Raiders Of The Lost Arnak: Lost Ruins Of Arnak Makes Debut At WBC 2023!

After coming up short in the trial event vote of 2022, Lost Ruins of Arnak made its inaugural appearance at WBC in 2023. In total, 48 players donned their dusty hats, gathered their crew, and set out to unravel the mysteries of legendary Arnak.

18 games were played over the course of three Heats (5 games in Heat 1, 7 games in Heat 2, and 6 games in Heat 3). 17 players won at least one game, with 1 player, Mike Kaltman, winning twice. Winning scores ranged from a high of 88 to a low of 65; though excelling on the research track is the usual pathway to victory, in only 10 of the 18 Heat games did the eventual winner have the most points from research amongst all players. A bigger determinant of victory tended to be turn order itself: Half of all winners were in the 4th seat, compared to 5 winners in 3rd seat, 3 winners in 2nd seat, and only a single winner in 1st seat. This last-seat dominance did not extend to the Elimination Rounds, as no player in that seat won a game among the five such games; however, the Heat results could lead to an auctioning for turn order in future years.

The absence of one winner for the Semifnal round left us with an even 16 players, perfect for four 4-player games with winners advancing to the Final. While the simpler ‘bird temple’ side was used for the Heats, the ‘snake temple’ side was used for the Semifinal and Final, resulting in lower scores on average.

Table 1 featured the closest finish for first place, as Mike Kaltman used a combination of idol and guardian supremacy to overcome Nick Henning’s temple tile point and fear-card point advantages; the final score of 78 to 77 (with the remaining players finishing with 72 and 51 points) ensured Nick 5th place overall for the tournament.

Dominic Blais outpaced his Table 2 opponents with a strong research base (31 off his magnifying glass and notebook, and 22 more off temple tiles) combined with a solid guardian portfolio (4 defeated for 20 more points); his score of 85 was the highest of the Semifinal round, with the other players scoring 74, 71, and 60.

Table 3 saw Ricky Boyes and Sam Wolff engaged in a tense struggle: Ricky had an edge in research & temple tiles and guardians, while Sam had more points from idols and items & artifacts. In the end, Ricky edged Sam by a score of 73 to 70, with the other players finishing with scores of 64 and 57. Sam’s 2nd-place finish was close enough for him to earn 6th place overall.

Luke McKinnes had the most convincing Semifinal win at Table 4. His 44 points from research and temple tiles, combined with 30 points from idols and guardians, were the main contributors to his 82-point final score, nearly twenty points ahead of 2nd place (65, with the other players reaching 62 and 52).

The order of players for the Final table: Dominic, Ricky, Mike, and Luke. Dominic had the draw-and-discard assistant and horse, allowing him to efficiently cycle through his deck, as well as the ‘exile’ assistant to rid himself of fear cards. Ricky had the compass and coin-for-arrow assistants and acquired the useful tent item and star charts artifact. Mike got the 2-coin and coin-or-plane assistants, and Luke got the tablet and upgrade assistants, which made for a useful combo.

The game was fairly close for many aspects of endgame scoring. Everyone ended with either 12 or 13 points from idols, everyone defeated either 1, 2, or 3 guardians, and everyone’s points from cards (including fear deductions) ranged from 7 to 16. Luke had a clear advantage on research; he was the first to the top of the track with his magnifying glass and he was the only player to reach the top with his notebook; he scored 38 off pure research alone, compared to values of 25 by Mike and 24 by both Ricky and Dominic. With all other categories being so close, it had appeared that Luke was destined to win.

However, Mike scored 4 more points off temple tiles (8 to 4), 5 more off guardians (15 to 10), 4 more off items and artifacts (18 to 14), and 1 more off fear cards (-2 to -3). Luke later stated that had he grabbed one more 1-coin item from the display during the game, he would have won; instead, after all scores were tallied, Mike edged Luke by a single point, 77 to 76; Ricky finished 3rd with 66 points, while Dominic ended the game with 58.