Arco den Boer's Tournament Report

Somewhat late (just returned from Canada), but nevertheless enjoyable
I hope, here's my report on my trip to worlds in Montreal, Canada. It
will focus less on the tournaments and more on the overall
experience, as my memories of the games I played already faded. In my
report you will also find some points of critique, but I should start
to say that the orginazing committee did a great job organizing
worlds. They put in much more effort than the locals did in Amsterdam
last year and I feel I owe them eternally for such a great experience.

My flight to Montreal was without any delay, so at about 2 PM on
thursday 23rd I arrived at the Best Western Europe hotel in downtown
Montreal. The person at the desk was very unfriendly and unhelpful,
but after a while I finally got the key to my room and settled. I
hated the room: very dark with just one window looking out on a blind
wall without the possibility to open it for fresh air. The airco gave
me headsaches and nosebleeds (for those who wondered what happened to
my infamous nose ring: I had to take it out for that reason).

When I came down in the lobby Charles Jenkins and Spencer Carney just
got the same treatment at the desk. Nice start! We went out for a
bite, got a couple cases of beer and went up to the sunny roof
terrace to talk about ourselves and worlds. Funny how I expected
Spence to be the older, respectable family man, writing for
Hemispheres, whereas he turned out to be this college jock type, very
much into having a beer and a laugh.

Around 6 PM room mate Luc from Belgium arrived and we went to Charles
and Spences room for the draft. I put a note on my door for the
others who might come over for the draft. Big mistake! The desk
woulnd't let Joe and friends up to my room so they didn't get the
note. So we played multiplayer. Charles wrote all about his glorious
vitory. During the game, Andy and Bill Kenyon, who were sharing the
room with Charles and Spence arrived.

The next day, we were off to the library to meet the players and for
the open qualifier and my Dutch sealed deck. I didn't get much from
what happened during the qualifier except that you needed 12 TP out
of 4 rounds for one of the 21 slots in the semi-finals. Dutch sealed
went rather smooth with 10 players/3 rounds. Many got the Lure of
Nature misprints in their packs. Simone de Ruyter won.

Later that night we had dinner together and started the drinking
game. Unfortunatly the drinking game started so late that we couln't
properly finish it. By the time I knew how to get the most out of the
rules (take a shot to draw a card every turn, take a shot to untap a
character once a turn, take 2 shots to adjust a roll afterwards once
a turn) the bar was closing. After I lost to Jimmy Chen, he made me
drink 2 shots of his "girly drink" and he kept reminding me of that
for the whole weekend. Jimmy, I actaully enjoyed that drink, that's
why you had to buy another one.

Saturday was semi-finals. I promised to play hero during worlds after
my victory in Dutch championships with the overpowered Balrog deck.
So I did. I built a new Gondor deck against hero, based on the red
arrow/theoden/riders theme, with Aragorn/return of the king/white
tree in the sideboard. I had played it only twice so far so I wasn't
very familiar with it, although the basics are known. Just pick up
many factions, some items, an ally and bring many characters into
play at their homesites or with a chance meeting. Hazards were based
around Beorning skin-changers backed up with targeted creatures,
rivers and tappers to slow my opponents down. I decided to not play
the successful agent/seek part to speed games up, bmuch to my regret
afterwards. Against minions I played my yet undefeated version of the
Elrond/big elves deck. Hazards were geared towards stopping Balrogs
playing more than one MP card per turn or none at all.

First round I played Alicia from Joe Bisz' group, who ofcourse played
One Ring. I must have been asleep because instead of going for 25 MP
and cycling as soon as possible, I made the mistake to go for lots of
MP. She played the deck well, although she almost lost the game by
Khamuling me twice, helping me through my deck. My hazards came too
slow and wrong so she dunked on me. My first loss ever to a one ring
deck and a costly one, it turned out.

End of part one.

Arco


Erratum to part one: it was Brian (from USA) who shared the room with
Spencer e.a., not Andy.

So I lost my first game of semi-finals 7-0. With 30 players and only
4 rounds this meant no finals for me. Somewhat frustrating, but why
not enjoy the rest of the games.

Round 2 was against James Gutt. He hadn't played for a while and it
showed. I had no idea what his deck was about and he was unlucky all
the time. My Elves did a great job and were untouchable. An easy 6-0
against his minions.

Round 3 against Stephane, with his big Troll Lts. This was the
perfect WWF matchup. My Elrond+sons against his 2 lts. My  hazards
against minions were geared towards Balrogs above ground, but didn't
hurt him much. He on the other hand managed to wound all my
characters during my first turn and on top of that he attacked me
immediatly after that. The Elves survived all this and managed to
return to Rivendell safely. Soon they were ready to start over again
and better prepared. I closed on him soon and when, towards the end
of the game, the trolls thought they could burn down Lorien and get
away with it, the Elves charged back and wounded his lts. It was a
close 4-2 for me and lots of fun.

Round 4 against Josh Grace was a classic King under the Mountain
against Return of the King. We managed to slow eachother down
somewhat but nothing serious. Josh's dwarf managed to become King and
so did Aragorn. He lost his only item during the council though, so I
doubled mine for a 6-0.

Now I was ready to face one of those Balrogs or FWs that made it to
the finals but I didn't get the chance. Hopefully next year's
organization will stick to the rules of Swiss and allow 5 rounds or
allow less people in the semi-finals. Ofcourse if I hadn't lost the
first game...

Good thing is the Elf-deck is still undefeated and I really love to
play this deck. I will definatly play it again and try to make it
even better. Also I am not done with the other deck yet so I will
keep it as well.

Next day was finals, American nationals and country cup day. Brian
Wong won finals and I am really happy for him because he deserved it,
even if it took him to play Balrog.

The country cup is a very cool idea but still needs a lot of work.
Wim Heemskerk and me were the Dutch team. To start off each player
got 2 starters and lots of boosters. Also we had to build 30/30
decks. Very generous, but this meant we were almost playing
constructed. Opening and sorting so many cards takes a lot of time
that we should have used for more playtime.

Contrary to playing 30/30 decks we would be playing 60 minutes rounds
and 6 of them. ??????????????? Effectively each player got about 3
turns per game max. and nobody got even halfway through their decks.

The games themselves were much fun and after 3 rounds we were
undefeated and had to face the UK team. With their insane rolls and
their "wild" sitecards, that could be any site during a given game,
and being the only team to have such cards (the other teams just
added the allowed 2 sitecards per team from own sitedeck), they
proved too hard to beat. Round 5 and 6 would be played after dinner,
round 5 being against Belgium for the right to play the UK in the
finals. I was rather tired after 4 days of playing so I proposed not
to play those rounds and enjoy my dinner and a drink instead, which
was gladly accepted by the other teams. Cheers to the UK team!

So what did we learn? Stick to the rules of country cup as invented
by Daniel Spronk, also to be found in the worlds program book.
-Rounds should be 1.5-2 hours and 3-4 rounds with 8 teams will be
more than enough (I'd say 3 rounds of 2 hours).
-2 starters and 6 boosters per team will do and you will even get
better decks than in regular sealed.
-Stick to the rules for deckbuilding in regular sealed.

Monday was American nationals finals. In the morning Luc and I were
glad to check out of the hotel, but not before we got charged
$20/night more than agreed on when booking the room. I went with Luc,
Wim and Simone for a siteseeing tour guided by Steve. We got to see
the altar in Notre Dame that appears on the Tolen Mar sitecard. After
finals Luc and I met up with Dave and his wife Wendy, whose
appartment we would share for the next 2 days. Wow, this apartment
was amazing: in the middle of old Montreal and very cheap. Dave and
Wendy were very pleasant people to share an appartment with.

Tuesday Luc and I went for more siteseeing, such as Chinatown, the
local gameshops and Mont Real. For the evening Brian the champ, Anne
and Jimmy Chen came over for dinner. Dave and Wendy cooked a great
vegetarian meal (to which I added my "patatoes from the oven") and
later Francois (local) came over as well.

Wednesday was split up day. Dave and Wendy left for NYC, Luc went
home and I went to beautiful Quebec City. On friday I returned to
Montreal to watch the football (soccer) qualifier between Ireland and
Netherlands. I spent the night with Francois and his family and
learned how to play the Harry Potter cardgame in his gameroom. We
lost the game against Ireland and will not be at worlds in Japan/
Korea.

Same day, after a visit to the biodome, Montreal tower and the movies
Planet of the Apes (boring) and Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back
(funny), I travelled 1000 km. to Gaspe penisula for some great
nature. Met a very nice German girl with whom I spent the next couple
of days. Towards the end of my trip I visited Tadoussac, famous for
it's whales. That was impressive. In the end I travelled a total of
3000 km. by bus, but a look on the map shows I only saw little of the
immense province of Quebec. Last in Canada night I spent with the
German girl in Montreal.

My trip to Canada again proved that MECCG worlds is more than just
playing the game. You get to see something of the world, meet great
people and have a great time. I urge everyone to try it at least
once.

I have done quite some complaining in this report, but all in all
worlds in Montreal was a great success. Lots of thanks to Steven,
Gary, Dave, Jimmy and whoever I forgot. Also thanks to Luc for being
a great companion and Francois Petitclerc for helping me out and
being excellent company.

Some final thoughts:
-For next worlds it would be smart to rent a joint accomodation for
everyone to stay at. It doesn't have to be luxurious, we will be
playing all the time anyways. This way we can keep the costs as low
as possible for everyone.
-I keep wondering howcome Amricans seem to marry and have kids
approx. 10 years earlier than Europeans do, if they marry at all (UK
seems somewhere in the middle here). Is this Anglo/American culture/
tradition? Please enlighten me.
-I am still amazed by Jimmy Chen, who is only 17 years old and in 2nd
year of McGill University. He must be unbelievably intelligent (he
and Gene Berry played the only "new" decks to appear during worlds),
but I wonder how a kid survives in the big world.

Enough about worlds. Thanks if you made it to the end.

Hope to see you all next year in Europe.

Arco