Heh, I have been reading some of the topics here and finally found one I can contribute easily =)
In general terms, I'd say the event was really enjoyable to everyone attending. Sportmanship ruled through the entire event, too.
My pros and cons:
Pros:
*I must agree completely with Marc Roca being such a great organiser and devoted to the game and community.
*We spanish players, enjoyed a lot playing and watching foreign's games, whose play-level was sensibily higher than ours. Somehow I managed to win 3 of the 4 games in constructed format against them, but most of that was due to really good luck in some of my games (Heiner, for example, losing 3 characters in his only move in the surface due to Veils Flung Away played twice) and overall was such a great experience - and a good chance to improve everyone's english, which is not really fluent at the moment
*Of course, huge props to Mark for winning his 2nd One Ring, which he really deserved. Huge props as well to all of the other non-spanish players for making so many good showings of sportmanship and respect, especially to Wolfgang (game which I really enjoyed and it was curious to see me playing the cards I had purchased from his store a week ago) and Martin (next Lure's Cup of Nations is ours!!!!)
Now some cons:
* I would rate the food and rooms quality low for the price; yes, it was kind of cheap, but my spanish stomach is used to better food AND the room Aurora and me were using didn't had its lamp working so we couldn't use any light at night during Friday. Of course, nothing of that did matter much since we were there mainly for games and good times, I could have slept in a tent and be happy with all those fine gamers I met (and Aurora allowed me to eat some of her vegetarian food, which, as Wolfgang points out, was WAY better than the regular one)
*I also had always the feeling that there was no time. Apart from some of the things not being too well thought out, there was no physical time to do everything we planned to do. Actually, only the main tourney ran properly - the sealed minion was some kind of a mess and many people drop during it (and I couldn't win being tied with Mark for 1st place!! =) Not only that people left before the Ceremony, but also the Cup of Nations, which was a really appealing choice for those who couldn't play the finals (and especially for the ones that were so close to play it) couldn't be played at all due to lack of players. Dragon Hunt couldn't be played as well.
* 3 of 4 players using Balrog during finals, and the other one being Ringwraith, not good
and most of them being squatter decks didnt help at all as well.
* Not allowing people playing qualifiers to switch his deck for the next day, therefore not playing under the same circumstances as pre-qualified players did -> they can have a shot of the meta game before the semifinals (although I'm pretty sure all of you had your decks ready way back before the tourney) Of course I wouldnt have asked for people not being allowed to watch games, but having the chance of playing something absolutely different the next day would have made it much funnier and surprising. For example, I knew exactly what my opponent for 2nd round in semifinals was playing because he had played the same deck during qualifiers against my girlfriend -> not good, especially because we were playing very similar decks and I knew what characters he would start and which factions, items etc he would play so I could bend my strat accordingly. I mean, unless you are facing an stereotype deck, sometimes you need one turn or even two to realize what's your opponent playing; for example, Martin's deck was helped by surprise element due to his confussing start, but none of the players that played qualifiers could rely on surprise element in certain games --- Pedro was using a similar deck that relied on surprise element (dunking the ring after having played a faction so theorically opponent relaxes and doesn't look for all his anti Dunk tech in sb) but in some of his games during Semifinals, he just couldn't count on that anymore. Perhaps it is not the best strategy, but it has to be respected.