Worlds 2013 Spain Llinars (Barcelona) September 20-22

MECCG World Championship discussion forum.
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Mordakai
Council Member
Posts: 314
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:38 am

Hi everybody,

as the rest of the finalists, I'll tell you my experiences in Worlds 2013. Please forgive my English, I'm not a native speaker (or writer!!).

Friday's Hero only was quite intense, as you had to run fast and get the MP to call the Council ASAP. I don't remember very well my opponents, but I think they were Altymira, Heiner and... someone else. I played an absolutely classical Hero-Rudahur-and-surroundings deck (Gollum, Goldberry, Palantir of Amon Sul, Orcrist, Glamdring, Wormsbane, Rangers of the North, Blue Dwarves, Lindon Elves.. with lots of lucky blow, flatter a foe, old trush...) with the only difference of Starting with Elrond, twins and Eowyn, and Vilyas in the deck. As hazards, a little of corrupction, call of home, muster disperses and auto-attacks enhacers (quite fun!). Marc Roca posted the final scores, i had 13 points, but I can't remember which were the individual scores of each game. I only remember a 6-0 victory vs Altymira, so the rest... 1-5 and 6-0, maybe? Can't remember... In the end, 2nd place, quite impressive for a deck built in less than 30 minutes the day before.

Saturday was the biggest challenge. All players already there (we were less people in friday). As someone already posted, I played an Aragorn+Arwen Minas Tirith thematic (AKA squatter) deck. Some surprises my deck had were two hobbits to play To Fealthy Sworn and Red Arrow to make Hour of Need with the Rohirrim and getting Theoden as follower. Hazards vs Hero: the fastest I could think about, 9 nazgul for khamul, assasins, cave worms and some other things to make the 12 creatures and drop everything as fast as possible. Hazards vs minions, almost the same but with Nameless Things and Maia.

My first game was vs Jordi Sorribes, the winner of friday's Hero Only. He played a Fallen Alatar in Eriador with Short Rest. I've played only vs. one FW Alatar, my friend Jaime's deck, wich plays The Hunt and The Great Hunt. I was expecting something like that, but everything changed when he played the sapling in the first turn. I was expecting to be the only White Tree player there... man, I was so mistaken. I was lucky enough to play sapling in my first turn too and then ran to Minas Tirith to plant the tree. However, Jordi's deck was impressively fast, and he called me for a 4-2 win. Not a good start...
My second opponent was my namesake Alvaro. He played a company of Thrain II, Thorin II and Oin as starting characters, so King under the mountain? In a championship? Seemed weird to me. He made two great turns gathering items, I remember saying to him "I'm impressed of what you are doing with just that 3 stinky dwarves!". But everything changed in the middle of the game, after a short visit to Moria the company was almost whiped out by worms, and after that it was easy for me to get a 5-1. He told me later that the purpose of the deck was going under-deeps to play Aiglos, Dragon Helm and all that things, but he was not able to do that in that game, too many woundeds.
The third game was vs Jordi Pesudo. This game was quite lucky for me (or unlucky for him, as you want) because I had first turn and played a lot of things he also had in his deck (starting with Alatar). He did not have a real chance, luck was not with him in the first two turns (he did not draw a single MP, his companies reached the places untapped but nothing to do in the site phase...), and later.. it was simply too late. 6-0 for me.
My fourth game was vs. Marc Roca. He played a Great Shadow Balrog deck burning Rohan and, of course, playing zounds of 1MP stinking characters from the sideboard. It was my firs game in my life against a Balrog deck, so I was not very sure of how to behave, and his area of action was really close to Minas Tirith, which made me suspect Buthrakaur and his friends trying to beat my (weak) company badly. Luckily, that didn't happen. I played him Saruman as creature the first turn and he was one body check away of killing him, phew! Ater that, he played I'll report you x2 and some items that made his company untouchable by my creatures, so I just centered in the Khamul machine, which was not very effective anyway. More or less he played unbothered by me. I was able to keep more or less his pace in MP gathering, and finally he called me 7 MP above. In my last turn I travelled from Minas Tirith to Buhr Widu with Gandalf, Glorfindel and Bilbo with the palantir. I played there The Red Arrow, aligned the palantir and A chance Meeting to get Theoden, while in Minas Tirith I played a 2 MP faction. Wow, that was great, in the end 4-2 for me with just 1 point above him. The greatest thing of that game was that I ended with more Character MP than him, quite impressive vs a Balrog deck...
And the final game was vs Pawel and his Great Shadow Balrog deck. I realized the game was going to be different when I saw Gangways over the Fire as starting event. He played with a small-but-each-turn-growing company running in the deeps and playing things, and popping out to play some factions. He played crack in the wall the first and second turns, and moved about 3 or four times each turn, so i gathered my 3 nameless things and patiently waited for my moment. The third turn and no crack in the wall... here we go! I didn't kill anyone (maybe an Orc tracker, don't remember), but I was able to wound almost everybody, so he had to press the brake and go back to Under-gates for healing. Meanwhile Aragorn slayed two asassins, one with the help of forewarned and no wait to wonder (peace of cake!), and the other just by himself!! phew. In the end I played almost all my MP and slowed him enough to call him council with something like 8 points above, which he reduced in hos turno but not enough. In the end 4-2 for me and pass granted to the finals.

Off-side: Personal achievement: 5/5 white tree planted XD

Someone asked me what I was going to play on the finals on sunday, which I answered: Huh? Can we change decks? Lol, noob me, I didn't even know that this could be done (and, of course, I didn't planned to reach the finals anyway), so i was almost forced to play the same deck again, with the drawback that everybody knew at that time what kind of deck I was playing... Alas, let's cross fingers and see what happens tomorrow.

On sunday, my first game was vs Karsten. We bounced Aragorn in the draft, so i played Strider to change him later. He played a gap of Isen-Rohan-Anorien deck, so quite a few MP duplicated among us... I had to be as fast as possible. His hazards were roadblock, which didn't bother me as long as I could reach Monas Tirith, of course. I achieved it after twilighting a snowstorm without response. Unlucky him, his next card was a twilight... I managed to play the sapling and the Tree before him, and slayed Saruman later in the game, so finally that gave me the edge to call and get a 4-2 for me.

The second game was vs Mark Alfano. As he already posted, he played an Eriador short-rest. In the first turn he moved Radagast alone from Rivendell to the Blue Mountains Dwarf-Hold, I had one assasin in hand and drew another one... let's try: he more or less passed the first, but was thrice wounded with the second. However, no luck in stabbing him to out of game, damn... He was gathering MP's quite fast, although I was more or less managing to keep the pace. But, alas, how I missed the Whithdrawn to Mordor that I removed from the deck a few days before... He tried the Lobelia Sackville-Baggins anti-hobbit trick (unsuccessfully), but after that Elwen influenced Choiced Arwen, followed by a Call of Home to Returned King Aragorn, and that was the end for me. Aragorn came next turn in Isengard with Gandalf to play the red arrow, but the game was lost 6-0 anyway. I'm still blaming myself for not arranging the characters in the company correctly (I was playing with Strider because we bounced Aragorn in the draft, and when I changed him I forgot to put Fatty Bolger as follower, which would have given me 3 more free GI, which maybe would have changed some things). I also sideboarded two call of home to use against him (he was 0 GI free), but none decided to show up until i drew the last card after his last turn... aaargh!!.

The last game was against Heiner. Hard opponent, and harder for me as I never played vs a FW Radagast before. I realized soon he was going to make a Wellinghall squat, so I sedeboarded 3 Herat Grown Cold and managed to get one in play soon enough to avoid him playing the ents but he already had an one-MP-animal faction in play, so I could't duplicate Mp for my own factions... damn! This was my fastest White Tree ever, first turn sapling and steed, second turn, Minas Tirith and the Tree... never done before (by me, of course). He also moved Radagast to Minas Tirith in his last turn, which made all my alarms sound, expecting any tricky thing unknown by me (influencing or something)... but he just played the keys of Orthanc. Finally I was able to scratch a 4-2 after a hard balance-of-things-Ren-corruption turn, that gave me the 3rd place in the championship.

Off-side: Personal achievement: 3/3 white tree planted XD

General impressions of the deck: 8/8 trees planted (wow), never totally bounced Aragorn (when bounced, replaced without problems with Strider), never bounced Arwen or the hobbits, almost no characters killed (can't remember exactly, but I think none, feel free to correct me on this) and 6/8 General Opponent games won. Far beyond my expectations as casual player.

As I told a few days ago, it has been an incredible experience, the fellowship shown by everybody was fantastic and I enjoyed very much (and also learnt a lot). I wish I would repeat this experience in the future, LURE, next Worlds, next Spanish Nationals or whatever, let's see if real life allows me.

Best regards, everybody, and sorry for the wall of text!!
C'mon, not the Elves of Lindon AGAIN...
Muzgash
Posts: 78
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 1:24 am

Any chance for some decklists? It's nice for newbies like me to see what a well constructed deck looks like :roll: . I hope I can attend one of these events at some point!
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Mordakai
Council Member
Posts: 314
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:38 am

A bit late today, but come back tomorrow and have a look, I'll post my deck.
C'mon, not the Elves of Lindon AGAIN...
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Mordakai
Council Member
Posts: 314
Joined: Fri Mar 01, 2013 10:38 am

Here you have

Regards
C'mon, not the Elves of Lindon AGAIN...
Muzgash
Posts: 78
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 1:24 am

Mordakai wrote:Here you have

Regards
Thank you very much!
Smaug
Posts: 279
Joined: Wed Jul 04, 2007 10:30 am
Location: Germany

Hi guys,

finally a short report from my side as well. I was too lazy before and now I am at work again.
We had an other great time in Spain, like last time (in 2009?) the worlds were great. Lot of players, nice location, thx Marc for organizing.
Semifinals where thrilling, Mark won with 23 points followed by 4 players with 21 points. After (in my eyes) a broken order of the tiebreakers, Pawel was out, what upset me a bit, because he and me had the strongest opponents of the 4 guys with 21 points and as well he was the only one to beat me in semis (and I was the only one beating Mark Alvano ;-)). We should definetly change that tiebreaker rules, I guess opponets score is the fairest 1st tiebreaker, except there are only 2 persons with equal points, than the direct result should be 1st.

So an other final four was to play on Sunday for me. Mark and me where the only ones winning worlds 2 times (me having additionally two vice champion titles), so both of us wanted to become WC for the 3rd time ;-). Mark and me came together to worlds staying before and after some time for holidays.We where both joking, that it was not important who becomes new WC except it wasn´t Mark or vice versa Heiner ;-). Nevertheless we both participated in the drinking game after semi and had after that some more beer beforegoing to bed at 5 a.m, showing competition is there, but we see it both not too serious;-).

Destiny was, that we faced each other in the first round. I would have prefered to meet in the last round :-(.
It was a very close game that I lost due to a big mistake from my side in my last turn :-(. Marc brought my only item back to hand with "Neither so potent nor..". I was expecting him as good player to has this card in sideboard and as well sideboarded it but I thought that it would be able to play the item again with one of my comanies at barrow downs while my other two companies had to gather some more points in wellinghall and ..(forget about it ;-)). This was a big mistake, he rivered that company and played of course "Neither ...". So his 6 item points doubled and he won at the end 26-23. If I would have send my radagast company in addition to glitting carves I would have lost to points for 1 ent (2 points) but got the item more or less 100% for sure. This would have given me a 22-20 victory. Because of this mistake I was a bit disappointed after the match (may be I would have been senseful (but less fun) to go to bed earlier the day before ;-). It the end it proved that this mistake was deciding for the title assuming everything else in round 2 and 3 would have happended the same as it did (what is of course a bit unrealistic!).

Nevertheless I must admit that Mark earned the 3rd title. Over the two days he was the best player in my eyes, only loosing one game (and this unlucky) in whole worlds (against me ;-)). So be can add the 3rd title to his collection and leave me behind :-(. At least I got my 3rd vice champoin title as cold comfort ;-).

The big surprises to reach the final four where Alvaro and Karsten. They both played a fantastic semi final leaving so good players behind them like the former world champions Kikee and Jordi to mention just some of them. In the final Kartsen was a bit unlucky not to beat Mark and Alvaro managed to beat me. So next time may be the times has come that they clash for the title, who knows ?! ;-)

Saludos and see you at LURE

Heiner
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