Dave Stegman's Tournament Report most of it has already been said, but this is my worlds report. it was honestly one of the most fun times i've ever had. period. everybody i met was a HUGE meccg fan, and had such a reverence for the game, very emotional, almost like a religious experience for me. i truly appreciate all of my opponents, i had some very memorable games. and all the familiar faces from nationals and new people from the list - i think i managed to meet most people there. well, that's all you need to know. for those of you with extra free time, the gory details are written below, maybe you're name is in there somewhere... THURSDAY, Aug 23 you may know i went by train from new york. this was cool. i had to show up at like 8 am, meet gene berry, charles B., and bill kenyon. i had a little trouble finding penn station, had to use underdeeps movement, but found them in time. was worried about gene finding it after he took the red eye to arrive at 6am and shuttle over to penn station. he shows up in time, with Jim Gutt. out of nowhere!! jim also took a red eye (wasn't preregistered so it was a total surprise to me) and tried to take the same shuttle from jfk as gene. but the shuttle was broke down, so he asked if anyone wanted to split a cab to penn station and gene says, that's where he's going too.. so gene plays A Chance Meeting and they're off to penn station where they meet us. next issue, Jim forgot his passport, and even though their security appeared quite lax, you did have to have one and there was the fear that you could be detrained at the border without a passport. they were really scaring us. Jim asks what other form of ID they'll accept (driver's license they say is not enough), and they give him a list, birth certificate etc.. So Jim played Lucky Search and pulls out .... a voter registration card!! next they won't tell you what track the train is leaving from until 20 minutes before so everyone waiting has an equal shot at a nice seat. But since Charles is in the STate Dept, he uses Diplomat skill to play A new Friendship, and they tell us the track early. we get seats all togother and it's off to Tolen Mar. on the way after the train left, we start talking cards and freaking out the general public that has to share the train with us.... so we move to the dining car and have big tables, we get two games together.. first i play Jim and Bill and Gene play each other. then i play against bill, he has a morannon deck and i play a muster of rohan squatting at amon hen deck. i'll always remember that ride with Tom, the surly conductor, coming through yelling at, well, everybody, and Winston in the back selling beer at the cafe, and us playing MECCG and watching the mighty Husdon meander beside us through huge picture windows all the way to montreal. Charles was building his deck the whole way and came to check on us periodically. so we get in pretty late, cab over to our apartment but the desk is not just closed, it's locked and we can't get in to even ask anyone to get the key to our apartment. and i'm wondering where is chad martin who was supposed to stay with us. if he's playing in the sealed deck and we can't get in the apt... big trouble. so we buzz the intercom for our apartment out of pure desperation and someone answers. my first thought is the worst - that i didn't show up and they rented it to someone else, so i say hey, "this is dave, i'm supposed to stay in apt 303", and the voice says, "good, this is Chad, i've been waiting for you", and buzzes us in. We had just used on only Favor of the Valor right there. FRIDAY, Aug 24 open for worlds i just need to get enough points with 4-2 wins to get into the top half of the field to advance. I play a malady deck with akhorahil unleashed. first round against Alicia, she throws down sam fatty galadriel and elledan? i think - one ring. stop one ring. soon into the game she moves company to moria.. and found nothing to eat or drink... whoops, and then she tapped the lady, oh no... my turn move to moria, and ahhh ahhh ahhhcheewww - one big sneeze on galadriel (rolled a 9) and she's gone. the look on her face is "ohh no!!" and i'm certain the game is turned in my favor. she then calmy proceeds to carry on the plan, gets gollum, walks up to mt. doom and voila, gollum's fate. 0-7. i shake her hand in admiration. the pinnacle of the malady deck had just occurred in the first round. getting Galadriel is the ultimate goal of a Malady deck, it had never happened and I thought it never would, but it came so early in the tournament. i figured, probably all down hill from here, at least there's the drinking game.. next i draw chris scott, a local player. he is fairly inexperienced and i worry when he tells me he doesn't know the lidless eye cards and such. oooof. soon enough his entire starting company finds nothing to eat or drink and thrain, balin, some others are reminded to the reason they should have their childhood immunizations. 6-0 me. next round against spence carney. spence did a truly epic job on getting the Tolen Mar expansion cards printed with help from James K. and he was playing a minion deck with orc scouts. the low hazard limit sucks but luckily i drew Gandalf the white rider very early. i went for the rangers and maladied them, then it was river river river and dumping spawn for darkness made by malice for his ever shrinking companies. malady deck sucks in the way that it doesn't generate kill points from the minions i malady, but they have a ranger skill shortage usually.. i don't know how else to stop a balrog. gotta think some more on that one. but i know since orcs have a discard number when I put out the press gang... so Shagrat got discarded to press gang for -2 character MPs, spence got big factions out already but i slowed him down enough. final score was 12-6 me so a very close 6-0. finally against Patrick Kochran. my brain was mush. i scared the heck out of him and i don't remember the score. i ended up with enough points to qualify. it was 4-2 him or me i think.. he got terrified and figured out two rivers wasn't enough to stop me, since taladhan taps for one and deeper shadows the next. hmmm.. how to stop it?? later that night.... we went to the drinking game, after one round i wanted to leave and go home and tweak my deck. around 1 am chad and patrick played heedless revelry and showed up somewhat loaded after being the top two finishers in the drinking game. patrick crashed at our apartment and ended up staying there for the rest of the time he was in montreal and we were glad he did. patrick either played or heard josh grace played a malady deck and maybe someone else did too so he was expecting lots of malady decks in the semis.. so he stayed up quite late and realized he needs lost in free domains and he can hide in gondor. yes, i tell him he would succeed with that and stop any malady deck cold. no way i was playing a malady deck in the semis - i would never make the final 4. me and gene tweaked my deck until 5 in the morning. this deck (the so-called Infinite Cheeze deck to compliment his Infinite Hazard Strategy deck) was still in the prototype alpha version. then he tweaked his deck until 7 in the morning. i had got my 2 hours sleep and him his 1 hour and we were off to the semis - very excited. so excited, obviously, we couldn't have slept if we wanted to. Saturday Aug 25, Worlds semi-finals (very nervous) first game Thomas Bovinder (yeah my first intercontinental opponent). basically his cheezigast kicked my cheezy ass, i had overlooked that without a shadow of mordor, radagast would cycle before me and i would lose. simple. he had dwarves and elves and i had 3 unhappy blows in the SB, didn't matter, i lost 0-6. next up was chris scott from canada. i played him the day before and waited and waited and he never shows up. so i got a forfiet and since i had a minion one ring deck it was 7 points for me. Bill K., hey buddy - i aint on the menu, got a bye so we decided to play for fun. with lots of luck, part of which was bill not remembering how a certain card (which he knew i was going to play) worked, i was able to get THE ONE out but had to trek for two turns to get it home. so he came over with 15 dwarves or so and his wizard with 10 GI and tries to influence it away. well sauron has 12 unused out of 30, hador's mind is 6, and his DI is 6 with the ONE, and +5 GI across allignment, and +5 minions always get, i rolled 43 for my influence check. he pulls down a friend or three and some other goodies and my heart jumped when i thought he had 2 of them, but he only drew up one and rolled 37 or so. this is the high stakes superpowerful stuff i came to worlds to see. a great practice round for me still trying to learn my newly constructed deck. thanks bill, it's always a real bender when you're playing. now a game that would decide if i could get into the finals, i needed to dunk or it was over. i drew brian satterly. he is way fun to play. brian told me he is retiring after this trip. but then he said he had retired before and come out of retirement for this trip. then i said maybe next year it will be in belgium if luc's worlds bid is successful and he contemplated, maybe he'll come out of retirement for that... well, fortunately for me, the micheal jordan of meccg was out of retirement for the moment that we played our game. he had big strong characters getting big strong items and factions and i had - well, i had sauron. i had no characters and no companies and no site cards out and no resource perm events, just a lone sauron card sitting there. he went about his business and i just sat there. he commented, "freeeaakkyy". and that he was nervous about whatever sauron is up to, it couldn't be good for him. i played a character, he had sideboarded in a hazard, the LADY, (i thought i got rid of her yesterday....) and drew it and played it the one turn he got to play hazards against me. me without a great eye to cancel it at the moment, said whoops. i sideboarded in two voices of malice and figured i'd zap her when i drew a sage, but i had discarded ALL my sages that i drew earlier and the back to the fray was not a very good way to get them back at the moment. I was screwed. I told brian he won, but we would finish the game. Bill came over and observed, chuckled to himself. pointed out some misplay i did because i was tired and nervous. went away. Brian was elated at the end with his self-proclaimed dumb luck that had foiled Sauron's best laid plans. I sat in awe about how he didn't even have the Lady straight up against minions, but in the sideboard?!?! - and that he drew her!! a comedy of errors but fun mind games with Brian. i lost 0-6 and hope he doesn't retire for too long. so the final game and no chances of the finals i played Daniel Driezinger. Daniel is going to be a superstar. he is very young but is the closest thing to a prodigy for MECCG i've ever seen. when i played against Joe Bisz last year at nats, i felt Joe had this very keen awareness for everything that was going on, every card in his deck, every play seemed effortless but was optimized. me, i sit and agonize over how to play what in which order and which card to save and what to drop, but joe is just somehow naturally talented. and daniel's like this too. i felt like i was playing the Bobby Fischer of meccg. he had a one ring deck that experienced some bad luck, a snake eyes to kill saruman, and another game that something pathologically unlucky happened, but daniel was very strong and so was his deck. but bad luck happened and no emotion whatsoever, just keep going. i great secrets buried his precious gold ring, he didn't care. well, he got the ring out faster than me and a rolled down to the sea and a mouth ain't enough, i needed a few outposts and they weren't there so he dunked. Watch out for this guy in the future... it was quite an exhausting day and by the end i was making tons of terrible mistakes. i actually played the great eye and wasn't even sauron yet. guess i was just halucinating, i had drawn him first turn 2 other games and was playing like i had already played him. time for beer, food and comraderie at the dragon rouge. Michel Guilbault drove me, Gene, and Patrick to dragon rouge. Michel is great and he loves minions and especially Ugluk!! at dinner, i discovered my new favorite beer, Blanche de Chambley, reminds me of the Leffe Blanche (belgian beer) I had in france, but this beer is Canadian!!! Josh Grace-iously bought me a beer or three, little did we know we would play each other twice in the next two days. Sunday, Aug 26, North America Open the day started alright, i organized the country cup and helped get them going with deck building, 8 teams. that was going to be cool. most of the rules were clarified on the spot. Fortunately, Charles B. had an interest in this event and saved me by taking over running that event. I don't know what I would have done without his help. that bought me time to write down my decklist and make final changes - back to the Malady deck.. first round drew spence. i had already played him on friday, so the 2nd time i drew an opponent i'd already faced. he had a different deck and wished that i did too. he was playing fallen gandalf and i'm trying to guess what he's up to, but early on i got a rolled down to the see-what- you're-doing and saw roadblock roadblock roadblock. ok, i better get to gondor quick before the storms come out. try to go to rohan first turn but got rivered, by the Anduin river!! see that big red line on the map, that's the anduin river, you can't go to anorien from mirkwood. doh!! so m/h phase is over for me and lost a turn. next, i do the same stupid thing!! he let me change my site card to go to a legal site this time. he could see my head was not attached. next turn i make it to his site without getting rivered. most of his company is untapped and here i go, i declare an attack to try and tap out his guys so i can malady them. we fight a little bit but i don't recall anyone dying. then i go for a malady and he says no you don't. CVCC is the last thing in the site phase you can do. Lesson #2 for the day for me courtesy of spence. Dave, i tell myself, learn the freaking rules one of these days... so no maladies that time. next turn i follow him over to the wizard haven minas tirith, i'm covert in gondor and they're all detainment attacks against me which is fine cause i'm just here to malady. so this time, i don't declare an attact and go straight for the malady which by this time were seriously clogging my hand. i played two maladies and two akhorahil unleasheds. he had had a few body checks on my characters last turn during CVCC and no luck killing them, then he insisted on rolling the body checks for his characters due to the maladies and his dice would whack his own characters but not mine. at this point, spence had had enough of that, and so had i. i had told my playgroup before i left that if i made it into finals, that malady deck is getting retired. next round played jimmy chen. he threw down some hobbits and so i think one ring. i so wanted to see his "A Short REst" deck but he says it's no good against minions. he says his deck is untested. oh boy. that's not good. i make sooo many mistakes building a deck... well, i say "shhhh, i'm hunting wabbitt" in an elmar fudd voice. in our playgroup, andy calls hobbits - rabbits. i go for bilbo, the ring bearer. my body check song is "kill da wabbitt, kill da wabbitt," etc sung to a Wagner song from looney tunes. every good player needs a dance or song or something to help those body checks. bilbo gets maladied. meanwhile, my hazards are great secret buried x3 and rolled down to the sea, i think i mouthed for GSBT and hit him four times. he ran master of esgoroth to Easterling camp to draw 4 cards and back to lorien to draw 4 more and i'm fishing for the scroll, he's fishing for the scroll, everyone wants the scroll. next turn my 4th GSBT and i tell him to count his playdeck, he counts 11 cards. I play GSBT. no freaking scroll. Jimmy, go to mt. doom, you have to test without the scroll because you forgot to put it in your untested deck!!! jimmy is trying out for the guild of crippled masters even though he doesn't know it, leave out the most important support card for your deck and play it anyway, then you too can be a crippled master one day... so i win 6-0. final round against josh grace. whichever of us wins will be in the finals. josh jests, want to just tie 3-3 so we can both be in.... we sigh. josh sees the shadow magic casters and runs, off to get big points with pumped elves and fallen alatar rousing the dragons. he's got my precious slowing down by MP gathering at mt. doom and they're just having a bad day out there.. meanwhile, it's taking a while for the spellcasters to make their way out to his site. finally we get there. he built a smart deck and only ever goes to ruins and lairs so plenty to eat and drink for him. he gets a few big swords and i get scorba and itangast at home, some other corruption in play, and we fight. he kills elerina but not taladhan. on my turn, here come the maladies. 5 of them. i got one guy. he made about 4 cc's on his guy at greater than 5, and i couldn't roll a 9 on the body check for the life of me so there was the game. i rolled terrible and he rolled fantastic, i can't even come close and i lose 6-0. so i figure i'm done for and there is one game left going on, Gene against Patrick Kochran. Jimmy tells me and Andrew Sitte (we had the same number of points) that if that game doesn't end in 6-0 victory for either person, we both get in the finals. wow, what a surprise, so we go take a peak at that game and it looks soo close. it comes down to the wire apparently and when we get back to it after it finished, it was 40-19 patrick, a 6-0. now andrew, me, and patrick are all tied and there is a 3-way tiebreaker to get 2 of us in. since i got 6-0'd by the overall winner josh, he had 18 points and my opponents had the most overall tournament points. since patrick had given gene 0 tourney points that turn, he ended up with the "weakest opponents". me, josh, andrew, and jim montanus were in the finals. i think great - now i can finally retire malady deck and get out a new one (i had brought 6 decks and was happy to play any of them for finals), maybe my fallen alatar... but then it's decided no deck changes and we have to play one more round that night (the first of the round robin) because chad has to leave at 2pm the next day and there isn't time for all 3 rounds that day. ok, maladay deck gets 3 more games and since i don't play with sleaves, even i'm starting to wonder how much more abusive shuffling and playing on dirty tables that deck can take... chad had put in so much time and expense to come and organize the nationals that no way would I argue for 3 rounds the next day and new decks. Jim Montanus's (and Patrick Karchers and Joel P.'s hotel room) First round against Jim Montanus. boy were we tired and making tons of mistakes, playing very slow, and the time keeping wasn't exactly swiss... i struggle to wake up and stay alert and focused. he's playing hobbits on boats, i had good rolls, drew all the most devastating hazards at the right times, i would think i need this card and then bamm, i would draw it up.. the deck worked all too well and it was a rough day at sea for the hobbits. i was too tired to sing any kill da wabbitt looney tunes but didn't need it. i took my 6 points and went to bed exhausted.. Monday, Aug 27. N. American championships played against Andrew Sitte. This game was the most fun all weekend. Andrew mostly plays on the net, almost exclusively, and I hope after our game, he appreciates just how much fun a face to face game can be. He had dwarves and yep, they moved to moria, and yep, found nothing to eat or drink, and yep, he foolishly and knowingly tapped them all. So Thrain and company had a really bad day. Thrain's last words were, Gloin, you're in charge. Gloin's last words were, Balin, you're in charge, Balin's last words were, Oin you're in charge. Oin lived through at least one malady and 2 assassins while wounded. it was a bloody match and he stored Cheezebane at Lorien the turn I was moving there. that won the game right there since he had enough factions with some lucky rolls and would have double factions. with cheezebane he got 4 MPs so would finish with 8 min. and I was not doing so well. Elerina died at the auto attack at dead marshes, leaving taladhan with a blasting fire. Taladhan with a bag full of bad medicine moves over to Lorien, wounded. Facing down 3 auto attacts at 2 vs. 11 and his body now 8, he realizes he can reduce his corruption AND walk into lorien for free by discarding his blasting fire... kaboom! elf body parts everywhere but the maladies don't work this time. we joked and laughed a lot during that game, but like every 5 seconds here comes another corruption check or body check and each roll of the dice mattered so much, it made the game very exciting and tense. i rolled twice or so for snaga hai and couldn't get them in, so his factions doubled and he won 18-12. Last game against Josh. The winner would most likely be N. American champ. Maybe I could eek out a 4-2 against him with a lot of luck, and I expected josh to play nothing less than flawlessly, and he did. He had tweaked his deck to add in 3 lost at seas and went to the coast. that's same as hiding in gondor with 3 lost in free domains to me. i'm hosed. my deck needed of course doors of night and winds of wrath to bring him to me, but my deck didn't have that. It would have been slow to bring in from the SB anyway, but it's usually a build up at the end with all his item points on one company, and then i would get one shot at him with the maladies that would decide a game anywhere from 6-0 for him or 4-2 for me. I've seen some huge point swings with maladies where they whole game's worth of efforts are lost and kill points rack up. But not this time, Josh certainly had my number (again) and cruised to 6-0. same as Patrick Kochran had figured out on Friday night, the turn hosers are the key to stopping maladies. if i don't have a deeper shadow, then two rivers work just fine, or hiding in an area where you play no escape from my magic (how ironic that would be) if you had enough rangers and sages to not be effected, and of course, lost at sea and lost in free domains, and maybe darkness made by malice if you play your deck to be at the right sites. I could never touch josh and he know he needed one item, one faction, one ally and some of those would double and he only needed a 4-2 to win. later that night Me and wendy had dinner with Arco, Luc, and Steve Wark. Luc tried all kinds of things he'd never had in those few days we spent together in montreal. fearless. and on his first trip out of europe even. That's what worlds is all about for me, people going Tuesday, Aug 28 Finally some sleep and a free day.. Me and wendy went to the Biodome, the coolest zoo type thingy i've ever been to. we cruised by the Basilica Notre Dame which IS the Ruins of Tolen Mar site card, and went into China town to buy food to cook for dinner. We invited Brian Wong, his girlfriend Anne, and Jimmy over and had a nice dinner. Francios Petticler came over and then Brian suprised all of us with a copy of the video, Crippled Masters. looking back at worlds, in the end, i think the thing that disturbed people the most was my constant shuffling of my deck with 80% rares and not a single sleeve among them. seeing people wince at that, maybe even shocked, is fun. I wanted to trade Luc for hoarmurath unleashed but was too afraid to ask him since he knew the abuse it would face if i made a deck with it, he would be reluctant to trade it to me... thanks again to everyone for coming, hope to see you all next year. Dave "No Sleeves" Stegman