Council of Elrond

Hello everyone, I invite you to post your feedback here about your experience at this year's event in Montreal, Canada.

Please also include a summary of the matches you participated in. Thank you to everyone who participated, because it is thanks to you that this was made possible!

- The organizing team

Hello, from my perspective. The activities seem to have gone well.

We were delighted to see familiar faces and meet new ones. Knowing that many had traveled a long way to attend made it all the more special. The atmosphere was warm and friendly. The Dark Arda section seemed to unfold in a “structured” chaos, thanks to Ralph's careful guidance.

We were finally able to put faces to several people we have been chatting with online for years now. We saw passionate people and were able to reminisce about good times throughout it all.

We will remember this edition for a long time, and for all the right reasons!

For my part, here is a summary of my five matches.

Game #1

I faced Theo's deck, nothing notable except that my opponent knew my Fallen Saruman deck better than I did... Thanks to Theo for his advice during the game. Nice win on his part!

Games #2, 3, 4, 5

From one game to the next, I tried to apply the lessons I learned in each game. I felt a clear improvement in my understanding of my deck. So after five games, I managed to play The White Hand twice. For me, that's a victory in itself!

Finals

I'll leave it up to you to listen to the stream of the matches.

Round 1:

• https://www.youtube.com/live/e-g7SGODOk4

Round 2 & 3:

• https://www.youtube.com/live/bHSisO6CXVk

Results

• 1st Heiner: Rnd 1 vs. 3rd; MPs 31 to 13; 6-0; Rnd 2 vs. 4th; MPs 27 each; 3-3; Rnd 3 vs 2nd; 42-20 MPs, 6-0; TOTAL TP: 15

• 2nd Kenneth: Rnd 1 vs. 4th; MPs 28-26; 4-2; Rnd 2 vs. 3rd; MPs 38 To 23; 5-1; Rnd 3 vs. 1st; MPs 20-42; 0-6; TOTAL TP: 9

• 3rd Theo: Rnd 1 vs. #1; MPs 13 to 31; 0-6; Rnd 2 vs. 2nd; MPs 21 to 38; 1-5; Round 3 vs. #4; MPs 38-13; 6-0; TOTAL TP: 7

• 4th Sean: Rnd 1 vs. 2nd; MPs 26-28; 2-4; Rnd 2 vs. 1st; MPs 27 each; 3-3; Rnd 3 vs. 3rd; MPs 13-38; 0-6; TOTAL TP: 5

Heiner is the 2025 world champion!


In closing, I would like to sincerely thank all participants for their participation, even though the weekend was punctuated by a few minor imperfections. You all contributed to making it a perfect weekend!


Regards,

Patrick Gagné

MECCG Worlds 2025 Report
What follows is my report from Worlds 2025. If you are going to read this whole thing, I suggest you go grab a refreshment ahead of time. It’s going to be a long report.
I took a red-eye flight to Montreal and arrive at 10 a.m. local time. I manage to successfully navigate the wonderful mass transit system of the city and make it to the store using bus and rail (and a fair amount of walking) by 1 p.m.! There I encounter my first fellow traveler for this event, Mark (Fubar)! I take a look around this impressive game store/ restaurant/ night club, before we get a beer and warm up our tournament decks.
Fubar beats me handily! Thrain was killed making the Unexpected Party a rather short affair. Later Thorin claimed the Arkenstone, but during the final council he tied his reduced corruption check of 3, so was discarded. I did manage to prevent a 0-6 loss but just barely!
Afterwards, my flat mate for the event, Kenneth arrived so we head to the AirB&B and then I go do some grocery shopping.
I get back to the store for more casual gaming. There was a five-person DC Dwarf Lords Arda game in progress! (It ended in a 22 Marshaling Points tie between Kenneth, playing Thorin and Saruman, and Fubar, playing Dain and Gandalf.
I then sit down for a casual game -- a long-awaited rematch game between myself and Ian S. from New Mexico. I first met Ian at Worlds 2014 in San Francisco where he was the youngest player (age 7, I believe). I beat him on that day and he’s been eager for a rematch since 2023, when I ran Worlds in Sacramento. I was too busy organizing to play that weekend, so this, finally, was our long awaited rematch game.
I borrowed a friend’s Fallen Alatar deck since I’d left my tournament deck back in my flat. It proved to work very well in my favor against Ian’s Gimli in the Underdeeps deck. Repeated plays of Heedless Revelry slowed his under-deeps delving party greatly. Meanwhile, his surface squad were being dismantled by a man hazard strategy. Cirden fell to a group of Lawless Men boosted by Rank Upon Rank and Gandalf was killed by Assassins x3 (!!!).
I was done playing for the evening but spent a few more hours visiting with old friends and making new one. I also watched another casual game in which Kenneth successfully played a 7-0 Minion One Ring victory as Pon Opar successfully carried The One Ring to Barad- Dur!
Walked back to the room by 1 a.m. and quickly fell asleep.
Unfortunately I was up again at 5 a.m.! So I took advantage of the time and walked about a mile to one of the most spectacular urban parks I’ve ever seen (Parc Maisonneuve).
By 11 a.m. my weary feet were ready to rest and my mind was awake and ready for the Swiss rounds of Worlds 2025!
Round 1 vs. Kenneth (FW Gandalf): As luck would have it, my flat mate was my first opponent. My deck went horribly wrong this game against his Road Block hazard strategy. Basically I went to Barrow Downs on Turn 1 and was stuck there the entire game. The poor dwarves were so snowed-in they could not even make it next door to the Old Forest (for Goldberry and her road-block stopping ability). I made the mistake of using the only sideboard mining card I would see the whole game immediately instead of waiting to see what his hazard strategy was. My wizard didn’t show up until Turn 8. An easy 6-0 victory for my opponent.
Round 2 vs. Maxime(Hero): This round my dwarven machine finally kicked in and it was not intimidated at all by his orc hazard strategy. Meanwhile, my corruption card had his fellowship struggling. Cirdan fought off corruption all game before going down to a bad roll on a Greed check. His wizard, Pollando ,arrived very late in the game and was killed on his first turn in play by a Rain Drake while trying to travel through a triple wilderness. A 6-0 victory for me this round. I’m now 1 and 1.
Round 3 vs. Ian S. (Hero): This time a rematch of 2014 for real! It started off very poorly for me. The strategy for this particular dwarf deck involves avoiding dragon country almost entirely. But Ian’s deck brings the dragon country to you! So that was how, on the first turn, my starting party headed to the Barrow Downs for some easy points and ended up as a take out dinner for Itangast! Still my corruption did slow his underdeep delving greatly and I actually managed to drop four new dwarfs in one turn and gather more item points than he did that game. The final MP count was 33 to 29 in Ian’s favor for a 4 to 2 victory. I’m now 1 and 2.
Round 4 vs Maxinue (Hero): I admired this opponent for his willingness to play such a thematic deck in Worlds. His starting party was Elrond and Galadriel and his wizard was Gandalf. His deck included all three of the Elven Rings and his hazard strategy was Nazgul creature. I exploited his lack of unused General Influence and my hazard sideboard to double my points for factions and allies this game. Fell 1 MPS short of a 5-1 victory. But I’m now 2 and 2.
Round 5 vs Tom (Hero): This game my deck finally hit its ideal performance! I quickly established not one but 2 Unexpected Party companies (one led by Thrain and the other by Gandalf and Thorin). I also played from hand six small dwarfs in one turn (a new personal record). Meanwhile, the game was a tough one for Tom and Dain who was traveling the eastern side of Middle Earth in the company of men. His wizard showed up late in the game, right about the time Dain fell to corruption. A 6-0 victory for me and I finish the day with a record of 3 and 2 with 18 Tournament Points. This was enough to tie me with 18 Tournament Points with both Theo and Skye, but, after tie-breakers were applied, I came in 6th place with Theo ranked 4th and Skey 5th place.
Overall I’m very pleased with the outcome of the day and the performance of my deck. (I plan to post my deck sometime soon elsewhere on this forum.) Headed back to the room by midnight and collapsed into bed!
Day 3, I again awaken at 5 a.m.  I attend a business meeting of tournament organizer so we can discuss ideas about strengthening the MECCG community in the Americas. I felt it was a productive gathering because we got to know each other a little better and saw some common goals to strive for and identified common challenges to tackle together. It was much more enjoyable than a meeting via text chats or a virtual meeting.
Then, I trudged across the street through the pouring rain in order to encourage the four finalists and run the first ever (as far as I’m aware), nine-person session of Dark Arda! Ever since I took Joe Bisz’s Arda concept and created a minion version of the multi-player game cube, I’ve envisioned a table with all 9 Nazgul Abroad in Arda. It finally happened! It was quite hectic as you can probably imagine. With three people acting as the active player at the same time, the number of hazard permanent events and long events was extremely intimidating and confusing. I spent the next two hours running around the table, assisting new players and making judgement calls on mechanics and card interactions. But after overcoming a steep learning curve, the playhers of the game seemed to settle into a manageable pattern and I was able to watch much of the second round of the finals.
It was a very intense game between Heiner (FW Radi) and Sean S (Balrog), which ultimately ended in a tie! It was the tightest game Heiner faced the entire weekend and quite a comeback for Sean, who was beated 6-0 by Heiner the previous day during Swiss Rounds. Afterwards, the two combatants toasted each other over a beer.
The Dark Arda game wrapped up with Mark (Fubar) claiming victory with 24 MPs. Guillaume actually made the Sudden Call with 22 MPs but due to some unfortunate events (The Mouth with an MP item being recalled to hand by someone playing The Mouth of Sauron hazard), he ended up with 18 points.
I learned a lot from the hazard situation created and questions raised by the players and I’m going to make some tweaks to the rules and the deck in the future. But a huge thank you goes out to all Nine of the players – especially those who stuck it out even though they finished with MPs in the single digits.
There was enough time left in the day for one more game of Arda using Fubar’s Arda creation. One of the reasons I love Arda is all the interesting mechanics and variants each deck creator comes up with. Fubar’s version featured a sideboard of many character specific resources. The sideboard was only accessible using a variant versions of Smoke Rings a large number of which were available in the game cube. So, for example, I had Radigast as my wizard and I used a copy of Smoke Rings to dive into the sideboard and get a copy of Herb-Lore into my hand.
My game did not go very well. My party of Radi, Cirden, Anborn, Frodo and Sam, did manage to recruit Ent and Wild Horse factions and find Shadowfax and a Barrow Blade. But a Moon Is Dead and other enhancements kept me from gathering the ring I needed to go with my test. Ultimately, Fubar again won the Arda game and I think I can fairly refer to him as the 2025 King of Arda based upon his record over the course of three days (3x first place finishes).
Afterwards we congratulated Heiner on his return to the World Championship throne as well as Kenneth, 2nd place, Theo, 3rd place, and Sean, 4th place. The Canadian organizers put together an outstanding event.
By this point, many people were not yet ready to call it a day, but I was exhausted and caught a ride back to my room so I could finally go to bed early!
Goblin King

Round 4 vs Maxinue (Hero)

My name is Maxime, not Maxinue, which in French sounds like Maxinaked

maxocub3 wrote: ↑Fri Aug 22, 2025 12:04 am

Round 4 vs Maxinue (Hero)

My name is Maxime, not Maxinue, which in French sounds like Maxinaked

Corrected