Michael Kiefte vs Stefan Mecay	Jessica Brown on her way to victory over David Kiefte.

The 2013 Labyrinth field shrank by a third in the wake of Bin Laden's demise. Nonetheless, the competition remained fierce. Unlike last year's event, wherein the Jihadist and United States battled to a standstill, this year's tournament saw Jihadist dominance, with them winning 69% of all matches (18/26). Player consensus seemed to be that the Jihadists were favored in a one-deck game due to the difficulty of the U.S. achieving more than twice as many resources by deck end. Indeed, so favored was the Jihadist side by players that only one game saw a player bid to play the U.S.

Player consensus was borne out in the statistics, which revealed that the plurality of Jihadist wins (39%) came by the U.S. failing to have more than twice as many resources at game end. Obviously, the 2014 tournament will need to incorporate some balancing mechanism to make it harder for patient Jihadists to win by deck exhaustion.

However, there were several memorable moments. The mulligan game between Stefan Mecay (U.S.) and Patrick Richardson (Jihadist) saw Patrick's Jihadists winning by achieving a major jihad in regime-changed Pakistan, with Patrick's 11 cells overwhelming the U.S.'s six troops! In the semifinals, Jessica Brown's U.S. defeated Michael Kiefte's Jihadists on the last turn only after Michael failed five minor jihad rolls in a row, any one of which would have given him the win. And Phil Yaure, who would eventually meet Jessica Brown in the Final, exhibited his skillful play by defeating the GM in three close games.

After much back and forth fighting in the two-deck Final, Jessica was able to turn Pakistan to Islamist Rule and grab its three WMDs. Despite the U.S. losing Pakistan, the game remained close, with neither side running away in resources. Victory came approximately halfway through the first deck when Jessica was able to move a single Jihadist cell from the Philippines to the U.S. and place two plots (both WMDs) with Martyrdom Operation. Phil did not have sufficient ops to alert either plot, bringing the Final to a sudden -- and dramatic -- end.

Tournament Statistics:

Total games played: 26

Jihadist / U.S. wins: 18/8

Types of Jihadist wins:

6 adjacent Islamist Rule resources (5/18 = 28%)

WMD detonated in the U.S. (4/18 = 22%)

15 countries at fair/poor and U.S. prestige at 1 (1/18 = 6%)

U.S. < 2x Islamist Rule resources by game end (7/18 = 39%)

U.S. resigned (1/18 = 6%)

Types of U.S. wins:

All cells killed (2/8 = 25%)

12 good governed resources (4/8 = 50%)

U.S. 2x Islamist Rule resources by game end (2/8 = 25%)

Riku Riekkinen and Dan Hoffman join the search for terrorists.	Jason Albert tackles GM Stephen Aslett.