The Fist of Colossus REDAKAI SEALED PACK TOURNAMENT SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2011

Transcription

1 The Fist of Colossus REDAKAI SEALED PACK TOURNAMENT Celebrating the debut of the highly anticipated animated series Redakai: Conquer the Kairu on Cartoon Network! Sneak Preview: 2 episodes Saturday, July 16th, 10:30am Official Debut: Saturday, July 23rd, 10am (regular weekly timeslot) EVENT DETAILS: Tournament Type: Sealed Pack Tournament Date: SATURDAY, JULY 23, 2011 Product Required: 4 Power Packs Per Player cut to minimum 20 card deck + 3 characters Format: Swiss Tournament Length: 3 Rounds (supports up to 16 players, otherwise 2 rounds) Prizes: 1 Pack per win. Door prize given out each round + store can allocate packs for other achievements (e.g. bonus pack for going undefeated, sportsmanship prize, etc.) SPONSORED PRIZING AVAILABLE: Participating Stores qualify for one (1) free case pack of Redakai Power Packs (24 power packs per case). One per store. To qualify: Available only to stores who have been sanctioned to run Redakai OP events. Please RSVP for this event by to events@redakai.com to qualify for free prizing. Stores must also complete their store profile on Redakai.com and upload a listing for this sealed pack tournament into the event calendar. Event listings must be registered by 9:00am EST, Monday, July 18th to receive prize packs in advance of the event. Stores who miss that deadline but submit a detailed post-event report will still qualify to receive their prize pack retroactively. 1

2 *Stores who wish to host this sealed pack tournament on an alternate date will still qualify for sponsored prizing, provided that the tournament takes place within July 15 July 25, 2011 and is recorded through Redakai.com as per above. Top 8 Alternate Recommendation- For stores with experience running advanced tournaments, a Swiss format with cut to top 8 (the store must be comfortable calculating tie-breakers). Top 8 prizes can be: 1 st Place- 8 packs 2 nd Place- 4 packs 3-4 th Place- 2 Packs 5-8 th Place- 1 Pack 4 packs to be given away as door prizes during rounds of Swiss Additional Prizing Suggestions: Your introductory Redakai OP kit included 2 promo cards separate from those allocated to league activity: 25 Froztok Release Event Cards 10 Nightmare Miscellaneous Tournament Prize Cards Consider taking advantage of unused prize cards for additional incentives at this event. PREP SUGGESTIONS: Open Challenge League Play Sealed Pack Event Stores running Redakai Leagues may wish to host a Sealed Pack league play event in advance of the tournament (July 9-22) to offer players an opportunity to try out this format and practice their timed construction in advance of the tournament. Sealed Pack League Format: Players open 4 Power Packs to build a deck with 3 Characters and a minimum of 20 Attacks and Monsters. There are no other deck-building restrictions, so players may play any number of copies of a particular card they open in their packs. Game results are reported and recorded as per standard league practice 2 points per win, 1 per loss. Redakai Sealed Pack Deck-Building Workshop Players open 4 Power Packs and are offered coaching and strategy tips on deck-building for sealed pack events. See the attached articles on Sealed Pack Play as a guide to help develop your workshop. This can be combined with a Sealed Pack league day. Questions? - Contact events@redakai.com - For sales related product orders, please contact your distributor. 2

3 ARTICLE: An Introduction to Sealed Pack Play By RedakaiToby, Redakai.com Community Manager ( Since Redakai Release Day on June 4th, it s been great to see our passionate players already coming up with killer decks, and sharing them with the rest of the community. But there s another way to play Redakai that has its advantages: Sealed Pack. Today, we ll go over what this format is all about, and why it s both fun and fair for all players. First, let s take a look at the rules for Sealed Pack: All players in a Sealed Pack event open four Power Packs. Each player builds their deck only using the cards contained in these four packs. Decks in Sealed Pack contain three characters, and a minimum of twenty attacks and monsters. Unlike in Constructed, your deck can have more than one of a particular Character, and more than three copies of a particular Attack or Monster. By its very nature, the Sealed Pack format levels the playing field. If you don t have a large collection, or many powerful cards, Sealed Pack provides you with the opportunity to compete regardless of what you own. All players have access to the same number of cards when the tournament starts, so the size and quality of a player s collection provides no advantage in this format. Just grab four of these, and you're ready to play Sealed Pack! However, don t assume this means strategy is taken out of the equation. In fact, Sealed Pack tests a whole new level of Redakai skill. The packs you open will provide you with 44 cards in total, from which you ll put together a deck of at least 20 attacks and monsters, and three 3

4 characters. This means you need to consider many different factors as you narrow down your 44 cards to 23: Which character do you cut? Do you have the right balance of attacks and monsters? Do you have the correct assortment of damage zones on your attacks? Do you have a good assortment of blue, green and red attacks? These are similar to the questions you ll ask when building a constructed deck, but placed in a narrower card pool where the answers aren t always clear. Because of this, there are many players who actually prefer Sealed Pack to Constructed. It provides a new set of deckbuilding possibilities with each event, and requires all players to make the most out of the limited number of cards they receive. This, in itself, is a skill many players are proud to cultivate. And let s face it sometimes, deckbuilding can be a stressful activity. In a Sealed Pack tournament, all you need to bring is yourself, and a few bucks to pay for the cards and admission fee. No need to stay up all night wondering if you have enough Degenerates to counter FrozLock, or if you ll be able to trade for that card you need before the event starts. In my opinion, the best reason to play Sealed Pack is that it provides the most value for your buck. When you play in a Sealed Pack event, you get to keep all the cards you open after it s over. So if you re going to the store to buy packs anyway, why not enter a Sealed Pack tournament and get an event out of them too? You ll get to enjoy a few rounds of Sealed Pack play, potentially win some cool prizes, and still keep the contents of the packs. So if your local store isn t running Sealed Pack events, ask them about it! Our Redakai League events are set up to run either Constructed or Sealed Pack, depending on what the store owner (and players) prefer. Now that we re familiar with Sealed Pack, next week we ll take a look at a four Power Pack card pool, and break down how to build the best deck from those cards. - RedakaiToby 4

5 ARTICLE: Building a Sealed Pack Deck By RedakaiToby, Redakai.com Community Manager ( Today, I m going to step you through building a Sealed Pack deck, so you can see some of the methods you can use to put together the best deck possible. Here are the cards I got in the four packs I opened: Characters Maya Boomer Bash Zylus Monsters Infinita, Blue Elemental 2 Scorpirion, Green Animal Scorpirion, Scorpion Animal 2 Slab, Blue Elemental Slab, Red Elemental Slab, Rock Crab Elemental Spykor, Psionic Machine Zytron, Red Animal Attacks Red Anti-Matter Beam Borealis Blast Boulder Punch Boulder Toss Fire Vortex Frenzy Rush Gravity Crush Hydro Hooks Mandi-Blades Screech Whirlwind Seismic Shake 5

6 Green Blizzard Axes Blizzard Blades Energy Whip Lash Feather Swords Fire Tornado Fire Whips Magnetic Tornado Sonic Spin Blue Berserker Bio Breath Blinding Light Brain Buzz Electro-Cage Mind Drill Mind Shock Mind Weld Mirage Stinger Voodoo Trance The first thing I like to do when I m building a Sealed Pack deck is to figure out which cards in my deck are most powerful, so I can build around them. The first thing that really stood out with this card pool was the number of quality red attacks it had: Screech Whirlwind, Seismic Shake, Boulder Toss and Frenzy Rush all hit two damage zones (and let s not forget about Frenzy Rush s useful react ability as well). Gravity Crush and Borealis Blast stall out my opponent s Kairu, andfire Vortex is close to a must play since it covers up character abilities. That s seven attacks already, and I want to make sure my deck has a decent spread between all three attack colors. So while Anti-Matter Beam, Mandi-Blades and Boulder Punch may have their place later, I m going to set them aside for now. 6

7 Attacks that hit two damage zones are even more powerful in Sealed Pack. Let s take a look at the monsters next for better or worse, there s nothing here I d build my deck around as a main strategy. However, they can certainly help. The Scorpirion, Green Animals can help me produce more Kairu, and Scorpirion Animal can heal a damage zone, so he will definitely get strong consideration.zytron, Red Animal is something to consider as well, thanks to his react ability. The one monster that stands out as something to build around is Infinita, Blue Elemental, but if I m going to play it, I ll want to make sure my deck is able to take better advantage of the effect than my opponent. We ll get back to this later. Green provides some solid attacks as well. Fire Tornado is a must play, as it hits two damage zones and blocks a character ability. Energy Whip Lash hits two as well, so it should make the cut. Blizzard Axes, Blizzard Blades and Sonic Spin can provide some additional disruption to go along with my Gravity Crush and Borealis Blast, plus they re cheap and will help round out my deck. It's important to have cheap Kairu cost cards, so you have plays to make in the early game. The only Blue attacks that really stand out for me are Voodoo Trance, Blinding Light and Berserker. There are more blue attacks that are less powerful, but I ll only include them if I need to even out the damage zones my deck is able to hit. 7

8 Now that I ve got my key attacks, I can cut Infinita, Blue Elemental. I do have a lot of seven Kairu cost attacks, but it gives my opponent an edge too, and I don t want to take the risk. Bash comes out of the deck as well, since I don t have any cards that can work with my discard pile. The next step is most important: counting out which damage zones my attacks can hit. Including attacks that hit two zones, I ve got 9 that hit the top, 8 that hit the middle, and 6 that hit the bottom. I ll need to even this out by cutting a top damage attack for a bottom damage attack. The attacks that hit two damage zones really need to stay, so the decision comes down to the three attacks I have that can only hit the top zone: Berserker,Borealis Blast and Hydro Hooks. All are good, and while I d love to keep Berserker in the deck, it s just not as good as Borealis Blast s stalling effect. Hydro Hooks react is also badly needed in a deck that doesn t have many. I was already low on blue attacks, so I need to bring in another one to take its place out goes Berserker, in goes Mind Drill. This brings my top-middle-bottom damage distribution to a more reasonable 8, 8, 7. Reliable react abilities like Hydro Hooks should always be highly considered for your Sealed Pack deck. Finally, let s lay out the Kairu costs in my deck, as we want to make sure the deck has cards to play in the beginning, middle and end stages of the game: 2 Kairu 1 card 3 Kairu 3 cards 4 Kairu 4 cards 5 Kairu 3 cards 6 Kairu 4 cards 7 Kairu 4 cards 8 Kairu 1 card A nice spread of costs, though I d like one more cheap bottom attack. While Zytron, Red Elemental is a nice trick, it doesn t combine with any of my monsters to provide additional red defense. So we ll cut it to make room for Feather Swords. To make my deck even cheaper, I m going to cut Blinding Light and replace it withelectro-cage (I already have two attacks that cover 8

9 character abilities). This now gives my deck a top-middle-bottom damage spread of 8, 8, 8. I m at 20 cards, three characters, and ready to play! Here s the final decklist: Characters Boomer Maya Zylus Monsters (3) 2 Scorpirion, Green Animal (Cost 5) 1 Scorpirion, Scorpirion Animal (Cost 6) Attacks (17) Red (8) Borealis Blast (Cost 3, XOO) Gravity Crush (Cost 4, OXO) Hydro Hooks (Cost 4, XOO) Fire Vortex (Cost 5, OXO) Boulder Toss (Cost 6, OXX) Frenzy Rush (Cost 7, XOX) Seismic Shake (Cost 7, XOX) Screech Whirlwind (Cost 8, XXO) Green (6) Feather Swords (Cost 2, OOX) Blizzard Axes (Cost 2, OXO) Blizzard Blades (Cost 3, OXO) Sonic Spin (Cost 4, OOX) Energy Whip Lash (Cost 6, XXO) Fire Tornado (Cost 7, XOX) Blue (3) Mind Drill (Cost 3, OOX) Electro-Cage (Cost 4, OXO) Voodoo Trance (Cost 7, XOX) So how would you build this deck? Do you think I made any errors with my card choices? Please post your thoughts in the forum thread below, I m eager to hear your thoughts! And if you want to try out Sealed Pack, tell your local Redakai League store that you're interested! Redakai Leagues are set up to support both Constructed and Sealed Pack play, so see if you can get one going this weekend. Even outside a League, you can always play against a friend too - you just need four Power Packs each, and you're ready to build decks and play! 9

10 REDAKAI TOURNAMENT Play Instructions Recap (as detailed in Redakai Launch OP Training Manual) Tournaments are a more formal and advanced way to play Redakai. This should be reserved for when your audience is more familiar with the game. Like Open Play, Tournaments can be Sealed Pack or Pre-Constructed and the deckbuilding rules are the same. We recommend running events with a prize structure that provide incentives for players of all skill levels rather than concentrating the prize payout for the top finishers. Including a participation prize for each player who completes the tournament, such as a Power Pack or Gold Pack, can lead to more repeat attendance. Entry Fees for the event should include the costs of all product used per player for sealed deck events and any additional prize support you offer. Decide upon and announce the prize payout before the tournament begins. We recommend you use Swiss-style pairings for your tournaments, as these give players a chance to play for longer even if they aren t winning. With Swiss-style pairings, each round a player should be paired against another player with the same record in the event. For example, after the first round, all players who won should play against another player who is 1-0, and all players who are 0-1 should play against other players who lost the first round. In the second round, all players who are 2-0 should play against other 2-0 players, 1-1 vs 1-1, 0-2 vs 0-2, and so on. Players cannot face the same player more than once during the Swiss rounds of an event. 10

11 If there are an odd number of players, a random player with the least wins should receive a bye for the round and be automatically awarded a win. We recommend you run a number of rounds according to the number of players in attendance: 1-8 players: 3 rounds 9-16 players: 4 rounds players: 5 rounds players: 6 rounds Tournament rounds should be run as single game matches with a time limit of 30 minutes per round. At the beginning of each round, announce that the round is starting and start a timer of 30 minutes. When the timer for the round ends, inform all of the players that the round is over. If a game still has no winner when time is called in the round, the players in that game advance to the end of round procedure. The active player completes their turn and then the other player takes one more turn. If no player has won at the end of the additional turn, the player who has the most remaining undamaged zones on his characters is the winner. If both players have the same number of undamaged zones, the player who did not take the first turn of the game is the winner. If there are multiple players with the same number of wins at the end of the tournament, the first tiebreaker to determine placing is their opponent s win percentage. Add together the number of wins of all of their opponents and divide it by the number of total matches played. The player with the highest opponent s winning percentage is the top finisher among players with the same number of wins, and so on. If you wish to run a playoff, the players with the best records after the set number of rounds play single-elimination based on a bracket system. For example, if there were enough players to cut to a top 8 single elimination round, 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, etc. Depending on the number of players in your event you might want to cut to top 4, or top players: Swiss only 8-15 players: Cut to top players: Cut to top 8 11