Game Reports and Discussion

[volfied]

If you want to write about a match, or post links to video coverage, please do so in this thread.

[Burning Skull]

My first round match vs auturgy:
https://youtu.be/q6sscekNHyo

[tracer]

All of my matches from this tournament will be here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLq1k4fWVpc1lGpqBXien96-gNwR0VxISI

[mith]

Not a streamer, but:

mith 4-3 Marin

18860901: mith 75-88 Marin
Museum+Fairgrounds = lots of variety. I got some great luck early (Upgrade/Gold on turn 3-4), but I think my key mistake was not picking up Haggler early enough - there were several turns where I bought Herald on $5, and if the first of these had been a Haggler I think I could have kept pace better. After an early lead in points, Marin quickly overtook me and the result was never in doubt - prolonging the game only would have made it worse, as Marin didn't max out Fairgrounds.

18861497: Marin 49-62 mith
(Museum again in this, though it played less of a role - just elevated the scores at the end.) I had the better luck in this one, with a 5/2 Knights/Fool's Gold opening. The key moment was getting Sir Martin and (on the turn he was trashed) hitting $9 for another Knight and 2 Fool's Gold. I won the Fool's Gold split and had a nice lead, while Marin put together a really nice deck to counter it (Remake to thin, Cursed Village/Courtyard to draw, Bandit to kill my Fool's Golds) that just wasn't quite fast enough.

18861901: mith 18-18 Marin
If I'd lost the match, I would have been kicking myself over this one. We both put Ferry on Treasury, and then both built (eventually) a Double-Tactician deck with Goons. I won the Treasury split, and had 3 Goons to 2, plus my Tacticians lined up better and earlier. Marin had more pile control (going for Procession and Wishing Well earlier), but on my last turn, I had an 8 point lead with 2 Processions and 4 Wishing Wells left for a three-pile. I momentarily spaced on Goons needing to be in play to get the points, so I played Procession on it... then talked myself into not requesting an undo, in order to get the piles down with an 8 point lead. It was extra stupid because I had a Militia I could have Processioned, and didn't need more buys to buy the last two Processions. But I would have been much better off getting some more points and (possibly) finishing it the next turn.

Anyway, Marin took advantage, with just enough ($14 and 5 buys) to buy the last four Wishing Wells plus an Estate (getting an extra 2 from Aquaduct). Had I played the previous turn correctly, I would have been up 10, and while Marin could have taken the lead with Provice/Duchy/Coppers, that would have been without a Tactician play for next turn, and I think I would have been fine. (Or, I would have screwed it up even worse and turned it into a loss. :))

18862545: Marin 33-22 mith
Pretty sure I lost this one with a 5/2 split. Marin opened Develop/Tournament, won the Tournament race pretty easily, and this was never that close (though I did put together a few turns with Border Village/Tragic Hero that were nice).

18863061: mith 15-15 Marin
This was a weird drawish game. Obelisk on Lurker, so we rushed the Lurkers to a 5-5 split (in 3.5 turns, thanks to Stonemason). Lurker gained Ghost Ships, Save was used for odd Lurkers, and Coin of the Realm was the next target for actions. I grabbed the first Estate a turn early, so on my last turn I had a 1 point lead; I had Lurkers to finish off the Ghost Ships, but was short on buying the last Coin of the Realm, and Marin ended it on a tie.

18863456: Marin 16-32 mith
I had all the luck in this one. Marin's Remake didn't line up with Estates, while I played mine turns 4-6 and ramped up to a Village/Envoy engine with Cobbler and Graverobber support and Groundskeeper payload. By turn 10, I had a 10 point Duchy buy (5 Groundskeepers + Battlefield), and the first 7 Groundskeepers, with a very consistent deck. Marin was able to take a lead on turn 11 in hopes that I would stall, but then I grabbed two 11 point Duchies to put it away, and finished the piles turn 12.

18864034: mith 32-21 Marin
I got the start in game 7, which was scary after tying two already. Horse Traders/Patrician openings, with Peddler on the board. We diverged at turn 4, with a second Horse Traders for me vs. Haggler for Marin, then the last Patrician with a Peddler for me and a Potion (Golem) for Marin. Golem was the only splitter here, but I don't think there was any chance for it to be fast enough. Anyway, I plowed through the Emporiums; only got 4 VP out of it, but that was enough. I also picked up a Haggler (not making the same mistake from game 1!) and then was able to hit $8 from turns 13 to 16 for enough of a lead to allow me to grab 4 Lighthouses on my last two turns to finish the piles with time to spare.

Thanks for the games, Marin!

[Burning Skull]

My round II match vs wonderwoman

[santamonica811]

Mith,
Thanks for the game summaries.  Interesting to read...you both used strategies in places that I would not have, so a good learning experience for me.

[mith]

singletee 4-3 mith

First player advantage ;) But seriously, those were some wild games. Well played by singletee, and good luck the rest of the way!

18939723 - singletee 7-(-2) mith
Torturer/Villa/Squire; I got a 5/2, but had trouble stringing anything together. I'm sure I made some dumb mistakes here (I know once I discarded when I should have taken a Curse). Our decks were very similar at the end, except for a Province (and a Conquest buy for the remaining points).

18939990 - mith 38-30 singletee
Magpie/Magpie/Necromancer vs. Magpie/Trader/Magpie for the first three turns (with Alms). As singletee put it, my Zombie Mason did some work. Magpies were gone quickly, and they left Estates on top for the Mason. I bought Soothsayer (despite the Trader), and singletee did get a Silver out of it once, but otherwise it worked out nicely. I had a small lead throughout, and singletee took the penultimate Province gambling that I wouldn't hit $8. I hit $7. But! his Guardian blocked my Minion play with a dud hand, and my Soothsayer got Zombie Apprenticed to get me over the top.

18940313 - singletee 43-31 mith
Pretty sure this was my first game with Cursed Gold - I've messed around with it doing puzzles of course, but no idea how to play the opening with it. I opted for -/Witch against singletee's Witch/Silver (though singletee had to play Cursed Gold to get to $5). I was debating Potion (to go for Golem immediately), and with Vineyard on the board I probably should have. Just felt like a good way to get too many Curses early and never hit $4P even. singletee got a turn 5 Inheritance (Caravan Guard), and I didn't hit $7 (even with Cursed Gold) until late, and that was the obvious difference; I did split the Curses 7-3 in my favor, but the mass of Estate-Caravan Guards was too good for hitting $8. I did get a couple Lurkers going to get Golems, Potion/Witch is looking better and better as I think about it. I dunno, it could have gone terribly.

18940627 - mith 9-7 singletee
Another favorable split for me - 5/2 for Count/Lurker, against Catapult/Silver. I made some dumb mistakes here (Travelling Fair meant after I trashed with Lurker, singletee was able to put a Lurker on deck and snipe it). But I did convert the early trashing advantage into a decent Library/Farming Village thing, with lots of vanishing actions. I hit $16 on turn 15, and rather than double Province I went for Fairgrounds + 2 topdeck Farming Villages, figuring I had a more consistent deck and way more pile control with Lurker. I still had an Estate, plus singletee had to buy Duchy instead of Fairgrounds on turn 15, and that was the difference in scores; my last turn I was able to trash the final Market and Farming Village and buy the last four Lurkers.

18941166 - singletee 73-40 mith
I was totally lost on this one. Platinum/Colony... Vault/Tunnel was there, but that felt too slow with Colony. Otherwise, it was get to Platinum and play Rangers for big turns. I bought Taxman to try getting to Platinum faster and slowing singletee down, but just going Ranger was better, apparently. I also went for Junk Dealer for trashing, and just ended up drawing a bunch of dead actions with my Rangers, whereas singletee got an early Vampire and used Bat to trash. I also completely overlooked Changeling, and singletee hit an amazing turn with three Changelings turning into Platina.

18941541 - mith 55-49 singletee
Identical starts for this one; Potion/Silver followed by Jack/Alchemist. My Jack was luckier, and then we diverged around turn 7/8, with singletee taking a Ghost Ship and me taking a Miser. I figured Ghost Ship would be too slow once the Alchemists were rolling, and I was right; however, the presence of Orchard gave singletee a point advantage buying three Bazaars and Ghost Ships while I ran through the City stack with no +Buy. Turn 16 I finished off the Alchemists (7-3), and then bought a Province next turn without thinking things through. The problem was that while my deck was more consistent, singletee's was consistent enough to almost certainly hit $8 every turn, and that 4 point cushion would be the difference. So after a long think, I decided to go for the last four Cities, while singletee built up a big lead. I had just enough time, picking up some Workshops (extra gains for Orchard) and Misers (which were now +$7) on the penultimate turn and then a big last turn with 3 Noble Brigands, 6 Duchies, an Estate, and the last Province.

(Reading the chat on this after the fact was fun... :))

18941920 - singletee 55-48 mith
I was sure I had this won. And that's probably why I lost, ultimately. I can't load the game right now to dig into the details, but:

I think we hit Province on back-to-back turns, after a Bard/Silver opening for singletee (with Tournament after) and Tournament/Silver for me. Mine paired first, and I got the Followers. Yay. Meanwhile, we also bought City Quarters and Encampments. singletee took Trusty Steed over Princess (I guess draw helps the City Quarters, especially since I had most of the Encampments by now).

Then my City Quarters connected, and I was able to grab Princess with my whole deck in hand. And at this point, I think I just didn't consider how I could possibly not win, and made several bad decisions. Diadem was a lot of coin for this particular turn (8 spare actions), but with only 3 buys I wasn't ever going to take full advantage of it, and it wasn't an action. Bag of Gold was an action, and did help at one point to keep an Encampment, but was otherwise terrible. Mostly, though, I didn't keep building. I grabbed a couple Colonies, and a Plunder or Bank? Figuring next time I had a big turn, I'd be able to afford three more Colonies and put it out of reach.

And that turn never came. singletee did have a City Quarter advantage (but I think I could have taken at least one more at some point, and didn't), but just buying more actions before greening or three-piling should have been sufficient. It was a slow, painful way to lose. Especially at the end, with both of us failing to connect and leaving me with just a little bit of hope. :)

Oh well. My wife will be happy!

[Burning Skull]

round III vs Cave-o-sapien

[bobbydj18]

The run for this 100+ seed is over.  Lost 4-2 to derg.  Here's a quick summary of games below.

G1: 19158693 - Goons was obvious payload here, but no village on board.  There was Summon as a quasi-village, but that doesn't go great with Goons VP.  Instead I went for using sacrifice as a village and buying pixies or caravan guards each turns as food to enable 2X Goons turns. Derg just went for the 1X Goon turns.  I won. 

G2: 19159269 - No real draw and Mercenary means for a long game.  You could pull off walled village, beggar, mercenary in theory I guess.  I think Mercenary games usually snowball one way or the other and this was no different.  I'm not sure if getting an early beggar to counter mercenary and go big money for palace points made sense or not.  Derg won easily.

G3: 19159759 - I looked at board and realized double tactician/vault seems pretty nice. It turns out it is.  Derg didn't opted for a standard lab+money strategy.  I won. 

G4: 19160230 - Well there was familiar, colony and no non-treasure trashing except watchtower so this game took a while.  Watchtower/Potion was my open. Derg was unlucky and had 5/2 start and opened potion.  Luck changed mightily after that though as he hit 3P turn 3 and I bottomdecked watchtower and familiar on 2nd reshuffle.  I lost curse split 5-3 (2 trashed by watchtowers) I finally resigned down over 20 points on turn 32 with 2 colonies still out there. 

G5: 19160863 - Count is a weird card.  I still don't fully understand it.  Derg was able to trash down to just 5 cards quickly via count and guide.  I tried to do similar, but didn't line up count with trash early, probably over-utilized delve and was playing big money before I knew it.  Derg won easily. 

G6: 19161278 - This is the game that will haunt me.  I played horribly, like a total noob.  Board had smithy, walled village, fishing village, scheme and ironworks.  It also had dominate, so building an engine is a must.  I saw all those awesome $3/$4 cards and thought let me open scheme/ironworks and then get a few more ironworks quick and just start gaining multiples of these awesome cards a turn.  Quickly I had 15+ stop cards in hand between starting 10, FV and ironworks and no deck control.  I'm not sure if FV/Smithy or FV/ironworks makes sense, but in a few games with the rat, I was able to start hitting dominates every turn from turn 10 or 11 which as way better than either of us did in game.  (Derg started hitting t14-16)

Well played by Derg!  Had a great time playing whole tournament, every opponent was right on time and friendly.  Looking forward to next year. 

[Burning Skull]

Round IV vs Rabid

[Burning Skull]

vs Mercury444F