Lion in Winter

2019 Lion in Winter Summary report

Below is an account of the tournament. It’s perhaps scatted, and not in a flowing kind of story telling way. This is because it’s scattered in my brain as well, and these are all just thoughts and analysis I had along the way, and afterward looking back at scores.

Once again it took 5 wins and a 2nd to capture the Lion in Winter title. With 40 players and lots of new WBC players in the filed this turned out to be the toughest tournament so far. However the result wasn’t too unfamiliar. An Old King would regain his title as Lion in Winter Champion. After a couple years with Ohio players taking the title, and then The WBC sharks from distant lands claiming it, Keith Dent is once again the LIW champion.

His journey included a 1st round seat at the Race for the Galaxy Table.  Keith took down both games relatively easily by the scores and won RFTG for the 3rd time in his LIW history. Round 2 saw his only defeat as rookie Ben Scholl dealt Keith his only defeat in the tournament besting him by only 1 point in Castles of Mad King. In round 3 he won the old version of Agricola by 1 point (58 to 57) over the eventual 2nd place finisher Robb Effinger. In Round 4 he cruised to a solid win in one of his best games Russian Railroads. In Round 5 he faced his old nemesis Chris McCurry in San Juan. Chris has defeated Keith in San Juan in LIW before and caused him a shot at the title in 2015, but this time he wasn’t to be denied. Keith won all three games, and moved on to the final round. You would think with 4 wins and a close second he may have pulled away but it wasn’t true. Rob Effinger and last year’s champion Rob Murray were hot on his heels. If Keith should slip up and he could loose the tournament lead and even with a 2nd if Rob Won he could be surpassed. There was a little drama at first as Rob M came in with a 2nd but 100% of the winning score and Robb E won his last round to both finish with 52 points, which is where Keith would be if he took 2nd. However the drama was short lived, as it became clear Keith was going to win Egizia, and seal the deal.

Some other great stores from the tournament include Michael Mecham scoring 23 more points than the previous year snagging 2 wins 3 seconds, and a 3rd to win most improved player and help anyone out that spent the 4$ to add him to their fantasy roster. 

The 2018 Rob Murray proved it wasn’t a fluke as he remained around the top of the standings all tournament long only to get edged out at the very end. The 2017 Champion Randy Buehler made his return to the top 5 after finishing 10th in 2018. Randy had 3 wins and 3 seconds. Sceadeau D’Tela had only obtained 1 loss in his first two years in the tournament which caused players that wanted him on a fantasy roster to have to pay 40$. This year he continued to play solid and show a wide breath of game knowledge but picked up 3 seconds, and one third along with a couple wins which kept him just out of the top 10. Adam Blum finished in the top 5 year yet again this year, which makes his 3rd straight year. He had 5 wins in 6 rounds but unfortunately his other round was a 4th which put him out of contention in this tough field. In the 3 most competitive years of the tournament’s history Adam posted up in the top 5 and silenced any doubters. Adam has clearly established himself as the top player among the Ohio group. Former LIW champion Neil Mecham crept into 7th place after starting with a 3rd and a 4th, but then rallying with 4 straight wins.  Every year they have been in the tournament together These two Ohio players have anchored the Columbus location team both being among the top 3, with a rotating cast of the 3rd Columbus scorer. Chad Walker was the other scorer for 4 years and in 2018 Nate Landry was the 3rd scorer. This year Nick Vilagi stepped up as the other scorer on the team. The 3 of them combined to score an average of 7.44 average points per round which is the 4th highest mark ever scored in the 7 year tournament history.

This year we saw a matchup of both 2018 Terraforming Mars Champions. Dan Adams is a pretty solid local player and a threat in any game he enters. He was a winner for Mars in 2018 but this year he faced a new competition. I said in my summary last year that I still consider Eric Wrobel the strongest Terraforming Mars player in the world. There is plenty of competition for this title as there are lots of strong players out there and just lots of players in general for this super popular game, but Eric at least got to be a contender. Eric scored 104 points besting the 2nd place player Andy Lotto by 39 points. He would be Lion in Winter’s first 2-time champion. Dan would fall to 4th place as his strategy would fizzle out in the later rounds of the game. In his sophomore debut Eric would finish in the top 10 again taking 9th place honors.

2019 saw the beginning of the WBC players moving over to a territory previously occupied by Berea players and an occasional visit from Ohio. Castles of Burgundy saw two WBC players entered this year and both of them became champions. Three-time champion of Castles of Burgundy faced off against WBC annual powerhouse Eric Freeman. Also at the table was another solid player and LIW former champion Austin Rathbone. Heather would prove her prowess by being in contention right until late in the game when she passed up a chance to grab the chicken tile that would possibly seal her victory. Eric took advantage and snagged the chickens and used that to propel his game to the final stages and take the victory. He was 10 ahead of Heather. Austin was a little behind the 2 leaders. In the second game it wasn’t as close. Randy Buehler cruised to a 68 point victory over players less familiar with the game.

Speaking of Austin, he is the only player ever to be a two time champion in 7 Wonders. In a game with cards and high variance it’s hard to consistently come out on top even if you are the best player. In the past year in Berea we have played a bunch of crazy 7 wonders trying the team variant and even playing with 110 different fan made wonders and expansions. All this would seem like it wouldn’t help much in the base 4-player game, but somehow Austin would do it again. He won his 3rd 7 Wonders title in pretty dominating fashion. He won both of the games in the round including the one with Leaders and Cities added in.

Chris McCurry would end up finishing pretty high in the standings. This was a particularly impressive feat since in order to do this he had to shake off 2 4th place finishes in Agricola. Chris was one of the players who bid on and played both versions of Agricola in the tournament. Of course he did. Chris loves the game and always plays it in LIW. This is why he is a 3-time champion of the game in LIW. However this year it wasn’t his year. He faced a couple WBC final table competitors in the first game and a 2-time world champion in the other. However this didn’t mean he didn’t have fun though and it didn’t stop him from going right back up the standings afterward.

Eduardo and Cary finished tied for first in Amun-Re after going through 2 tiebreakers. This created the first ever tie for first in the 7-year tournament history.

In Carcassonne a true rivalry may have been born. Josh Corbalis won in 2017, and Rob missed getting in the game. He made sure in 2018 that he was in and he proved he was as good as he said he was. He swept through the field winning all 3 games beating Josh along the way. In 2019 the two would face off again, and again Rob would win, but this time it was much closer. Rob won by only 3 points in a close defensive battle 80-77. Josh seems to be getting better and better at this game each year and make no mistake he will be trying to win back the title of LIW Carcassonne champion in 2020.

Two of the  more competitive games in the tournament included the round 4 game of Powergrid and the round 5 game of Egizia. Power grid featured former world champion Steve LeWinter, and 3 solid Ohio players. Nick, Jeff and Adam are all familiar with and good at Power Grid. I knew they were good not only  because they have all been solid in past LIW years, but also because for the last 2 years Adam has been right on Rob Murray’s heels in Power Grid and Robb too is a WBC Power Grid specialist. Adam had also previously lost out to Nick in LIW for the Powergrid title. It turned out to be as close as I predicted and in the end it was Adam Blum winning out by 2$ over Steve with Nick and Jeff right behind. The Egizia game featured a top Berea Egizia player Austin Rathbone, against 3 WBC sharks, Eric Freeman,. Cary Morris, and Eric Wrobel. Wrobel pulled off the victory with Austin right behind. Cary was third and this turned out to be the game that ultimately ended Cary’s bid to win the entire tournament.

Just like in 2017 Ian, Cary, and Sceadeau were the three representatives for the Greensboro team. Cary and Ian replaced Steve and Angela from 2017 and the three finished 3rd in team standings. The winner of the team event for the 2nd straight year was the distant lands team. Averaging 8.44 points per round the 2019 Distant Lands team became the highest scoring team in LIW history. As more WBC players from around the country join forces for LIW it feels like this is becoming a dynasty. I was considering brekaign up the distant lands team in the future into maybe “West Coast” and Big East” or something like that if the teams numbers keep going up.

There were 9 rookies playing in LIW for the first time. Shannon Cooley, Reanne Henry, Andy Latto, Ben Scholl, Robb Effinger, Eric Peffer, Eric Freeman, Nathional Lee Gardner, and Luke Morris. Andy, Eric F, Ben, and Robb are all WBC veterans, and are far from rookies in board game experience, but sometimes the format for LIW can throw off even the best players, but Robb and Eric F, both managed to still Navigate to a top 10 finish, which is impressive in this field. Ben was just outside the top 10 and the other rookies trickled down through the standings and enjoyed learning all the faces and games and details of this crazy tournament.

Three of the OGs from year 1 way back in 2012 were in attendance and still scoring victory points. Ben Ibershoff, Chris McCurry, and Greg Smith in all his romper glory were still making the tournament great for everyone after all this time. Ben even learned a new game Scythe. Chris and Greg played some old favorites against some new and old foes. 

I think the new time slot format did speed up the overall tournament and there was about the same number of players not getting in games they wanted to play so I think that format worked pretty well. I think going forward I will continue to keep games in rounds but do it randomly within the rounds that are the correct length. 40 people also seems to be about perfect for the total number of players. I had a blast hosting again and I hope everyone had fun playing. Looking forward to seeing everyone again in 2020.