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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
    
Walnut Creek, CA
 | | 11/29/2006 10:27 AM |
| There will be a draft style sealed tournament at Endgame on Sunday, December 3 at noon. Registration will begin at 11 AM. Feel free to drop in as early as 10 AM to get in a few constrcuted practice games. Bring your own map, please.
The cost per entrant will be $36, with $30 covering the cost of the 2 boosters used in the event, and $6 going to the prize support: 1 booster for every 2 players (which will be opened and drafted from based upon the results of the tournament).Â
It is unlikely that there will be a follow-up event, but if there is sufficient interest, we may run a second tournament - 200 point constructed.
Participants planning on attending:
John Sugden
John Wang
Jeff Wilder
Glyn Dewey
Jeff Asbury
Ian Bell | |
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elder_basilisk
Sergeant
410 Posts
| | 11/29/2006 6:11 PM |
| I'll be there as soon as I can be.
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Jasbury
Sneak
70 Posts
| | 11/30/2006 9:17 AM |
| | I should actualy be able to make this. I'll see ya all there | |
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Wayne
Underboss
1371 Posts
| | 12/01/2006 4:21 PM |
| I'm gonna be there. (I haven't decided about coming at 10 AM, but I'm leaning toward it.)
No pressure, but I have a D&D session on Sunday afternoon, so it'd be really nice if we could get started on time -- yes, John Wang, I'm looking at you! -- and keep things moving at a good clip. Even so, depending on turnout, I may have to do a late drop ... I'll have to leave at 4:30 PM at the very latest.
Can't say for sure, but I think Louis is a decent possibility, though at best he's under the same time constraints that I am. | |
Jeff "Wayne Laredo" Wilder | Email | Have/Want List | Trade Policies | Are You an Ethical Trader?
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 12/01/2006 5:06 PM |
| Each lunch before noon!
Downbeat will be at 12 noon by my watch. There will be no late entrants due to the draft format.
That should give us up to 30 minutes to draft (a 5 person Pod should take less than 25 minutes to draft - probably closer to 20) and build warbands (building a draft warband should be much faster) and at least 4 rounds of action by 4:30 PM... In theory.
I have some handy instruction sheets that summarize the official draft rules (including charts showing the draft order for 3, 4 and 5 person pods).
If you have a stopwatch/timer, please bring it on Sunday.
As an FYI: The required pod divisions for a draft tournament based upon the number of players present are:
4 People = 1Â four person pod
5 people = 1 five person pod
6 people = 2 three person pods
7 people = 1 four person pod and 1 three person pod
8 people = 2 four person pods
9 people = 1 five person pod and 1 four person pod
10 people = 1 four person pod and 2 three person pods
11 people = 2 four person pods and 1 three person pod
12 people = 3 four person pods
It is nice to avoid 3 person pods, and 4 person pods are ideal. If we can get to 8 or 9 people, we'll be in outstanding shape.
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Champion of Meepo _*_ Myztek on the Wizards Boards. _*_ (2206 DDM on 03/06/06)
Please note: The use of the indicates an attempt at humor ... often a bad attempt.
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TianZi
Skirmisher
25 Posts
| | 12/02/2006 5:14 PM |
| | I'll be there at 10 am for a few games of Constructed first! Please please please somebody else be there for a few games before the 12 noon start time! | |
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jgsugden
Commander
4320 Posts
Walnut Creek, CA
| | 12/03/2006 8:08 PM |
| John Wang won the tournament running a FGFP w/ Stormlizzy, Mezzoloth, Harmonium and other fodder. Glyn Dewey/John Sugden (me) tied for second. The rest, in order, were Michael Demezio, Ian Bell and Jess Asbury.Â
We had 2 three person pods. In general, the rares were pretty lackluster. I made due with the pulls I had, but I was disappointed.Â
I drafted first in my pod and drafted my rare: A Hellcat. Not a great pull. Over the next few pulls I managed to grab a Maug and a Red Hand War Sorcerer. That gace me a pretty solid LE base. At the same time, I'd managed to grab a few interesting CE fodder pieces and a couple doomguards. It looked like I'd be running LE/CE as the draft progressed. However, the second set of boosters was rough for me. There was very little evil floating around when it came time for me to pick. In fact, the only good pieces I was seeing were CG pieces. AS I had enough CE fodder to support my LE/CE band, I started hate drafting to keep the CG pieces off the table... and in case I drew a powerful CG piece or LG piece with my last rare draw. When I popped open the last pack, I pulled a Dragonkith with CG or bad uncommons. I did some quick calculations and realized I could play Lawful and drop the CE figures if I was able to get some of the common LG fodder in the pack on the way back around. I gambled, picked the Dragonkith, and was disappointed when the only things that came back to me were CE and CG fodder. I decided to go with LG/LE over LE/CE, because I needed the Dragonkith as a hitter.
In the end, I ran Hellcat, Elf Dragonkith, Maug, Red Hand War Sorcerer, Kobold Monk, Karsite Fighter and Soldier of Bytopia. The way I figure it, I was 1 good 40 point hitter away from a solid band. If I could have dropped the Soldier of Bytopia, Karsite Fighter, and (if necessary) the Kobold Fighter, I'd have had a decent band. However, it was not to be... I was displeased with my pulls, but limited is all about surviving a bad pull.
I played Ian in the first round. His draw was even worse than mine (he ended up drafting no rares), but I decided to make some dumb mistakes to give him a chance.   He was running a gnome tricketrs, a copper dragon, a couple doom guards, a free league ranger, living flaming sphere, a fiendish snake and a demonic gnoll priestess (or whatever the heck that gnoll thing is...). The end of the game was determined by 1 initiatiative check that allowed me to base his gnome trickster with my fairly healthy maug. It could have gone either way... Ian played better than I did, but I had the better band.
My second ropund was against John Wang and his FGFP band. I pretty much checked out on the match as soon as it began. I continued to make bad mistakes, but the luck of the dice were with me a few times, and I managed to stay in the game for a while. My War Sorcerer had a chance to drop all 6 of his spells on the FGFP... but it made all 6 saves and took only 60 damage. It took no other damage in the game because my maug never could hit it. The other 'beaters' in my band couldn't get in to attack it. In the end, I wasn't able to do enough to force a morale check on the giant, and it just crushed me.Â
My third match was against Jeff Asbury. His draw wasn't ideal either. He ran a chaotic warband with Vlaakith, a lillend, a green slaad, an ethereal marauder and a skeletal reaper. I made my saves versus the spells, and that hade it a battle of muscle. I had more muscle than he did. In the end I pinned Vlaakith in a corner with my mostly healthy Maug and Jeff conceded.
There were three prize boosters for drafting. The rares wer a Centaur War Hulk, a Lord of Blades and a Vlaakith. John took VLaakith, Glyn won the roll off with me and took the Centaur War Hulk. I decided to skip on the LoB (I already have one) and took a Large Water Elemental, leaving the LoB to Michael Demezio.
It was a fun day. Draft works best with 4 person pods, so I think I'll hold off on scheduling any more draft limited events until we can get an event where we get 8 people (exactly) to commit in advance. If we get other numbers, we'll instead go with sealed (normal) tourneys.Â
The biggest lesson I learned from the event had to do with drafting.
If you draft 1st or 2nd, you're not going to have a chance to adjust support pieces after seeing your last rare draw. Accordingly, you might pull a good rare in an alignment that you're not prepared to play... and that can throw a huge wrinkle in your plans. If you draft 1st or 2nd, I think you need to draft across all 4 alignments... just in case that final rare is a great piece in an opposing alignment. Â
However, if you draft 3rd, 4th (or 5th) in a pod, you have time to adjust support pieces. You can afford to specialize your warband as soon as you draft a rare.  This leads me to believe that the best draft position is last (regardless of whether the pod is 3, 4 or 5 people).  That gives you a good amount of time to pick great supporting pieces for your rare draws... It also makes it less likely that yoiu'll need to pass on a rare draw because it doesn't match the alignment of your key pieces. Yes, you'll be making the picks from the first few boosters without knowing what your rare options will be, but you can afford to pick the best pieces in the game from across the 4 alignments and risk them not being useful because you'll still have time to grab other pieces...Â
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Champion of Meepo _*_ Myztek on the Wizards Boards. _*_ (2206 DDM on 03/06/06)
Please note: The use of the indicates an attempt at humor ... often a bad attempt.
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