Adrenalyn XL Trading Card Game Tournament

 

I was collecting the Football 2010 World Cup trading cards called Adrenalyn XL from Panini. They feature the players from the teams that made it to the world cup this year. There actually were 2 different versions of the cards the international version and the UK version. There were some slight differences in the players and the UK edition did not have some teams like Algeria, North Korea, South Korea and New Zealand. There are 350 cards in the set comprising of 250 Base cards, 25 Star Players (odds 1 : 4 packs), 25 Goal Stoppers (odds 1 : 4 packs), 25 Fan Favourites (odds 1 : 8 packs) and 25 Champions (odds 1 : 24 packs) which are the hardest to get. There were also limited edition cards which currently were not available here.

Kaka’s Base Card

Star Player Cards … the Shinies

 

The Champion cards with the Rainbow Foil as they call it.

  

It's a simple game really just have 14 "players" (11 plus 3 subs) made up of the goalkeeper, defender, midfielder and forwards. You have to have at least 1 in each position when you start so there were quite a few formations you would not see anywhere else, the most popular formations were 4-2-4 and 5-1-4. Basically you and your opponent select an attacker and defender and compare attacker ratings with defender ratings, whoever has the higher rating wins. In the event of a draw the Star Rating comes into play and highest wins.

Well this is me above with my deck and game board.

 

 

The competition worked similar to the World Cup where there were preliminaries and finals. Having qualified for the preliminaries me and a bunch of my friends were in the final round where we had 64 players compete. But on the day only 51 players showed up and we were drawn into 8 different groups (just like the world cup from A to H). I drew H3 yeah the same group as SPAIN, which was the team I was supporting in thie world cup. We played a round robin game and the top 2 players would move on to the round of 16. Here’s how my 5 games went.

Round 1
I was up against a 10 year old kid. Managed to win him by 7-4.

Round 2
I was up against a 12 year old this round. He played well but in the end a narrow win of 6-5 for me.

Round 3
I had a bye in this round. That brought me up to 3 wins and no loses yet.

Round 4
I played a guy in a Brazil Jersey, it was a tough fight, but in the end he beat me 5-6 and the consolation was that he had already lost his previous 2 matches and this was his first win. I'm now at 3 wins and 1 lost.

Round 5
Another kid and this time a rather one sided game and it ended with a score of 8-3 in my favour. I even gave the kid some pointers on how to play the game.

So I was at 4 wins and 1 lost and with a rather good goal difference (yes they use that as tie-breakers). After the dust had settled and everyone had played I top my group and advance to the round of 16 which was a knockout round (just like the world cup), 3 of my friends made it as well only 2 others did not. The draw for the last 16 was random. At this stage I really just wanted to win the next game as the top 8 would be entitled to some cash and prizes. 1st place was $1000 in cash and prizes, 2nd was $800 worth of cash and prizes, 3rd was $500 worth of cash and prizes and the 5th to 8th place got $60 each.

The Venue at Velocity (Novena Square)

Well before the round of 16 started there was the lucky draw, they were giving out about $100 worth of prizes in each goodie bag. There were 4 prizes each to be won. I had entered like 100 coupons for this lucky draw and I thought my missus would be around so I had entered 20 entries for her and my brother-in-law another 20 entries. The event ran late and my missus decided not to stay and went home. My brother-in-law had a last minute engagement and could not make it. You had to be around to claim the prizes. 2 of my friends won prizes in this round and then I heard my brother-in-law's name being called. DAMN !! he was not around. They redrew and someone else name was called not around too, then my brother-in-law's name was called again !! in the end the prize went to some other guy. My name was not called, never mind there was another 4 lucky draw prizes where we each could win the $100 worth of prizes plus an additional MP3 player. Back to the round of 16.

Round of 16 
It was a tough fight with a teenager the scores was at 5-3 in my favour and I needed 1 more point and there was 3 cards left to play, it was my opponents turn. At this point I enquired with the judge about the use of the 'Challenge the Keeper' rule. That happens when you have a keeper as one of your last 2 cards and you have to challenge the keeper where your player has a grid of the goal and a point is marked on it as if he was shooting a penalty. The goalkeeper has the same grid with areas shaded that symbolise the areas he can save so if your spot is in the area that is not shaded you score else it is a save by the keeper. My opponent was listening to the exchange and he tried to outplay me or he made a huge mistake because he decided to put his defender as an attacker. Normally you would make your defender as a defender since their rating is higher in defence than attacker. So I unleashed by most powerful defender to block the shot and win the point. 6-3 I am in the quarterfinals and at least guaranteed of a cash prize. The game ended with a score of 7-4. Only one other friend of mine advanced, the rest were beaten.

Quarterfinals (top 8)
This will be tough as I was playing a guy who had 5 attackers and all very very strong attackers. I had to try to guess his players and lady luck was not on my side this round. I lost the match to the guy 3-8 a total wipeout. He would eventually be the 2nd place winner.

So I watched the semi-finals and the 3rd/4th placing (a friend of mine made it there but lost) and the top 2 placing. After which we got our prizes and me being in the top 8 I got $60 cash which was good. The tournament was free to enter. I stayed back for the final lucky draw which they had another 4 sets of $100 worth of products plus an MP3 player. I was thinking my name should be called since I put in over 100 entries while my brother-in-law and missus had only 20 entries. 1st set – not my name. The first name called for the 2nd set was my brother-in-law's again that's 3 times his name was called !!! It eventually went to a friend of mine. 3rd set my wife's name was called !!! aarrrhhhhhh.... am I going to miss out ? It went to another person eventually. The final set they called Gerald (he already won something so not eligible) then they pulled James (also already won) and then they pull Mohammad (who also won) and then they pulled ...... my name ..... wah I finally got that lucky draw prize, the last one some more and I put in so many entries. Guess you don't really need so many entries.

As the event ended a group of us decided to have our photo taken on stage, so out came the camera phones for this shot. That’s one for the album.

 

I also collected a prize from the organizer for completing the Fan Favourites set which was a Nikon S220 Digital Camera. All in not a bad day, with the Camera, $60 cash plus the MP3 and a box of Panini world cup stickers worth $100. As of now have already sold off the Camera and the Sticker box, cashed in my cheque and started selling off all my spare cards. Have not yet put up the MP3 player for sale. Should be doing it soon.

 

My Fan Favourite Collection (part of it)