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Nick Page and Jessica Finkeldey try
to out innovate each other. |
Lisa Gutermuth and Heather Stutzman
play for the right to advance. |
For want of an Eliminator ...
The Innovation field rose slightly in its third year,
in part due to less competition for player time on Monday. After
adjustment for mulligans and no-shows, the business of paring
down the field yielded a single elimination bracket with 19 players
which proved less than optimal. Attempts by former semifinalist
and third-ranked laurelist Luke Koleszar to whittle it down as
an eliminator failed. This lead to a round of 5 and then a round
of 3, before settling on the Final between defending champ Geoff
Pounder, and 2012 runner-up, Robb Effinger. While Innovation
may seem like a random game to some, the consistency of the finalists
indicates otherwise.
The Final started off a bit oddly ... Geoff started with Pottery,
while Robb's opening play was Oars. Robb actually ran Oars multiple
times to steal cards from Geoff's hand into his score pile -
a kind of paddling rarely seen. Combined with clothing, Robb
was able to get the 1 Achievement. But Geoff wasn't idle during
this time, using Agriculture to shut down Robb's clothing, and
building his own score pile. Both players attempted to try to
get tempo to have the first 2 in play, to score the 2 achievement
- Robb threatening to share Oars to get to the 2s, actually trying
to get places with his paddles, but Geoff's Wheel proved slightly
faster. Geoff managed to snag the second achievement, while Robb
started setting up for Fermenting. However, Geoff found Compass,
and along with getting the third achievement, also directed Robb
down a new direction by stealing Fermenting. Robb would have
none of it, however, and headed back in the original direction
with the help of Road Building to snag Compass, and started stealing
back all the leaf cards Geoff had stolen from him.
Geoff was eventually forced to give back Fermenting, as well
as Pottery, leaving him with two stacks - Optics and Clothing
(which had been previously snagged with Roadbuilding). But he
had planned for this, and played Translation, and immediately
breaking Translation's code with his small board to achieve the
World. However, Robb was also able to use Geoff's reduced board
position to use Construction to achieve Empire. Geoff was left
with little board position and was a bit shy on score to achieve
the 4s, but with most of the 3 pile empty he thought he saw a
solution in the way of Optics. However, it was not to be - he
failed to find coins with his Optics draws, and just as importantly
failed to find Gunpowder to blow up Fermenting. So Geoff made
the decision to Translate his scorepile into a board position.
Robb started Fermenting in full force, finding the ability to
Reform, but not yet acting upon it, and occasionally selling
Pots for enough points to achieve. Geoff looked for outs, but
Optics continued to fail him, and after Robb took the 6-achievement
he was able to Reform, building the Monument, and winning.
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