Lodging and Travel Information
WBC Event Previews
Results of WBC
Awards
Teams
Open Gaming
WBC Juniors Program
WBC Auction and Auction Store
vendors
vendors
Volunteer at WBC
Volunteer at WBC

WBC FAQs

 

 

 

Battleline (BAT) WBC 2017 Report
Updated February 19, 2018 Icon Key
47 Players Michael Sosa 2017 Status 2018 Status History/Laurels
2017 Champion Click box for details. Click box for details.
 

Returning Champions Struggle

It was a bad year for returning champions. 2016 champ Owen Kyrollos lost in his pod to Bjorn von Knorring, who went 3-0 in his pod to advance. Five-time champion Bruce Reiff lost twice: a 5-4 loss to Andrew Martin (who went 3-0 in his pod to advance) and a breakthrough loss to Paul Klayder. Paul only had a single victory in his three games, but taking out someone of Bruce’s stature made sure it was a memorable one. The “past champion” curse didn’t bite Sean McCulloch in group play, who survived with three narrow victories against Edward Uhler, Aiden Powers, and Richard Irving, but never fear, the curse would come later with a vengeance.

The 12 winners of their pods were: Sean McCulloch, Bjorn von Knorring, David Wolfe, Aran Warszawski, Dalton Versak, Kerry Walzl, Andrew Martin, Bruno Wolff, Samantha Berk, Ewan McNay, Michael Sosa, and Greg Staton. Byes were given to Sean, Aran, Andrew and Ewan as former champions or randomly selected 3-0 players, and then the single elimination phase began.

In the first round, Bjorn beat David, Dalton beat Kerry, Bruno beat Samantha, and Michael beat Greg. This set up a quarterfinal rounds won by Sean, Dalton, Bruno, and Michael.

In the semifinals, Michael beat Bruno. Bruno fell behind, and could never draw good enough cards to catch up, putting Michael in the finals. The other semifinal, between Sean and Dalton, was a long drawn out battle. Dalton started the game by immediately drawing a tactics card. The tactics cards ended up being the key to Dalton’s victory, as the troop deck ran out without the game being decided, and while Sean had the troop cards available to win the game, Dalton’s play of the more useful tactics cards (especially Traitor and Deserter) gave him the victory.

This set up the final between Dalton and Michael. Dalton went first (he said that he had gone first in every game in the tournament up until that point, so apparently the perceived disadvantage of doing first didn’t affect him too much) and again immediately drew a tactics card. This time, however, the card didn’t help him as Michael quickly set up a lead by winning or threatening to win several flags. This caused Dalton to attempt desperate measures like abandoning edge flags in the hopes of drawing miracle cards to save his problems in the middle of the board. When these draws didn’t work, Dalton was forced into even more extreme plays, which quickly spiraled out of control and gave Michael the win. In the end, Michael won with both 5 flags and a breakthrough, while Dalton couldn’t win a single flag.

After it was over, Michael had won his first event ever at WBC. Congratulations, and hopefully the returning champions curse doesn’t return to haunt you in 2018!

2017 Laurelists Repeating Laurelists: 1
Dalton Versak Bruno Wolff Sean McCulloch Ewan McNay Aran Warszawski
2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th
Playing in the beginning pods This is a more interesting version of Battleline
than the original
Packed house in Laurel room GM Sean McCulloch trying to avoid
the past champions curse of 2017
GM  Sean McCulloch [3rd year]  NA
 Stmccull@owu.edu  NA