For our first leg of The Op’s Road to Gen Con, we made stops at the Mox Boarding House stores in Portland, Oregon and Seattle Washington. A team of three Opsters was on hand to officiate the tournaments and present some great prizes to all participants.
The Op’s Road to Gen Con 2023 MOX Boarding House Tournament Recap — Portland and Seattle
Our first stop, Portland, was sadly canceled due to low attendance. By unforeseeable coincidence, The Seattle Seahawks were playing a game for an NFL Playoffs berth against their historic rival, the San Francisco 49ers at the exact same time our tournament was scheduled for. With the popularity of the Seahawks in the region, combined
with the importance of that particular game in their post-season
plans, it was inevitable that people would be staying home to
watch the football game.
On a bright note, Jonathan Liu of GeekDad.com stopped by while we were in Portland, and we got to chat with him about Disney Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances for a while.
I played a match against him using a random pull of characters — Sulley, Davy Jones, and Dr. Facilier — against his Magical-themed team of Sorcerer’s Apprentice Mickey, Dr. Facilier, and The Horned King. There was a moment where it looked like I had it handled, but in the end, Jonathan pulled ahead 26-24 in the last three turns, and was in good shape to hold on for the win.
Sunday’s event at Mox Boarding House Seattle had nine players, and ran smoothly over four rounds of play. Players came prepared, and much of the chatter before the games began centered on some great custom storage solutions that participants had brought with them. Oversized deck boxes with dividers and secondary compartments were popular, and one player had brought a 3D printed insert with spaces for his characters, decks, and a rack for status effects.
Three of the players — JC Tao, Lukas Litzsinger, and Daniel Holt — had been testing team combinations together for several weeks, and arrived at a preferred set of characters for various matchups that carried two of them into the top five finishers of the day. They’d been following and contributing to recent discussions in
The Op’s Discord server, and some of what they’d found there, combined with their own thorough analysis, helped shape their read on the game’s current meta-strategies.
Ariel was a popular character in the event, as was Sulley. One or both of the Core Set defensive staples made an appearance in nearly every game played. Despite their matching gear sets, many players found that running both on a single team was a solid place to start. Other popular characters included Gaston, Aladdin, and the Horned King. More detailed data can be found in the Disney-Sorcerers-Arena-Epic-Alliances channel on The Op’s Discord server.
Going into the final round, the standings had JC Tao sitting on a 3-0 undefeated record, with four other players, Alexander Chin, Shane Silkey, Lukas Litzsinger, and Andrea Silkey all showing 2-1 records. JC and Andrea drew each other as opponents for round 4, while Lukas faced Shane, and Alexander matched up with Daniel Holt. Eric Wolterink and Shawn Russell rounded out the final table.
Highlights of round 4 included The Match That Ended Every Way, in which Alex and Daniel ran the clock down to almost 12 minutes before the first KO was scored. When time for the round was called, both players were closing in on 20 points and one had decked himself completely. In the end, Daniel’s team of Ariel, Sulley, and Aladdin took down Alex’s trio of The Horned King, Ariel, and Gaston, winning 20-19.
In their finals match, Andrea found a way to gain an advantage against JC’s consistent anchors of Sulley and Ariel. The defensive formation was a popular one with many players throughout the event, but when the dust settled, the pressure Andrea put on JC with Gaston, Ariel, and Jack Skellington was too much, and JC conceded down by 9 points before time was called. His first three matches, along with the overall performance of his collective opponents, were enough to carry him through though, and he walked away with first place and the trophy.
The top five finishers:
First Place — JC Tao
Second Place — Lukas Litzsinger Third Place — Andrea Silkey Fourth Place — Shane Silkey Fifth Place — Alexander Chin
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