VII Polish MECCG Nationals - REPORT

[|Highwayman|]

Right, some explanations first. This time we didn't advertise our event too much - frankly not at all besides basic posts here and on CoE forums. As we didn't get any responses to our posts and a few weeks later the MECCG European Championships were announced to be held on the exact same weekend as our tournament - we didn't see much point in competing with Euros
Besides as lovely and great as our venue was it could prove hard to reach for foreigners as the nearest airport is 3-4 hours away

Moving on, our event was great as ever, or maybe even better The only thing we could complain about was that over 10 of our regulars couldn't come due to various reasons so there were only 16 of us in total - which makes this event historical as for the first time we had an even number of players so no BYE's were needed

We played 5 rounds of general opponent 1-deck games (but 25MP's needed to call the council), universal decks (no deck switching vs. different alignments allowed, you bring only 1 deck and play with it vs. all opponents you face), standard Polish Tournament Rules.
On to the results:

Round I

Highwayman - Ciachu 8-0
Tox - Jaded 6-0
Cekpl - Fram 5-1
Gror - Umagaur 5-1
Kfiad - Thorin 4-2
Maciek - Mag 5-1
Gyg - Balar 4-2
Root - Muad'Dib 4-2

Round II

Highwayman - Tox 8-0
Cekpl - Gror 4-2
Maciek - Root 4-2
Kfiad - Gyg 6-0
Muad'Dib - Balar 4-2
Thorin - Mag 6-0
Fram - Umagaur 6-0
Jaded - Ciachu 4-2

Round III

Highwayman - Kfiad 4-2
Cekpl - Maciek 5-1
Thorin - Fram 5-1
Gror - Muad'Dib 4-2
Tox - Root 5-1
Jaded - Gyg 3-3
Ciachu - Balar 5-1
Mag - Umagaur 6-0

Round IV

Highwayman - Cekpl 8-0
Thorin - Gror 4-2
Tox - Kfiad 5-1
Fram - Maciek 6-0
Muad'Dib - Mag 4-2
Gyg - Root 4-2
Jaded - Balar 6-0
Ciachu - Umagaur 6-0

Round V

Highwayman - Thorin 8-0
Tox - Cekpl 4-2
Jaded - Muad'Dib 6-0
Fram - Kfiad 4-2
Gror - Ciachu 4-2
Gyg - Maciek 5-1
Root - Mag 4-2
Balar - Umagaur 6-0

Final standings:

1. |Highwayman| (Wizard) Warsaw - 36 pkt.
2. Tox (Balrog) Krakow - 20 pkt.
3. Jaded (Balrog) Kędzierzyn Koźle - 19 pkt.
4. Fram (Ringwraith) Krakow - 18 pkt.
5. Thorin (Wizard) Kędzierzyn Koźle - 17 pkt.
6. Gror (Ringwraith) Kędzierzyn Koźle - 17 pkt.
7. Cekpl (Balrog) Warsaw - 16 pkt.
8. Gyg (Wizard) Warsaw - 16 pkt.
9. Ciachu (Wizard) Herby - 15 pkt.
10. Kfiad (Ringwraith) Pabianice - 15 pkt.
11. Root (Ringwraith) Pabianice - 13 pkt.
12. Muad'Dib (Balrog) Warsaw - 12 pkt.
13. Maciek (Wizard) Herby - 11 pkt.
14. Balar (Ringwraith) Herby - 11 pkt.
15. Mag (Wizard) Mińsk Mazowiecki - 11 pkt.
16. Umagaur (Wizard) Zielona Góra - 1 pkt.


Every contestant got a special Tournament T-shirt and as always we had a card draft at the end - this time it was MEAS booster box. As for the main prize - the winner got a Wizard's Staff and a Wizard's Hat (not cards )
As soon as some photos become available I'll post a link to them

[Manuel]

How's that you can win 8-0? Normally, dunk means 7-0...

[marcos]

in 1-deck games, dunk means 8 MPs

[Manuel]

Oh ok, that's fine, it's just that I'm not used to 1-deck games. It is, however a bit tricky if you have to gain 25 Mp instead of 20. Doesn't that partially removes the disadvantage of playing dunk in 1-deck tournaments?

Btw, I hope to see yo polish playing on Nations Cup

[|Highwayman|]

Well, we favour 1-deck games over 2-deck games on our tournaments as we want to play 5 rounds (usually we have over 20 contestants so we need 5 rounds to avoid too many ties), furthermore we need to play the whole tournament during 1 day as some people come to the place of the event on the morning of tournament day and some other need to leave in the evening (sometimes as early as 18:00) - so it's all time limitations thing

Doesn't that partially removes the disadvantage of playing dunk in 1-deck tournaments?

I had a discussion about this problem on this tournament, and we'll have to consider making some changes for our next event as there is some truth to this... on the other hand those extra 5 MP's are probably just 1 extra round - which in 9 out of 10 games won't even take place as you only need 4-5 rounds to dunk in a good hero deck (and our typical game is about 5-7 rounds long)
and there's the problem of other alignments' "dunk" which is a lot harder than hero, so maybe it should be more rewarding (tournament-points-wise)?

[Alter Tuk]

I agree to Manuels point, but must say its still a good job to dunk 4 out 5 times! But whats pretty close to unbelievable-status is how to dunk 4 out of 5 and scoring 4 TP in 5th game! Tell us more!

[|Highwayman|]

I had a dwarves One Ring deck - Thrain, Oin, Kili and Gloin, starting with Rumours of Rings (for Dwarven Rings) and Cram
somewhere along the way I would pick up 1 or 2 more scouts (preferably Fili and Eowyn); oh and Halbard and/or Ioreth squats at Rivendel

Wizards were Saruman x2 (getting Wizard's Tests to hand from discard at the end-of-turn) and Gandalf (his testing ability a last resort when all else would fail - luckily it never came to that )

when everything worked out perfectly on turns 1-3 I would run around playing gold rings and brooches preferably getting 2 rings and 2 brooches (whenever I had the chance I played characters from hand at Lorien so they could safely play brooches when the dwarves played rings)
turn 4 I needed to start either at Lorien or Bandit Lair, play Ash Mountains in the org. phase and run to Mount Doom, there Lucky Search (Enduring Tales helps) for Scroll of Isildur (discard brooch in case my scout would lose vs. the Lucky Search attack/strike), then test the rings, play Cracks, pass corruption with help of Old Friendship and/or A Friend or Three

the coolest thing about this deck is that in a non-tournament game (or during the first tournament round) my opponent had no idea I was playing for the One as all he saw was a deck that seemed a dwarves and dwarven rings deck (during a tournament you loose this element of surprise after your first dunk - as your opponent can see how many tournament points you scored during previous game)

Those dwarven rings (alongside with Southorns/Nurniags and a few Noble Steeds) were my back-up plan in case I failed to win with the One - which happened during my 3rd game, I didn't have any untapped scouts to play Lucky Search so I had to test the rings without Scroll of Isildur and a streak of 5 bad rolls (Wizard's Test x2+Test of Form) didn't get me the One, only 2 Dwarven Rings
Luckily my hazards (River, Darkness Made by Malice) slowed down my opponent so that he had only 16 MP's when the game time ended and thanks to the creatures I killed on the way I had 17 MP's , so I won that game 4:2

Hazards were 3 creatures and 18 half-creatures: some nazguls, Mouth, a few agents, skin-changers and 6 spawns (all but Shelob) topped with Rivers and Darkness Made by Malice
so easy to play quick hazards that can stop most companies 2 or 3 times, which bought me enough time - only when I played against a Balrog squatting at Worthy Hills did my hazards prove useless but fortunately my resource draws were wonderful and on the 5th turn I destroyed the Ring

[Sfan]

Hero wins!!!