I just won my semifinal against Mic Qsenoch.
It was a fun match with a lot of sets that made me puzzle. It was a while back that I played this well and 4.5-0.5 was the result. Joy!
20-11
Apprentice, Bridge, Colony, Island, Mine, Platinum, Sea Hag, Tactician, Talisman, Trading Post, Village, and Workshop I looked at this set for a while and decided getting good stuff in is more important then getting bad stuff out here. So I skipped on the Sea Hag and opened Bridge/Silver, to get a quick Tactician. Later on I just kept adding more cards, even played with talisman and workshop. I do this only quite rarely but this set seems perfect for it... It worked even though he flipped over my first tactician with his Sea Hag.
55-42
Farmland, Haggler, Hunting Party, Loan, Noble Brigand, Quarry, Saboteur, Stables, Trade Route, and TunnelSecond game he played the more conventional silver/silver into hunting parties and a single haggler. I wanted to try something different though, and with lots of attractive green cards I opened trading post/quarry. On t3/t4 I got a hunting party and a tunnel. I wanted that tunnel to "activate" my trading post, but also in some vague hope to get some golds out of them once I added a second tunnel. The second part of the plan never worked, but I got the vast majority of the hunting parties anyway and thus the game. He skipped a few silver buys he probably shouldn't have skipped.
At some point in there I could upgrade a farmland into province for the win but just didn't see it. Whew, didn't cost me the game
24-14
Black Market, Courtyard, Festival, Ghost Ship, Lighthouse, Mine, Outpost, Remodel, Salvager, and SwindlerWe played somewhat similar strategies here, but I had slightly more focus on cycling the deck and removing bad cards. He added an early swindler (opening) and a black market against my courtyards. I decided the cards in the regular kingdom were strong enough to build a decent engine and the BM didn't containt any game-warping cards anyway. Playing the salvager & remodel more often eventually got me the game.
24-24
Familiar, Hunting Party, Menagerie, Militia, Nobles, Nomad Camp, Potion, Scrying Pool, Secret Chamber, Swindler, and TorturerThis was a very weird game. At the start I had some very bad draws (5P for a familiar, 6P for a hunting party) and sort of mentally gave up. I try not to do that, espescially in tournaments, but it happended anyway. After this I just didn't believe in it but played on anyway. My swindlers hit some hunting parties, and that probably was more important then I realized. Hunting parties and curses ran out pretty quickly, but after that the game just went on and on and on. Until at some point I started looking at the point counter again, and it didn't look that bad at all. Well, I was still behind, but hey... On his turn 22 he had a 5 point lead, with only 3 estates to go. He could buy 2 of them and decided to go for it. I got rather lucky and got to $8, but that still left me 1 point behind. On turn 23 he had a scrying pool and a menagerie, but amazingly enough those didn't get him beyond $1, and I happily accepted the draw.
resigned
Colony, Develop, Expand, Farmland, Haggler, Hamlet, Pirate Ship, Platinum, Remodel, Stables, Walled Village, and WatchtowerThis was a really cool set. This afternoon I won a game while remodelling coppers into provinces, and looking at this set I thought 'hey why not try it with colonies too?'. The watchtower/hamlet combo is already quite strong on its own, but with another village, a remodel and some funny disappearing cash (haggler) this looked really promising. It worked a bit better then I hoped for, and on turn 9 the lead was already huge and he was sort of short on time so he resigned.
Thanks for playing Mic Qsenoch.