Alright, first I will verify that Joachim won by my forfeiting. Having said that, who the hell made up the rules/guidelines for this thing? Last dueling bracket I did was when Exile made them, and they were much better. The fights took place wherever the two players wanted to fight (which most of the time was 23/24). It was deck merges, and there wasn't all this "Show up by X time, or you forfeit" crap. If someone couldn't show up, it was no big deal and it was just re-scheduled.
These canyon fights and 10k merges really ruin the point of dueling IMO. If you insist on keeping the 10k merges, (lame IMO as everyone just dives down before the merge to get speed anyway), why not use the 10k bases? That would save having to spend half the flight time to the other base climbing.