2012 WBC Day 5 Summary

I went to bed relatively early with the hopes of waking up in time for Race For The Galaxy at 9am and I actually managed to barely get up in time. I had to skip showering and shaving but I figured I'd have plenty of time to do that afterwards. I got down to the room and for some reason someone had turned the heat on so the room was hotter than it was outside. I feel like we got pranked and I want to issue a permanent ban to the prankster. The game itself was played 4 player with no expansions. I was probably the worst starting world (the one that can make a blue good) and my first build was the building that knocks one off the cost of future buildings. I then proceeded to explore into the 6-cost building that knocks two off the cost of future buildings and scores big points for buildings. My next building let me draw a card after building a building. It's not hard to imagine how the rest of the game went for me but I pulled off a stupidly powerful combo near the end of the game. I had the card that lets you play military planets as normal planets. I had the card that lets you play normal non-alien planets for free if you sac it. So I got to play the 7 point for 7 military planet for free! Woo! I ended up winning the game pretty handily.

10am brought the next heat of Race For The Galaxy. I decided to skip Titan-2 this year after musing about being stuck playing against David this year. This time I got the best starting world (the one that starts with a brown good) and ended up building an early building that knocks 2 off the cost of future planets. I went into a settle-produce-sell cycle and finished off the last turn with a 2x ship for 8 points. This game was a little closer but I still won pretty handily. Woo!

11am was Vegas Showdown and I ended up at the same table as the GM Eric and another Eric. Both of them had been in my semi-final game last year and made quite a game of this one. GM Eric and I were both positioned to get the Theatre with a lot of money and a fancy lounge each. It unfortunately came out on bad tempo for me such that we'd both have the same amount of money and he'd get to bid first. I had to audible into the 5-star steak house which meant he got to wait another turn to buy the theatre and as a result had enough money to also get the space age sports book. The triangles from sticking them both together were enough to give him a 2 point victory. Boo!

I ate lunch in the hotel since both Robb and Pounder were still asleep. It was a pretty dry chicken breast on a bun. I threw the bun out and ate it with a knife, fork, and salt. 

2pm had Ingenious which I may have played years ago on BSW but never in person. I got Sceadeau to teach me the game beforehand and gave it a spin. The guy to my left ended up winning which probably means I didn't do a good enough job blocking him but I did finish a very close 2nd (it came down to 2nd number).

I took some time off to play some Theatrhythm, took in an Automobile demo, and almost fell asleep in the lobby. Eventually Robb showed up and we headed to the 5pm heat of Lost Cities which had a stupidly large turnout. I got matched up with a nice teenage girl who commented on my lack of a Canadian accent. Eh? The game itself was a massacre mostly because I drew all the big numbers each round so she frequently got stuck with a negative score after starting an early expedition.

6pm was Titan the Arena in the same room as Lost Cities. I was stuck playing with a set that didn't have the right number of pieces for most of the players. On the plus side I happened to have my Queen's Gambit game with me so instead of colours most of us played with miniatures. I was the Gungans! It got quite a number of comments from people passing by our table and I think it made the game more fun to be using weird pieces. I managed to pull out not-last which is a bit of a miracle for me. I don't know how much seating order matters but the same guy got to keep making kill decisions (a little girl was to his right) and he ended up winning. Apparently I had no chance of winning because I'd put my bets on good monsters and people wanted to kill off their special abilities before I could use them. Doh.

7pm was Ra Dice. My first couple rolls had multiple monuments so I dove head-first into a monument strategy. At one point I screwed up trying to get an extra monument (the age was about to end and there was a pharaoh in my roll for the 5 point tie) and I ended up rolling a complete blank and wasted two dice. I ended up losing by 1 point so those extra 5 points would have been clutch. I actually lost this game to the same Dominic from Quebec who beat me at real Ra the other day. Small world!

8pm brought Queen's Gambit. I ended up paired against Evan who beat me out of the round of 16 way back in 2007. He was a punk teenager then and now is a pretty built University age man. My opening hand had 3 Anakin cards and my wheel of fortune card so I decided to try for an Anakin rush plan. I got all the way to the end and cleared out all his starfighter cards but couldn't quite get the last space done. By the time I got to that point it didn't really matter since Darth Maul was free and all my guards were dead. He just had to kill one of Purple Queen, Red Queen, or Captain P for the win. He did run out of Maul cards with Red Queen at 1 and had to finish her off with a droid so if I'd gotten one luckier with Anakin I might have been able to win. At any rate the game was fun because we didn't take it seriously at all. I haven't won a game of Queen's Gambit since I won the event but I still show up to play it because it's a blast. (Unlike, say, Puerto Rico...)

11pm has Can't Stop. I was 3rd with 1st and 2nd chair playing a stopping early strategy. Implementing the same plan as the people who get more turns that you is a bad idea so I went a different way... Better lucky than good! I ended up falling one space from the top of the 6 on a 6-7-8 rush. Next turn I had a 6-7-10 rush and capped the 7. I was four off the 6 and considered going for it but decided to stop. Of course the 6 was gone by the time it got back to me. As were the 3, 8, 11, and 12. 6 numbers closed out and I only had 1 of them. The two guys on my right again went slow which again meant I had to risk it all. I came close going up 2-4-10 but fell just shy of the 4. The 12 year old kid on my left ended up winning.

Off to Waffle House for Papa Joe's pork chops. Then a lot of sleep.