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Manoeuvre (MAN) WBC 2018 Event Report
Updated November 10, 2018
16 Players Kevin Emery 2018 Status 2019 Status Event History
  2018 Champion     & Laurels
 

Kevin Emery Captures Title And Ends Scandinavian Supremacy

The tournament consisted of three swiss rounds to advance the top 8 to single elimination based record. The tie breaker was points based on how many times the country was played and the winning percentage from 2017. Each player was only allowed to play each of the different countries once throughout the tournament. This year the 4 expansion countries were introduced into the tournament. In an effort to see them played, the tournament allowed free use of Britain and France during the swiss rounds, but to play them during the elimination rounds, you had to play one or two expansions during the swiss rounds.

During the swiss rounds, we played in pods where you played all three other opponents; this moves the rounds along. The double whammy of higher points and more flexibility in the elimination round country selections saw a lot of the expansion countries played. Of the 96 country selections during the swiss rounds, 46 of them were expansion countries. This left a lot of countries with few plays including only 1 play total of the two country with the best winning percentage records from 2017 which were Austria 4-1 and Prussia 9-4. The country records were Ottomans 2-0, Japan 5-2, Russia 5-2, Britain 4-2, France 3-2, Sweden 4-4, Spain 1-3, Austria 0-1, India 0-4, and China 0-4. United States and Prussia were not played at all.

Each pod was won by a 3-0 player which was the first time that occurred. In addition, only two of the pods had a 2-1 player who also advanced. This left two pods coming down to who could do the most in side selection and the two advancers were people who played expansion countries all three rounds. Both advanced because they won with the Swedes. Interestingly 5 of the 8 advancers had played Sweden with it going 4-1. In the previous 10 years of this tournament, we have had 6 different champions. 3 of them advanced to the elimination rounds this year. In addition, 2 previous runner-ups advanced.

The elimination round set up as an 8 person bracket based on your records and country points from the swiss rounds. We actually had to use a die roll to break seeding for the first time. The quarterfinal match up and results were as follows:

  • Kevin Emery’s Ottomans defeated Alex Gregorio’s Spanish.
  • Josh Coyle’s French defeated John Emery’s British.
  • Richard Beyma’s French defeated Henry Rice’s British.
  • In the final match-up, Brad Raszewski’s French defeated Bjorn von Knorring’s British. This defeat of four time defending champ Bjorn meant for the first time in seven years that an American would win the tournament so this is definitely a tournament where WORLD Boardgaming Championships definitely applies.

Josh’s reward for defeating John was to face two time runner-up and John’s son Kevin Emery. Unfortunately Kevin’s British were too much for Josh’s Russians.

Brad still recovering from the victory over Bjorn got the exciting task of facing Richard Beyma, another former champion. Richard took the British and Brad took the Prussians for their only action of the tournament. Brad’s run did not hold and Richard advanced.

So could Richard get pay back for his defeat to Kevin’s dad in the 2009 final or had the Emery force been passed down? Richard had used his British and French to make the finals so he selected the Russians. Kevin had saved his French. Would the Russian winter stop Napoleon again? Unfortunately for Richard, Kevin got the upper hand in the opening clash of arms and although he fought valiantly throughout the rest of the day, when night fell, the French held the field.

 
2018 Laurelists Repeating Laurelists: 3
Richard Beyma Brad Raszewski Josh Coyle John Emery Bjorn von Knorring
2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
 

Battlines drawn for the French

Finalists with GM Andy Lewis

 
GM  Andy Lewis [11th Year]  NA
 alewis161@mchsi.com  NA