Preliminary Round Game 2 (Base + Prosperity option)
2 Moat
3 Loan, Watchtower
4 Militia, Remodel, Worker's Village
5 Hoard, Laboratory, Market, Rabble
2/5 again, Moat/Laboratory. Perhaps it should have been Remodel or even Militia? Anyway bad luck here as I would've much rather opened Watchtower/Remodel. Finished second in this one, a bit behind the same guy who won the first game. He had some odd mannerisms, and I took notice of his shuffling during the last game. On one of the final turns, he played a Loan with only a card or two left in his deck. No Treasure there so he had to shuffle. I'm quite certain his deck had a Hoard, two Golds, and one Copper in it at that point. He shuffled quite a bit, stopped, straightened the cards, looked down at the top, then shuffled a couple more times. Guess what the top card was after he was done? It may have just been awkwardness and good luck, but then I started thinking back to the first game. However, I had no certainty of any wrongdoing, so what could I do? With 7 advancement points, I was likely out of the tournament.
Just for fun, here are the setups used in the Base only option for the prelims.
Preliminary Round Game 1 (Base only option)
2 Moat
3 Village, Workshop
4 Militia, Moneylender, Smithy, Spy
5 Council Room, Laboratory, Mine
I didn't play this one, but Smithy/Big Money is probably a decent option here.
Preliminary Round Game 2 (Base only option)
2 Moat
3 Village, Woodcutter, Workshop
4 Bureaucrat, Gardens, Remodel
5 Council Room, Market, Witch
Workshop/Gardens jumps right out, and Gardens makes the curses more palatable. Gotta grab Gardens early in this one with four players I suspect, so perhaps there is a better choice but I doubt it.
With 83 total entrants this year, that meant that there would be 32 qualifiers into the quarterfinals. I was #38, so 6th alternate. It turned out that 3 alternates were needed, and of the alternates that showed, I was the second-highest so I got in. Lucky break! Here's the first quarterfinal game:
Quarterfinal Round Game 1 (Intrigue, Seaside)
2 Lighthouse
3 Great Hall, Masquerade
4 Island, Mining Village, Salvager
5 Bazaar, Ghost Ship, Tactician
6 Harem