2025-05-18 Vibes Championship of the Americas (0-4)

Introduction

After scrubbing out of RC Hartford [link], I signed up to play in Vibes Championship of the Americas at Hartford. For $20 entry, plus buying starter kit ($30 for two starter decks), it's pretty good value since playmat + promo are included as entry

 

What is Vibes? 

Vibes is a Lorcana-esque Trading Card Game (TCG). The art is based on an NFT art series called Pudgy Penguins. Also the game is "Web3" which means it has crypto connotations & stuff.

Gameplay characteristics

Parentheses will be used to describe the approximate Magic equivalent. 

• Cards can be played face-down as rods (lands), which can be flopped (tapped) to produce fish (generic mana).
• Penguins have colors. Fish can be used to summon any color of penguin, but color determines what actions (spells) the penguins can flop pudge for (convoke)
• Cycles (turns) involve players drawing, playing penguins (main phase), opponent does the same, then an action phase (priority round) which can be repeated if additional actions happen.
• The end of turn involves a vibe check, where players determine which penguin has the most vibe (power)
• Winning the vibe check awards you with Baron Fishpockets (idk, initiative?). The winner then puts the top card of their library in as a flopped rod, and the loser draws a card. Then the next cycle starts and if the player with Baron Fishpockets has 15+ cards out, they win.
• Also Baron Fishpockets determines who gets to take the first moves per cycle. 

Gameplay

• Establishing early board presence is important to take actions (convoke spells), as well as accelerating on rods.
• Both players draw on each turn, and both players "receive" a card when the vibe check happens. This means that there's a lot of resource parity, which gives repeated removal an edge.
• Starter decks feature pretty basic mechanics, of course. But even with just one set released there's already a massive gap in card power level. Imaging the difference between a 2/2 1G with vigilance vs Bunkus (Hogaak) or Bizmo (Thassa's Oracle).
• There are also rareish trap lands that can be revealed as actions.
• Since the game is won after a player wins the vibe check and has fifteen permanents at the start of their turn, players close in on 15 permanents at approximately the same time.
• This leads to a couple of showdown turns where many things happen.
• Unlike Magic, if the source of an action (ability) is removed in response, the act is countered
• The game is run as best-of-1 since parity is pretty core to the game. There aren't enormous benefits to going first, while cards that can flop opposing penguins are better on the reactive side.

Round Summary

I lost four rounds. I'll chalk it up to a combination of not understanding tempo priority of Baron Fishpockets, valuation of cards-as-rods vs their front faces, not buying upgrades, and plain old-fashioned bad luck.