Club championship of the CIS countries (final).

In the first round, the draw pitted me against Aldegir. The game itself was all great: gold, stats, but control just wouldn't come. I had Town Portal from the main hero, but no earth magic. Oleg didn't have much gold, but he had control, along with the Boots of Speed. I chased him a bit unsuccessfully, and since rebuilding didn't help, I set off in search of the coveted spells. Only on the seventh Dragon Utopia did I get wings, and before that there were three draw offers. Since it was late, I decided to agree, somehow thinking that for five rounds it wouldn't be critical. As it turned out, we only played 4 rounds in total, and we had knocked each other out back in the first round: ( . It would have been better if there had been a forced win and one of us had continued the fight.
In the second game against Vova, we scratched the info for Castle, but I never managed to feel the advantage of the red devils; in about 8-10 attempts, accounting for rests, levels, and blocks, I was on top only twice, and only once was there an external dwelling of imps. In the map generation without external dwellings, the path to the village was exactly 7 days; from the lookout tower, with 4 movement points, it wasn't visible. In short, I holed up in my area, fortunately there was a Dragon Fly Hive and a Dragon Utopia, which gave me them. But by that moment, Valya had arrived with full control on Archangels and had taken all the castles. When I had mana left for only one Dimension Door, there was nowhere special to run. I decided not to continue.

The third game against Napalm was Blue Swamp on Dungeon. We played for pleasure without any motivation, maybe that's why the game turned out splendidly, especially the finale, which took place under the motto "kill Tazar!" :p We started almost from the first generation; I had 2 external dwellings of Gnolls near the castle, a Dragon Utopia on respawn, and Tazar in the tavern. There was someone and something to fight with, so two main heroes leveled up in different directions, exchanging armies. Both got the Boots of Speed, which was super; Taz got earth magic, Bronh got water.
On the second month, after breaking through passages, around day 125 I noticed the blue player, but didn't make contact; I was afraid of guessing the wrong direction, and there were only 14 Dragon Flies total, while at home 2 Griffin Conservatories and 2 Dragon Utopias awaited. I return the army to Taz, he takes a third-level dwelling; Bronh takes a first-level dwelling at the computer's respawn. Another Dragon Fly Hive, and Taz with expert earth magic on days 132 and 134 breaks two third-level dwellings, giving everything needed except Town Portal.
Scouting the directions towards the blue player showed that the roads were indeed very long and without Town Portal it would be hard to capture/control. I spent a lot of time on construction and rebuilding the mage guild three times; during this time, Shakti successfully grew strong, breaking Dragon Utopias, farmed three external dwellings of devils; there was also an untaken external dwelling of Manticores on respawn and Minotaurs.
When I took Shakti's main town on day 146, I spotted a growth on the artifact. I upgraded the Archangels and cut down a large half of the army, including 15 Minotaurs and 30 Medusas. But Shakti himself was nowhere to be seen. I continued growing on two fronts; Bronh had 2 Dimension Doors and Town Portal, Taz had 1 Dimension Door and Fly. At one point, with Bronh, right under Sergei's nose, I took a Dragon Utopia and a Pandora's Box with the entire fifth level. If it weren't for the online game, the situation would have looked like maphacking; I really jumped into the dark at the right moment:rolleyes: . I wasn't attacked. In the tavern, my army was heavier, but Shakti had 30 spell power:eek: .
I collected 2 sets of Shackles of War and set out to search the dark corners of the map. I thought a bit about whom exactly to use for the finale – both Bronh and Tazar leveled evenly (levels 20 and 22 respectively), but Taz only had earth magic without resurrection, though he did have Offense, Defense, and Tactics; Bronh had earth, water, fire with Berserker, Defense, but the lack of Offense, on Bayazet's advice, favored Taz, because the blue player's only shooting stack was the Evil Eyes. When Bronh finally got Offense in the last slot, I discovered a stack of Shakti's army with all his power; Tazar was nearby, and I attacked with him specifically.
Taz 15-40-15-15 – both had decent mana, but I had slightly less – writing from memory
14 Archangels, 11 Chaos Hydras, 74 Wyvern Monarchs, 34 Greater Basilisks, 50+ Dragon Flies, 180+ Lizardmen, 380+ Gnolls
Shakti 25-24-30-15
6 Archangels, 11 Devils, 69 Dragon Flies, 30 Scorpicores, 100+ Evil Eyes, 80+ Harpies, 380+ Troglodytes
It's hard to say I had a significant army advantage here, plus I was inferior in magic and spells, so the finale was very interesting, but Napalm had many more advisors and fans on his side:D . By the way, Vitalik gave me a couple of very timely useful tips, and Merlin was confident in Tazar's victory.

In the first round, after waiting out the Archangels and Dragon Flies, I got Berserker on all other stacks except the Lizardmen. But my guys dealt such a funny amount of damage to each other:) . In response, I cast Anti-Magic on the Hydras and moved them and the Wyverns forward.
In the second round, Implosion left me with 5 out of 14 Archangels; I cast Mass Slow and charged in with almost everything, thinning out the army quite nicely over two rounds.
In the third, I cast Anti-Magic on my own Dragon Flies, and Napalm's Implosion took out the remaining Archangels.
But my first move came, and now the Wyverns confidently received Anti-Magic (I myself showed absolute certainty, by both my demeanor and actions, that Dispel was there! and it really was there, but not equipped!:eek: ), I charged in again; only 69 Dragon Flies remained as a full stack; the rest were heavily thinned and, for some reason, frequently lost morale:). My Gnolls were mostly blown up.
After that, from Shakti's side, summons of 120 Fire Elementals began; I killed all remaining living forces on the field with Armageddon and attacked the ever-spawning Fire Elementals with fist and Implosion.
At some point, the tactic changed a bit, and Sergei resurrected the Evil Eyes over 2 rounds, then sacrificed them; now I was facing 69 Dragon Flies and three stacks of Fire Elementals. I had 70 Wyvern Monarchs and 2 Wyvern stacks. I cast Slow on them; Napalm cast Anti-Magic on his own Dragon Flies and summoned more and more Fire Elementals... I saw the battle was no longer equal; I cast Slow again on the Fire Elementals and, on the wait turn, engaged the Dragon Flies, which were now a dozen stronger.
But in the end, Poison saved me; because of it, the Dragon Flies had 60 HP instead of 99, then 50... In the end, 15 Wyvern Monarchs remained against two stacks of Fire Elementals of about 80 each; Sergei's mana thankfully ran out, while I still had enough for 4 Water Elementals:) . 14 Wyvern Monarchs survived.

Overall, the game took 2 game days. There was no time or anyone left to play the fourth round.

I consider the tournament itself a success. Even though the cultural program didn't happen as planned, the winner was determined on time, completely undeniably, and absolutely deservedly. Congratulations to Bayazet!!!
For the future, of course, 4 days are too few; there were many small situations and details that dragged out the pace of the tournament. Optimal would be one day per round plus one day for the cultural program, say, in the middle of the tournament. Many people arrived early anyway, and some left the next day, meaning the opportunity can always be found if desired.

Thank you all for the games and the company!