tempe-az-3-13-00
Title: tempe-az-3-13-00
Author: Michael "Dvader" Girard
Date: Mar 13, 2000
Alright pals and gals, this is another installment of your little looking glass into the playing community that makes up Phoenix Arizona (what a skewed view it is too). This was a triple-tourney weekend, thus there was a tourney Friday nite, Saturday (I ran this one...doh!!!), and Sunday. Friday night I lost to some random stuff and two misplays on my part, I deserved to lose. Sunday is a different matter though.
Sunday
Arizona Gamer
Tempe, Arizona (Phoenix Suburb...or something)
1pm
After loaning my decks out to more of an old school player on Saturday, I made a few tweaks and was ready for Sunday. I must let you in on some stuff though. If you have never played in Phoenix, you must understand something. This playing community doesn't listen to reports about Albany throne room, or Correlian repeating high destinies...they come with their own stuff and thus a VERY diverse playing field ensues. There were two archtypes (along the same line of decks) that were there, there were two hunt down decks with dueling. Every other deck was freaking different. About 35-45% of the playing field was numbers as well. So as you can see, you can't really metagame against this playing environment (hence my mediocre rating :-).
So anyway, my decks were
DS - Girard's Vegas Style
LS - Speeder Ops (cause I was tired of not having enough characters in my deck for Brenston's beats)
Game One - DS vs. Random.kid's DBO
I sat down and immediately was thinking 'highest-differential possible'. About half way through the game when he was draining for six a turn I decided that it was time to take the fight to him. He had some DBO and it looks like he was trying to set up EBO as well, oh well. My mains made short work of his Rebel guards. I stole a record high 12 Xwings with CC Sabacc :-). Life is good when you win at gambling.
FW by 30something.
Game Two - LS vs. Nibbles's Tatooine Mains and Toys (Anti-profit)
Nibbles is his nickname, his real name is Don Anzaloinein....never mind. So he starts Mos Eisley and Jabba's Palace. I get ops set up second turn and avoid for the rest of the game. The turn he deployed Vader to my planet, I just it's a trapped the battle and moved away...'Ack, run, iss de mann wit de dark helmut', trust me that is how my operatives speak. I drained for a lot and he didn't have battle order out. hehe
FW by 20something.
Game Three - LS vs. Mike Sinclair's Girard's borrowed ORS/ISB
Mike Sinclair is rated third in my book in terms of being able to play/understand/win at this game, right behind myself (of course :-) and Brian Garrison, so I was in for a tough battle. This game last four turns, check this out. First turn, he goes a couple sites to CC, 4x ORS to random.CC site. My first turn, I go op/speeder to swamp, Han/Leia/SicSix to site where ORS are. For those of you that are TECH-IMPAIRED, SicSix is a beating against ORS's, go look it up, trust me :-). So I served, and he lost somemore since two were forfeit zero and two were forfeit one (SicSix text). His Second turn, he deploys more ORS to CC. My turn (2nd)I flip the ops objective and add some more ops/speeders. His turn (3rd) drain, play 5d6 at one of my ops's sites. His turn (4th) he drains for some and draws. My turn (4th), I have six sites to drain at but are for only one each...until. I drain at the site where 5D6 is, cancel it with lost in the Wilderness thereby making 5D6 missing. I drain for 10 and that was game. Not bad huh. I probably left out a battle or two, but you get the point.
FW by 20something
Game Four - DS vs. Mike Sinclair's Neal Razi's Anti-Girard Dagobah/Xwing/ARCONA/Order to Engage deck.
For those of you that are not in my fan club, you must know that I lost to an incarnation of this last year at my horrific showing at the Wild Card. Anyway, so the game starts, he has one rebel for me and it is Bousch...no more rebels in deck..hehe. First turn I activate, scanning crew, I see that he has a catch card...ruhroh raggy, a japanese catch card no less. So I use two force to play unexpected interuption and go and get....drumroll please....Girard's Tech MVP card for the day....FRUSTRATION. I play it targeting the catch card...he goes 'fack'! and reminds me that he only has one catch card in the deck. I play trooper sabacc and he says 'might as well catch that' and that is game!! For the rest of the game CC sabacc goes on tap and I win about 5 Xwings and Lando in Falcon (woohoo, another wildcard in my deck :-). To overcome the arcona's I stick two bounty hunters at the CC Chamber (Security tower is to the right) and next to the tower is the Casino where Lando is just chilling slapping Bousch around with a trout :-). Each turn I initiate at both sites, both arconas move to the tower. I lose some force for going into space and I have a huge hand at the end of the game. Mike said that 'that game was the funnest game of SWCCG that he has ever played in his whole life, it is nice to see someone make a deck that can win consistantly and still be sooooo much fun to play with/against'. I was all red in the face. FW by 20something
So I get a pack of Limited, two white bordered premiere packs, a dagobah pack, a CC pack, an IG-88 with blow up gun, a boba fett pez dispenser and something really cool that I would suggest to every TD. The store opens so many new boxes of reflections, they have all the extra objectives. So instead of selling them or throwing them away, at every tournament run at Arizona Gamer, they have a Gold Signing pen and everyone in the tournament signs it and the TD gives it away to first place, rather cool if you ask me.
So that is the day, you can post on a site if you like. Thanks for reading and Josh Martin sucks at Starwars (well not really, but what the hey, he looks like a hillbilly). Next stop, Denver Grand Slam, Brian and Kyle had better watch their backs cause that duststrom you see is coming from Arizona.
Michael Girard
FLGold 120