After the conclusion of Tournament #3, I wanted to play some additional competitive matchups. The first was the Finals matchup that we came within one d6 roll of seeing – HMS GT UPS taking on a different challenger, Altar Abuse. I plan to continue changing up the battle reports a bit, so this series has shorter videos with a narrative approach rather than full gameplay footage.
With that, the upset is complete! Being able to beat the tournament winner proves that Altar Abuse can crush just about any competitive meta fleet with enough luck. A nasty combo for the ages!
Tournament #3 (T3) was the third notable Wizkids Pirates CSG competitive tournament I have played. The first two are T1 and T2, which were played on VASSAL with Xerecs. T3 had almost no house rules and was played in physical form, so it could be considered the most “pure” tournament I’ve played so far. I made sure to track all the scores, who went first, and how much gold each fleet collected throughout the tournament. You can see those stats at the end of the final battle report.
Universal Pirate Swan, one of the participating fleets
Each matchup would be a best-of-3 series, with the exception of the tournament Finals, which would be a best-of-5. Each fleet had to come with a standard 40 point build, but their +5 selections could be modified as much as they wanted – by game within a series, and changing from one series to the next. The average ocean was about 37 inches wide, 43 inches long. That is slightly larger than the recommended minimum of 3 feet x 3 feet, but it’s worth noting that the 37″x43″ ocean is not large enough to have all 6 islands at the maximum distance of 6L apart, so if playing a competitive tournament, you may want a larger ocean.
Here are the house rules I used:
-Bonus gold (from +1/+2 abilities) is available for building forts, home island raiding, etc.
-Becalmed doesn’t do anything against ships that can move when mastless – they retain their full (current) base move, as the ability text does not say it is reduced to S.
-Abandoned Crew can be flipped face up on the controlling player’s turn in order to turn them into crew even if their abilities are not used when flipping them face up.
Note about fleet “intelligence”: Fleets have no idea about the other fleet going into the first game of each matchup, but they remember crew and UT’s as best they can for the rest of that series. Fleets don’t “watch” other matchups in the tournament, so every new series matchup is fresh as if the fleets are facing each other for the first time.
I was generally able to play on Sundays from February to April, getting through all 8 series on schedule (including a play-in round since I had 9 fleets I wanted to see get involved, rather than 8).
The final, completed bracket! In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first. For the Finals, the scores underneath each fleet are the games that fleet won.
Congratulations to HMS GT UPS on a massive tournament victory! They were a dominant fleet from start to finish, going 7-2 overall and scoring double digit gold in every game except one. They have earned their place amongst the most competitive fleets in Pirates CSG history. The combination of UPS strategy with the HMS Grand Temple’s fighting prowess is a devastating combo.
Here is my post-tournament summary. It includes the goals I had when planning the tournament back in January 2024, as well as the lessons learned and some of the things I noticed.
Goals
Are anti-UPS fleets good enough to upend the meta? Not quite, they’re not as good against power UPS fleets.
If so, can they win tournaments overall even against some non-UPS foes? Kill that UPS did beat 2 non-UPS fleets, so it is a very competitive fleet. Just couldn’t beat HMS GT UPS. HMS GT’s durability and firepower proved too much even for a Mycron-powered Angelica.
Determine value of going first (which should equal a worse HI selection): Player 1 had an overall record of 12-11 in this tournament (full stats by fleet at the bottom of this post). Nearly 50/50 and somewhat inconclusive, but overall it seems that it’s a tossup that could go either way. There are really easy ways to get around a bad HI location, such as Hidden Cove and whirlpools.
How much does the island/terrain meta affect results? The terrain meta probably matters more, at least when one fleet wants very little terrain (especially no whirlpools) and the other fleet wants a lot of terrain. Island placement meta matters less with so many Hidden Coves and often lots of whirlpools around. Overall, I was a bit surprised by how little the island placement meta seemed to matter. It can be very inconsequential if either player wants islands at minimum distance (3L apart), since then even if the other player tries to place each of their randomly selected islands 6L away from the (already-most-distant) island, the “close” player can just place their next island diagonally in between the ones 6L apart, essentially nullifying the 6L distance placement. If the “far” player gets to place the last island and pick it as the HI of Player 1, this can just incentivize P1 to vote for at least 2 terrain placed per player, which they can use to place a whirlpool next to their (likely/obvious) potential HI location and at least one other whirlpool near the wild islands for easy and quick access to treasure. They could also vote for a lot of terrain, and just place whirlpools near every island so that P2 has no way to ensure they’ll have to sail a large distance to reach an island.
Are either of those previous elements (going first, and island/terrain meta) as or more important than the luck of the treasure distribution? I don’t think so, treasure distribution is probably the most important factor of the three. Many games were essentially determined by the random distribution of 4 coins per wild island. Some games were lost because of the distribution (finding a devastating UT that kills essential crew on a flagship), and some were easily won because of the distribution (such as a treasure-based fleet finding no negatives, and instead two 6’s that can win the game 16-0 if both get +2’d). The “positive vs. negative UT war” was a major factor as the tournament went on, as it became a “luck fest” of whether or not a high-powered treasure runner or UPS flagship would find a negative with or without a “wipe UT” such as the Kharmic Idol or Pirata Codex. The treasure distribution war probably affected some games even more than the actual fleets involved. A bad first island can spell doom, but if you go first and can wipe the map of negatives with something like Maps of Alexandria + Kharmic Idol, it becomes free reign on the whole map.
Lessons
Play-in round: Fleet that went first won each game. Hidden Cove makes island meta less relevant because you can just teleport a full 6L.
First matchup: Anti-UPS+UPS fleet is too scattered. Neither the anti-UPS or the UPS portion of the fleet can be fully optimized due to the build total restrictions, and both strategies suffer for it (this proved even more true as the tournament went on, as the all-in “anti” nature of Kill that UPS proved quite successful). Best to just go all-in on the UPS strategy or a full-scale counter to it.
Forts were less competitive than I thought they would be. There were hardly any fort plays. In T2 there were less combat-capable fleets, so forts held more sway over endgames. Don’t always want to put treasure back on an island. T2 had a lot of fleets that either wanted to extend the game, “lock” up treasure with a fort, or knew the opposing fleet would have a lot of trouble destroying Paradis de la Mer (sometimes all of the above). T3 had more capable gunships and hybrids – with double actions nearly omnipresent for HMS GT, Angelica, Black Swan, Roanoke and Neptune’s Hoard, there was little incentive to build a fort knowing that it would likely get destroyed. I’d say forts can still be very competitive and useful, but it depends more on the fleets involved and if there’s a gunship in play capable of destroying a fort in a single turn (thus preventing any return fire from the fort, and making the newly-wild-again gold available very quickly after construction).
Tournament felt less tactical than T2 – more luck, less fort plays/etc. Consequence of extreme UT distribution/abuse, and possibly because I’m the only player (vs. playing against Xerecs in T1 and T2). I think I did great not “accidentally” having bias with any fleets or sides, though it may have affected the island meta slightly. However, it’s kind of obvious that a Player 2 is gunning to put your HI far away when they place the last island 6L from any other island and then seed it with reefs/etc. It felt less tactical partly because a lot of games seemed to be decided on luck elements – a great or horrible first island explored, a fleet always getting their terrain roll during the Setup phase, or sometimes some bad cannon luck. Heck, the Finals matchup would almost certainly have included Altar Abuse instead of Kill that UPS if the Isle of Fire hadn’t gone off and eliminated the Altar of the Loa in the rubber match Game 4 of their semifinals matchup. I don’t think Altar Abuse would have beaten HMS GT UPS, but when an entire series can come down to a single 50/50 d6 roll, it starts to make playing the games between certain fleets feel more pointless. In the case of KtU vs. a treasure fleet, it often just comes down to treasure distribution luck – if the KtU negative UT’s mess up the enemy flagship, they can win by a low score. But if they don’t, it can be hard for them to come back since the opponent can usually rack up a bunch of gold quickly (and then win even if they’re eliminated if they’re ahead by enough). It felt like a tournament of extremes – killer fleets, extreme treasure contributions by nearly every fleet in every game, and some shutouts and lopsided scores. T2 was quite different, though we didn’t play by standard rules nearly as much (eventually using a default island+terrain setup every game to save setup time). T2 had more high-scoring tactical treasure games, which was partly a function of having less high-power hybrids and more Hai Peng or Banshee’s Cry flagships. For example, the “Final Four” of T2 had 3/4 fleets of what I would call “extreme treasure fleets”, whereas T3’s Final Four had 3/4 fleets containing a double-action gunship/hybrid with at least 4 masts.
Kill that UPS has a big weakness in basically deferring the initiative. They’d almost prefer going second, but that opens the door to a UPS fleet getting a ton of gold in rounds 1+2. If they go first and explore with Hyena, she might get trashed by their own negative UT’s. Even if she doesn’t, she might find a positive UT like Pirate Globe that then informs the enemy treasure fleet exactly where to go on their half of round 1, leaving the door open for the treasure fleet to get gold fast before Angelica can intervene on round 2. Towards the end, it dawned on me that KtU winning would feel a bit odd – it’s simply a killer fleet. That fleet winning would do away with “gold wins the game” to some extent. It didn’t affect how I played the Finals, though HMS GT UPS did get some luck with the treasure distribution and terrain rolls. For all the complaints about UPS being OP, at least those fleets win games by completing the primary objective – get the most gold. I think fleets like KtU winning tournaments would encourage more deathmatch-style fleets and wonky extreme fleets, where it’s just genocide via blitzing and negative UT auto-includes. I think it illustrates that Wizkids did a great job creating a tactical and balanced treasure game – though there’s a lot of OP or broken pieces in the meta, it can still be very fun and strategic.
Anti-UPS fleets need more than a double-action dragon to combat the “UPS gunships” like HMS GT, Zeus, etc. Ships with 6+ masts can take a full-scale attack from Angelica and either walk away to continue getting gold for their fleet, or return fire with 2+ masts (usually doubled via a second action), which can be enough to cripple or kill the dragon. Even in Finals games where CJS was killed, HMS GT UPS was able to stay in the game and nearly went 4-0 overall in the series. I have a feeling KtU vs. UPS 5 (with the Zeus) would go similarly – Zeus would always be able to return fire with considerable force even if Angelica goes 4/4, and can kill the dragon in a counterattack a good percentage of the time as soon as the dragon starts missing a shot or two. If Angelica only gets 1 hit, the game is pretty much as good as over. Maybe there’s a better hybrid/etc setup than Hyena+crew for the last 16 points of KtU, but it’s hard to get enough damage accumulated on a powerful UPS foe to sway the tide. It relies on the island setup and arguably the UPS player being slightly dumb, but KtU could theoretically put 7 shots on a “power-UPS” ship if Hyena got Hidden Cove’d to the same island (HC instead of her explorer+oarsman), with Angelica still getting Mycron for a shoot action after flying into range.
Superlatives and Stats
Biggest upsets: I did not expect Universal Pirate Swan to go out in Round 1. They crushed Altar Abuse 20-0 in their first game, but didn’t win again. I will admit that I didn’t expect Kill that UPS to reach the Finals, given their gauntlet of impressive foes going back to the play-in round. I thought AP’s 4 would really put them to the test, but KtU still won the series 2-1. Once they reached the semis I knew they had a decent shot at winning the tournament. KtU did have a somewhat rough road to the Finals, losing a game in each of their 3 series on the way there (2-1 in each series for 6-3 overall through the semis), and almost getting knocked out by a lucky Altar Abuse fleet.
Biggest surprises: For a very luck-based fleet centered around a single UT, Altar Abuse came incredibly close to making the Finals. Overall I’d say the right side of the bracket contained more surprises than the left side. Going into the tournament, I think I was somewhat expecting to see Universal Pirate Swan vs. AP’s 4 in the semifinals (the opposite of what happened). I thought the island meta and Player 1 vs. Player 2 stuff would matter a bit more, but it was pretty much upended by the terrain meta and treasure distribution. I was surprised by the lack of fort plays, though for reasons stated above it makes sense that fleets didn’t want to risk them very often. There were more plays to end games quickly via elimination or suicide than there were plays to intentionally extend the game via fort building.
Check out some fun stats for Tournament #3! These count the pre-tournament play-in matchup between KtU and UPS 4.1, but they don’t count the Game 2 semifinals botch between KtU and Altar Abuse.
Bolded stats represent the leader in that category (very fun for me to do, similar to baseball stats with league leaders). We see that P1 had a slight advantage over P2, but it was essentially negligible. In the Finals, P1 was 0-4, so if a Game 5 had been played there, it might even be 50-50 odds of winning going first vs. going second. HMS GT UPS proved their mettle in so many ways. They went 5-1 without the initiative. They naturally have the highest winning percentage of the tournament, by far the most gold collected, and the highest gold score per game at 15.1 treasure per game. They scored double-digit gold in all but one of their nine games, including scoring 11 or more gold in all four games against Kill that UPS, a fleet that usually limits how much gold an enemy can collect in most games. For example, KtU opponents only scored double digit gold in 2/9 games going into the Finals. KtU held AP’s 4 to just 6 gold per game, UPS 4.1 to 6.7 gold per game, and Altar Abuse to 7.7 gold per game. Comparatively, HMS GT UPS averaged 16.8 gold per game against Kill that UPS, barely losing in their only loss of the Finals. KtU essentially dragged down average gold scores per fleet in every series it played in, except against HMS GT UPS. HMS GT UPS winning the tournament also proves how P1 vs. P2 doesn’t matter as much – they were P2 in 6/9 games, presumably getting a worse HI location each of those games.
KtU was the leader in games played and even tied for the lead in wins, mostly due to the fleet getting an extra series via the play-in matchup and due to their inability to sweep any series. In fact, if not for the lack of a Finals Game 5, KtU nearly played the maximum amount of games available to play for a fleet involved in the tournament (going to a deciding game in each series prior to the Finals). Understandably, their gold per game number (5.8) is pitifully low for a successful fleet, given their killer nature and elimination fleet strategy. However, it does look even more pathetic when compared to some of the crazy high-scoring fleets involved in T2. In the T2 semifinals, UPS 2 managed to score a ridiculous 84 gold over the course of 2 games, more than KtU accumulated in 13 games of T3!
Saccing Treasure Traders had a strong showing, coming in second in gold per game and finishing as one of the only fleets with a winning record. Universal Pirate Swan will likely be seen again in 2024, but as for the American Pirates, I’ll probably try out more of the AP’s 3/5/6 variants before defaulting to AP’s 4. The Anti-UPS+UPS and Turn 1 Victory fleets were swept, with major flaws evident in both fleets. As stated previously, Anti-UPS+UPS is too scattered to be wholly effective at either being a UPS fleet or a UPS counter (an increase to 50 or 60 points might make it competitive at those build totals), while T1V was flawed from its creation, as I didn’t know that you couldn’t trade home positive UT’s worth gold with CJS until after the bracket was finalized and the tournament had begun. UPS 4.1 exemplified what will probably happen when any “old-school” UPS fleet faces Kill that UPS – a treasure win when going first, but likely elimination or a very low gold score otherwise (or if encountering nasty UT’s at their first island). For that reason, I might not bother playing fleets like UPS 2 or Hai Peng Fort Frenzy against KtU, because I think it would come down to the luck of being Player 1 and the treasure distribution.
The average gold/game number of 19 is in total (436/23), with the average close score being 10-9, 11-8, etc. Overall the scores were a bit lower than I expected, but T2 set an oddly high bar and was quite different due to the fleet strategies compared to T3’s more offensive and UT-based nature.
This was a fun little exercise – seeing which fleets are better at holding the opposition to a low score. Technically it would be AP’s 4, but that’s not saying much when it’s against a low-scoring fleet like KtU. Rounding up their scores, we see that KtU had an average per-game deficit of losing 10-6. XD They can’t care about the stats though, they’re happy with their 7-6 overall record.
No surprise that the champion had the highest score of any game, though Universal Pirate Swan had an impressive debut. Altar Abuse and Treasure Traders showed their competitive prowess, and I could see them winning some tournaments, especially with the right luck or if it was slightly more casual.
I forgot to mention this in the videos, but one of the typical ocean sizes was 37″ wide, 43″ long. So for a game where at least one fleet (or especially both) wants islands 6L apart, you’d want a playing surface bigger than the suggested minimum default of 36″x36″.
What’s Next?
This won’t be the end of my competitive Pirates CSG games in 2024, though there won’t be a ton more. I have a handful of matchups in mind for the next few months, including the inevitable “winner clash” of HMS GT UPS against the winner of T2 (UPS 2). There is a new challenger! Can HMS GT UPS continue to climb the ranks and be crowned the best Wizkids Pirates fleet of all time? Stay tuned to find out!
Thanks for reading and watching, and let me know if you get some Pirates CSG games of your own going!
Questions of the Day: What’s your favorite fleet that participated in T3?
Which fleet do you think would win in a “maximum fairness” simulation of 100+ games per matchup? (with an even distribution of luck in terms of player 1, terrain, treasure distribution, etc.)
Here is the updated bracket. In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first.
With that, we are set up for a climactic Finals matchup! The tournament will conclude with perhaps a matchup that many wanted to see – a high-powered UPS fleet facing off against a high-powered UPS counter fleet! Thanks for watching and stay tuned for the Finals!
Here is the updated bracket. In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first.
What a series! Definitely one of my favorites of the tournament so far, maybe my top pick. Thanks for watching and stay tuned for the last two matchups of the tournament.
Game 1: (tried an Instagram live but I think I’ll stick with Youtube live from now on because I prefer the horizontal aspect ratio and IG didn’t pick up my lapel mic)
Game 2:
Game 3:
Here is the updated bracket. In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first.
Congrats to Kill that UPS as they move on to face Altar Abuse!
The final Wizkids Pirates game between Captain Randy and I on the Saturday of Dice Tower West 2024. 60 point build total, with Randy combining some elements of his 40 and 50 point builds from earlier that day to make a new fleet. We used the Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part), and ended up with a more spread-out map than the previous two games.
In accordance with my fleet strategy, I placed three copies of Mysterious Island (MI) #15. Randy placed one MI as part of his island contributions, one that I hadn’t memorized the effect of based on its shape. Since we were using MI’s, we needed to use a d6 to determine who placed each island during the Setup phase (to make it random). We placed 4 terrain each for 8 total. I had rolled to go first, so Randy chose my home island (HI) to be in a far corner of the map. I considered putting his HI at the MI he contributed (partly since I didn’t know what the effect was), but wanted to keep the MI’s in play for maximum fun/chaos and noticed that by putting him at the final lone non-MI available, he would likely not get ships in range of my native canoes on the first turn (knowing exactly where I wanted the canoes before I placed them). I made sure to place the French native canoes at one of the MI #15’s, which happened to be quite close to another copy of the same MI. 🙂
Celtic Fury started with her stern S away from my HI, ready to round earth immediately upon moving. An empty L’Intrepide was my +5 selection, as events were banned per the house rules. Princess Auraa, Jules de Cissey, and a tribal chieftain were content to camp out at home all game and watch the treasure pile up. XD
The Cursed native canoes are easy to proxy in for the French ones, since they have the same cannon rank, point cost, cargo space and speed. These were 10 French canoes ready to farm mysterious island effects like their life depended on it!
Captain Randy:
Neptune’s Hoard + Hammersmith (F&S version), 1 crew
La Santa Isabel + Bianco’s Haulers, 2 crew
Bonnie Liz + Genny Gallows (SM version), Powder Pete
Libellule + explorer
We also agreed to use the chess clock, at 30 minutes per player (automatic loss for a player if their time runs out). It was Captain Randy’s first time using it, and my first time using it in a non-solo game.
I immediately started redocking the French native canoes at MI #15. Upon flipping the MI to reveal its effects, Randy quickly caught on to the strategy and we had a good laugh about it. I think only one canoe got the negative effect (marked by the S length straw), but most of them got the 5-6 effect: “Randomly move one treasure coin from this island to your home island.” 😮😂
Unlike the gimmick fleet used in the previous game, this MI effect did not require any exploring of the wild island – it was a simple automatic transfer of a random coin on the island to my HI. A “direct deposit”, if you will. As a result, it works much quicker than even UPS – theoretically you could win the game almost immediately by redocking at least 4 canoes and getting lucky enough with the treasure distribution that the 4 coins sent home are worth 16+ gold!
In this case I only needed to redock 6 of the 10 canoes in order to fully drain the MI of all its resources. All 4 of its coins were sent straight to my HI, netting me 14 gold (6,5,3,0) within the first move actions of the game! The last 4 canoes sped off to another MI #15 just a short distance away, with one of them docking and sending a coin home (which I think was the French Royal Decree UT, lol). For the Parley aspect of my fleet, it would be perfect if the coins sent home stayed face down so my opponent couldn’t see them, but we hadn’t established a house rule where coins on HI’s stay face down even in a 2 player game. Of course, Parley hadn’t been revealed yet…
Celtic Fury and Intrepide both round earthed, eager to participate in the MI farming experiment. I flipped the SS version of Eileen Brigid O’Brien (aka my friend Tiffany, the former Wizkids Product Manager for the game), getting her SAT/Born Leader roll to catapult CF towards the MI #15 that the canoes likely wouldn’t get to. Since the CF had her linked crew aboard, she would get +1 to MI effect rolls due to the Ex-Patriot keyword. Normally Tiffany and her crew complement on the CF would be worried about negative UT’s such as Plague or Missionary, but not in this case. There was no need to explore the island – just redock and trigger the effect until the island is drained of all coins!
Captain Randy was not able to reach any of my ships on his turn. This allowed 4 of my canoes to dock at their second overall MI #15, sending home 1 of its 3 remaining coins (farming efforts were slowed a bit lol, they were getting tired). Celtic Fury also docked at the southernmost MI #15, sending home a coin. Those coins were 5 and 0, meaning that I had already won 19-0 after only a round and a half of play!! 😮😂 However, between this type of ending happening for the second game in a row and wanting to simply play more Pirates that day, we decided to keep playing, essentially just ignoring the “more than half” endgame condition.
An approaching Santa Isabel and Libellule means the canoes will likely have company soon, while Bonnie Liz headed through a whirlpool in search of undisturbed treasure. Intrepide and some canoes head towards the CF’s island, ready to take up duties on the farm in case Tiffany gets too busy fighting to redock constantly.
Neptune’s Hoard got a little too close to Tiffany’s flagship! Celtic Fury rumbled into action, with Tiffany’s SAT helping to deliver a devastating broadside that sinks the ship!
Bonnie Liz managed to get the 5-6 effect at the MI Randy had contributed, and it was one of the wild ones! “When this ship explores this island, replace one treasure coin with a unique treasure from your collection.” He chose Sunken Treasure to try to catch up in the gold race, but the double d6 roll was only 5 total. Santa Isabel reached the canoes and shot 1/2 to eliminate one of them, also docking at the island and sending home a 0 coin (she also found the Celestine’s Charts UT that I had put in, which was inconsequential). This was an unintentional way of actually limiting Randy’s fleet strategy – he wanted to load the 0’s and bring them home so Santa Isabel (or Bonnie Liz) could bonus them up with +2 gold, but the MI effect prevented that from happening by just warping it home! (and you can’t load treasure from your own home island) I believe CF got another SAT from Tiffany, going north to sink Libellule!
CF was on the Santa Isabel’s route home, so Captain Randy decided to simply shoot at her on the way by. It was time to reveal the other part of my fleet strategy – Parley!
RotF Lenoir was flipped at last – she was still face down because I wanted her to be a funny surprise when actually using Parley, and because Tiffany had barely needed Lenoir’s Reroll (this was probably my luckiest day of playing Pirates CSG in multiple years). Unfortunately the fleet strategy didn’t work out perfectly as planned – the random treasure transferred was a 6, the highest value coin on my HI. 😂 The idea is to warp home crappy coins like 0’s, negative UT’s such as Wolves/etc, and then Parley them to an opponent! (as the frustration and amusement mounts)
However, this still prevented the CF from being shot at, allowing her to return fire with a full broadside and dismast the Santa Isabel on my next turn!
My farming efforts were less effective at this phase of the game, with various canoes being slowed by the negative effect and mostly worthless coins getting warped home. The Charts and Wolves are just meant to slow opponents and not me, as I had no intention of ever exploring an island in this game.
Celtic Fury captured the Santa Isabel. With only 1 mast remaining in play, Randy was unlikely to get any more treasure home. The Bonnie Liz didn’t have enough gold on her anyway to make up the difference, especially with Sunken Treasure decreasing in value each round. In addition, I would have sank the Bonnie Liz before she could reach home, so we called it.
Scores:
Ben’s French: 16 gold
Randy’s mixed: 6
Another wild “proof of concept” game. When abused to the fullest extent, Mysterious Island effects can completely break the game. As in the previous game that day, I had all the luck on my side though. The fleets were arguably a bit lopsided, which was multiplied by the luck disparity.
I really like this fleet idea. It’s brutal but amusingly effective when things go right. It’s a way to gamify multiple abilities and combos/effects in a way that destroys parity and can make a mockery of the game. With 10 canoes redocking at an MI #15 on the first turn, it’s reasonably likely that the entire island will be drained right away. The Ex-Patriot linked crew can help CF send coins home on her own, while Coeur could even assist by dropping the extra chieftain and trying to dock or explore a wild island at some point. We saw one of the ideal situations in this game – high-value coins getting warped home early for a very quick win. The other (arguably even funnier) option is that the canoes send home complete trash, such as the 0 and Wolves. Then your opponent comes for CF when you have nothing good on the HI, and Lenoir parleys them the garbage coins before wreaking havoc and dismantling the opposition with up to 20 shots in the counterattack! “One man’s treasure is another man’s trash”… in this case, it would be more shocking to have coins on HI’s face down, so that Lenoir knows what coins will be parleyed out, but the opponent can only respond with horror when they realize they’ve been had.
Feel free to know what you think of this gimmick fleet idea, or the games played at Dice Tower West. Thanks for reading!
In this 2 player 50 point game, I faced my friend Captain Randy. We were Dice Tower West Pirates, playing three consecutive games on one of the main days of the convention in Las Vegas. We used the primary Las Vegas house rules (through the “RtSS legal” part).
I rolled to go first, with a new fleet I had concocted recently: Canoe Vacuum Farmers. It’s essentially a UPS variant designed to be competitive at 50 points instead of 40 since I couldn’t figure out a satisfactory way to make it work well for a standard game.
Captain Randy went second with a mixed fleet including Neptune’s Hoard, Libellule, and Concepcion.
Randy picked my home island (HI) to be in the southwestern area, and I actually chose one of the Mysterious Islands (MI’s) I contributed to be his HI because I knew about its powerful vacuum “treasure suction” effect (wanting to keep his ships a bit further from the other MI). I intentionally placed my American native canoes at the MI #1 closest to my HI, knowing they would become professional farmers in record time. (“farming” is the term for continually redocking at a Mysterious Island in an attempt to trigger it’s effect(s)) We had agreed to place 3 terrain per player. Ready to set sail!
How about this for game-breaking! “5-6: When this ship explores this island, randomly move two treasure coins from every other wild island to this island, and then choose which to take.”
With the first action of the game, I redocked some of the American canoes. My luck was fantastic as it was this entire weekend – multiple canoes got the 5 or 6 needed to suction treasure from the other wild islands to the canoe island! However, only that morning had I realized that there was a bit of a snag in the strategy – the suction didn’t happen upon docking at the island and rolling for effect, unlike some other Mysterious Island effects. It would only vacuum the gold when the ship that rolled well explored the island, which would be on my next turn. However, I got two of the positive effects and none of the negative 1-2 results.
But that was only one move action. I was still able to go nuts with Hai Peng. She loaded an oarsman from my HI and sacced it with Jimmy Legs, speeding out to reach the center island and exploring it. Captain Jack Sparrow sent home a 5 coin to Coeur du Lion, who unloaded it for +2 gold with Maurice Aristide’s bonus. Captain Randy then took his turn and sent his ships out to the islands, but with no action generators present and no chance of eliminating canoes, there was little hope of catching up to a UPS-style fleet.
The game was as good as over, in a shockingly fast rout of broken proportions. The native canoes explored, vacuuming up all the gold in play. O_O All treasure coins that remained on wild islands were suctioned to the canoe island, making it a “kingpin” stronghold of epic loot. This meant that I had the pick of all the treasure in the game. The canoes loaded all the lowest-value coins, leaving the best for Captain Jack Sparrow to send home for a very quick win. He sent another 5 to Coeur for another 7 total with Aristide’s +2 bonus, then Jimmy Legs sacced another oarsman so he could send home the final 5 I contributed to the Rattlesnake, who was given her only action of the game to explore the HI and unload it. This brought my total to 19 gold, enough for a 1.5 round 19-0 shutout victory. O_O
In addition, I believe this might be the first time I’ve seen a game end so quickly where the winning fleet also had complete control over every treasure in the game – every single coin was either on my home island or on one of my ships. That’s usually quite the rarity in general, let alone accomplished in only 2 turns.
This is a sickening “new” way to win by combining the UPS strategy with a gold-hogging Mysterious Island abuse tactic. The canoes are included specifically so you can always have them start the game at an MI #1, and to give as many redocking chances as possible. At least one MI will always be wild, even if the other two in play are picked as HI’s. The odds are decent that at least two of the five canoes will roll a 5-6 upon redocking, giving them a chance to trigger the suction effect on the second turn. Even if they roll low and send treasure to a different wild island, as long as the last roll or two at the MI is the good effect, they can just warp it back when they explore. By allowing CJS to have his pick of the best treasure, it’s very easy to send home the highest-value coins, which in some cases mean that only two coins will be enough to win. (I will probably change the default treasure distribution of this fleet to be UT’s + 6,6,3 so the fleet can reach 16 on just 2 coins if Aristide adds +2 to both 6’s. 7,7,1 would also work of course.)
Of course, it’s a very luck-dependent fleet. I was only able to execute the combos perfectly because I went first, got the right rolls at the MI, and neither the canoes nor the Hai Peng came under fire in the first round. The HP also didn’t find any negative UT’s like Missionary at the center island. However, another nice thing about vacuuming up all the gold is that when the “kingpin island” is explored, if all remaining treasure has been suctioned, there is a very high chance (100% chance if it’s the first island explored) that the Kharmic Idol or Pirata Codex will be there, wiping out any negative UT’s and allowing CJS to have free reign on sending home the best coins when he arrives. I was very happy that things went right, as this game serves as a proof of concept for the idea.
When things go right, it’s hard to imagine a more game-breaking succession of combos.
Thanks for reading and stay tuned for more action!
Here is the updated bracket. In between each matchup are the scores by game; the higher fleet of each matchup has their score first (bottom fleet is second score) regardless of who went first.
