Thanks to everybody for the very nice tournament. Since the rest already has been discussed, all I have to add is some comment on my own games.
Game #1 - Native village, Bridge. Somehow I missed the option of keeping it simple. I'm going to write that down to lack of sleep and hope to get away with it. Anyhow, my opponent had a $5/$2 split and opened with Upgrade/Lighthouse. With Conspirator & Market also on the board they can be pretty strong. I answered with Bridge/Silver. I added 3 upgrades asap to get rid of the yellow and green nonsense that someone put in my deck. With Library to draw back up that worked reasonably well and at least just plain better then what my opponent was doing. He bought many conspirators, and out of frustration of not being able to activate them he added a scout. End of story, although it took me a while. I won, and I impressed the kibitzers with a last turn with 14 buys and 5 cost reduction. Fortunately I realized I would have to improve my play if I wanted to stand a chance today.
Game #2 features Chapel, Cellar, Swindler, Woodcutter, Militia, Upgrade, Laboratory, Festival, Duke, Adventurer
Fortunately we both opened $4/$3 ($5/$2 seems unfairly strong here). Although Swindler/Chapel might work fantastically, I do prefer Militia/Chapel. If you manage to hit the chapel hand with your militia it's just huge. And if you hit the non-chapel hand.... well that's not a bad thing either. Early Swindler of course can win you the game if you hit the chapel, but the rest is less interesting. Your opponent won't really care if he chapels a copper or a swindled curse.
Anyhow - I was very very lucky with turns 3/4. His turn 3 he had 3 copper/2 estates (silver). I had 4 coppers and militia (laboratory). Then he had to discard from militia-chapel-2 copper-estate, and opted to play militia and buy another silver. This meant I could "only" chapel 2 estates but I was miles ahead already and the game never got close anymore.
Game #3 I played against Indur on a pretty interesting board. Wharf, Throne Room, Ironworks, Gardens, Island, Bureaucrat, Baron, Great Hall, Smugglers, Pawn.
On some tables players got the engine going but I think you just lose to the slog. With 2 piles being both green and grey, it's near impossible to have too many Ironworks. And if your opponent really invests in those wharves, you just smuggle them (this is how Davio beats SheCantSayNo here)
Indur and I both appeared to come to this conclusion, because we both opened Ironworks/Smugglers. Turns 3/4 were also somewhat equal, both adding 3 more Ironworks and a Silver.
His Ironworks were a bit more on top of his deck now, and he started adding islands quickly. I was just somewhat following suit now, although near the end of the second shuffle we made different choices for the first time: he added a second silver, I went for a second smugglers.
He did get to $5 for a wharf, but fortunately I could smuggle it (although I never played it). Then I dived into the gardens a bit sooner then he did. Losing the island split 5-3 was compensated by winning the gardens split 5-3. In fact more then compensated because we both ended on 32 cards. Add one extra estate and I won with a 3-point margin; a very close game that could easily have gone both ways. In hindsight the right timing for switching to greening helped me a lot here.
Game #4 against Jeroen / Geronimoo. Hoping for a nice engine against this BM-simulator-expert, I was rather disappointed by the set. It featured Haven, Courtyard, Wishing Well, Spy, Thief, Ghost Ship, Torturer, Harem.
Off course we both opened Silver/Courtyard. It looked really promising when my turn 3 hand had 4 coppers and a courtyard. The next card was another copper, and then... 2 estates. We both ended up adding Silver/Ghost Ship to our decks on t3/t4, but he didn't have to play his courtyard for it. After that my deck rather disappointed me with lots of $4 hands and clashing terminals near the end of the shuffle. Sure I could play courtyard and put the ghost ship back. but then that would miss the shuffle. I had to make this choice twice and opted for playing the ghost ship on both occasions. In the meanwhile he did hit the gold, and the second, and then a province and a harem. I got to two gold much later, and decided to add a harem for $9 and another harem for $8. Only one province was gone, no way three piles were ever running, and I estimated the game would last quite a bit longer with all those ghost ships flying around.
Quite a bit later I had another interesting choice. We both had 2 provinces, I lost the harem split 5-3, and we both had a duchy. I had $6 at the last hand of this shuffle. After quite some consideration I took a duchy. I was really surprised to see him add a 4th ghost ship after that, and I think that cost him the game in the end. We split the provinces but I won the duchy split 5-3.
Game #5 against loes had another nice set: Lighthouse, Fishing Village, Warehouse, Woodcutter, Swindler, Witch, Bazaar, Festival, Nobles
I open with $3 for a fishing village. Then Loes shows her $2 hand for a lighthouse and I already feel sorry I didn't open that too for $3. I add a swindler and she off course a Witch.
With Swindler/Copper on the bottom and fishing village on turn 4, I don't hit $5 on the first 4 turns and things start looking grim. Fortunately her witch draws her lighthouse and she can't add another witch just yet. And then my turn 5 swindler completely makes up for missing the shuffle, by replacing that ugly witch by a really nice card worth 3 points, and providing me enough money to buy my own witch. On $6 the next hand I buy another one, and by also playing with more lighthouses I end up winning the curse spilt 7-3. Without trashing that's near impossible to overcome and in the end it's a reasonably comfortable win.
Game $6 against Martijn was a nice double tact engine. With a huge amount of attacks on the board everything else seems unplayable. Moat, Masquerade, Ambassador, Sea Hag, Pirate Ship, Militia, Festival, Tactician.
My Masquerade/Silver opening failed at doing what it's usually very good at: bringing me $5. I added another Silver and another masquerade. My opponent did manage to hit festival, but after that I had some nice draws and trashing at twice the speed he was my deck quickly was the better one. I switched to double tact after two festivals, and from that point on I could always start with militia and follow with masquerade. Although he also switch to doublish tact, this did hurt his development rather seriously and he was just two turns behind.
Onto the finals against Geronimoo and these sets would not only include base, intrige and seaside, but also guilds.
Since Guilds had some pretty engine-loving cards, that looked promising.
The first set was really a mind-blowing puzzle, with Pawn, Stonemason, Steward, Herald, Scout, Butcher, Baker, Bazaar, Journeyman.
It was very clear I wanted to open Steward here, but the other card is not so clear. I took the butcher because it can both help a bit in trashing and also get me to $7 for the stonemason.
My opening got mirrored.
Then on turn 3 I had 4 coppers and the butcher. Not the best I could hope for but at least no collision and butcher wasn't missing this shuffle either. I decided to use one token to buy a bazaar here. Trashing the copper for a pawn is really really bad, I never considered that. On a set like this you don't want to upgrade coppers, just getting rid of them is much better. Also I wanted a bazaar just in case my Steward was not in the next 5 cards: then I would want to add another steward and 3 terminals without a village is a bit much. I thought it was a bit early for a stonemason into two heralds, because my action density was still just too low.
His turn 3 completely missed, because he didn't play any terminals. Buying a Silver however is just wrong, yellow is almost as ugly as green here.
On my turn 4 I trashed an estate and a copper, using the coin token for a second steward. Trashing down is super important here.
On his turn 4 he trashed two coppers and bought nothing. That probably means he also had the butcher and it's just horrible for him. But I think he would have been in better shape with a steward on the previous turn and a bazaar on this one.
He added some more money, and it was about 6 turns later that my deck consisted of a dozen actions adding six more, and he just resigned, probably just.
The last game had Moat, Lookout, Masterpiece, Plaza, Baker, Soothsayer, Councilroom
With the only buy in Councilroom, and Soothsayer clogging the deck on both sides, it wasn't clear at all this was an engine board. But Lookout is a reasonable trasher, quite strong if you can follow it up with a plaza, and council room doesn't really object against the golds. Still a bit unsure I decided to go for it anyway. I think I made some nice play decisions (not playing a plaza after a lookout, knowing the top card was another plaza and three cards one of witch was council room) and I didn't get unlucky either. He off course got ahead on points but I made up with a double province turn, and with the split at 3-3 we turned to duchies. Since I was slowly building up coin tokens, and getting a double duchy turn now and then, this game wasn't going to run away no more.
Hurray!
Thanks again to everyone present and especially Kyra & Hans for organizing the tournament.
I was lucky with the draws on some games (#2, #5), lucky with my opponent on the first game, and I think I played about as good as I can on the rest.
At the end of the day that proved to be enough. And oh boy did I miss the point counter.
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Topic: Dutch/Belgian Championship tournament report (Read 2893 times)