I played a Balrog deck, only got to test it twice (with netmeccg), and spanked a guy 6-0 and barely won from Brian Wong (played a coastal deck) the second time. After playing Brian's wicked Great Ship/Belegaer (wow, those cards are powerful!) deck I added Noose of the Sea to my deck + Lost at Sea, Drowning Seas and another Noose of the Sea in my sideboard to kick coastal butts, if they dared venture there.

I had appropriately called my deck: The Horrific Crimes Unleashed In The Massacres of The Innocents. My idea was to boost my company to buffer than buff, with two I'll report you's on a two-leader company, and have the Balrog play two Descent through Fire's (worth 3 MP's each and giving all characters +1 prowess). The first turn I would bring in two Hill-trolls under Buthrakaur's di from the sideboard. Love that! Lots of Orc factions with Great Army of the North and Stinker as my ally. Moria gives a free 5 MP's! My hazard deck was tuned into obstructing my opponent from getting factions as much as possible. Foolish Words, Siege, Lord of the Carrock, and a Man creature strategy. In my sideboard were the pillage cards People Diminished, Tempest of Fire and Long Grievious Siege. I would butcher the remaining towns resisting me, and disperse their factions. I looked forward to playing in the tournament, have fun and hope my deck would get me to the subtop.

First round I played one of the Fallen Wizard players. A guy who can do extremely well, and at other times flunk. He played Fallen Gandalf in the north west of Middle Earth, playing a deck using Worthy Hills as a Haven. The first few turns he reigned me in pretty well. I had discarded my first Voices of Malice, and he played The Way is Shut which I had underestimated in power. It prohibits *any* under-deeps movement (I thought it only shut the way to go up again), and Nameless Things hit me bad. Somehow I had thought it would always be detainment (stoopid!). But no. However I recovered pretty fast, with my hazards working better as the game pushed on.

My company became super-buff soon with the whole company having +4 prowess, slashing there way through anything that came their way. I shut him down the last few turns with lots of haz perms in play and canceling all his Voices of Malice/Marvels Told with Blind to the West/Ire of the East. Heart Grown Cold shut him down completely. Alas, no CvCC, and I wanted some action!. He had an extremely bad draw (with 3 Chambers of the Royal Courts on bottom of deck, so Heart Grown Cold hit him double hard), and the last turn I Long Grievious Sieged his Lossoth Faction with Orcs of Angmar (great faction for LGS!). A surprising 6-0 win, 36 - 11 for me.

Second round I played a girl, something different from guys for a chance, who had beat the other Fallen Wizard 58 - 2!!!, so I was very wary to start of with. She played a Radagast deck with Glorfindel, Kili and Thorin II. The first turn I got out two I'll report you's, which got me stack load of spider trophies burdening my leaders backs. Everything was going fine for her and me, till she made the mistake to go to Mt Gundabad. With Gangways over the Fire I sped over there and a bloodbath was the result. I killed both Kili and Thorin wounding Glorfindel. (Buthrakaur attacking with 21 prowess, Bolg with 22!!!!) Later I followed her again and tried to kill her Wizard with a poison tipped blade Buthrakaur wielded, but Radagast was tougher than the Poison. However she knew no fear (or was it stupidity?), and at the end of the game she traveled to Moria! I completely butchered her there, killing Glorfindel and wounding Radagast, who later got assassinated. Faction points doubled for me too, resulting in a 53 - 7 score, 6-0.

Third round after the lunch break I played Arno, a well-experienced player, who had just lost from Wim with a few mp's difference. He was using Glorfindel as well, with Cowboy Beretar swinging his Elven Rope. Alas no bait for Beretar but they did manage to slaughter quite a few Sellswords, Ambushers and an Assassin I believe. My deck didnt go so well to start of with, but my company reached the buffness level soon. My hazard deck seemed to help him, rather than cause him trouble. However the turning point came during turn three. He moved to Mount Gram, and that proved fatal. I had Orcs of Angmar in my hand, so I moved over there, fed a Hill-troll to a cave Worm, and threatened the Orcs of Angmar to join my side or they would get spanked. They cowered in terror and joined my side. Buthrakaur demanded some action so I then turned on Glorfindel and Beretar. Buthrakaur wounded Glorfindel heavily and Bolg beheaded Beretar with a mighty swing. He lost two turns and never recovered after that. I was smoking him and he knew it.
My Hazards were going really well. Killed two dwarves moving to Wellinghall for an ent, slapping them with Assassins and Cave Drakes for two turns. I managed to Siege his Wizard in and he lost another turn. Tempest of Fired his Lossoth Faction and Smoked the place down too after LGS'ing Rangers of the North with Orcs of Angmar, doubling my factions. 64 - 14, a 6-0. I spanked him soo bad,

By the fourth round I was leading with 3 6-0's and started fantasizing about getting a 6-0 during the 4th round too! Wim Heemskerk (minion) and another guy (balrog)were competing with me with just 1-2 TP's behind me. However this game proved to be the toughest yet. Playing Wim Heemskerk's girlfriend. She was playing a Gandalf deck in the North West region with Legolas, Elrohir and...Glorfindel as well! My, my, he was popular. :) She smoked me so bad the first few turns, killed both my Hill trolls and wounded Buthrakaur and Bolg. (Bolg was so unlucky to roll snake eyes when all he needed was a 3) Her Summoned Ice-drakes and Cave Worms were hurting me bad! The first three turns my main company was inactive. That hurt. She, however was doing fine, and I made mistakes galore. Forgetting to reveal a Foolish Words which was played on guard when she declared influencing a faction, not tapping her Wizard with Adunaphel when he was the only one left untapped, and just saying "no I don't have any hazards". My sloppy play usually increases at a tournament, but not this bad. I'm still amazed how I recovered. She was a very fast player, which resulted in a game with many turns, so after ,my company finally got buff I managed to play every MP card I had, and managed to LSG her Lossoth faction, and ended up with a 4-2 victory, with 41 - 29 MP's.

Wim Heemskerk had won 6-0, so we tied on first place with 22 TP's. We had a tiebreak and my opponents having achieved more tournament points than his, I won. I was quite surprised to win the tournament! Prizes; I won a Balrog toy (those figures from Toy Vault)and a Starter Set and 6 various boosters. I had a great day and great opponents, each one of them fun to play with. No slow players, and no one pulled a <...... .....> on me. *L* (winks at Oskar and Brian) I had expected to see Coastal Sea decks, but none showed up for this tourney. I was surprised by so many hero's having North West region based decks. Maybe they hadn't fully anticipated what the Balrog could do. The Way is Shut, and drakes (Nameless Things, Ice-drakes and Cave Worms) and Redoubled Force hurt me more than I expected and will need to tweak my deck to cope better with these cards. As for resource cards; Long Grievious Siege, Tempest of Fire and People Diminished are so powerful, making it nearly impossible for a hero deck to operate in the North West region vs. Balrog players. If your companies have a standard prowess modified by +4 the attacks even on People Diminished are a piece of cake. My anti-faction hazards didnt work out as well as I hoped, with opponents rolling 12's influencing factions with Foolish Words on them. Cave-drakes and Assassins(killed a Rad) worked big time however. Martian Steultjens also got to kill a Wizard with an Assassin, and oh.. yeah, managed to play Lord and Usurper as Balrog player! The first 6 of the tournament were all minion/balrog players. The Fallen Wizard player I played, ended quite high with 14 tp's after he had 0 tp's in the first round. I must say that be able to construct a specific anti-FW hazard deck proved not too powerful, as I thought it would be. If ICE has designed Fallen Wizard in such a way to win 40% of the games, as Mike Reynolds said, they should indeed implement the anti-FW hazard deck and not just 10 extra Sideboard, so that that goal indeed is met. Fallen Wizard are winning rather at least 60% of the games is my experience.

For tournament organizers, I would like to recommend organizing opposing alignment tourneys as well. I had heard from other ppl these tourneys were great, and must also say for myself, that they rawk.