Playoff Curiosities

World Team Carcassonne Online Championship
2025

Round of 16 & Quarter-finals
(Weeks “6” and “7”)

Dear seekers of drama and suspense in every move, 

We’ve finished the first two rounds of the playoffs. The field is shrinking, the stakes are higher than ever, and every match is crucial. Let’s dive into the analysis of these exciting encounters and see which teams have made their mark and who have missed out on the coveted semi-final places.

Round of 16 stats and facts

• 8 matches, 39 duels, and 92 games were played in the Round of 16
  • 25 duels had 2 games played (50 games total)
  • 14 duels had 3 games played (42 games total) – 35% of the duels, a decrease compared to the group stage, where 46% of the duels had a deciding game
• 4 games were lost due to time (but only two were reported as such!) 😯
• One duel was lost due to a player not showing up. It was a painful one, deciding the match between Brazil and Colombia.
• One game ended in a draw
• Team USA was the only team to have won all of their matches through the Round of 16 this year.
• China has been strongly affected by the new playoff format introduced last year (group winners no longer advance directly to the quarter-finals). For the second year in a row, they finished the group stage unbeaten, only to be knocked out in the first round of the play-offs. Moreover, it was an extremely unlucky match-up for them, as they were paired against the traditionally very strong RCP team.
• With France also defeated, only two of the four finalists from the previous five WTCOC editions (Japan and RCP) will advance to the final eight.  With these two teams playing each other in the quarter-finals, it is certain that there will be at least one new finalist this year.
• Poland won a game in the playoff stage for the first time ever… and it was their 4th attempt. 
• Ukraine’s 5-0 win over Latvia was the most convincing victory in this edition of the WTCOC, winning four of the five matches 2-0.

Quarterfinal stats and facts

• 4 matches, 20 duels, and 44 games were played in the quarterfinals
  • 16 duels had 2 games played (32 games total)
  • 4 duels had 3 games played (12 games total), which means that only 20% of the duels had a deciding game. If this trend continues, could all the matches in the semi-finals be 2-0?
• No games were lost due to time or no-shows. (Yay!)
• Two games ended in a draw.
• All matches ended in a  3:2 final result.
• One of the most anticipated clashes of the quarter-finals was between four-time champions Japan and former finalists RCP. However, contrary to the expectations of viewers hoping for thrilling matchups, none of the duels went to a decisive third game – all five duels ended 2-0, with Japan advancing to the semi-finals for the fifth time. Japan’s should now has a 13 duels long winning streak, but Kithara’s 9 duels long streak is also remarkable. (Both players have won all 4 of their duels so far in the tournament, and so has YguruguruY who joined the Japanese team this year.) 
• For the second year in a row, we have 3 new teams reaching the semi-finals of the WTCOC: despite their traditionally strong lineup, this is the first time Chile, Poland, and Ukraine have ever reached the WTCOC semi-finals..
• With two American teams facing off in one of the quarterfinal matchups, it was guaranteed that, for the first time in tournament history, an American team would reach the semi-finals. By defeating Team USA, Chile became the first American team to achieve this feat, surpassing the previous best American result of 5th place, set by Team USA in the 2022 event.
• After their first ever playoff victory in the round of 16, Poland also won their quarter-final match against the United Kingdom. In this match UY_Scuti (Pol) faced another world champion (statmatt, UK) for the second time in this tournament, having already played Someone_you_know (RCP) in R2. He won both duels 2:0, becoming the first player to beat two world champions in the same tournament. Overall, it was his third victory over a world champion in a WTCOC tournament, matching the record held by manarori (Mex).
• In one of the closest quarterfinals, Ukraine defeated Brazil by just a single point in the decisive game. What made their victory even more remarkable was that they were starting players in only one (!) of the 11 games played in this match. Despite this challenge, Ukraine managed to secure the win. 
• In fact, across the quarterfinals, the non-starting players won more games (25) than the starting players (19), but of course, no conclusions should be drawn from this. Overall, starting players still maintain a winning percentage above 56% across the tournament.

Weekly records

With so few games in the playoff rounds (there were 5 fewer matches over the past two weeks than in a single week during the group stage) we shouldn’t be surprised about not really having any record-breaking games or features.

• The highest and the lowest winning scores of these playoff rounds happened in the same duel between ht_bry (Chl) and Piccione85 (Ita):
  • ht_bry scored 139 pts at table #681731830
  • Piccione85 scored 68 pts (and won) at table #681737269
  • The latter game was also the game with the lowest combined score (132).
• The game with the highest combined score:
  • 252 UY_Scuti (Pol) vs LaHache (Fra) at table #681701611
• The highest losing score:
  • 123 ht_bry (Chl) at table #685065798
• Feature records of the playoffs so far:
  • 15 point unfinished road scored by Jackface (UK) at table #684974274.
  • 15 point unfinished road scored by admitted (USA) and ht_bry (Chl) at table #685065798.
  • 36 point city scored by carky (USA) at table #681141037 on move 101.
  • 36 point city scored by Alstermeriy (RCP) at table #681510011 on move 128.
  • 36 point shared city scored by ht_bry (Chl) and Piccione85 (Ita) at table #681731830 on move 126.
  • 30 point field scored by LazyBore (UK) at table #679833533.
  • 30 point field scored by Smile- (Ukr) at table #679851611.
  • Secret_Star (Chn) scored 41 monastery points at table #681522618 (2 complete and 3 incomplete monasteries).

Fun facts

Sometimes it takes extra planning to fit a WTCOC match into our schedules. One example of such dedication was displayed by vadzimir during Tutejšyja’s Round 3 match against Taiwan: The match was scheduled to start 2 hours before the Sunday liturgy in his church, so in order to avoid being late for church, he arrived several hours early with his laptop and played his duel there! (Not in the liturgical hall itself, of course, but in the same building.)

Mr. Curiossonne presents…

Winning streaks

The Curiosities team received a tip about an impressive 10-game winning streak by Gladki_Alex (Tut) that began with his 2nd game in round 5 of WTCOC ‘24 and continued through his first game of round 3 this year. This tip inspired Mr. Curiossonne to investigate whether there have been other noteworthy winning streaks this year. Here’s what he found…

Game winning streaks:

• Gladki_Alex wasn’t the only player to achieve a 10-game WTCOC winning streak this year…
• chengfengtsai (Twn) had a 2-0 win in week-1 this year, topping off a 10 game streak before losing their first game in week 2.
• Japan’s should has been rocking the playoffs, bringing his game win streak up to 10 games at the end of the quarter-finals. If everything goes well, he could extend his streak to 14 games this year.
• We mentioned previously how GUN007 (Tai) maintained his perfect WTCOC ‘25 record one week longer than HotlyHotly (Twn), but at the time we didn’t realize that HotlyHotly started his game winning streak in WTCOC ‘24… so both of the “Hot Guns” achieved 9-game winning streaks this year.
• Three players have achieved 8 game wins in a row this year (as of this writing):
  • Bignacho610 (Arg) got his 8th win during round 1 this year.
  • Kithara and YguruguruY from Japan are both on an ongoing winning streak of 8 games. Coincidentally, both of their streaks started with their second round 1 game this year. They both still have a chance to beat the current streak record of 10 games this year, but it will be hard to beat their team-mate should who has a 2-game head start.
• 8 players achieved winning streaks of 7 games this year:
  • 203club (Chn) – the only one who is still streaking
  • Tarakanov28 (RCP)
  • Smile- (Ukr)
  • Zedson (Bra)
  • Natpeera-ch (Tha)
  • alehrosario (Arg)
  • Sunny369 (HK)
  • kspttw (Pol)

Duel winning streaks:

• Should (Jap) stands alone at top having won 13 (!) duels in a row as of the quarter-finals. His streak started in round 7 of WTCOC ‘23 and is still going… Can he make it to 15 duels won this year?
• Salva3xz (Col) had a 10-duel streak that began in round 1 of WTCOC ‘23 and continued through round 4 this year. 
• Nallerheim (Fin) achieved a 9-duel winning streak that started in 2024. It stands out as being the only duel streak that started in 2024 and, at least as of this writing, has more than 6 duels.
• Kithara (Jap) also has 9 duel wins in a row, but with a chance of reaching 11 duel wins this year.
• 6 players achieved winning streaks of 7 duels this year:
  • 203club (Chn) (the only one these who is still streaking)
  • Vainiria (Chl)
  • Moya88 (Cze)
  • Asx3t0s (Gre)
  • pollo_verde (Ita)
  • Mars15 (Rom)
• 4 players have reached 6 duel wins in a row and are still going strong… but Smile- is the only one with a chance to extend his streak this year.
  • Smile- (Ukr) (still streaking…)
  • GUN007 (Tai)
  • Meami (Ger)
  • justinethier (USA)

Streaks Addendum – Should (Jap) and Smile- (Ukr) both just extended their game winning streaks by 2 in the semifinals (to 10 and 9, respectively)! And Should now has 14 duel wins in a row!!!

Mr. Curiossonne is busily compiling data from all 6 WTCOC editions, so stay tuned to find out if he discovers any additional historically significant WTCOC winning streaks!

Thank you for reading, sharing & caring,
szigfrid, manarori, JinaJina & Mingo  😘