All good things must come to an end. Unfortunately, what came to an end at this year’s WBC was Dominion’s perfect two-year run of getting all registrants into a table to play.
With this year’s format change from the points system to the wins-only system and the return of the Quarterfinal, turnout spiked from last year’s event as people now saw a single heat win as meaningful. Dominion drew 145 unique registered players this year, the third-highest attendance in WBC history. The number would have been higher if more people had brought their copies of Dominion to Seven Springs, as the lack of games meant that many people had to be turned away or forced to withdraw voluntarily.
Two other issues arose in Dominion this year. One was allegations of table hosts doing forced shuffles on the kingdom randomizer cards to get desirable actions in the game, somewhat similar to the deck-shuffling issues that tarnished last year’s event. That forced my assistant GM and me to enforce a mid-event rule change that required tables to use a randomizer app to select the ten kingdom cards. Another issue was “seat poaching”, where a person takes advantage of a crowded room by sneaking in after registration closes, grabbing a seat card, and playing at a table. That left three additional people unable to play because somebody had stolen their seats.
On to the positives now! We had a total of 58 tables across the three Heats, and five of those tables ended in a pure tie—including one table that ended in a three-way tie for three winners. Nancy Arseneault and Sceadeau D’Tela each posted the year’s highest winning score of 49, while Sam Wolff posted the year’s lowest winning score of 10. The number 27 was very popular, as exactly 27 tables had a winning score of 27—including the table that had three co-winners.
As some people won two Heats, Dominion finished with 55 unique winners eligible to play in the Quarterfinal. Six of the qualifiers had other commitments or did not show up on time, so 49 people played in the Quarterfinal. The Quarterfinal had its own issue, though. I desired to have 16 copies of Dominion available so that we could have 16 tables with 16 people to advance to the Semifinal. Unfortunately, only 13 copies were available, so I had to ad-lib the format. I took the 13 table winners into the Semifinal, along with the three best non-winning players as wild cards using the old “point differential behind the winner” system.
That plan went off without a hitch, right? Wrong! Assistant GM Bill Carrigan and Thomas Tu finished in a pure tie at Table 9, so I had to advance both players. (Even if I invoked the Final Table rule of using turn order to break the tie, Thomas would have advanced as a wild card anyway because his point differential would be considered minus-0). That left two wild card slots to fill, but we had a three-way tie for a minus-2 differential. That forced Nate Heiss, Nicolas Hungerford, and Jon McSenn to roll a d20 to break the tie. Nate was brave enough to step forward first and rolled a 20. Jon stepped up second and rolled a 14. Nicolas had to roll a 15 to advance but managed only a 7.
Semifinal action began promptly after the roll-off. Our first table saw wild card Nate acting as the host by managing my personal copy of Dominion. Drawing into his table were Michael Swinson, double heat winner Nancy Arseneault, and WBC newcomer Reid Mackey. Nate’s luck ran out here, as he was denied a second consecutive Final table. Nancy struck out for the third straight year at the Semifinal and is still looking for her first Dominion Final. (Yes, Nancy, I know the feeling. I myself am now 0-for-3 in the Sagrada Semifinal.) It was Reid the Rookie who emerged victorious at this table with scores of 27-20.5-14-12.5.
Jon McSenn and my assistant GM also saw their luck run out at Semifinal table 2. They fell at the hands of WBC legend Sceadeau D’Tela, with a final score of 28.5-23-20-18 sending Sceadeau to his very first Dominion Final.
The third table saw a rematch of the 2013 Dominion Final between champion Brandon Bernard and runner-up Thomas Tu. Thomas finally got his revenge and beat Brandon to advance to his second Final. The score was 26.5-26-24-17. Jordan Fernando had the half-point loss and won the 5th-place laurels. Brandon had the 2 1/2 point deficit, and that was good enough for the 6th-place laurels, right?
Not so fast! In continuing with this year’s Dominion theme of craziness (and double-checking if there was a full moon above the Laurel Highlands of Pennsylvania that week), the fourth Semifinal table ended with scores of 42.5-40-39.5-35.5, so a second 2 1/2 -point deficit meant that Christian Wen had to wait with Brandon to determine which of them would earn the 6th-place laurels. In accordance with WBC rules, the laurel would go to the person whose Semifinal opponent does better in the Final. In a strange twist, that meant Brandon had to root for his longtime rival Thomas. Christian had to root for Alex Schlosser, who won this table and finally advanced to the Final after busting in the Semifinal each of the past two years. Sam Wolff narrowly missed the laurel here with his score of 39.5, still leaving his father as the only member of the Wolff family with a Dominion laurel.
The Dominion Final was different this year because it did not take place at its traditional slot. Per a unanimous request by my four finalists, we held the after the Semifinal. That made me one happy GM, as the three hectic Heats this year had fried my brain to the point where I might have crashed into a deep slumber ten minutes into a late-night Final. But now to the part of the Dominion report that everybody wants to find out: the secret Final Table rules hermetically sealed in my special envelope. This year’s final celebrated the 15th anniversary of the Dominion tournament at WBC by using a set of cards partially inspired by the set that the first Dominion GM, Tom Browne, used for that very first Final table—full of attacks and reactions.
Kingdom cards: Bandit, Bureaucrat, Cutpurse, Moat, Mountebank, Saboteur, Sea Hag, Secret Chamber, Watchtower, Witch.
Special twist: All players trash one Copper and one Estate from their decks. They are replaced with one Silver and one Duchy from a separate copy of the game so that the regulation piles are not affected. Players may also set their starting two hands ($4/$4, $5/$3, or $6/$2).
After nearly fifteen minutes of pondering, groveling, and yearning for Gardens and Dukes, the players finally offered their bids for turn order. Thomas took first with a bid of 21/2, Sceadeau took second with a bid of 2, Alex took third with a bid of 1/2, and Reid settled for fourth with a nil bid.
The game started with both Thomas and Sceadeau buying a Moat as a preemptive measure. Alex spent his first $5 on a Mountebank, so it was officially “game on”. Reid started with $6 to buy the first Gold of the match. For Round 2, Thomas joined the Mountebank gang, forcing Sceadeau to spend $5 on a $2 Moat. Alex spent his $3 for a Silver and Reid used his last $2 for a Moat.
Thomas immediately drew into his Mountebank on the first reshuffle, but Sceadeau was able to counter with his Moat and avoid the Curse. But once that Moat was spent, Alex showed his own Mountebank and slapped Sceadeau with a Curse, anyway. Poor Reid was left defenseless and was forced to put two Curses in his discard pile. The third buying round saw Sceadeau and Alex go for Gold, Reid gain his own Mountebank, and Thomas take a Watchtower. Round 4 was less eventful, as only purchasing occurred. Sceadeau bought a third Moat to fight off all of the impending attacks, Thomas and Alex both bought a Bandit, and Reid opted for more Gold.
Thomas started Round 5 by buying a second Watchtower, hoping that the extra Watchtower would trash some incoming Curses later. Sceadeau bought some Silver instead of a Moat. Alex revealed his Bandit—a play that came at the wrong time for Sceadeau, who had no Moat and was forced to trash the only Gold card in his deck. Reid followed Thomas’s plan and bought a Watchtower for defensive purposes.
Round 6 saw Thomas’s Mountebank strike three Moat-less players, then Thomas pulled off the brilliant play of buying a Watchtower while a Watchtower was also in his hand. Since the former Watchtower was gained, the latter Watchtower allowed Thomas to top deck it for the next draw. The other players simply bought more money cards.
Thomas continued his good luck into Round 7, as his Bandit caused Alex to trash a Silver. Sceadeau’s luck was better, as he was the first to reach the all-important $8 mark for a 6-point Province. Alex followed with the first 3-point Duchy purchase of the match. Reid continued to pad his deck with Silver.
Round 8 was another friendly one. Thomas and Sceadeau bought money, while Alex and Reid bought a Province. Round 9 saw Thomas hire a Sea Hag to add to the other attackers in his deck. Sceadeau and Alex bought more Silver, and Reid bought another Moat for the inevitable war.
Thomas started Round 10 by revealing his newly purchased Sea Hag, but Reid was not caught off-guard this time. Sceadeau bought a Gold to replace the Gold that he lost several rounds earlier, but he would quickly lose a Silver at the behest of Alex’s Bandit. That was the last attack for a while, as players eschewed the vitriol for the next four rounds in favor of purchasing money and points.
Sceadeau decided to go for the kill in Round 15 by buying a Saboteur, which immediately paid off in the following round after a reshuffle. Alex, Reid, and Thomas had no reaction cards in their hands, and they all flipped a Duchy from their decks. That was 9 points going straight to the garbage heap.
Alex, Reid, and Thomas rushed to buy points in the final rounds to make up for that Saboteur play, but Sceadeau was one step ahead of everybody else and finished the game with 39 points. Even with his 2-point bid deducted, his 37 points was still enough to take home the 1st-place Dominion plaque to join all of his 1st-place plaques from other WBC events.
Final game scores: Sceadeau 39, Reid 34, Alex 28, Thomas 20
Final scores minus bids: Sceadeau 37, Reid 34, Alex 27 1/2, Thomas 17 1/2
Reid makes a huge impact in his rookie WBC season with the silver. Alex matches his father’s 2022 performance with the bronze and concurrently delivers the 6th-place laurel to Christian Wen. The key moment in this year’s Dominion Final was Sceadeau’s late Saboteur gambit. Had Sceadeau not bought the Saboteur and drawn it immediately afterward, Reid would have had that extra Duchy in his deck, tied Sceadeau with 37 points, and won the championship on the tiebreaker by being last in turn order.
Sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good, and Sceadeau confessed to me a couple of times that he was pretty damn lucky in his games of Dominion this year. Congratulations once again to Sceadeau D’Tela, one of the luckiest players in WBC history. And one of the best players in WBC history, too.
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