Worlds 2003

2003 LOTR-TCG World Champion Michael Dalton accepts his trophy from Brad Dourif (Grima Wormtongue).

Worlds 2003 was the second World Championship for the Lord of the Rings Trading Card Game, ran during the Towers Block era. It was ran by Decipher at DecipherCon 2003, from Thursday, July 24th 2003 to Saturday, July 26th 2003. Unlike previous years, this DecipherCon was held as a sub-convention of GenCon Indy. The Championship itself was a 3-day gauntlet of all-day gameplay, with a prize pool totaling $30,000 USD.

Format

The Top 16 bracket on Day 3.

Decks in Day 3 used the Towers Standard deck format. Day 2 had each heat use a different format: one used Towers Block and the other Towers Standard. Day 1 varied depending on the event.

• Day 1
  • 5 independent events:
    • 2x Towers Draft events (presumably using Towers Draft Packs and Towers Block boosters)
    • Constructed: Open (which at the time was Towers Standard without the X-List)
    • Constructed: Fellowship Block
    • Constructed: Standard (which is to say, what we now call Towers Standard)
  • Swiss tournaments
  • Best-of-1
  • Top 10% (4 at minimum) from each event move on
• Day 2
  • Competition split into 2 separate heats
  • Each heat does an 8-round Swiss tournament
  • Best-of-1 constructed matches
  • Top 8 of each heat moves on
• Day 3
  • Top 16 compete in a single-elimination tournament
  • 3-round matches, win 2 out of 3 to move on
  • 4 matches total to complete (8-12 games total)

Prizes

The trophies handed out to the Top 8.

The total cash prize pool was $30,000, split between the top 16 players as follows:

• 1st – $15,000
• 2nd – $5,000
• 3rd & 4th – $2,000
• 5th - 8th – $1,000
• 9th - 16th – $250

In addition, the World Champion received a guaranteed plane ticket to the next year's Worlds.

Qualifiers

Throughout the 2003 tournament season, players could qualify for Worlds by competing in Territorial Championships, Continental Championships, and Premier Series Events. Placing highly in those events would earn players a bye, permitting them to skip Day 1 of Worlds itself.

Around 109 players ultimately earned a bye to Worlds from one of these events.

Territorial Open Championships

For the 2003 circuit, 120 Territorial championships were once again allocated, of which 70 were scheduled for the LOTR-TCG: 46 in the United States, 20 across Europe, 3 in Canada, 2 in Australia, and 2 elsewhere. This represented a drop of about 40% compared to the previous year. Events ran between 1 April 2003 and 31 May 2003 and ran for 1 day. Due to the timing, these events would have included Battle of Helm's Deep but not Ents of Fangorn. All Territorial Open Championships were 1v1 Swiss events with a minimum of 6 rounds (plus the final confrontation).

The winner of each Territorial earned a bye straight to Day 2 of Worlds. In addition, the winner and runner up each earned a bye to their local Continental Championship (as well as a Trophy Binder to hold all their card prizes). Ultimately about 156 Continental byes were awarded in this manner, meaning about 78 TOCs must have been ran.

Continental Championships

North America, Europe, South America, Australia, and Asia were each host to a 2-day Continental Championship. Day 1 was an open tournament available only to players that lived within the associated continent (which must be skipped by players who placed 1st or 2nd in the earlier Territorial events). This first Swiss event winnowed down the Day 1 players to the top 10% (minimum 16). Day 2 opened with a Swiss tournament for those top 10% plus any Territorial players who joined. The top 8 of that Swiss then went head-to-head in a single-elimination tournament, the winner of whom won not only a bye into Worlds itself, but earned a plane ticket to attend Worlds paid by Decipher (among a small heap of other prizes).

In addition to qualifying via Territorial wins, players who participated in the "sealed sprint" during the first quarter of 2003 could also earn Continental qualification by participating in Sealed and Booster Draft events. 105 players received a Continental bye in this manner.

The Continental Championship data is much more sparse for Worlds 2003 than it was for Worlds 2002; the only Continental Champion that can be confirmed is Manveen Singh of the Asian championship.

North America: Alex Tennet

DGMA Premier Series

Four high-profile events were ran through 2003 which would be hosted at popular conventions and award cash prizes. Unlike Worlds 2002, the Premier Series themselves required qualification to enter: any player who wished to participate (for the Worlds bye and part of the $5,000 prize pool) had to have earned at least 1 Premier Point in the past 12 months. Each Premier Series tournament would be preceded by a Premiere Series Qualifier (PSQ) the day before as a last-minute entry; these events were only open to players who had 0 Premier Points.

Each event had a $5,000 prize purse, unchanged from the 2002 circuit:

• 1st place: $2,500
• 2nd place: $1,000
• 3rd place: $600
• 4th place: $400
• 5th-8th place: $125

The events ran were as follows:

• Las Vegas, March 14-16 2003.
  • Winner: Ryan Jones
  • Round Report
  • Decklists: Day One Top 16, Day Two Winner
• Origins Game Fair, June 26-29 2003.
  • Winner: Mathieu Brochu
  • Decklists: Day One Top 8, Day One Top 16, Day Two
  • Tournament Reports by Patrick Sullivan: Day One, Day Two, Day Three.
  • Tournament Report by Mathieu Brochu.
• Amsterdam, July 3-6 2003.
• Comic-con, July 18-19 2003.
  • Decklists: Day Two

In the case of Origins and Amsterdam, the local Continental Championship were also ran at the same convention.

There were other Premier Events ran in 2003, but as they occurred after the World Championship, their byes counted towards the Worlds 2004 circuit. These include Dragon*Con and Spiel.

The World Championship

The 2003 LOTR-TCG Finals kicks off on local close-circuit TV.

The Top 8 after having received their trophies.

The actual event itself was a 3-day series of back-to-back scheduled matches. Players who found themselves eliminated could also join the dozens of other LOTR-TCG events going on at DecipherCon in the meantime.

• Tournament Report by Michael Dalton.
• Tournament Report by Patrick Sullivan.

Day 1

The events on Day 1 were a last-chance qualifier for any players except the ~112 who had already qualified. 5 events were ran, each of which awarded the top 10% (minimum 4 players) the chance to return for Day 2:

• Heat 1 - Open (i.e. Towers Standard without the X-List): 107 total players, 11 qualified.
• Heat 2 - Towers Draft: 94 total players, 10 qualified.
• Heat 3 - Fellowship Block: 5 qualified, meaning about 50 players participated.
• Heat 4 - Standard (i.e. Towers Standard): 16 qualified, meaning about 160 players participated.
• Heat 5 - Towers Draft: 4 qualified (the minimum), meaning less than 40 players participated.

In total, 46 players newly qualified for Day 2 on Day 1.

• Lord of the Rings TCG World Championship Day 1 - Fellowship Block Decklists

Day 2

The 46 players who qualified from Day 1 joined the 112 players who qualified earlier in the year, making the player pool a total of 158 (although it is unclear exactly how many participated). To make this easier to manage, players were split into two heats, the top 8 of which would move on to day 3.

Unlike Worlds 2002, the heats were not identical: one played Towers Block, while the other played Towers Standard.

• Informal Towers Block Day 2 Deck Talley (not decklists)
• Informal Towers Standard Day 2 Deck Talley (not decklists)
• Top 16 players.

Day 3

Day 3 was a single-elimination knockout tournament for the top 16, with each matchup being played as a best-of-3, and no time limit. The finals were shot and displayed on televisions available at the convention. Mark Tuttle, Mike Girard, and Geoff Snider provided color commentary. The final event started late due to technical issues, and the finals lasted until 2 AM, when Michael Dalton emerged as the new World Champion.

• Top 16 pairings.
• Finals summary on the Decipher BB Forum
• Finals play-by-play for all three games on DGMA.com
• Post-championship interview with Michael Dalton, World Champion.
• All 16 Lord of the Rings Day 3 Decklists

References

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The Lord of the Rings TCG World Championship
Decipher	2002 • 2003 • 2004 • 2005 • 2006 • 2007
SWCCG Players Committee	2010
LOTR-TCG Player's Council	2023 • 2024