seattle-washington-1-15-00
Title: seattle-washington-1-15-00
Author: Douglas "Douglas" Harvilla
Date: Jan 16, 2000
My Light Side deck - Mind Your Destiny, Save You It Can. With a whole bunch of EPP main characters and almost half the deck 5 destiny or higher.
My Dark Side deck - Dueling Hunt Down And Destroy The Jedi on Tatooine, with a whole bunch of ECC and EJP cards.
Game One: Dark versus BJ Beselman's (sp?) Tatooine mains
I start with the usual stuff and Bad Feeling Have I, he starts with Obi-Wan's Hut and Projection of a Skywalker. Unusual start. He deploys the Audience Chamber early on, and Vader With Lightsaber took it over. I deploy Mara Jade at Obi-Wan's Hut and her lightsaber from the Reserve Deck.
He deploys Lando With Blaster Pistol to the Hut and initiates battle against Mara, although I warn him that it
-might- not be a good move. But he accepts the risk and hopes to draw A Few Maneuvers with the blaster pistol. He doesn't, and Lando is lost.
There is a brief struggle for the Tatooine system, then the drains and Visage end things quickly.
Win by 40
Highs: A nice cushion of differential going into game two.
Lows: Starting off with my stronger deck. I like to get a game with the weaker one out of the way early. Also, I am told that somehow the best players mostly ended up playing the same side. So the Dark Side went 6-1, and because someone won by more than 40, I will be paired against a player with zero points.
Game Two: Light versus Jeff Boerger's Bespin Clouds
I start with Mind What You Have Learned and Goo Nee Tay, he starts with Bespin and tries to play Combat Readiness to deploy two cloud sectors. The card doesn't work this way, and there are no sites to deploy. He explains that a friend built the deck and handed it to him just before the tournament began.
He deploys Dengar In Punishing One to Bespin and drains for one steadily while I get set up. There aren't many ships in the deck, and I'm not seeing them yet. Battle Plan slows things down a bit, and I use Traffic Control to put back a lot of high-destiny cards.
Giving Dengar some backup at Bespin, he deploys a TIE Scout and a couple of TIE Advanced. Tracking destiny, I play Suprise Assault and he loses 11 force. Then he deploys Boba Fett In Slave 1. On my turn, I deploy the Tantive IV with Leia, Han, Chewbacca, and Jeroen Webb. Draw Their Fire, battle, play I Know. Draw 6, 5, 5, 4, 4. It clears the system entirely.
I deploy the Lower Corridor and Obi-Wan With Lightsaber with a H'nemthe. He deploys a star destroyer to Kuat and puts pilots on board, including Vader With Lightsaber. Then discovers he is trapped, since he cannot make it to the Bespin system with a hyperspeed of 3.
With a 6 and some 5s on top of the deck and Battle Plan satisfied, I do not activate and instead drain for 4 each turn until the game is over.
Win by 36
Highs: Causing a lot of damage with Surprise Assault.
Lows: The anticlimactic finish. I'd have moved away from Bespin to get a battle in, but my hyperspeed wasn't high enough, either.
Game Three: Light versus Joe Olson's Hunt Down
On the first turn, he deploys the Death Star. Ouch. He gets Zuckuss In Mist Hunter to Endor, forcing me to go for one of the capital ships instead of a rebel leader ship. Too bad the Tantive and Spiral are lost to Visage and drains in the opening turns.
Battle Plan scarcely slows him down, and he gets Kashyyyk out with Boba Fett In Slave 1. A Presence Of The Force on each system has him draining for six a turn. Even with Obi and Luke at the Lower Corridor and Downtown Plaza, I'm being outdrained and the game is pretty well decided.
We never battle, just drain, and Hunt Down never flips. Terrible game. Afterwards, Joe tells me the Death Star, Kashyyyk, and Endor are the only systems in the deck, and he got them in his opening draw. Bad combination of wierd draws, and we never interacted.
Lose by 14
Highs: Getting to face a good player.
Lows: Not really getting much of a game out of it, since we were playing polar opposites, ground and space.
Game Four: Dark versus Nick Jones' Hidden Base
I don't play Security Precautions, so I start with Bad Feeling Have I to get it out of the deck and in case mains show up. On the second turn I deploy Vader to the Jundland Wastes and give him his lightsaber.
He deploys X-Wings free at the Rendezvous Point and moves them to Kashyyyk and Tatooine. I cancel Rebel Fleet with Alter. Drain for 3, he plays It's A Hit! and I cancel it with Sense. Then he plays It Could Be Worse, soaking up most of the drain.
I deploy Mara Jade to the Cantina with her lightsaber, and he gets Kiffex out. Then moves both X-Wings to Kiffex, probably fearing a beatdown before he can get more ships out. This means Yarna d'al Gargan is no longer immune to Alter, so I cancel it.
Drain with Vader and Mara, he plays It's A Hit! and this time I flip a 7 and miss the draw. But I still get a drain through, for three cards. He deploys Coruscant and Kessel and flips. He cancels my drains, and I get a Dreadnaught with Tarkin to Kessel, where he has an X-Wing, and probe. Not the place. Battle. Cancel Hyper Escape with Those Rebels Won't Escape Us, draw a 6. Loses an X-Wing and some cards, and I move to Kashyyyk to probe next turn.
A Monnok catches three X-Wings, keeping his reinforcements off the table. He gets in more drains, more of mine are canceled, and I probe unsuccessfully. Deploy another Dreadnaught to Kiffex, probe successfully. Move the lone ship to Coruscant, move Tarkin and his ride to Kessel to stop a drain there.
He battles the Dreadnaught at Coruscant and plays Organized Attack to get some damage through with his three X-Wings. Sense cancels it. Now my drains and Visage are taking their toll. Tantive IV at Kessel is clobbered when ECC IG-88 and Boba Fett join Tarkin to get two battle destiny draws. The battle damage ends the game.
Win by 19
Highs: Canceling everything. The inexpensive Dreadnaughts made probing easier than it was when I played unique star destroyers.
Lows: Yet another space-on-ground matchup. I get bored with space battles because they are rather uninteresting compared with interaction on the ground.
Game Five: Light versus Eric Wilson's Hunt Down/IAO
He starts with Imperial Arrest Order and deploys the Executor Docking Bay from hand. Ironic. Meanwhile, I've drawn Yoda in my opening hand, a rather annoying habit of mine. Deploying a 2-1 Cloud City site and the Port Town District, he drops Vader at the latter and flips.
I deploy Obi-Wan's Apparition to the Executor: Meditation Chamber, shutting down his force generation at the Big E sites. This, along with Battle Plan, slows things just enough for me to stay in the game. Although he gets a free ride for a while as I try to work my way out of this mess.
Before I can get Luke With Lightsaber out to get rid of Vader, he deploys 4-LOM With Concussion Rifle to back him up. This means I can write off an EPP double-destiny combo as a solution, and can't count on two saber swings if Luke and Obi show up. Since I haven't drawn Obi-Wan yet, it doesn't do a lot. He gets Irol and Drelosyn to the Meditation Chamber to preserve some of his force generation.
Deploying Draw Their Fire, Yoda to the Hut, and Luke against Vader, I battle and swing. Miss. Drat. He cancels Luke's game text and plays Jabba's Through With You and I Have You Now, to my Glancing Blow. He flips four battle destiny and only gets a total of 17 power to show for it, after forgetting to swing.
He kicks himself after I flip a 5 and lose Luke to cover it all, while Vader goes away. The swing wouldn't have connected, since his first two draws were 1s, but at least they'd be out of the way.
This is what I needed to stay in the game. When another Vader shows up, I battle him with EPP Luke and Wedge Antilles. I flip low, he flips low, and everybody stays but 4-LOM.
He is short on characters, with a hand full of Vaders but few other cards with ability. So the counterattack is just Vader. I swing and this time get a 5 and 2, trading Wedge for Vader. Luke drains at the Port Town District, Commander Vanden Willard and Leia With Blaster Rifle invade the Executor and battle Irol and Drelosyn. Fire, hit one, draw a 4. He flips a 5 and a 3. Reduce the attrition, lose Leia.
Next turn, I deploy Tawss Khaa to back up Willard, and move the duo to cancel Visage.
Luke and Orrimaarko take on Vader and a walker over the next couple turns, and the damage/retrieval from Draw Their Fire and First Strike is making our life force totals bounce around.
I put Obi-Wan and Luke up against Vader and Tarkin after running away in a drain race for a while. The Force Is Strong With This One, Gift Of The Mentor. Clear the site.
Tempest 1 with Sergeant Barich battles Orrimaarko at the Port Town District and I flip a 5. Barich goes, and Orrimaarko covers my battle damage. Drains and one last battle with the lone Tempest 1 end the game.
Win by 15
Highs: Close, competitive game and a hard-fought comeback after those early turns and lots of damage.
Lows: Mistakes on both sides, and hazy recollection of the events. One of those games that really tires you out. Also, the crowd was a bit distracting, as we were taking a while to finish and people were milling about.
Game Six: Dark versus Joe Olson's Profit Eloms
He starts with You Can Either Profit From This (doesn't seem like any of the other objectives are incomplete phrases on either side, it's kind of silly to say) and Uh-Oh. My two aliens for the Audience Chamber are Mara Jade and Bossk With Mortar Gun. Vader can't come out on turn 1, but it is just as well, since he's nowhere to be seen.
So Mara gets her lightsaber and they move to Jabba's Palace to drain for a while. Transmission Terminated cancels Visage. Bargaining Table blocks my drains until I get Vader to Mose Eisley with his lightsaber a couple turns later and play Alter to cancel it.
Once he has ten cards in the Lost Pile, Joe thaws Han and frees him, since I haven't put up any resistance. He retrieves the force, but I'm not too concerned. If I were, I'd have done something earlier.
Joe's been playing Out of Commission, but the cards in my Lost Pile are all red, and I've got the cards in my hand to make Vader a fortress. Battle Plan makes me pay for the two massive drains, but I do so with relish. Replace the lost Visage. It gets canceled again a couple turns later.
Nar Shaddaa Wind Chimes is played, and canceled. Eloms start coming out of the woodwork, draining me at the Entrance Cavern and deploying to the Cantina. I consider playing Elis to go to the Audience Chamber and play Sniper to take out Han, flipping the objective and shutting down Joe's drains. But instead, I send Mara and Bossk to the Cantina and play Sniper on one of the two Eloms. Then convert the Cantina and deploy Dengar With Blaster Carbine.
Battle, hit, flip high. Lots of battle damage. The end of the game comes swiftly.
Win the game by 28, and the tournament with 10 (+124)
Highs: Seeing this objective in action. At least a couple players brought the EJP objectives to this tournament, and I salute them.
Lows: Seems like this objective has promise, but letting Mara hit the table for free is just a bad idea. Even if you have cards to deal with that speed-start, you might not draw them and then she can cause lots of damage.
A good tournament, with lots of good players and an always cool TD. Thanks again, Martin. Prize support was solid, and even the guy in last place got a cutout of Hunt Down (the one from the Reflections boxes), and a Reflections pack and Unlimited booster. We did some trading and talked shop for a while.