cookeville-tn-06-10-00
Title: cookeville-tn-06-10-00
Author: Bill "BRay" Gordon
Date: Jun 10, 2000
It has been about a month since my last tournament, and I wasn’t even sure if I would be able to play, until about an hour before I needed to leave for the one and a half hour drive to Cookeville. I usually keep four light and four dark decks build at all times, so I grabbed a couple of each and headed out the door. I didn’t even have time to confirm directions to the tournament location, until I was already on the road. But a call along the way, got me in the right direction.
There was only nine in attendance, and I had not even decided which of the two decks I was going to play until the first pairings were up. On the light side, I chose my Ultimate Numbers and Assassins, which is listed on my Decktech page. For the dark, I chose a Big Blue ISB deck. I had never played it in a tourney before, and had only play tested it a couple times against Throne room mains.
Game 1 Light vs. Ross Spires - Hunt Down
There really was not much to mention about this game. My first turn, I wind chime for a spy, deploy it with an Elom first turn, and cancel Visage. Just as designed, he tries to fight of off the eloms from draining on the executor sites, and does not have much success at it. But it is several turns before I get an odds to deploy, and finally the numbers start hurting him. I make a mistake and deploy EPP Luke on the Meditation Chamber with a spy to do some damage to Vader. I barely miss Vader, he plays smart and doesn’t draw destiny, Luke gets stranded there for the rest of the game, Ross forfeits Vader. IOA was on the table so I could not Nabrun him Luke out. The next turn he deploys Vader to a battle ground site, and flips the objective. Now My numbers are not as effective because I only have a total of eight. He ends up loosing resistance to force drains or odds loss, and with me canceling his drains, battling his imperials at sites, and odds loss, the end is inevitable. Full win +19
Game 2 Dark vs. Andy Welch - X wing swarm HB
The first half dozen turns neither of us do much. I use my twileks to get reactor terminal, security Precautions, IAO, imperial Decree, First Strike, Battle Order. I am drawing all of my cards and re-circulating, but cannot find my ships. It is kind of a stale mate for a while, just waiting for the other to make the first move. All this time I am just setting up my destiny draws. I go ahead and make the first move by deploying the 3rd marker, Tempest 1, Igar, and four various ISB agents as passengers, then flip. He then deploys bacta tank, (which I cancel with SHUoSHD), EPP Luke, Epp Leia, and a couple other little guys. I draw my two sixes for destines, but it doesn’t clear the all of his characters. We then battle again, and I get my destinies again, which does clear the site this time. This pretty well convinces him to stay in space for a while. This is great for me, because now I have my ships and can concentrate in space. He starts to pile up his X-wings on Coruscant and Kessell. Then flips his objective and drains me for three at each system. If you have not read my article about Tricks of the Trade, do so after you read this report, because it addresses a HB trick. I deploy to Hoth system, because I wanted to get some of the forfeit fodder up on the ships, and get Imperial Decree working. I go ahead and probe, but it wasn’t the base. I look at him and ask, is your hidden base on the table? He then proceeds to look at the Hoth system and scan over to Tatooine and Kessell. He looks at me and says good trick. He knew I just found out where to look for his hidden base. To make a long story short, I go probe Tatooine and Kessell. Sure enough Kessell got it. But in the mean time he was draining me and canceling my drains. After I probe we are pretty even, but both of us are pretty equal on force. I activate a couple of cards then I hear the TD say TIME, finish your turns and it is over. I must have been focused on the game, because I did not hear any advance time warnings. On his turn he drains me for three, initiates two battles to retrieve two, while I loose two, and ends up having six more force than me. This new last sequence of turn ruling just cost me a game. Had the old hands down ruling been in force, I would have won by one card. Oh well I guess it is really my fault by not paying closer attention to the clock. Timed loss –15
Game 3 Light vs. Mike Wudhapitak – Hunt Down
This game starts about like the first one. I twilek for a spy, deploy it and an elom to cancel Visage. I also get an odds this game, and insert it. His first activation for six, pops the odds making him loose seven cards. He chooses not to deploy yet, so I get to drain for two my next turn. Not bad him having eleven cards in his lost pile at the start of the second turn. He waits again to deploy, so I drain again, then beef up the Holotheater with four eloms total, and the spy. I am only getting seven force, to his fifteen, because he has deployed three 2/0 locations and the DS. Funny thing though, he starts throwing away his dueling cards, not realizing I am not playing with the hit squad. Then he brings down Vader, Danik Jerico, and a couple other imperials against my eloms. I win the battle and he has to loose the other imperials to forfeit, but Danik eats the bothan spies soup. I come back with another battle and draw a zero for destiny. Danik eats an elom and is now power five, so I move my remaining three eloms over to the Med Chamber. His turn he deploys Dr. E. to the Med Chamber and Vesden to the holotheater, then moves Vader over with Dr. E. Since I play a numbers deck Vesden is bad news, so I deploy a Bothan spy, elom, and Wedge to the battle Danik and Vesden. I draw a five clearing his side, and Wedge is my only survivor, I then move him over next door. He replaces Vader with EPP Vader. After it is all said and done, I have two eloms left standing, and his site is cleared. This was the pivotal sequence of events, because I was able to drain there for the rest of the game. He was running low on characters, but deployed his walkers over on Endor. He also put Bossk in bus, and something else up on Kashyyk. All of this was ok with me, because I just used the numbers and bargain table to work to my advantage. When the time was right, I battled his walkers with Luke and attrition cleared his cards. At that point battle order was going to hurt him, forcing him to activate to drain with odds in his deck. Full win +30
The unfortunate part about the tourney at this point, is the top three players are all playing the same side.
Game 4 Brandon Young – Profit
This starts very similar to game two. I am using Twileks to look for the effects, all the while drawing, re-circulating and getting key cards. He is basically force choked, only getting five force to my thirteen. I make the first move by deploying Tempest 1, Igar, and some ISB fodder, making sure I have my destinies set too. Of coarse he tries to battle after saving up force for a couple turns. He deploys Obi, Master Luke, Orrimarko, Han, and plays Jedi Presence. I draw 7, & 6, but not clearing the site so he moves back to the chamber. I have control of the game the entire way. I could tell he was getting frustrated, because he was force choked and not making a dent in the big blue. If he wanted to deploy where he could do damage, he was going to have to come to me, because of CHYBC and ISB drain -1. At one point he deployed Boush, but she got trampled. Later in the game he tried another battle, but 12 for attrition is tough to over come. Late in the game, I go to space at Endor, so I can drain for free. He just had no answers to the deck, and the end was near. Full win +31
All three of the top players won our last game, so I ended up with third for the tourney. We got CC as prize support, which is nice for a change. Billy Pemerton did a great job running the tourney, and the store had plenty of room for all of us to play.
1st - Mike Crosby 8(+83)
2nd - Andy Welch 7(+47)
3rd - Bill Gordon 6(+65)