Henning Wins On Way To Consul!

This is a bittersweet event report to write for several reasons.

On the plus side:

• I love the game and I was happy to see it voted in again this year<,/li>
• I managed not only to make it to the Semifinal, but also to squeak out a 6th place finish overall

On the downside:

• This was the second game I GMed, and I don’t have the bandwidth to do that again next year. Fortunately, I believe someone will be taking over for me next year
• We almost certainly did not get enough players to make it into the century, so it will have to be voted in again next year
• Two hours is too short, even for three-player games. I will recommend to next year’s GM that the time slot be set at 3 hours, even though that probably relegates it to permanent trial status, since I expect fewer players are willing to commit that amount of time

The first Heat drew 19 players. My plan was to have five three-player games and one four-player game, but we did not have enough copies, even with the two from the library. Fortunately, only three players had to finish within the two-hour window, so I let them play the three-player game while the rest of us played four-player games. The quickest finish of the four-player games was 2.5 hours, and one game ran over three hours by mutual agreement of the players. If the game is voted back in next year, please bring copies of the game so that three-player games are possible.

The second Heat had exactly 12 players, so I sat out to allow for four three-player games. With seven new players, the total player count was 26. To make it into the century, I would guess that about double that would be required. There are just so many good games competing for the few spots that a game like Underwater Cities is likely to have a difficult time gaining traction. Perhaps it is because it has so many small parts? Or maybe people are not excited about the theme? I don’t know what it is that keep it from breaking through, but I was happy to support it this year and I am hopeful that someone will figure out the secret to grow attendance in this terrific game.

The only double heat winner was former GM Brandon Buchanon. He was also one of the players who had a copy of the game in both heats. Without him, players might have had to be turned away. Two players had a win and a second place in the heats: Cary Morris and Hung Nguyen. Cary had a conflict with the Semifinal, so he did not play in it. That left five Heat winners and five alternates to make up a 12-player Semifinal (4 tables of 3).

The most exciting Semifinal game ended in a three-way tie, making the tiebreaker (turn order determined by position on the federation track after the last turn) important. Matt Spencer (one of the last alternates to make it into the Semifinal) won the tiebreaker and headed to the Final, leaving Katie Kolt with fifth place laurels.

The other Finalists were Nick Henning (the ultimate winner), Brandon Buchanon, and Matt Lahut. The Finalists agreed to play the final immediately after the Semifinal round in the hopes of finishing in time for Facts in Five. They didn’t quite make it, but they did finish before the final round, allowing them to enjoy at least a little bit of one of the treasures of WBC – shout out to John Corrado and the terrific job he does.

If I were to continue to run the tournament, I would collect information on such things as which special cards were most effective, which end game bonus tiles were best, etc. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to everyone for playing!