MECCG at Gateway 2016, LAX Hilton, 2-5 September 2016

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

Greetings All,

Am pleased to announce that there will be MECCG at the Gateway 2016 over the Labor Day weekend, 2-5 September, at LAX Hilton! Following is the tentative schedule for MECCG events, though we can be flexible depending on attendance and the players' wishes, just like we did this past Memorial Day weekend:

- Friday, 2 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Open/Casual Play - bring your decks, even First Folk/Dream Cards, for play-testing!
- Friday, 2 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Saturday, 3 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Hero Constructed Tournament
- Saturday, 3 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Sunday, 4 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Open Constructed (Hero/Minion/Balrog/Fallen Wizard)
- Sunday, 4 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Monday, 5 Sept: 9:00 AM -12:00 PM - Open/Casual Play

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

TradewindRider

P.S.

(1) The location of Gateway 2016 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
TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Greetings All,

We're only a month away from the MECCG festivities at the LAX Hilton during the Gateway 2016 convention:

(1) The schedule posted below has been submitted to the gaming schedulers and has been approved:

- Friday, 2 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Open/Casual Play - bring your decks, even First Folk/Dream Cards, for play-testing!
- Friday, 2 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Saturday, 3 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Hero Constructed Tournament
- Saturday, 3 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Sunday, 4 Sept: 1:00-5:00 PM - Open Constructed (Hero/Minion/Balrog/Fallen Wizard)
- Sunday, 4 Sept: 6:00-10:00 PM - Multi-Player Hero Arda
- Monday, 5 Sept: 9:00 AM -12:00 PM - Open/Casual Play

(2) Just a reminder, the hotel has a new policy (actually started last May) about bringing outside food--basically, everything bought at the hotel (including the cafe downstairs and the snack bar in the big board gaming hall) is fine, and everything else is verboten. We will be flexible with our gaming schedules to allow for the necessary food breaks, but if you don't want to settle for the expensive cafe food and the unhealthy snack bar food, please plan on obtaining sustenance prior to arriving at the hotel, thanks!

Looking forward to seeing everyone there!

TradewindRider
JeekElem
Posts: 23
Joined: Fri Aug 02, 2013 8:03 pm

I'm in for Saturday and Sunday, probably Friday this time as well.
TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Great to hear! Two from NorCal and I will be arriving between 1:00 and 2:00 on Friday afternoon, so we can get things started early!
Kjeld
Posts: 307
Joined: Thu Mar 22, 2012 5:40 pm

Really wish I could attend, looks like it's going to be a great event! Sadly, though, I'm [-me_tap-] for a wedding that weekend.
TradewindRider
Posts: 130
Joined: Sun Apr 05, 2015 3:07 pm

Greetings Kjeld,

No worries, just send an ally, or play a couple of Bridges so you can zip back and forth between wedding and cards! :D

Failing that, please check out our posting for ConQuest Avalon the weekend of 11-13 November up in Sacramento. The venue (Crowne Plaza Northeast Sacramento Hotel 5321 Date Avenue, Sacramento, 95841) is right off the I-80 east at the Madison Ave exit. It's a bit closer to you and we're planning a few MECCG sessions!

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

Greetings All,

The MECCG festivities at the LAX Hilton during the Gateway 2016 convention are next weekend! Here are a few more reminders/tips:

(1) Again, the hotel has a new policy about bringing outside food. We will be flexible with our gaming schedules to allow for the necessary food breaks, but if you don't want to settle for the expensive cafe food and the unhealthy snack bar food, please plan on obtaining sustenance prior to arriving at the hotel. :D

(2) For your constructed decks, proxies are *perfectly* fine, just make sure they are reasonable facsimiles and are readable (e.g. some scribbling on a post-it won't do, lol).

(3) For parking arrangements, if you're not staying at the Hilton, some limited parking may be available at the hotel, but the convention link has lots of alternate options (see below). I've always had very good luck at the Parking Spot, it's right next door to the Hilton and there's always room (other than the less expensive rooftop spots):

http://www.strategicon.net/index.php?goto=parking

Looking forward to seeing everyone there, and thanks in advance for participating!

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

Greetings All,

Many thanks for everyone who participated in this past weekend's festivities, and for your patience with me--both for my uncertainties with some of the rulings, and for also being a bit sluggish and under the weather Saturday! We had a smaller than expected turnout for the weekend, but it was great to see everyone in the core group there, plus we had a couple of newcomers be introduced to the game--one with Arda on Saturday night, and one with a casual challenge deck game on Sunday afternoon. And a great deal of appreciation to the Goblin King for making the trek all the way from Sacramento with Gene B. to join us for the gaming all weekend, from Friday morning actually all the way to Monday morning. We hope to see you in LA for future conventions, and we will see you up in Sacramento in November!

Friday saw a very tight 4-person Hero Arda game with Jeek Elem coming out on top with a couple of nice corruption saves at the end of the game. I was not so lucky--my Radagast rolled snake-eyes at Council to fall prey to corruption, taking my only ally with him! To make matters worse, Traitor was out on the board, so he also attacked an already-wounded Bilbo on the way out. Luckily, the poor hobbit survived, but that episode dropped me to an ignominious last-place finish!

We moved our Open Constructed tournament to Saturday afternoon to accommodate Red Arrow's schedule, and one of his squires went undefeated with a tight Lidless Eye deck to bring home the blue ribbon for first place. His first win was a very convincing 6-0 win over a formative anti-minion deck, with the hazard limit reduction of The Great Eye playing a key role. My Hero deck once again witnessed Radagast's demise as a constant stream of wolf packs ambushed him on the way to the Iron Hill Dwarf-Hold. But the highlight was Red Arrow's vanquishing of not one, but two Ahunts during his match!

Sunday seemed the most interesting of the days to me, as we played a small round-robin of untimed matches with a very nice variety of decks--a Fallen Radagast using Bad Company, a minion deck with old-school corruption, Gene B's very formidable under-deeps deck, and again, not one, but two Thranduil Elf-Lord decks from the Dream Cards set! We especially needed a bit more time with the rules for the dwarf lord decks, but it was time well spent and we are considering scheduling a First Folk-only event next time! In particular, Jeek Elem played "Crossing the Border" against my Lidless Eye deck, bringing two Maia attacks to bear against Dol Guldur, each at 1/13 (basically the auto at the minion version of Rhosgobel)! First Nain, then the Lieutenant of Dol Guldur was taken out, so I ended up losing both of my sages. In the end,first place went to Goblin King's Fallen Radagast deck, in part for introducing us to Tom Bombadil unleashed, but also in part to showing us the power of Rats, Rats, and more Rats! :D

Our group here in California has a couple of smaller gatherings planned in the LA and in the Bay Area in September and October, but the next formal gathering is at ConQuest Avalon on 12-13 November. See you all there!

TradewindRider
Goblin King
Posts: 237
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am

Here comes a long tournament report! You have been warned.
Down, Down There (to Los Angeles) and Back Again
Goblin King’s MECCG Adventure at StrategiCon
Preface: My old friend, Gandalf Gene, invites me to join him on a three, maybe four-day MECCG jaunt. I spend weeks planning and constructing the decks I would bring with me. I make five: a One Ring deck, a High Elves deck (with Agent hazard strategy), a Balrog deck, a Sauron deck and a Fallen Wizard deck. You see, the goal here is to learn news stuff. Despite 21 years playing this game, I’ve always played either standard hero or standard minion. This trip I wanted to challenge myself to learn to play more types of decks.
Prologue: On Thursday, 1st Sept., I board a train bound for the South Bay area. There, I meet up with Gandalf Gene. We drove to his house and he put me to work sorting cards. He is graciously giving people in my hometown boxes of cards in order to get them addicted to the game. (Our scheme to recruit a new generation of MECCG players is progressing nicely.) Meanwhile, he got all of his cards packed and ready to go. We went to bed by midnight and an alarm was set to go off before 6 a.m. the next morning.
Friday, 2nd September – We departed on our six-hour drive to Los Angeles at about 6:30 a.m. My goal was to sleeve 10 challenge decks while talking about the game endlessly along the way.
There was trouble. In our path, half of a trailer home disintegrated on the freeway blocking all southbound lanes. Our 12 mile detour took us down an asphalt road that is so deteriorated, you could almost hid a hobbit by telling him to lie down in the potholes. SUVs blow past us at 70 mph throwing up more chunks of the road and probably cutting the life of the vehicle’s suspension in half. Our small car seemed like a disadvantage at the time, but we would soon be thankful for it.
We arrived at StrategiCon at about 1:30 p.m. with 10 sleeved Challenge decks! We drove in a spiral down into the Under Deeps that is the five levels of underground parking. I spotted something resembling the only parking space available – a tight spot that is up against a wall and strange pipes. Of course, the person who parked next to this tiny space left his car over the line into it. We unpacked first, then backed the car in with my careful guidance. Gandalf was just able to squeeze out of his door doing his best impression of Bilbo escaping Goblin Town. (No buttons were lost but he tore a shirt sleeve.)
Let the games begin!
Part One: Casual game and First Arda
We arrived in the collectable game room and found that the party has already started. Two player were engaged in a Dream Card match up of Elves vs. Dwarves. I watched a bit and marveled at the beautiful cards. Then it was time to play a casual game.
I pull out an old favorite of mine, my High Elves deck. The goal is to build you elves up into the demigods they were in the First Age with Gates Of Morning, Star of High Hope, etc. My hazard strategy is almost a pure Agent deck with a few dragons ahunting. Gandalf Gene pulls out his infamous Infantine Hazard deck, which he’d promised to show me and had been trying to explain to me. His hazards succeed in forcing me to the Under Deeps to get my big items, which is not a terribly big deal, but does slow me down.
We decided not to finish the game in the interest of keeping with the scheduled event for the day, which was an Arda game with four players.
In the Arda game, I drafted Gandalf hoping to play rings of nature and wisdom at some point. Instead, I spent most of the game under a siege at Old Forest. I would not be a factor in the game at all - until the last turn. Then I had the opportunity to take out both the player who called council and the player in second by playing The Balance of Power and Ren the Ringwraith as an event (which first doubles the corruption of one item and then forces everyone to make a corruption check). This exact play came my way at the end of the Arda game we had at Worlds 2014 in San Francisco. (I didn’t make any friends then either.) The leader, Jeek Elem, ended up making his corruption check of a six AND his a second check at six to win the game.
(It was only while writing this report that I suddenly realized, “Wait, doesn’t Goldberry get me out from under a Siege?” It pays to read your Arda cards carefully, kids.)
With that, the first day of the convention drew to a close and I got some much needed sleep.
Saturday, 3rd September – I woke up early in the morning with my mind made up – I was playing Balrog today.
The Balrog deck I brought was created by Brian (No Cheese) Wong and it won a world championship in 2001. But I’ve realized long ago that having a deck list is one thing, knowing how to play a world champ level deck is an entirely different thing. The learning curve was going to be steep, but I was going to do it.
The tournament was for general opponent so now was the time to practice with something other than hero. There were a total of eight players, five hero and three minion (including me).
First round I was paired against a hero deck run by TradewindRider. I’m afraid I don’t remember much about the Radagast deck other than it was very good a getting through dragons with things like Flattery, Not At Home and Dragon Feud. My dragons ahunting stood no chance. I ended up losing quite handily by a tournament point score of 5 to 1. As I said, the deck alone does not a world champion make.
Second round I was again paired with a hero deck played by my forum friend, Red Arrow. He was running a Beorn and Glorfindel deck. They headed off to dragon country. “Oh goodie!” I thought. Then Beorn whipped out Skinchanger and an Old Thrush on my ahunting monster. Five easy points. On the resource side, my deck was flowing better. I’m able to burn down Beorn’s house and send the Beornings back to his hand with no location to play them again. I took a chance and played a second ahunt dragon on him, figuring he would need two Skinchangers in hand to take it down. That’s exactly what he had! He faced a high corruption check, which he tied and was bounced out of play. In the end my faction points doubled, but it was one point shy of his total of 25 points. So a 4-2 loss by tournament points. But I’m feeling better because the deck is making much more sense now.
Round three was against a fellow minion player, one of Red Arrow’s squires (I’m sorry the names escape me). He was playing a theme deck, one that gets seven of the nine Nazgul into play at the same time. I loved it! I’ve always wanted to build one of those things. This time my deck was really singing, but I delayed it because I wanted him to be able to get his Nazgul into play. When it happened, we celebrated! There needs to be a Dream Card for this deck that gives marshalling points, one for each Nazgul brought out with a minimum of 4 required. (Dream Card R&D team can you get right on that? Thanks! Usual bonuses apply.) I won the last game and the last remaining minion player (Red Arrow’s other squire/son) won the whole tournament with a nasty Sauron deck. (As TradewindRider said it was Lieutenants deck that played The Great Eye to limit the hazards to great effect.)
We finished out the day with a second night of Arda with four people participating. I again drafted Gandalf and, this time Elrond. Surely I can’t have the same luck with rings I did last game? I also decided, after seeing people fight Nazgul the day before, to pick up Eowen. She was the right move.
A Nazgul attacked us while we were trying to short-cut through Southern Mirkwood. I played an Old Thrush and a spell of some sort that both lowered the prowess and the body. The end result was that Eowen slew the Nazgul! Two turns later, she died to an automatic attack by a wolf. I never saw a ring that entire game, but I did pick off an Assassin and picked up Wormsbane, the Hillmen faction, and lots of characters. In the final turn I was in second when The Balance of Power again hit the table! A copy of Old Friendship protected me while the leader saw his Thorin run off with the Arkenstone! Can you believe I’ve been playing Arda for 10 years and this was the first time I’ve ever won a game? (Considering how poorly I played the night before, I sure can.)
With 14 straight hours of playing, I grab a burger for midnight dinner and hit the hay.
Sunday, 4rd September – We headed to the game room for a round robin tournament. I played a Fallen Radagast Cvs.CC which was created by Mark Alfaro. The hazard side is a goofy thing of my own creation which included awakened plants and item destruction.
In Round One, I squared off against Gandalf Gene playing hero Alatar and Glorfindel with Strider going into the Under Deeps. My hazard strategy couldn’t touch him but my army could. Radagast with Tom and Skinbark along with an orc and troll party armed with Orcist, Wormsbane and wolves followed them down. Glorfindel was sent back to the Halls of Mandos but Alatar evaded us. I won this game by a lucky cut. Alatar played two copies of The Hunt and was unable to claim a Nazgul trophy. He then renewed his deck and played Favor of the Valar in order for a chance to draw one or more copies of The Hunt again. But none turned up. A victory by the most narrow of margins.
Round Two was against a player I don’t know who brought his copy of the First Born Dream Cards. It was Thrandul trying to Clean the Greenwood while Fallen Radagast tried to claim it for his own. My awakened plant strategy hit him hard and, surprisingly, so did Rats! The card either removes a minor item or wounds a character. His deck started with three minor items and depended on them heavily. I ended up killing Thrandul’s first Lt. (A character whose name I forget.) and wounding Legolas. But Legolas wounded and almost killed Tom Bombadil! In the end, Radagast ruled the Greenwood, and I had a new name for the deck, Radagast The Red.
The final game was against TradewindRider, playing a Sauron deck. Once again Rats! Was the Most Valuable Player because his deck strategy depends so heavily upon a banner and whip to rouse dragons. He would rather have wounded characters. I decided my deck definitely needs three copies of the card instead of two moving forward. It was a tight game, but he pulled it off end the end.
I was given first place out of style rather than play, but I’ll take it.
Finally, Gandalf Gene and I decided to end the day and the convention kind of where it started, with him showing me the Infantine Hazard deck. It is a work of evil genius. In five turns, he has a hand size of 18 and his deck is about 19 cards. He doubles and redoubles my hazard limit each cycle then forces me to make corruption checks each time. Then he Reveals to All Watchers to repeat the hazard cycle again to infinity. It doesn’t stop until Radagast fails his corruption as does one orc with Wormsbane. Then the game is over and I have less than 10 MPs left.
I have to say it isn’t fun to be on the receiving end of that punishing deck, but it is a marvel to behold. Like a spider building a massive beautiful web. For me, it was inescapable.
And with that, my tale of the convention draws to a close. Thanks for reading.
Vastor Peredhil
Council Member
Posts: 1321
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:46 am
Location: Kempen (Niederrhein) Germany

Awesome report,

just a thing, The Old Trush cannot be used vs Nazgul (standart errata),

DC of course has many effective ways to benifit the actie RWs stragegies, so be sure to follow us in GCCG (need I say more ;) =)

yours vastor
gollum51
Posts: 313
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2008 6:30 pm

Great report!
I am really curious about the Gandalf deck. How does he get to increase the hand size so much?
Goblin King
Posts: 237
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am

gollum51 wrote:Great report!
I am really curious about the Gandalf deck. How does he get to increase the hand size so much?
He gets Pollando as his wizard. Then Elrond, Galadriel and Celeborn are all in their havens. There are also three palentirs which increase your hand size. He uses each of those and then he uses three copies of wielded twice to use them each again. That comes to 18.
Goblin King
Posts: 237
Joined: Sun Feb 19, 2012 4:49 am

Vastor Peredhil wrote:Awesome report,

just a thing, The Old Trush cannot be used vs Nazgul (standart errata),

DC of course has many effective ways to benifit the actie RWs stragegies, so be sure to follow us in GCCG (need I say more ;) =)

yours vastor
I'd love to see more of the GccG games on You Tube Vastor. As a Mac user with limited technical knowledge I've been unable to get GCCG running for long.
:roll:
Vastor Peredhil
Council Member
Posts: 1321
Joined: Wed Jan 31, 2007 10:46 am
Location: Kempen (Niederrhein) Germany

well good to see a DC game real life outside of Europe at a real event ;)

still videos are not my strong side, but I let Alex know about out dccd league which was kicking of last week, hope fully we get some of these 20-100 games covert for our yourtube community

Mac is a hassle for GCCG, still in can be done and then works fairly well, ask MuadDib for help

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

Greetings All,

Goblin King, thanks so much for the detailed tourney report! Yes, that was my Siege I played on Old Forest, but I believe you're correct, Goldberry gets your company out of the Siege, no problem.

You're certainly welcome to join us at future conventions here at the LAX Hilton--even if you just want to fly down and fly back up the same day, we will provide ground transport!

I'm eager to include a Dream Cards-only event at the next convention (February 2017) so we can all learn how to operate in this new and exciting environment! I'll work on the schedule as soon as our next gathering at ConQuest Avalon is complete.

TradewindRider
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