Charles Jenkins' Tournament Report

Well, well, well.  Worlds came and went so fast it almost seems like a
dream.  Here I am, back at work again but unable to stop reminiscing about
all the fun I had and great people I met.  Thank you very much to everyone
but especially to the organizers who worked so hard to make Worlds happen.

Ok, now on to my report.

Thursday-Spencer Carney and I arrived in Montreal at 3:00 PM after an 8-hour
drive that was capped off by automobile jousting on Route 15.  We met Arco
in the lobby, checked in and off for dinner.  About 8:00PM we started the
multi-player sealed booster draft.  I apologize to everyone who was
interested, called, and did not receive a response.  The message system at
the hotel was not working.  Anyway, we had 4 people for the event-Arco, Luc
Schruers, Spencer Carney & myself.  The draft was fun, although I made a
colossal mistake.  Wormsbane was stuck to the rules insert of my dragons
booster & I didn't see it.  Luc was ecstatic!  My resources were a little
thin on items but I had Goldberry, Iron dwarves & Beornings to help.  My
hazards were strong-lots of drakes & dragon's blood plus miscellaneous stuff
to mostly tap people out.  Spencer's wizard fell to my dragon's blood ("and
this is where your wizard dies!"  Roll...10...sorry Spence).  Luc called the
council, he and Arco were in the 20ish mp range.  Arco lost a key character
to corruption and I miraculously scored enough points on my last turn to win
by 1 mp.

Friday-As I was not prequalified, this was the big day for me.  I got up
early and checked my decks one last time during breakfast, then on to the
library.

Game1 vs. a young man whose name I lost in the fog of so much gaming.  He
did well but I corrupted him some and delayed him enough to get my big
points (King Under the Mountain) and managed a 5-1 victory.

Game2 vs. T.S. (an Easterling).  T.S. had the most power on the board I have
ever seen.  Gates, 2 Star of High Hopes, 2 Clear Skies w/echo.  His weakest
character was Forlong at 1+2+2+2+2 prowess!  Cave drakes and Sellswords were
not going to stop this monster.  Corruption and a sideboarded River helped
me to even the playing field and I got my big combo again.  5-1 victory for
me.

Game 3 vs. Patrick Cochran.  Patrick had a one ring deck.  Try as I might, I
couldn't get through his guard until I managed to play 3 cave drakes in one
turn.  I stupidly kept going after Bilbo & Fatty instead of trying to whack
Gollum.  Then he moved to Easterling camp w/the One Ring.  Alone & unadvised
was unavailing as Bilbo made 5 cc's at a net 5!  Next turn I added Lure
Senses to Bilbo and he still made all his checks.  Sellswords at Mt. Doom
were aced by Riddling Talk & Gollum fell w/the ring into the fire.  Ouch!
0-7 loss for me.

Game4 vs. Vincent Destombes. Vincent and I were pretty close for most of the
game but I bound him up with recycled corruption and Lure of Power.  He lost
some points that way & to Assassins and I ended up w/a 5-1 victory.

At the end of the Open I had 15 tournament points and made the Semis.  This
was my goal but of course I wanted more.

That night at the drinking game, I was subjected to Wim canceling and
destroying all my attacks on his way to a 4 turn waxing of me.  He moved to
dragon country and I needed to draw just one more card to get Scatha ahunt.
After the game, Wim smiled and said "I would just cancel" as he held up an
Escape he had in reserve!  I stuck around for one more game and treated
Spencer Carney to another dead wizard courtesy of dragon's blood.

Saturday-Worlds Semis

Game 1 vs. James Montanus.  James had hobbits floating in a Great Ship.
Between that and halfling cancelers/strength, I could do little to stop him.
On my last turn, I made it to Ovir Hollow and did the King thing.  But I
screwed up bigtime as I could've played Glamdring before getting the
Returned Exiles.  This sucked (for me) as James and I tied at the Council.
Big mistake.

Game 2 vs. Charles Bouldin.  Chas on chas.  Charles had some big elves and
dunedain along with an agent attack/Seek Without Success strategy.  My
companies kept getting bounced until I got Baduila out face up and he couldn
't recycle the Seek w/o Success fast enough to get me.  Lucky for me, I had
some scrub dwarves to face his agent attacks.  He lost Elrond to corruption
which really hurt him.  I ended up with a 6-0 victory.

Game 3 vs. Luc Schruers.  Luc acted like he owed me something from the
sealed deck.  He had lots of characters pursuing LOTS of mp's.  I
sideboarded like crazy seeking a way to stop him.  Rivers helped, then
Faramir went off w/a little guy to do something.  Little guy died and then
Faramir w/Mithril Coat became Alone and Unadvised & decided to run off and
keep it for himself.  6 points up in smoke.  Luc decided to store his only
other item to protect it.  I had just enough haz limit to halve his haz
limit to bring 5 to discard pile, play uvatha & tap for Mouth, Mouth for
Neither So Ancient or Potent.  Luc now had 0 item points (as did I).  2nd
last turn I needed to use Many Foes He Fought to kill the at home and get
the King thing.  Still no item.  Last turn gandalf, eomer & dori headed to
get item.  Gandalf used true fana & old thrush to kill a cave worm (wow),
dori sacrificed himself on the aa and gandalf SacForm'ed the onguard cave
drake=2 kill mp's.  Tap Eomer for Emerald which doubled at the council for a
1mp win for me.  This game was easily the most enjoyable (to me) of all the
games because Luc was such a cool dude and the game was really intense.  4-2
win for me.

Game 4 vs. Joe Bisz.  I knew I needed a big win to even have a chance of
moving on.  Against Joe Bisz and FW, it was going to be tough.  My companies
ran into two dragon ahunts plus many drakes and I had little to counter even
though my deck had 3 old thrush, dragon's hunger, etc.  But you need to draw
the cards to play them.  Nobody important died but I was greatly delayed.
My cave drakes at Himring only managed to kill Nain but Gloin and Warg King
got an item there.  My last turn I needed a faction desperately but one
company got aced by adunaphel tapping and the other company got double
rivered.  Joe won 6-0 to move on to the finals.

Even though I would have loved making the finals, I knew it would be
extremely difficult given the quality of the players.  I felt pretty
satisfied with my performance.  My final record for worlds was 5 wins, 2
losses, 1 tie.

I want to thank everyone again for such a great time.  I met so many new
friends who were only names from the list before Worlds.  Talking meccg
w/Michel at the "Dragon Rouge" and w/T.S., etc. at the last dinner was lots
of fun (we all love to go on and on about this game).  I don't know when I'
ll be able to make another Worlds but I'll start saving all my loose change
now!

Au revoir

Charles Jenkins