Boyes Finally Conquers Dominion Championship!

2025 marked my fifth year attending the WBC and my fourth year as the Dominion GM. I came into my fourth year as Dominion GM strong, as I brought both Dominion and Intrigue to Seven Springs. After turning away players last year due to lack of games, my initial priority in preparing for WBC 2025 was buying that extra game to guarantee that I could set up one more table for players. I also decided to play in one Heat of my own tournament for the first time since 2022. I happened to win my Heat with one of those one-in-a-lifetime lucky draws at the end that made all three of my competitors say, “Wow!”

Total turnout was down marginally from last year from 145 to 142, despite the first Heat drawing an astounding 104 entrants, a number not seen since the inaugural Dominion tournament in 2009. It sure felt as though we had way more than 142 different players, but many of those people played in more than one Heat. Several first-time WBC attendees competed in my event, but a large chunk of the past Dominion faithful either played in other tournaments or didn’t attend WBC at all. Individual player scores naturally varied wildly depending on the kingdom cards. This year, the highest winning score was 52 (by Michael Assante in Heat 2) and the lowest winning score was 5 (by Christopher Houle in Heat 1).

With the unusually high turnout for the first Heat, compounded with several tables having co-winners, there was major concern among all of us that we might have more than 64 people eligible for the Quarterfinal. Fortunately, I had enough people win two or three Heats that we ended up with only 56 unique winners across the three Heats. Six of those winners were no-shows for the Quarterfinal, which was not necessarily a bad thing because only thirteen copies of Dominion were available for the Quarterfinal. Like last year, all Quarterfinalist would play and the winner at each table would advance to the Semifinal, with the remaining Semifinal spots being filled by the non-winners with the smallest losing margins. And for those of you who were dreaming that I would make it into the Semifinal of my own tournament… well, you better keep dreaming because defending champion Sceadeau D’Tela drew into my Quarterfinal table and totally cleaned my clock. The Quarterfinal was also a bust for my assistant GM. And for past champions Dominic Blais and Nicole Bosca.

Like last year, the wild card ended up being its own game, as there were one too many people tied for the smallest losing margin. Tony Bosca, Haim Hochboim, Alex Majlaton, and Erik Schlosser all lost in their respective Quarterfinal games by a single point, but I could take only three of them to the Semifinal. So, it was time to bring out the old D20 once again, with the lowest roller among the quartet being eliminated. Sadly, Alex got the short end of that stick with a 5 and was sent off.

All three wild cards drew together into Semifinal Table 1 with WBC veteran Cally Perry. As Erik Schlosser was the designated host of the table, his son’s Dominion set was in play. If you have ever played a game of Dominion with either of the Schlosser’s, you know that they are Dominion completionists and own pretty much every card ever printed, so it was “anything goes” at that table. Unfortunately for Erik, everything went, as he finished dead last. Haim Hochboim prevailed with a score of 32.5-26-20-15 to make the Dominion Final fifteen years after his previous Dominion Final.

Two-time champion Chad Weaver has been itching to return to the Dominion Final, and it seemed on paper that this would be his best chance to do so, as he played host of Semifinal Table 2 to Curtis Beatovich, Andrew Menard, and Patrick Shea, all of whom made their first Dominion Semifinal. Well, Chad will have to wait yet another year because Patrick came out of nowhere to wipe the table with scores of 35-21.5-20-17 to advance to his first Dominion Final.

I entrusted Keith Boone with my base Dominion set to host Semifinal Table 3 with Andrew Martin, 2017 Laurelist Robbie Mitchell, and two-time Laurelist Tim Tu. Before that game started, Keith called me over to ask a question: “Could we use your Intrigue set, too?” Now that’s the spirit! I love it when a competitor desires a challenge. Keith finished third at that table, but I admire his courage. Robbie squeaked out the win here with scores of 27.5-24.5-19-17.5 to claim a seat at the Final for the first time, nearly a decade removed from his last Dominion Laurels. Tim’s three-point loss was good enough to pick up the 6th place, again a decade removed from his last Dominion Laurels.

But the main event was Semifinal Table 4, where Keith’s brother Evan found himself up against a powerhouse triumvirate of 2016 champion Robb Effinger, two-time finalist Ricky Boyes, and the defending champion Sceadeau D’Tela. Ricky beat Sceadeau by a score of 40-39, earning Ricky his third trip to the Final and relegating Sceadeau to 5th place.

Now this would normally be the place where I explain the crazy rules that I set forth for the four finalists, but I did something a little different this year. We played a little “WBC Russian Roulette.” I presented a pile of sealed envelopes, each with a different ruleset, to the finalists and had the players discard the envelopes one at a time until one envelope remained. After my little dog-and-pony show, the surviving ruleset was “The Big Money Game.”

Kingdom cards: Artisan, Counting House, Courtier, Forge, Grand Market, Laboratory, Mine, Nobles, Pearl Diver, Vault.

Additional twist: Platinum cards were also available. These Treasure cards from the Prosperity expansion are disallowed in regular Dominion play, but anything is fair game in the Final.

The finalists didn’t have much time to study the lineup of cards when the fire alarm went off around the convention center. After returning to the Laurel Room, the four finalists needed extra time to remind themselves of the Kingdom cards before getting to the matter of bidding for turn order. You know a Kingdom card setup is interesting when the bidding process takes as long as the study session, and that is exactly what happened in this year’s final. Bidding went around the table nearly five times and no single bid was made in under thirty seconds. After the lengthy auction, Patrick won first position with a bid of 4 1/2, Ricky won second position with a bid of 2, Robbie won third position with a bid of 1, and Haim begrudgingly settled for the free fourth seat.

It was well after midnight when the game finally began. Those who have participated in one of my past Final tables know that I jot down every single play of the match to serve as the rough draft of the Final table for my mandatory WBC report.

As in normal competition this year, the finalists were allowed to set their opening two hands to speed up gameplay. The first round went quickly as all players showed two Coppers and bought a Pearl Diver. The second round also went quickly as all players showed their remaining five Coppers, with Patrick purchasing a Mine, Robbie purchasing a Vault, and everybody else buying a Courtier. After the first shuffle there was a quick third round, where everybody bought a Silver.

Things finally went in different directions starting in the fourth round. Patrick ignored his Courtier and played his Mine instead to transform a Copper into a Silver and buy a second Pearl Diver. Ricky played his Courtier and showed an Estate to gain a Gold, then bought his second Pearl Diver. Robbie played his Pearl Diver to draw a card and check the bottom card of his deck, which was technically unnecessary because he had only one card in his deck at the time. Nonetheless, he used his extra action to play his Vault and draw two cards. He discarded all Coppers and Estates from his hand to bring him to the Copper-free $6 needed to buy a Grand Market. Haim played his Courtier and showed an Estate to gain a Gold, then bought more Silver.

The fifth round was uneventful, as Robbie bought a Laboratory and everybody else acquired more treasure cards. The sixth round was more interesting. Patrick bought a Gold, Ricky bought a Nobles, Robbie used his Vault to get up to $7 to buy a Forge, and Haim bought a Laboratory. The seventh round had Patrick buying a Forge of his own, Ricky picking up a second Nobles, Robbie playing the Grand Market-Laboratory combo to buy another Laboratory, and Haim earning his first Nobles.

The match started to take shape in Round 8. Patrick used his Mine to trash a Silver for a Gold and buy another Gold. Ricky played his Courtier and showed a Copper card to gain a Gold, then bought a Mine. Robbie went Grand Market-Laboratory-Laboratory-Forge to draw most of his deck and used his Forge to trash a full hand of Coppers and gain another Laboratory. Haim played his Laboratory and got a lucky draw, as he hit $9 to buy the first Platinum card of the game. While the other players were padding their decks with treasure cards, Robbie tipped off his strategy of using his Forge to thin out his deck. Will Robbie’s plan work? Keep reading.

Patrick began Round 9 by using his Mine to trash Silver for Gold and buy another Mine. Ricky played his Nobles to draw more cards and buy another Nobles. Robbie bought a Silver to replenish some of the money that he had culled in the previous round. Haim played his Courtier and showed a Copper to gain a Gold, then bought another Pearl Diver. Patrick’s Forge finally came into play in Round 10, where he transformed a Copper-Silver-Gold rainbow into a Platinum. Ricky bought another Nobles card. Robbie chained together his Pearl Diver, his Grand Market, and his three Laboratories to put most of his deck into his hand, then laid down his Forge to kill $9 of cards from his hand to gain a Platinum and he still had $5 left in his hand to buy another Laboratory. Haim turned up a bunch of Estates and a single Silver, settling only for a Pearl Diver.

We finally got our first Province in Round 11, as Patrick revealed exactly $8 to claim the first 6-point card of the match. Ricky played his Mine to change Gold into Platinum and bought yet another Nobles card. Robbie did his Grand Market-Laboratory-Forge routine again—this time, to forge a Silver and a Pearl Diver into another Laboratory. He also happened to have $8 in hand to buy a Province, sending alarms around the table that maybe his strategy would win the championship. Haim ended that round by buying a Province, and all finalists went on to buy a Province in Round 12.

Patrick began Round 13 by playing his Mine to turn Gold into Platinum, but he ended up a dollar short of another Province. He could have bought a Duchy as a consolation, but he bought a Forge instead in the hope that he could draw one of his Forges on his next turn after a deck shuffle. Money was not an issue for the other players that round, as three more Provinces were bought up.

Round 14 was a bust for Patrick, as he failed to shuffle either a Forge or $8 into his hand. With only $3 to play with, he took a Silver instead of an Estate. Ricky had a triplet of Nobles in hand, so he used one Nobles to gain two extra actions and used those two actions to play his other Nobles to draw three cards each. Even with all the extra cards, he could scrape together only $5 to buy a Duchy. Robbie went through his typical Grand Market-Laboratory-Forge routine to draw a bunch of cards and what happened next took the entire table aback. He forged a Province into a Province and bought the last Province to end the game.

The in-game scores were Ricky 28, Robbie 24, Haim 23, and Patrick 15. After deducting the seating order bids, I was pleased to announce that the third time was the charm. Ricky Boyes had finally won the Dominion championship that had eluded him for nearly a decade. Robbie and Haim were tied with 23 points, but Haim had the advantage of being last in turn order and having one fewer turns than Robbie. Regardless of who triggers the end of the game, the fourth seat wins every tiebreaker. Haim was awarded the runner-up plaque and Robbie had to settle for third place. Patrick was a distant fourth with 10 1/2 points, but he also got a plaque. Thanks to Dominion’s huge turnout last year, Dominion was back at a Level 4 event this year after a demotion to Level 3 two years ago, so a 4th place Dominion plaque is once again a thing.