Today, Sunday July 15, Swedish Nationals in Dominion was held here in Stockholm, our nation's capital. Originally I wasn't sure if I would attend, as it was unlikely I'd be able to go to Worlds even if I won due to lack of sponsorship. In the end I decided that a day of Dominion wouldn't be the worst either way, and I did want to go to Gencon, after all. Plus the game store is like 15 minutes door to door, anyway.
We were 21 players, and because enough of us had brought complete sets of Dominion cards, we could play on seven 3 player tables, with more or less random cards (no promo cards, and a few tables had to share cards with each other, but that wasn't a big deal). We would play six rounds (3 points to winner, 2 points to second place, 1 point to last place), and the overall winner after those 6 rounds would go to the final. The players in places #2-#4 would play an additional 3 player play-off, with the winner of that game also advancing to the finals, which would be first to two wins.
I don't really know how the strength of Swedish Dominion players compares to other countries, but there's definitely a number of good players here, most notably our forum's Lekkit (who won Nationals last year when I was sick) and his girlfriend, as well as a few more isotropic regulars up to level 30ish or so. I'd be lying if I said anything but winning would be a huge disappointment for me though, and that's definitely the only goal I had in mind this morning.
I sat down for round 1 against Lekkit's father, who had traveled from southern Sweden to play (I believe, anyway), and a guy who was pretty new to Dominion (but who played quite well on this board but, though plagued with pretty bad draws). I opened Trading Post, while Lekkitdad opened Merchant Ship. There wasn't a whole lot of interesting things going on in this kingdom, and from there we mostly bought more money, some Caravans or Merchant Ships before the greening phase. Both Lekkitdad and I drew quite well, and with 4 Province each (and the third player having 3) I thought I'd be able to win comfortably when reshuffling into a 6 card hand with Merchant Ship (and Caravan) in play. My deck at this point was 4 Province, 3 Copper, Trading Post, a Duchy and a lot of good cards. Alas, my 6 card hand was 3 Province, 2 Copper and Trading Post, and Lekkitdad who had a similarly good deck could easily buy the last Province after me to take first place.
I felt pretty disappointed after the second place finish, knowing that it would probably take a very good record to win outright and not have to go to the play-off round. I sat down to a kingdom with Colonies, no trashing, no +action and no +buy except for Tactician, which provided a limited amount of both actions and buys. I, along with one of the other players, went for a Tactician/Bank (opening Tactician/Embargo, unfortunately the Tactician missed the first reshuffle and the super early Platinum I was hoping for didn't happen) kinda deck, but some key differences in how we built it (more/earlier Banks for me, for instance) meant I could get three double Colony turns while the other two players never got going in quite the same way, and I ended with 7 of the 12 Colonies.
The next few rounds are kind of a blur. I realize now I should have written down the kingdoms if I was planning on writing about them later. I can't remember the board in round 3 at all, I won that game though. In round 4 I decided to open Wharf/nothing and bought two more Wharves and Silver/Gold/Province for the rest of the game while my opponents went for things I deemed too durdly (Golem/Tribute/Bridge/Merchant Ship/Wharf concoctions), I won that one pretty comfortably. Round 5 was a scary/fun board with Hamlet/Menagerie/Stables/University/Salvager/Merchant Ship/Cartographer/Saboteur. I went for two early Salvagers to get rid of the crap, with the idea of gaining Universities and going nuts with Hamlet/Menagerie, eventually leading into (Universitied) multiple Saboteurs every turn. My opponents got pretty decent decks too, but slightly less focused on enginy things and more on Merchant Ship and buying Victory points earlier. My deck was coming together very well, but I failed to realize the 30 minute game limit should have been a much bigger consideration for me when choosing strategy. I tried to play as fast as I could, but towards the end of the game I was playing maybe 15-20+ actions per turn, and a lot of the cards I listed have some choices involved in playing them. I thought I wouldn't be able to win it in time, especially as my Saboteurs weren't hitting any green cards, and one of my opponents hit a Province of mine on her final turn, but in the end I managed just in time and won with 3 points or so. Phew!
Going into the final round, I was tied for first place with another strong player there, who had finished second in our Dominion League we had been playing this winter/spring. When I won round 6 in ~8 minutes from being the only player who was interested in Tournaments (on a board with not much else going on, one of my opponents went straight Big Money pretty much for instance), I went over to watch the game of my "rival", who was caught between two Pirate Ship players in a dragged out Familiar game. Things looked kinda hopeless for him, but he made it very interesting in the end with a 31 vs 30 vs 28 finish, with him getting second place. With five wins and one second place, I finished in clear first place, and got to wait around and watch the second through fourth place finishers play an extra match to decide who my opponent would be in the final.
After Lekkit's girlfriend (who reads/posts here occasionally, but I won't mention her name because I don't know if she wants to be anonymous or not) won their play-off game, our first kingdom of the finals had Swindler/Tournament/Hunting Party as key cards. I fell behind really badly when my first HP was Swindlered into a Duchy right away, and I was sure I was losing horribly. My Swindler was doing some good work too though, and after a long game her deck was reduced to a lot of bad and/or green cards (thanks in large part to the prizes (hi Followers), which she didn't really fight me for), and I won 38-19.
Game 2 of the final had Masquerade and.. those new full-art treasure/victory cards I hadn't seen before, I guess. We also started buying a few Noble Brigands somewhere in the midgame. I was careful to keep track of the score between our passing and/or trashing Estates, but in the end-game when she bought the penultimate Province when we were tied, doubt started creeping into my mind. I knew I had passed a non-Estate to her on an occasion when she had passed an Estate to me. Then we had trashed one Estate each.. right? Or had I trashed both of them? After trying to think back, I decided to go with my gut, as I was pretty sure I was right, all while imaging the stories of the supposedly good player who ended the game when behind in the finals of Nationals. Luckily, I was right, and we tied the game.
In game 3, the big key card was Mountebank. I opened Mountebank/Courtyard to her Mountebank/Crossroads. From there, we bought mostly money for a long long time. And Noble Brigand! Lots of Noble Brigand. Also a Horse Traders on her side and another Courtyard on mine. I won the curse split 6-4, some thanks to lucky draws and some thanks to Courtyard putting back Curses. In the mid/late game, we mostly traded Victory Card purchases with her being ahead on tempo. I decided to buy the penultimate Province when I felt her deck was comparatively bad and should have a much harder time than mine. Meanwhile, more Duchy dancing wouldn't get me anywhere, as she would be ahead by 4 points after they were empty, and I would need both Provinces anyway. She couldn't buy it on her next turn, and my Courtyard drew me into the Silver I needed to become national champion!
I'm very happy to have won the tournament, and I'd love to go to Gencon to play at Worlds. Unfortunately I won't be going if I can't find some way to make it cheaper, as even winning Worlds would set me back financially for sure, and that's before considering hotel costs. It makes me wonder whether other European countries are sponsoring their national champion to go; if not, I think dondon might be close to winning by default when he shows up at Gencon. Lekkit said Worlds last year had something like one American, one Japanese guy and the rest were European. With no sponsoring, I wouldn't count on (m)any Euros this time around; when asked at the beginning of the tournament if anyone was interested in going to Worlds, I was the only one who expressed interest (out loud anyway) because of the whole "pay for it yourself" thing.
Thanks for reading!