It went by so fast, but this weekend has been one of the most eventful, personally, in my recent memory — which, truth be told, isn’t all that good anyway. I’m kinda like Dory from Finding Nemo, only I forget stuff after a few days rather than after a few minutes. So just to pinch myself and make sure it really happened, I’ll recap:

Saturday

With Allan back in Manila, the troika of Czarelle, Allan and myself is once more complete, and we decided to cap the event by hanging out at Baang Coffee at Tomas Morato. Along the way, I met ran into Rome Jorge, the guy singularly responsible — by sheer example — for inspiring me to get into not only desgin, but citizen journalism as well. For those who don’t know him, he’s the man behind KaKosa.com and Hanep-Designs.com (both now defunct, but he says he’s working on getting them back up), and was a founding member (I think) of Philweavers.net, the premiere Pinoy web design community.

While we were having coffee, I got an SMS from Sasha telling me I won in the recently concluded Philippine Blog Awards ceremony for, of all things, Best Blog Design. Needless to say, I was tickled pink by that, considering the level of competition (Midori-X, Seasonal Plume, and my personal favorites, Noel Perlas – Perlas Design Studio and Ironwulf.net: En Route) and the judge’s credentials (Bryan Veloso, Derek Punsalan, Jolo Santos, etc). Thanks to everybody who dropped by and left a comment, I appreciate the thoughts. Too bad I wasn’t able to attend; I’d have loved to meet pretty much everyone who went. I do find it ironic that the event’s rules would have prevented me from entering the hall on account of how I look (because I don’t own slacks or shoes, just jeans and slippers), but they were fine with how my blog looked. But like I said, their event, their rules ;)

Congrats of course to Dean Jorge Bocobo, who won the Best Socio-Political blog award, another category where I was a finalist. Truth be told, they’d have been nuts not to recognize him; his Philippine Commentary deserves it.

The best part, though, is to wake up and see incoming links from both Inquirer.net and GMANews.tv. LOL, ang babaw ko.

At a few minutes past 10, we left for Ortigas, where I have a gig with FMD at StirCrazy. It’s a benefit gig by TABAK, or Tunay na Alyansa ng Bayan Alay sa Katutubo (the Alliance of Advocates for Indigenous Peoples Rights), whose cause I am more than happy to support. I was half expecting Kadangyan to be there as well, as I love their music and this is the kind of thing they’re really involved in, but no such luck. I heard later they’re in Boracay, the lucky bastards :D The Chonkeys were there, and it’s always a blast watching them play. It was a fun gig, and the place was nice — (relatively) cheap beer, good food and a cozy atmosphere.

When I got home around 3AM, the rest of the tropa were already waiting for Allan and I: we had to do some last minute deck tweaking for Sunday’s big event: the 2007 Philippine Kotei.

Sunday (warning: jargon follows)

Now this is THE event of my weekend: the Philippine leg of L5R’s 2007 Kotei, held at the Neutral Grounds in Robinson’s Galleria. For those not familiar with the game, L5R stands for Legend of the Five Rings, and is an RPG/CCG loosely based on feudal Japan, complete with Samurai, politics, intrigue, monsters, Ninja and more. In Rokugan (the fictional setting), honor is stronger than steel, and duty is everything. But what makes L5R unique and special is the amount and level of interaction ordinary players can have on the direction of the game itself; Alderac, the company behind it, takes special care to involve their player base. At each Kotei this year, the winner will be faced with a choice: To support the Khan or to oppose the Khan. If at the end of the Kotei season the Khan’s amount of support is more than his opposition, the throne will be his. There are also two other choices on the table for the winner. Rather than opposing or supporting the Khan, the winner may instead choose one of two other options: Capture significant land from an enemy Clan or gain a powerful boon for your own Clan.

Aside from the involvement factor, the 2007 Philippine Kotei also had in attendance the amazing Edwin David, who did the art for some of my most favorite personalities like Rosanjin and Masote. I even had those cards autographed :D

I’m neither pro-Khan or anti-Khan; I just want my clan (Dragon) to do well. This being my first Kotei (and my first major tournament), I decided to play the deck I was most experienced with (I only started playing mid last year), despite having a field heavy with meta against it. It’s a Shiro Kitsuki Magistrate Duel deck that can reasonably honor out by turn 3 at the earliest, but usually turn 5. I scrubbed out against Jon Ang, last year’s winner, playing out of HHoL with a ridiculous amount of meta, and to Miguel Munsayac playing out of Junghar Encampment (because I’ve never played against Unicorn; this deck totally took me by surprise). There was a particularly intense game with a Lowell, a really cool Scorpion player: at one point, I was at 1 honor with only Masote XP (nerfed by Crippling Cut), 2 Saori basic and a Nagiken, and he had a Dazai, 3 Maru, 1 XP Maru (nerfed by Flame & Lightning), 1 Adeiko and 1 Saya; this was after he hit Rosanjin with a Dark Lord’s Favor and a Test of Honor. Somehow, his fate deck sputtered out, and I finally saw some fate-side duels. Time was called, I was at 27 honor, and we decided, if in the next 2 turns he can take me down to 25 honor (I only had enough juice to to bomb for 14 honor in his turn), he wins. If not, I’ll do my stuff on my turn and hit 40. He uses Saya’s ability on Saori and I let him take a province, but no honor loss happened, so he gamely conceded. I ended the day going 4-2, going 19th out of 61 overall because others had better tie-breakers.

All in all, not a bad showing, even if I do say so myself; first Kotei and I almost make it to the top16. With the exception of Jon Ang (who was an ass — I had a mind to give him the Rock Bottom, but he was slightly taller than me :D) every player I met was friendly and fun to play with. Even the Mantis players were fun. We left before the final winners were decided, but it seems the Crane player from Baguio won, voting anti-Khan. Inasmuch as I’d have loved for a Dragon to win (there were 3 Crane, 1 Dragon in the final four), I can’t really be disappointed; the Kotei was a success and the players were amazing.

I’ll upload the photos as soon as I get the money to develop them ;)

Related posts:

1. LA Kotei 2007 Commemorative Artwork
2. Scalping PBA tickets!
3. A year after the Wowowee tragedy
4. Songs from the Wastelands Preview, Page 4
5. Power Plays in Educational Institutions