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A Recap of the FFG World Championship Weekend

Last weekend, players from around the world converged upon our headquarters in Roseville, MN for the FFG World Championship Weekend, where we hosted World Championship Tournaments for seven different games:

   
• A Game of Thrones: The Card Game
  
     

   
• Android: Netrunner The Card Game
  
     

   
• Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game
  
     

   
• Dust Tactics
  
     

   
• Dust Warfare
  
     

   
• Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game
  
     

   
• X-Wing™

Over three days of enthusiastic participation and stiff competition, we enjoyed top-level games, including several World Championship Finals that featured the best players from both Europe and North America. After all was said and done, we proudly hailed nine new World Champions (including the A Game of Thrones Melee, Joust, and Overall Champions).

A Game of Thrones: The Card Game

This year’s World Championship for A Game of Thrones: The Card Game featured one of the strongest fields of competitors the game has ever seen. The reigning North American Champion, five former World Champions, and two European National Champions all fought to defend their bids for the Iron Throne from multiple Regional Champions and other hopeful players. In the end, three players rose to power.

2012 A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Melee World Champion – Mathieu Hosatte

2012 A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Joust World Champion – John Bruno

2012 A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Overall Champion – Derek Shoemaker

Congratulations to all three for their success in the battles, intrigues, and power struggles of the 2012 A Game of Thrones World Championships!

Android: Netrunner The Card Game

With all the buzz surrounding Android: Netrunner, the game’s inaugural World Championship Tournament was one of this year’s most hotly anticipated events. It also marked the first major indication of the developing metagame. Throughout the preliminary rounds, the field of Runners was evenly divided, but players clearly favored Haas-Bioroid above the other Corporations, as the megacorp represented 40% of all decks.

Once the field cut to the top four, however, another trend emerged. The Criminal, Gabriel Santiago, appeared as the clear favorite, representing three of the top four decks, including the eventual first, second, and third place decks. Haas-Bioroid still represented half of the top four decks, but it was Weyland Corporation that eventually took home the trophy.

2012 Android: Netrunner The Card Game World Champion – Jeremy Zwirm

Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game

If there was any tournament that best highlighted the strides Fantasy Flight Games took over the last year to make the FFG World Championship Weekend a truly international experience, it may have been the 2012 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Championship Tournament. A field consisting of players from North America, France, Italy, and Tokyo fought to retain their sanity as they uncovered the terrible truths of the Ancient Ones’ influence over all reality.

After the preliminary rounds, the top four boiled down to a dream match-up between three-time European Champion Graham Hill and three-time World Champion Tom Capor. In the end, Tom Capor just had too many answers to Graham’s rush deck, and he earned his fourth consecutive World Championship!

2012 Call of Cthulhu: The Card Game World Champion – Tom Capor

Dust Tactics

The 2012 Dust Tactics World Championship was a true contest of champions, pitting the French and German National Champions against one another, as well as a number of American contenders, including last year’s Dust Tactics World Championship Runner-Up, Louis Gentile.

The tournament culminated in a final match between French Champion Julien Bertheau and American Louis Gentile. The game was extremely tight. Julien’s army featured long-range walkers and expensive hero-led squads while Louis focused on maneuvering his squad-heavy Axis army to grab crucial cover. In the end, he destroyed more Army Points than Julien and added the Dust Tactics World Championship to the Dust Warfare North American  Champion title that he had won earlier this year at Gen Con.

2012 Dust Tactics World Champion – Louis Gentile

Dust Warfare

This was a very good year for fans of Dust as 2012 not only saw tense competition for the Dust Tactics World Championship, but also saw the premiere of the Dust Warfare World Championship Tournament. Players came together from across the fan community, bringing competitive armies from each of the game's three factions: Allies, Axis, and SSU.

Among the tournament’s other highlights, North American Champion Louis Gentile and finalist Richard Busby fought a rematch in the tournament’s second round. Louis brought his battle-tested Axis list while Richard exchanged his old Allies list for a new SSU list focused on KV47 walkers. Ultimately, both narrowly missed making the finals, a surprise match between two Allied players: Chris Seefeld, a long-time Dust Warfare expert, and sixteen-year-old newcomer Julian McPherson. In the end, Julian was able to use his two air-dropped Fireballs and their BBQ Squads in a flanking move to pin Chris’s army into a corner of the table and crush it.

2012 Dust Warfare World Champion – Julian McPherson

Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game

The top players from Europe and North America fought for dominion over the Old World in the 2012 Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game World Championship Tournament. After four hard-fought preliminary rounds, four players earned their way to elimination play, two each from Europe and North America. They also divided two each between the forces of Chaos and the High Elves. The High Elves proved too much for the minions of Chaos during the semifinals, setting up a mirror match for Saturday’s finals in which Jeremy Zwirm’s High Elf deck outraced Oliver Franke’s for a 2:1 match win.

This championship marked an incredible turn-around for the High Elves, who had formerly seen little luck during Warhammer: Invasion tournament play, but it marked an even more dramatic accomplishment for Jeremy Zwirm, who won his second World Championship of the day, having overcome Benjamin Marsh in a marathon, four-hour Android: Netrunner match earlier in the day!

2012 Warhammer: Invasion The Card Game World Champion – Jeremy Zwirm

X-Wing™

The inaugural X-Wing World Championship Tournament drew the galaxy’s best squad leaders to the FFG World Championship Weekend for a full day of dramatic dogfights. Players of all skill levels were present, and the crowd was extremely friendly and welcoming, divided almost equally between Rebels and Imperials. Formation-flying and head-to-head confrontation were the tactics of choice for most, regardless of faction.

During the final match, Nick Stanton’s hard-hitting Rebel squad shot down Imperial player Doug Kinney’s “Howlrunner,” making him the first Rebel player to accomplish that feat. However, that left Nick’s squad in the wrong place at the wrong time. With a little help from the dark side of the Force™, Doug’s expertly built and flown killing machine smashed the Rebel fleet and earned him the first X-Wing World Championship.

2012 X-Wing World Champion – Doug Kinney

A Worldwide Audience

While we were thrilled to host so many high-quality tournaments and so many enthusiastic players during the FFG World Championship Weekend, we were also delighted to be able to stream live coverage of featured events. This was something new we were able to offer for our World Championship Weekend. We were able to learn ways we could improve our coverage for future events, but we were also pleased by the positive response as fans across the world tuned in to see their friends and other renowned players contest heated struggles in their favorite games.

Click the thumbnail above to watch 2012 A Game of Thrones: The Card Game Joust World Champion John Bruno

discuss his experience at the FFG World Championship Weekend (QuickTime, 12.5 MB).

Enthusiastic players from Europe joined us early in the morning to follow their favorite games. Others stayed up late in California to cheer on their friends. And Star Wars fans across the world have scrutinized the coverage we offered of our Star Wars™: The Card Game demos.

In the end, the FFG World Championship Weekend may have been contested by those players who came to Roseville, MN last weekend, but we are proud to have shared the experience with our Organized Play community worldwide.

We thank you all for making this year’s FFG World Championship Weekend a great event, and we look forward to seeing all of you next year!

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Source: Great Games. Great Players. (http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=3740)