memorial-day-bbq-5-28-00
Title: memorial-day-bbq-5-28-00
Author: Doug "Phrim" Faust
Date: Jun 10, 2000
MEMORIAL DAY BARBEQUE 5/28/00
Cormwells Heights, PA
(yes, this is a tourney)
Well, Nathan decided to do something a bit different for this Memorial Day, combining the traditional Memorial Day barbeque with an 8-game Star Wars CCG tourney! So I was pretty excited about it, first tourney I would get to go to over summer break, and it should have a pretty good turnout. Anyway, I was content using the pretty much the same Dark deck as I had been using, I still really liked the deck, and I was pretty good at playing it. It's a Hunt Down/IAO with lots of destiny, only recent additions were a Sniper and a 2nd YAB and Dr. Evazan. I was a lot more iffy on my Light deck however. The Falcon deck that I was using before went 3-7 at Ramapo, so that was out. In the end, I decided to go with a simple Profit/Mains deck. I knew that it wasn't the best deck out there, but I had some experience playing Profit, and it was the best I could come up with on short notice. Just 3 Master Luke, 3 Ben (that's all I own), 3 EPP Han, 2 EPP Leia, 2 Chewie, and lots of other characters, battle stuff, and the sort. 2 Nabrun so I can actually get off of Tatooine. I knew that Ralltiir Ops and stuff like my Dark deck would completely wreck this deck, but what can you do...
Anyway, I was having a little LAN party with my friends the night before, and I ended up staying up until like 4am, which is never a good thing the night before a tourney, especially a tourney that starts at 10am. The alarm goes off at 7:30am, and I manage to finally get myself out of bed at 8am. I take a shower, grab my decks, and end up heading out the door at 9am. So I'm not exactly sure how to get there, Nathan's directions were from way I wasn't really familiar with, but it mentioned getting on the Roosevelt Blvd, and I knew where that was. So the directions say something about gettieng on Rt 63 from there, and then get on Rt 13. So I get on the Roosevelt Blvd, and look for Rt 63, but don't see it, and it turns out that the portion of the Roosevelt Blvd I was on *was* Rt 13 (in addition to Rt 1). So I'm confused and stuff, but keep driving. Eventually, the signs for Rt 13 say to get off Rt 1, so I get on Rt 13. So the directions say that Rt 13 was supposed to be Bristol Pike, but the part of Rt 13 I happened to get on was Frankford Ave. Hmm. I keep driving, hoping that it will turn into Bristol Pike soon, but I don't even know if I'm going the right direction. Anyway, Rt 13 turns out to be this little road with lights everywhere, so the going is pretty slow. I keep going, but the 10am start time passes by, 10:10 passes by, and I'm getting a little worried. Oh well, if I have to take a 0(0) for the first game, that was cool with me. So eventually I pass the exit for Rt 63 where the directions assumed I would get on Rt 13, so I know I'm heading the right way now, and I get to Nathan's house at around 10:20am. Next time I'm just gonna bring a map. :-) Turns out everyone's just sitting around waiting (for me?), and we get started pretty soon. Only 10 people there are playing, so going 8 games is real iffy, but everyone agreed to decide after 6. So we get started...
Game 1: My Dark vs. Jared Napolitano's (1677) Throne Room Mains
I have never played Jared before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. And Throne Room Mains isn't the best matchup for my Dark deck, it usually comes down to the draw, I think I tend to split these games about 50/50. Anyway, we get started, and I don't get Vader in my opening draw. No problem, these things happen, I'll just draw him up. Well, I go look for a Docking Bay, and notice there's no Vader in my Force Pile either. Well, not exactly a good draw for me. He's not doing much either, just getting his 2/0 sites out, and we're both being pinged by Visage. Next turn, I draw trying to get Vader. No beans. Next turn, same. Like on the 4th turn, I manage to draw Mara. Well, it was something, I guess. So I deploy Mara to the Yavin Swamp, kill a Nudj, and move over to the Throne Room. Well, that was prolly a mistake on my part. He's activating a crapload of Force, and deploys EPP Luke, EPP Han, Wedge, and I think ECC Lando or something, and battles. He hits Mara, so I'm in trouble. I think I hit Han or something. I'm already losing a bunch of Force, and I have a Vader's Obsession in my hand (but no Focused), so I try dueling Luke. I figure the worst thing that could happen is I lose and cancel the battle because Mara evaporated. And with the destiny in my deck, I probably wouldn't lose. So he draws a 1,3 and I draw a 6,4. Except he Glancing Blows my 6, and we end up tying. Well, that was a waste. So I still end up losing a whole crapload of Force and Mara. So he moves his guys over to the Swamp where I conveniently killed his Nudj and starts draining for 1. Anyway, I finally get Vader in my hand. About time. Unfortunately, it's just EPP Vader. He has Goo Nee Tay out, so I couldn't really be at all effective against his stuff on Yavin (especially having to pay 4 to battle and all), so I drop him at the Cloud City Docking Bay. I have two YAB in my hand, so I'm not worried about Fury. Well. He Grimtaashed my hand (I only had like 6-7 cards in it too!) and got both my YABs, then deployed Fury. Ugh. So anyway, he deploys Jeroen Webb, Kal Fal, and Melas to the Holotheatre to cancel my Visage. This certainly isn't good, as I had lost my Come Here You Big Coward off the top of my Reserve Deck earlier. But I have an angle, and I drop ECC Iggy at the Holotheatre and battle. Target Melas. Draw a 2. Well, there goes my angle. I kill some people with my destiny, and lose Iggy. He reinforces with Obi, and I transit Vader to the Executor hoping that I'll draw a Circle so I can make a last-ditch effort at dueling Obi (or at least losing Vader so I don't have to take Fury damage any more). So Vader plays Hide and Seek with Obi and friends, and I finally draw my Circle. I move over and duel (again without Focused). He draws a 2,3 or something and I draw a 1,2. Ugh. So his lack of a Saber means we tie, again. So anyway, I no longer have anything in my deck that can do any damage to him, so I draw up. FL-16, 0(-16)
Highlights: Well, I didn't lose my duels...
Lowlights: Not winning my duels, getting YABs Grimtaashed before he played Fury, everything basically...
Game 2: My Light vs. Chris Praskac's (2049) Tatooine Scum
Chris is a really good player, but he got beat by Livio first round because he got his Boushh eaten by the Rancor or something. Anyway, this game was just a joke from the very start. I started my Profit stuff, he starts Jundland Wastes and plays Combat Readiness to convert my Jabba's Palace. He starts Jabba and Ephant or something in the AC. First turn, he converts my Audience Chamber with his JP text. Then he goes and puts all the 1/0 JP sites in-between Jabba's Palace and the Audience Chamber so it would take forever to deploy and move there. I start to get my Mains and the such out, but I can't seem to find Luke. He gets guys out and starts draining. We have some minor skirmishes, and I keep Sensing his Imperial Barriers and None Shall Passes, but he grabbed my first Sense, so that's a losing battle. No real important battles happened, and eventually he got Scum And Villany out. He only ended up using it like twice though. I get Artoo and A Gift in my hand, deploy Artoo, and try to move him over, but he reminds me about Ephant Mon. Grumble. Anyway, I can't free Han, and there's pretty much nothing I can do to make him lose Force, so I draw up my remaining Force. FL-24, 0(-40)
Highlights: huh?
Lowlights: His deck just bent my deck over and spanked it...
Game 3: My Dark vs. Gus D'Alessio's (1585) MWYHL Test to 5
This game was a bit scary. I get out Vader first turn at the Cloud City Docking Bay, but he Transmission Terminated my Visage before it did any damage. So next turn, I went and got another one, and he canceled it again. Meanwhile, I've got guys at both of my battleground Docking Bays, but I'm looking for my Search And Destroy. And I've got my Coward out. He's got a Projection at my Endor Docking Bay, and has the Holotable out with another Projection. However, for some reason he's not draining at all at his Holotable, maybe he didn't want to pay 3 for his Battle Plan or something. Anyway, he tests though pretty quickly, I'm not doing anything to stop him, and I got out my 3rd Visage, which he also canceled. I hit him with a Lost Monnok, and he loses 3 Off The Edges, he's somewhat upset about that, but Coward is stopping that anyway. He gets Test 5 done and puts a 7 on it, but doesn't retrieve anything because of Coward, and I get my Search And Destroy out. I've got EPP Vader and Tarkin at the Cloud City Docking Bay (with Crush out), but he drops EPP Obi and EPP Luke there and draws lots of 7's from his Jedi Test, and hits everyone. I play I Have You Now, and hit Luke, so I don't have to take any battle damage, and I wipe out his characters. However, he killed all my characters there so my Search And Destroy was canceled. Vader gets quickly replaced next turn, but I don't drop another Tarkin. I drain, he Surprise Assaults for 7, I lose a Force, and on an impulse I grab his Surprise Assault. This seems to frustrate him quite a bit, I don't think he has any other characters to throw at me, so he just draws up. FW+18, 2(-22)
Highlights: Coward
Lowlights: He shut down most of my damage, all I was left with was paying for a drain of 1...
Game 4: My Light vs. Ted Panczyszyn's (1719) Hunt Down Seekers and Odds
Ted's always a fun guy to play against. He told me in advance that he was playing a Seeker deck, and that this deck had only lost once against Profit. So I'm certainly on my toes. He puts EPP Vader at the Death Star Docking Bay so he's not losing force to Visage. I lose some to Visage, and deploy Master Luke and free my EPP Han. I go ahead and retrieve the 4 Force or something that's there, and he goes and puts a Leia Seeker at Jabba's Palace. Now, the Leia Seeker doesn't really bother anyone in the AC right now, but I have Leia in my hand, and I'd like to do something with her. So I deploy the Bacta Tank I was lucky enough to draw, deploy Leia at JP to set off the Seeker, and Tank her. He deploys an Undercover Garindan at the AC. I get some sites out, including Obi's Hut, the Cantina, Mos Eisley, and I think Yoda's Hut, so I have plenty of Force to work with. I deploy Leia at Jabba's Palace and move Luke and Han over. He deploys a Luke Seeker at Obi's Hut next door. Since it worked so well last time, I deployed Chewie to Obi's Hut, set off the Seeker, Tanked him, and got him back out. He deploys U-3P0 to Jabba's Palace. I move my guys over to Obi's Hut, and U-3P0 follows. Here I make a bit of a mistake. He's got Vader, U-3P0, and Garindan on the table, so I figure he's not playing Odds, so I ditch my Don't Forget The Droids to Visage. I should know by now that Ted *always* plays Odds, even in a Hunt Down Seeker deck. :-) Ted just smiles and puts down Tech M'or on the Executor and picks up Vader. No Odds though. I finally Terminate his Visage. Since he's got an Undercover spy at Obi's Hut, that lets him deploy his EPP Vader there. He wants to do that and then YAB Luke and then battle, but since I started Goo Nee Tay, he doesn't have enough Force. He ends up just deploying Vader and YAB'ing Luke, and Han happily runs away on my turn, and I reinforce him with EPP Leia. Vader follows, so Luke SATMs U-3P0 and drains. I just shuffle them over to the Cantina, so he deploys an Undercover Labria there. Meanwhile, he's not doing me much damage at all, now that Visage is gone, and he's taking 2-3 from my objective, regardless of whether or not I drain. Not real sure on the rest of the details, he deployed another Seeker and I did the Chewie/Bacta thing again, I killed Vader, and he didn't really have an angle after that, so he battled me with a bunch of scrub spies and stuff and lost. While we were fighting that battle, the one Odds that he managed to insert did pop, but I just played my other DFTD on it. FW+22 (I think), 4(+4)
Highlights: Chewie: 3, Seekers: 0. :-)
Lowlights: Losing a DFTD against Ted. What was I thinking? :-P
Game 5: My Light vs. Andy Talaga's (1823) Hunt Down deck
Well, I was recovering from my initial losses fairly nicely, but I got to play Andy next, and he wanted some revenge for the huge win I pulled over him at the RamapoCon Team Tourney. He started Secret Plans or something against me, and I of course went and got my Goo Nee Tay. He started Dannik and Mara in the Audience Chamber against me, and dropped Amanaman first turn. Uh-oh. Getting characters placed out of play is *not* good for a Profit deck. I couldn't really take that on first turn, so he deployed Vader second turn at the Audience Chamber or something. My attack plan is starting to form in my hand, but I need another turn to save up enough Force. He reinforces with Dengar or something in the Audience Chamber, and I drop Master Luke, his Saber, Ben, and Chewie. I end up Clashing Dannik, bouncing Amanaman, playing Gift Of The Mentor, and wiping everyone else out and then some. Chewie dies, but he comes back Ben-style. Dannik leaves a bit later, so I free Han, but I forgot about his Secret Plans, and don't retrieve any. So a few turns later, I think, he's got Vader, Dannik, and Amanaman, and I've got my mass of mains, so I Clash Vader, bounce Amanaman, and wreck on Dannik (someone else may have been there as well to get wrecked upon). He ends up losing Amanaman from his hand, so the out-of-play threat is gone. After those big battles, he's short on cards and characters, and I've still got my EPPs running around. Suffice to say, after a few more minor skirmishes, I manage to drain him out. FW+17, 6(+21)
Highlights: Winning despite all the out-of-play stuff Andy had out. It was a really fun game, too.
Lowlights: Completely forgetting about Secret Plans
Game 6: My Dark vs. Kim Caton's (1845) MWYHL Anti-Drain
As Nathan originally called the pairings out, I was paired against Andy again, and Andy didn't seem very happy, he was scared of me or something. :-) Anyway, Ray noticed an error, and I got repaired against Kim. Well, let's just say that this matchup happened at Ramapo. And I lost horribly, because there was nothing my deck could do against hers. Since then, I threw in another YAB and a Sniper, both of which would come in useful, but I still highly doubted that I'd be able to do much against her. I manage to get Vader out first turn, which is good of course, and I get my Coward out pretty early (as opposed to not at all at Ramapo). She cancels Visage before it does anything, so I get out another one, and she cancels that too. She puts down an Undercover Bothan Spy at my site, but I just Sniper it. So far, so good. She gets Son Of Skywalker trained to Test 1 in average time, and plays Uncontrollable Fury on Vader, but I YAB it. I'm looking for my Search And Destroy, but I'm not finding it, can't find my other Docking Bay for a second battleground either. Soon I find the Search And Destroy, but the second Docking Bay is nowhere to be found, despite the fact that I'm searching for it with IAO every turn. I've been saving five or six Force for a long time, so I figure it must be there, and I jokingly comment that it's probably on the bottom of your Force Pile, where all the stuff you need hides. Lo and behold, there it is, very last card. So I get my Search And Destroy out, but she gets the Holotable out with a Projection, and plays the other Projection on my other Docking Bay. Then she gets out Kessel and puts some ships there, including Lando in Falcon. This is where it starts to hurt. I've been holding onto my ships because I knew her deck, but I've only got 3 ships in my entire deck, so right now I have Bossk in Bus and Zuckuss. I really can't swallow the 3 drain, so I deploy them at Kessel, but I don't have enough to battle. What a lamebrain move. So I completely forgot about Order To Engage, which she had deployed some time before, so I lose 3 right there. Then she throws down some more ships and an X-wing Cannon, hits (but doesn't make Lost) Zuckuss, uses the Light version of Power Pivot to make one of my ships power 0, plays Punch It!, destroys all my ships, reduces all of my attrition with Yoda, plays Legendary Starfighter, and makes me lose some battle damage. Well, that about wraps it up folks. She for whatever reason doesn't get any more spies to block my drain, so I still have my one drain and of course the Search And Destroy damage. I'm looking for my other Visage, but not finding it. She's draining me for 3 at Kessel, 1 at the Holotable, and making me lose 2 every turn from Legendary Starfighter, so the game is clearly hers. FL-10, 6(+11)
Highlights: I only lost by 10 (not quite sure how I managed to pull that off)
Lowlights: Deploying those ships. What an idiot I am.
Anyway, everyone gets wrapped up, and I end up finishing 6th out of 12, not as good as I would have liked. Big thanks to Nathan for letting us use his place for a tourney, running everything smoothly, and of course for all the great food. Having a tournament at a barbeque party was a pretty cool idea, just wish more people showed up. So I take off, and of course being the absent-minded guy I am, just leave my bag full of cards at Nathan's house, so I have to double back and pick them up. I decide to go a different way home, taking I-95, and I get home in 40 minutes, compared to the 80 minutes it took to get there. I guess that was the correct way to go. :-)
Anyway, that's my last tournament before the Regional, so I hope my decks are good enough, as I doubt I'll change them much. I have so little time to playtest or anything now that I have a full time job (also the reason why this report hasn't been finished until now). I really don't expect to win the regional, or even place, but it's a great opportunity to get together with all the great people in this region and have a good time. So I'm looking forward to it, and you can certainly expect another report on that subject from me. Maybe even in a timely fashion, too. :-)
Until next time...
--
Doug Faust
dlf14@cornell.edu
SM Rogue 40, based in Ithaca, NY