MECCG at StrategiCon LAX - Gateway 2015! Labor Day Weekend!

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TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Greetings All,

Many thanks to everyone who attended the MECCG events at Gamex 2015 over the Memorial Day weekend! Am pleased to announce that there will be Middle Earth CCG at the Gateway 2015 this coming Labor Day weekend! We have submitted the following event schedule to the organizers, and we expect our requested start times will be approved:

- Friday, 4 Sept: 7:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda.
- Saturday, 5 Sept: 1:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda.
- Saturday, 5 Sept: 6:00 PM - Hero vs Hero Constructed.
- Sunday, 6 Sept: 1:00 PM - Open Constructed (Hero/Minion/Fallen Wizard).
- Sunday, 6 Sept: 7:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda.

Please message back to let us know if you'll be attending, so we can prepare accordingly. It will be an awesome weekend--looking forward to seeing everyone!

TradewindRider
(formerly traderider)

P.S.

(1) The location of Gateway 2015 is: Hilton Los Angeles Airport, 5711 W Century Blvd., Los Angeles, California 90045.
(2) Here is the link for the convention: http://www.strategicon.net/index.php
curiousgene
Posts: 9
Joined: Mon Sep 19, 2011 5:18 pm
Location: Los Angeles, CA
Contact:

I'll be there Saturday afternoon and all day Sunday. I'm going to attempt, possibly foolishly, to play a FW (which I've never done against a living person before).

My style of play, such as it is, seems to be "lose badly", though, so I imagine it can't really go any worse than any of my other games. Still, I'm bringing a hero deck as well, in case I need to lose less badly.
JeekElem
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:03 pm

I'm signed up for Saturday and Sunday, not sure about Friday right now.
TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Greetings All,

Just a reminder, we are only 2 weeks away from the MECCG events at the LAX Hilton! The event schedule is unchanged, and proxies are just fine for the Hero vs Hero and the Open Constructed tournaments--though the proxies should look *reasonable* and be readable. :D

CuriousGene and JeekElem, thanks for signing up! We'll be sure to be on top of not only the rules/errata for Hero decks, but also for Minion, Fallen Wizard, and yes, even Balrog decks, so do feel free to bring any deck that you'd like to try out.

TradewindRider
Red Arrow
Posts: 58
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:41 am

Me and the boys will be there. Might even be able to bring a new player. We'll be there Saturday and Sunday.
Red Arrow
Posts: 58
Joined: Sun Nov 25, 2012 6:41 am

Back from the Con ... and it was FUN!

Saturday afternoon we played ARDA. My son invited a friend to the con and played ARDA with us. He played that versus his planned Magic the gathering tournament and won first place! Another testament of ARDA's potential to bring in old and new players to the game we all love. After ARDa we played hero constructed. Eight players playing over 3 rounds, that lasted from 7pm and ended around 11pm!

On Sunday, we played another 3 rounds of constructed deck this time with open alignments. Sweet! We were supposed to play ARDA again but we were really drained. But that didn't stop some of us in play testing and improving their decks that night.

In addition to Saturday and Sunday events, there was an ARDA event Friday evening. Hoping to see everyone again at February's ORCCON 2016 and possibly in before that.

Thanks to all who attended and played. Special thanks to Tradewindrider who booked and ran the events so we can play. And to Gene for being sorta like Gandalf sharing his knowledge of the rules and happily nudging all of us to play MECCG the best way we possibly can.

Ben aka Red Arrow
TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Greetings All,

Thanks so much to all who appeared at the MECCG events this past weekend at the LAX Hilton, especially those who came in from out of town to bring their cards and expertise to the proceedings! Special thanks to Gene B. for keeping us straight on all the rules--thank goodness we didn't have to deal with a Balrog deck, at least this time. :)

This was the first time I'd actually stayed at the hotel venue to save myself the daily round-trip from the edges of the LA metro area, and it's nice to be able to stay at the hotel, though I must say that LAX is a very, very busy airport! The standard rooms are fine (two double beds), but the bathrooms look really small and I personally thought the sinks were really low, which kinda stressed my back when I brushed my teeth. There are also a limited number of elevators (six for the main tower), and one went out of service during the weekend, so sometimes there was a long wait for a "lift". Still, it was great to be able to stay up late and just crash for a few hours (or not!) and just concentrate on playing.

Now for the actual card games...

The Friday night Arda game (with cards mostly from Wizards and Dragons) was among four very experienced players, and the eventual winner (Dan, a.k.a. "Stedenko") did so mostly because he suffered least from the calamities that hit all four players through the 5+ hour game. I was his hazard player and thought I did a creditable job of hitting his company all thoroughout the game, but then again, he started with Strider and two Hobbits, so that got him out of the blocks fairly quickly. My own personal calamity came at the end--Thranduil corrupted, turned Traitor, and stabbed my avatar (Radagast) in the back on the way out, so I had a grand total of 5 points by the end of the game.

I did not see the entirety of the Saturday afternoon Arda game, as I had to take a nap, but we had more players than slots, so we were able to accommodate the new player Red Arrow mentioned--an experienced Magic: The Gathering player who had never played MECCG before! He did have assistance from a Friend or Three, but in the end, he made an assault on Smaug at Home, which netted him the necessary points for the win! As usual, with the selection of cards in the mix, the hazard environment became dangerous rather quickly, with Will of Sauron allowing a plethora of hazard long-events to remain on the board, much to the chagrin of all five players!

For the Saturday evening Hero vs Hero event, most players showed up with fairly beefy starting companies, while I showed up again with a One Ring deck because I've shown much less aptitude with Hero decks than Minion/Fallen Wizard decks. Just like last time, I was able to "dunk" only once, and that was in the first game, though it wasn't without incident--as I approached Mount Doom, my opponent said "maybe this might just be an anti-One Ring card," and played Seized by Terror! So as Radagast and two Hobbits rounded past Easterling Camp (using Master of Esgaroth), the Ring Bearer (Sam) got cold feet, turned around, and went all the way back to Lorien! I never even came close to dunking in the second game against eventual winner Gene B., and I was forced to retrieve the Scroll from Minas Morgul in an attempt to avoid being doubled, but the final score was 8 MPs to 4. And in my last game, I was matched against a new player who had an unmodified Challenge Deck C, which has not just one, but two Seized by Terrors! Between that and Galadriel succumbing to Giant Spiders on her way from Rivendell to Lorien, that was all she wrote (literally and figuratively)!

Last but not least, the Sunday afternoon Open Constructed event was a marathon playing session with three 2-hour sessions--of the eight players, six had Hero decks and another player and brought in minion decks, and for the first time in a long while, there were no Fallen Wizard or Balrog decks. I would say the players and decks were very evenly matched, though Gene B. was not in the mix Sunday afternoon as we had a walk-in who was just interested in learning the game. A few of the Hero decks started with the same beefy companies that we saw Saturday evening, and my minion deck had a tough time keeping up with the MPs--one match heralded the start of the (college) football season with a final score of 40-35! In the end, I lost in the final to another new winner, Jeek Elem, who has the distinction a couple of events ago of actually bringing in a Fallen Saruman deck and pulling off the New Ringlord!

So congratulations to all the winners and to just everyone who devoted their time during the long holiday weekend to playing this great game! We certainly hope to see everyone again, plus perhaps more new participants, at the next LAX Hilton event--and that would be Presidents Day weekend 12-15 Feb 2016. Until next time!

TradewindRider

P.S. Please be sure to check out Goblin King's posting (elsewhere here in the USA MECCG forum) for the ConQuest Avalon MECCG event in Sacramento, CA--and that would be for Sunday, 22 Nov 2015!
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