McCulloch Wins Fifth Title!

“This game makes me sad” - Bruno Wolff, playing in the pod

“This is a game for sadists” - An unnamed spectator, watching the Semifinal and Final

I’m not sure I’d go that far, but these quotes do touch on one of the unique aspects of Battle Line: playing a card often helps your opponent more than it helps you. Having to commit a card to an empty flag means that you have reduced the possible hands that flag can make for you significantly. Having to commit a second card to a flag means you have also committed to the specific kind of hand you are going for. The trick is to find a way to keep your options as open as possible, while pouncing on the commitments your opponents are making on their flags. Drawing the right cards helps too.

Celebrating Battle Line’s first year as a Legacy event (thanks to the BPA board for voting that status!), we drew a slightly reduced but still strong group of 52 players, which split evenly into 13 pods of 4 players each. We missed returning champion Nicholas Metzger, who was unable to come to WBC this year to defend his title.

The pods had their share of excitement. Multiple-time champion Bruce Reiff went 1-2 in a tough pod containing Noah Heinz (who advanced), Jason Pollack, and Steve Cuccaro. In the GM’s pod, Sean McCulloch beat Bruno Wolff (who made the above quote) but lost to frequent pod winner Barrington Beavis. Pat Murphy was also in the pod, and went 0-3, but the competition was fierce, and he played well in all three games.

Aubrey Powers won her pod with a tiebreaker over BPA board member Andy Latto and 2022 3rd place finisher David Schneider, but the games were delayed as it was found in the second game that the players had mixed the cards from the two games together. This is something that can easily happen, so please be careful to keep both copies of the game separated!

Other pod winners were:

• Steven Raszewski (3-0)
• Michael Shea (3-0)
• Jeff Mullet (3-0, all breakthroughs)
• Michael MacMillan-Wang (3-0)
• Cary Morris (3-0)
• Huston Johnson (3-0)
• Matt Stanley (3-0)
• Kelly Vo (3-0)
• Zachary Morris (2-1)
• Mark Love (2-1)

Aubrey dropped out of the bracket, leaving us with 12 players advancing. Byes were given to randomly chosen 3-0 people: Michael Shea, Kelly, Matt, and Huston. The remaining 3-0 players and the 2-1 players played in the “play-in” round:

• Noah beat Cary
• Jeff beat Zach
• Michael Macmillan-Wang beat Matt
• Sean beat Steve

This left us with our 8 for the Quarterfinal. In the Quarterfinal round:

• Michael Shea beat Noah
• Kelly beat Jeff
• Matt beat Michael Macmillan-Wang (depriving us of the chance of an all-Michael Final)
• Sean beat Huston

In the semifinal, Michael Shea and Sean advanced to the Final game. Since this was a 3-plaque event this year, Kelly suggested before the championship started that she and Matt play a game for third place, rather than having third place be decided by the semifinalist who lost to the eventual winner. Matt agreed, and they played another game that Kelly won, bringing home the third place plaque.

In the Final, Michael played a quick wild card to earn a flag, and then drew repeatedly trying to find the correct cards to win his other flags. Unfortunately, those cards stayed in the deck for a long time, forcing Michael to mess up some flags, while Sean won a couple himself. Eventually, Michael’s unsuccessful digging through the troop deck meant he didn’t have a tactics card he could play to stop Sean from playing his own wild and winning the game with the cards he drew (that Michael needed).

While Battle Line might be painful and sadness-inducing (just ask Michael Shea), the format we choose on Friday night allows everyone to get several games in, and for the whole tournament to finish in just a few hours. Thanks to everyone for coming, and we hope to see you next year!