Worlds 2023 Report

[Zakath]

When I saw the announcement that the USA was hosting Worlds for the first time in many years, I was determined to do my best to attend and play. It was a sobering realization that it would actually be my first competitive tournament appearance in over 15 (!) years, the last being Worlds 2007. It had been a while, but it didn't feel like it had been *that* long. It's a reminder to work on keeping this game in your life, because it can easily slip away from you. Hopefully others will follow suit with reports of their day - I wanted to make sure I did since it's been such a long time since I've been able to participate in an event like this.

I have no local playgroup in Boston, unfortunately, and I caught a cold that lingered and just refused to go away in the month before the tournament. As a result, I ended up building my decklists with no playtesting just days before the event was to start. My vs. Minion list was completed on Tuesday, and my vs. Hero list on Wednesday night. On Thursday I got on a plane to the west coast. My flight to Arizona was delayed, meaning I had to spend Thursday night in Phoenix. Thankfully, I had enough buffer in my travel schedule that I arrived in Sacramento on Friday afternoon in time to attend the opening evening, even after the flight out of Phoenix on Friday morning was also delayed.

I introduced myself to the other attendees and played one game that evening, using one of a couple casual decks I had brought with me. My "Fallen Alatar recruits dragons" deck ran rampant in that game, including Alatar successfully bringing in Scatha Roused despite speaking Foolish Words. It was a blast to play my first in-person match in years, but had I known what was in store for me the next day, I might have wished for some of my good luck from that game to transfer to the official tournament.

Saturday (Swiss round)

Vs Minion: I struggled with the question of what to do in alignment mirrors. I tried to make a Ren the Ringwraith list that I was happy with, but eventually found that I couldn't. With time running out before I had to leave for the tournament itself, I decided to run a Red Hills strategy, since even if the Balrog was played by my opponent it was still a deck that seemed like it could score major points (especially character points).

Vs Hero / Fallen: I wanted to use the Lidless Eye because I had never entered a competitive event since I had first obtained my playset of that card, and thus it had never seen use. I settled on a dragon country/Great Army of the North deck, using Orc Scouts and Going Ever Under Dark to ensure some extra bodies while keeping the hazard limit low.

Round 1. Ryan (Hero)

I was matched against Ryan, who was running the stream from the feature table. We were even more limited for time than everyone else this round as a result. He told me he didn't have much experience against Minion, and I believe indicated that in fact he had a single decklist vs. all opponents. My memory of the specifics of this game are already poor. I know I was able to stop him from scoring much. On my side of the table, I got off to a slow start (something that would become a trend all day), but eventually the deck started doing what it was supposed to do. I didn't quite have double his points, but I think I would have with one additional turn, as I would likely have brought out the factions to complete Great Army of the North and his companies were still in a bit of disarray and not in a position to score much.

Nate 5 - Ryan 1

Round 2. Spencer (Minion Magicians)

Spencer has been in attendance at every Worlds I've managed to be part of, spread across more than 20 years. He was playing a deck with 2 sorcerers and a shadow-magician, loaded to bursting with spells like The Tormented Earth. Ren came out and sat at Barad-dur to pick up his Creature and Helm. Although he canceled a lot of my hazards, both of us got off to a slow start anyway. He couldn't find his support cards and had to attempt to make very difficult unaided rolls against factions like the Hillmen, and failed. I moved to the Worthy Hills and rebuilt it, meanwhile, and started scoring some points. As we moved into the final turn of the game, I was set up for a comfortable 6-0 victory, but in desperation he sent his company to my site. I wounded Taladhan en-route but couldn't eliminate him, and he revealed that he was holding two copies of Malady. Radbug failed a corruption check with Traitor on the board, and suddenly Spencer's dice couldn't go wrong. Radbug killed Ugluk, then the second Malady eliminated Buthrakaur. His desperation move wiped over 10 points off my side of the board, and after we tallied everything up, we had an 11-11 tie.

Nate 3 - Spencer 3

Round 3. Antonio (Fallen Saruman Squat)

Antonio started with a big party at a Haven Ettenmoors, led by Ulkaur the Tongueless. My hazards really couldn't do a whole lot against a completely immobile deck using Havens as its only sites. He got Hall of Fire out early so even after finding both copies of Heedless Revelry that came in from the sideboard it rarely felt like I could do much. However, we both seemed to be stuck with awful draw order (for me this was nothing new). To the extent that I could hit him with hazards, I often felt that they went to waste trying to delay him on turns where he had nothing to play anyway. I managed to salvage something with a massive last turn that scored 8 or 9 points. My game 'rust' definitely came into play here. I brought in Rolled down to the Sea, because I couldn't remember if it worked on Wizard's Ring or not. I had a feeling that it didn't, but I knew it did work on Mind-ring minor items, and it didn't seem like there was a whole lot else I could do that might swing the game. If it worked, I would double my item points and win the game. It was confirmed that it didn't, however, and in the end I lost 28-24.

Nate 2 - Antonio 4

Round 4. Kenneth (Hobbit Dunk)

I had heard that there were some One Ring decks floating around the tournament, and I immediately suspected this was one of them when I saw the starting company and his choice of site for his first move. I went for my anti-One Ring hazards early, and after letting him put a little distance between his main company of Hobbits and the Shire, I revealed Lobelia, who successfully Pilfered the Gamgee home and caused Sam to run off to protect his belongings. As the deck was using Gandalf, this took the only Ranger off the board, leaving it very vulnerable to River. For the fourth game in a row, my resources didn't come out of the deck in a particularly favorable order, but it didn't really matter. As time was running out, he made a desperation trip to Mount Doom but the game was sealed when Frodo was Seized by Terror and took the only actual gold ring item on the board with him. Afterward I showed Kenneth that I was also holding In The Heart of His Realm and My Precious, and though he said he had a Concealment ready for Gollum, he didn't have the Marvels Told. In hindsight I think I could also have brought a River back up with Mouth of Sauron, which would probably have actually been the simplest way to ensure a victory.

Nate 6 - Kenneth 0

Round 5. Sean (Balrog Wolves)

This was the exact scenario that caused me to choose the deck I was using, and it almost paid off. Sean went first, and revealed that I had literally cut his deck directly to the Balrog - it was the first card he drew for his opening hand. To make matters worse, the Balrog promptly brought in the Orcs of Moria. However, of all the games I played during the day, I think this was easily the one where I played the best. My hazards caused him all sorts of problems. A key to the game on his side was getting attacked early by an Elf-lord. Although he simply fed an Ill-favoured Fellow to it, it left him feeling trapped in Rhudaur, as he didn't want to risk double wilderness after that, since he was afraid I might also be carrying Chill Them with Fear. He then spent half the game trying to successfully make use of Ettenmoors, and couldn't until the very end. One time Baduila threw him back while he was moving there. Another turn he got scared out of entering after both auto-attacks became Unabated. He did finally get some allies down as the game was drawing to a close, however. On my side, I got some of my stuff down, but I wasn't drawing many of my MP resources, except finding both copies of Tempest of Fire, which I was not yet strong enough to play. As the game was winding to a close, I finally got a faction down, but felt unsure about going for the Tempest I had hung onto, and it seemed very improbable that I could keep a character standing to score it. I had played Stinker early on, and though I spent the whole game fearing he was going to use the Balrog to steal it, instead he eventually moved out to grab the Ancient Black Axe. I was able to attack him on the way there and had a reasonable chance to wound, but he got through all the rolls unscathed. However, once he reached the Under-leas, he was stuck there and I hit him with The Way is Shut when he tried to return, and I had the Mouth in hand to play it again if the game had gone another turn.

When everything was over, I had scored 20 despite no avatar, and I had limited him to 21. Unfortunately too many of my points were characters, and he had the Stinker in hand to knock a point off my total, so the final score was 21-17. The Tempest of Fire I had never had the confidence to play turned out to be the difference - had I managed to get it down without changing anything else, I would have won 22-21.

Nate 2 - Sean 4

Conclusions

In the end, I'm very happy with how I did - tied for 6th overall. I definitely made mistakes, and suffered from having never piloted either of my decks before. But my only losses were to the eventual winner and runner-up. Better luck with the match-up draw, or one small thing going in my favor in any of the games I didn't win, and I would have qualified for the finals. Considering that I don't think I've played an actual game of MECCG for at least 5 or 6 years prior to the tournament weekend, I can't complain!

The biggest lesson for me was the time pressure. While I remembered that it would be a factor, I underestimated just how severely it would impact the games. The main change I would make for next time is to proxy my cards that are spread between my decks so I don't have to waste time physically swapping them.

After the Swiss was over, I also received three special cards signed with the event name on them: Call of Home (for being the farthest-traveled participant from within the USA), River (for having played the most Rivers on one site in one turn), and The Dark Power (for being the highest-placed participant to have played Sauron as their avatar).