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Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 4/20/2024, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: January 22, 2024, 09:36:57 am »

Victory Pints in Maineville, OH
For those of you who have attended my previous tournaments, this is a NEW LOCATION (same as the last two tournaments but different from all the others). Please don't show up to Maverick's expecting the tournament to be there!

48 W Foster-Maineville Rd, Maineville, OH 45039

Facebook event

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers. Prizes will be given out in cash.

Due to table space limitations, this tournament will only be able to take 30 entrants. In the unlikely event that the event fills up, priority will be given to people travelling to the tournament from out of town, then people who RSVP to the event, at my discretion.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

All expansions and promo cards may be used except for deprecated first edition cards. All kingdoms used in the finals will be designed and playtested by me and a couple of helpers who are not playing in the tournament. Regardless of its release date, Rising Sun cards will not be in this tournament.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me, the Dominion world champion for 2017. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

We'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done as early as 4:15PM-- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. When you're done with the tournament, feel free to stick around and play some other games (or more Dominion if that suits you) at Victory Pints!

Here's a link to the Format/Rules document for this tournament.

Here's a link to information about all of the other IRL tournaments I've run.

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 10/7/2023, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: July 24, 2023, 10:11:47 am »

Victory Pints in Maineville, OH
For those of you who have attended my previous tournaments, this is a NEW LOCATION (same as the last tournament but different from all the others). Please don't show up to Maverick's expecting the tournament to be there!

48 W Foster-Maineville Rd, Maineville, OH 45039

Facebook event

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers. Prizes will be given out in cash.

Due to table space limitations, this tournament will only be able to take 30 entrants. In the unlikely event that the event fills up, priority will be given to people travelling to the tournament from out of town, then people who RSVP to the event, at my discretion.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

All expansions and promo cards may be used except for deprecated first edition cards. All kingdoms used in the finals will be designed and playtested by me and a couple of helpers who are not playing in the tournament.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me, the Dominion world champion for 2017. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

We'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done as early as 4:15PM-- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. When you're done with the tournament, feel free to stick around and play some other games (or more Dominion if that suits you) at Victory Pints!

Here's a link to the Format/Rules document for this tournament.

Here's a link to information about all of the other IRL tournaments I've run.

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 4/15/2023, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: February 07, 2023, 01:34:52 pm »

Victory Pints in Maineville, OH
For those of you who have attended my previous tournaments, this is a NEW LOCATION. Please don't show up to Maverick's expecting the tournament to be there!

48 W Foster-Maineville Rd, Maineville, OH 45039

Facebook event

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers. Prizes will be given out in cash.

NEW VENUE: I'm using a new venue for this tournament so please don't show up to Maverick's expecting the tournament to be there. Due to table space limitations, this tournament will only be able to take 30 entrants. In the unlikely event that the event fills up, priority will be given to people travelling to the tournament from out of town, then people who RSVP to the event, at my discretion.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

All expansions and promo cards may be used except for deprecated first edition cards. All kingdoms used in the finals will be designed and playtested by me and a couple of helpers who are not playing in the tournament.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me, the Dominion world champion for 2017. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured in the Facebook event) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

We'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done as early as 4:15PM-- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. When you're done with the tournament, feel free to stick around and play some other games (or more Dominion if that suits you) at Victory Pints!

This new venue has lots of food and drink options available, as well as coffee and local craft beer (Cincinnati has a huge craft beer scene). They also have a HUGE game library and are open late so plan to stick around after the tournament.

Here's a link to the Format/Rules document for this tournament.

Here's a link to information about all of the other IRL tournaments I've run.

Dominion General Discussion / Plunder Card Power Levels First Impressions

« on: January 05, 2023, 11:10:36 am »

link to poll

Give your first impressions on the new Plunder cards by rating them on a scale of 0-10 in terms of "power level" -- this poll will be open for about a week and then I'll compile the results and write a blog post reporting the results and maybe some of my opinions as well.

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Cards Power Level (Allies and recent 2E sets)

« on: August 25, 2022, 09:52:26 pm »

It's time again to rate all of the card-shaped objects! The focus this time is on Allies, and Seaside/Prosperity/Hinterlands 2E cards. Feel free to rate whichever cards you like, but if you've rated cards with my polls before, those are the new ones. More information is in the description of the poll.

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf06k-c158PsXyjQKGv5v0bDRLpQPkzQiZ9KoQrkYc31R7iKQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

This poll will be open for a week or two. I'll collect the results then, write up a blog post about them, and link it here.

Tournaments and Events / Dominion Galactic Championship

« on: May 13, 2022, 06:48:04 am »

It's official -- I'm hosting a 128-person tournament at GenCon this year (2022)! Check out this blog post for all the details, you can sign up starting this Sunday!

https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-galactic-championship/

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion: Allies First Impressions

« on: March 14, 2022, 11:56:47 am »

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScf1l3OO1HN80cYXR9T-Jz4jbOBjgK9DsnXQ8AITsVQHwSitA/viewform?usp=sf_link

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. I have a few suggestions:

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings.

This may be helpful for looking up what cards do: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Allies

This form will accept responses until March 23-24ish, 2022. After that, I'll collect the data and write up a post similar to the ones I did for the last three expansions:
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-nocturne-first-impressions/
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-renaissance-first-impressions/
https://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-menagerie-expansion-first-impressions/

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 4/9/2022, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: February 23, 2022, 08:30:08 am »

Maverick's in Mason, OH
For those of you who have attended my previous tournaments, this is the same location -- the name of the store has changed from Game Swap to Maverick's and they have new management.

1065 Reading Rd, Ste E, Mason, Ohio 45040

Facebook event

PROOF OF IMMUNITY TO COVID-19 BY VACCINE IS REQUIRED TO ENTER THE TOURNAMENT. I'll almost certainly be requiring face masks as well but the final decision on that will be made closer to the event. If you have a medical exemption feel free to talk to me privately about it.

Join us for my 12th Dominion tournament at 1PM on Saturday, April 9, 2022 in Mason, OH (near Cincinnati). RSVP is not required -- you can just show up, but it helps me plan if I know who is coming in advance, and if you're traveling in from far away I can make sure you don't get left out if you get stuck in traffic or something; you can respond here or to the Facebook event I linked above.

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. I will attempt to bring cookies or something similar for those who enter. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers.

Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers. Prizes will be given out in cash (as opposed to some past tournaments where prizes were given in store credit).

All expansions and promo cards may be used EXCEPT for the newest expansion (Allies); I'll be using the first edition of Seaside so no new 2E Seaside cards either. I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though. All kingdoms used in the finals will be designed and playtested by me and a couple of helpers who are not playing in the tournament.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me, the Dominion world champion for 2017. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured on the Facebook event) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

I anticipate we'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. After the tournament, there will be the regular board gaming event at Maverick's.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

Dominion General Discussion / Card Power Levels: Menagerie Revisited

« on: November 23, 2020, 02:20:52 pm »

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSf06k-c158PsXyjQKGv5v0bDRLpQPkzQiZ9KoQrkYc31R7iKQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

^^ click here to take the poll. I'll have it open for about a week before collecting data. When I write up the post that presents the data I'll link it here too.

It's time for another round of collecting power level data! The idea here is to focus on how perceptions of the Menagerie cards have changed since the first impressions a few months ago; I'd urge you to give all of the cards up through Dismantle some thought and rank them all. Feel free to rank all of the cards if you'd like, all ratings will be recalculated in early December 2020.

If you've already a power level rating, just put in the same or a similar name to what you did last time -- you don't have to re-rank all of the cards, only the ones you feel like adding or changing. I'll merge the data for you. If you'd like to check your previous rankings, you can find a list of all rankings I have here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1R9eApE1O1977H6h8RvvoVl_PIMltWxlQDzdYPF3PQDE

This may be helpful for looking up what cards do: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/List_of_cards

Info on previous power rankings, including write-ups like the one I'll be doing for these results, can be found here: http://adamhorton.com/flog/card-power-levels/

---

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. I have a few suggestions:

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings, but I have a guideline that can be used as an example or a template if you would like something to get you started -- the examples in parentheses are just my opinions, feel free to disagree!

0 - Adding the card would make most decks worse than adding nothing (Scout, Secret Chamber)
1 - The card almost never sees play in good decks, and when it does, its effect is marginal at best
3 - The card is not necessarily bad, but usually doesn't play a key role in any deck; still not worth picking up some of the time
5 - The card plays a minor supporting role in many decks, or has some synergies that make it good in a few situations
7 - The card plays a support role in most decks, plays a critical role in many decks, or can be the backbone of good or mediocre decks with proper support
9 - The card is almost never ignorable, and usually plays a large role in the best decks that can be built
10 - The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss (Donate, King's Court)

Landmarks can sort of be judged on a similar scale, kind of. Again, feel free to rate Landmarks using whatever criteria you want, but I personally would give higher scores to landmarks that are more likely to influence the strategy, tactics, and/or outcome of the game.

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Menagerie: First Impressions

« on: March 18, 2020, 06:11:21 pm »

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSdx48pR9uNIs3Nc8LzQ3X-OlG5tKQG5Tpxiw6qR1Co6k-TiyQ/viewform?usp=sf_link

Rate each Dominion card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score. I have a few suggestions:

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings, but I have a guideline that can be used as an example or a template if you would like something to get you started -- the examples in parentheses are just my opinions, feel free to disagree!

0 - Adding the card would make most decks worse than adding nothing (Scout, Secret Chamber)
1 - The card almost never sees play in good decks, and when it does, its effect is marginal at best
3 - The card is not necessarily bad, but usually doesn't play a key role in any deck; still not worth picking up some of the time
5 - The card plays a minor supporting role in many decks, or has some synergies that make it good in a few situations
7 - The card plays a support role in most decks, plays a critical role in many decks, or can be the backbone of good or mediocre decks with proper support
9 - The card is almost never ignorable, and usually plays a large role in the best decks that can be built
10 - The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss (Donate, King's Court)

This may be helpful for looking up what cards do: DS Wiki Menagerie page

This form will accept responses until Saturday, March 28, 2020. After that, I'll collect the data and write up a post similar to the ones I did for the last two expansions:
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-nocturne-first-impressions/
http://adamhorton.com/flog/dominion-renaissance-first-impressions/

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 5/2/2020, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: February 08, 2020, 12:58:42 pm »

EDIT AGAIN: THIS TOURNAMENT ISN'T HAPPENING BECAUSE OF CORONAVIRUS. Sorry about that, I'll make another thread for whatever the next tournament is.

EDIT: THIS TOURNAMENT HAS BEEN POSTPONED DUE TO THE CORONAVIRUS. IT IS NO LONGER ON MARCH 28. Hopefully by May things will have cleared up, but as the event gets closer we may have to postpone further.

This event will be part of Mullinspiele, a board gaming convention in Cincinnati, OH - www.mullinspiele.com -- You'll have to register for the event on their website in order to attend. Walk-ins are fine but this tournament can only accept up to 32 players and those who have pre-registered will have priority.

Any cancellation of the event due to public health concern or otherwise will result in a full refund.

This tournament will consist of two-player games. I should be able to get promo cards to hand out. Prizes will be given to the top finishers in the tournament in the form of premium raffle tickets for the convention. Entry into this tournament is free with admission to the convention.

All expansions and promo cards may be used, I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though. All kingdoms used in the finals will be designed and playtested by me and a couple of helpers who are not playing in the tournament.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me, the Dominion world champion for 2017. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

I anticipate we'll be done by 9PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament.

Facebook event

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 9/21/2019, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: June 24, 2019, 10:35:32 am »

Game Swap Mason, OH

1065 Reading Rd, Ste E, Mason, Ohio 45040

Facebook event

Join us for my eleventh Dominion tournament at 1PM on Saturday, September 21, 2019 in Mason, OH (near Cincinnati). RSVP is not required -- you can just show up, but it helps me plan if I know who is coming in advance, and if you're traveling in from far away I can make sure you don't get left out if you get stuck in traffic or something; you can respond here or to the Facebook event I linked above.

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. I may have some promo cards to give out, but I will have sandwiches for everyone who enters. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured in the Facebook event) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

All expansions and promo cards may be used, I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though. All kingdoms used in the playoffs will be designed and playtested by me and some helpers who will not be playing in the tournament.

I anticipate we'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. During and after the tournament, there will be the regular Saturday board gaming event.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

Tournaments and Events / Facebook group for Dominion events in the midwest, USA

« on: April 03, 2019, 06:49:04 pm »

https://www.facebook.com/groups/388582358640874/

I made this group to help promote Dominion events nearby. Please pass the link along to anyone you think might be interested!

Dominion General Discussion / What does it mean?

« on: January 19, 2019, 10:25:47 pm »

CLICK HERE TO GIVE YOUR ANSWERS

I've heard a lot of terms used when people talk about Dominion (or even other games similar to Dominion). I'm not necessarily trying to pin down an "accepted" or "popular" definition for any of these, but I would like to at least gauge what people mean when they're saying certain things.
So in your own words, what do these things mean to you? Respond however you like.

I will probably publish the results of this at some point, even if it's just the raw data. If there are any interesting trends or ideas I may highlight those as well.

Thanks for answering!

(If you would like to discuss it here I'll try to take the coherent thoughts from here and include them in the data)

The three questions from the form are:

What does "swingy" mean in Dominion?

What does "cycling" mean in Dominion?

What makes a card/event/project/etc. "good" or "strong" in Dominion?

Dominion General Discussion / Dominion Cards Power Level (Renaissance Revisited)

« on: January 19, 2019, 10:23:14 pm »

CLICK HERE TO INPUT YOUR RATINGS

It's time for this again! If you have already done a power level rating, just put in the same or a similar name to what you did last time -- you don't have to re-rank all the cards, only the ones you feel like changing, and I'll merge the data for you.

The idea here is to focus on how perceptions of the Renaissance cards have changed since the first impressions a few months ago; I'd urge you to give all of the cards up through Star Chart some thought and rank them all (or at least the ones where your ranking has changed).

If you'd like to check your previous rankings, you can find a list of all rankings I have here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hdwfog1xPuyNO6mFAZZnP2p_eZmVu5GFK_t7e0306sA

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, 1/12/2019, 1PM, Cincinnati OH

« on: November 13, 2018, 09:27:05 am »

Game Swap Mason, OH

1065 Reading Rd, Ste E, Mason, Ohio 45040

Facebook event

Join us for my tenth Dominion tournament at 1PM on Saturday, January 12, 2019 in Mason, OH (near Cincinnati). RSVP is not required -- you can just show up, but it helps me plan if I know who is coming in advance, and if you're traveling in from far away I can make sure you don't get left out if you get stuck in traffic or something.

This tournament will consist of two-player games, and have a $5 entry fee. I'm not able to give out promo cards or qualify the winner for GenCon, but I will have something to give out to everyone who enters. Portions of the prize pool (80% of the entry fees) will be given to the top finishers.

The winner of the tournament will have the opportunity to play a "trophy match" against me. You may pick any kingdom you like and you may go first; if you win, you get to hold on to the Scout trophy (pictured in the Facebook event) until the next tournament. If you lose, you still get the standard first-place prize for winning this tournament.

All expansions (including Renaissance!) and promo cards may be used, I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though. All kingdoms used in the playoffs will be designed and playtested by me and some helpers who will not be playing in the tournament.

I anticipate we'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. During and after the tournament, there will be the regular Saturday board gaming event.

Any questions or RSVPs can either be posted here or the Facebook event, PMed to me, or you can send me E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com . Hope to see you there!

Dominion: Renaissance Previews / Renaissance Cards Power Level (first impressions)

« on: November 05, 2018, 07:06:17 am »

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfg1XjzjruG8Tz1eSUCc2f_UYOSP_CgLZBWFtHJfeM5adsUXg/viewform

It's that time again where I collect the first impressions of the community right after seeing the cards from the newest expansion: Renaissance! Please offer your opinions on how powerful each card/project in the new expansion is on a scale from 0 to 10.

I'll leave this poll up for about a week and at that time I'll collect the data and make a blog post presenting it similar to this one for Nocturne -- of course I will link that post here and anywhere else I solicit entries for the form.

Below is a copypasta of what's in the Google Form in case you want some more detail about this without clicking on the link:

Quote

Let's have some fun by doing this right after seeing the Renaissance cards for the first time! Just your first impressions on these cards will be useful to know, so we can see how things compare to when we've had more time to play with the cards.

Rate each Renaissance card (or card-shaped-object) on a scale from 0-10, with 10 being the most powerful. The cost of the card, not just the effect, should be taken into account for your score.

0. In case you'd like a reference for what everything does:

A pdf of the Renaissance rulebook can be found here: http://riograndegames.com/Game/1334-Dominion-Renaissance
The DS Wiki page for Renaissance can be found here: http://wiki.dominionstrategy.com/index.php/Renaissance

1. Your name is "required," you can put anything there though -- I'd prefer some username that I can recognize so that I can make sure submissions are unique. If you troll me, I reserve the right to not count your input :-P

If you use a name that you've used in a previous one of my surveys and you'd like your ratings to be linked to your previous entries, please use the same name you've used before (minor typos or variations are OK as long as I know it's you) -- here's the list of all current entries:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1hdwfog1xPuyNO6mFAZZnP2p_eZmVu5GFK_t7e0306sA/edit?usp=sharing

2. You can pick and choose which cards you rate -- feel free to leave some cards blank if you don't want to rate them for whatever reason.

3. You may use whatever criteria you like for your ratings, but I have a guideline that can be used as an example or a template if you would like something to get you started -- the examples in parentheses are just my opinions, feel free to disagree!

0 - Adding the card would make most decks worse than adding nothing (Scout, Secret Chamber)
1 - The card almost never sees play in good decks, and when it does, its effect is marginal at best
3 - The card is not necessarily bad, but usually doesn't play a key role in any deck; still not worth picking up some of the time
5 - The card plays a minor supporting role in many decks, or has some synergies that make it good in a few situations
7 - The card plays a support role in most decks, plays a critical role in many decks, or can be the backbone of good or mediocre decks with proper support
9 - The card is almost never ignorable, and usually plays a large role in the best decks that can be built
10 - The card warps the strategic and/or tactical landscape, causing most games to revolve around it. Ignoring or misusing the card will almost always result in a clear loss (Donate, King's Court)

A final note: I will answer questions here if needed, but I would prefer to communicate via PM if possible.

Tournaments and Events / 3P Tournament, Cincinnati OH. Sat. July 29 2017, 1PM

« on: July 14, 2017, 01:49:02 am »

I am hesitant to post this here, but I know of at least one person whose main method of getting information about the tournament is posts on F.DS (Kevin, I don't think my E-mails are getting through to you, maybe check your spam folder?). So I'm going to post information about the tournament here.

TO BE CLEAR: I will not be following this thread; I will not be answering questions that come up in this thread. I do not wish to be rude. I'm just trying to avoid the drama that has come up in the past.

If you have any questions, you can PM me, you can E-mail me at adam@adamhorton.com, or you can put something on the facebook event which I'll link below.

I hope to see you there.

Here are the details:

FACEBOOK EVENT (will be kept up to date, unlike this thread)
Saturday, July 29 2017, 1PM
Game Swap in Mason : 1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
Three-player games, $5 entry fee
Tournament Format
All expansions and promo cards may be used, I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though.

Everyone who attends will be given a promo card (I have Sauna/Avanto, and I have some other stuff too), and the winner of the tournament will be pre-qualified for the World National tournament at GenCon next month.

I anticipate we'll be done by 8PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament. After the tournament, there will be regular board game night there. You're welcome to stay and play as late as you'd like if you want to.

Things have gone well in past tournaments, attendance is growing, and I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from previous tournaments. All skill levels are welcome. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to ask me (just remember I'm not responding to replies to this thread; PM, E-mail adam@adamhorton.com , or Facebook event posts are best).

Tournaments and Events / 2P Tournament, Cincinnati OH. Feb. 11 2017, 1PM

« on: November 16, 2016, 11:22:28 am »

I'll be hosting another tournament in Cincinnati, here are the details:

FACEBOOK EVENT (will be kept up to date, unlike this thread)
Saturday, February 11, 1PM
Game Swap in Mason : 1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040
Two-player games, $5 entry fee
Tournament Format
All expansions and promo cards may be used, I won't be using any of the removed cards from Base or Intrigue, though.

I anticipate we'll be done by 6PM, and if you are eliminated early on in the tournament you could be done earlier -- everyone who enters is guaranteed at least four games in the tournament.

After the tournament, there will be regular board game night there. You're welcome to stay and play as late as you'd like if you want to.

I'm going to host these tournaments every six months now instead of every three, in case that influences your decision to travel here for the tournament.

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Here is the stuff that will be different (special) about this tournament

I'm planning to have door prizes for everyone who enters the tournament. I'm still working on these so I don't know exactly what it will be, but I'm thinking of a custom token or ribbon or card or something along those lines. If nothing like this works, I will have Dominion-themed cookies.

I'm going to make some kind of "trophy" (it may not exactly be a "trophy" but it will be similar in concept. I'm still working on it). The winner of the tournament will have the chance to challenge me to a game of Dominion -- they may choose whatever kingdom they would like and they may go first, and if they win a game of Dominion against me with that kingdom, they get the trophy. If they lose or tie, they still get the standard first prize in the tournament.

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If you have any questions or if you want to let me know that you're coming, send me an E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com and I'll get back to you. You don't have to let me know in advance that you plan to be there, but it helps me out a lot for preparing for the tournament.

I hope to see you all there.

Tournaments and Events / Online tournament format ideas

« on: April 24, 2016, 08:17:56 pm »

Hi. You may remember me. I'm looking to organize an online Dominion tournament. Details on the tournament are unclear at the moment, but that's mostly because I want those details to be community-driven, that's why I'm here.

I would like to give F.DS the chance to give their feedback on how they think the tournament should go. I have several goals in mind but even those are flexible at this point.

Here's the deal: while a lot of things are community-driven, there are a few things that aren't. I don't really want to post here on F.DS, so the tournament will not be hosted on F.DS. Sorry. Where exactly it's hosted isn't entirely clear yet but it will probably have its own subreddit where things will be organized.

I've made a post on the Dominion subreddit detailing my ideas and the type of feedback I'd like to receive. I'll link that post and quote it at the bottom here for your convenience. If you have a reddit account, of course I'd prefer that you give your feedback there, but that's not realistic for everyone here, so I'll also be following this thread for feedback and potentially answering questions.

Let me be clear: I'm acutely aware of this forum's tendencies to bring up things that are unrelated to the topic and completely derail the thread. While there are many things that people may want to talk about here other than providing me feedback, I'm not going to respond to them. You're welcome to send me PMs if you want to talk about something else. If the thread gets too far away from this topic, of course there's nothing I can do about that, but just realize that what will happen is that F.DS will not get to have its voice represented because I'll just stop following this thread.

I'm going to run this tournament regardless of F.DS's participation in giving feedback or even playing in it. Also, for the curious, I have been in contact with the League moderators and once a format and rough timeline have been established, the mods will poll the League members and ask what they want to do about the League schedule. One of the reasons I'd like to try a format that can be shortened (or broken up into smaller pieces) is to make this decision easier on the people in the league, but all of that is out of my hands, we'll just see what ends up happening.

Anyways, here's the post. Please read and let me know what you think.

Quote from: reddit

Hi.

So I want to put together an online tournament, I'm making this thread to gauge the interest in this community for a tournament like this, and also to see what kind of format would be most appealing to people.

I am aware that the Dominion League is a thing. I'm currently working with the League moderators to try and coordinate things so that whatever tournament I run will happen between seasons of the League. The purpose of this is to provide an alternative format for online competitive play; something that feels different.

Based on what I've heard from some people, in addition to a couple of things I personally want to see, I want to make a list of goals for this tournament format:

- To provide opportunities for lower-level players to get some visibility with their matches
- To coordinate broadcasting and commentary for any players who want to have this for their matches (ideally giving a larger group of people a chance to try their hand at giving commentary)
- To be novel and exciting
- To operate the tournament with complete transparency

If anyone has ideas for more goals, let me know and I may even edit them into this list if I can remember to do that.

So with these goals in mind, I have a few rough ideas for tournament formats. If any of these sound appealing to you, or you have any ideas, let me know. Here are some things I'm thinking of:

A. Have a couple of different "seasons." So have a mini-tournament where only people at level X or below are allowed to enter, this would take place between two League seasons, then the league has a season. Now, our next season will allow entries from level X to level Y, along with the top Z finishers from the first season.

This isn't perfect, since it means that lots of people would sit out and be unable to play for a bit. Maybe run each of these seasons in parallel? Once you do this, though, it starts to look a lot like the League, which takes away from "novel and exciting." So there's a balance to be struck here.

B. Have significant landmarks at a couple of key points in the tournament. A couple of ideas I have for this are:

- Play three matches, eliminate the bottom X%. Play three more matches, eliminate the bottom Y%, continue until the field is small enough to do some kind of finals thing. This naturally puts the focus on people in the middle throughout the course of the tournament, so not necessarily the top players.
- Break the field up into 4 or 8 divisions and have a champion of each of those divisions. The divisions could be seeded so that high-level players and low-level players are in their own divisions, then once each division has a champion, they ENTER THE COLOSSEUM to battle it out for the title, David vs. Goliath style.

As for actual tournament format, well Swiss and elimination will both work for a lot of these, once there is a concept that seems popular I imagine one of them will be a better fit for that concept.

As for commentary, I sort of want that to play a big role in this tournament. Competitive matches are great for commentary and I know there are a lot of people out there who want to do commentary and who also want their matches to be commentated on. I want there to be a group of people available for commentary so that anyone can say "hey, Jimbob and I are playing a match on Saturday, who can commentate?" and have people available to broadcast the match. I'll have to set up lots of technical resources for commentators as well as a place to coordinate things, but this should get a lot of people the opportunity to practice and pursue it further if it turns out to interest them. Suggestions for that are welcome, but that's sort of independent of tournament format and schedule, so it makes more sense to tackle the specifics of that when/if there's actually a tournament it can go with.

So comment here for the following things:
1. You would be interested in playing in such a tournament.
2. You would be interested in casting games in such a tournament (you can do both of these).
3. You have any feedback for goals of the tournament, any ideas I've suggested, or tournament format suggestions.
4. You have feedback on broadcasting matches for such a tournament.
5. If you aren't interested in something like this at all.

This is designed to be change of pace from the League, an opportunity to try new things out and expand the competitive Dominion scene to reach more people. If there's something in particular you'd like to see that would get you interested in playing competitive Dominion, let's hear it!

Hopefully in the near future there will be enough of a vision to move forward with a more concrete idea. Thanks for your feedback!

EDIT: a couple more details.

1. When the time comes for another step forward, I'll make sure to PM anyone who responded here saying they were interested to direct them towards that. The next step may not be a signup, it kind of depends on how things go with scheduling and the League.

2. In my brain, the vision is that nobody who helps run the thing will be able to play, and that I'll be able to moderate it all myself with the help of some software that I'll write. I want everything to be totally transparent so the software will be open-source. Help with setup and commentary and that stuff is one thing, but in terms of actually moderating the tournament (settling disputes, running the script, etc.) I want to prevent potential conflicts of interest.

Tournaments and Events / 2P tournament, Cincinnati, OH. Sat. April 16th, 2016, 1PM. All expansions

« on: March 08, 2016, 11:31:19 am »

It's time for another one of these Cincinnati Dominion tournaments. This one will be mostly 2-player games (which means no official RGG-sanction, no promo cards, no GenCon qualifier, but hey 2P games!) and I've doubled the potential prize pool for this one! This means that the entry fee will be $10 instead of $5.

The other big change is that even though I'll be doing most of the promotion and organizing for this tournament, I'm actually going to be able to compete in this one! Do you think you can take me on? (you can) Come out and see if you can be one of the proud few who crushes me!

So this means that most of the day-of organizing/formatting stuff has been automated. My friend will take care of moderating the tournament and answering rules questions, as well as preparing all of the kingdoms so that I have no extra knowledge of what to expect and have no unfair advantage. You'll get all of the benefits of my experience in organizing these things, but you'll have your chance to take me down. Man, I feel like Robert Irvine. If this goes well, I may participate in 2P tournaments in the future. I don't plan on playing in any of the RGG-sanctioned tournaments, though.

Anyways, the location and time for this is pretty much the same as all of my other tournaments. Game Swap in Mason : 1065 Reading Rd. / Mason, OH 45040. There will be the usual weekly game night for the group I moderate as well, people will start showing up between 3-5PM, right about when the first round of eliminations are made, so you'll have the chance to play all kinds of other board games (or maybe some more Dominion) with lots of cool people after you're done with the tournament.

The entry fee will be $10. For each entry into the tournament, $8 will be put into the prize pool. All prizes will be given in store credit. The top three or four players will be given portions of the prize pool (depending on how many people enter the tournament). I have a reference document that gives the format of the tournament here; I reserve the right to make changes to it up until the tournament starts, but don't expect to see any significant changes.

I'll be following this thread, if you have any questions or if you want to let me know that you're coming, just reply here, PM me, or send me an E-mail at adam@adamhorton.com and I'll get back to you. You don't have to let me know in advance that you plan to be there, but it helps me out a lot for preparing for the tournament.

I hope to see you all there.

Dominion General Discussion / Accountability

« on: February 14, 2016, 05:25:34 pm »

I've waited a little bit to post this, but I feel that the League moderators have taken some actions that are inappropriate enough that the community should be made aware of them.

A couple of weeks ago I received a PM from a moderator stating that some of the contenders in the A division were not willing to cooperate with me to broadcast the champion match this season (this was when there were several games left to be played in the A division). It said the moderators discussed it and decided that I should not commentate any champion matches until the conflicts were resolved. I was not told what the conflicts were or who they were with, and after asking several times for this information I have still not been told.

I replied to all of the moderators asking for clarification on the situation, but also stating that this decision as presented to me was inappropriate -- people playing in the league should not have the authority to decide who gets to commentate (or not commentate) matches without the consent of the community, and this decision sets a dangerous precedent. If the players do not wish to cooperate, nobody is forcing them to have the match broadcast (actually nobody is even forcing them to play the match at all) so the decision should be to not have a broadcast. I also mentioned that in no other "E-sport" or game that receives commentary would this behavior be acceptable -- players in a high-profile tournament just don't enter if they don't like the commentators that much. Obviously Dominion is different but this was one of many reasons I gave against their decision. Another reason I gave is that I have worked for over a year, more than anyone else towards making good commentary for these broadcasts, and every indication the community has given shows that they want to see me continue that work -- this decision attempts to throw away all of that work when other options exist that don't do this.

For the record, I don't feel like I have to commentate every match (I'd actually like to not have that pressure, and I'd like for more people to make an effort to get involved, as seen by my work in some of those threads I've linked). Being shut out of the process entirely for seemingly no good reason is what I have an issue with. Maybe there is a good reason, but I'm not being told the whole story here so I don't know what it is.

When I got a response, none of my concerns or questions were answered. I was told that due to my posts in other areas of the forum, I should no longer consider myself a representative of the community. I also received several personal insults from multiple League moderators. Regardless of who is "right" or "wrong" or whatever about this particular issue, this behavior is completely unacceptable from anyone in a position of authority.

Full disclosure: the only actual argument I could get from any of these PMs was that maybe the community doesn't want to see me commentate matches anymore. That's one of the reasons I made the most recent poll about this topic (though there were others). After the poll's results were clear, I sent one last PM asking them to change their decision, which they did not.

I feel that I have no choice but to tell the community that this has happened -- the League moderators have taken a course of action that is completely inappropriate in several ways. I know that I can never be comfortable participating in any part in anything moderated by anyone from this group of moderators: yes, I can only speculate what their reasons are for this (I wasn't told anything more what I've mentioned here, plus personal insults); but regardless of what those reasons are, the actions they have taken are so reprehensible that these reasons seem irrelevant -- there's no excuse for dismissing my valid concerns with personal insults via PM.

Perhaps the League moderators will be compelled to justify what they've done to the community now that I'm trying to hold them accountable for their actions? I will not allow the moderators to treat people the way they have treated me (and others in the past, btw) behind closed doors and not be held accountable to the community for what they say and do. The League can only succeed with the support of the community, and that community should be fully informed of what is happening, however ugly it may be.

What do I think should be done? Well Stef has made it clear that the moderators of the League will have complete authority over anything that happens in the League, and I doubt any of them would step down based on the PMs I've received. But people seem to like the constant competitive play that the nature of the League offers them.

In this case, it seems the best course of action would be for the league to be dissolved (by people not playing in it anymore. Yeah that seems pretty ambitious, but it seems like that has to happen in order to stop things like this from happening again) and for another method of competitive Dominion to take its place. None of the moderators of this new thing should be current League moderators. The format and moderators should be chosen by the community (maybe another League, who knows?), and the workings of this new thing should be completely transparent. I would rather not be the one to put it together to avoid potential conflict of interest, since I'm unfortunately the one who got stuck in the position of having to out the behavior of the current League moderation, but I am capable of moderating tournaments and would be willing to do so if called upon.

Dominion General Discussion / Storage solutions with Empires

« on: February 01, 2016, 12:52:29 pm »

I've thought for a long time about this, and I suspect many other people will have a similar issue. With Empires being released, there will no longer be enough room for all Dominion expansions' kingdom cards and a set of supply cards to play with in one box.

Here's my current storage solution

These boxes are now being sold as Dominion storage solutions, but I use Fantasy Flight sleeves (and I'm not willing to give them up). There just isn't enough room in this box for all the cards. There are plenty of solutions out there that involve multiple boxes, or can accommodate unsleeved cards. Hopefully this thread can help brainstorm some solutions.

Binders:

I've seen some really big binders out there, and they're plenty big enough, strong enough, and elegant enough to hold everything all at once. Sure, getting cards out of these things takes longer than it would with just one big box, but I'd be happy if I could get this to work. The main problem comes in when you require any kind of sleeves.

You can transport these binders and not worry about your cards falling all over the place because the stacks of cards fit tightly enough into the pages to prevent this. With sleeves, not only can I not find pages that will hold a stack of 10 or 12 sleeved cards, but even if I could, I'm not sure they would hold the cards tightly enough for them to stay put while not damaging the sleeves. This might be a dealbreaker but maybe there's something out there that I don't know about yet.

One big box:

The Hobby Lobby Box has been the standard for this up until now. With some reinforcement and an extra box to cannibalize parts from, I was able to put something together that was strong enough and looked good. I even got to wood-burn a design on the front and it really grabs a lot of attention. No lie: people have sat down with me to learn and play Dominion because of that box.

But it's not big enough anymore, and I haven't seen any sort of case out there that's appropriate for this. I'm not the handiest person in the world, so I don't think I could make something like this from scratch that was strong enough and that looked good. A bigger box would be just fine but I just don't know where to start. I haven't given up, and I'll post anything interesting here, but that's about where I'm at right now.

So if there are any ideas, maybe we can brainstorm here together. Oh yeah, and I'd really like it if this thread didn't get de-railed. Silence would be vastly superior to that in my opinion, so I'll be pressing the "report to moderator" button on every post that deviates from this topic. Please, let's not waste theory's time here. <3

Dominion General Discussion / Who do you want to see commentating matches? (poll open)

« on: January 28, 2016, 07:35:52 am »

Remember back in the day when I used to make a poll for every season about who people wanted to see commentate the champion match? Well that stopped happening every season for some good reasons, but I'd like to make another poll now to re-check the community's current opinion on this.

I'm going to make a poll with every person who has ever commentated anything, or expressed any interest in commentating anything at any point in time. There will be lots of names on it and I'll probably have people pick their two favorites or something. If you would like to be added to the list, let me know (this means either PM me or reply to this thread). If you are on the list and would like to be removed, let me know. Yes, there are some people on here who aren't active on the forums anymore; I guess you are allowed to consider that when making your choices.

I'm going to keep the results of the poll private, at least while the poll is going on and maybe afterwards (the mods should be able to see them anyways). I don't want someone who ends up getting a bunch of votes to feel a sense of public obligation or anything. I dunno. I haven't given it all that much thought, but I remember the first time I made a poll like this I had made things "too public" and had to re-do them so we're starting this time from the other end of the spectrum.

It's not certain who will be playing in this season's champion match yet, since the season isn't over. I think for the purposes of this poll we should just assume that everybody is available to commentate and not worry about people being unavailable because they're busy with something, like playing Dominion in a high-profile match worth casting. The point of this is to have a complete list of who people want to see casting stuff that is current, and wouldn't just apply to the upcoming champion match.

EDIT: If you want to be added to the list, I think I can still do that while the poll is going.

There are a lot of people in here, I made it so you can pick up to 5 people. This was somewhat arbitrary.

I made it so the poll will be open for a week. That means it should close on Friday, Feb. 2 at about 1700 UTC, I think? -- EDIT 2: oh hey look at that, the poll tells you. Technology is great!

General Discussion / My Survivor audition video

« on: December 28, 2015, 11:36:54 pm »

I've tried out for Survivor (the CBS reality show) for four years now, this year will be number five. I've solicited some advice on the forums in the past, but I'm taking some new approaches this year and putting quite a bit of time into my video. If you would like to watch my video and/or critique it, you are welcome to do so. I'd really like to get on this show and I think I would be excellent TV.

A few things:

1. If you're just going to tell me "great video, you'd be awesome on Survivor! Good luck!" then I'd like for you to politely suggest that you rethink your comments. I've been told this about all four of my previous videos and have never even been called back. Don't worry about hurting my feelings. If something isn't working or doesn't make sense or reflects poorly, tell me about it. I don't want to submit a video with a bad thing on it. The thing that would hurt my feelings the most is not getting called back by CBS and not getting on their show.

2. This video is 45 seconds too long. I'm not quite sure what to cut out of it -- the section with my wife in the middle is unedited, I know that will have to be trimmed down and made more concise but I'm not really sure what's working there and what isn't. Suggestions here are welcome -- if something sucks and I should take it out, please say so.

3. The only thing I have a video of and/or thought about putting in this video that isn't in there is the fact that I play saxophone in a jazz band. Here's the clip for that -- I'm not sure how to fit it into what's already there or if it's worth putting in, though.