World Domination 2001-03 LDL Marauders:
Sealed Finals Over!

by Jens Kreutzer

At long last, the World Domination Championship is nearing its completion. The final round is now well underway, and the first half of it, the Sealed-Deck Mini-Tournament, is actually finished. Though the world champion will be the player who amasses the most GMP both in the Sealed and Constructed portions of the Finals, we have a winner for the Sealed section: Frederic Chorein (France)! Congratulations to the new Sealed champion!

Here are all the match results:

1st Round
Daniel Schneider - Wilfried Ranque: C10 - R4; R6 - C10.
Byron Bailey - Richard Cripe: C0 - R10; R10 - C4.
Holger Janssen - Scott Berger: C0 - R10; R10 - C3.
Frederic Chorein - Mark Applin: C10 - R1; R3 - C10.

2nd Round
Frederic Chorein - Scott Berger: C10 - R0; R10 - C6.
Richard Cripe - Daniel Schneider: C10 - R0; R4 - C10.
Byron Bailey - Wilfried Ranque: C10 - R6; R10 - C2.
Holger Janssen - Mark Applin: C10 - R0; R3 - C10.

3rd Round
Frederic Chorein - Richard Cripe: C10 - R0; R3 - C10.
Byron Bailey - Holger Janssen: C10 - R4; R10 - C3.
Daniel Schneider - Scott Berger: C0 - R10; R10 - C2.
Mark Applin - Wilfried Ranque: forfeited by Wilfried, bye for Mark (1 GMP).

Unfortunately, Wilfried Ranque decided to drop out of the tournament in the third round, leaving his opponent Mark Applin with a bye. Mark got the average GMP score of his other two rounds, which was (1 + 1) / 2 = 1. Altogether, we were left with the following ranking list:

Sealed Finals results:
1. Frederic Chorein (FRA): 7 GMP [Opp GMP: 12]
2. Byron Bailey (USA): 7 GMP [Opp GMP: 7]
3. Richard Cripe (USA): 5 GMP
4. Scott Berger (USA): 4 GMP [Opp GMP: 14]
5. Daniel Schneider (GER): 4 GMP [Opp GMP: 10]
6. Holger Janssen (GER): 3 GMP [Opp GMP: 14]
7. Mark Applin (UK): 3 GMP [Opp GMP: 11]
8. Wilfried Ranque (FRA): 1 GMP (dropped out)

Tiebreaker was opponents' GMP score.

A special thank-you goes out to the judges who selflessly dedicated their nerves and spare time to this tournament. Due to repeated re-scheduling and cancelled matches, their efforts took rather more time than one would expect when considering the eleven matches actually played. The judges are (in alphabetical order): Frank Crins, Rik Geysels, Lukas Kautzsch, Yannick Mescam, Ingo Schildmann, and Masayasu Takano. Many extra thanks to Yannick, who acted as tournament director during my absence.

The match logs will all go online on the World Domination homepage eventually. A couple of logs from the Sealed Finals, plus all logs from Round One, are already available. In addition to the logs, I'll also publish the decklists of the upcoming Constructed Finals matches.

This brings us to congratulations to Frederic, Wilfred, Holger, Scott, Richard, Mark, Byron, and Daniel! I'm looking forward to seeing your efforts in the Finals, and to finding the answer to the burning question: Who of these eight will become World Champion 2003?

Preparations for the Constructed Finals are done at last. Rik Geysels from the Netherlands will play as a substitute for Wilfried Ranque. Rik finished in 6th place of the meatspace Round One tournament that qualified Frederic and Wilfried for the Finals, but since ranks 3-5 were not interested in playing, we are happy to go with him. Pairings for the first round were determined randomly and are as follows:

1st Round
Frederic Chorein - Rik Geysels
Byron Bailey - Scott Berger
Richard Cripe - Mark Applin
Daniel Schneider - Holger Janssen

Everybody is invited to watch the matches on IRC and see how these top players slug it out among themselves. See you there!

Yours, Jens Kreutzer