On Second Thought...

As many have already been informed, the April 1st tournament has undergone a few changes. Since we'll probably be having a few first-time players, and since only three people e-mailed me, the format is a lot more simple:

3-warrior stable. Two cultures. Head-to-head play. Prelims will be Swiss-style, finals will be single-elimination. Here's the pretty poster:

Here are the guidelines for the map-based tournament on April 1st. The simple explanation is that the winner is the player with the most points. Points are based upon how many map regions you occupy. Here are the details:

The Map:

• All regions correspond with an existing Anachronism culture.
• All players will choose two regions/cultures to represent. One will be their Home (primary) region, the other their Allied (secondary) region.
• All regions will be marked as 'Home', 'Allied', or 'Neutral'. Neutral regions will be played by the TO and/or his assistants.
• All regions will have a box for its player (or neutral), and one for its occupier (if applicable). There can only be one occupier per region, and a player will never be completely kicked out of his/her Home and Allied regions (of course, he/she cannot occupy them, either).

Deck/Stable Construction:

• All players will use a 3-warrior stable.
• All cards in a player's stable must be from his/her Home and Allied cultures.
• Two of the Warriors must be from the Home culture, the third from the Allied culture.
• One of the decks must be Culture Shock, the other two must not be Culture Shock.
• The TO will construct all Neutral stables, making a Super Culture Shock stable for each.

Before each Match:

• Players will be ranked in the order of who gets to choose their next move on the map.
• Before the first match, this order will be random. Otherwise, priority will be decided by a series of tie-breakers:
• Anyone who defended in their last match has priority over those who attacked.
• Those with fewer points have priority over those with more points.
• If points are equal, those occupying fewer regions have priority over those occupying more.
• If still tied, whoever had lower priority last time has priority this time.

Choosing a Battle:

• A player must choose a region that connected to a region that he/she occupies, or is the Home or Allied player.
• If a player's Home or Allied region is occupied by another player, he/she may choose to battle that player.
• A player cannot attack a region whose player is defending another region.
• If a player attacks an already-contested region, a multiplayer battle results.
• A player cannot play head-to-head against the same player two matches in a row.
• On the (very) off chance that a player has no legal move, he/she has a bye that match, and might play for one of the neutral regions.
• The attacking player must always battle a region's occupier.
• If there is no occupier, that he/she battle's the region's player.

Match Results:

• If the winner is not the region's player, he/she occupies the region. This will then be marked on the map.
• If a region's player wins the battle, the region becomes unoccupied.
• In the case of a tie, the defender wins the match.

Points:

• 1 point... for each Neutral region occupied
• 2 points... for each Allied region occupied
• 3 points... for each Home region occupied
• In the event of a tie in points after eight matches, the tied players will play one final match to determine the winner.

And there we are. Any questions? Direct them to bestATbgsuDOTedu.

Tourney update

The time and place are set:

2-Play, April 1st, 5:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m.

Remember, you must RSVP for this one!

Maps? Tournament?

Ladies and germs, here's the tentative idea for the April 1/2 tournament: it's all about the maps!

What I need from every interested player is the names of three cultures. They should be in this format: Home/Russian - Ally/Spanish - Alternate/Saracen.

Here's what they mean: The tournament will be a 3-warrior stable, again. There are restrictions, though. All cards in your stable must be from either your Home or Ally culture. Of your three warriors, two must be from your Home culture, the other from the Ally culture. Of your three decks, one must be culture shock, the other two must not be culture shock.
(the Alternate designation is just in case multiple people want the same cultures)

Preference will be given to the cultures chosen in the League. You will notice that some name are already written on the maps. Zarecki, Steph, and Kristen aren't on them, but have first dibs on Irish, Briton, and Egyptian.

the Anachronism Triathlon -- the results

As the tournament organizer for this shindig, allow me to express how much fun I had running it. It was exciting, dramatic, and the elimination chamber worked out beautifully.

In the first round (head-to-head matches), Steph's 'femme fatale' stable had a clear lead, with Kristen, Greg, and Pat right behind her. The second round (team play) didn't go so well for Steph, though it did for the Japanese-heavy stables of Greg and Steve. The third and final round (massive multiplayer) was set to go the distance.

Greg's multi-style stable had a strong lead, followed by Kristen's 'All Set 5' build. With the exception of Ryan's 'Heavy Hitter' stable, all the rest were separated by a couple points. (Poor Ryan... the Killer Canute deck worked well, but Harald and Spartacus just couldn't roll dice.)

The 6-way melee was a strange affair... Steve's Beowulf-San Jie Gun deck finally worked, beating down Pat's nigh unstoppable Raibeart Brus. Then his Bearded Ninja deck fell quickly to Pat's dual-wielding Amazonia. Meanwhile, Greg was taking a tactical approach. Each game saw him with the same primary objective: take down Kristen before he died. And what about Steph's Apranik deck? With Durendal and Wophiye, she proved impossibly resilient, taking down Canute and Amazonia on the way to winning the match.

That's right. Though the odds were that nobody would win the match, Steph did it in the minimal amount of game possible. Her effort skyrocketed her into second, as Greg had done enough damage to keep his lead.

A big ol' thanks to everyone involved, and keep your calendar's open on the April 1-2 weekend... Could it be that someone's planning a map-based tourney?

addendum to the Triathlon:
Set 5 cards will be legal, since it'll be about seven days since their release.