Voting is now open for this year's Council of Elrond election. All votes are to be submitted via email to the Council of Elrond Registrar, Chad Martin, at chad@tharasix.com. You may vote for up to 8 candidates. Votes must be submitted by 12:00 (noon) GMT on March 19, 2007. Votes may also be snail mailed to me, or one can vote by proxy for their local playgroup. Email the Registrar for details. The following are the candidates as I currently have information for. If you have missing or inaccurate information in this post, please email the Registrar to have it corrected immediately.
Joshua Hunholz will be the Chair for the 2007 session.
Mark Alfano (USA) - Hello MECCG-ers. Last year, I was the Chairman of the Council of Elrond. In that rôle, I helped to make the CoE a more active force in the MECCG community. We expanded our forums. We got the help of Steffen Lutter and Stefan Reichart in creating our beautiful new website. We established the growing Global Player List at our website – a resource that has already been used to organize two tournaments in one month. We updated and edited the rules documents. We began work on a Universal Rulebook, as well as an updated Collected Rulings File. We founded the CoE treasury, which will help to fund national and international tournaments. We made the beta version of the first set of Virtual Cards. We saw the Spanish, the Australian, and the Polish national councils step from inactive to active status (of course, largely due to their own efforts, but at least with the encouragement of the CoE). And we organized the first micro-brew of special-edition beer for The Drinking Game at Worlds 2007.
In this time, I also was briefly banned from meccg.net, partially for my activities promoting the CoE. Some have suggested that because of this I am not fit to lead the community. I don’t know. I do know that the fallout of my banning and return is that the management of meccg.net will no longer read private messages of users sent over the meccg.net PM system, and that bans will no longer be handed out willy-nilly. I also know that I want to continue to serve on the CoE, and that – even though I had the option of being the Chairman for another year, and thus not facing the general vote – taking that route would be unfair to the community. So now I am asking for your vote, but only if you approve of the recent expansion and consolidation of the CoE. If you want things to return to the way they were, or to take a different course entirely, I am not your candidate. But if you like what you’ve seen in the last 12 months and want more of the same, please give me your support.
Thank you,
Mark Alfano
Joe Bisz (USA) - I'd like to be nominated for my third term as COE member. As a rulesmaster, my knowledge is demonstrated in the years I've been developing meccg rules summaries, variant games, and collections of CRF and COE digest rulings (see my "Play and Examples File"). As a player, I am the three-time North American Champion, and a frequent attender of Worlds tournaments as well.
Furthermore, in my past year as a COE Member, I also took on the role of "Editor" and developed something which the community has not had for a long time: a Game Newsletter, complete with articles about decks, tourneys, and middle-earth lore. This has received great applause for bringing players together. Finally, Mark and I launched the beginnings of a very vast project-- the Virtual Cards--in response to criticism about the stagnation of our game and certain deck types. I am committed to listening to what the players want and, in the time that I have, giving them only the best. Our game is getting better!
--joe bisz
(a.k.a. Frodo)
Manuel Cabezali (Spain) - Hello players from all ovet the world, my name is Manuel Cabezalí and I'm from Madrid, Spain. Some of you might know me because I've been really active as a player since I got back into this game during last summer. Some of you might not know me at all, because I have arrived recently to the MECCG scene.
What matters now, however, is why should you consider me as an interesting choice for the CoE. During this past time, I've been acting as a representant for my country in the CoE; Spain has just got involved back into the international scene, and it has made a really strong comeback: we have one of the largest playerbase (almost 500 users registrated in our last forum, which started to work 1 year ago) and have brought some top players to the big tournaments, online or offline.
My main concern right now are the rules of this complex game, and it's the main thing I would like to work on if I'm elected. During these past months, I have been upgraded to Level 2 Judge in the JCP due to my contribution to the gllobal understanding of the rules, especially among the spanish players, and among all of them who might ask while I'm online at GCCG. The Universal RulesBook project is, definately, the more appealing project to me, and one I know for sure that will do a lot of good to the community.
Other things that I want to work on: promote the online gaming, as it's the best way to have players united all over the world; as soon as I got the time to put the effort on it, continue on Mark Alfano's Taxonomy of decks, as it has some slots to fill yet (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you can check at www.meccg.net) ; and a very important one: being a representant for my own country, Spain, which definately needs someone in the CoE.
Thanks for your time and good luck in your games!
Manuel
Bert Claessen (Netherlands) - My idea is the Council should keep the player base interested in the game, and achieve such with projects to make out beloved game fresh. Among those, I am a supporter of Virtual Cards, as a growing pool helps keeping the game fresh and innovating.
Also, it should be possible for the Council to draw in fresh blood, seeking out ways to set up a tutorial program, to learn the game to newcomers in a way they wont be scared by the massive rules the game seems to have.
Also, the online play should be supported by the Council, as this is a way to connect palying people all over the world. This can be done as awarding small prize support to tournaments) as done with the GCCG World Cup.
Bruno De Lucia (Italy) - Hello MECCG players,
my name is Bruno De Lucia and I'm from Rome, Italy. I've been a pretty active player in the last two years, especially online on gccg (my nickname is the_Bruce, I guess most of you have played a game with me at least a couple of times). Since I'm an enthusiastic player, I decided to run for the CoE, hoping that I may help keeping this great game alive and thriving.
If I were elected, I would do my best to accomplish the following:
Resume the two big issues, namely the legalization of the German promos for the purpose of playing tourneys, and the very sensitive issue of the 2-mind Balrog rule. I will foster the approach adopted so far: incourage the national councils into experimenting these two innovations, and pool the results of the single national experiences before evaluating the possibility of introducing such changes in the CoE sanctioned events. Anyway, I want to stress that I'll strongly support the absolute unanimity among the whole MECCG community as the binding condition for any sort of innovation in the standard game rules. I am positive that the paramount duty of the CoE is to keep the MECCG community united and make it broader, and not to be the epicentre of a clash between opposing currents striving to impose their own likes and dislikes.
Encourage and support any kind of initiative which offers scope for a renewal of the game, i.e. virtual cards, scenarios, and anything that could produce fresh gaming alternatives alongside the standard game. Within the boundaries of law, of course...
Support and mantain the JCP program, involving the national councils if necessary, to make sure that there'll be a good number of certified judges in every single nation. This one and other initiatives in the rules area are essential to provide the widest and most even rules knowledge of this wounderful but complex game.
Suggest further developments to the CoE's website in order to make it the point of reference for all MECCG fans. I will especially foster the creation of a section for beginners, which will provide introductory infos about MECCG and downloadable useful files for all those who just got in touch with this amazing game and are interested in joining our community.
Thanks in advance to all those who'll vote for me.
Bruno De Lucia
Stefan Fankel (Germany)
Brian Min (USA)
Wolfgang Penetsdorfer (Austria) - Hello MECCG folk!
I am Wolfgang Penetsdorfer from Salzburg, Austria. I started to play MECCG from the very beginning. Since 2001 I am running the Austrian MECCG Council of Ered Nimrais, since 2003 I am a member of the Council of Elrond.
While I am one of those who would like to be involved in everything concerning MECCG, there are a few things I have put my focus on:
- Most prominently among them is Lure of MECCG, the worlds biggest annual MECCG event (http://www.lureofmeccg.org).
- Since it became hard to find any good MECCG products for reasonable prices, I started my own MECCG-specific online shop www.eaglecard.org.
- I am a great fan of the global players&traders directory project of the COE, since I try to get into contact with as many people, that are interested in MECCG as possible. This directory is a great tool for players to get into contact with each other.
- Then I try to motivate and support national gaming groups to found a national MECCG council. For example: I would love to see the hungarian players join the COE.
- the COE started to raise some funds and hand out prizes and support to COE approved tournaments. Also here I would like to play an active role.
So if you think all of this is important I would be happy to receive your vote. Thanks for confidence!
Wolfgang Penetsdorfer
Piotr Rzeńca (Poland) - Welcome all, I'm Piotr Rzeńca and I'm from Poland. Some of you might know me as |Highwayman| from the Polish MECCG forum, meccg.net forum, GCCG and COE forum. I started playing MECCG as soon as it came to Poland (it was METW Unlimited edition so it must have been 1995 or 1996). I have never really quit even though the game seemed to die just after the release of ME: The Balrog.
Fortunately, 2 or 3 years back MECCG in Poland have started experiencing it's renaissance.
Since then I've tried to be as active as possible in our community (both national and foreign) - I tackle with rules' problems, write about some trick-plays when I find something new and give tips how to build decks and play.
I organized Polish Nationals in March 2006 (with posters, internet advertisement and special prizes including a Palantir). Furthermore the rules (not standard COE rules) I've compiled then, are now widely accepted and used in Poland - especially during official events, in organizing which I always offer my help and which I advertise (for example by sending out invitations)
As UEPs are growing in number I need to address them too - I'm both for and against UEPs. I'm all for thematic (Barrow-wight at Barrow-downs; Ringwraiths moving to Barad-dur without a rider mode; Strider using Athelas like Aragorn; etc.) and card-fixing UEPs (Many-coloured Robes taping, not Saruman; Sneakin' works like Stealth; etc.), but I'm totally against UEPs that change cards or rules only to 'make life easier'(Elf-lord playability; Beorning Skin-changers playability; Multiple Rivers; Fell-Beast as half-creature; etc.).
Lately I also wrote a "How to kick Balrog's Ass" guide and currently I'm engaged in establishing an official Polish MECCG Council.
This is the first time I'm running for COE elections. As a member I'd like to help with the ongoing project of putting all the rules' digests together and also I'd like to review some of the digests, rulings and CRF.
Moreover I think that legalizing the 9 special German promos for all events is a good idea and I will support it.
Most importantly I want to help COE MECCG rules become the 'standard' MECCG rules - but by 'standard' I mean them as a base on which event organizers can fallback on and take from when devising their own rules for their event(s) - be it regional events, national or even world-wide.
So vote for me if you want COE to get a whiff of Slavic fresh air and more challenging, hardcore Polish gaming style Razz.
If anyone wants to know more, or has some specific questions - do not hesitate and e-mail me at The.Stuff13(at)gmail.com
Piotr "|Highwayman|" Rzeńca
Kris Van Beurden (Belgium)
Voting is open for the 2007 Council of Elrond
Bruno de Lucia is withdrawing from the elections for the Council of Elrond. Though this does not change the end date and time of the elections, if those who have voted for Bruno wish to change their vote, they can do so by emailing the registrar.
Dear MECCGers,
I'm sorry to announce my withdrawal from the CoE elections. Some new circumstances have arisen in my own private life, which would hamper me in my duty as a CoE member, should I be elected.
For those who know me personally, I want to reassure them that nothing "tragic" occurred: my decision doesn't stem from any sort of conflict with anyone within the MECCG community, nor health problems.
I know that several people have voted for me so far. Some of them have expressed me their own support and simpathy in the last days. I want to thank all these people, and I apologize for not being able to satisfy their expectations. If I were able to foresee the annoying circumstances which led me to give up running for the CoE, indeed I'd never have announced my candidacy.
I wish the future CoE members the greatest success in keeping up this wonderful game, without any doubt one of the best ever made. As for me, I'll do my best as a modest player, as far as I'll have the chance to.
Thank you all
Bruno De Lucia
There were 67 voters that cast 322 total votes. Joining next session's chair Josh Hunholz as your new members of the Council of Elrond and their vote totals are:
Wolfgang Penetsdorfer: 55
Mark Alfano: 49
Joe Bisz: 40
Manuel CabezalÃ: 40
Piotr Rzeńca: 39
Bert Claessen: 31
Stefan Fankel: 25
Kris Van Beurden: 23
Also receiving votes:
Brian Min: 20
Bruno de Lucia: Dropped out of race
Chad Martin
Council of Elrond Registrar
Wolfgang Penetsdorfer: 55
Mark Alfano: 49
Joe Bisz: 40
Manuel CabezalÃ: 40
Piotr Rzeńca: 39
Bert Claessen: 31
Stefan Fankel: 25
Kris Van Beurden: 23
Also receiving votes:
Brian Min: 20
Bruno de Lucia: Dropped out of race
Chad Martin
Council of Elrond Registrar