A Teammate Scorned ....
36 leaders directed their forces along the battle line in
an attempt to overwhelm their opponents at this years WBC. This
was my first year GMing an event at the WBC. Many thanks to Assistant
Gms Bruce Reiff and Peter Staab. I highly recommend getting two
seasoned veterans as assistants for any first timers out there
pondering giving back to the con.
We
broke down into groups of four as much as possible. We played
everyone in our groups once each in a round robin type tournament.
The person with the best record advanced to a single elimination
bracket. We gave everyone two hours to complete the three games.
Luckily, everyone played within the time limit and no games had
to be adjudicated.
Tie breaking procedures were as follows: 1) Head to head,
2) Best record in games with those tied, 3) Biggest differential.
Breakthroughs were considered a 6-0 win, so most people seemed
to go for breakthroughs as opposed to Envelopments.
After random seating was figured out I of course got in the
group with the defending champion. I was lucky enough to advance
from my group but my victory dance was short-lived. I was out
in my first game of single elimination. Oh well. At least I could
watch the action of the final four.
There was some side drama to the action which is worth mentioning.
Jason Levine had agreed to be on the Manly Men's second team,
"Debbie and the Boys" with Battleline as his
team game. A few weeks before the deadline he decided to defect
to another team. "I guess I'll have to make sure Jason is
knocked out right away in the Battleline tourney then,"
Bruce Reiff joked at the time. Sure enough, Bruce and Jason ended
up in the same round robin group. Jason grimaced and Bruce made
good on his threat.
The 36 players were then whittled down to the final four with
Kevin Youells vs. Barrington Beavis and Aaron Fuegi vs. Jonathan
Miller. The semi-finals and finals were best two-out-of-three
unless both players agreed to one game. Kevin bested Barrington
with a breakthrough and a 5 to 4 Envelopment. Jonathan needed
three games to beat Aaron winning 5 to 2, losing 4 to 5 and finally
winning on a breakthrough.
Kevin and Jonathan, both being
pressed for time agreed to a one game final. Kevin started with
a very good hand. He had a few high cards and a straight flush
6-7-8 from the get-go. Jonathan's was not quite as good, but
not terribly bad. He had a few high cards in his hand also, though
none already with a straight flush. As one would expect, Kevin
started out with a flag or two advantage over Jonathan, but his
luck started running out. After several turns, Kevin had nothing
but ones, twos and threes in his hand with none of them being
a straight flush. The tide had started to drastically turn in
Jonathan's favor. There was a Traitor in the midst of Kevin's
troops, thanks to a tactics card played by Jonathan At this point,
Jonathan was about too win on a breakthrough. Kevin got a temporary
reprieve due to a muddy battle field, thanks to playing a tactics
card of his own. Jonathan would not be down for long. He again
set himself up for a breakthrough win on his next turn, but a
timely Fog began to roll in saving Kevin once again with a game
saving tactics card. Demoralized, Jonathan's troops could not
muster a breakthrough and were eventually enveloped by Kevin's
forces with a 5 to 4 win.
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