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Egizia (EGZ) WBC 2024 Event Report
Updated October 21, 2024
65 Players Michael Swinson Event History
2024 Champion & Laurels
 

The Year of the Cursed Seat!

Turnout this year held steady at 65, from 67 in 2023 and 55 in 2022.

Turn order statistics were fascinating this year. Normally, they show a slight bias towards earlier seats, gradually trending downwards for each later seat. This year, probably due to random variance, things were skewed more interestingly. In 4-player games across the 3 Heats, first seat won 13 times, second seat won 7, third seat won actual zero times, while fourth seat still picked up 5 wins.

Bidding for seats in the Semifinal did not change any outcomes, and the first seat bids were 6, 5, 5, and 4.5. Interestingly, despite the bids not altering any winners, the Semifinal inverted the expectation, with three players advancing from the traditionally free fourth seat (though perhaps players may start bidding on fourth to avoid the cursed third seat next year!), Michael Swinson, Nick Henning, and Andrew Emerick, with Donte Saccenti advancing from the first seat.

Bidding for the Final was blind this year, and they went a little higher than they did in the Semifinal - Michael Swinson first for 6.5, Donte Saccenti second for 3.5, Nick Henning third for 1.5, and Andrew Emerick fourth for zero.

The first trip down the Nile splits the resources nicely, Mike ends up with a 3 quarry and the crew improver, Donte with a 5 yellow field and the field improver, Nick with a Sphinx card and the feed with stones permanent, and Andrew with a 3 quarry and a 3 green field.

Mike is the only one to starve in the opening round, for 6, allowing him to drop 3 bricks into the obelisk (foreshadowing!), while remaining first in round 2.

Turn order becomes Mike (-1), Andrew (3), Nick (7), and Donte (8).

In the second round, it is revealed that one of the cards out of the game is 2 quarry, so Mike happily scoops the early 2 quarry, Andrew goes to the Sphinx, Nick jumps for the 3 quarry and Donte picks up track bumps and a Sphinx card. Mike ends up feeling forced to skip the Sphinx again in the second round to deny the +2 Sphinx card from Andrew, for whom it would be much better, having already gone there this turn.

The round finishes out relatively slowly from there on the barren board, with players fearlessly filling out their crew strength with the water ring sitting on the brown spot.

Turn order becomes Mike (10), Andrew (11), Donte (17), and Nick (17).

In the third round, Mike finds the upriver card and picks it immediately (luckily able to get back to the Sphinx the following turn, not having yet gotten his second card). Donte continues to pull stones out of the stone track, Andrew takes a Sphinx card as well as a field improver, and Nick jumps for the only quarry on the board, a 4 quarry.

Players begin to turn their engines towards generating points, with nobody lagging behind or surging ahead.

Turn order going into the fourth turn is Andrew (27), Donte (27), Mike (28), and Nick (29).

In the fourth round, everybody is busy hitting all the building spots, with the only notable pickups being Andrew getting a 3 quarry (another 2 quarry did not appear), Nick and Donte picking up more green food under threat of the water ring moving from yellow to green, and Mike continuing to catch up on Sphinx cards.

All remains close, and the scores going into the fifth round are Donte (41), Andrew (44), Nick (44), and Mike (45).

In the fifth round Donte is tempted away from the Sphinx by the promise of 7 points from the Pyramids and Columns card, allowing Mike to slide in the Sphinx card with the +2 Sphinx permanent despite being fourth seat for the round. Andrew continues to build into the graves and finishes the grain track. Nick picks up some extra stone so he can feed his people with his stone feeding card because he foresees Donte pushing the water ring to green, costing Mike 4 points and Andrew 5.

During the building phase, the graves do not finish, and Nick is positioned to finish the second column, so Donte finishes it himself for an extra point over going to the Pyramid.

The final points on the board were Mike at 66, Andrew at 64, Nick at 62 and Donte with 56.

Final scoring:

  • Mike
    • 66 board points
    • 5 grave bonus
    • 9 five in obelisk
    • 7 four in obelisk
    • 8 most brown fields
    • 10 two bricks per building site
    • -6.5 bid
    • 98.5 total
  • Andrew
    • 64 board points
    • 9 grave bonus
    • 0 eighth level of the obelisk complete
    • 5 number of people finishing the grain track
    • 3 yellow crew strength
    • 4 finish grain track
    • 0 graves complete
    • 0 bid
    • 85 total
  • Nick
    • 2 board points
    • 2 grave bonus
    • 7 most quarries
    • 6 boss crew strength
    • 2 grave tiles
    • 10 both columns complete
    • 2 permanent cards
    • 2 black crew strength
    • -1.5 bid
    • 91.5
  • Donte
    • 56 board points
    • 2 grave bonus
    • 2 leftover stone
    • 2 blue crew strength
    • 6 one column complete
    • 6 four bricks in the columns
    • 7 both tech tracks complete
    • -3.5 bid
    • 77.5 total

With a total of 98.5, congratulations to Mike Swinson for winning another shield at Egizia.

And so, the cursed third seat from the Heats did not pick up a win in the Semifinal or Final either.

Despite how the Heats were slanted towards first seat this year, we continue the tradition of bidding altering no placements in Semifinal or Final. Hope to see you all again next year.

 
2024 Laurelists Repeating Laurelists: 0
Henning, Nicholas Emerick, Andrew Saccenti, Donte LeWinter, Steven Blair, Aaron
2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
 
Nick Henning working his way to the Final. Eric Freeman enjoying a game of Egizia.
Andrew Emerick swimming with the Sharks on way to Final. Finalists including GM Andrew Emerick.
GM  Andrew Emerick [10th Year]