The final standings are in and Allan Jiang is the first-ever Meeple League Online Player of the Year. Allan crushed the field, finishing with a very impressive 36% more points than runner-up Randy Buehler. Fully 355 players played at least 1 season of 1 game in 2018. You can see the full standings here, but here’s a look at the Top 25:
1. Allan Jiang – 617.5
2. Randy Buehler – 454
3. Rob Murray – 419
4. Rob Kircher – 357.5
5. DJ Borton – 324.5
6. Nick Henning – 323
7. Richard M. Shay – 277.5
8. Stephen Voland – 262.5
9. Steven LeWinter – 259.5
10. Matthew Vienneau – 256
11. Sky Winslow Roy – 255
12. Haim Hochboim – 247
13. Mike Turian – 246
14. Chris Bert – 231
15. Andy Schwarz – 227
16. Antero Kuusi – 225.33
17. Gilbert Quinonez – 220.5
18. Andrew Norgren – 216
19. Alexandre Fafard – 209.5
20. Aaron Buchanan – 209
21. Sceadeau d’Tela – 208
22. Eric Freeman – 203
23. Ray Wolff – 201.5
24. Andrew Emerick – 197
25. Alex Bove – 189.5
For 2019 we’re going to tweak the formula slightly, but the basics will be the same: only your best 3 seasons of any given game count and you get credit for all the league points you earn plus bonuses for winning games and winning your group (where the bonuses scale up depending on how difficult your division is). We feel this worked pretty well (especially for a first attempt), but the one tweak we want to make is to reward folks for maintaining their position in the higher divisions: 2nd place – 5th place in Division 1 will now receive 5 bonus points and 2nd – 5th in each Division 2 Group will earn 2 bonus points.
We don’t have separate official awards for each of our 5 online games, but that’s not going to stop me from pointing out who our highest scorers were. I’ll be looking at aggregate scores here (aka, the sum of your best 3 seasons) since that’s what counts toward Player of the Year.
Allan scored 144 of his points in Brass, which was tops. Jon Wilcox pipped Maciek Dud 136-135 for the second best Brass year. Brass has proven to be our fastest game, by the way, with 7 different seasons happening during 2018. Andrew Emerick and Scott Rothstein rounded out the top 5 with 115 and 111.
Eric Freeman had the best year in Castles of Burgundy, winning Division 1 in 2 of the 4 seasons that happened in 2018 to take home 135 points. Allan had to settle for 2nd here, with 119.5 points as he worked his way up the ladder, while Andrew Norgren was 3rd with 117, Ming Wei Liem was 4th at 112, and Chris Bert was 5th at 111.
Switching to the app for Through The Ages helped us get in 5 seasons over the course of 2018. Allan spent all 5 in Division 1, winning it twice, but his 142 points was actually 1 less than Eric Krasnauskas (aka Kolo), who only played 3 seasons but won all 3 of them, climbing from Division 3 up to Division 1 (which he won last season). Eugene Harvey was 3rd with 122. Only 2 others broke 100 points: Luis Leitao (104) and Ray Fernandez (103).
To the surprise of absolutely no one, Kyle Smith earned the most points in Thurn & Taxis (with 124). No one else has won Division 1 more than once, but Kyle has won it *5* times, including in 2 of the 4 seasons that happened in 2018. Other games have had 3-time winners (Eric Freeman in Castles and Petri Savola in Agricola), but Kyle’s dominance of Thurn & Taxis is the most complete of any online Meeple League game. Rob Kircher’s 112 was 2nd for 2018 while my own 102 was 3rd. Alex Bove was 4th on 99, meanwhile with 98 points and 5th place overall this is apparently Allan’s worst game!
Agricola seasons are our longest and there were only 3 in 2018, so there was no opportunity to ignore a bad season. Manpanzee was the clear winner with 139.5 points. Having won his Division 4 group in late 2017, Elliot started 2018 by winning his Div 3 group, then won his Div 2 group, then won Division 1! Allan was 2nd with 114 as he also completed his own rise up the ladder into Division 1. 3rd place for the year was a tie between William Francis and ecotone at 105.5, with Terry Borer being the only other players to break 100 (which he did half half a point).
All in all 2018 was a very successful year for us – lots of people got to play lots of board games. Here’s hoping 2019 is even better!