Attendance was down a lot until a surge in the third heat Saturday afternoon brought it back closer to the norm - but not enough to maintain its place in the Century ... until the 2011 Board voted it alone Legacy status from among ten eligible candidates. The 26 preliminary games yielded 24 qualifiers, with two players, Joanna Melton and Bram Walzl, winning twice. A quarter of those were AWOL for the semi-final round, so we added two alternates to man five 4-player tables, named after some of the combatants in the game.

Action in the heats was lively, possibly due to the "extra credit" medals given for various achievements. In one game a player killed the last creature while he had the most points on it, which was the tiebreaker that give him the win. The semi-final games were also pretty intense. In his game, Ewan McNay was in complete control, killing all five creatures and earning the highest score achieved this year (18 points).

Joining Ewan at the Final were Bram Walzl, John Speck, Jordan Shea, and Thomas Melton - the youngest of the well-versed Morton clan. In Round 1 the cyclops was killed quickly, almost through unanimous consent, or possibly due to lack of depth perception. In Round 2, instead of killing the only creature left with no first round bet (titan) or one of Thomas' two first-round bets, Bram ended up killing John's Hydra. The titan wasn't long for this world, however, as it shuffled off its immortal coil in Round 3, along with Jordan's second-round bet. There was no way for Thomas to save both of his first-round bets, and so his Ranger died valiantly in Round 4, also taking bets from Bram and John with him.

What the players didn't know was that all five secret bets were still alive in Round 5, meaning that each player had at least seven points riding on one of the four creatures left. This was complicated by all the first-round and secret bets of each creature having been made by different players. The only way Bram was going to win was if the Unicorn died, but with both Jordan's and Ewan's secret bets there, it was unlikely. If the Dragon had died then Ewan would have had enough to win, but since all of John's remaining points were there, he was able to concentrate on keeping it alive. That left the Troll and the Warlock, with exactly the same total points bet on them. Finally, the stars aligned and the Warlock bit the dust, crowning Jordan Shea the winner.

I would like to note that, in its 15-year history, the tournament has produced 15 different winners. This easily makes it the longest-running event with no repeat winner. That's gotta be worth something, right? This year we had more medals than ever to give out for various gameplay-related achievements. The "Mighty Minotaur" with imaginary fez was given to Joanna Melton for placing sixth. The "Battling Behemouth" went to 2001 champ Rebecca Hebner for killing the most creatures in the preliminaries. The "Shining Serpent" was awarded to Kevin Breza for losing the most points bet on a creature that dies in the last round of a regular game. The "Weary Warbear" was earned by Bram Walzl, who not only had the lowest winning score (10), but did so breaking a three-way tie. The "Ardent Angel" went to Gregory Kulp for the highest last-place score (8). Gregory was not present to receive his medal, so, Gregory, if you are reading this, shoot me an email and I'll send it to you.

Congratulations to Jordan and all of the award winners. I hope to see you all (and some of your friends) next year! For more details on the Titan: The Arena event see the GM's website at http://www.gameindustry.com/wbc.

The little finalists check out their swag.	GM Greg Crowe presents Dacey with her plaque.

 Titan: The Arena Junior

Despite an upswing in Juniors attendance this year, only eight kids reported for mayhem in the ring this year, with Thomas Melton having moved on from the Junior ranks to place second in the adult version. Down in the Minors, the next phenomenon appears to be Dacey Collinson who improved from 6th last year to win it in 2011. The other finalists were:

2nd: Adam Wojtaszczyk

3rd: Alyssa Morgan

4th: Lucas Holmquist

5th: Nicholas Metzger

6th: Wes Lewis

The preliminary round consisted of two four-player games, with the top two from each game joining the closest third place player for a 5-player Final. Alyssa, Lucas, Nicholas, Dacey and Adam started that game the same way the adult Final did, with the Cyclops and then the Hydra falling in the first two rounds. The only difference was the Juniors' Hydra did not have any bets on it, so all chips were still in play. The third creature to perish was the only other one with no first-round bet - the Unicorn - unfortunately taking out smaller bets by Lucas and Nicholas. Things heated up in the fourth round, as Dacy managed to slay Nicholas' Warlock, which was the only creature that had none of her chips on it. Of course this meant that, whatever creature dies next, Dacey would lose something. Adam's only hope was to figure out which one had Dacey's secret bet on it. Unfortunately for him, he managed to kill the Troll, and although it had her first-round bet, only Nicholas had made a secret bet on it. Dacey's secret bet was hiding under the Dragon, and with it she managed to win quite handily.
As is the tradition in Titan: The Arena Jr., everyone who made it to the final table got a trophy for their efforts. Congratulations to Dacey and to all the other finalists for their fantastic play.