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Author Topic: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report  (Read 6895 times)

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Davio

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Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« on: September 02, 2012, 12:23:06 pm »
+10

Short version: I won.

Long version starts here.

Disclaimer: I may not have been the best player in the room today (which was probably -Stef-), nor the most lucky (don't know who that was), but I had a pretty good combination of both.

My day started at about 8 AM. As I will tell anyone who will listen, I am the proud father of a young baby boy called Noah (not because of the ark, but we like the name) who is now 2 weeks old. So you can imagine it's been a while ago since I had a good night's sleep and these convention days can be very exhausting. But as I took a shower I remembered the fun I had last year and decided to go and if I would be out of the tournament quickly and get too tired, I would just go home.

I fired up my trusty steed (a Citroën Xsara), pulled out the navigation kit and entered the address. I was a bit sleepy still and took a wrong exit and ended up in Rotterdam instead of The Hague. Luckily, my navigation corrected me and sent me back the right way. Finally I had arrived at my destination, but I couldn't find any sign of the convention. I looked at the streetname: Colensenstraat. Doh! I had punched in the wrong street name as I had to go the Colijnplein! At this point it was already a couple of minutes since the registration had "closed" so I hoped I could still make it on time and that they would go easy on the people who were late.

Miraculously, the right address was only ~10 minutes from my current address, it could have been the other end of the city and cost more than 20 minutes. I turned up at 10.45, got a stamp and reported to the tournament officials. Pfew, I was still on time.

At this point I had no idea whether Stef or Geronimoo would be there, but I thought that they might as I knew Stef was Dutch and would probably like to grab this title.

There were 46 entrants with fourteen tables of 3 and one of 4.

I will now start going through the matches and try to remember the cards, but I have forgotten some.

Time for round #1: Base only
Setup: Chapel, Library, Thief, Militia, Council Room, Market, Gardens, Moat, Smithy, Feast

As you can see, I've already forgotten some cards, but it was base game only, so let's say Mine was also in there. I had seat #2 and my opponent opened with Chapel. I had 3 and chose Silver. I often take Chapel, maybe too often, but I let it go here. Don't know exactly why, but it was the first game and I was rusty with 3p. Hadn't really practiced before the tourney as I wasn't really sure that I would go. Seat #3 took Library or Chapel, don't know which order but they both ended up with Chapel/Library and I had Militia/Silver.

Militia, so so with Library as a nice counter, but it would be useful if I could cut down on their Chapel hands. So the #1 seat continued Chapeling and Librarying and broke his deck down to the bare essentials pretty fast. In an effort to make him stall I took a Thief on the first reshuffle, but it was a dubious buy and netted me only 2 Silvers. The Chapeled guy just showed Coppers, I hit none of his crucial Golds.

I was struggling, but crawled my way to 2nd place by buying the last Province, before seat #3 could.

Gardens was not really an option here, I think.

Last year I started with a win and now I had just a 2nd, so I knew I pretty much had to win the other matches to go through to the semis.


Game #2: Intrigue only
Setup: Swindler, Torturer, Nobles, Saboteur, Masquerade, Secret Chamber, Courtyard, Steward, Bridge, Great Hall

Torturer always stands out, but you have to look for support, otherwise it's not as game warping as usual. I thought Nobles would be way too expensive to use as a village for a Torturer chain. I opened Masq/Silver and bought another Masq and basically just money. Masq is a nice soft counter to Torturer and everytime my right neighbor played Torturer, I was lucky enough to have Masq in hand.

Swindler is okay in the beginning, but I thought double Masq would be able to counter Swindler nicely and it worked out.

In the end, I won this one pretty easily.


Game #3: Base + Intrigue
Setup: Adventurer, Throne Room, Bridge, Laboratory, Militia, Library, Masquerade, Shanty Town, Trading Post, Steward

The setup for this game had been sent out a couple of weeks before the tournament and in the mail it said that Donald X. had also used this setup for GenCon. We could all practice at home and give it our best in the tournament.

I had not practiced at home. I pit some BM+X's together in Geronimoo's simulator, but that was it.

Sitting down at the table and looking at the cards I thought: "There's got to be an engine here." I decided to go for broke and build it. I opened Shanty Town/Masq to clear out some stuff and my opponents didn't go heavy on the Militias and played some money decks.

I ended up with 6 Bridges, a bunch of Labs and Throne Rooms. In my last turn I had started with TR-TR-Lab in hand after a Militia and ended with a TR-Bridge and all of my other Bridges in play for -$7 to costs and 8 buys. I took the last 5 Provinces and 3 Duchies for a high scoring final turn.

My opponents' jaws almost dropped to the floor as I completed my megaturn.


Now I had to await my fate. Three straight wins would have gotten me in the semis for sure, but you never know with 2 wins and a 2nd. Luckily, I went through.



At this point I peeked at the tournament official's screen and saw -Stef-'s name. So I asked them: "Which one is Stef?" "The guy in the black-and-white striped shirt", they said, but he was away for the moment. When he finally showed up, I introduced myself and also met Geronimoo who tagged along with Stef to write an article for his blog or these forums.

As you would expect they're both really nice guys and it's always fun to meet the faces behind the name. When you're playing a random guy over the internet, you don't have a clue who you're actually playing. And in your mind a highly rated guy like Stef is like a monster pouncing on innocent BMU newbies. In actuality, as I said, he's a nice guy and I'm honored and happy I could meet him. Geronimoo likewise. I had already missed him last year, so finally we got a chance to shake hands. Too bad the Belgians couldn't compete this year. I also met Dubdubdub who was a real jerk! Just kidding, also a nice guy of course.

In the semis I met ArjanB and his girlfriend Loes. Loes had three wins under her belt, so she would be a fierce opponent for sure.


Semis: Base + Seaside
Setup: Chapel, Festival, Smithy, Library, Caravan, Lighthouse, Moneylender, Remodel, Laboratory

I was lucky enough to open 5/2 here and chose Festival/Chapel. ArjanB did the same and Loes had 4/3 and chose Chapel/Caravan. Festival/Library seems like an obvious strategy here, but I ended up with Festivals and Smithies, but that's just because I often drew the right amount to take the Smithy with something else and taking the Library would have meant taking a Silver I didn't want.

I had a fortunate start with Chapel on T3 with CCCE and Festival+4C for Gold on T4. Loes was not so fortunate as she trashed 4 Coppers. ArjanB's deck never really got going, that happens sometimes.

I didn't trash as aggressively as I usually do with Chapel, since I felt I could always trash those Coppers later. With a deck that draws itself pretty reliably an extra Copper isn't going to hurt and I could use them to buy more components for my engine.

I ended up with exactly 6 Provinces for 36 VP, on to the finals!


Final: Base + Seaside
Setup: Workshop, Gardens, the rest doesn't matter

It was me, Stef and a guy named Stephan or Stefan Steven in the finals. The cards were drawn randomly and Workshop came out first and I remember saying "you'll see Gardens will be in there" and then it happened. What was to be the epitome of a battle of wits between the best players (and I think we three were certainly among the best if not that) turned out to be a boring three way Workshop/Gardens mirror. Geronimoo who was keeping up with the action for his blog and sitting next to me could have probably put his laptop with his simulator on my chair and it would have played the same.

The finesse is in the details in these kinds of games and at some point I had 2 Workshops and my hand was Workshop+4C. I decided to go for a third Workshop and a Gardens instead of 2 Workshops or 2 Gardens. I think 3 is enough and you have to try to win the split. Later I found myself with $3 and where I had taken an Estate earlier I chose a Silver this time. It payed off in a $5 hand which allowed me to grab a Duchy. Stefan also grabbed a lucky Duchy so we both ended up with 18 points.
Stef was unfortunate this game and ended with 15 points.

Our tie meant we had to play an extra game heads-up for the trophy and it would be a lot more interesting!


Final: Part Two
Setup: Native Village, Library, Sea Hag, Salvager, Moat, Smugglers, Embargo, Market, Remodel, Moneylender

I opened Sea Hag which I think is the default move heads-up even with Moat. To my surprise my opponent opened Salvager. With Sea Hag games, a card like Native Village is more interesting because of all the junk. NV is a card I rarely buy on Iso, no particular reason why I do it, I know it can be good, but I just have to find a really good reason to get it or I won't. In this case, I could see its potential, especially with Library. On one hand I had Salvager-Silver-3C and options. Salvage the Silver, get a Gold? I Salvaged a Copper and got 2 NVs. I only got one Library because I had $6 or $4 more often than $5 and for $6 I really wanted Golds.

On my last turn I Salvaged a Gold to pick up the last Province and as I had 5 Provinces, my opponent kindly told me I had won. Hooray!

I was so happy of course!


Parting Thoughts

Does a tournament with a structure like this always crown the best player? Probably not, but I'd like to think I played well enough to have a shot at least and it paid off in the end.

I tried to go about things my way and if that wasn't good enough, well, someone else had to prove it to me by beating me. In the final game I said "what would Stef do?" but I didn't try to emulate Stef, I wanted to play as well as I could with my own game plan and it proved sufficient to beat my opponent in that decisive match.

I felt kind of bad for Stef that he went out on such a lame board and felt kind of dirty opening Workshop/Workshop, but what are you going to do?

Whoever organizes the tournament gets to choose the rules and if you don't like them, don't compete. I would have liked it better if they had predetermined sets for the semis and final. They got one from Donald X. for round 3 of the regular matches so why not the semis and final? They didn't have to publish them ahead of schedule, but it could have made it more fair.

Special thanks goes out to my lovely wife who made it clear she didn't have a problem with me going.

I had a blast playing and it was even more fun winning and now I get to call myself Dutch Champion for a year! For whatever that's worth.  ;D

Hey, Theory, do I get a cool forum title now with a blue star?  :P
« Last Edit: September 03, 2012, 01:37:05 pm by Davio »
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ArjanB

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #1 on: September 02, 2012, 12:35:34 pm »
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Congrats! From me and Loes ;)

Davio kicked us out of the half final.
Was -Stef- also in the final?
« Last Edit: September 02, 2012, 12:36:53 pm by ArjanB »
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Davio

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #2 on: September 02, 2012, 12:44:47 pm »
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-Stef- was in the finals, but he was unfortunate to be on the short end of a standard Workshop/Gardens game.
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Lekkit

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #3 on: September 02, 2012, 12:50:16 pm »
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Woop! Congratulations!
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-Stef-

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #4 on: September 02, 2012, 01:59:32 pm »
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Congrats again Davio.

Gardens/Workshop already wasn't too high on my list of 'fun games', nevertheless it managed to drop quite a bit today ;)

Apart from that, it was really nice to meet some Dutch players from DS in real life.
And thanks to Geronimoo we'll probably have a more extensive report on the tournament coming up...
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Davio

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #5 on: September 02, 2012, 06:48:58 pm »
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Pfew, took some time writing the report what with the crying baby and all, but I finished it, enjoy reading!

Oh, and if anyone remembers the cards better than I did, feel free to correct or fill in the blanks.
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Dubdubdubdub

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #6 on: September 03, 2012, 03:21:08 am »
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Your opponent in the final was called Steven. Good friend of mine; he beat me in the semi-finals. I had a lot of fun. It was organized pretty well and there was a really nice atmosphere.

In the Workshop mirror match Steven actually diverted a bit. Instead of opening Workshop-Workshop, he openend Caravan-Workshop, hoping to cycle quicker and play his Workshops more often. Later, he added a Village, which really surprised me. He admitted that probably wasn't the right play, but he had a bit of luck and it let him play two Workshops in one turn, towards the end of the Gardens pile.

I feel like organizing an Open Utrecht (Students) Dominion Tournament now. 'Students' is in parentheses because it would be an open tournament, probably just marketed to students for greater turnout. So, shout out to the people here: which one of you would turn up?
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Dubdubdubdub

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #7 on: September 03, 2012, 03:25:09 am »
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Oh, and I remember there was Remodel on the final board. I was actually hoping one of you would pick one up earlier in the game. Steven bought a late game one, when the Native Villages where already gone.

Seeing it was a very slow game, I think an early remodel or two (granted, áfter Salvager and Sea Hag) could have picked up some NV's for curses and coppers, and then remodeled through Sea Hags to Gold and Province. With all the extra actions and buys, I think it might have been worth it.
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Davio

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #8 on: September 03, 2012, 04:02:33 am »
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Remodel is a card I had considered, but sometimes you never get around to a card you plan on buying.

With NV's going fast, I didn't want to trash my Coppers or Curses into Estates, because at that point I needed every bit of cash I could get. It could have been a nice card for sure, but in my case Salvager did pretty much the same thing.


@Geronimoo: I'm looking forward to your coverage report, but I'm not actually sure where it will appear; here or on your own blog (which I can't find, only the sim wordpress site).
« Last Edit: September 03, 2012, 05:01:13 am by Davio »
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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #9 on: September 03, 2012, 05:37:20 am »
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Hi Dub4,


I really liked playing in real life for a change, and if you want to organize another tournament that would be great.
Its hard to promise anything without knowing a date, but I would at least try to join.
I could probably bring along some friends.

Hope you will think carefully about the tournament structure, and find something better then '2 games to reduce 9 players to 1 on random sets'.
If you want some suggestions on this I'd be more than willing to help you out.
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Geronimoo

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #10 on: September 03, 2012, 05:47:17 am »
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I was going to publish the report on the main blog (dominionstrategy.com) unless theory is somehow opposed. Just need to get off my lazy ass somehow and start writing :)
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Davio

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #11 on: September 03, 2012, 07:46:18 am »
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I was going to publish the report on the main blog (dominionstrategy.com) unless theory is somehow opposed. Just need to get off my lazy ass somehow and start writing :)
Maybe you could help me fill in the blanks on the sets. :)
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Dubdubdubdub

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #12 on: September 03, 2012, 08:15:42 am »
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If you want some suggestions on this I'd be more than willing to help you out.

Absolutely! I've played in 1 and a half isoDom, so I'm used to first-to-four tournaments. But that might be too slow for anything IRL. What kind of structure do you propose?
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Davio

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #13 on: September 03, 2012, 08:38:59 am »
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If you want some suggestions on this I'd be more than willing to help you out.

Absolutely! I've played in 1 and a half isoDom, so I'm used to first-to-four tournaments. But that might be too slow for anything IRL. What kind of structure do you propose?
I don't mean to impose or anything, but maybe it would be better to create a special topic for this?
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ArjanB

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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #14 on: September 03, 2012, 10:28:12 am »
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You can count me and Loes in , Dub
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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #15 on: September 03, 2012, 11:17:20 am »
+1

« Last Edit: September 03, 2012, 11:27:37 am by Dubdubdubdub »
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Re: Dutch Dominion Championship 2012 Report
« Reply #16 on: September 03, 2012, 12:24:19 pm »
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If I remember correctly....

the first game also had Moat, Smithy & Feast
the fourth game also had Laboratory and another card from base I forgot
your last game also had Moneylender
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