GenCon 2012 Post-Game Interview

To wrap-up our GenCon 2012 Fourthcore Team Deathmatch Tournament coverage, we have gone through and interviewed some of the guys from the winning Team Moose Hockey Maple Syrup Eh? to get their thoughts on winning, challenge, and victory.

Q: What influenced the game the most; character build, in-game tactics, or luck of the dice?

Dan White: It was a combination of all three. Luck is always a factor in any dice game, but we built our characters specifically to minimize the risk of mediocre rolls. I made my character specifically to get to the top of the tower in E4M1: Court of the Storm Lord, and to the top of the tower with the magic item in E1M2: The Citadel, too bad there was nothing there this time around. My speed of 7 was also a great boon to damage in E5M3: Pac-Man. I think Marc's character was pretty central to our win as well, he absorbed damage that would have demolished most Level 1 characters twice over, and every point he took was a point I didn't have to. Derek and Riley both did good amounts of damage, I did my best, but perhaps didn't play as optimally as I should have, forgetting my quarry damage sometimes and to use my thri-kreen claws.

Marc Talbot: All three I would say.  People told me that a melee characters is not the way to go for the Court of the Stormlord map, yet, I influenced the battle as much as anyone else on the board during the GenCon tourney.
Tactics...hugely influential, you forgot a mark, a quarry and did not read the terrain properly, you died.  I saw many people, including some of my teammates get telefragged because they did not pay attention to their full movement turn.
Luck of the dice is definitely true.  If you miss an attack, it could be as much as 1 kill to bring you to a tie or even a victory.

Q: What was your race and class? Why did you choose that combination? What informed your design the most?

DW: Thri'kreen ranger. He had a speed of 7, the ability to swap between melee and ranged for free every round, and a feat that gave him a climb speed of 7. He was built to get around and use the map's weapons and features, and for the most part did well in his role.

MT: Originally, I built 6 characters to try out at the Deathmatch in Toronto.  The first character I chose to play was the one that actually got the go ahead from my teammates.  I chose the Goliath Warden for the initial trial character.
I decided to change it up a bit for GenCon to a Dwarf Warden with the Dwarven Weapon proficiency.  Higher weapon damage output, second wind as a minor, the saving throw for knockdown feature and the forced movement clause.  It just optimized my character that much more.
I knew I was going to be a target and pushed by many of the ranged characters from the opposing team, so I wanted to be able to take as many hits as possible before going down; literally and figuratively. My character was designed to keep the other tanks of the team from beating on my party members.

Q: How much did metagaming factor into party design? Was the party built for synergy or to counter anticipated combos?

DW: It's hard to anticipate combos or enemy intent when there are so many teams and so many maps to overcome. The key to a good party is versatility, as high damage output as possible and hopefully good powers for avoiding as much damage as possible. The maps play a large part of the strategy in making a team as well since most terrain powers are far stronger than any character powers.

MT: I think metagaming only played a small part in the design of our party.  Sure, you can take into account all the terrain, the hazards the holes of all the maps, but as I have found out things change and cannot be always anticipated.  Synergy is your best friend for this type of tourney. We designed our party with the intention of survival.  We could all take a few hits and then dish out the damage when appropriate.  Strategy played the biggest part in the paying of this game.

Q: What was the most fun part of the tournament?

DW: When one of the players in the first round said on his cell phone, "I can't talk now mom, I'm in a death match". I cracked up, made me laugh all weekend.

MT: Winning!  Seriously, I loved meeting all the people who played in the tourney.  A great group of people, and having won the tourney on my virgin GenCon has made it much sweeter.
The comedy relief of one of the players during the deathmatch.  Listen to this, he answers his phone and I quote: “I can’t talk right now mom, I’m in a deathmatch!”

Q: What tactics or character build did you fight against that surprised or impressed you the most?

DW: The dwarf woman looking character in Cellar Dwellers, not sure exactly what it was, but it was pretty hard to kill and kept foiling my attempts to get up the tower in E4M1: Court of the Storm Lord.

MT: The last team “applesauce” really surprised me.  The second place team were all hybrids specifically designed for the deathmatch.  Their sheer output of damage and their serious attack bonuses shocked me.  I have not seen optimization like this since 3rd edition.  I was scared and if not for the vulnerability we constantly imposed...who knows, maybe our tactics would have changed.

Q: What map gave you the most trouble?

DW: E6M1: Internecion in the Feywild, there were way too many crazy rules, and with the added pressure to finish a turn quickly, it was nigh impossible to play effectively. 

MT: I found that the feywild map gave me the most trouble.  It was really hard this time to establish a rhythm on this map.  We almost got ganked on this one. This map is hard to read.  All depends on who gets where and how. Very complicated.

Q: Since the tournament is a ladder elimination setup, the most difficult foe doesn't always come at the end. Which team gave you the most difficulty in defeating?

DW: The three team fight in the first two rounds were most difficult because defense becomes way more important than offense, and any good team will be made more to kill than to stay alive. I think in this situation, counting kills would be more in the vein of a deathmatch than counting deaths...after all it's a deathmatch not a “turtle up and stay alive” match.

MT: The team in the semi-finals.  From what I understand, they were rookie players(correct me if I am wrong), and as much as we tried to bring some tactics to the table, something random they did seemed to throw us off for the whole match.  This one came down to one death also.

Q: Related; what were some surprising things that you saw on the other teams?

DW: There was an artificer/warlord hybrid that surprised me, since he had little offensive capability on his own. He was pretty good when near an ally though, or would have been if said ally rolled above a 6 at some point in the match...hooray for luck.

MT:
1.    The variety of classes that could be optimized, from wizards to avengers, I even saw some leaders.
2.    The amount of prep time put into their characters.  Some of the teams knew each of their party members as well as their own.
3.    The fun they were having.
4.    The disappointment on the teams that did not advance. (with good reason)
5.    The elation on the faces of the players playing FTDM for the very first time.

Q: What is best in life?

DW: To crush your enemies, see them driven before you and hear the lamentation of their women.

MT: Being Fourthcore Team Deathmatch Champs 2012 on my virgin year of GenCon.