There is a big MLG event coming up in 2 weeks time. They recently announced the format for the SC2 tournament and I found it to be intriguing. They have 256 competitors so my first instinct would be that they'd just play a big seeded double elimination bracket. But it turns out that would be _far_ too simplistic. Instead they're running 4 brackets and a round robin pool section with people entering at various times.
To start with the 32 people who played in the winter arena get byes. The top 16 from the winter arena get to bypass the first 6 rounds and start in the pool section. The bottom 16 get to bypass the first 4 rounds and will only need to win 2 matches to make it to the pool section. The remaining 224 players play a double elimination bracket with the 16 people with byes slotting in during round 5. Eventually you stop the open winners bracket when there are 8 people left and send them into pool play. Similarly with the open losers bracket you get down to 8 people and then stop.
Pool play now has 24 people which are broken down into 4 groups of 6. Each group plays a round robin and then they get ranked 1 through 6. There are 4 groups so you have 4 #1s, 4 #2s, etc... Advance the #1s to the championship winner's bracket semifinals. These people have to win only 3 more matches to win the event. Then build out a championship losers bracket with the 8 prior losers playing in 4 matches in round 1. The winner of those matches play the #6s. The winner of those matches play the #5s. The winner of those matches play the #4s. And so on and so on with the #1 losers dropping down as appropriate to fit the bracket. Winner of that bracket plays the winner of the championship bracket in a best of 5 or best of 9 for all the marbles.
What I find interesting about this is that someone can lose in pool play, still end up #1, and win the winner's bracket with a loss on their record. That's not something that could happen in a straight double elimination. It also means there will be a lot of matches amongst the 'name' players. Top 16 from the winter arena along with 8 more who play well at the start of the weekend each play 5 matches with no chance of elimination. The winter arena was great but there were only 2 Idra matches, for example. He's not guaranteed to make pool play but he only needs 2 wins to make it there. Then they're all guaranteed at least one more match in the loser's bracket so the top names all get 6 matches streamed. This has to be a good deal for MLG and for fans.
It's interesting that anyone could have signed up for the open bracket if they were willing to buy a pass. Show up, go on a run, win some cash. The thought is alluring, much like the Magic Pro Tour used to be. Clearly not something I could do, but intriguing nonetheless. Of course they have pretty bad odds of making it very far. After winning 4 matches against other open players they'd then have to beat two of the winter arena competitors to make it into pool play. And there's no bomb draws or mana screw to save you in StarCraft II!
They also posted rewards for finishing well at the event. Top 8 get byes into the spring arena #1 and the 9th through 80th players get to play in the qualifiers for it. Which gets me thinking about how hard it is for someone to fall out of the events. Everyone at the winter arena gets a good number of byes. By the time they could get into the loser's bracket 182 people will have been eliminated. They're guaranteed to be in the top 74! So going to the winter arena and then showing up at the championship is enough to get you on the fast track to qualifying for the spring arena... I think this is a good thing since it allows people to get to know the same players and develop people to cheer for.
On the flip side, one good event is good enough to get rolling. This is particularly useful considering a lot of the best players live on the other side of the world and don't make it over to MLG events all that often. Come over once, do well, and you're on the fast track to getting free flights back. Seems pretty sweet!
Showing posts with label tournaments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tournaments. Show all posts
Friday, March 09, 2012
Monday, February 13, 2012
Swiss Tournament Byes
Some of my old Magic friends from way back when I lived out in New Brunswick are putting together a tournament series out in the Maritimes which sounds interesting. They have a recently set up forum set up here which is getting updated with more information over time about the series and just about Magic in the Maritimes in general.
One of the things they have planned is to award byes to the winners of the first 5 tournaments which get used in a big end of season event. My brother noticed this and was concerned that adding in byes would change how many rounds should be run in the tournament compared to the default 'number of rounds given number of entrants' chart. (Yes, pedantry runs in the family.) He suggested that it could make an interesting 'crunching the numbers' post and I'm all for getting topics to crunch without having to think them up myself. So, here we go...
One of the things they have planned is to award byes to the winners of the first 5 tournaments which get used in a big end of season event. My brother noticed this and was concerned that adding in byes would change how many rounds should be run in the tournament compared to the default 'number of rounds given number of entrants' chart. (Yes, pedantry runs in the family.) He suggested that it could make an interesting 'crunching the numbers' post and I'm all for getting topics to crunch without having to think them up myself. So, here we go...
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Starcraft 2 Winter Arena Qualifiers
I haven't actually been playing games much in the last week after work. Major League Gaming started running their qualifiers for a big tournament later this month and have been streaming the games on their website (MLG.tv) from 7pm each day. They're streaming the games off of replays from the looks of it so I imagine the games have already been played but they're spreading out all the content over 3 weeks building up to the main event. I can't say no to ~50 hours of quality SC2 games!
The winter arena seems like an interesting idea. It's going to be a 32 person invite only event where MLG is paying airfare and hotel for the 32 players who qualify which seems pretty sweet. The $10k first prize isn't too shabby either. They're giving invites to the top 8 players from MLG Providence and then they're holding 3 regional tournaments with the top 8 from each of those qualifying as well. Today marks the last day of the European tournament but there's still a Korean tournament starting on Thursday and the North American one next Thursday. Some of the favourites are missing (Huk and Idra for example have invites from Providence) but it's been pretty great so far. Worth tuning into I think! The schedule is here if you just want to tune in to the final rounds.
The winter arena seems like an interesting idea. It's going to be a 32 person invite only event where MLG is paying airfare and hotel for the 32 players who qualify which seems pretty sweet. The $10k first prize isn't too shabby either. They're giving invites to the top 8 players from MLG Providence and then they're holding 3 regional tournaments with the top 8 from each of those qualifying as well. Today marks the last day of the European tournament but there's still a Korean tournament starting on Thursday and the North American one next Thursday. Some of the favourites are missing (Huk and Idra for example have invites from Providence) but it's been pretty great so far. Worth tuning into I think! The schedule is here if you just want to tune in to the final rounds.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Intel Extreme Masters
There was a pretty big eSports tournament held a couple weeks ago which featured a League of Legends event. I've been slowly making my way through the replays of all the games and there have been some wacky things going on so far. Support Nunu. AP Tristana. AD Kennen. Dogs and cats living together. It's insane! And interesting to watch...
Check it out here...
Check it out here...
Monday, November 14, 2011
Agricola Tournament
Snakes & Lattes is holding another after work tournament later today and the game of choice is going to be Agricola. This is by far the longest and most complex game they've run a tournament for thus far. (Previous tournaments have been for Dominion, Settlers, Ticket To Ride, Carcassonne, Seven Wonders, King of Tokyo, and Puerto Rico.)
I really like Agricola and will use almost any excuse to play the game so I'm certainly going but I have reservations about the tournament format. Agricola is a long game and it's not going to start until after 6 so there's really not enough time to play 3 games. So there's going to be 2 games, and there's 27 people registered so far. The game plays at most 5 to a table... How do you determine a winner?
You could play two rounds of random pairings and hope to only have one person win two games, but that doesn't seem great. Agricola has a high skill threshold so I would imagine there would be multiple two game winners.
You could pair the winners up against each other in some manner but since there are going to be at least 6 winners how do you divide them up? 3 winners playing 3-player games with two people winning the tournament? 3 winners playing 5-player games with some spoilers with the hopes that exactly one table has a double winner?
Put 5 winners at one table and declare the winner of that game to be the overall winner? Has the advantage that you should get a 'good' final table and an undisputed champion. Has the disadvantage that someone who won their first game actually can't win the tournament.
How would you even pick the 5 who advance? Highest score? Largest margin of victory? Largest percentage of second place's score? Largest percentage of the points at your table? None of those options are very good in Agricola since the games play out very differently based on the cards dealt to each player.
Highest score in particular has problems since a game with a lot of food generating cards rates to eat fewer animals/vegetables and therefore should just have more points scored in it than a game where people get most of their food by eating points. It's the same sort of problem that Dominion has with comparing scores between games.
That said, I don't know what I'd do if I was making the decision. (And I don't currently know what decision has been made!) Ideally I'd want to have the games go really fast so there'd be time to play a third game for the 'top five' after two preliminary games with some non-perfect but reasonable way of breaking ties to determine the top five. Possibly you could fix the cards for each seat of the first game to try to deal with the variation from cards and then use largest percentage of points at your table to determine the finalists.
I wouldn't go with a plan that didn't result in a final table. One of the things I like about board game tournaments is the (generally) high quality play that exists at that final game. It's one of the reasons I think the World Boardgaming Championships is so awesome and why the Great Canadian Board Game Blitz is, while fun, not as awesome. I knew when I walked away with 3rd place in Le Havre that I'd gone up against the best and legitimately didn't deserve to win. This year when I came 3rd at the GCBGB (both the Toronto one and the Fan eXpo one) I didn't play a single game against the people ahead of me. Was I better that day than they were? I don't know! I didn't get the opportunity to find out.
At any rate I enjoy playing Agricola so I'm going to go and have fun building an awesome farm.
I really like Agricola and will use almost any excuse to play the game so I'm certainly going but I have reservations about the tournament format. Agricola is a long game and it's not going to start until after 6 so there's really not enough time to play 3 games. So there's going to be 2 games, and there's 27 people registered so far. The game plays at most 5 to a table... How do you determine a winner?
You could play two rounds of random pairings and hope to only have one person win two games, but that doesn't seem great. Agricola has a high skill threshold so I would imagine there would be multiple two game winners.
You could pair the winners up against each other in some manner but since there are going to be at least 6 winners how do you divide them up? 3 winners playing 3-player games with two people winning the tournament? 3 winners playing 5-player games with some spoilers with the hopes that exactly one table has a double winner?
Put 5 winners at one table and declare the winner of that game to be the overall winner? Has the advantage that you should get a 'good' final table and an undisputed champion. Has the disadvantage that someone who won their first game actually can't win the tournament.
How would you even pick the 5 who advance? Highest score? Largest margin of victory? Largest percentage of second place's score? Largest percentage of the points at your table? None of those options are very good in Agricola since the games play out very differently based on the cards dealt to each player.
Highest score in particular has problems since a game with a lot of food generating cards rates to eat fewer animals/vegetables and therefore should just have more points scored in it than a game where people get most of their food by eating points. It's the same sort of problem that Dominion has with comparing scores between games.
That said, I don't know what I'd do if I was making the decision. (And I don't currently know what decision has been made!) Ideally I'd want to have the games go really fast so there'd be time to play a third game for the 'top five' after two preliminary games with some non-perfect but reasonable way of breaking ties to determine the top five. Possibly you could fix the cards for each seat of the first game to try to deal with the variation from cards and then use largest percentage of points at your table to determine the finalists.
I wouldn't go with a plan that didn't result in a final table. One of the things I like about board game tournaments is the (generally) high quality play that exists at that final game. It's one of the reasons I think the World Boardgaming Championships is so awesome and why the Great Canadian Board Game Blitz is, while fun, not as awesome. I knew when I walked away with 3rd place in Le Havre that I'd gone up against the best and legitimately didn't deserve to win. This year when I came 3rd at the GCBGB (both the Toronto one and the Fan eXpo one) I didn't play a single game against the people ahead of me. Was I better that day than they were? I don't know! I didn't get the opportunity to find out.
At any rate I enjoy playing Agricola so I'm going to go and have fun building an awesome farm.
Monday, September 12, 2011
King of Tokyo Tournament
Snakes & Lattes is holding a tournament for the new game, King of Tokyo, today at 6pm. I'm planning on heading down and giving it a spin despite barely knowing how to play and with no expectation that I could win. (See, I play games for fun, honest!) King of Tokyo came out this year and is riding the wave of 'dice games' that have seen success recently. It is designed by Richard Garfield which is a good indicator that the game should be fun.
Now, I've always had a thing for rolling dice. I played an awful lot of Titan in my 20's and a lot of that was the desire to attack with a serpent. (Serpents tended to only hit on a 6 but you got to roll EIGHTEEN dice when you attacked!) From Kismet and Yahtzee through triple-WotC and into the more recent dice games like To Court The King, Ra Dice, and Roll Through The Ages... I love rolling dice.
King of Tokyo doesn't disappoint in that aspect since on your turn you roll six dice and can re-roll any number of those dice twice. It's not quite attacking with a serpent but you can roll eighteen dice on your turn if you want. Instead of rolling normal d6s you roll special dice with weird symbols on them that let you either score points, accumulate power-ups, deal damage, or heal damage. I have no idea what the best plan of attack is and I have hopes that it depends on what the rest of the table is doing. I think you probably want to be doing things they aren't doing. Unfortunately since you're rolling dice with very different possible results it seems like you can't actually plan on doing something specific...
The interesting twist to this game compared to other dice games is there's actually two ways to win. In pretty much every other dice game you're just playing solitaire. Sure, there are some interactions, but you're all just racing to get the most points in the same ways that everyone else is scoring points. King of Tokyo has a standard 'first to 20 points wins' goal but it also features player elimination. You have a fixed amount of health (one of the die faces will heal you) and if you run out you're eliminated. Be the last player standing and you win! This means that accumulating points is good if you can both get to 20 first and survive long enough to get there... But otherwise they're pretty much worthless. If you're trying to just kill everybody then buying powerups and doing damage seem like the ways to go.
Player elimination is a mechanic that has pretty much been eliminated from games I play, and with good reason. Telling someone who made a mistake early that they can't win anymore is one thing, telling them they need to sit and watch for an hour is something else entirely. I don't get to play Titan anymore since if people are going to drive an hour to get to my place they're going to want to play games the whole time. Not some of the time and then just watch for most of the time. I worry that it makes King of Tokyo fun while you're playing and a bit of a bore after you lose which is not good, but maybe the interesting tension in game of the two winning conditions makes up for it.
I'm not sure if the game will work well as a tournament game because of the player elimination. But I guess I normally play games really fast and finish before everyone else does so I have waiting around built in to tournaments anyway...
Now, I've always had a thing for rolling dice. I played an awful lot of Titan in my 20's and a lot of that was the desire to attack with a serpent. (Serpents tended to only hit on a 6 but you got to roll EIGHTEEN dice when you attacked!) From Kismet and Yahtzee through triple-WotC and into the more recent dice games like To Court The King, Ra Dice, and Roll Through The Ages... I love rolling dice.
King of Tokyo doesn't disappoint in that aspect since on your turn you roll six dice and can re-roll any number of those dice twice. It's not quite attacking with a serpent but you can roll eighteen dice on your turn if you want. Instead of rolling normal d6s you roll special dice with weird symbols on them that let you either score points, accumulate power-ups, deal damage, or heal damage. I have no idea what the best plan of attack is and I have hopes that it depends on what the rest of the table is doing. I think you probably want to be doing things they aren't doing. Unfortunately since you're rolling dice with very different possible results it seems like you can't actually plan on doing something specific...
The interesting twist to this game compared to other dice games is there's actually two ways to win. In pretty much every other dice game you're just playing solitaire. Sure, there are some interactions, but you're all just racing to get the most points in the same ways that everyone else is scoring points. King of Tokyo has a standard 'first to 20 points wins' goal but it also features player elimination. You have a fixed amount of health (one of the die faces will heal you) and if you run out you're eliminated. Be the last player standing and you win! This means that accumulating points is good if you can both get to 20 first and survive long enough to get there... But otherwise they're pretty much worthless. If you're trying to just kill everybody then buying powerups and doing damage seem like the ways to go.
Player elimination is a mechanic that has pretty much been eliminated from games I play, and with good reason. Telling someone who made a mistake early that they can't win anymore is one thing, telling them they need to sit and watch for an hour is something else entirely. I don't get to play Titan anymore since if people are going to drive an hour to get to my place they're going to want to play games the whole time. Not some of the time and then just watch for most of the time. I worry that it makes King of Tokyo fun while you're playing and a bit of a bore after you lose which is not good, but maybe the interesting tension in game of the two winning conditions makes up for it.
I'm not sure if the game will work well as a tournament game because of the player elimination. But I guess I normally play games really fast and finish before everyone else does so I have waiting around built in to tournaments anyway...
Sunday, August 21, 2011
Off to Nationals 2
Yesterday started out terribly with 2 losses. Key to those 2 losses were 8 mulligans. I played against Valakut and Splinter Twin and drew no torpor orbs in 3 of the sideboarded games. Oh well. Then I beat a UB control deck.
My first draft deck was 'terrible' but none of my opponents built a deck with enough early drops and my 3 act of treasons actually did something. I 3-0d with no bombs.
My second draft had me open a mythic rare. That colour got cut off so I had to build a 2 colour deck, but it seems ok so far.
More details to follow at a later date.
My first draft deck was 'terrible' but none of my opponents built a deck with enough early drops and my 3 act of treasons actually did something. I 3-0d with no bombs.
My second draft had me open a mythic rare. That colour got cut off so I had to build a 2 colour deck, but it seems ok so far.
More details to follow at a later date.
Saturday, August 20, 2011
Off to Nationals
I went to sleep really early yesterday (8pm) and set my alarm for super early today (5:30am) so I could get to the site in time to register. Then I slept through my alarm for an hour and a half. I think the TTC can still get me there in time but I'm not 100%. I'm tempted to just call a cab from here. Maybe I'll get on the bus and get a feel for traffic. Get off halfway and call a cab from there.
On the plus side I did sleep almost 11 hours so I should be rested and ready to rumble. May I open many mythic rares that aren't bad timetwisters!
On the plus side I did sleep almost 11 hours so I should be rested and ready to rumble. May I open many mythic rares that aren't bad timetwisters!
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Magic the Gathering: Nationals
At the GCBGB event on the weekend I was talking to some people and someone asked if I ever went to 401 Games. (Duncan and Sara run a board game night there every Wednesday, I believe.) I said I hadn't been there for board games before but had been a couple times for Magic. Some people asked if I had any old decks kicking around to play with and I told them I always just borrowed cards from Duncan. Duncan overheard and mentioned that he hasn't actually been keeping up with Magic sets recently but was thinking about starting again, and it came up that Canadian Nationals for Magic are in Toronto this year, and are in the middle of August. Conveniently for me, between the World Boardgaming Championships and Fan eXpo. I've been qualified for Nationals for quite a few years now on rating but I've been steadily slipping. Two years ago I believe it was top 75 in Canada make it in and I was 76th, but tied with 75th so I got in. I went to take a look to see about this year... Top 100 qualify. I am 101st. And tied with 100th. So I'm in, again, barely. (I'm tied with Josh Rider and I seem to recall I was tied with him last time too but I can't actually find any reference to the 2009 invitation list. Google is letting me down! This is why I need to blog about this stuff.)
At any rate, I now have a major Magic tournament going on a short jaunt from my apartment. I guess it's time to learn a constructed format full of cards I've never seen before. And a draft format that doesn't even exist yet. And to find a source of cards to build a constructed deck. Possibly just cash money. I wish there was a deck rental service for Magic...
The official website from the tournament organizer doesn't even say what the format is. The wizards.com site does, in a sense. It says 3 M12 boosters are used but there are two drafts. I'd assume both drafts are the same format but that hasn't always been the case and core set drafts seem weird to use in a major event. At any rate, it turns out M12 isn't even out yet so I can't really get started on practicing the actual format straight away. It comes out on Magic Online on August 1st, while I'm at WBC. Nationals is the second weekend after I get back from WBC so that'll leave almost 2 weeks for playing on Magic Online which should give a reasonable amount of practice. The paper pre-release for M12 is next weekend, July 9th, so I should probably head to that. The release is the next week so hopefully I can find some kind of drafts to get involved in during the second half of July.
As far as constructed goes, the format will include all of the last two blocks, the last core set, and this one. A very full format of which I have no information at all. I did a bunch of drafting with Scars of Mirrodin but the other 7 sets are completely new to me. (M12 being unreleased is new to everyone.) They also just banned two cards so the format should be shaking up from that change along with potential changes from M12. I think I should put a bit of a focus for the next couple weeks on reading up about rules changes in the last two years along with what's going on in post-ban standard to get some ideas percolating in my little brain.
At any rate, I now have a major Magic tournament going on a short jaunt from my apartment. I guess it's time to learn a constructed format full of cards I've never seen before. And a draft format that doesn't even exist yet. And to find a source of cards to build a constructed deck. Possibly just cash money. I wish there was a deck rental service for Magic...
The official website from the tournament organizer doesn't even say what the format is. The wizards.com site does, in a sense. It says 3 M12 boosters are used but there are two drafts. I'd assume both drafts are the same format but that hasn't always been the case and core set drafts seem weird to use in a major event. At any rate, it turns out M12 isn't even out yet so I can't really get started on practicing the actual format straight away. It comes out on Magic Online on August 1st, while I'm at WBC. Nationals is the second weekend after I get back from WBC so that'll leave almost 2 weeks for playing on Magic Online which should give a reasonable amount of practice. The paper pre-release for M12 is next weekend, July 9th, so I should probably head to that. The release is the next week so hopefully I can find some kind of drafts to get involved in during the second half of July.
As far as constructed goes, the format will include all of the last two blocks, the last core set, and this one. A very full format of which I have no information at all. I did a bunch of drafting with Scars of Mirrodin but the other 7 sets are completely new to me. (M12 being unreleased is new to everyone.) They also just banned two cards so the format should be shaking up from that change along with potential changes from M12. I think I should put a bit of a focus for the next couple weeks on reading up about rules changes in the last two years along with what's going on in post-ban standard to get some ideas percolating in my little brain.
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Great Canadian Board Game Blitz: Toronto - 2011 Recap
Yesterday was the Toronto GCBGB event held in the back room of a pretty nice pub in downtown Toronto. It was definitely a fun time with a lot of new faces in attendance. Overall 21 people showed up to play at some point during the day with a couple people only playing a few rounds. One change to the format this time is they didn't run any 5 player games. I believe the reason was time concerns (many games just take 25% longer with 5 people instead of 4) though I think for scoring purposes it's pretty bad too. Of course with 21 people we ended up playing a lot of 3 player games which have scoring concerns of their own. Oh well. Off to the games!
Round 1 - Bohnanza, 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, Wizard, Dominion, San Juan
I was randomly assigned to pick 5th. We had 18 people to start off so we were going to be playing 3 4-player games and 2 3-player games. When it was my turn to pick I could still pick any game I wanted so I went with San Juan. It is both the game I'd enjoy playing and the game I think I have the best chance of winning so it was the obvious choice. We ended up being one of the 3 player games. A 19th player showed up just before the game start and he chose to join the other 3 player game instead of ours so we were the only 3 player game in the round. One of the other players had played before, the other hadn't. In fact, the guy who had played before was in my game of San Juan last year too. He seemed vastly improved from then when I think he was pretty new to the game.
The game opened with righty going first and building. I played a tobacco storage. I never crafted or sold myself and it remained my only trading related card for the game but just having it in play meant I wasn't falling behind when they were crafting and selling either. I followed it up with a carpenter, a cycled archive, and then a quarry. With the purple building combo in play I went into playing lots of purple buildings and actually ended up building almost all the good ones. Chapel, then library, then prefecture. I didn't end up with a large building but I did build all 3 statues as well as putting 6 cards under the chapel. I ended the game and was multiple buildings ahead of the other players, I think. One had a zumft hall with a good selection of production buildings but it wasn't quite enough as I won by 7.
Round 2 - Alhambra, Ra, Roll Through the Ages, Saint Petersburg, Medici, Glen More
This round featured 2 games I've never player before, one I've played exactly once, and one I really dislike. Picking 5th last meant I might have been in a bad spot but fortunately one of the two games I like and know was still available. I hadn't played it in like 2 years (since WBC2009 I think) but figured I could pick it back up again. The game was Saint Petersburg and featured 2 new players, myself, and the guy from San Juan who seemed like he really knew the game.
I opened up in the noble seat on the first turn and we ended up only taking 1 building off the board in the building phase. That meant I got the only noble on the first turn which was a pretty big boost to my game. I then managed to manipulate the board such that we'd get 6 workers on the second worker turn when I happened to be 2nd. Those two things combined meant I was making 15 gold a turn compared to 12, 9, and 9 from my opponents. After another turn I pretty much stopped generating more income and focused exclusively on victory point buildings, managed to snag the 7 point per turn building pretty early on. I ended up winning very handily 84-65-58-55.
Round 3 - Ingenious, Ticket to Ride, Two by Two, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Thurn and Taxis, Yspahan
I got to pick first in this round which seems like it should be good. Unfortunately there isn't a single game in this selection that I both know and tolerate. If I'd been thinking ahead I would have played some T&T on BSW last week to refresh myself on the game so I could have played it. I don't really like the game though, and since I didn't know it either I stayed away. I ended up picking Ticket to Ride which is the only game from the set that I thought I knew.
I was doing pretty well for myself in the game and was in a good position near the end of the game. I counted my cards in hand and trains left and figured out I could end the game in like 3 actions. Instead I went for more tickets. Now, I had 6 yellow cards in hand and was connected to the 6 yellow and the 5 yellow so I had a pretty good chance of pulling a ticket near my track worth a fair amount. Observant people will note I said I had 6 yellow in hand and there was still a 6 yellow track in play. I could have taken it and ended the game in 2 turns. That seems strong. Instead I went for tickets. One I could do trivially, building just one 3 track. Great! Then there was another I could do with the same 3 track, and the 6 yellow, and a singleton. I decided to keep it as well despite knowing fully well that I could have ended the game in 3 turns and therefore someone else probably could have too. (One guy built a bunch of 6s and didn't go for tickets ever either, so it should have been obvious that I wasn't getting 3 more turns if he didn't want me to.) He then immediately built the 6 yellow, dropping down to 4 trains in stock. The game ended one turn later, so I both only got 2 turns and didn't get to build the 6. I ended up coming a pretty distant 3rd place. In fact I was exactly the negative point value of the route I took, so I could have tied for 1st if I'd just taken the 1 ticket. Probably I just win if I build the 6 yellow myself instead of taking tickets at all. The guy who came last was actually the guy building all the 6s. It turns out he got spited out of a critical piece of track and failed to do all of his tickets.
Round 4 - Egizia, Puerto Rico, Santiago, Stone Age, Settlers of Catan, Container
By this point we were up to 21 people so we were playing 3 3-player games and 3 4-player games. All 6 games were now included. I was tied for 3rd at this point, with Duncan. This round featured 3 games I've never played before, 2 I have played a ton but don't like, and 1 I both like and know. Stone Age time! It ended up being a 3 player game. In fact only 2 people had chosen it when the last person was to pick and she was forced to play it. Neither of them had played before but both seemed interested in playing it and both seemed like they wanted to play again later so that's good. The game itself was less good. There are things about Stone Age that you just can't know until you've played it at least once, like how to properly value the different cards. I ended up winning by over 100 points.
Round 5 - Agricola, Power Grid, Caylus, Tigris & Euphrates, El Grande, Steam
Everyone ahead of me or tied with me lost in round 4, so I was back at the top of the pack. This round had lots of interesting options, and I almost wish I was 2nd going into the round instead of 1st. Someone asked me what I'd do if I was 2nd and I said I'd go to whatever game 1st picked (unless they picked the one game I didn't know). Sadly no one else seemed to feel that way as the top 6 all chose a different game. As for what I was going to pick, well, Steam was out since I've never played it. I think El Grande is terrible with 3 players and didn't want to risk it. I just don't like Caylus and would never pick it over Agricola since I think Agricola solved the problems Caylus has. So it was down to Agricola, Power Grid, and Tigris & Euphrates all of which I like to play and think I'm pretty good at. I went with Tigris & Euphrates since I never get to play it and wanted to practice for WBC. It ended up being a 3 player game with 1 new player which was a little unfortunate. I would have prefered a 4 player game. In retrospect I probably should have gone with Agricola since I like it a lot with 3 or 4.
The game itself featured me beating up on the new player and the 3rd player building an empire with 2 monuments in it. I screwed up a blight and failed to take over one of the monuments when I really needed to, and after that failure (using my last blight) it was very hard to stop him. I managed to set up one chance where we would do an external red fight. Red was both of our lowest numbers by far and the winner of the fight was going to score up 5 or 6 red points. He ended up having enough to successfully defend (I had to attack since he was guaranteed to win since he had a red monument) and as such won by an incredible margin. 16-8-7.
Coming second in the last round meant a lot of people could pass me with a win. It turned out two people did so. Sara and Duncan. Both of whom already have passes to Fan Expo since they're volunteering for the gaming convention. So while I didn't end up actually winning (exclusively to that screw up in Ticket to Ride!) I did get the prize I wanted. And as an added bonus I got to play 2 games on Roll Through the Ages with Sara and Duncan afterwards. Fun game. I'll probably try to pick it up since it's short and similar to Ra! Dice but better.
Round 1 - Bohnanza, 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, Wizard, Dominion, San Juan
I was randomly assigned to pick 5th. We had 18 people to start off so we were going to be playing 3 4-player games and 2 3-player games. When it was my turn to pick I could still pick any game I wanted so I went with San Juan. It is both the game I'd enjoy playing and the game I think I have the best chance of winning so it was the obvious choice. We ended up being one of the 3 player games. A 19th player showed up just before the game start and he chose to join the other 3 player game instead of ours so we were the only 3 player game in the round. One of the other players had played before, the other hadn't. In fact, the guy who had played before was in my game of San Juan last year too. He seemed vastly improved from then when I think he was pretty new to the game.
The game opened with righty going first and building. I played a tobacco storage. I never crafted or sold myself and it remained my only trading related card for the game but just having it in play meant I wasn't falling behind when they were crafting and selling either. I followed it up with a carpenter, a cycled archive, and then a quarry. With the purple building combo in play I went into playing lots of purple buildings and actually ended up building almost all the good ones. Chapel, then library, then prefecture. I didn't end up with a large building but I did build all 3 statues as well as putting 6 cards under the chapel. I ended the game and was multiple buildings ahead of the other players, I think. One had a zumft hall with a good selection of production buildings but it wasn't quite enough as I won by 7.
Round 2 - Alhambra, Ra, Roll Through the Ages, Saint Petersburg, Medici, Glen More
This round featured 2 games I've never player before, one I've played exactly once, and one I really dislike. Picking 5th last meant I might have been in a bad spot but fortunately one of the two games I like and know was still available. I hadn't played it in like 2 years (since WBC2009 I think) but figured I could pick it back up again. The game was Saint Petersburg and featured 2 new players, myself, and the guy from San Juan who seemed like he really knew the game.
I opened up in the noble seat on the first turn and we ended up only taking 1 building off the board in the building phase. That meant I got the only noble on the first turn which was a pretty big boost to my game. I then managed to manipulate the board such that we'd get 6 workers on the second worker turn when I happened to be 2nd. Those two things combined meant I was making 15 gold a turn compared to 12, 9, and 9 from my opponents. After another turn I pretty much stopped generating more income and focused exclusively on victory point buildings, managed to snag the 7 point per turn building pretty early on. I ended up winning very handily 84-65-58-55.
Round 3 - Ingenious, Ticket to Ride, Two by Two, Ticket to Ride: Europe, Thurn and Taxis, Yspahan
I got to pick first in this round which seems like it should be good. Unfortunately there isn't a single game in this selection that I both know and tolerate. If I'd been thinking ahead I would have played some T&T on BSW last week to refresh myself on the game so I could have played it. I don't really like the game though, and since I didn't know it either I stayed away. I ended up picking Ticket to Ride which is the only game from the set that I thought I knew.
I was doing pretty well for myself in the game and was in a good position near the end of the game. I counted my cards in hand and trains left and figured out I could end the game in like 3 actions. Instead I went for more tickets. Now, I had 6 yellow cards in hand and was connected to the 6 yellow and the 5 yellow so I had a pretty good chance of pulling a ticket near my track worth a fair amount. Observant people will note I said I had 6 yellow in hand and there was still a 6 yellow track in play. I could have taken it and ended the game in 2 turns. That seems strong. Instead I went for tickets. One I could do trivially, building just one 3 track. Great! Then there was another I could do with the same 3 track, and the 6 yellow, and a singleton. I decided to keep it as well despite knowing fully well that I could have ended the game in 3 turns and therefore someone else probably could have too. (One guy built a bunch of 6s and didn't go for tickets ever either, so it should have been obvious that I wasn't getting 3 more turns if he didn't want me to.) He then immediately built the 6 yellow, dropping down to 4 trains in stock. The game ended one turn later, so I both only got 2 turns and didn't get to build the 6. I ended up coming a pretty distant 3rd place. In fact I was exactly the negative point value of the route I took, so I could have tied for 1st if I'd just taken the 1 ticket. Probably I just win if I build the 6 yellow myself instead of taking tickets at all. The guy who came last was actually the guy building all the 6s. It turns out he got spited out of a critical piece of track and failed to do all of his tickets.
Round 4 - Egizia, Puerto Rico, Santiago, Stone Age, Settlers of Catan, Container
By this point we were up to 21 people so we were playing 3 3-player games and 3 4-player games. All 6 games were now included. I was tied for 3rd at this point, with Duncan. This round featured 3 games I've never played before, 2 I have played a ton but don't like, and 1 I both like and know. Stone Age time! It ended up being a 3 player game. In fact only 2 people had chosen it when the last person was to pick and she was forced to play it. Neither of them had played before but both seemed interested in playing it and both seemed like they wanted to play again later so that's good. The game itself was less good. There are things about Stone Age that you just can't know until you've played it at least once, like how to properly value the different cards. I ended up winning by over 100 points.
Round 5 - Agricola, Power Grid, Caylus, Tigris & Euphrates, El Grande, Steam
Everyone ahead of me or tied with me lost in round 4, so I was back at the top of the pack. This round had lots of interesting options, and I almost wish I was 2nd going into the round instead of 1st. Someone asked me what I'd do if I was 2nd and I said I'd go to whatever game 1st picked (unless they picked the one game I didn't know). Sadly no one else seemed to feel that way as the top 6 all chose a different game. As for what I was going to pick, well, Steam was out since I've never played it. I think El Grande is terrible with 3 players and didn't want to risk it. I just don't like Caylus and would never pick it over Agricola since I think Agricola solved the problems Caylus has. So it was down to Agricola, Power Grid, and Tigris & Euphrates all of which I like to play and think I'm pretty good at. I went with Tigris & Euphrates since I never get to play it and wanted to practice for WBC. It ended up being a 3 player game with 1 new player which was a little unfortunate. I would have prefered a 4 player game. In retrospect I probably should have gone with Agricola since I like it a lot with 3 or 4.
The game itself featured me beating up on the new player and the 3rd player building an empire with 2 monuments in it. I screwed up a blight and failed to take over one of the monuments when I really needed to, and after that failure (using my last blight) it was very hard to stop him. I managed to set up one chance where we would do an external red fight. Red was both of our lowest numbers by far and the winner of the fight was going to score up 5 or 6 red points. He ended up having enough to successfully defend (I had to attack since he was guaranteed to win since he had a red monument) and as such won by an incredible margin. 16-8-7.
Coming second in the last round meant a lot of people could pass me with a win. It turned out two people did so. Sara and Duncan. Both of whom already have passes to Fan Expo since they're volunteering for the gaming convention. So while I didn't end up actually winning (exclusively to that screw up in Ticket to Ride!) I did get the prize I wanted. And as an added bonus I got to play 2 games on Roll Through the Ages with Sara and Duncan afterwards. Fun game. I'll probably try to pick it up since it's short and similar to Ra! Dice but better.
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Great Canadian Board Game Blitz: Toronto - 2011
The crazy tournament from last year is back and is being held this Saturday at a downtown pub. There's a Facebook event with more information here.
Monday, June 20, 2011
FnaticMSI wins!
The League of Legends season 1 championship has ended and Team FnaticMSI pulled out the win. I missed the games during the day since I was at work but the final match started right when I got home. Pretty sweet games in the final and throughout the weekend. I saw some heroes used in new ways and now have a strong desire to try them out and see what I can do.
The team I was rooting for sadly didn't make it to the finals, finishing in 3rd place. They did pick Vayne some of the time, but I actually saw Vayne work in a game. Laning with Janna and her shield (absorbs some damage taken and gives her some attack damage) seemed like it actually worked out pretty well.
The team I was rooting for sadly didn't make it to the finals, finishing in 3rd place. They did pick Vayne some of the time, but I actually saw Vayne work in a game. Laning with Janna and her shield (absorbs some damage taken and gives her some attack damage) seemed like it actually worked out pretty well.
Saturday, June 18, 2011
Coin Toss Tournament
I was doing some reading on Dreamhack and came across a qualification tournament for the main Starcraft 2 event at Dreamhack. Essentially you had a 64 person single elimination tournament set up. The top 2 from that tournament qualified for Dreamhack. The winner of that tournament got to play a series against a known pro with 10000 SEK on the line. (Swedish Kronen, with an approximate value of $1500 Canadian.) It's not clear but I know the League of Legends qualifications came with airfare and hotel so it's possible this event did too. Either way the prizes seem pretty sweet. (First place at the Dreamhack main tournament is 100000 SEK, so $15k. It's noteworthy that the LoL tournament has a first place prize of $50k, though it is split 5 ways. I'd have thought the SC2 event would be worth a lot more but I guess Riot is really trying to pump up the LoL tournament scene.)
At any rate the qualifier tournament had an interesting twist. I asked Andrew about it and his opinion on the format agreed with mine and I wanted to solicit some other opinions on the matter. I will post my reaction to the format at a later date.
The twist? Most of the rounds were best of 3 matches of Starcraft 2. The 2nd and 4th rounds, however, were determined solely by flipping a coin. Thoughts?
At any rate the qualifier tournament had an interesting twist. I asked Andrew about it and his opinion on the format agreed with mine and I wanted to solicit some other opinions on the matter. I will post my reaction to the format at a later date.
The twist? Most of the rounds were best of 3 matches of Starcraft 2. The 2nd and 4th rounds, however, were determined solely by flipping a coin. Thoughts?
Friday, June 17, 2011
Dreamhack!
Dreamhack is being held this weekend in lovely Sweden. According to Wikipedia it would seem that Dreamhack is the world's largest LAN event with lots of tournaments and gaming stuffs going on. Apparently 10% of attendees are female which sounds high (and yet so terribly low).
At any rate, the reason I care is that they're running the season one championship for League of Legends this weekend, and also a large Starcraft 2 tournament. Both events are going to be streamed live. Many casters are going to be streaming the SC2 games, with Day[9] being the most prominent one. (SC2 is running 5 games at a time to get everything done so other people will be casting games at the same time.) League of Legends seems to be running one match at a time so they're just going to have the one stream going. (LoL has 8 teams, SC2 has 48 players.)
The only downside is the event is in Sweden and it turns out that's on another side of the world and they haven't yet switched over to being awake at night and asleep during the day so their video game streams sync up with my life. (Work on that, Sweden!) The LoL stream at least starts at 4:30 am my time. I'm considering setting an alarm and waking up extra early...
I don't know much about many of the teams (though I did manage to catch the last few matches of the north american qualifier series a few weeks ago) but I'm going to pretty arbitrarily root for team Solomid. I just hope they don't draft Vayne, I never see anyone win with her. 8P
At any rate, the reason I care is that they're running the season one championship for League of Legends this weekend, and also a large Starcraft 2 tournament. Both events are going to be streamed live. Many casters are going to be streaming the SC2 games, with Day[9] being the most prominent one. (SC2 is running 5 games at a time to get everything done so other people will be casting games at the same time.) League of Legends seems to be running one match at a time so they're just going to have the one stream going. (LoL has 8 teams, SC2 has 48 players.)
The only downside is the event is in Sweden and it turns out that's on another side of the world and they haven't yet switched over to being awake at night and asleep during the day so their video game streams sync up with my life. (Work on that, Sweden!) The LoL stream at least starts at 4:30 am my time. I'm considering setting an alarm and waking up extra early...
I don't know much about many of the teams (though I did manage to catch the last few matches of the north american qualifier series a few weeks ago) but I'm going to pretty arbitrarily root for team Solomid. I just hope they don't draft Vayne, I never see anyone win with her. 8P
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Puerto Rico Results
Yesterday I played 3 games of Puerto Rico in the Snakes and Lattes tournament. At one point I was talking with the guy who came second and he asked a question about if PR just wasn't my type of game. (I didn't win any of the rounds.) I told him I found it a bit too random and he disagreed saying even with people taking completely random actions he found it fun to try to figure out what they'd do anyway and position himself to take advantage.
I can recall thinking similar things about the game a while ago. When I first played PR I hated it because it seemed too random. (And I played exclusively 5 player games which didn't help matters.) Then I started really liking it and eventually felt like I could make the game flow the way I wanted. And then I started thinking it was too random again. So did I learn something or did I just get worse? It's hard to say. I certainly haven't played much recently and was very surprised at some of the moves people made yesterday. Some of which I'm pretty sure were just terrible but others might have been smart and I just missed how.
I certainly lost one game just by not paying enough attention. The guy to my right wasn't announcing what he was doing. He was just reaching across the table to grab things and such, and I completely missed that he'd picked up a coffee plantation. He was constantly leaning over his board and I couldn't see what he had unless I asked him to move. So when he called settler and I had the money to build coffee I grabbed a coffee plantation and immediately built coffee. If I build tobacco instead I may well have won. Instead he spent the rest of the game trying to screw me. (Because he wanted to sell coffee himself, see, even though it was another 3 rounds before he even had a roaster.) If I was playing tighter I'd have known what he had or would have forced him to announce his moves like everyone else. But I guess I didn't really care and the result showed.
On the plus side I got to play two games of Factory Fun afterwards. I love that game. I think I may go on an adventure to see if I can find a copy...
I can recall thinking similar things about the game a while ago. When I first played PR I hated it because it seemed too random. (And I played exclusively 5 player games which didn't help matters.) Then I started really liking it and eventually felt like I could make the game flow the way I wanted. And then I started thinking it was too random again. So did I learn something or did I just get worse? It's hard to say. I certainly haven't played much recently and was very surprised at some of the moves people made yesterday. Some of which I'm pretty sure were just terrible but others might have been smart and I just missed how.
I certainly lost one game just by not paying enough attention. The guy to my right wasn't announcing what he was doing. He was just reaching across the table to grab things and such, and I completely missed that he'd picked up a coffee plantation. He was constantly leaning over his board and I couldn't see what he had unless I asked him to move. So when he called settler and I had the money to build coffee I grabbed a coffee plantation and immediately built coffee. If I build tobacco instead I may well have won. Instead he spent the rest of the game trying to screw me. (Because he wanted to sell coffee himself, see, even though it was another 3 rounds before he even had a roaster.) If I was playing tighter I'd have known what he had or would have forced him to announce his moves like everyone else. But I guess I didn't really care and the result showed.
On the plus side I got to play two games of Factory Fun afterwards. I love that game. I think I may go on an adventure to see if I can find a copy...
BMI: 22.01 (0)
Wii Fit Age: 28 (-3)
Monday, May 16, 2011
Puerto Rico Tournament
Snakes & Lattes has taken to holding various board game tournaments every month or so. To date the games have been on the easier end of the spectrum with Dominion, Settlers, and 7 Wonders. Today they're running a Puerto Rico event which is certainly wading into the deep end of complexity. (Boardgamegeek gives it a 3.3 on the 'game weight' scale. Dominion is 2.4, Settlers is 2.4, 7 Wonders is 2.2. So, a pretty significant bump if you believe the bgg ratings.)
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this game. It has my second least favourite game mechanic (public-private information) and I often find you play the game for a while and then someone chooses who wins. Because people rarely accurately track the 'hidden' victory points the result can seem pretty random. (And if they are properly tracking points, well, it just becomes king-making entirely.) Also, during the game, the actions people take can drastically impact who does well. I wish I had some numbers in terms of winner's position relative to where craftsman in particular gets called.
On the positive hand it's relatively short, every decision matters, has many feasible strategies, and is pretty fun. Even with it being removed from BSW for years it's still my 4th most played game. (And really it should be 3rd. It counts each hand of Tichu as a full game in the stats.) Only Can't Stop and Backgammon are ahead of it and they're realistically both 2 player games so Puerto Rico is my most played multi-player game by far.
I like to play it and feel I have a decent grasp on how to win. I just get frustrated when I lose for reasons outside my control. Or at least, for what seem to be outside my control. Maybe I need to re-examine how I'm playing after I lose to see if I could have done something better...
At any rate, I'm heading there right after work and could well be there until tomorrow so I'm probably going to miss my weigh-in today. Oh well!
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with this game. It has my second least favourite game mechanic (public-private information) and I often find you play the game for a while and then someone chooses who wins. Because people rarely accurately track the 'hidden' victory points the result can seem pretty random. (And if they are properly tracking points, well, it just becomes king-making entirely.) Also, during the game, the actions people take can drastically impact who does well. I wish I had some numbers in terms of winner's position relative to where craftsman in particular gets called.
On the positive hand it's relatively short, every decision matters, has many feasible strategies, and is pretty fun. Even with it being removed from BSW for years it's still my 4th most played game. (And really it should be 3rd. It counts each hand of Tichu as a full game in the stats.) Only Can't Stop and Backgammon are ahead of it and they're realistically both 2 player games so Puerto Rico is my most played multi-player game by far.
I like to play it and feel I have a decent grasp on how to win. I just get frustrated when I lose for reasons outside my control. Or at least, for what seem to be outside my control. Maybe I need to re-examine how I'm playing after I lose to see if I could have done something better...
At any rate, I'm heading there right after work and could well be there until tomorrow so I'm probably going to miss my weigh-in today. Oh well!
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