Re: Date for German Nats 2010
Posted: Fri Oct 22, 2010 11:23 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
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