
Hawkmoon269 |

This appears in today's Paizo blog:
At Gen Con 2015, we're also debuting the Adventure Card Guild Open, a tournament play option using tables of four players and pre-set scenarios with no randomized elements; Tanis will share more about this even in an upcoming blog.
A post a while back hinted a new format debuting at PaizoCon, so I'm assuming this is it.
The questions abound:
What exactly is this new format?
Will tomorrow's PACG blog post give the juicy details?
Will the open format require class decks?
Is PACG the most awesome card game ever created?
Who is the most awesome class deck character?
If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Will there ever be a card guild reward that allows you to play one of the promo goblin characters with a deck constructed entirely of promo cards (which also have the goblin theme)?
Some of these questions are much easier to answer than others.

Pyrocat |
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If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Mogmurch, because who doesn't want to be a bomb juggling goblin alchemist?

Tanis O'Connor Pathfinder ACG Designer |

What exactly is this new format?
Will tomorrow's PACG blog post give the juicy details?
Will the open format require class decks?
Is PACG the most awesome card game ever created?
Who is the most awesome class deck character?
If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Will there ever be a card guild reward that allows you to play one of the promo goblin characters with a deck constructed entirely of promo cards (which also have the goblin theme)?Some of these questions are much easier to answer than others.
- It's PACG with Bella Sara cards. Paul Peterson had some left over.
- Nope.
- Just your favorite pony.
- I'm partial to Skip-Bo, myself.
- FLENTA
- The (redacted) whose art I just previewed.
- I actually tried to figure out how to make this and presented the matrix of required cards to Chad at one point. It's a little scary.

WilliamD763 |
1 person marked this as a favorite. |
If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Not sure I'd want to be an ally since most will get "discarded" for an explore. So it would have to be one with a nice "reveal" power so that they would keep me around for a while.
Also there is the issue of "banish an ally". I interpret this to be something like: "Hmmm, may be a trap in there. Lets send this guy in first... Ohh, that was a nasty trap. Looks like we need a replacement ally now."
Cause that's what adventurers like to do.

Ron Lundeen Contributor |
Hawkmoon269 wrote:If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Not sure I'd want to be an ally since most will get "discarded" for an explore. So it would have to be one with a nice "reveal" power so that they would keep me around for a while.
Also there is the issue of "banish an ally". I interpret this to be something like: "Hmmm, may be a trap in there. Lets send this guy in first... Ohh, that was a nasty trap. Looks like we need a replacement ally now."
Cause that's what adventurers like to do.
That reminds me of this old article.

Iceman |

What exactly is this new format?
Will tomorrow's PACG blog post give the juicy details?
Will the open format require class decks?
Is PACG the most awesome card game ever created?
Who is the most awesome class deck character?
If you could be any ally in PACG, which ally would you be?
Will there ever be a card guild reward that allows you to play one of the promo goblin characters with a deck constructed entirely of promo cards (which also have the goblin theme)?
No clue, but I look forward to it nonetheless.
Too soon.Hard to say.
Top 3, no sweat. #1 changes by the day.
I'm partial to Zarlova, but want to try out Tontelizi and Melindra.
Mountaineer is pretty badass, but I've got to go with Charmed Red Dragon.
Ooo, fun!
Cheers.

Jason S |
2 people marked this as a favorite. |

For my 4pm slot, I lucked out and got into the first round of the 'The Open' ACG Tournament. There were 6 or 9 tables being run today and tomorrow, with 2nd round events happening on Saturday, and the finals on Sunday. The event was timed, based on points, and was.completely.nuts.
The cards were from every set. Every piddlespotting set. We had 4 prebuilt decks. My team Doc76, Pirate Rob, and Joe H. There were 6 locations and the scenario level was about 3...and our decks (at least mine was) were built pretty well, with a mix of fun cards and some power as well. Interestingly, the characters might have been from RotR or S&Shackles or whatever...you might be interacting swashbuckling with mythic. Each Open Tourney table had a designer GM: ours was Tanis. She giggled every time I failed.
She giggled a lot.
In my first turn, I get hammered mercilessly (I get a 7 total from a d12, d10, & d4) and lose my hand. It's not a good way to start a timed and scored event. The rest of the team manages to close a location as they go around. On the next turn, I use most of my hand getting my butt handed back to me and pass the turn. The rest of the team closes another location.
The entire run had them carrying my laggardly body up and down the game board as I valiantly try to anchor them to the bottom. However, despite my best efforts, we finish early...and even finish the bonus surprise. We knocked up a good score and we'll see if we make the semifinals on Saturday. Our team name was "Don't trust Tanis!"

Frencois |

Note: participants are encouraged to avoid discussing particulars until the event is over. (Painlord is nice and vague.)
Hello beautiful Tanis,
Is there a way for us living in a galaxy far far away from GenCon to get (when the event is over of course) the specifics of the game played so that we can reproduce it on our side of the Atlantic pond?
That would be awesome...

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Note: participants are encouraged to avoid discussing particulars until the event is over. (Painlord is nice and vague.)
::Painlord prints out Tanis' post.::
::With a defiant and angry face, he pens out a note on the printout.::::Running and cackling madly, he takes off out of his
::Approaching another quieter, nicer home, he runs to the front door, nailing the printout thereon.::
'Dear Ms. Mary Elephant, see below. See? SEE?!?! I didn't really deserve a B- on that essay in 11th grade now, did I?! Being vague is useful. SEE!? SEE!!?!?'
::Painlord rings the doorbell and runs away, having won life after finally proving Ms. Elephant wrong.::

Parody |

Well, our group didn't advance from the first round but we had a good time. We did get to the final location, but we just didn't have enough time to clear it out. A couple of bad rolls in the middle of the game turned out to be key; what can you do?
Interesting setup. I would suggest making it two rounds instead of three, but otherwise it seemed to work out OK.

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Reposting from the GenCon Bloggery thread.
Wow. Round 2, the Semifinals of the ACG Open were rough.
I thought I sucked last round...this time I wish I could have been promoted to Commoner. The thing ate us and our decks. Our team of PirateRob, Doc76, Joe and myself all returned.
Much like last time, we had no idea what cards, sets, effects, APs, whatevers we'd be playing with. And it was a jumble of mished cards from all the sets (including some that don't exist for sale yet). Yet again, we had 4 crafted decks to deal with our challenges. The decks were fair and flavored, but seemingly underpowered for the challenges before us.
To me it seemed like they looked down the boards for cards players had complained about then put them in exactly the worst location for them. Tanis wouldn't confirm (nor deny) this hypothesis. But while it seemed random, it was good and tough.
Again, we had a top notch moderator eying us and making the scenario played right. This time badass Chad from the design keep had his chance to laugh at all our (mostly my) miscues and random throwing of cards around.
We scored slightly more than half the points than we did on Round 1. Ayep. Of course there was a different scoring system, but that's what we got. It is unlikely (but I am ever hopeful) of making it into the finals tomorrow at 10am.
I'm pretty sure all you have to do to prep for this tourney is know every card and every possible interaction with every other card and location for all cards in every set, including cards that have yet to see print. If you can do that, you're golden. Also, your MENSA application card is being directly thought into your brain for you to complete and transmit back.
It was fun, but the stakes were high and not sure our score was good enough.

Hawkmoon269 |

So, I'm really curious how the scoring works for the open. Is it based on objective criteria, like how many turns it takes to win the scenario or how many cards are left, etc? Or is it a bit more subjective where a judge gives you a score?
And before anyone answers, you can check with Tanis about whether mentioning that is ok or not. I'm not looking for exactly what the criteria were, just more the general picture.

Parody |

The GMs (after we finished up; our table started late so we were the last one in the first round) said that 9 teams played the first round and only 4 completed it, so they all advanced. There was a point system based on cards left in the Blessings deck, dead characters, boons acquired and such. Nothing subjective at all.

Mundane61 |
I was a member (playing Valeros) of the champion team "On the Dot". We named ourselves that when in the opening round we rolled exactly what we needed to pass several checks.
Big thanks to Tanis and the gang for running this event. It was a great event and I look forward to playing in it next year.
All three scenarios were fun and intense. Merisiel died in the first round but we scored enough bonus points to make the semi-finals. We completed the scenario on the last turn by temporarily closing two locations and killing the villain in the third.
The second scenario was my favorite. A neat change of pace. It was designed to be unwinnable, you just had to acquire as many [redacted] as possible. This one ended on time for us. I think we could have gotten a few more [redacted] if we had more time.
The final scenario started off easy for us since we closed two locations really early. Then we had a lot of trouble at the other locations and as time was about to run out closed the second to last location. The other team made the same amount of progress but gave in to [redacted] so we out scored them to take the victory.

Doc76 |

Kudos to the entire card guild staff for preparing and running the open. It was a TON of fun. I had the pleasure of playing a wizard for the very first time in the quarterfinals and then a second time in the semi's.
Pirate Rob was an outstanding quarterback for our team.
I believe we did very well (finished 3rd I guess since we were alternates for the final round). especially since the 4 of us had never played together before. For me that was the best part getting to play with a group of people and learn.

Keith Richmond Pathfinder ACG Developer |

It was a ton of fun to write the Open, unleash it, and moderate for several tables getting to see their hijinks. Congratulations to everyone who played; those were some intentionally vicious scenarios but you all pulled off some impressive progress.
More information will eventually be posted, but don't expect it for at least a few months. Tanis will have more to say on that.

Hawkmoon269 |

So, at this point, what concern is there about spoilers? Will this same "scenario" be used again for the open? Or will future appearances of the open be new "scenarios"? Also, will the open format be made available to stores or anything? And if any of this will be answered in an upcoming blog post, then I patiently await it.

Keith Richmond Pathfinder ACG Developer |

Tanis will have more to say; both very soon and probably much later. I personally will be very disappointed if it doesn't get played at other conventions, stores, and/or more private venues.
I can say that the Open contained cards from all sets, including the not-yet-released Wrath cards . So it _really_ can't be released widely until Wrath 4-6 are out.

SirDan |
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On the Dot's Ezren here!
The Open was by far the most stressful, fun, and amazing thing I did at GenCon 2015. I can't imagine the planning involved (I might have seen a pained look on Mike's face when we shuffled the first location pile with a Scrye, hehe).
Seriously, hats off to Tanis, Chad, Keith, and everyone involved. Epic plotting, vicious scenarios, and the nasty synergy combos were crazy-pants. I've been retelling the tales of all three rounds to whomever will listen.
The second and third scenario... Playing epic level characters with epic level loot fighting epic level monsters never gets old, does it?
I look forward to going back to GenCon next year to spend my time (and money) at the ACG tables.
Dan

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From this blog: "We plan to release the ACG Open for horrified reaction and general use later this year."
I will note that it uses cards from every Adventure Path as well as several class decks, and since each table running it needs their own set of the same cards, you're gonna need access to a *lot* of PACG stuff to make it happen.

Tanis O'Connor Adventure Card Game Designer |

From this blog: "We plan to release the ACG Open for horrified reaction and general use later this year."
I will note that it uses cards from every Adventure Path as well as several class decks, and since each table running it needs their own set of the same cards, you're gonna need access to a *lot* of PACG stuff to make it happen.
Yup, we hope to release it near the end of this year. Given the interest I've received from convention organizers, you might also expect to see it at a show near you at that point, so spoil yourselves at your own risk.