Date for German Nats 2010

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domse
Ex Council Member
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:55 am

So here is my report of german nationals 2010:

Although the tournament started saturday 3pm, I left home Friday afternoon and went to Marios place in Hessen. We had a hero vs. hero game in 2 (orc hazards from a challenge deck slaughtered my fate of the ithilstone deck) and when Karsten showed up a sealed multiplayer game, that Mario and I won on a tie. Having a friday evening gaming event made the weekend much nicer! Thanks Karsten and Mario!

Saturday we drove to Krefeld. Our biggest fear was, there would not be enough players to play worthy german nationals. This turned out to be true, but we still had a great time.

At first, there were only 6 players: Niko, Eric, Heiner and us 3. We decided to play a round-robin as everybody was eager to play. I had built a Fallen Radagast Free Hold Squatter (I guess nobody is surprised by the freehold squatting thing, maybe by Radagast), but had never playtested it for 2 reasons: a) havnt been online for a lot of time b) in the past everybody knew my decks, now I wanted some surprise effect. It turned out to do pretty well, although not as good as intended to do.

My first opponent was Mario with a Balrog deck. We had a tough battle, I had a bad draw the first 2 turns, which got better later and the game was decided by hazard play. I was able to completely stop him on his last turn and significantly hinder him before so it was a 31-21 in the end - giving me a 4-2, which should have been a 5-1...

During our first game Peter showed up (one of Nicos old gaming mates) and he entered the tournament on round 2 (we awarded him a BYE in round 1). We switched to a 4-round swiss tournament then. There should only have been 3 rounds by CoL rules, but as I said, we were eager to play. I got a bit scared when I heard Eric AND Karsten had dunked on Nico resp. Heiner as I was pretty unprepared against dunk.

In the second round I played against Peter, who hadnt been playing in a while and who did not fully remember how his Fallen Saruman Black Hills deck works. Also his hazards did really suck against a free-hold squat. So it was 6-0, which I wasnt very proud of. Eric had dunked on Karsten, so he was on top with 14 TP, me following with 10 TP.

The game against Eric was really bad. We drafted away 3 dwarves, which he can replace and play later easily while I have a more static deck concept. So I got off-track from the very beginning. This was supported by some early assassinations - of course a big disadvantage of free-hold decks. I also made some crappy decisions and - being caught pretty much unprepared against dunk - eric marched towards his dunk victory. He didnt dunk because of lack of a last turn. BUT he had a backup strategy: He played Easterlings and dwarven rings. So in the end, he defeated me 4-2... very bad experience being beaten by a dunkdeck on points.

Now standings were Eric 18, Karsten 14, Heiner and me 12. We started some math, but we were not able to complete as if Heiner and I would win 6-0 we would go down to the last tiebreaker.

Next game was against Karsten. He had a very good dunk deck with some surprising moves in it. I tried to gather my 25 MP as quick as possibe and for some reasons it never worked how i imagined. Karsten rolled good on Heedless once, which was very important and I was sdumb enough to go into the underdeeps forgetting that the associated MP would not count for calling. So he got to test his rings at mount doom. 2 rings and a scroll... but dough: He failed on this 88,6% ring test chance. So it was 6-0 for me, which I didnt deserve at all and I felt pity for Karsten, who would have become German Champion if he had succeeded...

In the meanwhile Heiner won 4-2 against Eric (again with his backup faction, its a neat idea!). So Eric wins the tournament and I get second and - depending on definition - german champion. Strange feeling that was, but it seems like some times you dont win when you deserve it and sometimes its the other way round. My goal for next years german nationals (rumours tell it will be an austrian-swiss-german championships held at munich!) is not DEFEND but to DESERVE that title.

After the main event we drove to Nicos place and had an ARDA round til 4.30 or so. Very friendly pleasant game with strange drinks (having a non-beer-drinker as a host was new to me :-) . I think Mario won this one, Eric got second. Next day DCGO was scheduled but as we all stood up a bit late and we had to leave at 3pm we only played one game. I played with a Denethor deck from Eric against Karsten with the Dain challenge deck. We both had a mission: His was playing Tower raided, mine the Ithilstone. We both succeeded, but we both had no stage card that would make it full MP... No idea who won though.

Thanks to everybody who made the weekend another very enjoyable one! Congratulations to Eric for a very good GO! Thanks to Heiner for donating a Wizards Ring (one of the one's Mark Alfano came up with) as prize - would have loved to win it!

See you all at lure!

Dominic
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Thorsten the Traveller
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Domse wrote:
The game against Eric was really bad
Thanks, I also enjoyed playing against you a lot! :-)

When gccg was down for several days, a couple of weeks ago, I had time to kill and thus I wrote this report. For some reason I never posted it, probably cause it wasn't finished when the server came back on :wink:. So here goes:

I decided to play dunk basically because I just made the decision to go to GM on thursday and there wasn't time to design something, and a dunk deck is easily assembled and the best part is, you can play it vs both alignments and it saves you a hassle over changing cards between games: so Dunk for comfort! In the past dunk decks had always been the bane of my meccg existence, as somehow I never manage to test for The One. Also from that fact stems the need for a backup plan and simply add 2 Rumours of Rings and a faction and ally in sideboard, a pretty obvious choice if you have to go via Nurn anyway. This proved usefull despite the lack of a serious hazard deck.

First game against Nico, he played Gandalf FW, so I had to get a backup Saruman from somewhere (thanks Nico for allowing that), we bounced couple main Dwarves (in Nico's words: "obviously...Gandalf FW means Dwarves"), which made my life slightly more difficult but not much (nor his) as his hazards were...well I hardly saw any. He played a more fun deck in the Dragon area, not your typical Gandi in Gondor cheez, but Gandi made entrance in Thranduil's Halls, where an assassin was waiting for him, and my dice were in good shape apparently, so backup plan C, should testing for The One fail, was in full effect: kill opponent's wizard. With Gandi out of the way and his Dwarves mostly being Unabated at Lairs, Saruman didn't find it too hard to be the hero of the day. With some Friend or Nine he did the deed in about 5 turns.

Second game against Karsten, also a Gandalf Dunk deck, this should be good. I start, no Gandalf. His first turn, no Gandalf either (big sigh of relief). End-of-turn phase: I draw him. That's 1-0 for me. Karsten played a cool dunk variation called Fortnight at Sauron's B&B, which is basically the Enduring Tales/Echoes of all Joy Mount Doom Lucky Search deck. This can work great (he managed a surprise on Heiner first round with it), if you actually manage to draw cards to discard to play deck to play Lucky Search. To do this he had Annalena and another small chap (forgot, Haldir?) move between Raider Hold and Easterling Camp. Only downside, opponent also has massive draws. And if you discard a lot to play deck, you never finish it. So, I got the Scroll just a turn before Karsten: 2-0. A couple assassins finished his smaller draw characters: 3-0. He could still test of course, with a Test of Form and no Scroll about 15% chance, so I decided not to waste time and test at Lorien already and my Wolfgang dice did their work: yeah! Now Karsten was thinking to move Aragorn over to Lorien and try an influence attempt on Sam for the One: quit dreaming of beautiful gardens and give it up boy! I had no hazards to stop him. But, he didn't do it! I still don't know why, sure it was a small chance, but what were the other options? I guess he hoped to Roll my ring or corrupt me. Nevertheless, next turn I move ring to Gandalf to be safe from influencing, hey it's all or nothing, and with Gollum by his side Gandi did the deed quite easily. Tip for Karsten: always ask opponent if he allows something: Karsten didn't have a backup wizard in sideboard, but if he'd asked, I would have easily let him get one from somewhere. Influencing Rings goes easier when you have a Wizard to do the talking and not some wannabe King ;-).

So far so good, 2 dunks in a row, but nothing won yet, as you never know with dunk decks, and Heiner managed to get back 6-0 after his first defeat, and Karsten could also still dunk twice. Next up Domse (Dominic) Rada FW, again big bounce of Dwarves in the draft, actually I considered this my mistake, after bouncing Balin I should have played Oin, but instead we bouced both Gloin AND Oin, so once more I got stuck with the food obsessed brothers (Bifur/Bofur/Bombur) and Thrain being the only one to protect me from Rivers and play Marvels. Nevertheless, this bouncing seemed to put Domse off of his rythm as well. After slaying Dror and Theoden with some assassins, he still managed to Mischief both Easterling Camp and Raider Hold (here we go again with the drawing machine), and get quite good on the way to playing the Girdle. He did play avatarless, which is useful for bringing in characters at home sites, like Imrahil who plays both Knights AND Nenselde (Friends of Secret Things), but it does limit sideboard action, and the timing and cardflow is always tricksy for FW. He played detainment chilled Elves/Dwarves, and that did work a bit, nevertheless I had The One out by turn 4 and Gollum also, so all was good, when time limit was called, which surprised me kinda, and Domse too apparently, as he had saved hazards for my trip to Doom. Now I had the choice of influencing either Easterlings or his char at Easterling camp (and diss Mischief along with him and Black Bird). I was chicken, shame on me with Gandalf bearing The One, but you never know what opponent has up his sleeve and/or in his dice, so Easterlings was the safe way. Next I exhausted and cycled in 3x Friend or Three hoping to survive a CC6 at the Council with The One on Gandalf. That luckily enough saved my ass. As Domse didn't have an item yet, I knew he'd make a move to Deep-mines last turn, so Adunaphel did her job, and I doubled item mp's, which is nice if you got The One and Scroll :-). Unfortunately I didn't have too many other sources, so 4-2.

Last game vs. Heiner playing his Balrog deck, which I'm sure he can play with eyes closed by now. Heiner at 12 tp's and me 18, so the only thing that mattered was Karsten not dunking basically, cause I knew I could make a solid 4-2 if necessary. The game was pretty tactical, though Heiner's dice techniques (or encantations? or perhaps both) also played their part. Actually the tactical part was quite fun. He knew I played dunk, so that means 1 thing: he would come for me at any time. I had Gandalf in first hand, normally I'd play him in Lorien, but also had Sam in hand and decided to move Gandi with the company to Gladden Fields and hope for a Chance Meeting. That worked, yay! Big trolls came and slew Bombur and Oin, one ranger down, 2 to go for Heiner. I didn't care that much, next turn score a Brooch at Lorien and be safe. Heiner moved to Dunharrow to stay in neighbourhood yet play some Maps and burn the place, I decided straight away to use my Longbottoms for Noble Steeds and Easterlings, move to Camp quickly and be out of his range. He responded by hanging around Mordor a bit, which was fun, as normally my hazards wouldn't do jack, but now all my Nazguls and even The Mouth could attack. Some were detainment though, and he still had his dice techniques, so only 1 Hill-troll was killed, Umi/Bolg were safe, and even though he sideboarded The Scroll, he still managed somehow to draw and play it before me (huh?). Meanwhile his Balrog in Great Cheez-mode was twiddling thumbs, as he didn't seem to draw any Aiglos or Axe for the Under-leas. Luckily I had Lady on table early on, which made life a bit trickier for him to use Great Cheez. And I guess Heiner struggled with deciding whether to keep hazards for my dunk move, or playing resources. Seemed last turn he had 3x River in hand for most of the game, and he also had sideboarded Rolled and Call of Home. He Rolled me, and I only had The One in hand funnily enough. Of course I could discard Brooch, so here came the big decision. I decided on The One, as I had 2x Smoke Rings in hand. Next, Heiner discards Daelomin and drops Bane of Ithil, bamm! My Marvels were strangely absent, so that was a big blow. I decided to just hang out in Easterling Camp to score some more horses and test some Dwarven Rings. At least if he'd come for me I'd have some horses to defend. He called Thrain Home: moving to Doom was now tricky even if I got The One recycled. The good thing was, I had meanwhile revealed My Precious, so no ally yet for Heiner, and with my Dwarven Ring/Easterlings and horses, actually Heiner needed to score. He moved to Isengard for Warg-king, my horses scared him out of CvCC and he had triple River in hand anyway, so the right move for him I suppose. Next turn I sideboard in another Wizard's Test, send Sam to Buhr-widu to draw (and of course get killed by a Cave-drake), but manage to test another Dwarven Ring, and play Thrain with Chance Meeting on Thorin with a ring. All in all Heiner wins 4-2 with 3 MP difference (31-28), not bad for a dunk vs Balrog I'd say.

My ass was saved by Karsten missing his rolls on scoring The One, kudos to him for his original dunk deck, so with 20 TP's I could win the GO, my first regular GO in 6 years. My thanks to Nico for hosting the event and serving fries & shots and wearing shades in winter (!?), thanks to Karsten for pointing out you can get a parking ticket in Germany for parking your car in the wrong direction (!?), thanks to Heiner for donating a cool prize (wizard's ring) which may or may not become a mathom of the GM, thanks to Domse for not sleeping 48 hours so I could beat his Rada FW, thanks to Mario for beating up Nico's ass in both the Arda and DC game, thanks to Peter for returning from the dead and finally showing up :-)
Stone-age did not end because man ran out of rocks.
domse
Ex Council Member
Posts: 171
Joined: Tue Dec 04, 2007 11:55 am

very nice detailed report, eric! Although the turnout was disappointing, the number of reports isnt!
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