Pre-WTCOC Curiosities

WTCOC Curiosities by JinaJina, szigfrid, manarori, and Mingo

Curiosities Week “0”

Dear fellow Carcassonnians,

It’s that beautiful time of the year again! Spring is setting in one part of the world, autumn leaves are starting to fall in another, and plenty of nerves start to rattle because the WTCOC is back!

…and so are the Curiosities, YAY! 🥳

Next to all that good stuff, we are happy to welcome a record breaking 38 teams and 365 players to the new edition of this wonderful annual event, where 3 teams and 86 players will make their debut:

• 3 new teams: Australia, Thailand & Uruguay
• 86 new players
  • That’s 24% of the entered players this year!

The returning teams presenting us with the most debutants:

• 6 Brazil
• 4 Argentina & Belgium
• 3 Chile, Colombia, Finland, Japan, Poland & Vietnam

8 teams have no new faces to look forward to:

• Germany, Greece, Hungary, Lithuania, Mexico, Netherlands, RCP & Ukraine

For the newbies among us who are thinking “What are the Curiosities all about?”, well… we’re spamming your captains’ mailboxes with all kinds of questions, diving deep into the data lurking within BGA’s thick walls (but it ain’t our fault BGA crashes sometimes), analyzing all your performances, laying our ears to listen for some juicy stories or fun facts and trying to bottle that in one satisfying weekly newsletter for you to read.

But please note that we can make mistakes (yes, we are human too) and depend on the information we are given. So feel free to contact us if you spot any errors, discover something unusual related to WTCOC, had to play at the airport because your plane got delayed (while getting a free foot massage as compensation), or any other stuff you feel like sharing.

… that last paragraph also applies to non-newbies 😎

Some other great news! 

Meet Mr. M. Curiossonne, who will be helping us out with investigating all oddities this season. Expect him to pop up occasionally, snooping around the numbers with enthusiasm, exploring reckless roads, mysterious monasteries, curious cities and feisty fields.

The Pre-WTCOC 2025 facts

Our community was buzzing with friendlies and practice games to prepare for WTCOC. Fair enough, not everyone was playing with their standard line-up. Some teams were testing players, new players were maybe still a bit shaky and not all of the facts below will be a solid indicator for what’s coming. But we managed to gather a bit of data.

• As far as we know of, 44 friendlies were played between a total of 26 teams.
  • So, 68% of the participating teams played at least 1 preseason match.
• Ukraine should be the best trained team with 11 matches.
  • 11 Ukraine
  • 8 Belgium
  • 6 Italy & Croatia
  • 5 Finland, Hong Kong & Tutejšyja
• Since Ukraine played so many matches it also won the most (8), with Belgium staying in second place (6)
• But where Ukraine lost 3 matches Belgium didn’t lose any. Two draws killed their perfect streak.
• Teams that won every match (and played at least 2) are:
  • 3 Japan & Spain
  • 2 Argentina & China
• Chile, Latvia & Portugal surprisingly didn’t manage to win any of their 3 training matches. But don’t let that fool you… We believe that they only are throwing sand in our eyes, and wouldn’t be surprised to see them all in play-offs anyway.
• The players with most training matches are:
  • 7 FabianM_be & ludojahhjahh (Bel)
  • 6 N2xU (Bel), JinaJina (Bel), Lawyer (Ukr) and 2 Ukrainian players who didn’t make to the final team: Spitki & Random_23

Next to the friendlies, many teams selected their players through some kind of qualifier tournament. The last team to finish their qualifier was Colombia, on the Sunday just before the start of the WTCOC. A little nightmare for the Curiosities we must say😅.

The Chilean qualifier went on for an exhausting 12 weeks: a round robin wherein 26 people participated. They had a triple tie for the last 2 spots, so they made 6 games between them. Funny enough all ended up ex aequo again, so they went for another round which was finally decisive. What suspense that must have been!

Ukraine chose a different approach: Eight players received invites based on results in recent Ukrainian tournaments: online championship, online cup, in-person championship, and turn-based tournament series. Two additional players were selected through internal team voting.

Some teams struggled with their players living in different time zones. For one team that’s a common thing, for another this is unusual. For Lithuania for example, one member from their team is living in a different time zone, which differs by 4 hours.

Sometimes taking the initiative of inviting new players to your team qualifier can backfire! In Hong Kong, player ernie012 had only been playing Carcassonne for a few months when former team member tabbybrown invited him to the HK team selection tournament. Ernie012 squeezed onto the team, pushing tabbybrown down into the 11th ranking position, thus eliminating her from the team. Doh! 😖  P.S. tabbybrown said she was glad that she will be able to focus on watching games without stress this year. 

The WTCOC 2025 kick-off facts

• It’s the 6th edition of the WTCOC.
  • The 5 previous editions were won by Japan (4x) and China (1x).
• 14 of the players on those winning teams are participating in WTCOC this year:
  • 3x (Jap) should, snow_island & Kithara
  • 2x (Jap) 80RThiA & _piro_
  • 1x (Jap) ezitakuto_TRAPS & HaroaH
  • 1x (Chn) 203club, balala fairy, DrCaiHan2020, meeme9, mitaocat, Secret_Star & qazxswedc
• No WTCOC has ever been held without the following 25 players (who are now preparing for their 6th WTCOC appearance): gdarudda (Bra); danisvh (Cat+Esp); viv- (Fra); Karaboudjan, Leuschi & MeepleWizard (Ger); mosopal & szigfrid (Hun); ComplixVandh & manarori (Mex), Bekse & Zwollywood (NL); BBKosta, Mikhail-rus & Someone_you_know (RCP); Ervin_G, g3rappa, game__over, Mars15 & mihnea27 (Rom); HotlyHotly (Twn); Jackface, ted the notty bear & wallaceprime (UK); kb15236 (USA).
• We have 9 individual Carcassonne World Champions (with a total of 13 World Titles between them) joining us this edition.
• This year’s participants hold 154 National Titles held by 89 different players.
  • 2 new Champions might be added during the WTCOC, since both Belgium and Lithuania have their in person National Championship on the weekend of May 10th &11th.
• If you add the online Champions, then we have 90 players providing 159 national titles.
  • Countries bringing the most National Titles:
    • 12 Czech Republic (4players)
    • 11 Romania (6p)
    • 10 Latvia (3p)
    • 9 Finland (8+1 online, 5p)
    • 8 Slovakia (1p) & Belgium (5+3 online, 4p)
  • Players with the most National Titles:
    • 9 Moya88 (Cze)
    • 8 Matej_11 (Svk)
    • 6 UY_Scuti (Pol)
    • 5 Alexey_LV (Lat) & viv- (Fra)
      • Note: viv- got all of his titles online and curiously never participated in the in person edition.
  • At least 5 players who are Champion in a country/competition different to the team they represent at the WTCOC:
    • Charoling (Cat) Spain
    • danisvh (Cat) Spain
    • danielayala94 (Mex) USA
    • IoanaFelicia (Rom) Austria (2x)
    • tabado (Rom) Hungary
  • 6 Champions hold both ‘online’ and ‘in person’ titles.

The following Team averages are calculated based on the average ELO rating of each player during the period between 01.10.2024 and 11.04.2025.

You’re never too old or too young to play Carcassonne, no matter what the box says 😎.

• The team with the highest average age of 49,1y might be Germany, but please do let us know if your team beats that average ^^.
• The eldest, ahum, most ‘life experienced’ players are:
  • 64y Ed Chamon (Bra)
  • 61y Wallaceprime (UK)
• The 4 youngest players are:
  • 13y LGarbim (Bra)
  • 16y KR_ Knight_ Realm (Bra)
  • 17y GUN007 (Tha)
  • 17y Pakshe (Tha)
    • Side note: We also have a 2y old penguin 😎.

Brazil is therefore bringing the oldest and youngest players to the venue with an age difference of 51 years between them. That’s over half a century!

• We have 33 female players participating.
  • That is 9% of the field.
  • 2 are Captains of their team, Spain & Taiwan. That makes it 5% of all Captains. It could’ve been a touch more if Mingo had qualified for the USA team this year.
  • Countries with the most females in their team
    • 4 Australia, Croatia & Vietnam
    • 3 Catalonia & Hungary
    • 1 15 teams
  • To the other teams: You have some community work to do 😏.

Sometimes Carcatalent runs in the genes or the love for board games brings …love. So we also went hunting for family members, couples and other relationships within our Carcassonne family:

• Brothers:
  • Marian & Bogdan Curcan (Rom)
  • Statmatt & FanaticalLime93 (UK)
  • Tompa99 & Buha44 (Cro)
  • TRojasHenao & Ext4ur (Col)
  • esedzus & krisna (Lat)
  • DiogoAntunes & phoam (Por)
• Brother & sister:
  • danisvh & charoling (Cat)
• Collegues at work:
  • Mariaaf & Mendeleiev (Uru)
  • berna_uy & BDDL1 (Uru)
• Couples:
  • Bluste & lorki0503 (Cro)
  • han_chi & mixer97 (Cro)
  • Piccione85 & barry10 (Ita)
  • vallics & kissemo (Hun)
  • Asx3t0s & Baterlog (Gre)

As you may have noticed, Croatia is bringing 2 couples to the scene, which is one less than last year. This year the battle for the 10th spot in the team was between couple Lilliam510 & Robert1121. Rumor has it that Robert had to give up his place or sleep on the couch. Talk about taking one for the team!

It’s a Small Carcassonnian World, as defdean (Catalan player and co-organiser of this amazing event) and Blitz (French team captain) recently discovered. When defdean reached out to Blitz about the WTCOC, he also asked Blitz if the animal in his avatar was an ermine. It is indeed an ermine, which is the emblem of the region of Brittany in France. In the following conversation they discovered that they were raised in the exact same small village and went to the exact same school. Could that place be a mystical source of Carcassonne talent? Will we now see a sudden exodus of Carcassonne couples towards that tiny idyllic village in the hope of bringing forth a future Carcassonne Champion? Only time will tell.

These stories show how amazing our small but growing Carcassonne community is…bringing people together to discover historical links with each other. Please, keep on sharing beautiful stories like this with us.

Thank you for reading, sharing & caring,

JinaJina, szigfrid, manarori & Mingo  😘