Kills Win The Wars

Players appeared to love the new format that used a Swiss style tournament over 5 rounds. We played two rounds on Thursday using the Apprentice rules and three rounds on Saturday using the Advanced rules. This allowed players to play as many rounds as they wanted rather than have to end competitive play based on a single elimination game. It also provided flexibility for players to drop in and out of the event as their schedule allowed. Tournament points were awarded based on the standard scoring system with players ranking based on their total over 5 rounds. The tie breaker was the total score of opponents played to represent the toughest schedule. This change received positive ratings from the players so we will keep this format for next year. Additional Demo rounds are planned for next year to fully cover both Apprentice and Advanced rules.

The Top 6 players for 2017 including their mage selection, win-loss record and number of mages killed.

• 1. Chris Byrd - Beastmaster (4-0) 4 Kills
• 2. Brad McCandless - Warlock (3-2) 3 Kills
• 3. James Newsome - Wizard (3-2) 3 Kills
• 4. Vincent Sinigaglio - Priestess (4-1) 1 Kill
• 5. David Wolfe - Wizard (3-1) 2 Kills
• 6. David Rogozinski - Priestess (3-1) 1 Kill

Arcane Wonders donated a fabulous mix of prizes in addition to the wood Plaque that WBC awards to the winner. We had door prizes for each round and the top six finishers received expansions. The first place winner took home one of every Mage expansion!

Some of the key tactics used during advanced play on Saturday were shared by players and include the following:

• Beastmaster vs. Warlock – Chris Byrd’s Beastmaster was able to put Adramelech, Lord of Fire to sleep early in the battle where he remained for the rest of the game. This created a tempo change from which Brad McCandless’ Warlock was never able to recover.
• Priestess vs. Wizard – Jim Newsome’s Wizard used a Sleep spell bound to a Mage Wand and protected with a Nullify enchantment to disrupt Nick Chepaitis’ Priestess creatures. Another battle where a strong response to the Sleep spell was not discovered in time to make a difference and Nick’s Priestess perished.
• Beastmaster vs. Wizard – Jim Newsome’s Wizard cast Mordok’s Obelisk early to counter a Beastmaster swarm of small creatures, but was unable to protect it from destruction by a pet Falcon. Chris Byrd’s Beastmaster used a combination of Temple of Light with its stun effect and a swarm of Bitterwood Foxes to hunt down and kill Jim’s Wizard.
• Warlock vs. Warlock – The match came down to the wire with Brad McCandless’ Warlock surviving a damage barrier attack by one point and using initiative in the quickcast phase of the next round to finish of Jack Howell’s Warlock with 4 damage points from a Fireball spell.

After 50 players participated across 5 demo sessions, we had 23 total players battle for mage supremacy over the Thursday and Saturday rounds of the tournament itself. Six of these were new to the WBC tournament after learning the game in the earlier demo play. Apprentice rounds on Thursday continue to be dominated by the Warlock with a 7-4 win-loss ratio. The Beastmaster was second in wins on Thursday with 4 apprentice mode victories while the remaining two mages, Wizard and Priestess, had 3 wins each. Across all mages during Thursday’s apprentice play there were 16 mage kills out of a total 17 wins. On Saturday the number of mage kills dropped to 10 across 19 total wins. Since the advanced rules provide more health to each mage and additional space for maneuver in the arena a lower kill ratio is not unexpected.

Mage selection for Saturday mages was well distributed with 6 Beastmasters, 3 Wizards, 4 Warlocks, and 4 Priestess’ selected for Advanced play. Only two of the top 6 players were able to improve their win-loss ratio on Saturday relative to Thursday’s play. Jim Newsome took a 1-1 record from Thursday and improved this with a 2-1 showing on Saturday to finish third overall. Vince Sinigaglio had a similar 1-1 record heading in to Saturday play and his 3-0 record on the final day left him with fourth place. His inability to win matches without killing his opponent kept him further down the rankings. A single kill in any of the Saturday matches would have scored him second place overall. Brad McCandless had a strong Thursday showing where his 2-0 first day allowed him to overcome a 1-2 record on Saturday to still take second place. All 3 of his victories were by mage kills. David Wolfe combined a first day 2-0 record with a second day 1-1 record to take fifth place, while David Rogozinski joined the tournament as a new player who went from Demo play early in the convention and managed to take sixth place as the Priestess in 4 rounds of tournament play. Chris Byrd took a solid 2-0 record and played consistently on Saturday with another 2-0 record to finish as the tournament Champion.

Overall the ability to kill the opponent mage in a match appears to be the key to winning the tournament. The top player won with all 4 matches resulting in a kill while both the second and third place finishers ended the tournament with 3 overall mage kills. The remaining field of players scored fewer kills.

Thanks to Arcane Wonders for their amazing support with sponsorship and additional prizes for players to win. Thanks also to Assistant GM - Frank Hastings.