Stahleck 2011 is coming!!

you will find all the infos needed at the stahleck homepage.

www.eaglecard.org/tourneyofstahleck/

there will still be updates later, so it may be worth to go there now and then.

there is also A Game of Thrones LCG and lots of boardgames.

in case there are any questions, feel free to write here or contact me at thorondor-AT-gmx.at

please spread the info about this event and make sure, you will be part of one of the biggest WHI tournaments ever.

hope to see you at the castle!

The Program (side events are still up fur discussion)

Friday Afternoon - starting at 14.00:

Casual Games & Training.
Casual LCG gaming (AGOT, COC, WHI, LOTR) and Boardgames.
Chatting and drinking coffee/tea/beer.
Visit the historic town of Bacharach and enjoy the atmosphere at Castle Stahleck.

Friday Evening - starting at 19.00:

- WHI Highlander Tourney

Saturday Morning+Afternoon - starting at 9.30:

- WHI LCG Tourney (European Championship)
followed by Top 8 Final

Saturday Evening - starting at 20.00:

- WHI "The Driver, not the Car" Tourney

- WHI Limited Tourney

Sunday Morning+Afternoon - starting at 9.30:

WHI Nations Cup

The exact rules for the side events are still in construction, be prepare to some yet unknown war.
Some details will only be unrevealed at the event itself, so take your cards with you.

Looking forward for another glorious tournament. This time we already have an Austrian nations cup team. What about you Jogo? Already prepared? Bring a new laptop this time.

Gary

The Netherlands will be represented this year as well:)

Hello there,

i'm here on behalf of the Portuguese crowd and i have a question.

you say that some rules will be anounced during the event and we should bring our full card pool but we're flying in low cost flights that have serious weight limitations and most of us are going to play multiple games. we belive that the most influencial question should be wether legends are allowed or not during the tournement so if we could have at least that information we could prepare acordingly.

@Deagal:
Why switch a working system? And who else has a Gentoo Linux running on a 13 year old Pentium MMX Laptop?

Legends will be allowed in some modi. If you cannot take the full pool with you, just take a little sideboard with to be able to adjust your deck a bit, the card exchange between modi will be limited. And at all, do not take this tournament too serious..

All eight italian players in Top16 at Stahleck with Empire decks.

7 italian-empire decks in the top16. Not nationalism, just fact.

Bad match-up for two of us...

Bad rule application at the end of swiss round...Without it, we were 8. Another bad ruling.

Anyway, right now, 3 italians to the TOP 8. Still waiting for the fourth (hopefully)...

DB.Cooper said:

Heh, another proof that Empire is overpowered... waiting for more info ;-)))

2 Polish players in the final battle !!!

Mamut (North Poland) - Jaszczur (South Poland)

In our National Championships were 69 players, so Invasion is very strong in Poland ;-)))

...and the Europe champion is "Jaszczur" (that means Lizardman) from Poland !!! second Mamut, also from Poland ;-))) Grats dudes !!!

Teokrata said:

Poland is too awesome.

Compliments to the polish players for the result!

His deck as i knew, it was specifically designed against Empire, that is another proof for our arguments about nerfing the Empire, after all.

Compliments, again! We are waiting for some words by FFG about that.

BigV said:

Yeah, I hope so... We need restriction for Derricksburg Forge and maybe for Judgement of Verena too... Reclaim the Fallen is powerfull card, but restricted, so if You play it, U can't have Minning Tunnels or Warpstone Excavations. Empire can have Judgement of Verena, Forges and Excavations in one deck.

Sorry... I don't get your point?

Jaszczur won the tournament and built a deck specifically to take out an Empire meta, of which the Italians fielded ~50% Empire of the top 16. D.B Cooper himself has advertised the Italian attraction to the Empire meta... I'm hoping that the Euro-champ merely used some of the predictors to build his deck.

The World Champion deck is not Empire

The European Champion is not Empire...

Takith said:

Before this event were 2 big WHI tournaments in Poland and top 4 in both were Empire Verena decks (about 70% Empire on 69 players) and we now also that Italian players play Empire too. So... "Jaszczur" made his deck to beat Empire, becouse "blue" decks are the most powerful now. RTF deck can be easy stopped with Volkmar, Mannfred or Offering to Hekarti, but Empire domination don't allow decks weak against Empire to win big events. That's the point. Solution is more restriction for Empire starting with Derricksburg Forge and Judgement of Verena. I also don't understand why Soul Steeler is restricted.

Takith said:

This excatly is the problem. To win, you have to build an anti-Empire deck. If a deck works against every deck but not against Empire, it will loose a bigger tournament. Even then, Empire has great chance to win due to better economy and the only card allowing to clear opponent's side of a table easily. Jaszczur has just mastered the anti-Empire deck due to the fact that there will be many Empire decks, as they are easiest to win with.

I have seen this deck to win with Empire after Verena cleard Dwarves' side... Two zones burnt in one turn without anything except developments and a quest on table.

Anyway, this is not topic for this discussion really... CONGRATULATIONS FOR JASZCZUR, MAMUT AND ALL OTHER GUYS FROM POLAND (also for another players from top8)! You rock!

At FIRST, congrats to the winner. Really. Now that's over, I can say that in the near past I've said to my fellas: "Beware Polish players."

Anyway...

What happened DOES demonstrate our theory, actually: the winner deck, as far as I know, is an anti-empire built (willingly or not). Someone told me that it can be stopped by other decks but it's strong against Empire.

We have to meta-game guys: 8 italian players which I consider PRO as polish ones, at least. 7 of 'em went through the TOP 16...The 8th went out for a rule-mistake.

Anyway, 3 of 'em went trhough the top 8 and the other got 3rd.

In the final, 2 anti-empire decks.

That's numbers.

With all due respect, I didn't see lots of competitive decks in the world championship (and, as I said before, I don't like the winning deck...I told that I really liked the OTHER winning deck of Timoty, but not this one, that's extremely under the actual competitive decks nowadays).

About europe...Numbers confirm what we told: we have good playtesters with good decks...I don't know how many players were there, exactly, but it's pretty clear that it's quite ABSURD having basically the SAME deck in 8 copies through the finals.

Grats to the winner, as I said, but remember: from a player perspective, the winning of dwarves is a good sign, and I guess we ALL agree on that...But from a strict metagame point of view, the situation will actually change when NOONE will have to build a deck specifically against the MAIN deck.

Empire is still on the top, guys. Anti-Empire Dwarven deck was unexpected, but SERIOUS metagaming consideration cannot be done with a single tournament but on a 4-5 months of playtesting (that's how a card game is developed, created and played competitively), because if we do that, we should say that DARK ELVES are the strongest archetype, but THEY'RE definitely NOT.

If we consider just the winning deck, avoiding any other number, we're not making a metagame analysis.

DB

DB.Cooper said:

WORDS OF WISDOM ;-)))

World Champion's DE deck have no chance against Verena Empire crushing anything on its way except RTF Dwarves and maybe some lucky Chaos decks with Unleashing the Spell. Upcoming Orc quest will hape greenskins against Verena and Hidden Groves, but both elves without development and support control are in the worst position against Empire and similar build like Dwarf/Empire. If FFG don't wont to force all competive players to play Empire or anti-Empire decks and kill the game there must be new restriction list, better balanced cards for Empire, stronger cards for Elves. HE and DE need some kind of develop nad support control. If they can't destroy it they can steal them, return to hand, counter or turn into developments...

DB.Cooper said:

jogo said:

Can't agree. I was playing with Mamut's RTF Dwarves with my DE on last tournament in Poland and with RTF Dwarves played by Fortep and that was easy 2-0 for me. RTF Dwarves ARE strictly anit-Empire, anti-Verena deck. Another fact is that in really big 2 events in Poland 70% decks were Verena Empire and this archetype dominate top 4 in both tournamts with 69 and 36 players. It's not a luck or coincidance, it's meta domination...

Finally some words of wisdom by you to restrict in some way the Empire, thanks really!! I really hope that FFG will listen us.

jogo said:

Hi Jogo.

I took a look to the results (as our player showed us, I have to read in depth their reports, yet), and I noticed that great deck (everyone told it was a funny and strong deck) was actually an anti-meta deck, 'cause it lost against DE, if I remember correctly (against whom Empire NEVER loses) and did pretty bad against Orc Rush.

The mistake has to be proved, but I checked out the FAQ and had something to do with the "sacrifice-additional cost" thing...Any way, I didn't mentioned it because it's an ACTUAL problem...I've just said that to focus on the fact that, as someone couldn't believe it, every version of our empire decks, specifically built for competitive play, went through the finals.

I guess, as YOU do, we deserve a bit of attention, because if we say something, is because we see it on a regular basis during a long season of tournaments. Someone insulted us tellin' that we were "psycho-pros" or the like.

No pros, nor psycho: just players who love the game and are tired to see a one-deck game (or two-decks game).

The point of the discussion is not about who's the best: is about what's the best thing to do for the game. And the best thing to do is nerf empire and give an actual chance to Elves. Then, if a single faction is out of the contest, that's fine, it's normal for a card game...

Let's see what happens.

Cheers

DB

Hi,

So is this the RTF Dwarves deck that everyone is discussing? deckbox.org/sets/103130