Always a titanic struggle ...
"Eight will enter! Three will leave!" Once again,
players met in a titanic struggle, until one emerged the victor.
The multiple heat format was definitely good for putting butts
in the seats. This year we had a total of 63 participants, by
no means approaching the record, but this is over 30% more than
last year, which is fantastic in my book.
The winners (and most of the seconds) from the 17 preliminary
games went on to fill a 25-player semi-final. The winners of
each of the semi-final games went on to play one final game.
Abigail Cocke, Devin Flawd, Tracy Graf, Mark Love, and Rob Schoenen
(none of whom were past champions - or even Laurelists) all met
around the table and the carnage began.
In the first round, every creature had a bet on it, so this
game was all business, as was evidenced by the three-way tie
of 1-strengths toward the end. But the tie was broken, and Tracy's
Troll (his only first-round bet) bit the dust. Tracy had another
run of bad luck when his second-round bet, the Titan (which was
also one of Devin's two first-round bets) was eliminated.
In the last round, it looked good for Abbi, having two of
the remaining first-round bets, Devin and Mark having the other
two. After a devastating round, in which no less than five spectator
cards were played, Devin's Ranger ended up in the dead pile,
and it all came down to secret bets.
Devin and Rob had both placed their secret bet on the surviving
Hydra, allowing them to edge out Abbi and Mark, both of whose
secret bets had been eliminated. Since their scores were tied,
the winner, by virtue of playing last (a rule which he actually
factored in when making the last play of the game) was Devin
Flawd who claimed his third championship of the week. Congratulations
Devin on a well-fought victory!
I hope to see you all in Lancaster, home of the now defending
champ, where the carnage will renew!
First thing to happen was the Junior event Tuesday evening.
We had 10 players on hand for the early start (as well as many
of the parents who stuck around to watch (Thank You's all around
for that), so we played two games and the first and seconds from
each as well as the highest-scoring third played a final game.
Dan Collinson of MD arose the winner and thereby took home more
wood than his mom and dad. The other finalists were:
2nd: Jennifer Sutton
3rd: Cameron Graf
4th: Kalie Jaeger
5th: Hannah Navolis
|