Blais Captures 7 Wonders Duel Championship!

For 2023, 7 Wonders Duel used the same format that seemed to work well the previous year. Two heats were scheduled during which each player would play two games. Any player that won at least two games across the heats would qualify for the elimination rounds. For the first time, 7 Wonders Duel was a Century event in 2023. With a slight increase in attendance this year (76 players vs 73 last year), hopefully it will remain there for 2024.

One-hundred and two games were played over the two heats. No players managed a perfect 4-0 record this year, but thirteen players earned three wins. A total of thirty-two players qualified for the elimination round.

Twenty-seven of those players showed up for the Elimination phase, meaning five rounds would be played and five players would receive a first round bye. Once again, this year technology failed the GM when setting up the bracket, delaying the start of the round. Thank you to Mike Kaltman and Brandon Buchanan for helping to organize the bracket properly.

After two elimination rounds, the top eight players faced off in the Quarterfinal. Christian Wen defeated Andrew Emerick 59-54 after correctly identifying that he did not need to go all-in for a Science victory. Dan Leader (80-64 over Cary Morris) and Dominic Blais (54-35 over David Schneider) each earned Civilian victories via resource denial strategies. Ray Wolff earned a Military victory over Casey Moquin.

Resource denial was a theme in this year’s elimination round, as Dominic once again used this strategy to defeat Dan in the Semifinal, 82-48. In the other Semifinal, Christian defeated Ray via Science to set up an all-Canadian Final. In the last game, Dominic was able to pressure Christian with military symbols, eventually earning a dominance victory. Congratulations to Dominic, the 2023 7 Wonders Dual champion.

Over all rounds of the tournament, Owen Kyrollos had the highest winning civilian score with 85 while Brandon Buchanan had the lowest winning score at 39. Michael Kaltman had the highest non-winning score at 73.

Over the 128 games played, civilian victory decided the most games with 61 (47.3%, down from 62.5% in 2022) games ending on points. Science dominance followed, being the decider in 38 games (29.5% up from 25%) while military dominance ended 29 games (22.5% up from 12.5%). The player who took the first turn of the game won 51.94% of games.

Looking only at the elimination rounds, 18 of 26 games (69.2%) ended in civilian victory, followed by Military with 6 wins (23.1%) and Science with 2 wins (7.7%). In this round, the player who took the first turn won only 11 games (42.3%).

There was some discussion this year during the elimination round of a first player advantage. While the numbers do not seem to indicate a distinct advantage to going first, we will likely implement bidding for turn order in the elimination round next year.

Once again congratulations to all the laurelists and thank you to everyone who attended the event.