Ruling Britannia I

I will never forget a lecture I was once given while at university. A jovial lecturer in economic history told me what I now know as 'The Parable of the Barbecue'. It goes along these lines.

An invention is not something fixed but merely an idea that can be adapted in a number of different ways. Take the barbecue for example. In England it became a tool for creating food with unique flavour. A way of cooking something different at a dinner party; because when the English do something, they do it politely. In America it became the centre of garden parties. barbecues were a social event because when Americans do something, they did it socially. In South Africa it became a way of making tasty junk food quickly; because when the South Africans do something, they do it drunk!

I began to love this story because not only was it culturally differentiating without being racist, but it was also so close to what I had often thought about Star Trek CCG. A simple game but adapted in so many different ways in different countries. In the last few years, I have met many players from all over the world and I have come to the following conclusions. In America a ST:CCG tournament is where players from different backgrounds come together to enjoy a mutual past time forming lasting friendships in the process. In continental Europe it is where friends and family compete against each other and help each other to be the best players they can be (possibly to avoid the tedium of Italian soccer). In Britain it's an excuse to sit in a bar for seven hours with your mates.

A generalisation? Probably. What is clear to me after 4 years of tournament playing is that no two players are the same and nowhere is this more true then here in Britain. Take our Ambassadors for example. There are about half a dozen of them who range from Mark Woodward, a trekker with a liking for pastel waistcoats who runs an online society with a membership of four. Through Rik Thomas, a mid 20's perpetual student who proposed to his fiancee with the line 'so do you fancy getting married then?' finally arriving at Ringo Greenwich who was disqualified from the human race for shoving. However, what I think differentiates the British tournament scene is that the tournament itself so often plays second fiddle to the extra curriculum activities enjoyed by the players. Although we often put out tournament reports, these only scratch the surface of the 'tournament scene' as experienced and loved by so many players here and it is for this reason that I felt the need to write this article.

The first thing I did of course was to put out a mass e-mail for stories or anecdotes to include. Apart from the two responses I got from sources unintended (I accidentally sent the e-mail to a Canadian player and for some reason an online grocery store) what I got was a zillion snippets of amusing stories from players around the country. Everything from the player who throws sweets at people when he loses to the player who decided to go out the night before a tournament, spend all night at one of the seedier parts of London and then turn up and run (yes I did say run) the tournament without having had any sleep. Possibly the best response I had was from a certain Steve Tobin whose reply read, and I quote:

'You dare and I will hunt you down and kill you, you know what I'm on about!!!!
Tobes'

In answer to everyone's question, yes I know exactly what he's going on about and although he's going to get away with it this month, I'm not making any promises about the future...

Possibly the reason that the tournament scene in London especially is buzzing so much at the moment it because of the sheer volume of tournaments in the area probably averaging about 5 per month. Although these events are always great and well attended, it's the big events that really capture the imagination. At time of writing, the biggest two recently have been the Grand Slam and the National although at time of reading the Gema IV regional will be added to this list.

The Grand Slam was always destined to be great. The location was Warwick university, home or ex home to many of the best players in the country. I was fortunate enough to be offered a lift by Ambassador Ringo Greenwich along with Colm McFadden and Ian 'DT' Vincent. Ringo 'delighted' us for the whole journey with his tapes of Brit-pop (for those unfamiliar with the term, read crappy loud tinny guitar music). This would have been bearable if it wasn't for DT's attempts at singing along. He is an ex worlds qualifier, ex British number 1 and possibly the best deck builder in the world. He is also the worst singer. We may have had to tie him up and throw him out of the car if it wasn't for occasional breaks in the stereo in order to sing songs questioning Colm's sexual orientation.

Anyway, upon arrival we decided to hit the bar knowing that there were no tournaments until 9:00 tomorrow morning which seems so far away when looked at through the bottom of a pint glass. Our first stop was the nearby pub where we 'liberated' two Star Wars players from Mark Woodward's boring stories before heading to the student union. After meeting up with the local science fiction society and other players we descended into the students union which that night was host to cheesy 70's disco tracks. After drinking several pints of mediocre beer and making forlorn attempts to get aquatinted with several beautiful (but blatantly not interested) women we left the dance floor only to see the sight of Colm covered in blood being 'nursed' by some of the (after 3 years I can say fairly inept) university stewards. Apparently he had got into a fight after trying to chat up somebody's girlfriend, a fight which lasted exactly one punch. Ringo sportingly decided to escort him to the hospital after most of us claimed not to know him. The night continued fairly uneventfully although DT did manage to claim the prestigious Worlds worst dancer and Worlds most unsubtle chat up attempt awards to add to his singing one to make it a historic treble only hours after our arrival. We didn't hear from Ringo and Colm until 3:30 in the morning where, after leaving he hospital, they suddenly decided that a park bench in Coventry in February is not the most hospitable accommodation so they decided to try and find their way home. They managed it eventually.

The following day we woke up nursing various degrees of hangovers. The first tournament of the day was a booster draft. I love booster draft and spent the half an hour carefully constructing a Romulan all planet deck. The great thing is about booster draft is that it actually helps if you broadcast what you are drafting so other people don't try to draft the same thing. With that theory in mind I let out occasional cried of 'Great, Neral, he'll be useful' or 'Oh good, another Galathon'. Whether this worked or not is questionable but after several hard fought rounds I won the tournament and had my name inscribed for all to see on the winners board outside. I added the 'No such thing as luck' tournament in the afternoon closely beating James 'Nice guy, big hat' Farmer in the last round. The fact that he had been asking for the last month if he could scrounge some Terraforming stations did give his deck away a bit though. By the end of the game most of his missions required something like 'Locutus OR Seven of Nine OR Croden's key' to complete. By now however everyone was keen to head over to a house party where two of the resident student players lived. Despite the efforts of Decipher's own Marcus Sheppard to lure us back to the student union with tales of a building overflowing with sparsely dressed girls we stayed put, eventually getting a visit from the environmental health agency in the wee hours of the morning who were investigating complaints about the noise (or possibly just wanted to listen to James' Weird Al Yankovich CD). Although I decided to go to bed, Ringo, Colm and James stayed up to the wee hours of the morning playing Settlers of Kataan before recording their fourth and fifth hours sleep of the weekend.

And so it was that Sunday, the day of the grand-slam came along. Ironically, this is the tournament that I was least looking forward to. The problem is with these big tournaments, you feel obliged to build a good deck. At 7:00 in the morning on the day of the tournament, I didn't have a good deck. In fact, lets get this straight, I didn't have any deck. Fortunately neither did Ringo or Colm and so at 7:00 with our second consecutive hangover, we stood around the table drastically trying to build a good deck. In about an hour we all had something that approximated a deck although mine only had 5 missions and Colm's only had one Bajoran Wormhole. Still, undeterred we ventured into the unknown to face Britain's best. Without boring you with the details, I came second to DT. He was playing PNZ and the only ship in my deck was the Enterprise which left me in big trouble. Problem is he knew it as well as he played me in the round before the final. After blowing up my Enterprise 3 times and destroying 4 out of my 2 outposts (don't ask), he won quite comfortably. Oh well, didn't quite pull off the historic hat-trick but a good weekend all the same.

As for the rest of the last few months, I haven't played much due to the onset of the American Football season (yes we play in the summer over here). Right now I have just come back from DT's house (if you ever want to find it, come to the South of England then look for a big load of fields with a crappy town called Hastings in the middle) where I built my regional deck. I'm quietly confident that after a years absence I might be returning to the worlds. Here's hoping! Before I sign of I leave you with one great story that occurred at the other big tournament recently, the British national. The tournament was held in the University of Warwick student union and after spending all day with pints surgically attached to their hand, Ringo and Colm realised they had nowhere to sleep. Ever resourceful, they somehow managed to persuade tournament host Rik Thomas to turn a blind eye to them when everyone left the tournament. Inside a room that is most of the time used as a night club they spent the night sleeping on the floor. They were not woken until 6:00 the next morning when the cleaners received the shock of their life when they found a drunk Irishman and a short man who vaguely resembles Satan crashed out on the floor. In the silence that followed the best they could come up with was:

PS Any funny stories that you would like to share with the world, please send to iptaylor@dialstart.net. Please don't get the person involved's permission first.