Scythe at WBC

SCYTHE

at WBC 2018

Some people love Scythe for the excellent artwork. Some love it for the creative storyline. Some love it for its ample replayability. And some love it for its challenging strategies. For whatever reason, come play Scythe. And if you don’t know Scythe, come to the demo. You’ll love this game.
Like last year, factions will be randomly paired with player mats, and players will bid for the opportunity to choose them. But unlike last year, the player mats will be arranged numerically (increasing clockwise around the table), and all boards in a heat that have the same number of players will have the same mat pairings and structure bonus card. There will be a time limit to choose factions, so if you arrive early, you’ll have more time to analyze the mat pairings.
The expansion factions won’t be used in five-player games, and no other expansion rules will be used in any of the games. However, there will be one rule change. The rules of the basic game say, “If a player places their 6th star, the game immediately ends.” I hate when that happens. So here is what we’ll do: When a player earns their sixth star, all of the scores will be computed; whoever has the highest score will be declared the winner, and they will get 12 Tiebreaker Points (TPs). Then the game will continue, exactly where it left off (which might be in the middle of a player's turn). When a player earns their sixth star or seventh star, the scores will be counted again. This time the player with the highest score will get 8 TPs, and the player with the second-highest score will get 4 TPs. Once more, the game will continue where it left off until a player earns their sixth, seventh, or eighth star. At that time, the scores will be counted again, with the highest-scoring player getting 3 TPs, the second-highest-scoring player getting 2 TPs, and the third-highest-scoring player getting 1 TP. At this point, the game will end. If a player earns more than six stars, their additional stars are are worth the same number of points as their other stars.
If a game has not finished when there are only ten minutes remaining in the event, the active player will complete their turn, and then the game will end with a final scoring round.
I strongly prefer five-player games, so latecomers will be welcome only if they are needed to get a multiple of five players. But I will prefer six- and seven-player games to four-player games. The number of players in the semi-final round will be min(25,⌊P/10⌋×5), where P is the total number of different players in the heats. And there will be five players in the final game. Players will be chosen to play in the semi-finals based on the following tiebreakers, in the following order:
  1. Win in first heat entered
  2. Most wins in all heats entered
  3. Win in second heat entered
  4. Win in third heat entered
  5. Win in fourth heat entered
  6. Most TPs in the player’s best game
  7. Most heats in which the player brought a copy of the game
  8. Average finish in all heats entered (fourth and lower places count as sixth)
  9. High dice roll

Links
2018 WBC event report
Stonemaier Games
BoardGameGeek
Facebook
2017 WBC preview
2017 WBC event report
rulebook
game board
faction mats
player mats
objective and encounter cards
factory cards
structure bonus cards
strategy discussion
FAQ
campaign
other files
Contact me: ken69samuel@hotmail.com