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Ropecon 2009 Finnish ECQ, July 31

Note: I'm writing this just before I leave for vacation, and it probably contains all sorts of mistakes here and there. I'll fix them when I get back.

Report

Before the tournament

Even though I've been running annual VTES tournaments at the Ropecon games convention for… lots of years, this year was special, since we actually had LSJ as a Guest of Honor at the con. Since Janne and I had met LSJ before (at the ECs), we volunteered to help the GoH team out and help show LSJ the sights. And the pubs. Let's not forget them.

Wednesday saw a somewhat jetlagged LSJ blinking in the bright nordic sun, being herded via car to first see a few city sights, and then to Zetor to eat & have a few drinks. After that, some more drinks at Kappeli, and we finally split ways sometime a bit before midnight, with Juki taking LSJ to the hotel and also dropping us home (nice).

Thursday… the guys did something, not 100% sure what, but it probably involved food, sun, and some drinks. I joined them for a while later in the evening at Kaisla, where out normal weekly VTES pub game was going strong – had to miss out the day's events due to being at work. Jobs, those boring things that get in the way of VTES and pubs. Anyway, many of the locals did the “oh, that's LSJ” routine, and much beer was consumed.

Friday, again a working day, after which I packed up my stuff and headed for Dipoli, the home of Ropecon, with backpack full of tournament tracking stuff and my trusty (& pink!) netbook. Real men use pink laptops.

About the con and LSJ: since he has to do a lot of tournament judging in his work, we decided to not ask for anything even remotely like that from him here. This time, LSJ got to play the game he designs… and play he did, quite a bit over the whole weekend. I think everyone appreciated that format. Playing with the designer of the game was a nice perk for local players, too.

Tournament

After the normal initial hassle, things got off to a smooth start… and actually, it wasn't even much of a hassle. Everyone who had pre-registered showed up (a few latecomers kept me well-informed via phone), and people helped out nicely in organizing the tables etc. The grand player total this year was 85, which isn't bad; 2 more than last year. On the other hand, we had a small Swedish group of visitors (who also kicked ass in the tournament), so we actually had a few less Finns this year. It's always a bit random. In any case, a nice turnout.

There's really not all that much I can say about the three preliminary rounds, except that “things went well”. The only negative was the usual lack of oxygen and ridiculous humidity in the main games hall, but that's not something we can do much about. People coped with it nicely, even though it got a bit “tropical” at times. Thanks, everyone.

Even though LSJ had threatened (in the pub) to ask nasty rules questions from the tournament judge (which would be me), he managed to contain himself. Maybe it was the threats of physical violence, or maybe it's just the fact that he's a nice guy. Or both. In any case, it was very nice to able to ask LSJ for rulings directly – though I ran into only one question where I had to resort to that, everything else was fairly straightforward.

I would like to say something about the decks people were playing, but I really can't. Even though I spent quite a bit of time wandering the tables and looking at the games, there were just some many deck types being played that nothing rose as “the” deck type this year. I guess it's the sign of a balanced game: people play all sorts of decks, and get points with them.

Finals

As I said earlier, the Swedes kicked (our) ass. The final round had two (Adam and Michael), and two other Swedes were also very high on the score list. Well done guys!

The final game was a long and (at times) tense, Dominate-heavy slug. Adam was playing a deck based around Gabrielle di Righetti, Pauli had a Mata Hari deck, Antti had Settites with Dominate & Enticement, Michael was playing a Vignes deck, and Antero had a finely-tuned !Ventrue deck. Pauli (the only one not fielding Dominate) got ousted quite quickly, after which things seemed deadlocked for a while… fortunately not forever, though. Adam finally took the win, with about 5 minutes left on the game clock.

See further on in this document for a transcript of the game.

After

The tournament started at about 18:15, which meant that the prelim rounds & qualifier t-shirt handouts were done around 1:30… so the final round ended at around 3:30 (yes, AM). Which in turn meant that people were starting to be a bit frazzled around the edges and most headed off somewhere to sleep. I didn't have that luxury, I had info desk shift until 7am… but after that, I did finally stumble home and sleep for a few hours.

I won't write much about the rest of the Con here, that's a separate subject really. LSJ gave a GoH speed on Saturday and told us about how he came to be the head designer of the game, what his design workflow is, about his priorities in designing cards… interesting stuff. Well, interesting to us VTES players anyway.

On Sunday we had a small private “VTES brunch”, in which LSJ and some of the high scorers from the tournament got served a luxury brunch (thanks, Katri & gang!) at a rooftop sauna place, and then got to play a game of VTES. It was an idea that came up during Con planning, and I think it went well and everyone had fun. Not to mention the pancakes, bubbly wine and the most necessary ingredient of surviving Ropecon: strong, pitch-black Finnish coffee.

In sum, everything went great and LSJ seemed to enjoy the visit – and I know the local players loved the opportunity to play a game with him. I was a bit sleep-deprived after the weekend, but that's par for the course. An extra thanks to the Swedes for making their way here, we haven't had too many non-Finns at the tournament so far (bar Hugh, but he's an honorary Finn anyway).

A huge thanks to the players from me, there is no way I could run a tournament of this size “solo” without players who are high on sportmanship and long on patience :). Also a big thank you to Janne, Katri and all the others who did a lot of work in organizing the VTES & GoH events at the Con.

See you all next year. Or at the EC.

-Petri “Orava” Wessman

Results

Rank Name Prelim GWs Prelim VPs Final VPs Deck/comment
1 Adam Esbjörnsson 3 10 3 Tutte bjuder till fest
2 Pauli Kiova 2 9.5 Mata Hari shifts you!
2 Antti Horelli 2 9 Team !deflection
2 Michael Holmström 2 9 1 Vignes deck
2 Antero Leppänen 2 9 1 The !Ventrue do not sleep. They Wait.
6 Seppo Lipponen 2 8
7 Are Vaskela 2 7
8 Jussi Ranta 2 7 Well, Dog Tired to Bleed (eh?)
9 Erik Torstensson 2 5.5
10 Kari Mäkinen 1 9
11 Mika Nurmikolu 1 7 MC Shamblers & friends from beyong the veil
12 Isak Esbjönsson 1 6.5 <3 Dom
13 Tommi Hakomaa 1 6 Pirates, YARR!
14 Mikko Hyvärinen 1 5.5
15 Tuomas Nyberg 1 5.5 Guruhi
16 Marko Lindroos 1 5.5
17 Marko Saari 1 5 Pahan Markon paluu
18 Veijo Fiskaali 1 5
18 Antero Hakala 1 5
20 Akseli Jalava 1 5 Vittu teitä tulee vituttamaan
21 Matias Hurme 1 5 Malk '94
22 Mika Uusi-Kilponen 1 4.5
23 Romeo Leinbaum 1 4 Backoust GG
23 Ville Saaristo 1 4 obf+DOM
25 Tuukka Kallas 1 4 Eurobrujah
26 Timo Rekola 1 4 Stolisnaja
27 Matias Frosterus 1 4 Big Hand
28 Johan Wahlström 1 3.5
29 Ville Kaijasaari 1 3.5
30 Tom Lindberg 1 3 Spam, spam, spam
31 Otso Saariluoma 1 3 Nu Ventrue
32 Toni Karjalainen 0 4
33 Otso Turunen 0 3.5 Peruspeukku
34 Jussi Hattara 0 3 Hardestadt & co., Mk III
35 Matti Palomäki 0 3 Käykö täällä Visa Electron?
36 Aleksi Nuora 0 3
37 Peter Kaario 0 3 3rd
38 Juri Juskevits 0 2.5 lol
39 Miika Karmitsa 0 2.5 Suuta korviin ja persettä polviin
40 Joonas Sahramaa 0 2
41 Jukka Karvonen 0 2
41 Jussi Koskimäki 0 2
43 Teemu Sainomaa 0 2
43 Juho Vuorikoski 0 2
45 Tommi Ketonen 0 2 Lupus in Tabula
45 Juha Ivanoff 0 2
47 Pasi Karjalainen 0 2
48 Otto Kukkasniemi 0 2 Conglomerate of the People's Republic
49 Kimmo Pekkola 0 1.5
49 Ari-Pekka Alestalo 0 1.5
51 Joni Huumonen 0 1.5
52 Juhani Puska 0 1.5
52 Jyri Puhakka 0 1.5
54 Antti Iivari 0 1.5 If you can't win, you can hurt
55 Janne Lönnqvist 0 1
56 Anssi Herranen 0 1
57 Kirmo Lassheikki 0 1 Back from Hell
57 Juha Nyholm 0 1
59 Lasse Pöyry 0 1
60 Raymond Mäkeläinen 0 1
61 Jaakko Liemola 0 1
62 Jari Vulli 0 0.5 Okon vinot hampaat
63 Touko Kästämä 0 0.5
63 Kalle Cederström 0 0.5
65 Aleksi Kivilahti 0 0.1
66 Kari Vieno 0 0 Vittu joo!
67 Samuel Mäenpää 0 0 Sauli & co.
67 Mikko Laine 0 0
67 Johannes Leppä 0 0 Magic of the Mic
67 Markku Puska 0 0
71 Arsi Järvinen 0 0
71 Tuomas Hallgren 0 0
71 Sami Dadu 0 0 Eyessamites
71 Lauri Keinänen 0 0
71 Taija Kanerva 0 0
71 Niko Heinonen 0 0
77 L.Scott Johnson 0 0 Ravnos
77 Jani Anttila 0 0
77 Arto Heinonen 0 0
77 Jari Mäkikyrö 0 0
77 Heikki Parviainen 0 0
77 Teemu Aro 0 0
77 Ari Lensu 0 0 Deadsong
77 Teppo Aro 0 0
85 Jani Nokkanen 0 0 perinteinen

Decklists

Tournament Winner

deck:adam_tutte_bjuder_till_fest

Others

deck:antero_ventrue_at_do_not_sleep

deck:antti_settite_enticement

deck:michael_vignes_deck

deck:pauli_mata_hari_shifts_you

Pictures (by Marko Saari)

tournament/ropecon2009.1250365114.txt.gz · Last modified: 2009/08/15 19:38 by orava
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