Yes, Again. [3-2, 8th at East US Nats 2024]

Deck Selection

First thing’s first. I want to zoom in on how I came to play this particular list at this particular event.

And that’s kind of it.

Between NotAgain’s original writeup had basically everything you need to know, so if you’re interested in the deck go read that.

Kyle brought the same deck (without the Offoff/Longevity swap) and by the end of the event we both felt there was a pretty huge difference between the games where you could and couldn’t find Charlotte early.

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The games

As Corp I went 3-1 in swiss and 0-1 in the cut. (I’ll probably add notes for each match later.)

Round 1: Loss vs NotAgain playing Aumakua Hoshiko

Round 4: Win vs Chris playing Reg Arissana

Round 5: Win vs DanB playing Werewolf Kit

Round 8: Win vs kevinth playing Reg Arissana

Cut Round 2: Loss vs rohit playing Swift Lat Update: you can watch the replay on QTM's youtube channel! Shout-out to Dee and Monde for commentating. (Starting hand was Saisentan, Bacterial Programming, Manegarm Skunkworks, Anansi, and Hedge Fund. Bacterial was the card discarded with Hansei Review.)

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Nit-picking

Now it's time for what you've all been waiting for: my takes on how aesopstables.net could be improved!

At in-person tournaments I get really anxious about finding my table and getting set up quickly. As is, I think Aesops is totally fine! Also, I think there are some small changes that could help me (and other jittery people) quite a bit.

Alternative URL extension

If you have the Aesops page open to the round 2 pairings when the TO calls out that round 3 has been paired then the fastest way to get to the new pairings is to either a) edit the URL to change aesopstables.net/999/2 to aesopstables.net/999/3, or b) refresh the page and click on the itty-bitty “3” link at the top of the page.

If it is feasible, my preference would be to have an aesopstables.net/999/paired (or some equivalent) that always shows the most recent round so that a single refresh will always take you to the right page to confirm your match was reported properly, show you how many matches are still waiting to complete, and see the new round’s pairings.

Different sorting scheme

Back when I played MTG I found the way they displayed pairings and table numbers to be a lot easier to navigate than the way Aesops currently does.

I’ve created an example here using tables 1-5 of Round 5 at Nats. (Imagining for a moment that these ten players are the only participants in the example event.)

This is how it looks now:

And here is another way the same matches might be sorted:

To me, it seems a lot easier to scroll down to where you already know your name will be than to fuss with the “find in page” feature on a mobile browser.

/end nit-picking

Thank you to Ysengrin and the OP team for creating and maintaining Aesops, and for supporting rad events like this one. I had a great time!

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Thank you to NotAgain for the deck and for organizing the tournament.

Thank you to Kyle and Wyld for being my travel buddies.

Thank you to Lucas for all the work you put into the NJ meta (and for giving me my Runner deck).

Thank you to all my opponents for being patient, gracious, and generally rad.