Killboard tournament format is an offshoot format from EVE Online, the computer game. In EVE, players record and track their kills on a website out of game that is generally known as a ‘killboard’. Killboards serve as a way for players to see how good or bad they, their friends, and their enemies are doing in the game.

During the Fanfest 2007 weekend, I was teaching the CCG to some EVE players who had never played before. We had a discussion about how fun it would have been to have a killboard on the wall and record everything that blew up during the game, which in turn gave me the idea for this tournament format!

Killboard format is a twisted up version of a standard tournament, where the winner is determined not by who wins the most games, but by how many ships are killed on the way there. The rules put a lot of emphasis on ship combat and a lot less emphasis on, for example, blitz or control style decks. Here they are:

1. The tournament organiser should prepare, ahead of time, some way of recording kills during the tournament. The only thing that really needs to be recorded is number of ship kills, as this is the relevant stat to the tournament format. However, a more highly visible board (such as a whiteboard or flip-pad on an easel) would give more ‘flavour’ to the tournament, as well as allowing you to record additional stats such as shiptypes and so on for fun purposes and to emulate a ‘real’ killboard.


2. The tournament is played in a swiss format. Rounds consist of one game, instead of the standard three, as the games will last longer. Although players are paired by win/loss, wins and losses do not actually mean anything in terms of victory conditions. For smaller numbers of players (seven or less), round robin format is also appropriate.


3. Deck construction rules are slightly different to normal and should follow the following format:
   • Minimum of 12 Frigates, Destroyers, Scouts, and/or Industrial Ships
   • Minimum of 8 Cruisers
   • Minimum of 2 Battleships
   
   This gives the tournament a fun feel by forcing every deck to include varying ship types with which to fight. Alternatively, for a faster/cleaner format with less administration and deck checking, you can simply enforce a minimum of 22 ships in each deck.
   
4. A ‘kill’ is defined as any time an enemy-controlled ship is destroyed due to being reduced to 0 shields through damage. For example, all ship to ship combat will generally result in recorded kills, as will direct damage cards such as Adaster’s Disaster or Crokite. Cards such as Blood Raiders, or playing an Ice Ore into an enemy-controlled outer region, will not score kills.


5. During each game, a player’s kills are recorded on the killboard by an appointed killboard monitor or through some other previously agreed method (i.e. recorded by the players on paper). The tournament organiser or judge should ensure that all stats are kept accurately and are collated after each game (if not being recorded on a publicly visible board).


6. After each game, a player is awarded a number of points equal to the number of kills (“killmails”) he has acquired. Starbase kills are also worth one point and should be recorded with the other kills (e.g., killed: Ian’s Minmatar Starbase). Starbases are also used for tiebreak purposes (below).


7. At the end of the tournament, the player with the highest number of kills wins, second place is awarded to the player with the second highest total, and so on. If two or more players are drawn for total kills, the player with the highest number of starbase kills wins. For any tiebreaks necessary beyond this, then it is up to the tournament organiser to determine a tiebreak method (such as resistance, playing a standard-format game of ESG, flipping a coin, and so on).

Hopefully this format will provide some people with a new and interesting way to play the EVE CCG!

Calmdown

by Zachery Walters, aka AgentZero

Thursday

I’d like to start this report by thanking everyone who came out to Iceland (frikkin’ Iceland!) to play some cards with me. I had a great time in our sauna of a room, and I hope everyone else did as well. I would especially like to thank David Schachtler, Stefan Schubert, Mike Nudd and Ian O’Brien. All four offered up their time to help teach the game to their fellow EVE fans. With all the other events that were scheduled at Fanfest, it was great to see such dedication to Second Genesis.

I was a mess on Thursday. We should just get that out of the way up front. I had been up for more than thirty-six hours the day before, and had used more than a little alcohol to put myself to sleep on Wednesday. Though I had managed to arrive at the show on time, I was groggy and still a little sore from all the traveling and pre-Fanfest setup—in short, even though Thursday was going to set the tone for the rest of the show, I couldn’t really get excited.

It was good for me, then, that we had a constant stream of fans through the tabletop room, all of them very curious and enthusiastic about our non-video games. The more demos that were given, the more I perked up, and by the time the flood of Live Agent players (fans sent on missions around Fanfest) showed up, everyone at the ESG tables had gotten into a groove. People who hadn’t played since last year’s Fanfest were suddenly galvanized to make decks for the Firday tournament, while the regular players were raiding the supply of promo materials to keep up with the demand for demonstrations. Even some members of the gaming press popped their heads in and walked away with a very high opinion of the card game (as well as a starter deck or two)!

Friday

Friday’s tournament was admittedly a bit more sedate, but everyone involved had a great time. Many of the competitors had never played in a tournament before, but I don’t think anyone felt the low average experience level hurt. Even though there were plenty of new prizes up for grabs (signed art, new promo cards and even some framed foil sheets), the experienced players almost universally slowed down to teach the newcomers the ins and outs of tournament play. Unfortunately, without knowing what to expect, several new players dropped after only a few rounds, reducing our numbers from fifteen to thirteen.

When the finals rolled around, everyone was anxious to see the results not only of our tournament, but also of the PvP tournament downstairs. Participation prizes were handed out, and the top four settled in for the next two rounds, both of which lasted well over an hour apiece. What had started out as a very casual tournament suddenly turned deadly-serious, with games turning from patient explanations of game mechanics and strategy to quiet, tense struggles for supremacy.

The first round of the finals saw Stefan Shubert (schubi) facing off against Einar Þór Ívarsson, while Mike Nudd (mikelosaurus) stared down the barrel of Árni Magnússon’s brutal deck. With the newcomers out of the way, all four become deadly serious, nd set about methodically breaking their opponents’ decks. I personally played against all of the finalists except for Arni, and I don’t mind telling you that the other judges and I had absolutely no idea who would end up in what place. Strength of schedule certainly played a role in determining the top four, but any of them could be walking home with first place, as far as we could determine.

Stefan and Einar both utilized heavy early defenses, preferring to roll out unstoppable juggernauts relatively late in the game. When facing each other, both players utilized quick jabs to attempt to wear down resources, but all three games of the match ultimately came down who could amass ISK the fastest. Unfortunately for schubi, Einar was slightly more consistent and emerged victorious after the third game.

Mike and Arni were likewise equally matched, both running decks that relied mostly on smaller ships with a smattering of heavies for support and the eventual punch needed to win. Mike relied heavily upon Tourist Resorts and empty regions to bring in the cash while Arni’s locations primarily benefited from play outside of the home region. This difference arguably cost Mike the match, but not before he fought his way to an incredible third game standoff.

With the foreign invaders knocked out, the local boys (Arni and Einar both hail from Reykjavik) set about the task of beating each other into submission. Einar’s deck proved to be flexible, despite its use of bigger ships, but it ultimately lost out to the hordes of smaller ships Arni was able to field. A veteran of many card games, Einar gave as good as he got, making Arni sweat over three games and nearly an hour and a half, but he was eventually overcome.

Saturday

The idea for Saturday’s “Pod a Dev” challenge was kind of a last-minute addition to the schedule. I was wracking my brain for something interesting to do after the tournament (which always leaves both judges and players a little burnt out) and thought giving you all a chance to humiliate Tallest and me was a good way to disseminate some prizes in a very relaxed way.

Most of Friday’s players turned up, if just for a match or two, and we were joined by a quite a few people who had only Thursday learned to play the game. I personally played around ten games while Tallest and Kaemon accounted for about six or seven apiece. Out of those roughly two dozen games, we gave away eight full playsets of the four newest promo cards. Everyone seemed to like the cards, especially the two that were being seen for the first time.

All in all, Fanfest was a success for Second Genesis. A lot of EVE fans picked up the game, vowing to teach it to their friends and corp mates, and promised to return next year. The EVE Store actually sold out of Exiled boosters late Friday evening! I would highly recommend everyone look into coming to the Party at the Top of the World next year, and in the mean time, honing your skills as local events. With the short test league running through December, and the fully-supported version starting up in January, it’s an exciting time for ESG players, and I wouldn’t want to be helming any other game right now.

by Saleem Halabi, aka Halabis

As a new player coming into EVE, my first impression of the game is that it is very unforgiving of mistakes. All it takes is one simple error and the entire game can be over in the blink of an eye. Time and again, I would send ships to the outer regions, confident that my starbase shields were sufficient, only to discover that I had overlooked some critical detail. Other times, I would attack my enemy’s starbase, but fail to notice one of the many abilities he had available to him on the table. Each and every time, after just one mistake, the game would be irrevocably lost. I would have either too few ships to defend the next turn, or too little time to assemble more ships to replenish those I lost.

With this in mind, I decided to create a deck to inflict these poor choices on my opponent, while at the same time minimizing my own opportunities for error. Playing this deck should help illustrate the importance of making wise choices, while at the same time eliminating the need to make those choices while using it.

Starbase:
Angel Cartel Tower

Regions: Ginnungagap
Heaven
The Bleak Lands

Locations:
Angel's Red Light District x4
Plagioclase x4
Sansha's Scout Outpost x4
Crokite x4

News:
Dismantle x4
Dead or Alive x4
Daring Infiltration x2
Adaster's Disaster x4
Remnant of Vak'atioth x4
Mind Control x2

Ships:
Breacher x4
Reaper x4
Bantam x4
Serpentis Defender x4
Celestis x4
Guristas Liquidator x2
Caracal x2

The beginning strategy is simple: in your opening hand you want to mulligan as much as you can to insure that you have either a Reaper and a Plagioclase, or a Sansha’s Scout Outpost in your hand. These cards form the core of your early game ISK engine. By your second turn you should strive to have Plagioclase out on The Bleak Lands. Another important source of income is Crokite played on Ginnungagap. While it can’t be sacrificed once it is played there, it can be played there after it’s sacrificed. It is also a cheap source of income for your mining capable ships. Heaven is in the deck to help recoup losses from playing news cards to destroy your enemy ships.

After you have your ISK engine established, game play gets slightly more complicated. Most of your ISK should be stockpiled and saved to destroy enemy ships. You should hold on to as many cards in your hand and as much ISK as possible. Any card you play should be dedicated to earning you more ISK. Your primary weapon against your opponent is going to be him overestimating his forces compared to yours. If you get to the point where you will have to discard a card, however, don’t hesitate to actually play ships. Whenever your opponent attempts to use a ship to harm you, by attacking either your base or a region you control, then you should destroy it. With 18 cards dedicated to destroying ships, your opponent should never be able to successfully attack you with more than one or two at a time. If he does, you still have a solid mix of quick ships with low assembly for mining in the early game, and moderate-sized ships to finish the opponent off in the long game.

If your opponent manages to get enough ships to attack your base, Serpentis Defenders should be played to surprise your opponent with unexpected strength, and hold off his assault. The combination of ships that can be quickly played, combined with ship destruction cards in-hand, should constantly keep your opponent off guard. If the opponent defends his base with just enough ships to hold off your forces, then you should surprise him by playing your ship destruction news and Breachers to attack him with a larger than anticipated force against a smaller than expected defense. Celestis, Guristas Liquidator, and Caracals all offer a solid defense if your opponent does manage to play more ships than you can handle, as well providing a means of overcoming his starbase shields.

Hopefully this deck will provide a means for beginner players to even the playing field with those who may have more experience keeping track of all the many variables involved in the game, while at the same time allowing them to see the effects of failing to consider an opponent’s unseen cards. In that function it should serve as both a fun deck to play and a valuable teaching tool for new players.

by Ian Vincent, aka DTee

The universe of EVE is big, really big. 401 different cards may sound like a walk to the chemist but that’s 80,200 two card combinations and over 10 million three card combinations. I would tell you how many different decks combinations exist but it’s too “vastly, hugely, mindbogglingly big” for any of us to comprehend.

Hardcore gamers will tell you that this vastness is a good thing. When they sit down and build a new deck, they’re exploring the universe and the chances are that nobody has taken that particular route before. There’s no feeling quite like it.

For new players the experience can be more than a little intimidating. If you’ve ever sat down with a pile of cards in front of you and felt completely disorientated, then this series is for you. You won’t learn which cards are good or bad, but you will learn to navigate around the universe, and from there it’s up to you where you go.

Part 1: Income Engines

To build things, you need both materials and the energy to shape them. If you start by building small things that generate more energy, you can turn all your materials into things very quickly. Such is the nature of competition between corporations: those that hold on to their cards will be rapidly consumed by rivals with more ISK.

Put plainly, you start the game with too many cards and not enough ISK. Your income engine is the way you turn these excess cards into ISK, and the smallest improvement can make a massive difference.

The format for today’s article is a little odd. We’re going to start by setting two objectives, looking at the different ways of meeting them and then looking at a dozen reasons to reassess the objectives as we consider the complications of having an opponent to deal with.

The number of ships in a deck can vary wildly, but the average ship cost is less variable, at around 4 ½ ISK. So, it’s going to take 7 or 8 ISK a turn to be able to play the cards you’re drawing each turn and eat into your starting hand. This is quite a tough target and suggests you need to increase you income by:

• More than 1 per turn.
• More than 1 per card played/discarded.

Home Region Locations

1 ISK locations like Veldspar and Acceleration Gate have their uses, but on their own they don’t achieve either of the objectives. If you’re looking to earn all your income from your home region, you’ll need to be a bit fancier than that.

Scordite increases your income by 2 ISK a turn and can cheat the 1 ISK per card by Sacrificing Star Chart Enterprises for a quick cash injection. The downside is that you really need to hit the pair to compete with the top (post-Exiled) engines.

By The Emperor’s Decree or Omber will let you increase your income by more than one per turn, but to meet our second objective you’ll need to supplement them with 2 ISK locations that don’t require a discard/sacrifice. Popular options include:

• Sansha’s Scout Outpost*
• Tourist Resort
• Security Check Point

Outer Regions

Sending Frigates or Destroyers to an outer region may sound like a good way to supplement your income but you’ll generally find they get kicked out after one turn’s income, or need to be withdrawn to protect your tower.

It’s faster and more profitable to send out a zero assembly Industrial ship to trade there instead. Gallente have the pick of the litter with the Inferior Iteron, but Amarr and Minmatar can send out a Hoarder turn 2 for a similar income boost.

Caldari are better known for their military prowess than for trading, and this is reflected in their income options too. Instead of wimpy Industrial ships, they’ve got the Concord Custom’s Official, which will happily visit Cloud Ring for 3 ISK a turn. Cloud Ring is a death trap for any other ship, but the ability to warp home before the battle phase gets round that nicely.

Outer Region Mining

Don’t. Seriously, don’t bother.

A rich field of Crokite or Arkonor is incredibly tempting, but countless CEOs have found out (the hard way) that there are a million and one things that can go wrong. One day someone will find a way around those problems, but in the meantime there are plenty of other options to explore.

Home Region Mining

Pre-Exiled I might have said the same thing about home region mining but there have been at least two important developments.

Firstly, the new towers make it much easier to keep your opponent out of your home region so your ships can mine in peace, but I’m more excited by something else…

The Angel Gatherer is our first zero assembly mining 2 ship, and Home Guard bypasses assembly times for two ISK. It’s hard to ignore mining when (from turn 3) you can get 4 ISK a turn (and 2 ISK per card) out of a humble Pyroxeres.

I’ll get flamed to death if I don’t mention Astral Mining Inc and Combined Harvest, too. There are a lot of new options for mining and everyone has their favourites but I doubt anybody has explored them all yet.

Gold-Fishing

Once you’ve picked your income cards it’s time to shuffle up and see how it works. Assume you’re going first and play out the first three turns to see how often you hit 7+ income** on turn 4. 70% or higher suggests you’ve got a viable engine.

The Other Guy

Being powerful and consistent isn’t enough to win games, your engine also needs to be robust enough to survive whatever your opponent throws at it. Before making your final decision it’s worth thinking about how well your engine can cope with:

Playing these cards will slow your opponent down, so it doesn’t matter if they slow you down by a similar amount; however, with 13 card side-boards there’s a good chance you'll see your worst nightmare in the second or third game.

If that nightmare is discard or location destruction, it’s worth running Ginnungagap or Sansha’s Nation as one of your regions. If a zero-cost news is giving you trouble, check out Mind Control.

There’s a chance that’s overloaded your brain, if not I’ll see you in the forums to answer questions and watch sparks fly as people debate which approach works best.

With the introduction of the new starbases in The Exiled, new strategies open themselves up to players. Old cards gain new prominence while new ones solidify and combine to give players a wider choice in deciding how to approach the game.

This set has given greater priority to the role of outer regions, and for me, the key region with the newest starbases is Stain. In the Core Set, this was a potent card in all aspects of the game, but when used in conjunction with the abilities of the latest towers, it is now a game-deciding card. In no unclear terms it can allow players to develop their home regions, secure in the knowledge they are safe from an opposing player's ships and direct efforts, while tapping into the resources available in the outer regions.

It’s been a long time coming, but now that I have returned home from the Month of Conventions, I finally have time to write up a proper report of the Gen Con Championship tournament. Overall, the three tournaments held at Gen Con were all fantastic. Since I missed last year, this was my first chance to see so many EVE players in one place, and I have to say, I was impressed.

The attitude surrounding the event was overwhelmingly positive, and the competition was tense but friendly. Everyone was there to win, to be sure, but no one was willing to forgo having a good time to do it. The banter flowed freely during each round, and talk about local play styles and comparisons of card collections filled the time between games. Being shut in a room with forty-five other people for over six hours has never been so enjoyable.

The lead-up to the championship started out rowdy. The excitement had been building through two other days’ events, and everyone was ready to get down to the business of playing. Everyone arrived in small batches, usually two or three at a time, and immediately got to work filling out their deck registration sheets. Pétur and Rob (the other two judges for the tournament) prepared the tables while I organized the registration, and after only a short delay, all forty-one players were signed in and ready to play.

The first round went smoothly, and everyone seemed to be having fun, but I could tell they were quietly concerned about the prizes. I had told them before we began that the prizes would be mostly cash, but had yet to reveal the distribution. When it was revealed the cash was going to be spread to all players, regardless of their final standings, the tension broke and thoughts were turned back to the games at hand.

The alliance play format is not very popular at the moment. This is mostly due to lack of players, but I can foresee a great future for it, like in many other games. The plus side of EVE is that you don't have to share a body of a two-headed giant, you just share a home region. To get more out of it than just sharing regions with your alliance partner, you will have to take a different approach to both deck building and the way you play your cards. With this article, I would like to give some hints and tips for your next (or maybe even your first) alliance match.

Even though I don’t post as often as I probably should, I do read the Second Genesis forums at least twice a day, and do my best to keep abreast of what the community is saying about the game. It has been in the process of this that I have noticed a few things that got me thinking, and spurred me to write this article. A number of the decks posted in the forums are presented with reminders that the owners don’t possess all the cards they feel are necessary for the success of the deck.

A large part of Eve: The Second Genesis is spent fighting over Outer Regions. Some regions see play often (Stain, Sansha’s Nation, Lonetrek) while others are rarely used (Serpentis Prime, Eve Gate, Kyonoke Pit). Many of these regions can be used together to produce a better effect for our decks. This article shows how all regions have their uses, even if they don’t appeal to us the first time you read it. Because some regions have unique abilities, they will be examined individually, while others will be grouped together.

The Minmatar Junkyard deck focuses on paralyzing the opponent by eliminating their ships. After playing the Minmatar Starter deck, I noticed a few cards that would contribute a great deal to this theme.

Sometimes, in life, it can be tempting to follow the leader. A successful strategy is one that is likely to be duplicated, sometimes even outright copied. This is as true as ever in the realm of CCGs. The successful decks are mimicked and copied. Changes are made to decks, but the core strategy stays the same.

While I have only been constructing decks and playing EVE for a couple of months, I have a wealth of experience from playing a whole host of other CCGs, from Magic to Shadowrun, Babylon 5 to Warlord, and one key fact is true for all of these games as well as EVE: if you gain an early advantage you are more likely to win.

Not all gamers are motivated by the same things. Some see gaming as an education of sorts; an opportunity to learn things through practical application of the strategies they bring to the game, whether those strategies involve diplomacy, deduction, math, deception or whatever else happens to tickle the intellect. Others see it as a way to express themselves, a form of art where they can show off their creative chops. And then there are people who simply want to win…

For myself and a lot of other people out there, collectible card games have long since grown into something far beyond simple entertainment. These are serious games of skill and are treated as such, with tournaments held every week all over the world. Since the best players advance to the finals of the largest tournaments with a fair degree of consistency, it’s evident that there’s much skill involved in being a good player. Practice makes perfect, and playing to win is the only way to go if you want to be a tournament player. As enjoyable as the competitive aspects are, though - the hours and hours of making decks and perfecting your game - sometimes you just want to grab a pile of cards and play with your friends at the kitchen table. These friendly games have one very strong defining point: they get a whole lot better the more players you add to them.