Decathlon - Root (Event #4)

After a bunch of disappointing last minute drops, Root proceeded last night with six players.

Winners

1st Place - Megan Prettyman
2nd Place - Dave Harris
3rd place - Michael Williams

Overall Decathlon Standings

Amanda Ayers - 1

Kyle Dineen -
Emily Field - 1
Ben Fish -
Jonathan Fish -
Samantha Fish -
Daniel Halford - 1

Danielle Harris - 5

Dave Harris - 4
Hubert Lee -
Megan Prettyman - 9
Kader Riddick -
Caralee Shepard -
Kaitlyn Steward -
Matt Stewart -
Erin Salter -
Wells Thompson - 1

Michael Williams - 4
Calvin -
Stephanie -

The Game

The game ended with the following scores.

Megan (The Eeyrie): 31
Dave (The Riverfolk Company): 28
Michael (The Woodland Alliance): 27
Danielle (The Vagabond): 20
Caralee (The Marquise de Cats): 17
Daniel (The Lizard Cult): 6

Megan scored a double-first last night, being the first person to lead the Eeyrie to victory and the first person to win three Decathlon events. She has won the last three events in a row, and while its not impossible that the right combination of players could knock her out of top four, its extremely unlikely.

Megan played an extremely strong game, consolidating her position early and weathering event an Otter invasion of her home clearing. Dave played a generally really strong Riverfolk Company game, and began acting as balancer in the mid-game: first going after Megan then opportunistically burning down three of Daniel's gardens. However, on what turned out to be the final turn, he couldn't spam out the last Trading Post and had to settle for scoring 10 points in a turn and ending at 28. Danielle played the Tinker, but her inability to find the hammer and people's refusal to craft it slowed her roll. Caralee benefited from some early rolls versus the Lizards, but overinvested in Workshops and had difficulty marshaling enough military force to reclaim clearings once taken from her. Daniel benefited from starting out with two bird cards in his hand, but lost a critical early battle versus Caralee. While he did get a ton of Gardens out, they were placed in the vulnerable mouse city, where Dave's otters used brutal tactics to purge the city. Michael played a blinder of a Woodland Alliance game, establishing a secure base of power in the northwest corner of the map and going on to place 4 sympathy in a single turn for 11 points. According to him, he could have played it a little better and cheated out 13 points for a win, but missed it. Either way, a very well played game. Dave took a long moment to decide who to go after, with the ability to prevent Megan's win or leave her alone and allow her to win by turn order. After hearing arguments from other players, he went with the option that granted the most points to himself, taking out Michael's sympathy and allowing her to end on her turn.

GG to all, a well-played game all round

In closing though, I would be lying if I said I was happy with the current placements in the Decathlon this year. Due to constant drops from events (Saturday's game could have easily been filled by other people who originally signed up for Root but couldn't make it with only four hours warning), the player pool has been narrowed for many events. As a result, we only have six people represented on the board at this point thanks to game placements, with the majority of points vested in me, Dani, Michael, and Megan. By comparison, by this time last year we had 11 unique entries on the board, and nobody was a lock for top 4. We strive to make this event friendly to newbies and don't like the winners or our top four being a foregone conclusion, but this year it seems we can't avoid it.