Welcome to Spellfire.Net representative Marc Dalesandro's interview with Spellfire World Champion Tony Novello. If you'd like to be a Spellfire.Net reporter, just send us an e-mail.

Spellfire.Net: First off, can you give us a quick rundown of your two championship decks (composition)? Are they still together or have you disassembled them since winning? Which was better, in your opinion?

Unfortunately I never made a habit of saving old deck lists, so I no longer know exactly what the decks had. The deck I won with in 1999 was listed on some fan web pages so Spellfirers wanting to may be able to track it down. The 1995 championship deck is long lost to the mists of time. In '95 the rules for deck construction were so different from what they are today…I really wish I had written that deck down just to see how much things had changed.

Spellfire.Net: How did you get into the game?

I attended my second Gen Con in 1994 to play in the Axis & Allies Mega-tournament. We had made it to the semi-finals the year before, so me and 4 friends headed back to Gen Con sure we would make it over the hump in 1994. Of course we were knocked out in the very first round! The Mega-tourney is a long tourney lasting 2 to 4 days usually so we were sitting there on Thursday at noon with no plans for the rest of Con. This turned out to be the best thing that ever could have happened. On our 1st trip to Gen Con in 1993 we never left Juno Hall for pretty much the whole 4 days. So in '94 we got to walk around and really get to see all that was going on including the Costume Contest, Talent Show, Dealer's Area, etc, etc. While wondering from the Art Show to get something to eat on the second floor of the Mecca we bumped into Mickey. Mickey was an employee of TSR who was demonstrating Spellfire in a busy intersection and was just grabbing passers-by to play. With the offer of free cards and plenty of time on our hands we said yes and the rest is history! My entire group of friends and I were instant addicts. We began buying cards that very day at the TSR castle and started trading with anybody who would. I can still remember that night back at the hotel as all of us laid out our cards and began doing check lists and thinking of the different decks we could build. Not to mention the envy we felt towards each other every time one of us pointed out the nifty new photo card we had gotten. It was wonderful.

Spellfire.Net: Do you play other CCGs? What attributes does Spellfire have that have kept you interested over the years?

I am currently playing MLB Showdown quite a bit and have been known to go on binges of Galactic Empires and Pokemon with my kids. We generally don't play too much Spellfire these days, due mostly to the lack of time we have. My group, as a whole, has gotten older in the last 7 years and we all have wives and children now so our game playing time has dropped off. We do still often talk about the game though, usually retelling some funny story that we have all heard at least 20 times before. Spellfire was a major part of all of our social lives for several years and we often laugh out load at those old stories no matter haw many times we hear them. The single biggest reason for our interest being sustained for so long is that Spellfire is a multi-player game working best with 4 or 5 people at a time. Unlike the other CCG games made even today, Spellfire encouraged so much interaction between everyone that even if you were getting beat on you still were riveted to the game. For this reason alone I think Spellfire was the greatest CCG ever made.

Spellfire.Net: What are your favorite Spellfire cards and card set?

My favorite card is easily the Chaos Lord chase card from the Dungeons set. I mean how many people have their own card in a game? It is wonderful to look around a gaming table and see somebody playing with my ugly mug. As far as favorite cards I like to use in decks my top pick currently is Dissolution I think. Although any card that destroys a realm is great, I like this best because of the all the options it gives the player. In the earlier days of the game Cold Cup of Calamity was always my top card and it is still pretty high on my list. No other card would so upset an opponent that even if they were winning they would get angry and start making mistakes. CCC carried a lot of psychological weight in it's day.

Spellfire.Net: Anything that you dislike about the game or game mechanics/play? Least favorite cards/set?

My biggest gripe with the game has always been the fact that it was discontinued by WotC. With even a small amount of support from them Spellfire would be chugging along nicely even today. Other then this I have to say the fact that so many of the early cards were powerless was pretty bad too. Never did understand the reason for that. My least liked set would have to be the very first one. So many of the cards are blank that the set is almost worthless all these years later. I also am not real fond of “Dungeon” cards, they really took a lot of player interaction out of the game. As far as design goes the “Dungeon” cards were a small step backwards I think.

Spellfire.Net: Do you still actively play Spellfire? What do you think of the current state of the game (WotC, fan sets, etc.)?

As I said above we have not played Spellfire outside of convention tournaments for quite a while now. The lack of new product is probably a big contributor to this, but as I said we have all aged a bit too. I think WotC missed the boat big time as far as Spellfire goes. Wizards chose not to support Spellfire more for political reasons then any other, although I have to say that the financial side of the game was not terribly strong too. After over 2 years of infighting and lawsuits between TSR and WotC over Spellfire, by the time WotC owned the game the powers that be were quite sick and tired of it. This passed with time, but so has the ownership of WotC itself. Spellfire today is pretty much a dead game, in that it is not supported by the manufacturer and never will be again. This is a fact that was hard to swallow for a long time for me, but the game is far from being totally dead. The addition of the fan created cards has sparked a bit of re-interest in the game that is nice to see. Spellfire will always have supporters as the years pass, but the glory days are behind us now. All things pass with time I guess, even the good things.

Spellfire.Net: Will you challenge for the World Championship again?

I doubt I will challenge for the World Championship 2001. In 2000 I again made it to the final nine before throwing the game for my brother. With the addition of the fan created cards the game has passed me by for the time being. I might in the future get re-involved, but with 3 kids and a mortgage the time isn't there anymore. I still have all my playing cards and I am sure they will see a lot of action in pick-up games but my Spellfire tournament days are done for awhile.

Spellfire.Net: Your opponent slaps down a Poor Oriental Lord. What do you do???

I laugh with glee!! No single card guarantees me victory more then a POL played by my opponent. POL is the single most overrated card in Spellfire. No other card does as much damage to it's player as this one. In order to have a deck that effectively uses the POL the player must first exclude the bulk of the most powerful cards in the game from his deck while his opponents will still have full access to these cards. No matter how hard you try you simply can't get past this fatal flaw. The only successful use of the POL I have ever seen was when it was used as a side card in a speed deck. The player would only lay out the POL if he already pretty much had the game won and was just using it to prevent last-ditch efforts from his opponents to stop him. After last year's World Championship I asked this player if he would use the POL again and he felt the card didn't do enough to help him and that he most likely wouldn't use it again in the future. Of course with the addition of the fan created cards to the game this may have changed dramatically.

Spellfire.Net: What is the story behind the Chaos Lord card?

The Chaos Lord was based off of my screen name from the old Spellfire board on AOL. Back in the day (1994-1996) the AOL boards run by TSR were the place to be for all things related to Spellfire. We hard core players got to know each other by our screen names of the time. I was “Chaoslord9”, hence the Regent level 9 of the card. This was part of the most magical time for Spellfire. TSRJim (now the Oracle) was the front man for Spellfire and we all got to know him very well along with Dori who would pop in from time to time. During this time 5 or 6 of the boosters were released as well as the third edition I think, so there were literally thousands of questions asked and then answered by Jim. It was also at this time that other "big time" players surfaced like Wytefang and Pitboss. If you didn't have a cool screen name you were considered to something of an outsider. It was all very, very fun.

Spellfire.Net: Do you have an amusing anecdote involving Spellfire that you can share with our Spellfire.net readers?

I have literally dozens of them! There was a time when our group played Spellfire twice a week for at least 4 hours every time and at almost every sitting some new tale was created. The single most famous would have to be the "eating of Menzo"! Let me explain…It must have been the winter of 1995 and there were at least 5 of us playing. It was weeknight and we were all up later then we should be. Spellfire was at the height of it's 'screw you' period. A great many cards were out that did horrific damage to your opponent(s) that could not be easily countered or stopped. Also many of the rules at the time were vague or just out right contradictory. This had led to huge arguments amongst my group and on this night we had been going back and forth about god knows what and everyone's temper was running hot. We had decided to play one last game for the night and on my third or fourth turn with a shaking hand I set out Menzo as my second realm. After everyone laughed that I got stuck setting it out as my second realm (I had no other to play) I smiled and casually slid the holding Mulmaster under it. Before I could pull my hand from the table 4 Cataclysms hit the table. My rotten wife, brother and two best friends were sandbagging the whole game for this one moment. If a fury and before anyone could get more than a belly laugh at my expense I snatched up Menzo and Mulmaster and ate them! As I looked around the sound of silence was the all I got back. Everyone just sat and stared for what seemed like a good 15 seconds. We called it a night then and made a pact with each other not to fight over rules anymore, and we never did again. Now, years later, we laugh our butts off about it and about how a card game got us so mad at each other that we started eating the cards! LOL!!

NOTE: You can meetTony Novello at this year's GenCon, which will be held Aug 2-5, 2001 in Milwaukee, WI.