It was on Sunday morning that our Final 8 gathered to see who would be the first Champion crowned for Dreamblade. The previous day's tournament had seen 10 rounds of action that went well past midnight. Now our competitors had to make new warbands and see who would come out on top.

Bio: Sam Black
Age 24
Home: Madison, WI
Occupation: Owner of Netherworld Games.

Sam had a big weekend at GenCon. He won the Magic the Gathering Pro Tour Qualifier for Kobe the night before the Dreamblade Release Championship. He’s a big fan of Magic as well as many board games. Sam went 8-2 on day 1 of the tournament.

Bio: Brad Shugg
Age 28
Home: Kalamazoo, MI
Occupation: Information Technology

Brad is no stranger to gaming, having placed highly in Dungeons & Dragons Miniatures, Magic the Gathering and Mage Knight competitions. He went 10-0 in the first day’s competition.

Going into the match, Sam planned on conceding early rounds to build up board and creature dominance late game. Brad, on the other hand, planned on playing aggressively, racking up early rounds as he swarms the board with pieces and avoided a prolonged match. He’d rather have an army full of weenies he can play, then have a big guy sitting unused in his reserves. The warbands used by each player are available here. If you not familar with the notation style used for Dreamblade, you might find this reference sheet useful.

The first two rounds of the match played out in conventional fashion, each player moving to scoring cells, leaving Brad leading 1-0. Rounds 3 and 4 led to some light skirmishing in the middle of the board across the dual scoring cells. Play continues to be somewhat conservative with the players setting themselves up for the following rounds.

The fifth round was a no-spawn round and Brad had the initiative. Brad took advantage of his numerical superiority in the middle cell (C3) and struck. He killed Sam’s Skeever Hatchling and used Advance to move a Barbstrider up his right flank from B3 to B4. Unfortunately, Brad lost a Zombie Enforcer to the deathblow from the Skeever. In B4, Brad’s Barbstrider killed the Boneclan Hunter there, but died from its deathblow. Following a number of exchanges by Sam, Brad wins the round by holding board position, but Sam has a 4 to 1 numerical superiority on the board. With so many creatures killed in this round (3 on each side), both players should have a lot of spawn points to work with in the next round. Brad leads 2-1.

Brad won initiative for round six and 9 was rolled for spawn points. This allowed Brad to spawn a Eagle-Feather Warrior in C3 and a Jack of Blades and Scarab Warcharm in his spawn row. Sam went for beef and brought in Dreamreef Marauder and a Bladehound. While Brad could not clear out the center cell, he did manage to use a blade to Advance and move a Zombie Enforcer into the path of Dreamreef Marauder. While the shark quickly killed the zombie, it forced Sam to use a strike where he would have probably preferred to shift. Sam holds onto to board position and wins another round, leading 3-1.

At the start of round seven, Brad once again had initiative and was facing a lot of high-power creatures on Sam’s side of the table. Dreamreef Marauder and Bladehound both threatened to move into the middle cell, where only Eagle-Feather Warrior was defending. Playing aggressively, Brad shifted his pieces into cells with Sam’s then struck. Much to his chagrin, neither of his attacks did enough damage to even disrupt any of Sam’s pieces. In response, Sam managed to kill Eagle-Feather Warrior, but could not overcome Brad’s superior board positioning. Brad’s pieces are looking increasingly weak at this point, but he now leads 4-1.

Round 8 began with Brad winning initiative again. Brad used his initiative to strike quickly and shift battle to C4 in what appeared to be an attempt to pin Sam down on his own side of the board while Brad continued to rack up conquest points from the middle scoring cells. Brad’s attack scattered many of Sam’s pieces across the board, but they only managed to kill a single Bladehound. Although Sam has creature dominance on the board, his creatures are scattered and he had to double shift and hope that the next turn gave him an opportunity to bring their power into play. Brad wins the round and leads 5-1.

Brad can win the game and advance to the semifinals if he wins one more round. Sam, on the other hand, must win or draw in every round to survive. Round 9 is another no-spawn round and Brad continued to win initiative. After shifting to move his units, Brad struck hoping to shut the door on Sam. Unfortunately, all he is able to do is disrupt a single Blight Rat and tie down some of Sam’s pieces in contested cells. Sam responds with a double strike, killing Brad’s Jack of Blades, a Pick-Pick and skirmishing a Blight Rat into the C3 cell to win the round. Brad continues to lead 5-2, but one can sense a shift in board dominance as Sam begins to bring his greater number of creatures to bear. Brad can still win the match, but it isn’t going to come easy.

As if to signal a sea change in the match, Sam finally won initiative in Round 10 and spawns Inscribed Axebeast. Sam began to methodically kill off Brad’s pieces round after round while Brad tried desperately to get enough points to win one last round. By the end of Round 12, the score is tied at 5-5 and Brad had nothing left in his reserves to bring into play.

Round 13 begins with Sam winning initiative. Sam makes use of initiative to strike and kill Brad’s Boneblade Serpent, Relentless Eviscerator and Savannah Dreamhunter. By the time it’s Brad’s turn, the writing is on the wall and Brad conceded the round and the match to Sam.

Both players played exactly how they had planned to play. Brad was aggressive and knew he had to win rounds quickly. Sam was patient and knew he had to give his warband time to achieve dominance. What none of us knew was that this match up would take one player to the brink of winning then dash his hopes against an unstoppable tide of passion-centric beefcake.