to get all technical about it and look at my Driver’s License. Of course, my Rokugani license says Toku Pruto. I live in LA, home of those guys you love to hate. =D

I realized that the last time I took a vacation was… 9 years ago. So, I cashed my last work-study paycheck and instead of paying off part of my debt with it, heh, I decided that I’ll take a little trip up to Seattle. Yeah! Why Everything to Gain instead of say, saving up for GenCon or somethin’? Well, I decided on this trip a month ago, at that time, I was losing faith in L5R, no news of the sale, no news of Gold, no news of GenCon, frankly I was thinking about quitting. I’ve played the same two decks since last March (no, I mean 15 months ago), monkey boy here even tried playing Lion and Dragon for a week. So when Mr. D Tibbs announced his Everything to Gain tourney, I was like, why not? Last chance to play my favorite decks before either I quit or AEG shows some signs of life.

NOTE: I’m horrible with names, it took me a few months to get all the LA people’s names right. So if I butcher your name, well, take no offense please.

June 21, 2001
1:00 PM: woo hoo, first pay check for the summer! I cashed it, and bought a digital camera. I wanted to take tons of pictures and write up a cool photo-tourney report. Tested it, seemed alright. I did take 39 pictures over the weekend… but when I came back to check them out they sucked, most of them were blurry =(. Only 16 came out right, but lots of the cool shots didn’t work out, like the ones showing all the prizes and stuff. Oh well.

3:30 PM: Well, what to play what to play… I have the aforementioned two decks collecting dust in my box, do I go and watch more Anime or make myself new ones? Anime it is. Wait, I need to back my decks. I thought about backing my decks with something monkey-ish, but at that point it was a tad too late… so, something original! I backed my main deck with Star Wars CCG cards made by that other other game company. I already had a huge collection, especially of starships, so Dynasty was backed with Imperial Class Star Destroyers (45), Fate was backed with Dreadnaught Class Heavy Cruisers (46). I also backed my stronghold with the Death Star and Imperial Favor with a foiled Executor. Imperial Monkees… mmm… there is something wrong with that thought…

11:00 PM: What??? I have to pack? Oh crap.

June 22
7:30 AM: Door bell rings, its Afshin Coleman, we decided to carpool to LAX to save money on parking. We had different flights, but they departed and arrived relatively close to each other. We get there after some traffic (still light by LA standards), Afshin’s flight was canceled, ooooh goodie, it took me 50 minutes to check in my bag. My card boxed got scanned and the lady there made me open my box for a detailed scan. All I have in there are cardboard and plastic, no explosives of any kind! Oh, my flight was also delayed for 40 minutes. I guess today is not gonna be my day.

2:40 PM: I get there, surviving two very bumpy rides. A guy by the name of Leon was there to pick me up. Cool guy, he was wearing a TA shirt, can’t ask for anything better than a fellow TA member to drive me back from the airport. Wow, love the weather, 62 degrees, this place rocks! I hate the SoCal heat. The traffic on the way to Dan’s place was laughable, that’s not traffic! The cars are actually moving! We get to Dan’s place along with Afshin, who managed to find another flight here, and Michael (I remember his last name, but don’t know how to spell it). We were first to the house, played for a while, met some nice people, got food, checked out Dan’s anime collection. Wow, nice Escaflowne wall-scrolls man.

7:00 PM: We carpool to Broken games, WOW!!! we passed by a Import tuner's shop and I saw a Nissan Skyline!!! okay, anyway, =). And no, I didn't have my camera out in time =/

7:30 PM: Broken games for our Pre-tourney tourney. 50+ players showed up for it, wow, cools! Thats Leon with his hands up. Hehe, I see you!


The gaming area of the store is cool. They painted the walls with scenes from Star Wars to give
it a Cantina like decoration. Nice, very nice.
Here I am with this hot babe I met at the Cantina, I hope she knows how to play L5R…



And here is Dan getting ready to start up the Friday tourney. (guy in white shirt)

For Friday I used my secondary deck, a Toturi attack/honor deck that I've had since forever. I've won a LA convention with it last summer, it remains one of my all time favorite decks. I don't remember much of the Friday tourney.. but here it goes

Round 1:
He was playing a Walsh dragon deck. First time I've played against that archetype. 3rd turn dragon, I didn't have the cards to deal with it. Bash! Smash! and BOOM!
0-1

Round 2:
Mmm, I, don't remember... I believe I ended up honoring out with a huge army on the table.
1-1

At this point Gary Kirby showed up, wow! a third LA player in Seattle. Yeah! and Gary rented a car... sweeeet. Oh, Frank Chafe showed up too... all the way from... Texas!?!

Round 3: Shadowlands
He had me dead, too damn fast, too damn big and ugly. Then, he made a mistake that TA players jump on. He bowed out all his guys on an attack that took out my next to last province. He had 4 provinces and I had 3 weak guys that totaled 8 force. Well, MOST attack decks can't take 4 provinces with 8 force, even with a counter attack... TA can. I countered, strength/wedge, and took two provinces with ugly demons in them. My turn, I dropped 4 followers, took two more. Ouch, I feel for him, I've lost the same way before, but at least this isn't the main tourney.
2-1

Round 4: Anne, Shadowlands... Kaede sensei???

Anne made the Everything to gain website. She also plays with evil onis that must be crushed. It looked as if it was an enlightenment deck, she had a bunch of the elemental onis out in play, ewww, but I didn't see a Finding the Harmony that game, hmmm. I got a darn good draw, Toku, small farms, merchant, nakao. Hell, any draw with first turn toku is good for me. Had force pumps in my hand, killed some onis, and Toku marched through the shadowlands.
3-1
Round 5: AHHH! I forgot his name, damn it damn it...
Well, he was a cool guy, played Wasp Toturi. Wow, this was a first for me, I love the wasp sensei but never got around to making a deck with it. I don't remember much of what happened, I got some guys, honor, and the favor, but no gold. He was bowed out from munching on two of my provinces, I attack with Toku at one province and Seppun Mashita at another, Toku moment of brilliance, focus a 4, and wedge... Toku takes a province!!!!! Seppun mashita double strengths and take one as well. But that was basically it, his turn came, arrows few, monkees died, provinces gone, me got whooooped. But at least Toku took a province, got some high fives for that =D

3-2

Ended up 18th out of 52 or so. Fun, Afshin went 5-1 and got like 2nd I think. Cool.
Well, I guess I should retire this deck, its not as kick ass as it used to be. Still fun to play tho.


June 23
1:10 AM: We got back to Dan's House, I was bone tired, We had tons of people staying over, wow, its gonna be crowded. However since I was one of the first people at Dan's place that afternoon I marked my territory and claimed a corner of the living room.

I don't think I slept for more than 3 hours, sleepless in Seattle... but that’s nothing compared to our Iron Samurai.

9:30 AM: We head over to the tourney location, called the Willsonian or something like that.

For "Special" occasions... oooooooh...

We set up, I got my deck out, this time my Monkey dueler back with SWCCG cards. I named it the "Monkey-Class Personality Destroyer". I went to a supermarket and bought me a buncha bananas. I was going to give each one of my opponents that day a banana as an peace offering. However most of them didn’t want one =(. Ah, its okay I guess, more bananas for me!

Mr. Toku came in the room, he backed his deck with 80+ Tokus, wow, I'm impressed. I'm not worthy... So I offered him a banana.
I also set one banana aside as my "Imperial Banana", and had Toku sign it for me.

The prizes were amazing, I mean, WOW. However, my prize pictures didn't all come out right, darn. Here are some

The wooden mons are AWESOME. Too bad they didn't have a Monkey mon.

May the fun begin.
Before Each round, we also had a different person lead us in three Bonzais
Uts! BONZAI!!!!

Oh, thats Leon's head btw. He's my first opponent.

Round 1: Leon, Spirit... wha?
Okay, this is one of the most amazing decks I've EVER seen. Corrupt spirit attack, okay, I expected evil dudes knocking on my door. but, uh, He used stuff like goblin wizards, shadow beasts, and a buncha stuff with 0 or 1 force... and forgotten tombs. Eww. He had 8 guys out turn 3 and paid the Monkeys a visit. I had Akiyoshi and Toku exp3 out, and only at 9 honor... ooooh boy, its gonna be a long day. I defended with Toku, come one at a time... evil spirits goes bye bye. I thought that'll give me a turn of breathing room... um, no. Next turn, a horde of guys came back. It seems like every time I kill his guys he would have more replacing the dead ones. So, he attacked, and attacked, and attacked... I dueled, dueled, and dueled. He got me down to two provinces. And the only thing at that point keeping him from running me over was that he was low on honor and low on dynasty. I gained honor, he got out sagoten to gain honor and a spell that mmm, reshuffled his discard pile back... Oh, gee... I held back attack after attack and FINALLY got to 40 honor, I must have killed 20 of his guys in the process. He was really fun to play against and a really great sport. Thanks again Leon.
1-0

Round 2: I forgot if it was Crane or Phoenix, but he had a 85 card dynasty and 50 card fate.
He started off by getting gold and nothing but gold. I took the chance to shoot up in honor. When I was at 36 honor he finally got started, went from 13 to 33 in one turn, scared the hell outta me. However, I was able to go over 40 and get the win. Playing in a foreign environment and big tourney sure is interesting.
2-0

round 3: Wasp Toturi from night before
Hello again. I love playing Monkey against other Toturi players, no favor for you! and I get to go first. I get toku and gold, he gets lots of gold. I get Nakao, he gets hasame overlayed and nakao, Toku I.arts hasame and wins. I get gold and Yayu. He drops a ton of followers and attack. My Nakao duels his Nakao, he focus his hand, I focus most of mine. Toshimoko sensei wins me the duel. I take over the game, killed off everything he threw at me and hit 40 pretty quickly.
3-0

Round 4: Ian Ryan, FETA cheese... mmm... cheese...
Well, our local phoenix warlord, Art, runs FETA cheese, so I got lots of practice and kinda knew what to expect. He sets up his guys, grab his cards, I gain honor. I drew one life one action, and left a merchant unbowed. He used emperor's under hand to keep track of my hand, he got a dragon tattoo, rise, air, finding, water, air. At this point I THOUGHT I couldn't play one life one action with rise in play. Next turn, he rise, grabbed rings, cast a million kihos and drew like 9 cards from that one kiho (boundless depth of water I think?). I get gold and drew a sun in shadows, his turn, Shadow falls, no honor gain... I was stuck at 18 honor for 2 turns from the rises, shadow falls means another 2 turns, I thought I was dead. My turn comes and reveals the bastard, I traded for the card before the tourney and found space to stick it in. YEAH! I iai art, his most favored, used two sanc temps, got akiyoshi out full, and stole 2 of his honor. Putting me at 36 with him having only 2 rings out.
He draws more cards, I hit 40, and found another sun in shadows. He concedes and told me he could deal with 2 of those anti FETA cards, but not 3.
4-0

At this point Ed Bolme read the Legacy of the Naga part 4... All I have to say is... all ye Nagas, go play Unicorn =)
SWEET, damn the corns, lucky bastards.

Round 5: Andrew, shadowlands attack.
At this point we had 4 undefeated guys, Me, Frank Chafe with his BASH, and two shadowlands decks. Oh, did I mention shadowlands took 1st and 3rd on Friday night? EVIL. We start, he takes, first turn, gets the ultimate god draw. Inheritance, winter warfare, urigurimono, moto tsume. I get... shotai, gold, gold, and golden sun plains. He couldn't take a prov with the 7 force, so got Akuma, 2 more guys, and gold. I get gold, gold, Toku exp 3, and something useless. He attacks, Toku fends off one army with duels, he takes another. He gets 3 more guys. My turn.. I get one more guy, and all the gold I would need, I feel like a Yasuki. Toku was able to fend off another army with come one at a time, but I'm down to two provinces. I get a guy, and, what do you know, gold. He attacks, Toku fends off another army, with send homes and such but got killed in the process. But I'm down to my last province. I think he flipped over a desperate measures. Evil overcomes, Monkees got squished.
4-1
Round 6: Mmmm... don't remember name, sorry... Crab attack.
He didn't get entrench, so had some gold problems at the beginning. I shoot up in honor. He attacks, I was able to fend off an attack every other turn. However, one turn he didn't attack, and that was the deciding mistake, He didn't think he could take a province and thought I had duels in my hand. I had jack in my hand. My next turn got me over 40 and drew a come one at a time. He couldn't take my last two provinces.
5-1

I enter the final 16 as the only TA. Goooo MONKEES!!! My other team members didn't do so well. Afshin lost his first 2 games, knowing Afshin, hell must have frozen over for that to happen. He ended up 3-3. Michael won every other round I think, and Gary, well, he got the wulfgang puck award for finishing 17th... OUCH. He was 4-1 but lost to Tyler Running-Deer's Crane dishonor.

Sweet 16: Tyler... Gary asked me to avenge him... well... I'll try...
He got a decent start, second turn dens. I, well, I did something STUPID. I've played against many great dishonor decks, my game plan with them is to use hantei sensei and call secrets on the wind. 9 out of 10 times that worked before. This time, I waited to long to call it. I should have done it first turn. Although I did call it before Tyler got a chance to play one, it did give him a chance to see what my deck was like. He saw a sun in shadows in my discard (from honor testing a sagoten, OUCH). He called Sun in shadows, granted, people who know my deck would have called something else, but I ended up drawing 2 sun in shadows shortly after. Anyway, I did get a good start, Two tokus, gold, and gold. However. I did not control the favor. He wind's truthed an honor loss to me. I get sagoten, he dies from test, I had all 5 of my shugenjas out in play, but did not use my wind’s truth wisely (one got sun in shadowed I think). My revealing the bastard killed his shadows falls the turn it came out, but then he gets suspicions and two shizues. He kicks me down to -4, My sanctified temples helped me back up. But Proposal of peace prevented me from gaining honor from the Nakao, Shotai, toku and mashita sitting in my provinces. He drops me back down again, gets goshiu. I test goshiu, he dies, Tyler double martyrs me. I actually was more worried about him winning by honor. I was at -10, but he was at 11. At this point I have not drawn a single iaijutsu art or challenge. I thought I would draw one the next turn or two or even a winds' truth. I drew defensive cards. His blessing of isawa comes out... well, we each used two wind's already... but tyler had the favor so was able to draw more cards, and his third wind’s truth, which attached nicely to tomo. The next turn, I go down to -13, he unrequited love his own guy, and I bow and say good game. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that he had a shame in his hand.

I lose, oh well, 5-2, Top 16, top TA. I guess I'm happy. Lesson learned? PLAY WITH AVOID FATE. I died to Andrew's events, and I died to tyler's events. I don't have room in my deck, but I'll MAKE room in my deck. Out of like 10+ TA decks there, I think I was the only one using the Monkey box, I sure proved a point didn't I? =) The Palace is not the only viable TA stronghold you can run.

Top 8 was phoenix, phoenix, crab, shadowlands, fox, shadowlands, shadowlands, I don't remember. don't quote me.
Top 4 was 2 SLH, phoenix and crab.
Top 2 was Chris' Crab attack and Phoenix Norikazu Dragon honor denial...

Final Match:

I think Chris had a horrible horrible draw, I looked at his hand and thought he was gonna die by the 4th turn. But the resilient crabs held out till the bitter end. However phoenix won the day. How typical.

Prizes: Boxes, Boxes, Swords, Boxes, Swords, packs, original art, posters, swords, accessories, GOLD? Wow, hehe, they had Gold packs and starters. Lots of prizes. I got... a pack of gold, 3D monkey stronghold, TA empire league button and 2 L5R t-shirts.

You can't really see it, but it looks cool. Plus I'll have another one coming from Ian in a short while.

June 24th:
1:00 AM: We clean up, I'm like sleep walking by this point

2:00 AM: We get back to Dan's house, I fall asleep, don't think rowdy drunken L5R players bothered me much this time.

8:00 AM: Ahhh, another day...

Noon: We go to Broken games for some fun

WHAT? is that RAIN? ooooh hellllll no. Take me back to SoCal NOW!

I got into 2 multiplayer games. Fun, I won one with my single player palace deck, hehe, got some stuff for it, and had to leave for home before the other one ended.

Thanks a bunch Dan and all ya Seattle players, I had a ton of fun. See ya (hopefully) at GenCon!
8:00 PM: Get on a really unstable flight on my way back to LA.
10:40 PM: Ahhhh... home sweet home. I never thought I'll miss the deadly rays of the SoCal sun.

This is Monkey Boy, e-mail me if you want to scream at me for forgetting stuff... [email protected]