denverds-4-1-is-he-gonna-finish-that

Title: denverds-4-1-is-he-gonna-finish-that
Author: Michael "Dvader" Girard
Date: Apr 3, 2000

So this is another installment of the Michael Girard Tournament Report Series. This time it is the Denver Grand Slam. Thursday we started out for Denver (from Phoenix) driving. Yahoo said it was 17 hours, local people said it is about 15, I think I can make it in about 12 :-). Brian Garrison, Bravo 14 (a good up and coming player, just needs more practice, my apprentice) and Mike Sinclair (local guy I am taking under my wing and showing the ropes) accompany me on the trip. We go about 100 miles an hour all the way through Arizona and New Mexico and then stop for gas at a little town on the border of CO and NM. I look north and make the comment 'that doesn't look good'. There is pitch blackness about twenty miles away, it looked like a black hole. So I get a refill on the Dew tank and we are off. We are about to crest the hill, when I look down at the time, I have my dew in one hand and the stearing wheel in the other. I look back up and BAM, there is a full on blizzard in front of me, I can see about ten feet in front of me. I tap the breaks and start to slide, I ease off the pedal and watch a car spin out in front of a semi that is in front of us in the next lane. I am thinking...'we are all gonna die'. It sure is a good thing I missed the Joe Helfrich email that said to bring the SUV instead of the Pontiac Sunfire. Since we have about 300 pounds worth of cards and clothes in the trunk, we end up not sliding too bad, can't say the same for the semi that jacknifed in the other lane. Maybe we should have stopped and picked up a Cherokee that had tipped off of it:-). Well, that shot our time to hell, it took us two hours to get from Raton to Colorado springs (should have taken about an hour). We picked up Steve Brenston at the Springs airport (stupid priceline.com ticket) and headed for Denver. As we approached denver, we took the E470 and paid about $20 in toll charges just to get to the airport. There we picked up Brian Fred and then headed for the hotel. We picked up about $40 worth of Taco Bell and sleep that night. In the morning, none of us wanted to go and pick up Clint, so we decided that he was on his own :-). After some guilt trips, Brenston and I head for the airport to pick the southerner up. We finally find him after about a half an hour of searching and then it starts...all we hear about is his complaining :-). We get back the hotel, play cards (I mize about 30 bones in Hold em from those mofos), we exchange catch phrases (we are using mofos and calhoons, they are using mize), and we eat at Applebees that night. At the end, we are goofing off and I look over at my Brian Garrison. He is choking on some beer and we are freaking out. He chucks up what ever was stuck and heads for the bathroom. The waitor comes over and is like 'Is he gonna finish this?' We just all cracked up laughing and I am like, 'No, I think that he is pretty much finished with it':-). So we get back, call Joe and he says to call tomorrow. Get some sleep and get up ready for the tournament.

My decks
Darkside - Vegas Style - my patented sabacc deck that wrecks (it will be posted on Decktech later today)
Lightside - Speeder ops off of Ralitiir - I am thinking this would beat on Rops, but it didn't.

Game One - DS vs. Mike Sinclair's Eloms
Well, it figures, I drive 14 hours just to play someone that I could play back home. Well, I got rid of his catch cards and just beat on some eloms. This was a really bad matchup for him. I stole some hydro stations and made him lose a lot.
Full Win by 30

After game one, Me 1-0, Garrison 1-0, Clint 1-0 (had to play brenston), Fred 1-0, Sinclair/Brenston 0-1

Game Two - LS vs. Jason Keen's High destiny Hunt down
This game started out great, but for some reason I get the crappiest opening hands with this deck. He goes vader/saber first turn to my farm. I draw, on his turn he goes drain, I go lost in the wilderness. I drop some ops/speeders, but not enough to flip. He comes down with dengar and blizzard 2 at my swamp, he initiates, I remind him it's +3, he doesn't have enough...yesssssss, dodged a bullet. I flip eventually and he starts following me around. We exchanged drains for the game, he finally finds vader so I drop luke at the farthest site on a speeder so no dueling for him. Well he slowly moves across Ralitiir towards luke. so I have about 14 force left, he has three and one in hand. he moves vader to the same site and initiates a non-epic duel with luke. I am like, you can't, he is on a speeder. Well Vader's obession says nothing about being present, so I am screwed. He draws a 6/5 I draw a 2/2. I lose luke and 8 more. he retreives 8. That is game. I drain and make him lose to visage. That game just royally sucked. oh well.
Full Loss by 7

After game two, Me 1-1, Garrison 2-0, Clint 2-0, Fred 2-0, Sinclair/Brenston 1-1

Game three - LS vs. Local Guy with Endor drain
He starts with the dark forest and another drain +1 site. This game was really uneventful. He drained for six on turn three, I drained for 8 on turn four. I cut his drains, he did nothing about mine. This game was really this uneventful.
Full Win by 30 something.

After Game Three Me 2-1, Garrison 2-1, Sinclair 2-1, Clint/Fred 3-0, Brenston 2-1

Game Four - DS vs. Matt Reicks' Test to two w/kessel runs (I get epp obi-wan)
Well, this was a bad matchup for him as well. I start scanning and such and getting rid of his catch cards and I start retreiving with sabacc. Well, he doesn't think that is kosher so he drops Cpt han and epp leia to the casino, I barrier leia. Next turn I drop the beats squad, epp vader and epp IG88. I capture han and lose vader, he loses leia. I go and drop solo in the prison with his buddy obiwan and drop interrogation array next turn. My bounty hunter ships were wrecking at kessel since there was no super falcon, and coupled with a visage for two during my control phase. That pretty much did him in. I retreived and won the game.
Full Win by 30something

After Game four Me/garrison/brenston 3-1, fred/clint 4-0, sinclair 2-2

Game five - LS vs. Brian Freds Rops deck
I was thinking this was a good matchup, but I was wrong. The problem with this matchup is the fact that the light side player has to rely on his sites for generation. Well, I didn't get any, I was waiting to convert his locations and while doing this he dropped three 2-0 sites and was out activating me. I had to drop my sites and he converted them, so my speeders and ops got beat down. In the end game, he whiped the board clean of all my stuff.
Full Loss by 7

After Game Five Me/Garrison/sinclair 3-2, clint/brenston 4-1 (clint lost to kyle craft), fred was still undefeated.

Game six - DS vs. Buckner's LS sabacc deck
Well he started with the casino and careful planned for the carbonite chamber...I was looking screwed. But I scanning crewed him and found no lando, so I dropped my lando and started to sabacc. I got ephant mon there next turn so there was nothing he could do to convert lando. I knocked him troopers and devorians off with my hit squads and continued to retreive them after they did their job. Late game he was starting to win sabacc cause he was tracking his landos, so I started manipulating his piles with stuff like Fear and broken concentration. He told me he liked my deck and thought it was refined.
Full Win by 30 something

Game Seven - LS vs. Steve Brenston's Rops deck
See Game Five....stupid rops decks...I hate them
Full loss by 17

Game Eight - DS vs. Local Guy's HB/Kessel Run deck
He didn't have much in the way of ground support so I just setup sabacc and started to retreive. My recurring bounty hunter ships repeatedly took out yt-1300s and bwings. I stole a grand total of six ships from him, including lando in falcon :-) (gotta love extra wild cards :-). I probed his base and then just sabacced him away. There was nothing he could do, especially with secret plans on the table.
Full Win by 30 something

Clint played Kyle craft in the finals for the title and first choice of sheets, Clint took game one and Kyle just gave him game two.
So it was like this

Clint Hays 7-1 rops/throne room mains
Kyle Craft 7-1 rumors/throne room mains
Matt Reicks 6-2 test 2,kessel runs/
Brian Hunter 6-2 ISB/test 2,kessel runs....i think
Brian Fred 6-2 rops/throne room mains
Tim McKnight 6-2 rops/..don't know
Van...local guy 6-2 don't know
John Arndt 6-2 (timed win) high destiny huntdown/..don't know
Steve Brenston 5-3 rops/throne room mains
Me 5-3 sabacc/ops
13. Brian Garrison 5-3
15. Mike Sinclair 5-3

Not bad, I guess. I hate having to play people I room with. And another thing. I am sick and tired of hearing about Rops and throne room mains. it is getting old, try a new deck type :-). Some other notes, I only knew of one operative deck and that was mine (i could be wrong).

Props
Clint Hays - for winning
Brian Fred - for winning the Michael Girard look alike contest, and for giving us his sheet of uncommons
Steve Brenston - for just being there, and waiting in the springs airport for about 8 hours :-)
Brian Garrison - for being the catch phrase of the weekend...hehe you gonna finish that :-)
Mike Sinclair - for finally understanding the whole 'convention' atmosphere, and for bringing the backstreet boys CD :-)
Joe Helfrich - For runnnig the best tournament that I have been to in a long time. As far as I know, there were no rulings disputes, quarrels, or any distruptiveness. And when the software crapped out (cause we all knew it would) Joe jumped right on it and kept things running smoothly.
Kyle Craft - For living up to his billing and being a good player. He beat clint, brian fred twice and brian hunter
Brian Hunter - for looking like Jesus, like we knew you would :-)
DE Conklin - For being cool and hanging out with us. Nice Rugby shirt.
Shawn Littleton - For coming out of the woodwork and mizing all over people with your numbers deck
The chicks at the Lone Star - for putting up with Clint
My car - for not crapping out and making the whole trip
the Backstreet boys - for keeping us entertained from Payson to Phoenix, nothing like listening to tracks 1-4 for about 2 hours. :-)
and...
ME - for winning the Greg Hodur look alike contest with my Arizona state flag do-rag...gotta represent the ghetto squad and all.


Slops
Colorado - for being cold
New Mexico - for having horizontal stop lights (what is up with that?)
Colorado - for snowing 24/7
Brian Fred - for accidently tearing his sheet on a chair...nice going.
Colorado players - for hearing 'what is a catch card' about fifty billion times
Colorado - stupid mountain passes
Denver airport - for practically being in the next state
E470 - for charging money to drive on a road, and being the only toll road this side of the mississippi
the idiot who passed me - so what if you have an SUV, doesn't mean you can go 70 in snow....stupid bastard
Clint Hays - for bothering the Lone Star girls with his stupid study on Lone star being an Equal Opportunity Employer
Phoenix Coyotes - for being soooo bad
St. Louis Blues - for being soooo good

Hope you liked it....I know I did.

Michael Girard
FLGold 120