Spirit Fortress EU Marshall, Tied 3rd

Firstly, many thanks to Scott, Jimi, Heidi, Jenni, George and Andrew (I've shamefully stolen this list from another tourney report, sorry if I've missed anyone!). They ran a great tournament that was well attended. Great fun to meet so many people again/see some forum folk for the first time. It was an interesting environment given the recent Hot Lead Flyin'/Paralysis Mark errata and was reasonably open in deck types, albeit the top end of performance was a little more dominated by the new factions than we'd have in an ideal world.

Highlights/lowlights

• whichever player it was from the T8 that came forward to note that his score was wrong (due to a timed win) and therefore dropped down a place. Don't know his name, but shows how good Doomtown's community is.

• My fellow player who tied for 3rd in his first Doomtown tournament! Sorry I can't remember his name. (Edit: Leonard's deck is here: http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/2127/cambridge-deputy-kit-winner-108-legendary-desires)

• Anders, who went 6-0 and then passed on several prices as he already had them, generously swelling the price pool.

• The designers need to errata the Danish players, who were entertaining and successful, resulting in them being disproportionately represented in the Top 8. Not only that, they were an honourable bunch, giving out splendid custom "Viking Spirit" ancestor token cards and one of them politely explained during my quarterfinal match that he wasn't answering his friend's Danish commentary in their mother tongue to avoid any appearance of impropriety. The thought hadn't even occurred to me, but they were all stand-up blokes.

• Reliably informed it was Jimi that came up with the splendid "Not that Union, dear boy..." flavour text on one of the promos.

• A little nervous of the number of 108/EW decks that made the top 8 (6 out of 8?) and no Law Dogs/Sloane. Sad to see two of the early factions getting left behind - it feels like the newer factions have slightly better dudes and more powerful homes. However, I have faith in the designers that either we players are missing something or future sets will fix things (as they did for Morgan/science).

Spirit Fortress, but a bit shootier than normal with Outgunned and Point Blank. Both let me grab some key kills. Many Speak as One let me hunt dudes when my opponent thought they were safe - some people didn't expect Spirit Fortress to come hunting for them! However, I didn't have a good way to go after characters hiding at home, for example those that had assassinated my characters with Legendary Holster and gone home booted.

Games (didn't take names, sorry!) 1) LD (Abram's Crusaders) - One of the Danish players - he was playing miracles, but I got Spirit Fortress set up fairly swiftly. Despite one of his dudes taking out two of mine via tied hand ranks + point blank, after that I was still ahead and he had to empty his hand for Steven Wiles and assault the fortress. With my opponent having an empty hand I merrily cheating five of a kinded my way to safety. 1-0

2) MCC - Andy. Facing Andy normally means you're doing pretty well, so it wasn't great to face such a strong player early, having lost a semi final to him in Edinburgh last year and played a tight round 5 match in Huddersfield's 2015 Sheriff event. Managed to kill after Irving Patterson early thanks to Many Speak as One when he booted out of town, then control points from deeds and Nicodemus saw me home. 2-0

3) 108 Legendary Holster & Shotguns - Jimi. Managed to kill Ramiro Mendoza while he had the Legendary Holster (and had very unluckily failed the pull), only for Olivia Jenks to enter play and grab the gun again very soon after! My dudes were slowly whittled down, and I only won thanks to getting to getting the final actions as we went to time and putting Laughing Crow in to play and moving her to a totem for +1 influence. A sour victory, it is likely I'd have lost this if it had run longer. 3-0

4) 108 - Worldly Dead man's hand, Dave (Doomdog). Hilariously, I lose two copies of Nicodemus Whateley to This'll Hurt in the Mornin' in the opening lowball. If I was a better player I'd have mitigated this risk by using Henry Moran! I try to grit it out using Totems and looking for Epidemic Laboratory or Chief Stephen Seven-Eagles as back-up win conditions, but despite some fun manuevering and tight shootouts Dave eventually romps home. Several times I might have got back in to it if I could have taken two sequential actions, but Dave always spotted what I was up to and cut off my plans. 3-1

5) Jason Handy (? sorry if I got this wrong!), Eagle Wardens. One of the best straight flush decks I've seen, I believe it placed highly and is on this website. I managed some early successes in shootouts and wiped out a lot of influence with point blanks/high hand ranks, only to see my opponent come roaring back to over ten influence due to his crafty no upkeep dudes. By the end of the game I had a larger control + influence total than my opponent. One of two timed wins I had at the tournament, but felt a little more in control on this one. A good player with an inventive deck, I recommend people check it out (http://dtdb.co/en/decklist/2157/eagles-marshall-10th-place-straight-flushes-all-round). 4-1

6) Sorry, forgot my opponent's name - MCC Stables. A fine player with a really smooth legendary holster/shotgun deck. He assassinated several of my dudes, but eventually I was able to get Nicodemus in to play. Many deaths on both sides - he had lots of kill from goods and I realised he had no cheating punishment. 5-1

QF: EW - another of the splendid Danish players. I got a stronger start and dominated townsquare, using extra influence from spirit tokens to ensure I sent home my opponent's Willa Mae McGregor and slowly chipped away at his influence dudes in shootouts. Despite a rough hand my opponent kept the game going a long time, cannily using unprepared on my unbooted 1 studs instead of my booted 2 studs to avoid his low bullet dudes with influence dudes being aced. Nicodemus and a control point laden Epidemic Laboratory saw me home (the only game I got it in to play!).

SF: 108 Legendary, Dave (Doomdog). It would have been an injustice if I won this as Dave had already beaten me in Swiss. Happily, I was crushed in the first turn in a brutal kidnapping.

A tweaked version of the deck I played in Edinburgh's deputy tournament.