JOE BISZ'S WORLDS MONTREAL 2001 TOURNEY REPORT

So another year past since good 'ol Amsterdam, and it was time again 
to play my favorite game again! I was really looking forward to this, 
especially since the event was so well-organized and energetic. I was 
also absolutely determined this time to not screw up and to finally 
take my dearest, preciousS I mean, to become the World Champion!

I went into this planning on testing three of my possible decks (all 
fallen wizards) before semis and deciding which was the strongest to 
play. Unfortunately I got to play absolutely ZIP games before semis, 
which meant I was going to go with what I knew best, and was perhaps 
my best deck: my Fallen Pallando Deck that I used to become the 
American national champion last year, after making several 
significant changes to it. On the car ride up to beautiful Montreal I 
studied my large, bursting folder full of printed out deck lists and 
tourney reports and articles and things said by many of you guys for 
the past four years, doing my homework on playstyle, etcS although 
actually I lot of the pressure was off me since I wasn't playing One 
Ring. (It's amazing how much freaking pressure you lose when you're 
not playing a deck as mentally exhausting/exhilarating as that!). Not 
that they could write a "For DummiesS" series book on how to play my 
Fallen P deck either, butS

WORLDS SEMIS

Round 1 vs. Chad

I still get a little nervous before every tournament, and go through 
this kooky thing where I sort of pray I say "well, if I'm going to 
lose or get my ass kicked, at least let me win my first game"-a 
particularly useful thing to say in Star Wars tournaments. So first 
round I'm playing Chad who I've never played before. He is playing 
big hero guys, which is usually the only way to go with Hero, and 
slaps down Beorn and someone else, I think, unless it was Elrond and 
sons. I actually can't remember this game too well, except that at 
first my mini creatures were doing nothing to stop his big guys, and 
I felt slightly frustrated (even though it was to be expected against 
big hero), but this was an insignificant factor: somehow his 
resources just couldn't come quickly enough for him, and my 
non-creature hazards slowed him just a tad to allow me to pull off my 
"miracle orc-elixir" trick at weathertop, and I hurt him bad. 6-0 me.


Round 2 vs. Josh Grace

I've played Josh many times before, including once at Nats with this 
very same Pallando deck, and I knew of course that he was one of the 
best players there. He was NOT playing the same deck of last Nats, 
but Beorn and GlorfindelS which made me realize a little later in the 
game that it was probably his old big hero/wizstaff deck that he had 
once posted. Of course now that it matters I can't remember too much 
except that he gets the wizstaff, and we rocket along with our 
playing and he just can't draw up his wizard! This makes me feel a 
little more confident, and finally on the third or fourth turn he 
gets it and heads off immediately to dragon lands.

OKAY, now he had been hovering around this area for a while, so I 
figured I knew what was coming, and had a hand straight from the 
bowels of Mordor itself: Scatha aroused, Cave Worm, Cave Worm, River, 
MouthS all of which were playable. I throw EVERYTHING at him, and he 
CANCELS everything! between feuds and marvels' tolds and Wizard's 
Flame and whatnot. Goes in, gets the Staff, taps it, gets the 
concealing spell back into his hand. FineS On his next turn, feeling 
cocky as he probably should, he breaks into two companies and even 
though I don't have the Mouth I certainly have a Hand from 
Sauron-another Ahunt, more drakes, etc. I think a long time, and 
after all was said and done, I think maybe ONE drake got through on 
one of his companies, but everything else was concealed or killed. 
Needless to say, I gave up on creatures at that point, and started 
crowding my hand with other potential goodies, like Call of Home and 
corruption.

Meanwhile on my end my resources are moving pretty smoothly. I move 
two companies over to Himring to get the Dwarven Axe. Gloin's company 
gets rivered, and he's the only one in it, but no problem cause I'm 
moving Faramir there tooS then on Faramir and Firiel he plays a 
creature. Ooh! Rulings question, because I;m thinking I could tap 
Faramir for the river right now, since he's a 'company moving to the 
site' the  river was played on, but it was decided that I couldn't 
cause he's not in the company yet. This _really_ surprised me, but oh 
wellS Faramir goes untapped, and makes it. Firiel is tapped out. I 
think, great, I'm cool.

Site phaseS Faramir taps for auto of 1 strike, but gets wounded-body 
check, he lives. Gloin gets axe. Josh's turn: his last, and I'm 
winning.

He splits up and has a company of one sitting at a borderhold. No 
factions for you, I think, and tap him with Adunaphel. We move on to 
another company, and then suddenly Josh seems to wake up and stares 
at my company and says "wait, what about that river?" And I say "The 
river? I t-" And then I realize my mistake: I had completely 
forgotten to tap for it!! Then I say, well, Gloin would have justS 
but then I realize as Josh reminds me that technically what he rolled 
for the body check would have killed GloinS Oh boy. Well, we're 
sitting there thinking about it, and I'm thinking: I don't see how we 
can back up-and then Josh looks at me and says, "Look, you don't have 
to do this or anything, but if you want to be fair you can just let 
me untap my character you tapped with adunaphel. He wasn't going to 
get that much anyway. I mean, you don't have to, but that would be 
okayS"

Then for the space of about 1.5 seconds the following things rush 
through my head: how that's kind of a crazy thing for me to do, how 
he might get a lot of points, how I was  just talking about to Josh 
about how a lot of people who play Star Wars are really bad sports 
and basically try to cheatS

But my last thought is: what are you even thinking! It's not really 
about the game, Joe, it's about the experience; or rather, if it is 
about the game, then I don't want to have an artificial advantage. 
It's not even a question.

I look at him and say "Yes!" and shake his hand formally, and he 
untaps his character.

The game ends with him deciding not to go into a site and get an item 
on Glorfindel because it would have been giving up 5 corruption 
points total, and after doing the MP math he had 19 and I had 34, 
which was a 5-1 that wasn't going to get any better, so of course he 
did the smart thing. Then I realized something rather dramatic: he 
had played a Noble Hound at that site I originally tapped him at, 
which meant my 2 pt ally didn't double. Which meansS if he hadn't 
have played it, I would have had enough points for a 6-0 (provided he 
didn't risk Glorfindel, or that this failed). So I think about that 
for a moment, and then say "Huh!" Well, I'm not disappointed, because 
I'm a believer that things work around the way they should, 
anyway-but how strange!

Round 3 vs. Jimmy Chen

So I had heard about Jimmy's I-am-faster-than-thou deck from a 
multitude of people who had lost to it, including my friend Jon 
playing his very strong FW Radagast deck, so I knew I had to watch 
myself, especially since I had never played him before.

The only thing that was weird was that he kept dropping comment after 
comment in the form of little rules questions, like "oh he can tap to 
do that" or "oh can he cancel this?" which sort of bothered me 
because it reminded me of some poor sport Star Wars players that did 
this to "test" their opponent's knowledge of the rules, and I was 
really hoping that wasn't what he was doing, yet I found it hard to 
believe that for these little things he did not know. But I ended up 
thinking that either he didn't know, or he was simply playing cards 
like Lando Calrissian might play poker, dropping continual lines and 
smiling at you just to achieve pyschological advantage (and 
afterwards when I realized how freaking _friendly_ he was I confirmed 
this thought).

He started a full party, mostly five minders including Beretar and 
some dwarves. First turn he puts Oin under one dwarf, but he still 
only has three influence free, and I make a note of that. My turn I 
drop A Short Rest and he stares and it and smiles and says Oh I'm 
going to like this game! and I move three companies and draw like 11 
cards. Then his turn-and he starts moving all the hell over Arthedain 
and dropping Short Rest after Short Rest and making one of them 
permanent with that event. Beretar nabs the Rangers, someone goes 
south and grabs Tom Bombadil-damn that was early.

He sees the Elves of Lindon in my hand from Pallando's staff and 
stops me from getting it with Adunaphel, then (I think) grabs them 
himself. I am getting really annoyed because my two foolish words and 
siege AND Assasin have not yet been drawn. But I maximize my draw as 
much as possible, thinking ahead very cautiously and deciding that I 
need to get through my deck at all cost to get the Strident and some 
Orc factions set up, because he's probably going to call the council 
pretty soon and I can't be unprepared. In lieu of this, I think I 
even toss some MP points because my hand starts getting crowded with 
stage resources from all my forcing myself to draw. The only thing 
going well for me is that his hazards strategy is doing absolutely 
nothing to me, which is more or less what I expected, so I'm hoping 
that maybe this is hindering his draw as well.

Then I get the Call of home. His turn he moves Beretar, and I play 
it. "Oh!! You HAD to play that on me, I HATE that card" he says in 
mock voice of gloom. I am thinking, yes you probably call too early 
for most people to sideboard it on you, but I had it straight up (as 
every deck should). He needs a SEVEN or he's screwed; he rolls lower 
and Beretar returns to his hand. This not only makes him lose 2 pts 
but screws up his DRAW. On his next turn he calls the council (I am 
watching his deck and see it comingS actually I am only  8 or 11 
cards behind him). My turn, I sideboard in my surprise card. I 
exhaust, and site phase play a bunch of presto Orcs and drop Long 
Grievous Siege on his Rangers of the North. In surprise he reads it 
and says "OhhhS I heard about this cardS yeah that really sucks" and 
his faction goes back to his hand and I get one point from the card. 
I check everything, and end my turn, having no idea how I'm doing but 
thinking it's probably close.

Then, we count points, and-we tied. We freaking TIED!!! (which is 
what I remember shouting out loud too). Amazed, exhilarated, and not 
at all depressed, we both shake hands and smile broadly. 3-3.

BUT-a side note.

Around twenty later, while they are shuffling their paperwork and 
figuring out pairings, Jimmy approaches me and asks about the wording 
of Long Grievous Siege, and I said I wasn't sure but he could see it 
if he liked. Then as I getting it out he says "I was just wondering 
if it said it could only go on a unique faction" and my heart sinks 
because this sound eerily true and sure enough we read it and that's 
what it says. Well! That's what I get for not ever having been able 
to actually have played the card successfully in a game before-I 
don't even know how it works! Then it sinks in immediately, of 
course, that we tiedS and I start slapping myself and we both kind of 
stare at each other at a loss for what to do.

Then I don't remember what exactly happened-he might have asked 
another judge about this, but evidently got a not positive 
response-and he comes back and I stutter something like "But we 
can't-" and then "Are we even _allowed_ to go-?" But he just shakes 
his head at me with assurance, as if he's already accepted it, and 
says "Don't worry about it dude." "are you sure?" "Yes, don't worry 
about it." "I'm really sorry," I say, and feel really shitty, but 
then I have a more optimistic thought, which is that it won't matter, 
and things will work out as they should.

Round 4 vs. Charles Jenkins
So to alleviate my mood a little humor happens. They are making 
pairing and at first pair me with Alicia, who is in my playgroup, and 
we both groan, but then Jimmy (I think) says oh no we can avoid that 
and makes different pairings. But then two others have played each 
other already or whatnot, and things start to get complicated, until 
finally I am seated with Charles Jenkins. And Charles looks at me, 
looks at my deck box, and says:

"Oh no I don't want to play JOE BISZ!!"

And then seems really sad and says sometihng about not needing to get 
crushed by another One Ring deck but I say "Charles! It's okay; I'm 
not playing One Ring! We'll have a cool game, don't worry," and then 
he's cool.

So Charles plays, unless I'm totally misremembering, Beorn and Glorf, 
the flavor of the day it seems, and eventually some one else and he 
has two black arrows in a company. My creatures are played 
selectively and do not much; and mid game I start to see all the 
dragon perms he's playing and think: wait a minute. He's probably 
doing for king under the mountain. Even though it wasn't a straight 
dwarf deck, which is what I was used to for this. So then I pop 
Bairanax the Weakest with a marvels, and he's off to dragon land with 
a company, and I slap him with Dragon Ahunts left and right, drakes, 
mouth; double river on one company, and I hurt it up a little. 
There's no way he's pulling off the King, and he's got bigger 
problems-he hasn't gone to a faction site yet, and I just got three 
or four, so last turn I hold some Foolishes and River, etc. and when 
he moves to a freehold I nail him. That's it-I think his resources 
just didn't play fast enough for him. My factions double, 6-0 me.

When the smoke cleared Nicholas and myself had the highest score and 
there was a three-way tie between my friend Jon Yost, Brian Wong, and 
Jimmy Chen. I wondered what would happen there, and knew they would 
all be tough opponents tomorrow; but was feeling very happy with the 
success of my deck and also rather ELATED that I had finally made the 
final round of Worlds-something I had never done before! Later we 
find it it's Brian and Jon and no Jimmy, and then Jimmy is determined 
to win the American Nationals, and then and only then I realize 
something: wait a minute! What about me, can't I play in the 
nationals? No, no, they say, you're a worlds finalist, and worlds is 
better anyway. But, but, can I forfeit my spot if I want? Well, 
maybeS And I'm thinking, cripes! Lose my heavyweight belt?? But 
worldsS the world championS the solid gold one ringS

That night Jon and I do some massive tech-ing about what to do 
against Balrog. I am worried about Nicholas's squatter deck, and Dave 
and Gene are tech-ing with me at the Dragon Rouge about what to do, 
what can be done against itS At my apartment I suddenly realize the 
strength of a few cards: Doubled Vigilance and Troll Purse. These 
cards are both really nasty for large companies and shadow-holds, 
which is exactly what Nicholas was doing, so I stuffed about 4 or 5 
of these in and took out some other stuff. Against Brian I really 
didn't know what to do, but I knew it was Balrog overground, so hoped 
that my anti-Malady creatures (the western playable creatures I use 
in case I play a Malady deck) would slow him down. As it turns out I 
took out one of the most useful cards ever against Brian, one that 
alone could have really hurt him: waiting shadow, since he was 
playing doors I could choose who gets tapped, which of course would 
have been his one hugest guy who walked through everythingS but I 
didn't know he was Doors-ing and you'll see this laterS


WORLDS FINALS

Round 1 vs. Jon Yost

So I sit down with Jon expecting his Fallen Radagast deck and 
expecting a win, probably a 4-2 me. But then he says "Surprise" and 
shows me that he's playing: One Ring! That shit head! He switched his 
deck with Alicia's who using Fallen Rad in the American open. I 
think, okay, but I don't really care, cause I didn't metagame against 
him anyway (I didn't know if the other two would switch to different 
decks) but I'm really pissed because I ripped open 5 packs of Dark 
Minions the night before that I could have sold but I opened in order 
to look for those anti-balrog commons so that he could have them for 
his freaking deck-and he let me do it, knowing he wasn't going to 
play a deck that would use them anyway (one ring doesn't care)!! The 
bastard-the wasted packs-is all that I'm thinking! I will crush you 
for thisS

So we play and things are going pretty well for him, my hazards not 
really hurting him and he playing the deck very quickly. He also kept 
saying "go" and sort of rushing me to hurry, and I obliged him; which 
actually not once but TWICE made me do stupid things in my 
organization that actually delayed for resources for a turn and a 
half or so. But this didn't hurt too much. I get bold with my 
resource getting, realizing//knowing that his hazards aren't going to 
stop me but are designed to maximize draw, and I throw out secret 
entrances and get my items earlier, freeing hand space to hold 
hazards. Still I play a river and other goodies early simply because 
I really COULD NOT hold it all.

Then starting on turn 2 I see his Ioreth squatting at Rivendell, he's 
got Elrond and sons in another company. He has either zero or two 
influence free, I forget which, and I decide to move Firiel over to 
Rivendell. During the site phase I make an influence check-she has 
plus 3 vs. dundedain for a total of plus 5 on ioreth, we both roll 
and I fail.

He drops Halbarad at Lorien. Next turn: I think, and figure she's not 
doing anything else nearly so important anyway, so I leave Firiel at 
Rivendell and do the same. We roll-I win, and she's gone.

His turn, he's moving along, and I start getting nervous and am 
cutting his limit to sideboard in some hazards, tapping a nazgul 
likewise, etc. But I have a plan, and carefully select a few specific 
hazards, maximizing my draw as much as possible to draw them up.

My turn. I see that Rad is at Lorien with Halbarad, but not with Hal 
under (a turn too early for that). I think-do I move Firiel over to 
Lorien by herself? But that's crazy! In every game I've played she's 
never moved more than a wilderness, and now I'm going to run across 
the globe? Plus his wizard is there, it's a semi-easy influence on me 
the next turnS but then I think, Joe what are you thinking, he 
probably can't afford to leave his wizard there for a turn. It's One 
Ring, Joe. It's One Ring, Joe. And I think: I don't know if this is 
going to work, but I am going to stick to my plan, since it seems the 
smartest thing I can be doing (even though I can't see ahead and see 
if it will work) and I move her over. She gets there fine. He plays 
Revealed to all watchers though, and I see his hand and think: many 
rings. Rolled Down strategy won't work. Also a marvel's, remember 
this. Site phase, I get some factions, stuff, and Firiel goes in: 
influence check: successful. Goodbye Halabard.

Jon makes a slight sound of annoyance, and I know he's getting a little ansy.

His turn, Rad moves to Dagorlad, other company joins them, and lo and 
behold: the scroll.

My turn, some factions, my ally (he has gollum, and I want to make 
sure I can 6-0 if I stop him, cause he actually does have some 
points, but my three factions doubling should do it.) AM slighltly 
nervous as he rushes me ("GO!") to finish my turn and his begins. And 
then I realize-shit! We're kind of early; even if I stop him this 
turn, he'll still get another turn! (and I had two rivers in my hand, 
and was sort of banking on that).

Now I'm really nervous, but I play it cool as he moves to mount doom. 
Here was his party:

Elrond, Wizard, Elladan, Elrohir, cram on someone, a scroll on 
elrond, a precious ring and leaf-brooch. Gates of morning is out. For 
me looking at that, I basically saw FIVE RANGERS. HmmS

Bill K or Jimmy is watching, the tension is high. "Look at my hand," 
Jon says with a smile and shows Jimmy. Holy shit, Jimmy says, and my 
heart sinks a little. Not to be outdone, I say "Look at my hand" and 
I flash him the ominious dark colorings of about nine hazards. Jimmy 
looks at them, blinks, and says Holy shit!-but a little louder than 
last time. Jon frowns. I sweat.

First hazard: spider of the morlat. He cock crows it. Second hazard: 
pirates, or some kind of creature with multiple strikes. He cancels 
it somehow. I am thinking: shit, he's just like me when I playing one 
ring. Then I think, well it's now or never: and play my sideboarded 
Gnawed By Many Words. This card taps a sage if another sage is in 
company, or a diplomat if another diplomat is in company. Well elrond 
is the only sage, and he's a dip, and rad's a dip, so after thinking 
for a moment to make sure I say "elrond" and jon shakes his head and 
frowns and says "yeahS" and taps him. I smile.

For those of you whom I'm being too subtle for, let me remind you 
that he has NO UNTAPPED SAGES.

And then I casually drop: Mordor in Arms.

And then he not quite as casually plays: Cock Crows, to discard it.

And then I very not casually think: shit! Shit shit shit! After all 
that work I did taking out his sagesS but then I stare at my hand and 
see, like a doofus, that I have a many sorrows befall. Hesitating 
only a moment to wonder how bad it would be if he can get around this 
too (with another cock), considering I don't have many hazards left, 
I play it. He frowns very widely "Hmmmmm" and then it time to deal 
with Sauron's festering uglies, and he grabs the dice, hesitates, 
thinks, thinks, and play Wizard's Test in response. Of course; but I 
was hoping he'd forget (you can't take chance wizard might die). 
Successful on first roll, and the One Ring comes down on a son of 
Elrond. Damn, I think. Many people are now watching. MIA kicks in. I 
think he gets through the first attack okay, but then the next two 
actually pummel him, BADLY-and Elrond get wounded, and I roll my 
karmatic dice, and bingo! He's dead; and the scroll is transferred; 
and-what's really worse of all-Gollum is discarded. Oh boy, I can 
tell he sees this might be tricky. Then somehow something happens so 
that Radagat is transferred the One, and now he's tapped out with 
Radagast and Elladan, with Radagast holding the One Ring, with 6 
style points and 6 corruption. I have still been wondering what 
exactly I am going to do since rivers will only stop him this one 
turn, but by now I have already figured it out, looking at my hand: 
Skinchanger, and he has to go back to his site of origin. And, I 
think, I have rivers for next turn.

At this point Jon is cursing and groaning in typical Jon style and 
shouting at me to hurry up and how screwed he is because he doesn't 
even have Cracks of Doom but I block him out and draw up on my turn 
and on his turn take my time figuring out what to do. He runs off a 
brother alone somewhere for the draw, and radagast goes to Mt Doom 
with holding the one ring in one hand (geez!!) and the one brother in 
the other. I am thinking long and hard about what to do, having 
something like the following cards in my hand: stirring bones, along 
and unadvised, adunaphel, two rivers, mouth of sauron, new moon, 
roving eye, rolled down to the sea. And yes if you're wondering how 
the hell did I get that, well, it's the average draw for me, you know.

Anyway even though it might seem like I defintely have him, I am 
worried about many things, namely: he could twilight my new moon, he 
could stop my double Rolling,  he could and forth he hastened after 
getting double rivered and mouth-rivered. After much thinking I play 
two rivers, mouth, river, do nothing to think, and he plays twilight, 
gates, twilight to get cards out of his hand. Then I think: hah! He 
probably doesn't have twilights now, or he would have burned them for 
the draw-I can play New Moon to tap Elladan. But then I realize it's 
too late for this, it would be a wasted hazard-he would just tap in 
response for the river. So I do something else and hope he doesn't 
have and forth he hastened.

To wrap this up, he DID have and forth he hastened, but he couldn't 
draw the cracks, and even if he did it would have been difficult: rad 
needing to pass a CC of 10 to give up sauron's dainty donut. So the 
forces of good failed, and the forces of fallen selfishness 
won-especially with his having negative character points from Elrond 
dying-6-0 me.

(I just want to point out that this is 9 pages long so far, and has 
taken me THREE HOURS to writeS I should be doing my homework, aarghS)

Round 2 vs. Nicholas the Red

Finally, the long awaited game against the only French Viking still aliveS

This was a rather crazy game right from the get-go. I was a little 
nervous about this deck after hearing how it had creamed everybody in 
the semis, and I had adjusted my minion hazard strategy by about 5 
cards to better take into account squatter Balrog. Nicholas is an 
excellent player who plays his turn very quickly, knowing exactly 
where to go and what and how to do it. He moved one company to Goblin 
Gate where I play Doubled Vigilance (site perm event where company 
that enters must make a roll and if failed must face Orc 5 at 9 kill. 
The bigger the company, the more impossible it becomes to suceed at 
the avoidance roll). He looks at it, says "Ach!" as if it's something 
he'd rather not touch, and leaves the site next turn to discard the 
event rather than remaining. Under-leas almost immediately then, 
where I heedless revelry him. Fine, he's expecting that. Then, 
Doubled Vigilance and Troll-purse the next turn. By now he stares at 
the cards in disbelief, looks at me, looks at his friend, and says 
"He has an anti my deck!" I smile.

Meanwhile my resources are playing rather nicely, save for one little 
thingS I can't seem to draw up my Guarded Haven. There are THREE 
copies of it in the deck, and I move through the deck rather quickly, 
but I need to have GH in play in order to play many other stage 
resources, so my hand is getting clogged up and slow. I don't 
remember this ever happening to me before, but I guess the bad odds 
have to come around once in a while. Meanwhile he's tapping Nazguls 
and cutting my limit to sideboard in a ton of anti-me stuff, and I am 
getting a little nervous.

On his side he moves the Balrog to Mt Gundabad with two scrubs. This 
is where I start playing stupidly. I give him a Doubled Vigilance 
too, but the Balrog cancels it with his stealth card every turn, and 
for some reason each turn I play my Heedless Revelry on guard at 
Underleas instead of here. I think I was thinking that since he has 
so many guys at the other place, Heedless would hurt him more there; 
but now for TWO turns in a row he plays multiple stuff at Mt Gundabad 
and only ONE thing (not an item, or Troll Purse, which is REALLY 
nasty would be in effect) at Underleas. How stupid could I have been; 
of course the odds were he'd actually be STOPPED by the hazards on 
that site, Joe! Anyways I am thinking ahead fervently and sideboard 
in one hazard against him, hoping to draw it up.

My last turn. I got Guarded haven the turn before, and this turn I do 
some catching up. He cancels one of my Marvel's with a Blind to the 
West, smacks me with A Heart Grown Cold, and then smacks me with a 
Cast from the Order, whose roll is simple to make since I'm REALLY 
fallen by this point. However unbeknownst to him, my deck actually 
never goes to any free or borderholds, so I'm immune to Heart and 
most of Cast; then I exhaust my deck anyway and Cast went almost 
immediately, which was a mistake on his part. I was feeling extremely 
confident now, then at one point saw Khamul and some Nazguls lined 
up, and realized I could be in troubleS but I played out my turns to 
draw each time, and when he smacked me with Khamul for SIX I said 
"wait! In response, I dark tryst. He nods. In response to my dark 
tryst, I tryst again. He nods again, a little less happily. I now 
have about 15 cards in my hand, and discard easily. However, unseen 
by me, he now Mouths for the Khamul, taps a bunch of Power Builts and 
smacks me with Khamul AGAIN. Now my discard was extremely difficult, 
but I did what I could. It was going to be close.

His last turn. On the underleas company I played my key card: Unhappy 
Blows. He reads it, says, "Fine," and a seven is rolled on the dice. 
He says he doesn't need to return any characters to his hand because 
seven minus five is 2, and he doesn't have any characters with this 
much mind. I explain that he's reading the card wrong, and that he 
MUST return an amount that "equals or exceeds"S however his English 
is not amazing, and we were getting no where until someone explained 
that I was correct. "Fine" and he returns a scrub worth one MP point.

At end game, we totaled up the points, and guess what? I had won by 
exactly ONE marshalling point. Holy shit! And I didn't even see it 
comingS 4-2 me. Now on to the last roundS

Round 3 vs. Brian the Monster (I mean, MuensterS sheesh!)

I was feeling pretty good about myself, realizing that my deck had 
gone undefeated through every game that weekend so far. However I was 
not foolish enough to think that I would have an easy win against 
Brian, since he seems to have a history of beating me every single 
time we've played in tourney play, save once when HE was playing One 
Ring. But Brian lost to Nicholas, and somehow that makes me feel 
confident.

So we start playing. Right away I see that Brian's deck is nothing 
like Nicholas's. I had heard that it was not, that it was an 
improvement on Klank's Balrog Burn deck, but I wasn't very sure what 
regions he'd be in or how exactly the burning would work. As it 
turned out he went to exactly zippo shadowholds, so my troll purses 
and doubled vigilances were absoultely useless, save once when he 
went to a Ruins and DV could effect him since he had played Doors of 
Night. My resources went okay first turn, then suddenly things went 
ugly-he threw ONE ambusher at my party of Anallena and Galdor, they 
both get wounded, and-they both die! Now, they are not at all 
necessary to my deck; in fact all of the characters are expendable, 
which is one of its strengths; however I also found it difficult to 
get more characters from a draw problem (he moved only one company 
for a while) and he seriously stopped my draw engine by killing themS 
stopped it more than I realized for a while. Anyway, my heedlesses 
were useless against him, since he played two perm events on a 
borderhold for three and two points, and he did this two turns in a 
row, and I'm thinking-sheesh! That seems awfully crazy, 10 points in 
two turns with one company! Another factor that hurt my draw that I 
didn't realize was a factor till later was that, coincidentally, he 
entered so much COMBAT on these burning cards. Lots of combat means 
lots of dice rolling and figuring out, and I'll be honest and say 
that Brian moved as quickly as he could be expected to, but the 
nature of his deck was that I was not going to get a lot of turns. 
Anyway, I had some rivers and the standard nazgul engine, but I was 
unable to hurt or even slow him down except on ONE turn-and 
coincidentally this was because my creature strategy was dedicated to 
hurting a Malady deck, a deck that walked around the Rivendell area 
where I was. I had no idea his deck walked in this area! So I gave 
him a minor workout by doing some quick estimating, all in one turn 
played: 1) Galadhrim 2) Galadrim 3) Pirates 4) Revealed (and I drew 
up some nice stuff) 5) Elf-lord 6) Rain Drake 7) River

Now if any of you are thinking that's a lot of stuff, hey, that's 
what I thought. But remember that he's got three Troll leaders and 
three prowess boosting events, his biggest guy sitting at an 11, I 
think. Anyway he does some serious thinking, and in the end I have 
actually killed a small guy, wound somebody, he KILLS a Galdhrim, and 
everyone else is tapped. And that was the most my hazards could slow 
him down.

I made a foolish mistake and moved Gloin to get a wolf ally on my 
second to last turn. On his last turn he moves over, attacks, Sack 
over the head Gloin, kills my wolf. Ironically what I rolled on the 
wolf's prowess missed wounding his troll by only one or two. Anyway 
sack was an error on his part, because it meant I still kept Gloin's 
marshalling points-he should have simply killed Gloin. But my stupid 
error was getting the ally early-he had gone first turn, which meant 
I could have waited till my last resource turn to move somewhere that 
he would not be able to go and kill me at.

Anyway, the smoke cleared, points were tallied and Brian had won-a 
5-2 victory for him. I was actually really surprised, and to this 
moment I am unsure as to what exactly went wrong with my deck-not 
that I'm not allowed to lose a game, but I should really only be 
getting 4-2 ed. I think it was a combination of things on my part, as 
well as taking out too many hazards from my original minion strategy 
that coincidentally would have hurt him a lot, namely: 1) waiting 
shadow, which since he had Doors means I could have picked to tap his 
largest guy, and that was the guy sitting untapped through many 
strikes that could have gone on other characters 2) Siege, which I'm 
sure you can all figure out would SUCK. So my overall mistake was in 
not making an adequate estimate of what the most powerful minion 
strategy would be, and come with an efficient mix to combat both. Ah 
wellS

Brian deserved to win first, and it was a good game. I took third 
place overall, beating Jon which was good. I have yet to win a 
Worlds, but I will keep trying.

A few more things. Alicia, whom Arco played, played a One Ring deck, 
and since she's in my play group yes I did coach herS coached her a 
LOT, actuallyS even though I didn't want her to play it and thought 
it would be too difficult for her but she surprised me and did very 
well. Of course it wasn't like my One Ring deck, but her own idea 
using high prowess elves (this was the same deck that Jon played 
against me, she loaned it to him). I have concluded, somewhat in 
favor of my ego, that a true One Ring deck just can't be done without 
hobbits-because of the healing abilities and corruption bonuses-and 
also, perhaps, it just can't be done withoutS me!

Well anyway, I hope my Fallen Pallando deck is posted soon along with 
the other worlds decks for whoever is supposed to post these things 
(hint hint). I think it's pretty cool and I'd love to have people's 
opinions.

Someone asked about hazard strategies faced at worlds. Once a long 
time ago I saw George K's (former world champion) hazard strategy 
posted in Scrye magazine and I looked at it and thought "Why?" It 
seems most people play theme hazard strategies, strategies that get 
the most mileage out of a certain strength, like men creatures, 
drakes, corruption, etc. In my experience I found the best hazard 
strategy to simply be one that either A) has a little bit of all the 
good stuff, plus mouth and uvatha to hit him with the good stuff 
again or B) is tailored to work very well with your resource 
strategy. On that note, I am posting my versus heroes hazard strategy 
here. Note that it especially hits the most difficult to hit areas on 
the board, namely the Vales area around Beorn and Thranduil's House, 
where 80 percent of hero decks seem to like to go these days. Enjoy!

Thanks to everyone for some great gaming. I will see you all next year,

--Joe Bisz

*Hazard Strategy*:
Adunaphel
Ren
Uvatha
Mouth of Sauron
Scatha Ahunt
Bairanax Ahunt
Spider of the Morlat
Beorning Skin Changers
Assassin
Ambusher / Beorning Toll
Pirates
2-Stirring Bones
Rain Drake
2-Cave Worm
--------
Revealed to all Watchers
2-River
2-Alone and Unadvised
Siege
2-Foolish Words
Many Sorrows Befall
Redoubled Force
The Moon is Dead
Tidings of Bold Spies
Call of Home