As most of you already know because of the lack of players and the family with my two won-derful daughters normally I only play at the Lure once a year. And if the German Nationals are also not that far away I will try to attend there, too. That was the case this Year with the EC in Munich – Thank you very much Martin for your organization!!! I also have had in mind to change my Deck but we also moved to a new home in Tübingen and my cards were all in the cellar in some of the boxes. In addition my family have been ill the week before so that there was no time for deck building etc. So I just grabbed the same box of cards as (I must agree most of the times) and printed my decklist, so that I know how to adjust my sideboard.
Saturday
Round 1 vs. Hans-Werner
I can’t remember too much only that he played minion and could avoid my hazards quite well. He also played Searching Eye and Many Sorrows Befall straight in the deck, so he was able to attack me even when I have played Hiding. But I managed to get more points so it was a 5:1 win for me.
Round 2 vs. Wolfgang
He played a minion deck and his Bane didn’t let me play the allies with Glove from discard pile. He also attacked me with Cave Drakes, Wild Trolls and Agents quite well, so that I missed my 6 allies for the Girdle. But in my last round I was able to get at least one point more than Wolfgang so I won very close 4-2 (21:20). And while we were eating lunch we talked about the last game and how close it was. Then Wolfgang asked me how many characters I have had, because it couldn’t be more then 10. But we just counted our point without entering them in the tournament sheets and so I was afraid that I have had more than 10 character points. Luckily it turned out that everything was correct after I could explain the 11 points from other sources. So for the future…always fill out the tournament sheets
Round 3 vs. Martin
As he already mentioned he has played a Eriador Hero Deck with Dwarves so I couldn’t play with Gloin which turned out to be a problem, because I haven’t had a character with 5 prow-ess. Normally no problem, because they don’t move…but this game was different. I play a corruption deck vs heroes but at the beginning he didn’t play a single item and on Dwarves you can’t play the Lure of Nature, too. So I was happy, that all my 3 Assassins could attack him quite well. Because of all his Risky Blows and the Dwarves are upon you I couldn’t kill characters but at least they have been all tapped. And because I thought the he will most likely play Tom Bombadil in his Deck I sideboarded Tom as first card into the deck.
So as I got Tom in round 3 or 4 I beamed with Farmer Maggot to the Old Forrest and played Tom before he could do. But there was still one problem…I needed an item. So I moved in my next and last turn to The White Towers but didn’t thought about the problem that my strongest character has 4 prowess and therefore I didn’t transfer the Dagger to one of these guys to be save from Beorning Skin-changers. But it also was my luck because Martins plan was to send me back with them and because you couldn’t play anything else on the company after they have sent back he used all his hazard limit on the company. I used Tom for the Skin-changers and “safely” reached the White Towers where I could play my item point. But he also have had a River in hand which would be the better option for him because I haven’t had a ranger and couldn’t cancel River with Tom because it don’t affects the company.
And in the last turn he also played a Cruel Claw and so my GI was reduced by 7 and I only have had one GI left. Of course he canceled my Marvels Told with Blind to the West (well prepared @ Martin) and he played his Muster dispersed twice against me…but luckily I was able to roll like a god. I won 6:0 (34:16) and would have won even when I would have lost my factions but I guess Martin would have had a better change to reach the finals with a 4:2 loss than a 6:0. We both made a lot of mistakes in this game and it was an interesting game, too because Martin knows how to hurt you with your hazards.
Round 4 vs. Heiner
After 3 Rounds I was on the first place with 15 points which was much more than I have ex-pected. I knew that this will be a very tough game for me because no one else than Heiner know better how to play hazards on me that will hurt a lot. My last game against his deck was at the Lure 2013 where I have won 6:0. But that was because he wanted to attack me in Weathertop and I could hurt him a lot with my Chilled Elf-Lords and I could also play my Majas nearly every turn so he only got his Balrog-points that you can’t avoid. But in this game he also have hurt me with the Arthedain Rangers and when you only have low prowess Dwarves there then you a most likely tapped afterwards. So at the Lure 2013 I decided to change my Starting company. Instead of Gloin I play with Beretar…he’s ranger and his home-site is Bree…so no more Arthedain rangers for Heiner. But it turned out, that on the deck-list I have printed Gloin was in the starting company…so I playes with Gloin until round this round because there I realized that he will most likely play Arthedain Rangers again. So I draftet Beretar instead of Gloin which was good and bad at the same time…When I adjusted Beretar into the Staring company I forgot to add Lobelia in my hazard decks. And I even didn’t thought on that problem until Heiner played a Pilfer on Beretar with Lobelia and because it was the last turn I lost 4 Points (2 Warg-King and Beretar). That was nearly the only change for the finals I added on Lobelia to every hazard deck.
This time Heiner didn’t try to attack me because he was afraid of the Elf-lords…but I could attack him with one Elf-Lord and luckily I killed his Azog. But as everyone knows Balrog can recover really fast from that. I was able to slow him down a little bit with my hazards, but these Great Shadow is really overpowered. He shuffled 6 cards from Sideboard into his play deck with GS and with this cards he could reduce the hazard limit and or cancel for example my attack with Nameless Thing and the auto attack, too.
Anyway I wasn’t able to play the Girdle and therefor my only chance was to avoid a 1:5. In my last round I beamed to the Old Forrest to play Tom which would have been a 2:4 loss instead of 1:5. He played an Assassin and I tapped two guys and tried to cancel the last one with Escape…but he played Blind to the West and canceled it. I wanted to play my second Escape but I couldn’t find it in my hand even when I knew that I have had two in my hand. Martin looked through my discard pile and couldn’t find one, too. When we had finished and put the cards together Heiner found a cards from me which I forgot to take back to hand from on guard. So there is still room for improvement even when Heiner’s deck is really really great and very difficult to defeat. So congrats to a 5:1 (30:20).
With 17 points I was second and made it to the final four.
Sunday:
On Saturday I have asked Martin what he would time he expect to finish because my bus leaves on 17:30 or 19:30 …the train wouldn’t be an option because of the strikes. He said 17:30 would be very tough to reach…so I waited until tomorrow and thought I could book the bus when I know where we stand after two round or something like that. But when I wanted to book, only the 15:30 bus was left and all other were already booked out. So I have had no option but to book this one even when I didn’t knew if I could manage to play all games of the finals. Bernd said we would most likely not ready until 15:02 (my time to leave to reach the bus) and so I said I would also skip the finals for the next player but Wolfgang had already be on it’s way back to Salzburg and it would have been unfair to let Martin play instead (6. place). So we have had no choice but to rush through the finals…everyone skipped the lunch and I want to apologize and thank you again for that!!! I was also afraid to drop on the last round and perhaps influence the EC result in a bad way…
So with all that thoughts in my mind and the knowledge that everyone knew that I play my Fallen Radagast again I was 100% sure not to win the EC (but that was also not my intention when I participated…maybe 10 years before
)
And I met Heiner in the train and I told him…”Heiner I know that you have a ton of hazards now prepared against me and I’m going to lose against you” His response gentle as ever was: ”I can use every single card of my 30 hazards against your deck (If you know my deck normally only a few cards straight in the deck will hurt me) and I will win against you 6:0 – I would bet on that”.
Round 1 vs. Heiner:
As I already knew I will lose this game that was sure…but I wanted to avoid Heiner a 6:0 vic-tory against me. And who knows if I draw my hazards well…then I can make Heiner also a hard time. Sadly I couldn’t play anything special against him. And on my resources I faced in the first round two Chilled Dousers…I killed the first one and survived the second. Ok he de-cided to play an Undead hazard deck against me and of course he removed the Arthedain Rangers because he knew that I will play with Beretar. But he didn’t hurt me that badly even when he canceled my Hiding with Blind to the West and stuff like that but it was ok. So it looked surprisingly good for me after round 3 and in this round I made my only mistake…he already have had Orcs of Moria in play and has used all of his GI so I though a Muster dis-perses would be a good idea. I halved his hazard limit and at the moment when I cycled the card into my deck I realized that as far as he draws Great Shadow this card would be useless and I regret it and asked him if I can not reduce his hazard limit. Of course he said no…no problem Heiner I love you anyway
And he decided to play “only” The Warg King in Weathertop with a hazard limit of only 1 against his two big guys with Regiment of Crows…so I couldn’t do anything to prevent him to attack me easily and I also haven’t drawn Escape yet. But I have had Farmer Maggot in my hand. I thought I couldn’t play that to cancel a cvcc because it is a permanent event but Mar-tin saw that in my hand and later we discussed this matter and it would have been possi-ble…too bad for me because he killed my only two sages (until now I was able to discard Bane and all the rest of his ugly hazards all the time) Needless to say that he didn’t play the Warg-King in this round because he would rather attack me. In my next round I knew that I have only one chance to avoid a 6:0 so I stayed with my company in Weathertop and to bad that he canceled my Hiding again so I have had to face creatures…the only problem was that my Beretar gets wounded and with him I wanted to strike back…but so I played one Wolf and attacked with the Wolf and another character Heiners company. Because Heiner have had only two big characters I could give him a lot of extra strikes so my Wolf was +3 on his roll against Azog with I’ll report you an +1 prowess of kill points. I managed to wound him but sadly not to kill him. It would have been a chance to come back to the match but so I lost close 1:5 (I missed 1 or two points again for a 2:4). But all in all it was clear that I will lose this match even when there was a time where I thought that there might be a little chance to win, too.
Round 2 vs. Stefan:
He played a Mordor-Squatter deck and I decided to Sideboard Golodhros before Strengh of Mordor a big mistake because of course he have had Golodhros before me. And I have had to use my Withdrawn against his My Prescious…so my only good turn was in the beginning where I killed an Orc Captain with a Chilled Elf-lord. That was basically all I did to him so he could easily collect his points where I have had to fight for them. In the beginning I didn’t draw that many allies and when I got them in round three he always played a Heedless Revelry three rounds in a row. So my allies where more in my hand as on the table and that slowed me down quite hard. He also played Blind to the West and stuff like that and three Echoes of the Song what gave me influence problems. He called really fast in round 4 or 5 I guess with 7 points in the lead and the knowledge that I can’t play my Girdle (I missed one ally due to Bane/Glove and the heavy Heedless Revelry).
I managed to play Tom and Mitschief and another one in the Easterling camp. I also got my item in the Under-deeps so I was able to win at the end 4:2 against Stefan.
Round 3 vs. Bernd
His stealthy Orc-scout company was always able to cancel my attacks. I wasn’t able to play a single Maja against him, because all my Dwarven Travelers (and I played them a lot) have been canceled. So I knew that I couldn’t touch him with my Elf-lords, because he also have had Regiment out and he could tap the Regiment to bring one creature back to hand when it was not keyed to a site. So Bernd didn’t face a single attack from me...he also haven’t had the time for the Under leas so my Nameless Thing was also worthless. I tried always every-thing…Daelomin at home, Gandalf for one more hazard limit (sadly a little bit late) and Lady. I also was aware, that his Bane will not stay and because of my Lady he couldn’t cycle it back…still I marveld two of them. The lady helped me a lot because otherwhise you will face so many more hazards. My resource game was worked quite well, so until my last round Bernd was in the lead 26:21. But I have had another problem…the time was running against me because in 7 minutes I had to go to my bus.Everyone who blamed me for my last long turns…this time I was faster as I could believe it on my own, too. I knew and can’t move be-cause then Bernd will draw cards and that will cost me too much time. So I played the Girdle and Bernd tried to play the Arthedain Rangers but not with Beretar in my company and after that he played a Cave Drake…I beamed with Farmer to Old Forrest (yes I do this very often) and he played two Heedless Revelry (he was through his deck and Lady was gone)…the first one tapped except Dror everyone. On the second try he rolled a 6 against Dror what was luckily not enough so he could play Tom and one Mitchief. Radagast played on Wolf-from hand so I got 11 points on my last turn in only 7 minutes. Bern tried to corrupt my Wizard with corruption but Tom was there to play a Marvels Told against it...but Bernd wanted to play a Blind to the West but recognized that it was the wrong one vs minion resources so my cc in the council was auto.
While I was playing I asked Martin to count my points so that I can just put my cards together to run for my tram. I heard that I have had 32 or 33 point vs. 26 so I knew I was second but haven’t had enough time to enjoy that moment…thank you very much Domse to run to the tram and stand between the door because this was my last chance to arrive Tübingen.
In the tram I realized that I became second but on the other hand I was really exhausted be-cause I just have had breakfast at 8 and one bottle of water the whole day and when I arrived at 19:20 at home I have had a headache but also a smile in my face!
Thanks again for the great Event and the great location (thanks to Bernd’s brother). It’s al-ways a pleasure to meet you guys. I would love to have more time talking to each other (like Friday evening) but I know gaming is our profession so I hope to see you all next Lure!
Best regards,
Patric
P.S. Congratulations Heiner to your title!!!