Format (this whole thing happens once Friday and once Saturday):
32 players, 8 will move on to Sunday's final. Random seating. Start with 8 4-player games, base set. Top two move on from each game. The 16 people left play another 4 4-player games with top two from each game moving to Sunday. 16 total people will play Sunday, will let you know how they do that tomorrow!
My gameplay recaps from Friday's qualifier:
Game 1
Thief, Remodel, Festival, Gardens, Library, Village, Market, Bureaucrat, Cellar, Moat
I draw first seat. 2 of the 3 other players were very solid. One of them built up some markets and a Bureaucrat and then started rushing gardens and coppers with the extra buys. The other one played basically big money with a couple of bureaucrats and moved into Provinces pretty efficiently. The fourth player took an early Thief so I knew he was not a problem. And then, of course, there is me being me, trying to assemble the monster Festival/Library engine. I opened Remodel/Silver and then built up quickly to 3 Remodels. I wanted to get those Estates out of my deck to immunize from a lot of Bureaucrat play. That happened, then I started adding the Festivals, Villages, Cellars, and Libraries. It got very hairy. I had a couple of bad passes through the deck where Festivals missed Libraries and I wasn't turning over the deck fast enough. The big money guy had 3 Provinces, the Market guy had 2 Provinces and 4 Gardens, and the fourth guy had a Province, so 6/12 Provinces were gone and I was still trying to get my shit together. I finally pulled a deck-clearing turn for 2 Provinces. Then money guy got his 4th Province and Gardens guy got another Gardens and fattened his deck too. Then it came back to me with 2 provinces left. I drew my whole deck by rocking Festivals, Remodels, and Cellars to set up small hands for colossal 5-6 card Library draws. I came to $17 and 9 buys. The other two good players thought I was just gonna take the last 2 Provinces, but I knew better. I had the count in my head and I knew I didn't have them yet. So I took 4 Gardens and 5 coppers, and buckled up for the most important shuffle ever. I figured there weren't two Province buys left amongst them because their decks were getting tired. I nailed it. None of them Provinced. It came back to me. If I pulled trash, I would lose. If I pulled at least one Festival and a Library, I knew I would rip through my whole deck. The draw: Festival, Festival, Library, Copper, Cellar. BOOM! 3 minutes later I had drawn my whole deck, remodeled two Coppers into Estates and a Village into a Duchy along the way, and finished with $17 and 9 buys again to take down the last 2 Provinces and 7 bonus coppers to fatten my 4 Gardens up to 4 points apiece. Final score: 41 (me) - 29 (big money guy) - 27 (Gardens guy) - 9 (player 4). Great win and great timing. I really played my best the whole way picking the right mix of pieces every time and I felt like I was able to express myself artistically as a Dominion player. I was beaming.
Game 2
Chapel, Moat, Militia, Witch, Festival, Workshop, Village, Moneylender, Spy, Adventurer
The competition actually was not as stiff in this game, even though all players had finished top two in the previous round to move on. I was seated third. Nobody got the game-changing 5/2 for Witch/Chapel. I opened Silver/Chapel and was the only one who took a Chapel in the first two turns. On turn 4 I had to trash 4 coppers (no estates) which made me nervous, but at least Chapel didn't miss the shuffle. One guy got a quick Witch and Festival and was looking good, but my Chapel kept me clean. On turn 6 and 7 my whole deck was only 5 cards. My turn 6 hand (deck) was Chapel, Silver, Silver, Curse, Village. When he played the Witch, I took my curse...then just played the Village to pick up the curse and Chapel'd both curses and bought another silver. Nice. Eventually I got 2 Witches and a Festival and me and the other guy with a Witch dished out all the Curses but I had the only clean deck. I also nabbed two moats along the way so eventually my 8-10 card deck was protected against incoming curses and Militias and I was dishing out the pain and posting $6-$10 per hand. By turn 10 it was clear that I would win going away. I marched to 6 Provinces and took it 36-22-15-15.
On to Sunday's final! Psyched!
