Constructed Tournament Apeldoorn, September 2 2001

by Wim Heemskerk
 

Last Sunday we played the first MeCCG tournament at the Collector's brand new location in 'de Korenpassage'. Thanks Joey and Ronald for having us and thanks Simon and Rick for organizing!

Turnout was a bit disappointing at just six players plus two spectators. I guess the holidays made it hard to let everyone know that there would be a tournament. I also heard one of the strangest excuses for a last minute cancellation: "Sorry, it is our dad's birthday." My dear Richard, exactly how long in advance did you know that? No matter, we had our fun anyway.

The picture on the right shows round two action. From front to back Simone de Ruyter vs. Simon Kort, Robert van Grieken vs. Evert Janssen, Rick Gorselink who has just finished playing me and Deimion v/d Sloot who came to learn how to play the game.

The tournament had an interesting 50% minions (two Balrogs) vs. 50% heroes, although Simon (one of the Balrog players) proclaimed halfway through that he will never play Balrog again... we'll see! Robert van Grieken, the other Balrog player, seemed more satisfied with his avatar. The third minion player was Rick Gorselink, who played a Mordor squatting deck. On the hero side there was Simone with a hobbit deck and Evert and myself with dwarves decks.

This turned out interesting when I had to face Evert in the last round: five characters bounced in the draft, stranding me with Gloin, Fili and Nori for starting characters, while Evert had done slightly better and could count Dain among his numbers. From then on however the luck in drawing characters was on my side: during the game I managed to play Thrain (on turn one) and Thorin, as well as one or two minor dwarves. On the whole I did well in this game, steadily gathering MP's. Evert on the other hand was sent back by a carefully timed Beorning Skin-changers on the 2nd turn. Turn three brought just enough trouble to keep him from entering Mount Gram. Turn four was used to regroup at Rivendell, after which he set out with Gimli and Alatar in his company to find decimation on his way to Beorn's House. His wizard fell to a Summoned Cave Worm, still holding the Sacrifice of Form planned to finish an at Home dragon. No King under the Mountain this time; and, after the modification for the wizard kill, no MP's left.

With this third victory in a row I won the (three round) tournament and reclaimed my position at the top of the ranking (for now). The deck I played was a minor variation on one already posted here on this site (so it will not be posted again).

In this tournament little hobbits were handed out for the first time. Robert van Grieken was, in the picture on the left, first to receive one as part of his consolation price. These hobbits are the new tournament tokens: you get one for each tournament you play in. The 'default' colour is blue, when you do well you get a different colour, depending on how well you did and how large the tournament was. As depicted below, they come in blue, burgundy, gold, light green and darker green. The hobbits were supposed to premier at Worlds but were accidentally overlooked during the prize ceremony.