The participants who converged at the store on Saturday, March 18th, came from miles around, representing Missouri, Wisconsin, Kansas, Illinois, and Michigan. Many were members of the Op’s Discord server and had already “met” in the Disney Sorcerer’s Arena: Epic Alliances forum. For those players, this was a first chance to play games face-to-face with people they’d been discussing strategy with for weeks already. Some were well-experienced players of the game, others had just picked it up recently, and many arrived as “teams” that had traveled to, and prepared for, the event together.

With so many participants, the bracket system required five rounds of play — each with ten games played simultaneously — adding up to a whopping 50 matches (though two players dropped from the final round, so only 49 games were officially recorded).

The metagame going into the day had been dominated by teams built around Ariel and Sulley. With Scar being added in the Leading the Charge expansion, players now had access to a character designed to counter the taunt-and-heal strategy. Would we see a definitive shift in the environment? Fans at the tables and in the discussion threads on Discord were keeping watch to see if a new dominant team would emerge.