Craig Melton battles Bruno Wolff.	Ex-champs Ed Rothenberger and Aaron Fuegi play for a second title.

Wednesday morning ranks as one of the most exciting moments at WBC every year, as the 2-player Titan hopefuls gather to see who they will play in the first round. The selection method is random, with the only constraint being that past champions will not be meeting each other in the first round. Happily, we had eight of the 11 former champs on hand. Once first round pairings have been made, the tournament bracket is created, placing each ongoing game into a random slot, with games including past champions into seeded locations within the bracket.

2008 saw an increase in players from the previous year, and there was an odd number, meaning that one player would not have a first round opponent. As it turned out, there was also one player who requested to be included and would be unable to make the 10 am start time. It does not always work out this way. Compare with last year when two players who requested a late start that also happened to be roommates were required to play each other in the first round.
The first round included two upsets, as past champions Dan Strock and Sean McCulloch were ousted by Nick Page and Rick Northey, respectively. Six other past champions made it through the first round. Mike Rogozinski outlasted Eric Monte in the longest game of the tournament at 7 hours 50 minutes. As an experiment to confirm average length of the matches, players were asked to record the start and stop time of each match. After 28 games in 2008, the average length of time to finish a match was found to be 2 hours 28 minutes. The two fastest games were both recorded by Aaron Fuegi, who has demonstrated a propensity for rolling sixes on the first move or two and recruiting warlocks. His semi-final win took a mere 20 minutes. It is this variability in the duration of matches that makes it impossible to have regularly scheduled starting times other than in the first round.

In the second round, Nick, and the six past champions each won their games, while Rick advanced with the only bye of the bracket. One of the more interesting final scores was Geoff Pounder 662 to Ed Rothenheber's total of 69, with Ed winning the final battle. It is pretty unusual to outscore your opponent ten to one and still lose. David Finberg, arguably the most skilled player in the field who had not previously won the tournament, bowed out to two-time champion Brian Sutton. In the quarter-finals, Brian lost to another two-time champion David DesJardins, Bruno Wolff was put out of his misery in an hour by Ed Rothenheber, Jason Ley spent nearly four hours advancing past Rick Northey in a remarkably low scoring 246 to 108 match for that length of time, and Aaron schooled Nick Page in 25 minutes. The presence of six past champions in the quarters made this the most powerful field in memory for this stage of the tournament. Both semi-finals were quick, but noonetheless interesting. Jason moved first against Aaron. In his first three moves, he recruited a troll, a second gargoyle, and a Cyclops in his Titan stack. Aaron rolled a 6 each time and recruited two warlocks, the second in a tower within striking distance of Jason's Titan. Aaron did not know it was Jason's Titan stack, he was actually convinced it was the Angel instead, but the warlocks this early in the game plus the Angel call would be decisive against either lord, even six on seven. On his third turn he attacked the stack that he could reach. This is the match that lasted twenty minutes. Jason would recoup later by winning the multi-player tournament.

In the semi-final pitting David against Ed, the decisive battle occurred in the jungle. David attacked with two Cyclops and two gargoyles against Ed's three Cyclops. Since the attacker will eventually be facing a fourth Cyclops at defender's fourth movement turn, this battle only makes sense if the Angel is called into battle. David made his first kill on attacker's third movement turn and was ready with the Angel, but an unusual situation developed. If Ed could kill the last attacking creatures after this next movement phase, it would be too late for the Angel. But the new recruit would need three movement points to get into the fray, and without the additional dice, the attackers would not all perish. So Ed down-recruited to the Gargoyle, which was able to fly the needed three spaces, and the extra four dice provided enough hits to finish the last attacking creature. No Angel summon, Ed wins. However, even more important was the 60 points gained, putting Ed at 88. He was able to attack a small stack with his Titan stack shortly after this battle, earning the Angel in his Titan stack and giving him the firepower needed to attack and defeat David's Titan within a few turns. 

The most unusual aspect of the Final was the intermittent play. Both players had alternative events at noon on Friday. They set up at 11:10 and played for fifty minutes, adjourning until they could get back together. They played an additional hour and a half from 4:30 to six, followed by a second adjournment for additional WBC events. They reconvened at 10pm, where Aaron Fuegi prevailed in a final battle, ending at 10:23, final score Aaron 361, Ed 576. The playing time was 2 hours 35 minutes but the elapsed time to completion was just short of 12 hours.

It was a very enjoyable year, and the 2-player tournament ran smoothly. I look forward to seeing all of you again next year.