Path of the Omegathon - Round Five
Posted by DoverAfter getting no sleep the night before, I was surprisingly awake for the next round of the Omegathon. I showed up to the event and met up with Brian. We chit chatted a little bit, mostly about yesterday’s Rock Band performance and our general lack of sleep the night prior. Tony joined us a bit later and Ryan showed up last, with his face firmly entrenched in his copy of Puzzle Quest on the DS.
Travis began by explaining the rules to us. It was to be a best out of three and we could all select a level one character. Once we selected a character, we couldn’t change to another class no matter if we won or loss. It was to be played on the Xbox 360 with a sixteen second time limit per turn. After Travis left and started to address the crowd, Brian told the group that it looked like Puzzle Quest was going to be our Yoko Ono. That brought a chuckle from the group. Bah, there would be nothing that would break up the Photoshop Heroes. I got the other guys email addresses and told them that if I won the tournament, that I would buy them all a gift from Japan as a thank you for helping me get through the Rock Band round. There was a definite feeling of mutual respect amongst the last four Omeganauts and it was obvious we were all going to pull out all the stops to win this tournament.
Of all the rounds of the Omegathon, this round I felt the most comfortable with. I picked up Puzzle Quest for the DS when it first came out. I put about sixty or so hours into the game and maxed out a Wizard on the way to beating the game. We only knew about the level one character limit after we got to PAX. My training for this game consisted of playing a Wizard on hard mode with a twelve second time limit. All my opponents were random and typically much more powerful than me. Once my character reached level fifteen, I would delete him and start over. I also made sure not to equip any items or purchase stat upgrades. I only used the spells and stat upgrades through level ups on my character, so that I would be ready for any type of rules they set up. I even went as far as to create a excel spreadsheet to track the best way of spending my level up stat bonuses. Of course, being as we were playing level one characters, all that went right out the window.
We all knew that it would be a choice of Wizard or Druid as the characters we used against each other. To attack or to heal, that was the question. Tony, Ryan, and I all chose Wizard, while Brian chose Druid. My match was against Brian and we were up first. Our strategies were quite clear. I had to gather red and yellow mana, while denying Brian blue. He had the same strategy in reverse, to gather blue and yellow, while denying me red. Being level one, most of the game would actually rely mostly on luck.
Luck was on my side in the first game, as I was able to gather a lot of red and deny Brian of blue for most of the match. I was also able to attack often with my spell and chip away at his hit points. He was able to heal a few times, but wasn’t able to get enough blue to keep up.
The second game took quite a long time and luck was on Brian’s side this time. I spent most of that match desperately trying to gather yellow mana while Brian had almost full supplies of blue and yellow to draw upon. Brian ended up winning that game easily.
The last game found me very stressed out and trying hard not to show it. I started out strong with some yellow and red mana pick ups early on. Brian never was able to gather much blue or yellow mana and every time he did there was no moves left on the board which caused both of us to lose all of our mana. Worse, every time there was a mana drain, it always ended up with me having the first move on a fresh board. It seemed to always contained several four of a kind’s in red, yellow, and skulls. In this last game, Brian just couldn’t catch a break. The match ended with the board locked up and a green mana match left in the lower right hand corner. To take that match would cause skulls to be lined up for the next player. We both danced around it for a while, but Brian had no choice left at the end. He still had thirteen hit points remaining and decided to let the time run out. It damaged him for five hit points, but set the turn back to me. I had just enough mana to cast Fire Bolt at him and bring him down to four hit points left. With no mana left to heal and no safe move available to him, he let the timer run down and the game came to an end.
Ryan and Tony battled it out in the next match. They both played as Wizards and the games went much faster than mine. Ryan ended up winning and advancing to the final round. The match ended with Ryan and Tony pushing the "A" button together to finish off Tony’s character with a Fire Bolt spell.
Brian was a great competitor and a genuinely good person. The same can be said of Tony and Ryan as well. I hated to have to eliminate Brian, but it was a competition and we were all playing for keeps. Everyone left that round with a smile on their face, win or loss.
In the end, I was in the finals and no matter whether I won or lost, I was either going to Japan or I was going to get another shot at the Omegathon next year. It was a win-win situation. There was nothing left to practice and nothing left to worry about. I was, for once, going into a round stress free. On to the finals.
-Dover
