Competitive Root: Tournaments, WBC, and Where to Play

Welcome to Level 5. Root is a game of table talk and shifting alliances, which makes it an unusual tournament game. It is played competitively anyway, and the best-known event welcomes newcomers. This lesson covers where Root is played for a title, how the events run, and how to find a game near you.

The World Boardgaming Championships

The World Boardgaming Championships is an annual tournament convention run by the Boardgame Players Association, held in recent years at Seven Springs Mountain Resort in Pennsylvania. Root has had an event there every year since 2022.

Past winners, from the event’s history page:

Felicia Alfieri is listed as the Root winner on the 2026 results page.

How the 2026 event ran

The 2026 event preview set out the format:

• A Trial event in the Coached class. In WBC terms, a coached event means the game is taught by the GM during play, so new players are welcome.
• Heats, winners only. Three heats, then a semifinal and a final, with three-hour rounds. Every heat winner advanced to the semifinal, and semifinal and final tables favored four players, then three, then five.
• Advanced Setup in every game. The first heat used the Autumn map with a fixed draft pool of the Eyrie, Marquise, Underground Duchy, Woodland Alliance, and a locked Vagabond. Heats 2 and 3 and the semifinal used a setup randomly chosen for the round, the same at every table.
• The Exiles and Partisans deck, with the base deck allowed only if it was not available.
• Random maps, with set landmarks: the Tower on the Mountain map, the Ferry on the Lake map, the Legendary Forge on the Winter map, and the Lost City on the Autumn map.
• No hirelings and no coalitions.
• Ties broken by a die roll.

The 2025 event was different in places: it was for experienced players only, ran two heats, and changed one Vagabond rule. Formats change each year, so always read the current preview.

WBC 2027

Trial events at WBC are chosen each year by a vote of BPA members. WBC 2027 runs July 24 to August 1, 2027, according to the WBC index page. The WBC index page says the 2027 Trial ballot form for GMs opens November 1, 2026, and is due November 25, 2026.

Root online

Many competitive Root players play online between events. Root digital, by Dire Wolf, runs on PC through Steam, Nintendo Switch, iOS, and Android, with cross-platform online play and several expansions as add-ons. The next lesson covers how to practice there.

Leder Games’ official community Discord is called Woodland Warriors, and its card library links to it. Community-run Root tournaments and leagues have been organized there and elsewhere over the years.

Rules help

Leder Games’ FAQ points rules questions to the BoardGameGeek Root forum and its Discord community. The resources page has the current Law and errata, and the card library at cards.ledergames.com has every card.

Local play

Leder Games has a store locator for shops that carry its games, and many game stores host open play nights where a Root table is easy to start. If you are near Indianapolis, join the Indianapolis list for first word on local learn-to-play nights as The Ludarium grows.

What the format means for your practice

Read the format as a practice list. Tournament Root is usually four players, three hours a round, a drafted faction you may not have chosen at home, a map you may not know, and a deck full of unfamiliar powers. Everything at Level 4 exists to prepare you for that. The rest of Level 5 turns it into practice.