This was a side discussion we were having last night and I'm kinda curious to see what other people thought of it:

What are the best and worst cards designed by world champs?
Are there any that are must packs?
Which ones have you looked at and never used?

My top 3 best ones would be:
D-Bag
Frankie Ho
Two Time

(Tech in a bottle would probably be next)

The worst is kinda hard, but I'd probably put my new gimmick on that list, the idea was great (it's probably more useful now, protect that ACE and all, but a 0F action? Yeah)

First of all is down the list, but that's because it got kicked in the balls as it needed to, but enough of my thoughts, have at it!

Well the "random revo" thing failed quite miserably :p (timing was bad too), but hey.....we got a whole new set to play with now, right? No better time to try to give this another shot!! But we'll do this a little different, to try to cut down on people pouting, taking their ball and disappearing because they didn't like their deck (admit it people it happened :p ) ......we'll do this one different!

1. Are we good with making the field v9 folk only? Or should we expand it?
2. Sign-ups will be on a first come, first serve ....if you wanna play Balor, you better be first to him! There will be no duplicates!

Hopefully we can get enough people and spin a good event for this one .....you want to do something else? Speak up now!!

Sign-ups:
Me: Neville
Niccccckkkkkk: the ascension
dilbert: American alpha
Brian: Nakamua
Drywall: Mojo Awful .... err.. Rawley Bo Dallas!
Mitch: Alexa Bliss
SG Tim: Finn Balor
Jokerfish: Tyler Breeze
MattHardyNotDie: Samoa Joe
Laflamme: Asuka
Luke Lash: Barron Corbin
Keith: Vaudvillans
Karkamus: Emma

With the success of Funk Con and now talk of the Canadians planning a big event, it got me thinking (well I had been wondering about this last year too, just timing and real life got in the way), but now I'm kicking myself in the ass and trying to poke for interest and see what people would think.... I wanted to set-up a big once a year event in the NJ area.....and hey LOOK ..... wrestlemania is in NJ next year.... Seems as good a reason and throwback to Raw Dean's roots of having a big event that weekend (I'm targeting the Piscataway area since it's close enough to all the madness, but you won't be stuck in the middle of it), I thought of making a poll, but I wanted names next to the responses so:

1. Would you be interested in a mega-NJ event?

2. Would you like it Wrestlemania weekend?

The sooner I get a response the sooner I can plan stuff

I know we're still waiting on the Finals to finish....might as well get the paperwork done on the next event!!!

So through popular request....we compiled a list....or should we say an anti-list for this event....a chunk of guys most people don't consider top-tier.....or flat out BAD they are....so much like the last event....you sign up....you get two of those decks randomly chosen for you.....you pick one of the two....OR....you go option C and take one random from the rest of the field....and here's the field of decks to sift through

all I ....we....whatever. ...ask, just because you get a "bad draw" (that's the WHOLE DAMN POINT)...play it out....drops suck for everyone and make things a general hassle, we're not playing for anything here, and the whole idea IS to keep the game going ....just try to be around and we can move the rounds along as best as possible

and now THE LIST:

Bam Bam Bigelow         Brie Bella TB         Brodus Clay               
Brutus Beefcake      Buh-Buh Ray Dudley             Darren Young               
David Otunga      Demolition                 Dean Malenko
D-Von Dudley                Eric Rowan         Evan Bourne               
Festus         Funaki                       Hacksaw Jim Duggan
Heidenreich                Irwin R. Schyster      Jack Swagger               
Jerry Lawler      Justin Gabriel                Lance Storm
Lex Luger               Maryse            Michael Tarver               
Mikey         Mitch                        Nikolai Volkoff
Norman Smiley           Prime Time Players      Raven                   
Rene Dupree      Rowdy Roddy Piper               R-Truth
Sami Zayn                Santino Marella      Seth Rollins               
Sin Cara      Stevie Richards         Team Hell No               
The Bella Twins      The Dangerous Alliance            The Heartbreak Kid TB
The King of Kings(tb)   The Rockers         The Sexy Beast               
The Steiner Brothers   The Usos                   Titus O'Neil
Yokozuna

and the sign-ups so far:
me
dilbert
niiiiiicccckkkkkk
Mitch 
null1

sign up....play.....and enjoy!

I don't mean this to be a slam on the Funk-Con tournament and the other ones in the area (as I've said elsewhere, I'd LOVE to have a big once a year event in NJ aside of these other cool Raw Deal events).....but it seems to me there's a lot more buzz and excitement for this con "West of Chicago" then there is for the annual trip to Indianapolis......a nd I'm just wondering "what makes that event more interesting or appealing to the people that are thinking of going to this and not Gen Con six weeks later??? This isn't intended as a flame war of this event vs Indy (I'm planning/hoping on both)....but I am curious into the decision process on both for people, and if there's something we can do to make Gen Con more appealing for people to come and join us at!

so, if I am the Young Bucks....and I flip cards....and trigger my gimmick....which triggers ring of fire.....which triggers my gimmick..... see the issue here?

Does this cause an infinite loop or does this end after one sequence?

Say I play Superkick....I flip two, I scoop one, I trigger ring of fire....I scoop one more, does it stop there or am I dumping my deck into my ringside in an infinite loop?

.....so what the hell is going on with this??? If we lost John to a Pokemon coma or something....I'll gladly run it....who's interested??

About 3 or 4 months ago when I was showing my GF Supershow one of her kids got out of bed like she does every night and came into the living room and normally we just yell GO TO BED and they go back.....this time one of the twins saw what we were doing and asked about it (guess it coulda been worse :p ) .....so we made her a deal....go back to bed and next time I'll bring the game and we'll let you guys play too....turns out they LOVED IT and insist I bring it every time I go there (playing it between commercials during the Flash on Tuesday was an exercise in hilarity  ) ....sooo anyway....I forget how they noticed, maybe I was building a playtest deck...or just looking through some cards ....and of course....nosey kids are nosey....and now they're clamoring to try "this other wrestling game"...oh boy.....I know better than to venture into Classic Raw Deal and certainly NOT AA, it would take them a DAY to read all the backstage cards alone......

....so I'm thinking Revolution (and I'm also waving the aggression rule, I am not sitting through eight year old rage because she drew a bad hand :p ) .....and I'm trying to think of some SUPER-SIMPLE decks (yes Brian I'm glaring at YOU with that one)....to get them into the game and give them a taste of what this game is like.....the few guys I am thinking of now:
the Shield
Tajiri
HHH
Kurt Angle

(notice all of these guys have basic abilites, a simple mechanic and will let them SPAM moves till it hurts)..... any other suggestions you guys can think of??

I may also limit the mid-match cards to bring them along slower too....which would wipe Angle from the conversation too.....

I was gonna post this over the weekend....oops!!! Well here we go anyway, I usually like to run these in January and August, but we wanted to kick the tires on the nXt format, so a month behind is fine too....you know the deal by now....we have 13 decks from Mike's collection put on the side from his passing....you pick one....you play it...and you wait for me to draw Too Cool and lose my mind :p

Anyway, it's a fun event and always a challenge to climb into someone else's Raw Deal Brain.....

Start Time: Probably 5pm-ish....depends on my hockey schedule that day (and not like people aren't coming for Fastlane anyway)

Location:
160 W. Westfield Ave, Apt A-1
Roselle Park, NJ

Looking forward to it!

So we finally kicked the tires on the new nXt Format....and FINISHED AN EVENT IN ONE DAY (that's a record, the format certainly helped, pre-match was infinitely quicker)...when I have more time later I'll add some thoughts on comments on the format itself, but here's who was there and who they played:

Scott Mackie: Shield, 4-0
Lou Yontef: b2B Warrior, 1-3
Steve Laflamme: Sable, 2-2
Brian Paolercio:  Big Bossman,
John Ramos: JBL, 2-2

Round 1:
Scott (Shield) vs Laflamme (Sable)
Jesus Sable/Rock is a BEAST to kill (even with only 50 cards), Sable crawls to 10 and then starts spamming Cold Cocked (make your own jokes here), to keep you in volley lock and keep
you throwing moves from hand, than sponges them and puts the reversal right back to the bottom….game basically goes, Shield reverses Volley card, she gets two other volley moves back,
Sable sponges move on overturn, saves 2 reversals (a once is enough and a skirt) for the triple power bomb then gets the 3rd reversal on ONE..but eventually falls to of all things a WhirlWind
Kick with only one card left in deck and no reversals in hand….Sable put up a bigger fight than the Seahawks had to this point….heh
Winner: the Shield

Lou vs Ramos
An upset!!! I fully expected JBL with 12 cards + 2 for the limo and using dynamically inclined to get his hand set and rolling along to steamroll Warriors multis, the punch of course goes
through, it gets stopped on overturn. Lou crawls to 9, gets the self-destruction out and just guys JBL's ring and pulls out the HUGE upset!
Winner: Warrior

Round 2:
Scott vs Lou
Shield gets a little bit of a slow start and doesn't get all the reversals in hand (rare for the Shield), but the Shield does get the reversals finally, slowing Lou down with the vests in play
and just inches and pounds some blindsides through till Warrior runs out of reversals….Warrior flips break the hold on the last card and just to end the misery I took the count-out
Winner: the Shield

Ramos vs Brian
I was a bit preoccupied with the football and a bit of hockey stuffs for this week with Lou and didn't see this one, but DaB JBL is pretty damn good.....
Winner: JBL

Round 3:
Scott vs Ramos
Pump Kick goes through, but used Hounds of Justice to see his hand to see an 8D Full Nelson Slam TB would go through, used the 8F to throw some Vickie Protected Moves and Blindsides
while drawing tons of red to deny him fort after the Pump Kick, Seth's Enzigurl and Revo of the Mind officially end the game for him
Winner: the Shield

Brian vs Laflamme
Sable got a bad hand and damn Bossman beat her like he was Marc Mero…good God….Steve usually makes these decks good, but it just never got out of the blocks here….
Winner: the Big Bossman

Round 4:
Scott vs Brian
Brian gets the first handcuffed/panic off, but after that the Shield does what they do….reverse, ability, discard blindsides and then throw them, with the draw effect off the reversals,
the fort to play blindsides and Brian's hand not being able to keep up with mine I just outlasted and beat him down with countered-blindsides, Brian did goof and didn't reach/grasp the
Blindside Slam but I don't think it mattered at that point
Winner: the Shield

Laflamme vs Lou
Lou just had some bad deck luck in this game, Frankie Ho made his multi reversals useful, and switching between DMI and Rock to control his hand and ringside, plus the 8 card discard
(ouch) for the men who came to see me and Lou just never got out of the box, shoot promo got double-skirted and his own Old School Wrestling Match (TB) finished him
Winner: Sable

Round 5:
Brian vs Lou:
Warrior gets his starting F on the punch, but then Bossman's ability to un-multi and scoop moves from ringside was just too much, Lou used the undermine to try to come back, but Bossman just threw the same moves again that Lou removed and Law and Order prevailed!
Winner: the Big Bossman

Funny side comment was Lou a bit annoyed sniping about the fact that in "the real wrestling world" Warrior used to beat Bossman in 90 seconds....guess that Sable loss annoyed him too 

Laflamme vs Ramos:
Didn't see much of this, but I'm sure JBL's superior hand and searching powers served him well against a Sable deck that needs some tweaking (I didn't like most of the 6 specifics he packed in her,
but that's a debate for another day)
Winner: JBL

All in all a good day, solid turnout and a thumbs up to the nXt experience (though I do miss the signing appearance and the backstage auto session for hand cycling and the like, but I'm getting out of that habit the more I play the format)

...looking forward to the next one, though we might do a MAMI event since we didn't run it this month (I like doing one in January and one in August when possible for some obvious reasons)...we
shall discuss!!!

The future is NOW....and the future is HERE....time to kick the tires on the newest format in Raw Deal..... nXt!!! So shrink those backlash decks and find your old Raw and Smackdown tins, since your decks will fit again!!!!

Date: Jan 17
Time: TBA, but usually runs day long (since we usually have 6 or less and we like Round Robin format for that many people)
Prizes: If I get off my lazy butt and order them
Location: ....same as always.... 160 W. Westfield Ave, Apt A-1, Roselle Park, NJ
Hope to see people there!

Since I have enough crap going on for my birthday next week, we'll save it for the week after....same as last time, virtual classic (Lou isn't caught up to learn Revo/AA yet), plus it will give people a good reason to avoid their families for a holiday weekend

Time to be figured out probably that day since I have nooo idea right now....hah!

So we finally aligned the stars and got everyone in the same place at the same time (the older you get, the harder that becomes) and had a five person round robin event at my place on Sunday....I kinda had my head in the football games and the Hell Cell Show when I wasn't playing my game, and I also got one of my hockey buddies who saw one of the pics I took when I was packing for Gen Con and he went "Raw Deal is still alive??" and we finally got him to come out and play and I gave him a nice simple deck to start with and a quick flight to Suplex City and away we went!

Scott: (CSF, Sting): 0-4
Brian: (Heel B2B, Erick Rowan) 2-2
Laflamme: (the obvious kick deck of Paige) 1-3
Lou: (Eat...sleep...Germa n Suplex....repeat)  3-1
John: (Face/Blindside/OS Cage, Macho Man) 3-1

My games went like:
Scott (Sting) Vs Brian (Rowan)
Sting loses key reversals to Donnybrook, Rowan jumps ahead in fort and the plunge on Foundation of Old School Wrestling keeps me from playing ANY useful reversals, Street Fight gets reversed first 3 times in a ROW....so no baseball bat....nice knowing ya Stinger

Scott vs Laflamme (Paige):
Quite possibly the WORST "Deck Luck" in Raw Deal history, no matter what I overturned, no matter what I drew, if I did anything but look in my deck and find the frakking card myself and put in  my hand or ringside pile there was NO WAY IN GOD'S GREEN EARTH that goddamned baseball bat was coming anywhere useful to me, it would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic....conside ring the damned deck is built around that stupid bat.....yeah.....

Scott vs Lou (TBI):
It's scary just how good the whole "just throw multi German suplexes till it bleeds" can be for the Beast, it fits him....it works....reverse Sting's Baseball Bat a few times, and then eventually F-5 a Stinger Splash...this Sting decks needs some tweaking, "throw the bat till it sticks" doesn't work quite as well.......

Scott vs Ramos (Macho Man):
Yay, a face deck and more 0F reversals to kill the bat with...I might be going at this deck wrong and maybe I should switch to surfer Sting and put more hybrids in the deck....just dropping Unique moves did a lot better in my lackey testings (given one deck was Total Package and he's just terrible) ...

Lou did well (and had a good deck)....he hadn't played Raw Deal since before chain/heat/volley, but got the idea of chain quick, and ACE's and how to reverse them (the Beast deck had the Chris Nowinski package in it for recovery and to show him when to and NOT to use the ACE's the added surivial and him falling in love with here comes the Calvary...hah), and even surviving a two hour marathon match with Paige in his first game (some of that was him learning the cards, what they did and what gets played where in the pre-match), but once you lay down the purple, the beast does what he does.....suplexes the piss out of you and dares you to eat an F-5, hopefully he can pester his brother (who I play with on Friday Nights, but that league doesn't start for two weeks)

So yeah Sting went 0-4 in the Round Robin.....I should have seen that coming, but I wanted to run Sting since Lou was a big Sting mark and thought he'd like seeing him in action (shoulda ran Warrior since we have a big goofy Ultimate Warrior face on our team shirts for the Wednesday league he's the captain of that team, yes this shirt REALLY exists)...Sting needs some help and the one unique per turn KILLS him when he's trying to make a comeback...and not only did I help Lou along here getting back to Raw Deal, but I scored the most awkward goal I've ever scored in all my years of hockey for his team....heh

We'll figure out a weekend for an event in November too, plus we'll have more free for all's during the month too as we try to bring him along and get his brother back into the game too