Attendance was up for Brass this year, nearly setting a record high despite going from three to two Heats. In the fourth year with both Lancashire and Birmingham, a large majority of the games were Birmingham.
Heat 1 had 10 tables, with 7 Birmingham and 3 Lancashire. Johnathan Mattanah set a tournament high score of 174, and John Corrado set the high score for Lancashire with 169. It also featured the closest game, with Josh Boley defeating Nick HHenning by tiebreak at 150.
Heat 2 had 8 tables, 6 Birmingham and 2 Lancashire. Cliff Flacsenhar and Johnathan Mattanah became double winners.
We had 16 winners, but only 12 were present for the Semifinal so there were 3 Semifinal games, with no alternates included. Of the 12 players present, only 2 preferred Lancashire, so all 3 Semifinal games were played on Brass: Birmingham. Cliff Flachsenhar won big, scoring 162 and winning by over 50 points. On the other hand, Dominik Hothow won a tight game with a score of 150 while everyone else scored at least 135. Philip Shea won his Semifinal despite his preference for Lancashire, winning 158-150 over Jonathan Naylor, who also advanced to the Final with the closest 2nd place. And so the Final was set with Philip, a 2-time WBC champion in the Lancashire format, Cliff, a finalist from last year, and Dominik and Jonathan, two first timers at WBC.
Philip drew the first seat, and went straight into level 3 cotton mills, but needed to also build two breweries so he was low on money all game and could only flip two mills in the canal era. Cliff started in second seat, built two coal mines, two iron works, and two breweries but didn't manage to flip his breweries, instead taking extra loans to finish the canal era with over £100. Jonathan was third seat, and built and flipped two iron works, two manufacturers, and two breweries. Dominik started in fourth seat, building two iron works, one manufacturer, and two breweries, flipping all except a brewery. After the canal era, Jonathan had a lead with 44 points, compared to Dominik's 41, Philip's 33, and Cliff's 18.
Cliff started off the rail era with two double-rail builds courtesy of all the beer available on the board, starting from Stoke-on-Trent and surrounding the prized city of Uttoxeter. He followed this up by building all his level 3 and 4 breweries in Uttoxeter and Stone. Phil and Dominik also rushed breweries, while Jonathan secured the farm brewery location by Cannock. This left plenty of beer for the players to double-rail with. However, the coal market got depleted very quickly, and so there were just plenty of beer sitting on the board for multiple turns, which is atypical for high-level Brass games.
The iron market also got depleted, which allowed Jonathan to overbuild Dominik's level 3 iron works in Walsall. To make matters worse for Dominik, he had to scout and loan a lot, and had a difficult time building coal or utilizing the available beer; he ended up building and flipping a pottery and two manufacturers. Meanwhile, Philip built and sold three more cotton mills (level 3, 4, and 4) plus a pottery, while Cliff built a lot of rails and coal mines, plus a manufacturer. The rail links ended up being very unequally built, with Cliff building all 14 of his and Jonathan building 12, while Philip and Dominik each built 5. Jonathan ended off the game by building a level 5 manufacturer in Birmingham and selling it with his farm brewery as his last action.
In the end, Dominik finished with a score of 136 after his difficult rail era. Philip had the highest rail building score of 78, but also the lowest rail link score and ended with 138. Cliff made a huge comeback with a whopping 75 points from his rail links to score a 147. But Jonathan was able to hold onto his lead and take the win with a score of 156. Congratulations to Jonathan for winning the 2024 Brass tournament!
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Philip Shea working working his way to the Final. |
Scott Pfeiffer enjoying a Mafia favorite. |
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Chris Meyer enjoing a Heat of Brass. |
Finalists Naylor, Shea, Hothow, and Flachsenhar. |
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Allan Jiang [2nd Year] |
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