Return Of The King!

Board Analysis:

Since each table plays the game with a different board (but the same board for all four players) , the scores may vary depending on how easy or difficult each is. The table below gives the average scores for 2025 and all of the data from previous years I could find:

Overall, the results are mostly on par with previous years, except boards 4 and 13b. These are low scoring boards, anyway, but sometimes there will be a tough draw of tiles.

First Place Player tiles played:

I asked for each table record the number of tiles of each types and the specific Knowledge tiles in the winning player’s tableau. Quite a few people forgot, so I just going with the people actually reported this data. The results are summarized on the table on the right. The biggest change from previous year is Knowledge tiles seemed less popular this year, reversing last year’s trend.

As for the Individual Knowledge tiles, the most popular were #12 Take Tile at +1/-1 (9 times), #21 +4VP Boardinghouse (8 times) and #23 +4VP City Hall. The Least Popular was #10 +/-1 Placement for Water & Pasture tiles on the board, which was not played once by a winning player.

An issue was brought up in the Tournament since I primarily use the original edition. Later editions, as used in Board Game Arena, include changes to the two specific Knowledge Tiles: #15 +3VP/Good Types shipped (changed to +2VP) and #6 Buy any Tile on the Board for 2 Silverlings (Changed to use 2 workers to claim any tile.) Yes, Tile 15 is one of the strongest Knowledge tiles, but I don’t think it so powerful that it guarantees victory. The suggested fix of +2 VP/Good Type is worth 4-6 VP which is about as much as a single action of which you get 50+/game. As for Tile 6, it is converting a somewhat weak tile to an overly powerful one, claim any tile in any non-Black Market using 2 workers. If you are not buying a tile this turn, you could use one of your dice to claim 2 workers then immediately spend those workers to buy any non-Black Market tile on the board, saving 1-3 workers each time the player chooses to use it. And it works even better when paired with other Knowledge tiles that grant extra workers #2,4,13 & 14!

The other issue trying to translate tiles between editions is only going to confuse players and the GM.

Onto the tournament!

The first Heat had 34 players with 9 games played. The winners were Michael Vaz, Jonathan Schwartz, Cliff Flaschenhar, Richard Irving, Mike Munson, Brian Littman-Smith, Ash Furman, Allan Jiang, and Marc Gibbens.

The second Heat, for the first time, had an issue with not enough copies. A few kind souls volunteered to drop out, but one person did so without telling the GM. So, when the table assignments were announced, one table ended up short! Please let the GM know if you are going to drop out after signing in.

Thirty-none players in 10 games battled for control of Burgundy. The victors were: Karl Henning, Mike Munson (2nd win), Allan Jiang (2nd win), Johnathan Naylor, Reid Barkell, Jonathan Swartz (2nd win), Ray Wolff, Andrew Nordgren, Mitzi Hubble, and Aaron Blair.

The third Heat saw 25 players participating in 7 games. The winners were: Leighton Hosking, Brian Littman-Smith (2nd win), Jonathan Mattanah, Don Nelson, Dominic Blais, Karl Henning (2nd win), and Anna De Rosa.

Semifinal

All of Semifinal games were played on the 2016 Championship Board #14 using the Monastery side.

• Game 1, Mike Munson won by 28 over Jonathan Mattanah
• Game 2, Andrew Norgren won a close game over Brian Littman-Smith and Richard Irving. (Brian made a desperation play to deny Richard the final sheep tile to complete a 4 space pasture (worth 24 points) by taking the tile despite having filled all of his pastures. Richard still could have won if he completed the pasture with another animal (for 15 points) but rolled double 4’s, 5’s or 6’s.
• Game 3, in another close affair, Michael Vaz won by a single point over Karl Henning and 4 points over Jonathan Swartz.
• Game 4,saw 2 time champion Allan Jiang win by 13 over Jonathan Naylor.

The Final was played on the 2013 Championship Board #11. Allan Jiang regained his title with 278 points. Andrew Nordgren was second at 268. Mike Munson was third at 234, Michael Vaz was fourth at 221.

I hope everyone enjoyed playing Castles of Burgundy at WBC and will return next year!