merritt-island-florida-03-04-00
Title: merritt-island-florida-03-04-00
Author: Leonard "Master Yoda" Mitchell
Date: Mar 8, 2000
Anyway, for some reason everything worked out and I was going to make this Grand Slam. My school has a ridiculous spring break schedule (Feb. 26 - Mar. 5), but it worked out that me and my friends go down to visit my dad in Tampa and I can make it to the Grand Slam a few short hours away in Merritt Island. Everything is sweet except for the fact that I have no way back to NC after the tournament. But of course, I should have known better because my most excellent friend and fellow partner in crime, $cott Anderson, also happens to be going, so it works out that I now have a ride back (just as long as he lets me be navigator). That rocks. So what do I do for decks? It really doesn't matter because I only have two available right now. One light and one dark. Basically they are the EJP-Hate decks. LS rolls against Court (it's a tweaked version of my Tatooine Rumble deck on Decktech) and DS smiles when it sees Profit (it's a Tat. Occ. deck and nowhere near the version on my page. Thankfully). I'm not making new ones because I'll have absolutely zero time (you know how professors always feel the urge to schedule as many exams in right before the break) and absolutely zero focus (our Conference indoor track meet is the weekend before the GSlam. Oh, and I ran great. Thanks for asking). Couple that with the fact that I'll have nobody to play with while I'm in Tampa (my friends don't dabble in the art of cardboard warfare), and you've got a guy who's staying strong with what he knows. So spring break comes and I'm enjoying sunny Florida (but the beach sucks because it's so hot, and running 10 miles sucks anyways, but put that under a blazing sun and absolutely zero girls around--did I mention we have a stupid spring break?--and everything sucks so I guess I didn't enjoy sunny Florida as much as I could have), but I'm also trying to find some group of players for Friday night. So I email the listserv and get a name by talking to Alfonso Martinez and then Chuck Lund. That name? Neal Razi.
Turns out the man is right in freaking Tampa (about 10 min. from my house) so I'm straight. I call him up and arrange for me to get over there on Friday and play some. I ask him who's going to be there and he says: 'We'll there will be David (Akers) and me, but we've got Matt Lush and John Arendt flying in and CommieBoy is supposed to be getting here soon from the bus, so if you come that will give us six.' So I'm mentally calculating the average rating in that house and realize that mine will significantly drop it, but I don't care because 'rating doesn't matter' (whatever) and I know I can learn from these boys. So I show up and get stomped soundly by John a couple of times (either I suck or my decks suck), and then I play Charlie's Light and he stomps me (either I suck or my deck sucks), but we switch up decks so I play his light (did I mention it has those heat-seeking Out Of Commissions in it? You know, the ones that hit Vader everytime no matter how many cards are in the lost pile?) and he plays my dark and I stomp him (Yeah!!! It's not me, it's my decks. Or not.) So anywyay, we head off to play in the Super-duper-unbelievable-Ultimate Sealed Deck. The six of us cram into Neal's 'Falcon' and make the painful trip to Brandon, FL. The only thing keeping us from thinking about the loss of blood in our extremities was Matt's excellent selection of jokes. He's one funny guy, ladies and gentlemen. Anyway, I end up LS and bring Boussh and RPoint to my deck to make it complete. Turns out I end up having this whole FD denial theme going on. Boussh, TK-422, Wyron Serper w/Undercover, and TWO arconas! I can't lose this tournament right? Well, I get a stupid timed loss 10-9 against Neal because the big problem in the deck is that I only had one drain site available, and then later I lose to Charlie because he pulls this little guy known as Ephant Mon and drains me for two at the Defensive Perimeter the whole game. I counter with arconas, but that's when Cold Feet hits. Doh. Anyway, my two starships couldn't hang with his space fleet, so that meant game. I think I finished around 5th or 6th, but who knows.
Wow. I just reread this thing and realized that there has been three monster paragraphs with about zero SW:CCG in them. Sorry. Time to get to the tournament then, huh? So we drive up Saturday to Merrit Island. Charlie is with David and his wife, so that leaves Neal, John, Matt and me in the Falcon. Matt tells more jokes while John and I review his decks in the car (there is no helping mine. They are too far gone. Ha.) We change a few cards in his decks, but I know he just changed them back when I wasn't looking. :) We stop at McDonald's and Matt wants to wear shorts so I give him a pair of mine. I feel kinda sorry for the guy because he's about 4 inches shorter than me and the shorts are my length so...
We arrive at about 2:30, but the games don't actually begin until 3:30, so I kill the hour by meeting a whole bunch of cool people and finally put faces to names (Mike Fitzgerald, Andrew Marchand, Mike Belfatto, David Irvine, Dan Blackford, Lee Edwards, Gabe Alonso, Chuck Lund, Mitch Velasco, Chris Hines, Bill Gordon, etc.). I also spot my man $cott Anderson and we chat for awhile. Patrick Hines also made a suprise appearance so it was good to see him too. Clint Hays evidently drove down with $cott, and given who I came up with and who is here already, it was going to be an excellent tournament. So let it begin (and everyone cheers). The tournament was run by Chuck and Mitch and they did an awesome job. Thanks guys!
Game 1. My DS Tatooine Occupation vs. David Irvine's LS Y4 Mains/Nudjs
Blah, blah, blah. I'm the second name called and I get flashbacks to last year's Yavin 4 regional where I was the first name called and end up losing by something silly like 36. Ugh. But I'm the second name this time so it's cool. That is until I see his starting stuff. Whoop-de-do...Y4 nudj madness. I can count the number of times this deck has beaten a Y4 mains deck. It's a real simple formula actually. Take the lowest destiny in your deck and multiply it by the the highest destiny in your deck and you have the number of times this deck has won against a Y4 start. Yep; a big, fat zero. Anyway, I do my start of Tatooine and then get Combat Ready for JP. He comes with standard start of Throne Room, Farm, Jungle. He goes first and drops two (!) twix and gets a Nudj, then draws. I have a good hand with Vader and saber, so I just grab my Audience Chamber on the first turn and save Force. He drops RPoint, grabs a nudj, and draws more. I look at my hand and see Vader, saber, and lots 'o Sense with one Alter. I say what the heck and deploy Vader w/ his saber to T:JP because I've got the SAC to back up any annoying GOTM or Skywalkers or Lost in the Wilderness or whatever. Okay, now for you playing at home, this was a dumb move. Why? Because Leonard had nothing to really back Vader up. Sometimes going for the quick drain is not necessarily better than waiting for a sustained drain. If I had been smart, I would have gone to the AC with Vader, then deploy Mara w/ saber and have a nice drain of 3 from there. But I didn't and that hurt. So I play stupid and deploy Vader to T:JP. David is practically salivating as he gets ready to totally wipe out Vader. He drops EPP Luke and EPP Obi (how sick would it be if they added a destiny together?), and the Tank. I quickly start to decide if the Tank dies now or not, but I figure it'd be way more effective to wait until somebody is in it, so I hold on. Then David plays Draw Their Fire and I see I have zero Force saved, so I go ahead and play Alter now. No response from David so I draw my only 6 in the deck. Ugh. My Alter goes bye-bye to the Used pile and his Tank stays. His next action was then to deploy DoDN. Haha. That was funny. Anyway, of course Vader gets hit and Luke goes to the Tank after the battle, so that leaves EPP Obi chilling at T:JP. He drains a turn or two while I start trying to find locations. I have stuff in my hand by now, just not the Force to play it. Unfortunately I can't use T:JP to check my deck for locations because someone's Obi is cancelling my game text. As David drains I start to see my locations go off the top, including Death Star and Coruscant back-to-back. Basically, after my opening turn, the only way I got more Force was to have Bubo come down and wax the two Nudjs. So then I was generating 9 to his 15+, but I was just so screwed. In the end I tried to scratch and claw him down, but he gets out Traffic Control and dumps his hand. Full loss by 22.
0 (-22)
Highlights: Deciding that I need a deck that won't consistently lose to a popular LS strategy. :) Either that or this needs serious tweaking.
Lowlights: Pathetic Force generation. Bad draws. Bad play. Losing before the game even started.
So the game ends and I walk outside and I make sure everybody knows how bad I suck. I come to find out that I'm one of 4 DS players who lost (haha), so that made me laugh. Almost everybody won, but my boy $cott got peaced out because he deployed the Dagobah system and gave the opponent some place to run to. Actually, there were some big pairings in the first game, so more good people lost than I thought, so I wasn't feeling too awful bad. As the pairings begin, I sit down in Alfonso's Seat 'o Luck and I can feel a good game coming on.
Game 2. My LS Tatooine Rumble vs. Ben Coonce's DS Endor Operations
So I lose my last game by 22, but because I was with DS last game, I end up at the second to last table. Wow. I get paired against Ben (who is still sleeving his deck as we begin) and he starts the EO stuff with no starting effect and I start with Obi's Hut and Carefully Plan for Mos Eisley. As I shuffle my deck I look down at the table to see that he didn't deploy the Endor Docking Bay, so I mention that to him. He then tells me he doesn't have it in his deck. 'You don't?' 'No.' So I try to explain to him the consequences of not fulfilling the deployment requirements of an objective. He asks if I mind if he puts the Landing Platform in and I tell him it's no problem. I'm such a nice guy. Our game begins a few minutes later than everybody else, but when I look down at my opening hand I realize that it won't be a problem. I've got Ben Kenobi, his saber, Jundland Wastes, and a Nabrun. Ben goes first and activates, deploys Establish Secret Base, then starts to draw. I quickly reach down and pick up ESB to make sure I'm not mistaken, then tell him that he needs to satisfy the gametext before he can deploy it. On my turn I activate, deploy the Wastes, and draw a few, getting a Chewbacca and a couple of ships. On his turn he puts down a couple of empty speeder bikes with guns on them and Perimeter Patrol and draws more. On my turn Ben w/ stick and Chewbacca come down and get over to the Wastes for a sweet drain of three. I draw more and get a spy, so I just wait until he puts someone in the Bunker for PP. On his turn he puts down more empty speeder bikes and a couple of guys to an Endor site. We trade drains (my 3 to his 1) until he drops a Tempest Scout 4 w/ ATST cannons and Marquand to Mos Eisley and moves to the Hut. I activate, Signal for Order to Engage, drop Orrimaarko to the Hut, move Ben/Chewie over, and wait. On his turn he deploys a Lambda Shuttle to Endor and runs TS4 away (losing 3 Force). I activate and jump the Lambda Shuttle with Tantive IV, LiMF, RLR1, and Jeoren Webb. Battle the Shuttle, and he has no Ghhhk. Ouch. Major battle damage up in the 20s ensues. I move over the Ben crew to TS4 again and wait. He activates more (he saved some last time), then iniates a battle and proceeds to spend tons of Force trying to cap my guys. Chewie can't make it out of the way quick enough so he was hit, but everybody else lives. So I draw battle destiny (he has only ability 3 so he can't), and he suffers more battle damage. Oddly, he decides to just forfeit Marquand and lose cards. He moves TS4 over to the JW as I revive Chewie. On my turn I Signal for Mech. Failure, Nabrun over to the JW, and end the game. Full win by 37.
2 (+15)
Highlights: Getting a good differential to make up for game one. Him not playing Ghhhks.
Lowlights: I was at the second to last table.
I'm pretty hungry right now so I go over to the hoagie place next door, grab a huge sandwhich and chat with $cott and Bill Gordon. Afterwords we walk back outside and stand around talking to other people and listen to some dude play 311 in his car. 311 is tech.
Game 3. My DS Tatooine Occupation vs. Daniel Blackford's LS Harvest Mains
I recognize Daniel's name and he tells me that he's Shadow on the listserv, so it's cool to play another listserver. After some good-natured joking, we begin the game, but only when Chuck 'says so!' I start Tat. system and he starts Obi's Hut (I think) and then the mind game starts. We both interrupt with CP/CR, so I go and get the Audience Chamber because I know that the LS player has to get LS T:JP. I ask him if he's ready to show our locations but he thought that I had to show mine first, so we get Mitch over. After a clarification that he cannot change his CP site after he sees mine, we begin and he does select T:JP like any good LS player would ('cause if you go with the AC and the opponent goes for T:JP, you've just got your AC converted). Anyway, this game is kind of fuzzy to me, so I'll do the best I can. My opening hand is good, with both Mara and Premiere Vader (actually, DVDLOTS never, ever, ever came out the whole tournament), but I need more stuff so I draw up. I get a PotF, Vader's saber, Coruscant, and other things. On his turn he draws up too. I quickly get a PotF and a Vader w/ Saber down to the Hut and start draining. As I do I see Beru go off the top so it was apparent he was playing Harvest. He drops some people down to battle Vader off the next couple of turns (Harvest decks have huge destinies) and then he walks his boys over to his T:JP. I deploy Mara to the Hut, search for her saber (naturally it wasn't there, so he gets to verify. He counts my SAC and starts looking a little pale. Hehe.), and then setup another sweet drain. But this whole time I'm digging for catch cards and I can't seem to find any. On his turn he converts my AC, drops Tessek, Wedge, and an Elom to the AC, and a H'nemthe to T:JP with Luke, Han, and random.dude. I look down at my hand and see Bubo and IG-88, and figure I've got my plan for next turn. I've need to take out stupid Tessek or I'm eating a drain of 5 next turn. Bubo comes down with IG-88 to the AC and attacks, getting the elom. He now has ability 4 there, but by taking out someone with IG-88, it'll be a beating. So I battle with IG, target Wedge, but draw a one. Doh! Instead of this incredibly cool beating, my whole plan fails and Iggy goes down in smoke and Tessek still remains. The game goes on with me fortifying with walkers, him killing Bubo with Han, and dropping Boussh to block my Cantina drain where Vader w/ saber and Tarkin are. Things are getting tight and I know how much retrieval Harvest can generate, so I'm getting a little worried. I know I need to get rid of Leia soon because he had Gifted Artoo earlier and my drains were going to end real quick once Artoo blocked the Obi's Hut drain. I need to find my Snipers, so I start drawing and finally get one. I know I've got low destinies in my deck because a Twi'lek for a catch card showed me they were low, and then I had to lose the Twi'lek to a drain. I'm desperately searching for something to help me out and track, so I play an Alter on my PotF, draw a 3, and track those two cards until I cap Boussh next turn. From there the drain gates opened and poor Dan could just watch. He tried some last minute Harvests for key cards, but a couple of Senses put that idea away. Full win by 10.
Highlights: Meeting and playing Dan. He was absolutely hilarious to play and I can't wait to play him again. It was a real fun game and I enjoyed every minute of it.
Lowlights: Having Iggy get smoked.
Hmmm. This thing is getting huge (but I know you don't mind), so I guess I'll have to break it up into parts. I'll get part II up soon. Anyway, thanks for reading and let me know if you have any questions.
Later!
--Master Yoda out. <(-_-)>