November 9 was League Night #3 and it was also the start of our new league format. Due to the record number of people attending during nights #1 and #2, we have instituted a new way of playing the banks. Instead of everyone playing the same bank on the same night, we divide everyone between two banks, and then rotate on the next night so players move to the bank they didn’t play yet. This time everyone played either Bank 3, Girdle of Hippolyta, or Bank 4, Ceryneian Hind. The question immediately arose, “Will we play with the same group next time?” Since the answer was that mostly the groups would remain the same and we’d just slot in absent players randomly, things then turned to people lightheartedly razzing each other about being stuck with these jerks for two weeks.
Besides the new format, the other big news was that Godzilla (LE) had moved into the alcove, so I made that the Tuesday Night Smackdown game, bypassing the usual practice of drawing a game at random. We will be having a Godzilla launch party on November 30.
League night went extremely fast. I think my league play was done by 9 pm and Tuesday Night Smackdown wrapped up by 10. This is in part due to the fact that after two bumper weeks, we had only a normal number of people (fewer than 20) show up for the night, so we could have actually run our old format. Everyone liked it anyway. It will probably be necessary at times in the future, and even when it’s not necessary it means groups have much less waiting time. I had at least two people make a point of thanking me for the new format so it is probably here to stay.
The Smackdown on Godzilla had some very high scoring games and people who already have learned how to play it already schooled the rest of us. Allen won the A division tournament and Josh won the Undercard with a big game on Scared Stiff. The Smackdown also promoted Shylia into the status of an IFPA rated player. Congratulations, Shylia!
Tonight is our next league night, and we will complete the bank rotation, with players who were on Girdle of Hippolyta playing Ceryneian Hind (well, I like the names) and vice versa. I hope to see you there!
