Stimhack Online Cache Refresh 8: ROUND 6

Tournaments and Events
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Welcome to the information and hype thread for the Stimhack Online Cache Refresh 8 tournament. The tournament will begin Sunday, November 4th.

How will the tournament work?
This will be an online version of a regular FFG tournament with 4-6 weeks of Swiss pairings followed by a single elimination top cut. The number of Swiss rounds and the size of the top cut will be decided by regular FFG tournament guidelines for relaxed events. The top cut will be played in a best 2-of-3 games format.

Each Sunday night starting Sunday, November 4th, the tournament organizer will post pairings. Players will need to arrange games during the week and report results by the following Sunday. In other words, you will play one game per week.

Scoring will be standard with 3 points for a win. Players may not ID or two-for-one.

Policy Regarding Scheduling Conflicts
Pairings will be posted before midnight Eastern Time each week. Players should contact each other on Sunday or Monday to arrange a time to play before the reporting deadline. (Remember, you will both Corp and Run.) If a player does not respond to initial attempts to contact within 24 hours, they will forfeit the games for the week. (I’ll need documentation of attempts to contact.)

If players cannot reach a mutually agreeable time to play despite sincere attempts on both ends, then I will enter the results as a 3-3 tie unless one player agrees to concede the match to the other.

If problems with Jinteki or other connection issues disrupt a game. Start over.

If problems with Jinteki or other connection issues prevent the conclusion of a match before the deadline, it will be entered as a 3-3 split unless one player concedes the match to the other.

Will we be using the Cache Refresh bidding system?
No.

Each week you will play both Corp and Runner.

How do I join?
Sign up here before November 4th.

To sign up, you will need a Slack account. That is the best way to arrange games. If you do not provide a Slack username, your entry will be invalid. If you do not have a Slack account, you can use this link .

The Slack channel for this tournament is #cache_refresh_tourney .

This tournament will also be listed on Always Be Running (link pending)

What are the deck building rules?
In order to explore the newest cards and provide novel deckbuilding opportunities, while maintaining decent balance, particularly between runner and corp, we will be diverging from typical Cache Refresh deck building rules this tournament. The following are the deck construction rules, with changes from the previous tournament highlighted:

3x Revised Core Set (Core Set 2.0)
1 Big Box or Terminal Directive (this may be different for Runner and Corp)
1 Copy of Reign & Reverie
All 6 Packs of the Kitara Cycle
Magnum Opus Champion Cards
Magnum Opus Orgcrime Cards

Custom MWL

SOCR8 Custom MWL

Corp

Restricted

  • Surveyor
  • Global Food Initiative
  • Hunter Seeker
  • Rashida Jaheem
  • Mti Mwekundu

Banned

  • Estelle Moon
  • 24/7 News Cycle
  • Hired Help (starting round 3)

Neither banned or restricted

  • Cerebral Imaging
  • Brain Rewiring
  • Skorpios Defense Systems

Runner

Restricted

  • Aesop’s Pawnshop
  • Employee Strike
  • Magnum Opus
  • Levy AR Lab Access

Banned

  • None

Neither banned or restricted

  • Zer0

You may change the cards in your deck between weeks, but you cannot change your card pool. You must use the same big box for the whole tournament, and you must use the same ID.

Where can I post my match results?
Use this Google Form to report the results of your games. Only one player needs to submit match results each week.

How can I follow the tournament?
The pairings and standings can be found on the online tournament page .

Hey, you aren’t @FightingWalloon!

FightingWalloon, the founder of the Stimhack Online Cache Refresh tournament is stepping down from organizing these events, and I have volunteered to take over. I am enormously grateful for his vision in starting these tournaments, and his effort and diligence in running them.

If you have any further questions, please post here or over in the Slack channel.

Good luck and have fun.

12 Likes
2

This event is super fun. Sanjay is a good egg.

You should participate.

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If I use DJ Fenris, what IDs can I pick from?

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With DJ Fenris you are limited to IDs that are legal for your card pool.

Which means access to Steve Cambridge, for instance, would require selecting Terminal Directive as your big box.

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A few updates:

PRIZE SUPPORT

The folks at Burger Tokens have generously offered prize support for the tournament! First and second place will get a sheet of Burger Tokens of their very own.

Additionally, top 16, and anyone else tied on prestige with the top 16, will get in the mail one playset of cards I’ve made before! This will likely include the alt arts that I’m gonna make for last time’s tournament, SOCR7. RepoRogue (King of Swiss) and A Dumb Brick (Tournament winner).

Tournament winner will also get a card commission. I will illustrate, print, and mail to you a card of your choosing!

So all in all:

1st place: Commission + Burger Tokens
2nd place: Burger Tokens
1-16th place, plus anyone tied on prestige with 16th place: 1 playset of my alt arts.

CARD LEGALITY AND JNET IMPLEMENTATION

Cards will not be legal for the tournament until they are implemented on J.net.

I have on good authority that the Champion cards will be implemented on J.net on November 4th. You should be able to use them for the entire tournament.

The orgcrime cards might take a little bit longer. They will be legal the first complete week that they are implemented on Jnet.

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INCORPORATING NISEI UPDATES

I personally am really excited about what NISEI is doing and I got a very good question about how the changes they are planning and have already put out (New MWL, new Core set, new rules updates) might effect this tournament.

Answers:

  • NISEI rules updates are in effect for this tournament. If your deck strategy involved using Dadiana Chacon to beat you up in the middle of playing a Sure Gamble, you need to come up with a new strategy. Also, Dadiana Chacon wasn’t legal in this format anyway.
  • The new core set and the new MWL will not affect this tournament. I look forward to seeing how they will affect future tournaments, especially a new Core.
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Ugh, Champion cards. I really don’t feel like dealing with a bunch of fantasy cards that weren’t subjected to playtesting and that only 200 people actually got. This is not in the spirit of Cache Refresh.

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Sorry you feel that way.

My feeling was that the spirit of these tournaments has been to explore and highlight new cards as they come out, and I thought the champion cards (and the orgcrime cards) were cards that interested people.

Incidentally, there is a slack channel in the stimhack group called #future-socr which is where we brainstormed what we wanted SOCR8 to be. If you wanna get in there to influence SOCR9, we’d be happy to have you.

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It’s exclusionary, and you should concede that point. The cards themselves are a bizarre conciliatory move on FFG’s part. “Game’s ending, but we consider the most important thing is to honour tournament winners, not establish anything for a community which will experience mental health deltas upon our lame announcement.”

It’s not cache refresh mate, just say it.

10

You are touching on an important issue.

This format was developed in talking to the community of players who have played in previous SOCR tournaments, for this SOCR tournament. As I said before, people were interested in exploring the deckbuilding and play ramifications of the champion cards.

The intention was for the tournament to be online. To that end, I don’t see how either access to the champion cards, or the 3x core (which we are doing for this tournament) is exclusionary.

To me, Cache Refresh, as it was originally conceived, had a lot of appeals:

  1. It has a limited card pool, which is inherently beginner friendly since you don’t have to worry about as many cards
  2. The legal card pool was specifically designed to be less onerous to acquire
  3. The limited card pool means novel deckbuilding options, because different strategies work in a smaller format

It’s a good point you are raising that including Champion cards is not optimally in the spirit of Cache Refresh for a paper tournament as far as point 2 goes. I will certainly concede that. However, I think looking at Champion cards is perfectly in the spirit of Cache Refresh, with regard to the other two points.

People have reached out to me about using the SOCR8 format for their own Cache Refresh tournaments. Your point is well-received that for an in-person tournament, getting the cards might be a little complicated, so I hope tournament organizers keep that in mind.

I am sorry you are not excited about the Champion cards. I am. I expect that means you are less excited for this tournament, and I hope you consider future ones, because SOCR tournaments are a lot of fun.

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  1. The people who were interested in exploring the “deckbuilding and play ramifications” of the champion cards could obviously play another format where that was possible. It was called Magnum Opus.
  2. My criticism of the balancing of these cards still applies. FFG considered printing vanity cards over the health of their player base? Why would you immediately accept these as part of a format that’s designed to be more accessible?
  3. You policed the format in absentia in your Slack channel, which is not “public support.” A format should consist of a a more broadly aligned consensus, regardless of their choice of social media channels. I don’t use Slack much anymore, but I would have happily arranged my matches until I learned that it was also a way of creating a weird pseudo-format.
  4. Do you work in a call centre? I’ve never been told “your call is important to us” in such an elaborate way. Fantastic corp language there.
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Worth noting that the champion cards were in fact playtested. The orgcrime/community cards however were not, so your objection for them still stands.

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With regard to your first point, as you pointed out, many people did not get to go to Magnum Opus. Saying that Champ cards are just for Magnum Opus is a bit at odds with your concern that the cards were exclusive.

With regard to your second point, we have a custom MWL, specifically made with the Champion cards in mind. Your idea that I accepted these cards without consideration is just false. Further, it is my impression that the champion cards were generally well-received in the events people have played with them in, so I really don’t understand your “immediately accepting” characterization.

Public control of the SOCR8 was never promised so I don’t know what you are quoting when you quote “public support”. I am sorry you didn’t get to participate in the discussion for SOCR8. I’ll try to have conversation be more visible in the future so people can participate because while the conversational nature of Slack is a feature in planning things, the secrecy is not.

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I’m stoked for this event. I think it’s a nice exploration of the last possible pool of new ffg cards, and there has been loads of discussion and a decent amount of testing to support the format.

Seems good, thanks for putting in the work organizing it!

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I’ve always put off joining these events (isn’t there just always something that seems like it’ll get in the way), but FightingWalloon’s departure has reminded me not to put it off forever. Thank you, Sanjay, for saving me some regrets. The custom MWL looks great, as well!

To anybody else who’s toying with the idea of joining in, rest assured that you won’t be the only person new to the event (and to Slack :sweat_smile:).

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A few questions…
1.Is the current FFG MWL also in effect, just modified by this one, or does this one replace MWL 2.2 for purposes of this tourney?
2. Is there a buy in fee/prize support?
3. Any idea if/when M.Opus Cards will be implemented on jinteki.net?
4. Is there a participation cap/limit? I dont wanna miss out, but wanna tweak my decks til the last minute!

Thanks for doing this!

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Hello. I can answer a few of these (though @Sanjay is running the joint):

The MWL above is the only one in effect. It is substantially similar to MWL 2.2, but with a few modifications that reflect the card pool. For example, Zer0 has few synergistic cards (heap breakers and clan vengeance are unavailable) and runner draw is fairly weak. So it’s free. In the standard cardpool, it’s banned because it is so efficient.

No cost to play. The good people at Burger Tokens and the good people at… Sanjay… are providing some prize support, look upthread in this post

That is up to the jnet devs fine work. Per the same comment above, the champion cards are expected to be available at the start of the tournament on 11/4. The orgcrime cards (Watch the World Burn and Hired Help) may take a little bit longer.

In the past, there has not been a limit. I don’t believe I have heard of any limit being applied to this event.

Good luck and hope to see you in the tournament!

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  1. This MWL replaces MWL 2.2. All of the affected cards are mentioned in this MWL. (Obviously you can’t play cards outside the card pool.)
  2. No fee. Not sure about prizes.
  3. Opus cards should be implemented by deadline. OrgCrime (Hired Help/Watch the World Burn) probably will not, so for at least the first match they will not be allowed.
  4. You can change your ID/Box pick at any time up until the registration deadline, so feel free to register now with a temporary pick and adjust it if desired. There is no participation limit, but it’s easy to forget and miss the deadline, so sign up now!
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How do directives interact with Adam? Can I use Find the Truth as a game-start directive?

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Sanjay, thanx for running this!

I’m donating two metal ANRPC dice (orange or white) to each of the top 8. I’m also playing.

SO, no Hired Help, even with proxy?

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