Category: 7th Sea : City of Five Sails

7th Sea : City of Five Sails Gamehole Con 2023

Pine Box Entertainment hosted a tournament at Gamehole Con in Madison recently 10/21/23, and I was happily able to attend and represent Eisen! Got to the tournament right at the start time and found out the only other Eisen player switched to them right before the tournament started, because no one else was playing them. The breakdown was incredibly balanced amongst the factions after that though:

Eisen – 2
Vodacce – 2
Castille – 3
Ussura – 3
Montaigne – 3

It was 4 rounds of swiss followed by a cut to top 4. I ran my Eisen list explained in my breakdown trying out Precision over Iron Reply. (Precision also underwhelmed me.) I stuck with Rena over Uwe. (Worked out as I never mustered Daniella, and only Rena once.) Below is a recap of the games as best as I can remember them. (I’ll have to start taking pictures of board states at the end of each day.)

Game 1 vs Montaigne

Day 1: Both get a Renwon. Relatively unmemorable.

Day 2: Focused around a contest to claim the 5 Renown on the Forums thanks to Guillen + Odette. Overall my engage-efficient combat was working out very poorly for me. I greeded some early gambles with bad results, I greeded an early trigger on Let the Sword Decide to cancel a Riposte, and I ultimately ended up trading a character (maybe Terrell) to A Heroic End gamble that I was very sad I could no longer cancel. [This may have happened on day 1 with a merc, I don’t quite remember.]

After that we piled almost every character we had, both sides with Mercs, into the Forums to contest the Renown. I was down by an influence with just 4 cards in hand and only 1 prepared character with Influence to my opponent’s 2. In desperation, I pay full price to equip a Polished Flintlock to a character, going down to 1 card in hand, and shoot the En Garde Takama (who had survived some earlier violence but was currently at full health). This was my opponent’s second game of 7th Sea ever, and the Montaigne player was immediately suspicious of my final card in hand, openly wondering why I wanted to Engage Takama and what my last card in hand had to do with it. After considering it for a bit, my opponent ultimately decided to Engage Takama instead of taking the wound which would have brought her to 2 Resolve left. After the pass, I use my final card Last Word to push Takama off the location, since she is now engaged and no longer able to return. I claim the location, get the 5 Renown and gain control of the game I certainly would have lost otherwise.

Day 3: I choose The Song of Eisen because I know if I clear the City I’m guaranteed the win (assuming Kaspar doesn’t die and I don’t get Dominated). However, my opponent chose Epee Sanglante, which put the possibility of Montaigne stealing a Renown on the table to disrupt my plans. The two mercs on the table were Carmella and Maryam though, so I had to maintain 4 cards in hand to recruit both to trigger Song.

We go to the Forums, I recruit Carmella and my opponent challenges Kaspar sending 3 threat. Carmella intervenes with a parry 3 thrust 1. Opponent is only able to return 2 threat (since Riposte couldn’t reflect more than what exists). I gamble into a 2 parry 3 thrust. Opponent Ripostes 3 wounds back at me with the help of Henri, and I pay for Well-Equipped from hand to block the 3 and send back 4 which looks like it is going to punch through and secure me the win. However, Mastercrafted Rapier saves the day, pushes 4 threat back, and I fail to gamble into Kaspar’s Panzerhand. Renown stolen, The Song of Eisen plan thwarted.

Time is getting close to being called, so opponent concedes a bit before the end of day 3 since Montaigne could not win at that point. It was 5 Renown to 2 with a possible 2 Renown likely claimable from the Forums by me. Incredibly good game and I look forward to having to play perfectly next time to win, when my Last Word play won’t be a surprise (…will likely bring a different faction next time to have new surprises…huge fan of the potential of Pull + Predatory Pursuit in Ussura).

Game 2 vs Eisen

Not a matchup I was particularly familiar with. It is incredibly thrust-heavy, leading to trading characters instead of picking off characters and surviving, unlike what I’m used to facing. Specifically, we had one or two duels where we both traded characters with an overwhelming thrust card (Fight Through the Pain or Matchlock Musket). I started the duel, played my card representing unpreventable death, then I stared down return unpreventable death. Taught me what that feels like.

Over the first 2 days, I end up incidentally picking up Object of Wonder and Crystal Eye on Kaspar in part thanks to Let’s Haggle, bringing him up to 4 Influence while opponent gets Smuggled Item but trades it for Kaspar’s Panzerhand. Normally I don’t value these City Cards too highly, but they were there, basically free, and I had cards to pitch, so I grabbed them. It is a very good thing I did too.

Day 3 has 1 renown on each the Grand Bazaar and Forums, 2 on the Docks. I initially focus on the Docks and claim it while opponent takes the other 2, both of us with over 6 cards in hand. I Regroup engaged 4-Influence Kaspar over to the Forums, so I can claim that away from opponent. In response, my opponent Strateges over two En Garde characters to the docks. I claim the Forums with Phillip Hase who still has Reaction available, opponent claims the Docks. I play Dark Gift on Kaspar to then move him over. Opponent has both En Garde characters remaining at the location while I have En Garde, full-health Otto and a 1 influence lead (due to my opponent trading away the Smuggled Item, meaning I didn’t need to equip an attachment to Phillip Hase to move him over as well). Opponent challenges Kaspar in the hopes of Assassination, but I refuse and claim location with Otto. (If opponent tried to kill Otto instead, Otto‘s 4 Resolve would have still allowed me to refuse and Claim. Then the second character would have had to finish off Otto instead of claiming.)

Once again, time is close to being called, so opponent concedes to my 5 to 4 Renown lead at the end of day 3, as that is the first tiebreaker. Another very close game against another very strong, new-to-7th Seas player. Eisen scary.

Game 3 vs Vodacce

Vodacce was the only faction I played against multiple times, and the games somewhat bleed together in my mind, so the recaps might be a bit jumbled.

Pacifist Vodacce was also the deck I was most worried about because I know it is strong, and I haven’t had much chance to play against it. So, when I sat against the two Vodacce players, I assumed they were on pacifist Vodacce (they weren’t), and I initiated some intended-to-be lighthearted teasing about Vodacce, but it was also somewhat fear-tinged by the threat of day 1 Domination thanks to Pack Tactics. **Edit: Heard back from both Vodacce players, and apparently I was just being overly critical of myself as neither of them felt I was being a dick. Left the rest of this paragraph in anyway./Edit** I want to apologize to both Vodacce players, as I feel like my comments came out more shaming them for playing a faction with really interesting cards/mechanisms before even seeing what they chose to play, and then it had the effect of making them feel bad for not playing it the “meta” way. I think everyone should play whatever faction in whatever way they want to without having to justify or be “teased” about their choice. My pathological-desire to play off-meta isn’t any more or less valid than anyone else’s reasons to play whatever they want, especially since this is just for fun with no money on line; there is no reason to be dicks to each other whether intentionally or unintentionally. Hopefully, this is just my overwhelming worry about making people uncomfortable coming through, but it is how I feel, and I am sorry, will do better going forward.

This game started out with violence. Day 1, no mercs in the city, but Syrneth Hand on the Docks. For the first time I can remember, I forsake Otto and Muster Terrell day one. My greed demanded a 4-Com Terrell I could cackle over incessantly (internally … mostly) as he cut down everything while protecting himself with his recurring attachment combat cards. So I paired him with Midnight Shipment and flipped into a mustered Servo. I was surprised but still daydreaming about the unstoppable force of Terrell. Day starts, I grab the Hand on Terrell and eventually he ends up in front of Servo. I challenge Servo, I send unpreventable death with my first combat card, and then confused, I see Servo serving back unpreventable death to Terrell? Shocked, I see my investment into Terrell, Hand , and skipping Otto‘s day one card draw vanish.

I don’t quite remember what happened after that, but I vaguely recall slapping a Langschwert on Kaspar and letting out a bellowing roar that shook the building and rallied the nearby boffer knights to my side as Kaspar charged the Don. When the haze cleared, Constanzo was consigned to the locker, Kaspar was heavily bloodied, and all was right in the world. Day 1 or 2 Assassination victory where Kaspar‘s big booty saves the day (9-Resolve).

Midnight Shipment being able to send a character to any City location without spending a card or engage is incredibly powerful. After the strength it displayed at Gen Con, I always made sure to point it out at the start of each day to make sure my opponent at least knew of its existence (whether or not they remembered to take it into account throughout the day being another thing). Some point after getting the Hand on Terrell, I realized that in order to make use of my Terrell muster, Midnight Shipment, and Syrneth Hand purchase, I would have to expose myself to a potential Day 1 Domination loss if my opponent had Pack Tactics in hand. The Don was at the Grand Bazaar, Alcee was at the Forums, and Kaspar was at the Docks with Terrell (Servo was at Home?). If I sent Terrell to the Grand Bazaar, my opponent could

  1. Claim the Grand Bazaar with the Don
  2. Refuse or parry-out my 4 Restricted Hostilities (5 threat) challenge to the Don either hoping I didn’t have a way to En Garde/Issue a fresh challenge and/or utilize Servo to intervene if I did
  3. Claim the Forums with Alcee
  4. Use Pack Tactics to move the engaged Alcee over to the Docks and claim it with her base 1 Influence, +1 Influence from the Don‘s Passive, and +1 influence from Alcee moving with Pack Tactics. 3 Influence vs Kaspar’s 2.

I was too stubborn to lose all of my Day 1 value so I went for it, forcing my opponent to have Pack Tactics in hand.  No Pack Tactics was played, but I still traded all of my Day 1 value for Servo, to be fair a lynchpin in my opponent’s plan as well.

Of my 6 cards I started the day with, none of them would have prevented a Day 1 Domination loss at this point if I sent Terrell off of Kaspar‘s Location or allowed me to retake any city location if this happened. I do not remember if Kaspar was engaged at this point (I may have recruited a Midnight Shipment flipped Adelheide to enable the movement City Action?), but here are all of the ways I could have theoretically handled this at this point:

If Kaspar is En Garde or capable of En Garding with a card:

  • Use Stratege/Regroup/Dark Gift to move over to the Forums and then claim it, if Vodacce can’t get Alcee or the Don over to contest. (2 movement cards could have let Kaspar move to the Grand Bazaar to attempt to Assassinate the Don, but that would rely on having already got 4 damage in with Terrell and then getting another 3 with Kaspar, which would have been preventable with parry-outs etc)
  • Press the Advantage or Move Along on Alcee to kill or move home without engaging Kaspar, enabling the claim at 2 Influence afterwards
  • Use Kaspar‘s City Action and hope to get a Merc with 1 or more Influence

I could have also played Day 1 safer with 2 Influence Otto (although 3 Influence Don Constanzo can still claim over him without fear of a Com challenge). I could also run Come Hither (maybe this takes the Iron Reply/Precision slot?) as another potential out to Day 1 Domination. In general, Day 1 Vodacce Domination is very hard to prevent if they draw Pack Tactics, and to play around it, I would have to make decisions that potentially hurt me in the long game, assuming I draw any of my cards that can rebuff it. (For the Family, Unyielding Loyalty, Bravos, The Pressure is On, Objection, and Plans within Plans grabbing a second Thug and providing an En Garding Reaction can also make the Day 1 Domination easier to achieve/harder to prevent.) All of that being said, if the Vodacce player does go for Day 1 Domination, and you are able to prevent it, they could expend quite a few, very powerful resources that they will have less access to as the game progresses. This is definitely a deck I need more interaction with and against.

Game 4 vs Castille

This was the first game where I was able to bring to bear the engage-efficient, overwhelming-combat of Eisen. Castille is a strong faction because they can mess with the board state in unexpected ways in addition to having strong countering, engaging, and flexible abilities. However, Eisen has more straightforward, brute force powerful cards, namely 5 Resolve fighters with Langschwert, Move Along, Fight Through the Pain, and of course Otto which can (and did) make it very challenging for Castille (especially with Castille having the worst RPT in the game).

Day 1 opened with Kalla at the Forums and Captain’s Coat at the Grand Bazaar. I go to recruit Kalla, and then I bait Makepeace over to the Grand Bazaar with Otto. I have no intention of paying 3 (or 4) to equip the coat, but as long as I am the First Player, to dodge an Adaptable Domination win (in addition to playing carefully), I am not too scared of Castille spending 3 for the Coat. Opponent had an Opulence so only spent 2, but I’m still happy, especially as an Improvising was spent to do so. (I was wrecked by Improvising at Gen Con 2023, so I fear it.) Makepeace also equipped a Matchlock Musket to start chipping away at a character at the forum. These two things give me a card advantage going into Day 2.

Throughout the rest of the game, Kalla helps me to negate the cost increase on Makepeace. For instance, I equip her with the 0-cost Langschwert to keep it free and then pass it over to the fighter. Kalla continues to impress me when I recruit her, and she is the only reason I attach Breastplates.

Another card that impressed me this game was the card that made me fall in love with Eisen originally, Unsavory Salve. I’ve generally found it to be a pretty weak card, but it stays in the deck to be fetched by Otto with okay RPT. One thing that I had not considered, however, is its interaction with Phillip Hase. Being able to equip Unsavory Salve onto a Langschwert-equipped Hase, to trigger his movement reaction, without having to override his weapon or use 2 cards on a Breastplate/Uppman’s Jacket etc, is pretty great and unexpected. I was then even able to use its technique with my Appealing to the People to save Hase, while pushing through the last lethal wound, and preventing a final strike back, fantastic. While I still do not expect to equip Salve often, I will definitely be watching to use it as a 1-card movement for Hase going forward.

Aside from that, Otto managed to keep my handsize up enough to block Sanjay even with Castille recruiting Gustavo. (Only 1 Otto whiff the whole tournament was a nice change too.) Move Along was devastatingly effective, and I was very lucky that my opponent’s Night of Drinkings did not make any appearances (since the Move Alongs were critical for keeping the game under control).

Ultimately, my opponent’s Soline was Assassinated as they tried to intervene to save Madre, after I had cleared out most other Castillian characters/mercs.

Game 5 vs Vodacce

Game 2 against Vodacce piloted by another strong player, and I have never feared more for Kaspar‘s life than I have in this game. With my mind hyper-focused on surviving the turn 1 Domination Victory, the Don just casually walked up and used the effect on Veronica’s Guile I completely forgot existed: I was challenged to a duel but with Influence, and it was incredibly painful. In response, I actually had to be the one to parry-out (very luckily finding one of my two copies of Regroup, the only ones in my 40 card deck), and I was so scared of Kaspar dying, that I noticed the maneuver on Regroup and used that, for the first time ever, to flee to an adjacent location.

My opponent used cards like Veronica’s Guile, Servo, Sibella, Rough ‘Em Up, Buratino, and Bravos (probably Ambush in there too) to threaten an early victory , but a day 1 Assassination victory instead of Domination. If it weren’t for being able to Regroup away, I likely would have been knocked out of top 4 instantly.

Day 2 culminated at the Forums. Kaspar and Terrell were there expended against a prepared Don and a Sibella with a wound on her. I play Move Along with Terrell with his +1 thrust against one of them, and the Don accepts the duel. Some amount of damage spills through from the challenge. The Don sends back enough to finish Terrell, but my return Matchlock Musket is able to output exactly enough damage to claim the Don‘s life, due to him not gambling into a 3-defense card. If my desperation Move Along failed, Veronica’s Guile #2 almost certainly claims Kaspar‘s life.

Game 6 vs Vodacce

My luck against Vodacce continued into the finals with 3 Days of triple mercenary flops. I don’t remember exactly which ones they were, but my opponent got Sigurd and I picked up two mercs on both day 1 and day 2.

I remember trying to set up a scenario where I could Press the Advantage Sigurd Home to expose characters to the Eisen assault, but my opponent never gave me the opportunity. That being said, Eisen Eisened and generated a massive character advantage by one-sided killing my opponent’s characters with Eisen characters and trading off Mercs 1 for 1 to not exceed my crew cap.

All that being said, my opponent kept the Renown count close through the entire game, and I never felt entirely comfortable that Vodacce wouldn’t secure the victory anyway by exploiting a potential blunder. Eventually though, on day 4, Eisen grinded my opponent down to only a wounded Don in play, with no cards hand, against my 4 Eisen characters, and a 4+ card hand. I believe I had a guaranteed Economic win on the table, but I was so hyper-fixated on assassinating the Don, if my opponent hadn’t conceded, I could have potentially thrown the game to some very unfavorable gambling luck.

Non-Specific Game Notes

Well-Equipped was a stand-out card used exclusively as a combat card throughout the tournament, both from gambling and from hand. 3 Defense 4 Offense did work.

Phillip Hase consistently felt great.

Terrell ended up trading on multiple occasions and underperformed. I greeded him out early too many times before drawing into Kaspar’s Panzerhand.

Only whiffed with Otto once in my 18 attachment deck, many 1 attachment on 3rd flip though, thank you Corpse Speak (in my deck that didn’t Muster a single Sorcerer)!

Dark Gift continues to be a solid glue-card.

Last Word City Action so good. Didn’t end up having to, but really wanted to push an Engaged character into my En Garde bruisers with it.

Daniella never came out, but she is not in danger of being replaced.

Still figuring out what I want in the Precision/Iron Reply slot. Additional high thrust cards would be nice for increasing the likelihood of day 2 overwhelming threat kills, but 4 thrust is definitely not the same as 5. Lethal on a 4 thrust card is basically only relevant if Otto or a 0/1 Com Merc of mine gets challenged. Would be fun in that situation, but not terribly likely. Probably Come Hither (especially since I already run double Opulence) for even more density of defense against possible Day 1 Vodacce Domination Win, frequently will be discard fodder though.

All of the schemes continue to be great. The 2 highest initiative cards in the game, both with one-sided advantages for myself, and 3 toolbox cards with one-sided effects for me as well.

I am not currently planning on attending Pax Unplugged after all, but I will likely be playing a different faction next tournament. Most likely Ussura or Castille.

It was a pleasure getting to interact with everyone at the tournament. I look forward to eventual rematches against everyone I played against, and I am eager to show off the sick acrylic tokens I got for making top 2. (I have an excellent excuse to play another combat heavy faction thanks to them.) Finally, excited to see how my boy Otto shows up in the lore.

Eisen Full Strategic Breakdown

Now that I have played significantly more games of 7th Sea : City of Five Sails, I can say for sure that I love the game. Briefly, I love the distribution model (expandable, not-CCG letting me experiment with everything easily), love how every card is playable turn 1, and love how the city deck randomizes each game in an interesting, not feels bad way (with the rare exception). In addition, I have a much better understanding of how the game plays now (or at the very least, how I play it, which is almost never the same as the accepted meta). So, here is exactly how I play the Eisen deck I plan on running in the online Salon from 9/20 – 11/1 (https://pineboxentertainment.com/2023/09/12/new-in-town-a-five-sails-online-league/).

Feel free to reach out through discord if you would like to set up either a teaching game or an official game (or an unofficial game). I would love to have you play, I am happy to answer as many questions as you have, and I can give you as much or as little strategy advice as we play that you want. Discord: tomsepicgaming (the Eisen District Captain)

Eisen is the most straight-forward/honest faction. They want to recruit Mercenaries, reduce their opponent’s numbers through efficient combat/finish them off with ranged weapons, and utilize strategic movement (at least this deck does). Eisen has no ability to move around Renown on locations during High Drama, they can’t claim a location without initiating an Influence challenge, and none of their characters (including Kaspar) have a base Influence above 2. (Edeline Trinken can get above 2.)

Approach

Faction

Attachments (18)

Non-Attachments (22)

General Strategy

Generally speaking, your primary win condition is creating an extreme character advantage by prioritizing recruiting the best/all the Mercenaries and killing your opponent’s characters. From there, you can win with whatever method your opponent presents: Assassination, Renown (Economic), Domination, or the loss of the will to continue fighting (Concession/Surrender?).

City Deck Rankings For Eisen

Eisen wants Mercenaries, both in lore and in game (good stuff). In general, dueling Mercenaries are your preferred choice to help with creating that character advantage, but most mercenaries are valuable to you, sometimes just to prevent your opponent from getting them.

#1: Maryam Benu Pleroma

5 Resolve, 4 Combat, at least 1 finesse (3!), in addition to a Risk canceling Forced effect (which will cancel your own risk if you target her with it first), and a Technique that can be played first round (no thank you Veronica’s Guile). 6 Cost is less damaging to Kaspar as well with his 4 Influence on Parley.

#2: Angeline Demone

Leader level stats (aside from Resolve) with a 3 Combat. Her ability to move without engaging is also great, as is her Technique. There are not a lot of characters that she doesn’t have at least equivalent Combat and Influence to, but watch out for attachments that can push those characters out of range. While she is incredible in her own right as a card, she also has the best artwork in the game which absolutely influences her ranking. I would love a signed, full-size print of this artwork to frame…I’ll also be at Gamehole Con and likely Pax Unplugged…just saying.

#Sigurd: Sigurd Ulfsen

Against Ussura, Sigurd is the 3rd best city card for you. Not better than Maryam because Maryam can help you hunt the boar, and not better than Angeline because we don’t tolerate that kind of slander. Sigurd walks into Yevgeni‘s location, says “Sup” and stands there as your other fighters pile in behind to initiate the duels without being initiated on. Strong against Montaigne and other Eisen players as well, but almost meaningless against pacifist Vodacce/Castille (unless they get him which is annoying for you). Also, the fact that duels can’t be initiated against other characters means you’re guarded against unintervenable challenges as well.

#3-7 (these are similar in ranking):

Adelheide Schmidt is great because she is a reasonable fighter at 2 Com, 2 Finesse, 4 Resolve, but she can also turn your abundance of attachments into unpreventable damage (many of the attachments included purely to be grabbed by Otto anyway).

Carmella Vanessa Salvaggi is great because of her ability to challenge/intervene twice a day with 3 Combat (and 2 Finesse). She even has an influence if she needs to claim a location.

Kalla Forsberg is great because Eisen has so many attachments they want to attach, even from the City Deck. Reasonable offensive stats too, since Eisen frequently wants the first combat card played from hand and the 2nd as a gamble that hopefully reduces damage taken from the opponent’s final strike.

Ravenna Destine is great because card draw. She can also claim a location.

#Reasonable Mercs (similar in ranking):

Leja Juska is the best of these but not quite as good as the 4 above. Reasonable offensive stats, but not great. No other power, but the 1 influence is relevant.

Eko Sorridi 3 resolve is so low and easy to kill. If it weren’t for that, he would be great with his combat stats and City Reaction. Don’t forget it can hit a character fleeing with Not Today.

Vladislav Novikoff isn’t as good as Sigurd, but a reasonable card against Ussura/Montaigne/Eisen. Very weak against Vodacce/Castille, but annoying for us to play against.

#Valuable City Attachments

Syrneth Hand, Eager Blade, Burnished Cuirass, Sorte Deck

Fairly unimpressive Day 1 unless you can get them on a fighting Merc you recruited. Not bad on Kaspar to enable him to do some fighting, but he would much rather be recruiting Mercs. Day 2 onwards these are great on your fighting characters to either make them hit harder or stay alive longer. +1 combat is a big deal because it makes your 3 Com characters send 4 threat/Restricted Hostilities on challenge which is usually enough to outright kill a character, preventing them from just refusing. These attachments also enable effects that rely on having an attachment.

#Lower Tier Mercs (for Eisen)

Non-fighting, mostly 3-Resolve, mostly 0-Combat mercs. They can definitely help prevent us from losing to opponents taking control of locations though as they all have 2 Influence.

Claude De La Roche: is a solid Merc that can certainly help not lose against Renown/Domination decks. But, at 6 cost, we would much rather have an opponent pay 6 for him and then kill him.

Giacinto: 3 health is easy for us to kill and, while his effect isn’t weak, we are much more interested in fighting than engaging/moving a character for the turn, generally speaking. Wins games though.

Gustavo (Luis de Martinez de Ladera): 3 Resolve, so easy for us to kill. At 18 attachments in our deck, it isn’t as unlikely as I would like that we whiff and don’t get a card draw from his effect.

Kaj Kousei: Syrneth Hand is the only artifact we actively care about in the city deck.

Takama Siad: Has been better for me than I anticipated when I begrudgingly recruited her, but she can’t protect herself, has to be in the same location of the duel, and the dueler has to still be alive.

#Everything Else

Most of these are fairly unimpactful to our gameplan.

Captain’s Coat scares me with its ability to help enable an early Domination victory against us before we overwhelm the city.

Duckfoot Pistol is another way to finish off a non-Leader, but we have a bunch.

Crystal Eye, Object of Wonder, Smuggled Item‘s +1 influence is nice, especially for recruiting 5 cost characters but mostly a luxury for us.

Penya Shows the Way, Point of Opportunity, Risky Undertaking, Siren’s Song, and So It Begins all have noticeable effects which can be huge but aren’t usually.

Guild Triskelion is scary for some opposing characters to get, and to be fair, it is pretty great on Daniella and even reasonable on Otto.

Efficient Eisen Combat

Background (Knowledge Gained)

When I first started playing 7th Sea : City of Five Sails, I was enthralled by 3 defense (Riposte+Parry) cards as a way to keep my characters alive in duels, in addition to pure-parry or “parry-out” combat cards which are fairly rare for the factions I was looking at first. My thought was that as long as my character survives, I can eventually win the duel. That approach did not work for me, at all.

The biggest demonstration of that for me was when my high defense Ussura deck went against the strong overall RPT cards of Montaigne. Yevgeni challenged Odette and left the duel having taken 3 wounds and inflicting none (to be fair, I think I forgot to add the +1 Thrust to Yevgeni combat cards). I was very confused. It seemed like combat wasn’t very effective, Finesse was everything, and luck played a large role. So I built my Gen Con Eisen list with Unsavory Salve and other ways to get out of combat while still mitigating damage.

It wasn’t until playing with the eventual Ussuran District Captain and my life-changing friend/Epic Card Game pro Tom Dixon, that we came up with a different approach. My Ussura deck at the time was focused on churning through my deck with Vedma + Matsushka’s Sight, Devotion, A New Strategy, etc. to find Grandfather’s Hammer. The idea was that initiating a challenge with +2 thrust for 6 outbound thrust was really strong because even if a 4-Resolve character played a 2-defense card like a parry-out, that 4-Resolve character still instantly dies. In addition, with Yevgeni‘s base 4 Combat, they also can’t just refuse the duel, because death. That being said, I thought after that initial challenge, the longer the duel goes, the worse it is for Yevgeni as he will wrack up wounds since Ussura doesn’t have a ton of 3-defense cards. Tom Dixon wanted to duel though and didn’t want to just focus on big initial challenges. (I also had Boon‘s to try to make my challenges more scary. I have since come to view Boon as rather mediocre, as most people seem to).

Eventually, after we slept on it, we both came to the conclusion of: bring more combat cards that send more threat! If it is strong to send 6 threat on a challenge because it overwhelms defenses: 2 being common, 3 not-uncommon, 4 rare (Not Today being effectively 4 since it causes you to take a wound), or ultra-rare 5+ with stacked effects, why not try focusing on using Matchlock Musket, or other 4 offense (Riposte + Thrust) cards [in combination with Yevgeni‘s bonus +1 thrust] to consistently send 5+ threat to practically guarantee inflicting wounds early?! Even if these cards have little to no defense, it is much better to take the Restricted Hostilities 2 or 3 wounds on your 12 health character and then follow up by inflicting 3 or 4 wounds on their 4 health character. By making this change, we still want to minimize the amount of wounds we take, but we do that not by defending, but by killing our opponent as quickly as possible.

Strategy

Eisen follows this same idea as well, overwhelming Threat. Langschwert is one of the best cards in our deck. It lets us send 4 threat on the initial challenge which still enables us to push maximum Restricted Hostilities damage of 3 against a 1-parry parry-out. We can then follow up with a gun or Bleed Out to kill the opposing 4-Resolve character with only needing to initiate that single challenge (engage).

Further, if our opponent doesn’t parry-out or refuse, Langschwert gives us another bonus Thrust for our first combat card, which will ideally be a Fight Through the Pain or Matchwork Musket from hand, resulting in 6 threat, which our opponent is likely only able to block 3 of. Sure we took 2 or 3 damage to do it, but our opponent is probably dead, and our 5 Resolve character can probably defend enough of their Final Strike to not die. Also, sure we played a card from hand instead of a free one from Gambling, but that card effectively read 0-cost inflict 3 wounds (incredible).

Simple as that.

Fight Through the Pain is another of Eisen’s best cards for this reason, especially since (as long as your character isn’t dead), it shaves off 1 damage from your opponent’s Restricted Hostilities damage (no matter how much Threat they sent). You can effectively ignore the Action on Fight Through the Pain unless you are desperate.

Day 1

Goal

Day 1 our goal is to not lose to Domination (or Assassination for all you Yevgeni‘s out there), recruit a (good) Merc, and start growing an advantage to go into Day 2.

Muster

Otto is always our Muster day 1 to start (hopefully) drawing extra cards.

Scheme

Midnight Shipment or Let’s Haggle are basically always our scheme. If there is an incredible Merc we definitely want, Midnight Shipment to guarantee we go first (since I don’t think I have ever seen anyone else run this scheme). If there is nothing we want, still Midnight Shipment to try to get a Merc from the extra city card. Let’s Haggle can be used if there is a strong attachment on the Grand Bazaar we want for cheap or to scam.

To scam with Let’s Haggle, send Kaspar to the non-Grand Bazaar location with a Merc you want to Recruit. After your opponent moves into the Bazaar to take the Attachment, activate the City Action on Let’s Haggle. Kaspar gets to equip the Attachment from his location, since only the discount requires you to be at the Bazaar.

Action Order

1st action (assuming you won the initiative) is always to send Kaspar to location of the Merc you want to recruit.

2nd action could be the Let’s Haggle scam.
Or, if your opponent didn’t move into your location and you are not doing the Let’s Haggle scam, it could be equipping an Uppman’s Jacket in preparation for recruiting a 5+ cost Merc. Otherwise, it is probably just Recruit.

If your opponent is planning on doing some fighting, especially with Yevgeni, you probably wait until they move out of home before bringing Otto out as far away as possible to draw you a card. This can include passing if both characters are still at Home. If lucky, maybe Otto claims you a location for a Renown or 2, likely not though.

If your opponent is not fighting or is Vodacce/Castille with the potential of turn 1 Domination Victory, Otto‘s 2 influence can make that harder for them to achieve. Against Vodacce, you probably want to get Otto to an unclaimed location to contest the claim as reclaiming a location might fail due to Objection. Against Castille, it maybe is better to wait until they burn through their shenanigans? Thankfully, since we will almost always be going first in the first couple days, we have to worry less about Adaptable stealing a location where we have an Influence-advantage with only engaged characters.

Most of your cards in hand are not worth playing Day 1, unless you need to prevent yourself from losing to Domination Victory. If you get Syrneth Hand on Kaspar and no other Mercs, you could equip him with a Langschert and start challenging characters, even using Well-Equipped to go again. Day 1 Assassination Victories are possible against unsuspecting opponents. Otherwise, playing 1 equipment to get under 6 handsize is all you really want to do. Playing the guns to start pushing that damage is tempting, especially if sitting on a Last Word, but usually better to save it if under handsize. If you’ve got an Opulence to get it out, maybe, but your cards in hand are very valuable. Going into day 2 with a 12 card hand is quite nice for executing tactics, especially since there is likely more Renown in play.

Kaspar’s Panzerhand should never be played as it is too important of a combat card for later Days, and it is very expensive.

Also, do not forget the City Action on Midnight Shipment because clearing the location of City cards is pretty easy for Eisen, the non-engaging movement action is incredible, and your opponent might forget about it enabling big plays.

Day 2

Goal

Start whittling down your opponent’s characters, don’t lose to Domination/Assassination, and ideally don’t let your opponent get to 5+ Renown.

Muster

Now we have diverging paths dependent on what we have leftover in our hand from day 1, who (if anyone) we recruited, and which faction our opponent is playing.

The highest power-level-ceiling character in our deck is Terrell Brandt, and ideally we want to get him out as soon as possible. However, his power comes from being able to play ridiculously strong RPT attachments every single combat (since they return to hand if he doesn’t die regardless of if played from hand or gambled into). If you drew into Kaspar’s Panzerhand, you should muster Terrell. If you also drew into a Matchlock Musket, you should absolutely muster Terrell. With both of these cards you can issue a challenge with his +1 Thrust technique to send 4 Threat, follow up with Matchlock Musket to take the opponent’s Restricted Hostilities (1 to 3) and send 5 threat, and finish off with Kaspar’s Panzerhand to block 4 of the likely final strike. Rinse and repeat. If you haven’t drawn Kaspar’s Panzerhand yet, hold off on mustering him. If it entered your discard pile somehow, you could muster him with Armed and Marshaled to get it back for him, unless there is a high priority Merc to recruit (requiring a higher initiative scheme).

On the off-chance that you got to Recruit Maryam and/or you will have 2 fighting Mercs, Daniella Dietrich is a strong Muster choice. Being able to throw a Langschwert on Maryam and let her attack twice (or intervene + attack) is huge. Having 2 fighters gives you more flexibility since it takes multiple actions to get into position for her to use her City Action. You could use Stratege to move both Daniella and a fighting Merc into place with one action (since Stratege doesn’t target the performing characters), but I have not done it yet. If you don’t have reliable access to fighting Mercs, don’t recruit Daniella. Her technique is fantastic for protecting her as well, almost effectively turning any card into a defense-out.

If you are going up against Vodacce or Castille, Phillip Hase‘s 2 influence and movement City Reaction are both excellent for blocking/punishing tricksy Domination/Renown gathering shenanigans (with his 3 Combat too of course).

Otherwise, if you have a Langschwert in hand Rena Klingenhalter is a solid choice. If against Montaigne and their plethora of challenges she might be even better, as long as you have at least a Throwing Knife to get her powered up. Be Aware: if her weapon gets Sundered or Robbed in a duel (or if you throw your knife), she will immediately go back down to 2 Com/2 Restricted Hostilities for the threat currently sent at your opponent (likely not the end of the world though as it is terribly common to be able to push more than 2 damage, although we definitely try to).

Scheme

If there is a high-value Merc in the city, use whichever of Let’s Haggle/Midnight Shipment you have left to maximize your chance of getting it.

On the off chance there is a strong Merc in the city discard pile (possibly because your opponent used Shifting Tides to justifiably fear-discard Maryam), you can use The Song of Eisen to put that Merc on top of the City Deck. Then, you can use Kaspar‘s City Action to recruit the Merc off the top of the deck.

If Kaspar’s Panzerhand is in your discard pile, you can use Armed and Marshaled to get it back to enable you to Muster Terrell.

Otherwise, now that we will have at minimum a strong Mustered fighting character, Let the Sword Decide is an excellent card likely to draw a card and can cancel a nasty Manuever/Technique YOU JUST HAVE TO REMEMBER TO USE IT TOM!!! (Cancelling Broken Time is so cruel…so deliciously cruel.)

Action Order

Once again, assuming you go first and there is a Merc you want, immediately send Kaspar there. (I frequently forget to even draw my new cards before doing so.)

Otherwise, if there is high-value fighting attachment, send one of your fighters there.

Don’t forget about the Let’s Haggle scam as an option as well, nor the actual discount if Syrneth Hand or something drops on the Grand Bazaar.

If there are no City Cards you care about, you might have selected a lower initiative scheme, therefore not be going first, so you react to your opponent.

Day 2 is when we start primarily hunting characters. The juiciest targets are ones that die instantly to a single challenge. 3 Resolve characters are prime targets and 4 Resolve characters are reasonable as well (since we are packing ways to push that last point of damage outside of combat). We can push some wounds to our opponent’s leader if that is the best challenge we get, but ultimately our goal is to eliminate entire characters first and foremost. We can always Assassinate an unguarded leader on a future day, and we aren’t able to necessarily initiate enough bonus challenges to kill off a leader outright early.

Sequencing of actions at this point becomes incredibly important and is incredibly tactical. I think this skill is largely gained by playing the game, but here are a few good examples:

  • Opponent played Marooned while you have a strong fighting Merc in play. If you send your fighting Merc to a location that has an opposing character, they get to act next and engage down (or finish off) your Merc, not good. However, if you send your Merc to an unopposed location that you expect your opponent will want to go to, if they move there, you get the first action and can challenge that character before getting engaged. They could counter this by sending a character they don’t care as much about getting challenged. If they do, you get the choice of either challenging or letting them spend cards to trigger Marooned. If they don’t go to that location, that is likely good for you too, as you can probably collect its Renown.
  • Opponent is Yevgeni and you have Sigurd. Wait until Yevgeni moves out. Move Sigurd on top of him. Then move your challengers in afterwards, protected.
  • When hunting characters, wait until your prey moves out, then move on top of them. However, if they move to a location that doesn’t make a ton of sense for them to be at, they might be planning on using an effect to move to where they actually want to go, after you commit your free move to get on top of them. Phillip and Angeline can punish that nonsense.
  • Terrell equipped with a Langschwert is going up against an Ussuran/Castillian controlled character, activate your Langschwert technique before your Terrell technique in case your weapon gets removed.
  • Wait to bring out your vulnerable characters until the scarier opposing characters are Engaged.
  • Wait to initiate claims until your opponent isn’t likely to reclaim it from you
  • Immediately initiate claims if you think your character is likely to die soon if you think your opponent isn’t likely to reclaim it from you
  • Equip weapons at home so there is only a 1-action gap between moving an issuing a challenge
  • Equip a weapon, at a location, that your opponent wasn’t counting on, after their character engaged

If your opponent is playing very cautiously and avoiding your challenges that could whittle their characters down, you can always win with Renown. If you send a strong fighter with at least 1 influence to an outer location with 2+ renown, and then they don’t send anyone to contest while engaging all of their characters elsewhere, just claim your location. You don’t have to force a challenge. Basically, if they are too worried about losing to actually advance their win condition, you can shift into it yourself.

Don’t forget about Otto either. He isn’t a fighter, so he is a great follow up character to reclaim a location, possibly after you killed the high influence character that was originally there for instance. There is generally little rush to get that card draw because it is frequently just discard fodder for your other effects like Well-Equipped, Move Along, etc. Maybe you could have drawn into a Langschwert, but the reserve-claimer/reclaimer is solid.

Day 3+

At this point, you are mostly just iterating on your Day 2 options. You likely won’t have your high initiative schemes to snipe Mercs anymore, but you have 3 high-effect schemes to convert into kills/strength.

Usually, the longer the game goes, the more favored Eisen seems to become, as long as Otto is actually staying alive and drawing cards, and as long as Eisen isn’t spending cards unnecessarily for minimally impactful effects. In earlier Days, you can definitely let your opponent pick up some uncontested Renown if it means you kill or heavily injure a character. At this point though, you have to be careful that they can’t convert the board into a win before they are crushed beneath you.

Miscellaneous Eisen Points

Kaspar‘s greatest strengths as a leader are his 4 Influence on Parley and his big butt (9 Resolve). His 9 Resolve lets him Refuse early challenges if he wants, effectively wasting a 3 or less Combat character’s engage. You don’t want to refuse a Yevgeni challenge, but aside from that, Kaspar doesn’t need to get his hands dirty. He absolutely can though, leveraging his 9 health to take out a character, but you need to be careful of Lethal and unintervenable challenges after that point. Getting within a few wounds of death could also prevent Kaspar from leaving home, which is a big loss for you; however, if your opponent poured tons of resources into that, we can likely finish up the game with our other accumulated resources.

Kaspar‘s City action is unreliable. I generally avoid using it unless in combination with The Song of Eisen. The main reason is I scarred myself in my loss in Gen Con top 8 where I activated his ability to greed out an additional Merc instead of claiming my location, knowing it could potentially lose me the game. I got the no-Influence, worthless-against-pacifist-Castille Vladislav and lost the game (of course there were a lot of factors to the games conclusion, but that one left a mark). That being said, I just played a game where my opponent hit Angeline into Maryam, so it certainly can be ridiculously powerful. Primarily though, I would much rather take the Merc my opponent has the option of recruiting than rolling the dice on a random Merc.

Last Word is incredible. A 0-cost (after the initial investment of playing a ranged weapon which can include Throwing Knives) move your opponent’s character is incredible for messing with their Influence math on claims, getting potential interveners out of the way, moving an engaged character into a location with your fighters, etc. It theoretically could be used in a duel to finish off a character preventing them from sending a final round of threat, but my fighters usually aren’t equipped with Ranged Weapons (possibly Throwing Knives though).

Unsavory Salve, Breastplate, Corpse Speak, and Uppman’s Jacket are included almost exclusively for Otto to fetch with his City Action, so you can discard them to pay for your better cards. It is hard to imagine a scenario where you actively want to play Unsavory Salve, especially since getting your weapon destroyed also destroys the Salve. Breastplate is overkill for your 5 Resolve characters in addition to being too expensive; its 3 parry is reasonable as your protection from your opponent’s Final Strike. Corpse Speak can be used by Daniella, and you do have some strong targets for it, but it is a lot of setup. Uppman’s Jacket could be played turn 1 to pay for itself over 2 Recruits, or it could be used to break a claiming stalemate, but I usually just discard it when recruiting as opposed to spending an extra card to Equip it.

Press the Advantage is great if you have plenty of cards in hand for its City Action at a critical moment; its Maneuver feels too expensive though. Well-Equipped City action is incredible, as is the Maneuver if you gamble into it while equipped with a Weapon. Dark Gift does work, primarily with its movement ability, but it can keep your fighters away from the dangerous 1 Resolve remaining state (Bleed Out, Razrushitel, etc.).

For some highlights from games at Gen Con with a similar list, check out my initial Gen Con tournament report/deck tech.

Conclusion

I want to play more 7th Sea, and I am happy to keep repping the honest Eisen! Now that you know my decklist and strategy, come at me. Let’s see if you can surpass my tactics.

If I get the motivation, I’m hoping to get a similar article out for Ussura, probably my favorite faction currently (because they are much less honest and I utilize a more balanced playstyle instead of ultra heavy combat). I do not have a strong enough understanding of Castille yet, and I don’t like Montaigne as much so I will likely do a much less detailed post on my decks I have ready for each. I will not defile my hands with the villainous treachery of Vodacce. (I actually just don’t want to disrupt the communities “The Family doesn’t fight [itself]” since I actively want to play as many games as possible while not taking away from others’ enjoyment.)

7th Sea – Gen Con 2023 – Top Eisen Retrospective/Deck Tech

My most anticipated event at Gen Con 2023 was the 7th Sea : City of Five Sails World Championship. I heard about the game while looking through the Gen Con event list for tournaments, and I had managed to get about 10 games in before Gen Con and another 3 Friday night. Posted a bit about the game here.

I went into the tournament wanting to play a Castille/Soline deck because it seemed like the weakest faction so I felt challenged to make it work. Played some games against my good friend Tom Dixon the night before the event, and it just felt frustratingly underpowered. So, I switched to Eisen/Kaspar because I was super excited about exploiting Unsavory Salve, and Eisen seemed reasonably powerful overall. Was a bit worried that everyone was going to be playing Eisen, but I was pleasantly surprised to see it was tied for the least represented faction (with Vodacce/The Don) for my hipster self. I was also very surprised with how underwhelming Unsavory Salve turned out to be.

Gen Con 2023 Top Eisen Decklist

This is the list I ran for the tournament. (There are 6 changes I made after the event):

Kaspar Dietrich (Gen Con 2023) [Chip Damage]

Approach

Faction

Attachments (15)

Non-Attachments (25)

Initial Deck Idea

Generally speaking, I intended this to be a midrange deck that could win with any of the three victory conditions. The major idea I wanted to experiment with was shrugging off challenges while pushing through small amounts of damage at a time, not necessarily focusing on initiating challenges myself. I wanted only-parry cards (ex. Regroup) to end duels (if you send no threat back, the duel ends), and I wanted to use the guns (ex. Polished Flintlock) to whittle down characters.

Unsavory Salve’s ability to erase a threat and turn it into a wound had me salivating over the idea of achieving both of those goals at the same time. Specifically, it could turn Appealing to the People, Breastplate, and Kaspar’s Panzerhand into 3 or 4 parry cards, that inflicted an unblockable wound and ended the duel, effectively erasing the value of my opponent’s Engage Action (challenge). Even getting an unlucky Opulence Gamble could at least end the duel and deal a wound. Important remainder though, you can only trigger one Technique per combat round, so you can’t use 2 Unsavory Salves to cancel 2 Thrust (ex. Tending the Wounded). In addition, if your weapon is destroyed or stolen, you lose the Salve.

Lastly, we packed 15 attachments into the deck to have an attachment density greater than 1/3 to make Otto likely to draw a card off his ability. Throwing Knives were primarily included to hit that threshold and to help enable Last Word.

World Championship Games

A brief account of each of the games (as well as I can remember). Putting these in show/hide blocks to artificially deflate the length of the post.

Game 1: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 2: Eisen vs Castille (On Stream)

Game 3: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 4: Eisen vs Vodacce

Game 5: Eisen vs Ussura

Game 6 (Top 16): Opponent Didn’t Show

Unfortunate as I would rather play than get a free win, but it happens. Got some sweet promos.

Interesting to note the top 5 was all Vodacce (with only 9 Vodacce players) except for me as Eisen in 3rd. I was also the only Eisen in top 16 (only 9 Eisen players as well). Overall a very balanced distribution of factions which surprised me.

Disqualification “Win” 5*-1

Game 7 (Top 8): Eisen vs Castille

Post-Tournament Deck Thoughts/Card Analysis

Major takeaways from the event were

  1. Always going first with Midnight Shipment and Let’s Haggle in addition to occasionally the others was incredibly powerful for getting to all of the Mercs/attachments from the City Deck I wanted
  2. The City Action on each of those and Armed and Marshalled were all incredible/unexpected by my opponents
  3. Turn 1 Domination is real and scary especially as I’m a value deck
  4. Whiffed 8 times trying for an attachment with Otto, want more attachments
  5. Rena did work, although Langshwert was the true hero
  6. Fight Through the Pain is one of the best cards in the game, supports overwhelming-force combat ideaology (briefly send as much threat as possible, ideally 2 or 3 above your restricted hostilities)

Conclusion

I really enjoyed the game, and the distribution model lets me mess around with whatever deck I feel like without having to chase down cards etc. Really enjoying the game, the festival/judges were great, story is a definite plus with a cool writer, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the overwhelming force doctrine maps onto the other factions.

7th Sea : City of Five Sails

or My New Epic-Replacing Obsession (hopefully)

Overview

7th Sea : City of Five Sails is a 2-player, expandable (non-collectible) dueling card game with Pirates, Musketeers, and Sorcerers (with multiplayer formats).
Your goal is either

  • Assassination: Kill your opponent’s Leader
  • Domination: Control all 3 core locations in the city at the end of the day
  • Renown: Control locations in the city over 5 days to collect 7 (or the most) Renown

To accomplish this, each Day you choose 1 of your 5 pre-selected Characters to add to the fray and 1 of your 5 pre-selected Schemes to shape it. These are supported by your randomized 40-card Faction deck. However, before you make your choices, a neutral card is added to each location that players can race to Recruit, Equip, or exploit that Day from a randomized 30-card City deck. (This City deck is defined by Pine Box Entertainment, and they plan to rotate it, in part based on the actions taken in Organized Play events/tournaments).

Cards in your Faction deck can be

  • Played for their primary effect (equipping characters or performing one-time effects)
  • Played for their combat values in a duel (regardless of their primary effect)
  • Discarded to pay the cost of other powerful Faction and/or City cards
    (Race for the Galaxy style [one of my favorite game mechanisms])

Players alternate taking a single action until all players pass consecutively.

Initiating back and forth Duels and Claiming a Location are the primary two actions the game is built around (in addition to playing cards, character movement, and Passing).

Current Thoughts

As of this point, I have played about 10 games, half of which with decks I’ve built. I am still in the exploration phase as I feel out everything this game has to offer, but so far, I have been enjoying it and actively want to continue experimenting.

During the third game, the flow of play clicked and now actions can go pretty snappy back and forth, especially since you’ll want to be thinking multiple moves into the future. I actively enjoy the combination of City cards coming out, and then deciding which Scheme card to respond with, to determine where Renown gets put, what bonus effect to gain, your likelihood of going first each day, and whether you’ll draw more of less cards than normal. That feels great, especially since you can only use each of your 5 schemes once for the up to 5 days.

Card management also feels good. As mentioned above, I love the discard cards from hand to pay for other cards mechanism. It also synergizes well with deckbuilding enabling you to include situational cards, cards you actively want to play, and cards you actively want for dueling (especially if flipped in gambling). The tension between Gambling in duels and playing from hand is also a satisfying choice; Gambling has certainly screwed me, but not in a way that turns me off from the game, since “Gambling” is a very apt name for the mechanism.

My one disappointment so far is that deck building feels very limited at this point, with seemingly only one way to take each faction, for now. As additional expansions come out with new cards and characters for each faction, I expect/hope this will improve. For now, it mostly feels like optimization as opposed to exploration.

Faction Overview

Each of the 5 factions feel different and interesting to play. Currently, my vague feeling for each is

  • Castille: Try to deprive your opponent of as many actions and choices as possible, weak dueling, Renown primary win condition
  • Eisen: Bruteforce overwhelm your opponents by ending duels (refusing or returning no threat) and pushing unpreventable damage, Any win condition
  • Montaigne: Best duelists, force your opponents into duels and extend them, Any win condition
  • Ussura: Combo deck, find the hammer and/or buff Yevgeni to issue one-shot challenges, kill opponent in a duel as soon as possible, Domination/Assassination win conditions
  • Vodacce: Take as many actions as possible, everyone outside The Family is expendable towards your Renown win condition (or surprise Assassination)

I plan to do individual write ups on the deck I built for each of these factions.

Theme/Art/Lore

If I can buy this playmat at GenCon, I will, love it. Would buy a framed print of it too.

I’ve recently discovered that good Theming/Art/Lore can really draw me into a game (much more than I expected), and I have been drawn in to 7th Sea : City of Five Sails.

I learned about the game while looking for tournaments in the Gen Con 2023 event catalogue, and as a non-collectible, 2-player card game, I was obviously immediately intrigued. There is a World Championship Festival Saturday starting at 10am, and it will have a story-based game augmentation in 3 of the rounds (28 open spots remaining as of today).

So I looked into it further and saw they had Chanteys with lore on their website and in their rulebook. All of the stories have been interesting and have actively made me want to explore the world. Apparently, the setting is based off a 7th Sea Role Playing Game and there was a previous collectible version of the game in the late 90s.

Going in to the World Championship, for gameplay reasons I think I am leaning towards playing Eisen, but for thematic reasons, I will likely pick a different faction so I can usurp them. That being said, I see that Ussura won the 6-week salon (and Eisen won the initial 2022 Gen Con tournament), so my personality is pushing me away from those. Ahhh, so many fun considerations to agonize over for what I want to play! Ultimately, I need (and want) to get more games in to feel out the factions more, and I need (and want) to pour through all of the lore to come to a compromise of the two.

Closing

For anyone looking to play, there is an official Tabletop Simulator mod and Pinebox Entertainment discord. I am looking to get as many games in as possible, so if interested you can reach out through discord, username: tomsepicgaming

**Edit: I have really been enjoying this game. Here is a link to my tournament report from Gen Con 2023, my more in depth Eisen Deck Tech, and my tournament report from Gamehole con 2023.