lespeutere
2012 DominionStrategy.com Championships Thief Division champion

Final Four overview

Initial seed: 13
Round 1: def. (244) hecpan 4-0
Round 2: def. (116) secret tunnel 4-3
Round 3: def. (205) alex 4-1
Round 4: def. (45) Fabian 4-3
Division semifinals: def. (29) KristianBahle 4-1
Division finals: def. (21) HiveMindEmulator 4-2

lespeutere will be facing off against -Stef- in the first (European) semifinal.  We caught up with lespeutere and asked him a few questions.

Congratulations on winning your division! What do you think was your toughest match?

Thanks a lot. There were 2 extremely close matches: the first was a 8 game match in round 2 vs secret tunnel where I didn’t play well. In the last game my deck should’ve been significantly better than his but just didn’t come together, so it was a real nailbiter. As was my 4th round match against Swedish national champion and former no. 1 of the leaderboard Fabian. It came down to game 7 as well which was then decided pretty much by my 5/2 opening on a mountebank board.

Tell us a little about yourself. How old are you, where are you from, what do you do?

Almost 30 now, originally from a small town in Germany close to the Dutch border, now trying to finish my biophysics PhD in Göttingen, where I did my chemistry studies. Otherwise trying to do lots of sports, at the moment especially capoeira.

How did you get into Dominion?
Really classic: I saw lots of Dominion rooms on BSW, learned it in autumn 2010 and got the base game for christmas. Then I found out about isotropic and dominionstrategy in spring 2011.

What are your favorite board games other than Dominion?

I played a lot of Carcassonne on BSW, and we used to play Settlers of Catan alot with my family before I moved out.

What are your favorite and least-favorite Dominion cards, and why?

My favourite card is menagerie. It find it needs some skill to bring it to full use but when it runs it’s just awesome; and I like countering the handsize reducers. My least-favourite cards are probably tournament and knights. I don’t have much experience with knights but the games I played with them were not so enjoyable. With tournament, yes, you can obviously try and maximise your chances but I feel there is hardly any card which feels that swingy to me.

Most feared opponent on Isotropic?

I try not to fear anyone (anymore ;-)). So to name someone who’s not on everybody’s list: I feel I have a very bad record vs. Big Cheesesteak.

Finally, some one-sentence strategy advice you’d give to someone new to the game?

Learn strategies by trying out – and don’t generalise what you just experienced in that specific game where ambassador into big money had to surrender to workshop/gardens.