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Questors of Truth, the time for quiescence has come! Quietly, the 2018 Meeples Choice Awards, that most quintessential of all gaming honors, has come to a quixotic end. The moment for quantifying the votes is here! Do your knees quake, quivering as you anticipate the results? Are you queasily questioning the status quo? Or will you acquiesce to the will of the unquenchable majority, accepting its quirks with equanimity and nary a quibble? Decide quickly, my quizzical friends, for the winners will soon be announced in quantity.
So for those of you who have minded your P’s and Q’s (and particularly the latter), I’m *quite* happy to announce that the winners of the 2018 Meeples Choice Awards are:
THE QUACKS OF QUEDLINBURG
TEOTIHUACAN
BRASS: BIRMINGHAM
Prior to the casting of a single vote this year, I did my usual private projections of which games might win. My first choice was Root, which seemed to be a lock. A top 50 game, with a unique theme and gameplay, it was also perhaps the most talked about title of 2018. Next, I went with Brass: Birmingham, thanks to its sky-high rating (it’s currently ranked #13 on the Geek). The only possible downside was that it was a spinoff of another successful game (Brass, aka Brass: Lancashire, which managed to snag an MCA 11 years ago); such games sometimes underperform in the MCA voting. Finally, I went with Architects of the West Kingdom, narrowly picking it over Teotihuacan. Both games had just cracked the Geek’s top 100. Even though Teo perfectly fit the mold of a typical MCA winner (2-hour long, big-box Euro strategy game), I leaned toward Architects, since designer Shem Phillips’ style seemed to have struck a chord with gamers. Still, a Teo victory also wouldn’t have surprised me. One well-ranked game that I decided against was Rising Sun. Despite its Geek rating, I felt that its peak had passed; I couldn’t remember the last time I heard anyone talking about it.
So the first round votes started pouring in and, naturally, the leader, almost from the very beginning, was a game that wasn’t even close to being on my radar. That was Quacks, and despite its Kennerspiel victory last year, I was genuinely surprised that a middleweight family game released in March of last year was gaining such support. But, as I’ve always said, one of the things I like most about the MCA’s is that I can be so often surprised at how things play out. I do think the fact that, for many English-speaking gamers, the game just became readily available for the first time may have something to do with its success; after all, this is a game we’re playing *now* and that can matter. (Perhaps the outstanding example of that occurred way back in 2003, when Santiago topped the MCA voting. Now Santiago is a very fine game and a particular favorite of me and my group. But I never would have anticipated it doing that well. Turns out, the English language version had come out just prior to the election and that was probably a big factor in its success.) I’ve made peace with the fact that timing can have a role in the MCA results—there’s never a time when *some* game won’t be favored and another one hurt. Besides, the effects are limited and the games involved are all quality ones, so I doubt that it’s ever an overriding factor.
To emphasize this, the margin of Quacks’ victory during the preliminary round was such that it couldn’t be explained just by good timing. It gained 30 votes, 10 more than the next highest games (Decrypto and Teotihuacan). Decrypto’s popularity was another surprise to me. Just one vote behind that pair were two of my favorites, Brass and Root. Rounding out the top 10 nominees were Coimbra, Endeavor: Age of Sail, Gizmos, Just One, and Underwater Cities. Rising Sun got only 3 votes, nowhere close to gaining a nomination (the cutoff point was 8 votes).
Quacks’ big margin over its competitors made it a favorite to grab one of the top three spots during the final round of voting, but it was far from a given. Lighter, shorter games like Quacks sometimes have broad general support, which yields success during the nominations phase, but can fall short during the final round, when games need to be *loved*, and not just *liked*, to do well. However, once the voting began, there was our old buddy Quacks zooming up to the top of the charts. After just a couple of days, it was obvious that it was going to be one of the three winners, but the rest of the results were very much in doubt. Brass was in second, just ahead of Teo, but right behind them was Root, Decrypto, New Frontiers, Newton, and The Mind. After Monday night, the vote stood as follows:
Quacks – 20
Brass: Birmingham – 12
Teotihuacan – 12
Root – 11
with the other four games still within striking distance. But Root never did get that last vote to claim one of the top three spots. Early Friday morning, someone voted for Teo to push it into second place, but that’s the only movement we had among the leaders over the last four days. The other four games finished tied for fifth, with Underwater Cities and Space Base rounding out the top 10.
So congratulations to designers Wolfgang Warsch, Danielle Tascini (with a tip of the hat to David Turczi, who designed Teotihuacan’s solo game), and the team of Martin Wallace, Gavan Brown, and Matt Tolman. Warsch’s victory merely adds to the luster of his magical 2018. It’s Wallace’s fifth MCA award, and the first he’s had in 8 years. It breaks a tie he had with Alan Moon and Uwe Rosenberg for second most MCA’s; only Knizia (with 10!) has more. Teo is Tascini’s third MCA nominated game and all of them have won! That ties him with Wolfgang Kramer for fifth place all-time in MCA victories, which is some mighty fine company. It’s the first win for all the other designers. Finally, congratulations as well to the publishers, Schmidt Spiele, NSKN, and Roxley, each of whom earns their first MCA win.
There is a remarkable similarity between the voting totals this year and last. This year, the top four games got 21, 13, 12, and 11 votes, with four games tied for fifth with 10 votes. In 2017, the top four games *also* got 21, 13, 12, and 11 votes, with five games tied for fifth with 10 votes! That’s *eerily* similar! Just a crazy fluke, but pretty amazing all the same.
I’ve listed the results for the final round at the end of this note. The games are shown in the order of the votes they received during the final election, with the number of votes received during the first round shown in parentheses. If you’ll go to meepleschoice.win and click on the “See Results” button, you’ll be able to see the results of both rounds of voting this year. If you click on a specific election, you can see all the results on one page. If you click on a game title for a particular election, you can see all the public votes for that game, so you can check out how your buddies voted.
So thanks to everyone who participated in the election. 67 people voted during the final round, with 73 voting during the first round. Every game received at least one vote, which is always nice, and all but one (Drop It) got at least 3 votes. As always, I thoroughly enjoyed conducting the voting and look forward to doing it again next year!
Here are the final results of the 2018 MCA’s:
1. The Quacks of Quedlinburg – 21 (30)
2. Teotihuacan – 13 (20)
3. Brass: Birmingham – 12 (19 )
4. Root – 11 (19)
5. Decrypto – 10 (20)
5. New Frontiers – 10 (14)
5. Newton – 10 (14)
5. The Mind – 10 (14)
9. Underwater Cities – 9 (16)
9. Space Base – 9 (12)
11. Endeavor: Age of Sail – 8 (17)
11. Just One – 8 (16)
11. Blackout: Hong Kong – 8 (10)
14. Gizmos – 7 (16)
14. Welcome To... – 7 (11)
16. 8Lilliput – 6 (8)
17. Coimbra – 5 (17)
17. Key Flow – 5 (10)
17. Architects of the West Kingdom – 5 (9)
20. That's Pretty Clever – 4 (11)
20. Forum Trajanum – 4 (8)
22. Carpe Diem – 3 (12)
22. Concordia Venus – 3 (9)
22. Azul: Stained Glass of Sintra – 3 (8)
22. Yellow & Yangtze – 3 (8)
26. Drop It – 1 (8)