very-long-gen-con-report-wisconsin-8-7-99
Title: very-long-gen-con-report-wisconsin-8-7-99
Author: Jim "Stimmed Jim" Li
Date: Sep 3, 1999
Next day I beat up Mike twice against his Ops decks for both sides, and he decides Ops isn't the way to go. We get to Gen Con at about 11 AM and we walk the booths a little until we found the Decipher one, they were mostly doing YJ demos and we talked with a couple of the Squadron Members from Minnesota. The rest of the guys wanted to play in the YJ sealed deck, but I wasn't too hot on YJ so I just walked to booths and checked in on them every once in a while, Mike Raveling won and got a cool looking box with some packs and stuff in them.
The OTSD booster draft was that afternoon, so I sign up for the tournament. We also meet up with the guys from Moorhead area, Kurt Schilicting, Sam Wendt, and Jon Swenson. For my draft I was Dark and went for a mostly space deck, unfortunately I didn't have that many good systems, couldn't get a kashyyyk or Kiffex in my ANH pack, I did get a fair number of characters with Prophetess heading the bunch.
First Game, I drop early Prophetess at my Tusken Canyon, and the Sealed deck alien with an Advose at his Mos Eisley. I later got ships out at tatooine also, and win easily.
Second Game, I get early Prophetess at my Tusken Canyon again, but he drops a y-wing with BoShek at my Starting Location, Tatooine. I couldn't get any ships in my hand, and he deploys that droid effect and starts losing droids to my force drains. I draw up looking for Ships, and get out various Ties at Tatooine, I battle, after all the forfeiting, I still had enough guys there to draw destiny, but he doesn't. He leaves a single Y-wing for me to beat down because he thought y-wings didn't have pilots, hehe, guess he had forgotten all about old premier cards. He tries to make a comeback by deployed Obi at his Jundland Wastes, but I spread out even more and drain him to death.
Third Game, I didn't get any stuff early, he tries to invade my Tatooine but my Ties take care of him. Then he drops about 7 misc. characters at a site and starts draining, but I played my only counter assault. After he said 'ok', I thought I had the game won right there, but I draw horrible destiny with 3 ones and ended up making him lose only 7 force. He keeps draining but I get ships at both Yavin and tatooine, and nabruns Prophetess to his Y4 War Room, and drain him out.
I go undefeated but didn't have enough differential. Jon Swenson won his last game by 20 + force and takes first, Chris Perman drafted a space deck that started with Kashyyyk and took second, I tied with Joe Mornout for third, and Mike Raveling came right behind us, a pretty good finish for the Minnesota guys :-).
I play in the Endor draft that night and drew Light Side, I tried to draft some kind of space deck and picked 2 endors early, but then for the rest of the draft I saw only 1 ship and no Battle Plan... Doh! I get the only deck possible for LS, Ewoks, I tried to get some kind of Karak thing going. My first game I played against a kid who had just learned how to play that afternoon and win by 24, which boosted me to the highest LS position :-) I then played two good players and lost horribly to the tons of biker scouts. So I went 1-2 in the Endor Draft.
We get home that night at about 2 am, and fell straight to sleep. On Friday I didn't play in any tournaments at all, and played a ton of pick-up games to get ready for the open. I lose to Brian Fred and Steve Brentsen, both playing the same DS deck, so I think about copying it. I watched Mike Raveling win the YJ Constructed deck that day, and he got a whole set of YJ foils! I couldn't find my teammates Mike Fitzgerald, or Steven Turner, and Giraird was coming in on Saturday morning. So that night Mike raveling and I got together with the Moorhead guys and playtested. For DS I change over to what Fred and Brentsen were playing, D* start with Oppressive Enforcement, pull out Imperial Arrest Order early. Wait for LS to commit somewhere, and then try to out drain them. It's hard for the LS to move around. For the ground I had a bunch of Walkers with 2/2 pilots to pilot them, Igar and Tempest 1 Rules!!! :-) I beat Kurt's LS with it and stowed it away for the open. I then play against Jon Swenson's Hunt Down deck with a couple of different decks, first game he failed to draw any evaders and I revolved his sites and killed him. Second game I played my elom deck and he had first turn Vader and my eloms/mains couldn't do anything. To counter Hunt Down, I put in another courage and glancing blow, bringing the total to 2 each. My Elom deck contained 2 Tesseks, 6 Elom, Mains, a few Hnemths, 2 Goo Nee Tays 3 revolutions and 2 Civil Disorders. I decide to go with it just because I didn't like any of my other decks.
Open Report I'm soooo freakin nervous for the open... All I prayed for was to not lose the first couple of games. I hoped to get top 8, you'd need 5-1 and high differential to get that. I meet up with even more people from Minnesota who came in for the open. Talked a lot with Potter and Mike Bergum.
Game 1, LS vs Nick Kolnik (1640) Hehe, Nick is one of the Minneapolis players and we've seen each other many times before. He had 7 cards on the table to start so I obviously thought he was playing Hunt Down. Turns out he was playing Y4 Occupation starting Imp. Occupation and the SE Starting interrupt, pulling all 3 effects. My first turn I drop Goo Nee Tay, and elom+ Hnemth at his mid Y4 site. I drained there the whole game and then spread out to a couple of sites with Obi/Luke to back up my guys. He tried to deploy some ships at Yavin, but I get out my falcon and whopp up. Win by 23.
Game 2, DS vs Aaron Fojtik (Ryan's brother, 1933) He starts Hidden Base, so I pull out Security Precautions and he starts Insurrection. He pulls out Tatooine and the generic Docking Bay site with Insurrection. He then tries to deploy some mains on Tatooine, but my Vader with Tarkin in a Blizzard Walker was to strong and he had to run away from my guys. He deployed Momaw Nadon and some guys at my Coruscant Imp. Square. I drop Come Here You Big Coward, but he just does the landing claw trick with one of his ships. So I fly my ships to Coruscant and drops EPP Fett off along with a walker. I was stupid and didn't make fett pilot the Blizzard 2 because he only had a couple of guys there and I thought I'd kill all of them next turn. His turn he drops some more guys and battles, I kill two of them but he still has enough to draw battle destiny, while all I had was blizzard 2. Mean while, on Tatooine, he sets up Tat. Celebration and was retriving 2 a turn, but I had Vader w/ Saber at Cantina and Tarkin on Tempest 1 at Mos Eisley, so luke couldn't run away. I kill of luke and he pulls Twass Kaah on board his ship at tatooine because he knows I have more walkers in my hand. It then turns into a drain race, but I had all of his tatooine sites to drain at, so I win by 4.
Game 3, DS vs Ray Bordier (2087) Ray was playing raltiir ops with snow speeders and Incom engineers. I start Battle Order and get a pretty good hand. I beat down on his early ops, but my destiny was horrible, Vader would swing at an op and draw 0 and 1. But he was hardly draining me at all because of Battle Order. However, I constantly forget to battle for free with battle Order, and it could have made a difference. In the mid game, Ray drew up to 12 cards, and I knew I was in trouble because he must have gotten a bunch of ops and misc. characters to play at sites I wasn't at. That's exactly what he did, and when I tried to deploy more walkers/characters, he'd use the Incom engineer to add 2 to battle destiny, and my walkers wouldn't be immune at all. Vader went after an Income engineer once and drew two 1's... for the finish he dropped GlinG1 and RlinR1 at Raltiir and satisfied battle plans. I had one last chance left, so I dropped Avenger and BIHT at Raltiir and Lat. Damaged his GlinG1, he hojixed and I could do nothing but chase him around. Lost by 19.
Game 4, LS vs Mike Fitzgerald (1880?) Hehe, I get to play against my teammate. He starts hunt down... Because I hadn't played against Hunt Down a lot, I mistakenly start with Audience Chamber instead of Signal/Goo Nee Tay. It costed me 'cause he started with PotF at Obi's Hut and got a First turn Vader there. I dropped some mains and battled him a couple of times. He never wanted to duel me because he saw the Glancing blow and courage in my deck. I get out a revolution at a Executor site and got some guys out there to cancel visage before he evadered next turn. I have my Falcon at Kiffex and guys out at both executer sites. I dropped hnemth and Tessek at Audience Chamber, but Bubo munches on them next turn. I also drop Civil Disorder, and he is losing a lot of force too. But later on he drops some ships at Kiffex and blocks my falcon drain. Lost by 4.
Game 5, LS vs. John Sarnecki (mid 1700s) John starts with the Endor Objective, but never used it to pull out anything. He did get Imp. Arrest order and got out Yavin + Hoth Docking Bays and imp. Decree. He set up a drain at Kashyyyk with a few Star Destroyers, I just landing claw it. I kept saving 2 force in my reserve deck and check to see what it is (by trying to find bo Shuda with the Audience Chamber). I keep having a location in there, so I didn't want to detach the Falcon and battle just yet. I revolved his bunker and put henmth and elom there. I also had goo nee tay out. He deploys PotF at the bunker, followed by vader, but he forgot that vader is deploy 10, and so didn't have enough to battle. Next turn I drop 4 Eloms, but didn't have enough to battle, so he runs vader away. It was a slow game, with me eventurally getting out Tessek at Audience Chamber, and getting small drains through. Win by 9.
Game 6, DS vs. Mark McAllister (1730) He started with MWYHL and I forget what effect. I get D* Oppressive Enforcement. He didn't fish for a site first turn so I'm confused as to what he is doing, I get a couple of locations going right away. Second turn he deploys 2 asteroid sectors and a Big One and plops down a YT freighter along with an Asteroid Sanc. My second turn, I draw up until I get a Twilek. His third turn, I lose 5 cards from my hand and he drops another asteroid sector. My third turn, activate 3, twi'lek for a Come Here You Big Coward, play it. That pretty much ended the game right there. He tried to occupy Kessel, but I beat him down there. He tries to get ships out at his asteroid sectors, but I recycle my high destines and kill his ships. I ended up putting my entire hand back with Reactor Terminal, win by 33.
Jon Swenson was undefeated in first place at the end of the 5th game, but he lost his last game with huntdown against hidden base. It ended up being Nate Reisch and Joe Mornout in the finals. Joe won the first game as LS, but lost the second one with his CCT manipulator to Nate's Hidden Base. However, at the end of 2, it was a true tie. So they flipped a coin, Nate won, and selected to play his hidden base again and won again, so Nate Reisch is going to worlds.
team report:
So Bespin totally kicked in the open, finishing first (reisch), third (jon swenson) and fourth (Frank Morgan, I think). We left right after to open to go back to Chris' friend(Ben)'s house 'cause we were really tired from 2 nights of going to sleep at 3 am. We get home and play a couple more games to see if we want to change our decks for the team event tomorrow, Mike Raveling and Chris Perman were playing with a couple of guys from Iowa, while I am a member of the absolutly amazing Team Res Luc Raff featuring Mike Fitzgerald, Steven Turner, Mike Giraird and me. I play against Mike twice with two different LS decks and lost both times, so I quit and started watching some movies on Ben's huge screen tv.
I kept the same DS deck, just added one more location, and took out a dreadnaught for a DS Star Destroyer. My LS I changed over to a Dagobah turtle deck with Battle Plan that trains to test 3 and beats up on the opponent. Interesting note, I made the deck a week ago and put in only 1 on the edge because I only had 1 black border, and I forgot to change it before the open. Doh, stupid me.
Game 1, DS vs Travis Bean. (1818) Travis is from the duluth area, and I have played him a couple times before. Its good to start the day off playing someone famailar. I start Death Star and he get Throne Room/Farm/Swamp. He gets his nudjs out at both sites, while I get a couple of systems going. He revos one of my 2-0 sites, I Evader, he sense, I grab his sense and evaders again, he didn't have any force left so he couldn't sense again. He has Luke at the Farm to power the sacs, while I get some ships at Kashyyyk and starts draining. He then drops Tantive with EPP Han, EPP Leia and Chewie piloting. Next turn I play the Come Here You Big Coward I had been holding in my hand. I then examined the situation, and I had the Death Star, Coruscant, and Corulag was the closest system at parsec 4 and he couldn't get there! :-) hahahaha. I trapped 3 of his big bad guys down at the death star and he couldn't do anything. He deploys Obi to go along with Luke and kill off his own nudjs so he could occupy 2 battlegrounds. My Vader was trapped at Kashyyyk with my ships, but it didn't matter as I got out a couple of walkers with pilots and mop up Obi and Luke, it was almost too easy, win by 24.
Turner won his game easily against Joe Alread, I was sitting next to Giraird and he seemed to be losing early, but he makes a comeback and wins, and Fitzgerald wins despite losing 10+ to a surprise assault. So our team was 4-0 so far.
Game 2, LS vs some guy. Didn't remember his name, he was playing CCT that tries to flip the objective. I give him Lock Navander and go about my training on Dagobah. He tries a second turn freeze and came uncomfortably close, he needed a 4. So on my turn I drop Luke+Jeron Webb, slash Lando and make him forfeit a ugnaught, freeing my captive. I start to get my training completed and he puts guys at CC docking Bay, Tatooine Docking Bay and Jabba's Palace. I had Harc Seff at the Carbonite chamber with the rest of my guys and he canceled the CC Docking Bay drain, and I Projectioned his Docking Bay, so he was only doing 1 a turn, and paying 4 to do it :-) After the 3rd test was done, I drop Kessel with Spiral and Melas, and nabrun my squad on the ground to beat down his guys, win by 21.
Some how all my my teammates lost the second game, and all of a sudden the situation wasn't looking too good for us.
Game 3, DS vs. Kenny Roberts. (1801) Kenny started with Hidden Base S-Foils and I went for security precautions. Neither one of us wants to deploy any ships early because he wanted to beat down anything I played and I wanted to avoid exactly that. He drops an early Yarna, and a few B-wings at Rpoint. He then gets a few ships going at Yavin 4. I drop 3 Star Destroyers and lat. Damage one of the ships. He loses 3 B-wings from the battle and I run away from Yavin because he could deploy his B-wings there for 1 force because of Haven. He monnoks me and gets rid of my Vaders and Vader's Sabers. I eventurally monnok him to check up on his hand and only saw 1 B-Wing, I then verify his reserve for something or other and only saw a few B-wings, so I wasn't that afarid of beat down anymore. I get a couple of task forces going, and a drain at Endor:Back Door with Bubo eating his undercover spies. He didn’t flip for a very long time, I only assumed that it was because he didn't want to lose force for the Security Precations, and he wouldn't drain for more than 1 at a system anyways after I cover his Kessel and Coruscant. However, on his next to last turn, he deploys Kiffex from his reserve and flips. It was pretty obvious what the hidden Base was, but I probe a couple times at other systems so I could get cards back in my reserve. I then move over to Kiffex and probes, making him lose 5 force. I drain him out next turn. Win by 15. Turner beats Joe Mornout, but Girard and Fitzgerald loses again, and Girard drops.
Game 4, LS vs. Steven Lewis. (2013) I'm too tired to go over this game, Steve was playing corulag Ops I messed up one time when recycling destiny, I put 2 5s at the bottom of my deck instead of 2 6s. The next turn he deploys executor + some pilots to occupy space for Battle Plan. I battled and drew the 2 5s, if it was 2 6s, then the executor would have been gone and things might have been different. I also lost the Lower Corridor and Kessel from my hand early because I thought I'd concentrate mostly on Corulag. But after he flipped there was no way for me to force drain him! The lack of a second on the edge really hurt and I lost by something in the teens.
Turner got a timed win against Mike Raveling, but Fitzgerald lost to Clint Hays. So we finished no where near the top. Individually I finished 12th, while Nathan Reisch finished first. I keep telling Nathan Reisch to tell all of his opponents 'you can't spell Dominate without Nate!!' :-) Clint Hays beat Brian Fred in the first game, but loses his second one to a Tractor Beam Deck!!!! Apparently Clint was playing Hidden Base and got all his ships pulled to the dark side. Anyways, thanks for listening. I've had a great time at Gen Con and hope to see all the guys I met there next year. :) Jim