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[RisingJaguar]

Just a heads up, DG and RisingJaguar will be starting their match soon.  The logs will be up in a couple hours once the match is complete!

[Kirian]

Excellent!

[RisingJaguar]

The finals are complete!  RisingJaguar takes it 5 -2 over DG in a mirror-based final! I'll give my complete thoughts a little later on, but please feel free to leave your thoughts on the games in the mean time.  Overall, I think my luck (mainly my money in shuffle luck) carried me through a lot of these games you will see.

RJ 31 - DG 37    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-122446-b4c44df2.html
RJ 12 - DG -100 http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-123229-5266933a.html
DG 10 - RJ 13    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-124246-94df9dba.html
DG 30 - RJ 50    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-125532-8a867997.html
DG 32 - RJ 39    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-130735-38753422.html
DG 50 - RJ 25    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-131815-694747b0.html
RJ 20 - DG 18    http://dominion.isotropic.org/gamelog/201206/10/game-20120610-133137-de7c05bb.html

[WanderingWinder]

Comments
1: largely boring mirror
2: Ah, this one. Fun. I don't know what was in the Black Market deck, but... what could be so good that you want one, especially as an opener? I'm torn here as to whether I want a sea hag or not. Probably one. Sea Hag/steward. Either way, I eventually want probably 2 stewards and lots of FV. And then a couple ghost ships? Maybe not - oracle should be good here. Anyway, engine it up, pick up just a little money, and then keep engine building. Nobles good here. But the key thing is lots of trashing and FVs. Stef is excellent on this kind of board, I find.
3: Crazy-like game. That mint thing is huge. But... You know, I think cards options is potentially good here. It's very intricate, with lots of game theory. But I think you RJ plays quite well here with the cards - engine is very powerful, with all the bridges.
4: I am flabbergasted. I do NOT like the move into alchemists. I guess he's already pretty bad-off by then, with where he is in the minion split. But with KC especially, as well as minion, I just don't like the alchemists. Man, I hate minion.
5: Hate the farming village open. But, RJ gets a much much luckier 3/4, and a little more luck to boot, and plays pretty nicely after - I think the outpost might be a little soon, but maybe not. Pretty well-played at that point.
6: I similarly dislike the menagerie opening. Native village and menagerie can both be pretty nice counters to GS, but... they hurt your own build-up pretty significantly. DG adjusts very well to this, grabbing labs and a crossroads and a nice mix. Ok, probably shouldn't be QUITE so lopsided, but I would give DG a big outplay here. Good on him.
7: Pretty clearly an engine board, and with both trader and apprentice (which both go quite nicely with BV, and each other), IGG is not so much a factor. But the real intrigue is in the end. You have GOT to go after some points here, before you ever would in a solitaire, because it's going to end on piles pretty imminently. So you get to this game of chicken. You don't want to green too early, because they can then finish their engine and storm back and overcome. But you also don't want to green too late, because they'll be able to run piles and win on you. But I think the thing is, you typically want to green faster than you think you do, because normally you're thinking a little too much of your own deck, like how you would in a solitaire. And if they're building their engine to overcome you, there's a decent chance you'll be able to pile out on them. But it's very very very tricky.

Edit: forget everything I said about game 2. For some reason I didn't realize that the steward came from the BM.

[DG]

Throughout this series I've been unlucky in an unusual way. I've had bad draws but my opponents often haven't put me out of the game before I had a chance to recover. No chance of that today.

Game 1 - Complete mirror match.
Game 2 - I gambled with two terminals at the start and it didn't pay off. RJ took the better percentage opening and once he'd got the steward from the black market he was well ahead.
Game 3 - I actually haven't played many games with governor and it showed here. RJ had a better vision and forced it through while I was really waiting for something to happen (like a good mint turn).
Game 4 - I got blown out on the minion split here and that was game over very early. I would have resigned if I hadn't done it once already. I quite often duck an unpromising silver in militia or minion games to help cycling but in this case it was a very bad calculation in reaching for 5 cost cards, so it's quite probable that I caused my bad luck with bad logic.
Game 5 - I knew from the start that witch into wharf/farming village was the right play but the draws didn't help me get there at all and I ended up with a drawing card and treasure deck that I didn't particularly want. This coincidentally left me short of fairgrounds variety and the fairgrounds prevented me from making a quick province grab before the better deck came through.
Game 6 - RJ went for an intricate native village and menagerie deck and when I saw that I re-rerouted my deck towards a labs and hoard thing. Sometimes you can look at an attack card like a ghost ship and build up too much defence without using attacks yourself or getting the economy going. I'm guessing this happened to RJ here.
Game 7 - This might look moderately close but RJ played the better game here. I thought I'd got a concept of how this deck would play out but it was actually half or three quarters of a plan and I'd left myself without enough coins for the endgame, without enough buys for the end game, and without the smugglers at the key time. I also prepared an apprentice deck by trashing copper when I should have been reaching up to the border villages first.


So many congratulations to Rising Jaguar as I think this was quite a tough tournament to win with a tough qualification from the group and a tough four player semi-final, both difficult to get through. There were plenty of good players involved as well.

[RisingJaguar]

Comments
1: largely boring mirror
2: Ah, this one. Fun. I don't know what was in the Black Market deck, but... what could be so good that you want one, especially as an opener? I'm torn here as to whether I want a sea hag or not. Probably one. Sea Hag/steward. Either way, I eventually want probably 2 stewards and lots of FV. And then a couple ghost ships? Maybe not - oracle should be good here. Anyway, engine it up, pick up just a little money, and then keep engine building. Nobles good here. But the key thing is lots of trashing and FVs. Stef is excellent on this kind of board, I find.
3: Crazy-like game. That mint thing is huge. But... You know, I think cards options is potentially good here. It's very intricate, with lots of game theory. But I think you RJ plays quite well here with the cards - engine is very powerful, with all the bridges.
4: I am flabbergasted. I do NOT like the move into alchemists. I guess he's already pretty bad-off by then, with where he is in the minion split. But with KC especially, as well as minion, I just don't like the alchemists. Man, I hate minion.
5: Hate the farming village open. But, RJ gets a much much luckier 3/4, and a little more luck to boot, and plays pretty nicely after - I think the outpost might be a little soon, but maybe not. Pretty well-played at that point.
6: I similarly dislike the menagerie opening. Native village and menagerie can both be pretty nice counters to GS, but... they hurt your own build-up pretty significantly. DG adjusts very well to this, grabbing labs and a crossroads and a nice mix. Ok, probably shouldn't be QUITE so lopsided, but I would give DG a big outplay here. Good on him.
7: Pretty clearly an engine board, and with both trader and apprentice (which both go quite nicely with BV, and each other), IGG is not so much a factor. But the real intrigue is in the end. You have GOT to go after some points here, before you ever would in a solitaire, because it's going to end on piles pretty imminently. So you get to this game of chicken. You don't want to green too early, because they can then finish their engine and storm back and overcome. But you also don't want to green too late, because they'll be able to run piles and win on you. But I think the thing is, you typically want to green faster than you think you do, because normally you're thinking a little too much of your own deck, like how you would in a solitaire. And if they're building their engine to overcome you, there's a decent chance you'll be able to pile out on them. But it's very very very tricky.

1. I'm kinda curious how I lost so poorly here.  Normally in mirrors, I know when I lost.  This one, I have no clue.  Any ideas (like which turn was my bad or his good shuffle luck)?
2. There was no steward in the kingdom, but there were a lot of trashers (that's what convinced me).  With the thousand of +actions, I was planning to get black market T3/T4 no matter what.  I am guessing that's the same reason that led him to buying it as well.  I repeat, there was no trashing in the kingdom besides BM.
3. I think I was lucky the 2 govenors turn came early, but my idea was to plan this type of a deck from the start.  You can see it with my quarry buy.  I think this was a good game for me. 
4. Okay that potion buy happened waaaaaaaaaay after the game was pretty much decided.  I doubt he actually expected that would turn the tide.  The $4 hurt him, and the $4 non-silvers hurt too probably. 
5. I figure I would need to explain my thoughts on the FV opening which I'm okayish about still.  The idea was that FV were going to be important with curses.  The skipping of estates on T3/T4 make it SLIGHTLY (am i overrating this?) than a normal village, so T3/T4 does get a slight boost.  I really didn't want that many silvers in this deck.  Of course I go ahead and buy another silver on T3 so I'm pretty bad.  If I could do it again, I would choose menagerie there, for better or worse. 
6. Yeah the going second article, risky play ftw!? Yeah I even mentioned this to DG that a woodcutter wouldd have been amazing for me.  The plan was this, the obvious play was Ghost ship BM.  Menagerie/NV are not only defences against it, but have decent synergy together.  Grab an early hoard, use NV to store coppers (for menagerie purposes), and complement with crossroads.  Problem is that the deck sucks without getting an abundance of those pieces and there were labs (an alternative to GS).  I think my defence while wonky, could have stood up with a woodcutter (probably not Lab either).
7. Coming soon, It's such an intricate fight for resources, managing 3 piles and of course VP, that all of these types of games are so hard. 

[RisingJaguar]

7: I am kinda surprised DG didn't touch the smugglers, I thought that was going to be a major piece of anything you attempt to do.  I also think that is why he shied away from GMs with his early province buy and BV were not the best idea as he was still struggling make money properly.  That was what decided the game in my mind. 

These sorts of games, knowing how much money (and +buys, gains) your opponent has is so important to be mindful of the 3 piles.  At the start of every turn at say, once the piles are low (low would be if I bought components and the opponent bought components to end the game), you need to assess how can I end the game, or avoid the opponent ending the game with more VP.  I think I did that well knowing that DG could not buy out the BVs/GM/estates at any point until I was winning.