Congratulations to David desJardins! Last year's champion came back and successfully defended his title. It is rare to have a repeat champion, but there's more! Not only did he defend the two-player title, he became the first player ever to win both Titan tournaments in the same year! David's skill has always been readily acknowledged. But it also takes luck and a degree of concentration that is hard to achieve, even amongst the crowd that regularly attends WBC!

Rumor has it that David survived a 50-50 roll of the dice at the end of his semifinal in the multi-player tournament. For more, see Bruno's battle notes. Just an example of the luck needed, but more on that in a moment.

The first round saw one major upset, with Larry Lingle besting three-time former champion Brian Sutton. What's that you say Larry, not an upset? Well, we'll call it that until we see your mug above!

Brian's bracket had no other past champions in it, and Clifford Smith took advantage of the rest of the bracket to emerge into the third place game. Last year, you may recall, Clifford lost to David in the Final. In the second bracket, former champions Dan Strock and Aaron Fuegi each beat two opponents to meet in the third round. Aaron had to meet in succession Dan Strock, Clifford Smith and then David in the Final. David easily won his first two rounds, then met former champion Bruno Wolff in the fourth place game. After he won that match, he received the only bye of the competition into the Final.

Aaron claims that he was out-recruited in the Final match. The game turning battle saw Aaron's Titan attacking an inferior stack with excellent prospects of walking over the field. But....A unicorn of Aaron's had two hits on it after killing a defending creature. David did not engage but positioned two rangers for range strikes against the unicorn. The unicorn needs six hits to be killed, requiring all four range strike dice to be a 4, 5 or 6 to succeed. David rolled the 1-in-16 longshot on the dice! The unicorn left the battle without being able to inflict any more harm. Both players agree that this was the turning point, as now it was difficult for Aaron to survive with enough in his Titan stack to be viable.

So, great job, David, and a great tournament in 2005! Dare we ask what you have planned for next year?

I expect to be back next year for another great experience as the Titan two-player GM. The format will remain unchanged. Single elimination with the starting draw at 10am on Wednesday. This does not require the player to be available to play at that time, it just requires that you check in with the GM prior to that time and give your availabilty! Too often players appear later in the day and say they would have played but they were attending another event at 10. We can work around this! See you next year