1 hour ago, Shiba Gunichi said:

The only kotei I could ever make was Anchorage (three times), and it was always a major undertaking to get there.

Sure, but I guess what I'm trying to say is... I live in Omaha, Nebraska. It's considered a small town by a lot of people. But even if I were to live in Boondock, Nebraska, I'd still be able to the 7 or 8 koteis that I went to while living in Omaha. Road trips are fun for me so I like to do them as often as possible... especially when I got to hang out with some of the best gamer friends (L5R players) in the world. So given that, how is living in a small town prohibiting you from going to major events? Is it that the events are too far to drive to? If that's the case, I'd very much like to know what too far is for you. If that's not the reason, please share.

And since I am derailing Mark's thread, I figured I'd share my best game ever.

While there have been a LOT of great games played between my opponents and I, I guess the greatest game goes to my Kotei win at the Minneapolis Kotei (well, technically, it was in St. Cloud). I was faced off against Phoenix honor rocket in the finals. He was the only person to win against me in the swiss rounds and I went through a lot of successful decks and players to get to the finals. I was playing an attachment heavy spider ninja deck. The finals was a best of three match and we each had one win. He won the first game pretty easily by getting the best of everything that game. I was getting nervous. Also... I knew if I couldn't win this Kotei, I would never win one as this was the very last kotei I went to under AEG. So we are game three and I flip nothing but guys. I mulligan in to 4 more guys. Everyone watching the game was like 'Here goes Sparks' luck.' So I grabbed Forgotten Legacy and passed the turn after pitching all the guys. My 2nd turn comes around and I see 4 guys again. I grab Forgotten Legacy a second time and pitch the four guys. My third turn comes around and I buy Goju Kenteiru (the spider cav guy). I know the phoenix deck is packed with send home, but I figured if I could cav my around his defenses for a bit, I might have a chance. My turn comes around again. I spend all my money on attachments and swing and take a province unopposed. I don't buy any personalities in dynasty phase. My turn comes around again and I attach more attachments to him and take another province unopposed. I don't buy anyone. My next turn comes around and attach more stuff including Weathered Armor. For those of you who don't know what Weathered Armor does, it negates movement. Anyway, I swing in to his second to last province and he full defends the other one in fear of some kind of shenanigans. So I crunch that province. Last turn comes around and I swing in with my lonely guy and he full defends. Most attachments on my character were kill, mostly ranged/melee attacks. His first action was to try to send my guy home. I showed him the armor because he apparently didn't realize what the armor did. That and I had a million attachments on this guy. Then he looked at his hand and looked back at the armor and concedes because all the actions he had was send home. And I could kill almost his entire army with the attachments I had on my guy. At least enough to break the province. Kenteiru was a big beefy guy at the end. lol

So there it is. My one and only Kotei win! Woohoo! With the exception of going to David Lapp's Modern/Bigdeck tournament the following spring, I haven't played L5R since!