framingham-ma-6-3-2000
Title: framingham-ma-6-3-2000
Author: Michael "rayc" Hawley
Date: Jun 6, 2000
Dark Side: Hunt Down with no dueling.
Light Side: Tosche Mains.
I made some slight modifications to the decks based on my last couple of tournaments. I switched out a location in the light deck and put in a Tatooine: Jabbas Palace in order to stop a JP/ Expand the Empire start. I know this start is not likely but it is very difficult to handle if it does happen and Tat. JP is not a bad location anyway. It also gives me another battleground to deal with Come Here You Big Coward. One thing I did not do was add more dueling protection or Grimtash. That cost me a game. For the Dark side, I messed with the character and Starship mix a little and gave myself a few more destiny tracking tools; but nothing to change the overall character of the deck. I did not add another Vader even though I said I would in my last tourney report.
Tripping up the Shuffle
Game 1 vs. Brian Cieszynski 1806 Tatooine Mains
Brian Started Obis Hut and Careful Planning to get Mos Eisley. I think Aha Cantina Shuffle. I started my usual Hunt Down and Twilek for Crush the Rebellion. I drew a dream hand: A couple of Vaders, Tarkin, Mara, and another character. No locations though so I drew up to try to get some more force generation. Brian got Ben Kenobi with Obiwans Saber down and over to Mos Eisley. I sent Epp Vader on a suicide attack and we both lost everything. We then settled down and began to build up a little more slowly. We Fought back and forth over the Cantina and Mos Eisley for the whole game. The advantage was mine because he had difficulty finding his characters (other than Ben). He was able to Sense my interrupts because his characters were all in hi reserve deck. I, on the other hand was doing pretty well tracking my destinies. This was no simple feat because he had altered my Reactor Terminal. In the end, I had a little more sticking power.
Full Win +16
Highs: Beating Brian is always an achievement. Keeping pretty good track of my destinies to overcome his immunity to attrition when I needed to.
Lows: Having Traffic Control Altered.
Who ordered that Battle Order?
Game 2 vs. Michael Rodriguez 1426 Hunt Down w/no duels
This guy always plays me tough. His rating definitely does not reflect the quality of play that I usually see when I play him. Michael started the Hunt Down stuff with no Epic Duel. I think he Twileked for Imperial Arrest Order. He also got Battle Order out very early. This is always a dangerous move and it wound up hurting him a lot more than it hurt me. The basic flow of this game was him trying to establish ground dominance on Tattoine and me trying to neutralize the dominance with Harc Seff and Mantellian Savrip. I had very good success with this. I was able to Sense his first attempt to cancel Savrip with Masterful Move. It took him too long to draw his second Masterful Move. By then I had already decimated his forces and kept mine on the board. By the End game I had Kessel out and was controlling it to help satisfy Battle Order while he had to either drain or deploy. Without the Battle order he might have been able to pull this one out. As it was, full win for me.
Full win +10
Highs: Watching him suffer from his own Battle Order. It is amazing how often this happens.
Lows: This was too close and it was my easiest(and I use the term loosely) opponent of the day.
Dejariks do not listen to rumors
Game 3 vs. Karl Sundberg 1777 Ominous Rumors
This was the game of the day I think. He started the Endor Objective and Twileked for Imperial Arrest Order. I did the usual Obis Hut/Careful Planning/Tosche Station start. He saved force to deploy the Executor at Endor and deployed Ominous Rumors. I got my Traffic Control down early, deployed Obi and his Saber at the Station and started drawing for Ships and recycling High Destinies. I ate his drain at Kessel for a while and got Savrip and Beggar deployed. I then, over a couple of turns, deployed my Armada(Tantive 4, Spiral, Gold Leader in Gold 1, several pilots, Epp Han, and Epp Leia) to Endor. I also deployed Jeroen Webb, Orrimarko, and Taws Khaa to the Bunker. This was a game of massive Battles and one huge mistake by me. My mistake was to throw away Chief Chirpas Hut which. The Hut would have allowed me to cancel Ominous Rumors by controlling 3 Endor locations. The massive Battles shuttled between Endor and Kashyyyk. On one turn I lost over 40 forfeit from hand via Mantellian Savrip. Savrip won this game for me. I kept all my extra characters in hand for Savrip use and I sent all my high destiny interrupts back to the deck via Traffic Control. I kept my Senses and Alters in Hand in order to protect the Savrip and to guard against the unexpected. When the Time was called and the turn played out, I had 8 cards to his 6. I think things were going my way but it was a beautiful game.
Timed Win +8
Highs: The expression on Karls face as I forfeited 3 Obis, a Luke, and a Falcon from hand to cover horrendous losses in a space battle.
Lows: Having the game go to time.
Hunting for Profit takes too much time
Game 4 vs. Steve Brentson 1965 Profit
Well I guess you could make am argument for this being the game of the tournament. Steve started the Profit cards with Premier Han as the frozen captive. I put Jabba the Hutt and Ephant Mon at the Audience Chamber. I believe he used the Signal to get Bargaining Table as well. I started Hunt Down and Twileked for Crush the Rebellion as usual. Much of the game was a struggle for control of the Audience Chamber. I had a pretty good sized squad of complementary characters (Jabba the Hutt, IG-88 w/gun, 4-LOM w/gun, Vader, Tarkin, Dr E. stacked there and intermittently sliding out to drain at the adjacent sites. Steve was using Eloms on Bargaining Table to cancel my drains. We battled often and I had the best of it for a long time. I captured Ben with IG-88 and a tracked 6. I also captured Leia on a subsequent turn. I had to release Ben in a later battle; but I kept Leia for the rest of the game. When I started to run out of gas toward the end of the game, I deployed the Secret Plans that I had been holding all game. When I lost control of the chamber, Steve did not have enough force in his force pile to retrieve the 10 force. We were trading drains and blocking drains when time ran out. As far as I know, I was winning when time ran out but Steve still had some things he could have done. I feel bad about having it go to time because I was definitely the slow one. Maybe I was over-reacting to my careless mistake against Steve in the last tournament; but I was playing very deliberately and very carefully -- weighing all my alternatives. This is a testament to my respect for Steve as a player. I know that you only have to screw up once and the game is never over until the last card is lost. I apologized to Steve who had seemed annoyed and he responded graciously.
Timed Win + ?
Highs: Capturing Obi Wan and Leia with tracked destinies. Winning a game against Steve Brentson.
Lows: Having it be a timed game and having it be my fault. Especially in light of all the moaning I did about timed games in my last tournament.
No Sense in dueling...
Game 5 vs. Jimmy Schiemer 1758 Hunt Down/Dueling w/odds
Jimmy started Hunt Down with Epic Duel and Twileked for Imperial Arrest Order. I went with the usual Obis Hut and Careful Planning for Tosche Station. Jimmy immediately put 2 destiny 4 droids at the Meditation Chamber and inserted. I Put a Talz, and Harc Seff, and Luke at the Station on turn 2 in order to reduce the Loss to Odds. Jimmy immediately brought Vader down to duel Luke played Focussed Attack and won the duel with a total of 25 to my > 25. Luke Crosses over and I lost five off the top. As I lose the 5, the 3720 to 1 comes up and, since Luke is now his, we both have a total destiny of 6. No force loss there. Next turn I put Ben Kenobi at the Hut with his Lightsaber. I had a bunch of Senses in Hand and hoped that, if he had Circle, I Could draw low enough to Sense it. But no luck. I also could not find my dueling cards. So, a couple of turns later, Obi goes away too. Now I have to resort to Stealth. I put down Kessel and a ship to drain there and play avoid and Drain on the ground as well. However, I could not stop the force Hemorrhage at Obis Hut and I drew up when he got out his Reactor Terminal.
Full Loss -12
Highs: Making a game of it after losing both Luke and Obi in duels early. Not losing any force to odds. Fun deck to play against in that it made me think. This deck is posted on decktech and I had seen it. I deliberately did not change my deck to counter it because I wanted to see if I could handle it without adaptation. I do think I could have won with better draws and more patience. I realized at the end that he was packing a massive number of multiples and had accumulated a huge hand. An early Grimtash would have helped by shear force loss inflicted - not to mention getting a bunch of Vaders and Focussed Attacks and dueling cards..
Lows: Losing. Losing 2 duels.
Got my orange crush...
Game 6 vs. Jimmy Schiemer 1758 Yavin 4 Throne Room w/Revolutions
He started the Throne room and Careful Planning for the Farm, and the Swamp. I started Hunt Down and Twileked for Crush the Rebellion. You can not choke me. This is why I resist the temptation to take an Evader or 2 out of this deck every tournament. He Revolved my Meditation Chamber and saved 3 force. I played Evader and he grabbed it with What Are You Trying To Push On Us? No Problem, He plays another Revolution a turn Later and I Evadered that one on my next activation phase. I made a big show of getting another Evader from my reserve deck; but I never needed it. By that time I had so much force generation that it was no use for him to revolve anything. This was a battling game and this time I had the edge. I was tracking high destinies and hitting everything I shot at. I even choked Obi Wan with a tracked Visage. Fun game. Jimmy is a good guy and a good player like his brother Michael.
FW + 13
Highs: Revenge is sweet. Choking Obi.
Lows: None.
Well it was a fun tournament. Steve Brentson won it. I took fourth -- timed wins will do that :-(
The standings were not announced in an orderly manner. So I do not know for sure how the rest went. I think that maybe Jimmy Schiemer and Karl Sundberg were second and third.
Observations:
Hunt Down and Destroy the Jedi was by far the most used deck type. Some people were complaining that it needs to be made less attractive. Death Star 2 maybe will do this.
The new ruling about timed games is a good thing. I experienced it twice. Much fairer than the random hands down.
Props:
To all the really good players who showed up for this one. I did not have a bad game in the whole tourney.
To Paul for trading me the C-3PO Reflections foil to complete my collection.
To all the other guys who made me some good trades
Slops:
To myself for going to time in 2 games.
Thanks for reading,
rayc