Luc Schruers

Tournament report Worlds 2001 Montreal


August 23, Day of Arrival:

When I arrived, Arco, Charles and Spencer where already on the roof terrace
socializing and drinking beer. A few minutes later it began to rain so we
decided to go to Charles and Spencer’s room to play a friendly multiplayer
boosterdraft. Some beautiful rare where drafted like Wormsbane and Galadriel.
I think we played about 4 hours that evening on 1 game but we had lots of fun
‘passing the hazard limit’.


August 24, Day One of Worlds:

Finally I met all those guys I already knew from the net in person like Dave
Stegman, Charles ‘I neither deny nor confirm’ Bouldin, Akira Komachi, Takao
Suzuki, James Gutt, Chad Martin and so on (sorry for those I missed but the
list would get to long).

We also got a Welcoming pack with a nice signed poster from Dan Frazier, a
name tag, a guide and a sheet with 9 new cards.

After talking and trading we started the first tournament of the week-end,
Dutch Sealed Deck.
I thought I had bad cards but at the end I was third to my surprise.

First round I played Laurent from France. He played rather cautious until the
last turn. He had to risk something so he finally moved his Saruman who got
slaughtered. Bad luck for him, 6-0 for me.
Second round was against Brian. His Moose dice rolled bad in the beginning but
he is such a good player so he still won easily because this time I was
playing to cautious so 2-4 for him.
In the third Round I had to play Yasuhiro, the Japanese champion. This was an
odd game. He had  2 company’s. One of them moved to Moria in turn 2 or 3. I
could tap them all for 3 or 4 turns. Finally his other company also moves to
Moria and therefore I could play 2 on guard cards. He enters the site and gets
as additional auto-attacks Ghouls and The Balrog of Moria.
Needless to say that he did nothing that turn. The next turn was the last and
he tried again. Six characters where wounded but 1 was untapped after all
auto-attacks where resolved so he could play his item. Because he lost so many
turns in Moria, I won with 1 point (15-14), so 4-2 for me. Close game!!

At the evening we went to Jillians to play the Drinking game. I started a bit
late so I only played 1 friendly game against Simone and we had a draw,
friendly game or what ;-).


August 25, Day Two of Worlds:

The day of the semi-finals. Thirty people got qualified for the main event.
Nine where pre qualified and 21 came from the Open on Friday.
Round 1: Jimmy Chen.
He was the tournament coordinator, which was done excellent. He played a ‘A
Short Rest’ deck. He draws so many cards that it is almost impossible to do
anything against it. He always had something to cancel or Marvels Told which
he constantly reshuffled in his deck with Smoke Rings. He had some bad luck
because his 3 Wizards where all on the bottom of his deck. Finally he won with
28 to 23 so 4-2 for him.

Round 2: Gene Berry.
He had that infinite hazard strategy deck which luckily for me did not work
because Ioreth got killed and Elrond corrupted. His hazard deck is so annoying
though. I almost cycled my deck twice because he let me discard so many cards.
I almost never had items to play because he constantly played Great Secrets
Buried There. It was a frustrating game sometimes but I won with 35 to 13 so
6-0 for me.

Round 3: Charles Jenkins.
This was the most intense game I ever played. The only thing I still know is
that he had to get 6 points in his last turn to win and got  8. He played True
Fana on my Cave Worm and Sacrifice on Form on a Cave Drake, got the Emerald of
the Mariner which doubled because I had no items left, he played in my last
turn Neither so Ancient nor so Portent on my stored item. He won with 27-25 so
4-2 for him. Grrrrrr, want rematch!! :-)

Round 4: Stephan Poirette (aka the Killing Fields).
Short version. He had 2 big Trolls and they killed almost every character I
had. The rest where eaten by his hazard creatures. In the end I had zero
characters left in my deck and in play. Score –3 to 43 so 6-0 for him. I had a
blast though.

For diner we went to ‘Le Dragon Rouge’. This place was amazing. This was the
dream of every live role play fan. We stayed their for quit a while talking to
each other and creating (urban) Middle-Earth legends.


August 26, Day Three of Worlds:

First we had breakfast at Tuttifrutti’s. It was like a real English breakfast,
greasy and a lot of everythimng.

After that we started the deck building for the Country Cup. Every team got 4
starters and 12 boosters. I was going to play with Laurent because he still is
the Belgian champion. We made 2 decks. One of them stayed West from the
Mountains and the other one East. We could do this because we had 4 different
fixed packs, a lot of items and 5 playable ally’s.
The hazard strategy was even more fun. I played a complete Dragon/Drake hazard
deck with 2 At Home’s, 6 Ahunts, 1 Leucaruth, 3 Cave Drakes and about 5 other
Drakes.
Laurent played a more diverse hazard deck. He had an Undead strategy with
corruption cards and Greeds. Also the usually stuff like Foolish Words etc.

Round 1: UK
We where playing good. Laurent played Wormsbane and I played a faction. We
killed one of their Wizards but in the end they won because they rolled an
average of 10. They almost defeated 2 Ahunts! With each Ahunt I played they
tied once and won the rest. Amazing. They risked everything in the end and got
enough points to win. 27 to 25 so 4-2 for them.

Round 2: USA
I have never seen 2 guys roll that bad in 1 game. James eliminated himself by
throwing snake eyes and Joel got several of my Ahunts visiting. We didn’t
count but it was 6-0 for us.

Round 3: France
We had a blast. I actually played 6 Ahunts on them and they still managed to
get 20 points in the end. Laurent had to play his friends but he was as hard
on them as he was on the rest. Before the game he told me ‘I want to win!’ So
we did. 27 to 20 so 4-2 for us.

Round 4: Sweden
Thomas Bovinger had Helga (Simone) as teammate. We started good but our
Wormsbane was lost when Thorin ran off with it. They where leading after that
but we managed to pass them and Simone tried to influence our only faction in
her last turn but failed. They had no faction so it doubled. I had the last
turn this time but I stayed in Rivendel. I could have played another faction
but I did not want to risk it. We won with 25 to 21 so 4-2 for us.

Normally we still had to play a game against The Netherlands but it was
already 21.00 so we both decided not to play. Therefore UK won and Belgium and
The Netherlands tied on second place.

At the same time as the Country Cup, the final round of Worlds 2001 was
played. I know that Nicolas Dewiere (Big Red) won against Brian Wong in the
first game with 1 or 2 points. Then lost against Joe Bisz and won against
Jonathan Yoost but in the end Brian won with 1 point difference and Nicolas
was second with also 1 point difference with third Joe Bisz. I don’t know how
many points Jonathan had.

After all this playing we went to Nick & Mario’s Restaurant where the Awards
Ceremony and fond farewells where held and Brian Wong got his One Ring.

Again, thanks to the organizers and see ya next year.

Luc
Council of the Dragons