coruscant-regional-6-17-2000
Title: coruscant-regional-6-17-2000
Author: Jonathan "jonnychu" Chu
Date: Jun 18, 2000
---- Pre-tourney ----
The entire week before the tournament, starting Sunday the 11th, parts of Team Albany got together every night to playtest for 5 or so hours. I would go to Travis Desell's house, or he would come to mine; the Twiggs would come over, and the Sokols, or we would all just meet at the guild. We brought all sorts of stuff -- EBO, HB insert, Dagobah test 2, Dagobah test 5, Yavin 4 mains, mains with heavy SAC, you name it. One deck I put together and sent to the team was YOPs - I couldn't find a decklist anywhere so I kinda pieced it together from Mike Kessling's tourney report (nice report, Mike). It performed awesome - everyone starts Battle Order against Ops, and it does jack to the deck. So we're playing our Rallops and Hunt Down and CPI objective and all this stuff all week long against everything -- and the day before, we got no decks. What to play?
Little twigg has decided a long time ago just to stick with his Hunt Down and Y4 mains because he's the massa with those decks. Travis decides the day of to go COPs - corulag ops - and YOPs because nobody will expect them; Me and Twigg decide the day of to go the same. I personally didn't go RallOps, despite doing well at Ottawa and Ramapo with it, because I thought there would be heavy Revo even with the new objective; I figured people playing Revo would figure that other people would take out their anti-revo tech because _they_ would figure the Revo people wouldn't play it because of the new objective. Yeah. Whatever. There wasn't a drop of Revo at the tournament, so I played myself. Good job!
So Friday at 6 p.m. me and Travis leave for NJ. We drive past Cedar Grove and down to Plainsboro to stay at John Lolli's place. Hodur and Pete and Dan Bordier are tehre with Lolli testing; Hodur and Pete don't have decks and they're playing DBZ. Bordier is sporting some weird Profit deck and Lolli is playing some Set Your Course... beatdown deck. I had built a speeder ops deck the day before playing on the same planet (Anoat) to confuse people -- we didn't expect anyone to expect YOps -- and smacked some people around with it. It's still a good deck. Lolli's beatdown deck was struggling against all sorts of crazy stuff, but it won when it had to the day after. So Lingrell shows up and he has an ass dark deck that just sucks balls, and we kicked it around. He takes Anktopot out of retirement, me and Trav drive back to his place at 3 in the morning and we crash, only to get up 4 hours later to leave for the YJ tournament.
We get to the church at half past 8, to find not too many people there for YJ. I think there were 18 people. Well Travis borrows a dark deck from Dalton and a light from Phrim and I have a Padme deck and Tanks for dark, but who really wants to hear about YJ? I got 4th or something and Dalton lost to Brian Goyne in the finals. Sorry Mike.
People start showing up like mad for the SW:CCG tourney. There were 73 people in all! Most of the top players in the region show up to compete for the prize. I walk around and look at some fun games and talk to some people to see what people are playing -- there are a lot of ass decks and my confidence grows a bit. It starts a little bit after.
---The tourney---
First game: My LS vs Chris Talbot (1626)'s weird Tatooine Occupation with Sandwhirls
So Talbot is on Team Albany we've played each other before. I Organized lost and get 5 ywings down to the Spaceport docking bay fast; they go up for free. Flip second turn. He comes down throughout the course of the game with walkers and guys but I draw 3's and 5's consistently and clear him off while draining for at least 4 a turn. Before the game ends I retrieve everything. Win by 26.
2 +26
Highlights: the deck worked like a machine
Lowlights: none
Twigg and little Twigg had both won, as did everyone else on Team Albany besides Travis; he lost to Chris Praskac by 8. The only out of the ordinary thing that happened game 1 was Greg Hodur and Pete Flameini got paired up, and instead of playing they sat there and took a true tie, so each got 1
1(0) (and were thus undefeated but half a win ahead of everyone else). Sketchy but I guess it was a legal strategy?
Game two: DS Raithal Ops vs Marco Habert (1896)'s Rescue the Princess insert.
I had another strong start and got Lambda-class shuttles down to the Docking bay and up quickly, as well as an insert of 8 before he got to go. Unfortunately it didn't pop and he put down 8D8 (started EBG) and r2d2 down and inserted me himself. I flipped during my turn and drained him for 4 or more consistently the entire game. His turn, he put down a Bantha droid, increasing his total to 14; three or four of his inserts popped during the course of the game, and mine popped dealing me 5 damage, but my Ops held off his hit-and-run EPPs and between retrieval and hard drains, I won pretty handily. Win by 23.
4 +49
Highlights: the deck worked like a machine... plus hearing funny-sounding people asking the same question across the room: "what the hell are you playing?" and "those things move for free???" and "wait... so your power is 0 on the ground, but you're draining me for how much?" heheheh
Lows: my own insert hitting me for 5; an insert deck putting the hurt on my insert deck. I played this hoping to run into mains decks -- undesirable matchup
Twigg had won again by some obscene amount, and Travis also; everyone else, including Chris twigg, had lost. So now Twigg and I are the only undefeateds on the team. I'm paired up with Ray on table two and Twigg on table 1 against Pat Ziagos.
Game three: Yops vs Ray (1980)'s Set Your Course... beatdown deck.
My opening hand... was balls. 7 Ops and a Luke -- not a ywing or organized attack in sight!! Ray had thought I was playing Speeders, so he started Battle Order and played it safe his first turn, bringing out Oppressive, the D*War Room, and drawing some. During my turn, I fished out the farm and drew for ships. Still no Organized! But I got some Ywings. During his turn he scans my Luke away (damn), sees the Ywings and gives me a funny look. Down comes Vader. My turn, I flip with Ywings and Ops but it's not desirable - I don't have barely enough Ywings in my hand to flip and none to hold the system, so I'll be paying for my drains. I draw and get some more Ywings. As I finish my turn, he goes... "wait, I wanted to do something before you deployed anything, can I alter your Yarna?" I wouldn't let him since I'm an ass and it was a pretty high-stakes game... turns out he played multiple monnoks and would have wrecked me had it happened.
He goes and puts Commander Igar on Tempest 1, Blizzard 2 and a pilot at one of my sites and wrecks the hell outta an Op in a ywing. I houjix, he grabs. My turn I drain where I can and evade his stuff. I try to take control of the system with a bunch of ywings but he comes down without tolerance and wrecks the hell outta me with the Executor and a guy on it. Barriers and other junk do nothing because he plays a bunch of senses. Eventually he puts out Endor and Kashyyyk for more drains, but between Op retrieval, an All-wings for 8 and a Nar Shaddah for 4, and steady little ass drains, I stick around. He is slowly running out of force to do stuff with and my first EPP gets unscanned - Luke goes on a ywing to handle a Dreadnaught in space. The battle slowly turns and I finish off with a victory by 8 cards.
6 +57
Highlights: pulling it out - him not Altering fast enough and Imperial Decree never hitting the table (it was the last card in his deck)
Lowlights: a balls draw
Well Twigg had lost to Pat Ziagos by a bunch, but Travis won handily and so did little Twigg. Lolli and Praskac by this time had been paired off and agreed to a true tie -- thus being at the back of the undefeated pack. I made my way up to the first table to play Pat Ziagos.
Game four: Raithal Ops vs Pat Ziagos (1871)'s profit deck
Pat is a nice guy who plays with an eye on his own timer because he knows he plays really slow. At RamapoII my only non-finals loss had been to Pat, who had gotten a terrific hand (3 2/0's and revos) and had played the game really well. I felt better with this matchup, but it was not to be.
I have a good hand with some Ops, some troopers and lambdas. I get a cadet and an op at the swamp, and 2 lambdas at the system. Pat puts down Mos Eisley and draws.
I draw enough to flip the turn after. He comes down with C-3p0 and Artoo and plays A gift. Doh!!!! Next turn I insert, it pops his turn but he has the one don't forget the droids in his deck in his hand!!! So much for that. Well a drain of 4 every turn is putting the pressure on but he frees Han and starts his own drain/force loss. By turn 6 I am draining him at every site of mine and Raithal, and he is hitting me for 6 loss total. I do my big retrievals, he sets up Tat Celebration and increases the loss to 7 by with lando in Falc at the system. I can't draw my Zuckuss (it turns out to be the one card I saved for a Barrier) and what looks like a small win for me is slowly turning into a small win for him. I still think I can pull it out though. Then he On The Edges twice for 5 apiece and his damage does me in. There were a total of _0_ battles this game.
Loss by 3
6 +54
Highlights: hmm, I think I got a decent draw
Lowlights: A gift third turn and getting my insert with his his one protection
This loss knocks me down to Table 6 for game 5. Travis and Twigg had had to play and Travis's YOPs proved to be the victor. Scott Lingrell had beaten TJ. The way it was looking from here:
There were 6 undefeateds, 2 of which had 1 true tie (praskac and lolli). So they comprised tables 1-3. Table 4 was Ray vs Steven Gillepsie. Table 5 was Travis vs TJ, and 6 was me vs Little Twigg. It was gonna be close.
Game five: YOPs vs Chris Twigg (2169)'s Hunt Down beats.
Hmmm.. this is a matchup we had played often all week long. Twigg plays his deck like a champ and knows that Battle Order won't do anything - he starts Secret Plans to slow down the retrieval. I am worred because my only HD protection is 2 EPP Luke and 2 EPP Obi - Ill be feeling the Visage pain all game long.
He gets a balls draw with no sites - he draws. I organized lost and get like six ywings down and up. Next turn, he puts out Vader and Vader's saber - still no locations by the Massa. My turn, I get all the locations in my deck but 1 out, with 1 in my hand also and flip. I lose the other 1 off the top to Visage. He drains and moves over to block and draws. Still no locations! I drain for a ton and evade his Vader, putting down more guys to drain. Draw a Lost in the Wilderness!! He drains, I Lost in the Wilderness... and draw one of my 5 1's in the deck. Oh well. He comes down with Walkers and 2/2 pilots, I clear them with an EPP and an op and kill off Vader too for fun. Vader comes back and I barrier and run again. EVentually I retrieve with Nar Shaddah for 8, then retireve with All-wings for 12 and have 1 card in the lost pile because of Visage. Win by 33.
8 (+87)
Highlights: Man, the deck worked like clockwork!
Lowlights: He got a horrible draw...
Travis beat TJ by 29 so the way it looks now:
3 undefeateds (Pat Ziagos, Lolli and Praskac) and two of them have true ties
I'm the highest with one loss at 8 +87
Travis is the second highest with 8 +80
the next guy is at +65
Ziagos and Praskac are paired and I have to play John Lolli.
Basically we're looking at a win by Praskac's EBO over Ziagos' Scum and Villainy, and my DS insert should be able to handle Lolli's droids insert because of the built-in insert protection (my inserts did no damage all day... sucks) and huge drain potential. A win by 20 or more would put me safely in the final. A win by John would put him in.
Game 6: DS insert vs John Lolli (2021)'s Y4 droids
He gets a good draw and puts out Endor: Chief Chirpa's hut, Toryn Farr and Artoo and inserts. Damn!! He notices I start nothing and "says 'oh! I'll look through my deck for my grimtaash... damn it must be in my force pile!!'" This psyches the hell outta me because I don't play Well Guarded and a lost Grim would absolutely wreck me. So I make sure to screw myself from then on and never draw too much. Good play by John. I put down a total of 8 for insert during my turn (a cadet and an op at the swamp) and play two lambdas to move up to the system. He lost organized's and gets 3 squadron ships -- sucks!!! So down come two gold squadron ywings to beat the hell outta my ships. I lose a few cards on top of it. My turn, I activate it all and play Zuckuss to kill a ywing (was hoping for both). He signals for Battle Plan and EPP Obi comes down to clear my site and cards. This is looking really bad right now -- I flip two turns later and insert pops for 1 damage. He unflips me the turn after next with EPP LUke and EPP Obi moving around and 5's for destinies. I have gotten some drains off and am trying to maneuver around but his insert of 15 always threatens me (he had gotten 8d8 out second turn) and I'm being stupid and careful not too draw too many doubles. I never short-range for the big one nor abyssin -- his drains at Kessel and Coruscant are killing me and the insert threat stays constant. Eventually I have 3 cards in my deck, 2 active and 6 in my hand - 2 lambdas, a barich, 2 ops
and an abyssin. He inserts me. It ends up on the bottom and I am stuck with what to do ------ with two active force, do I deploy two ops and retrieve the big one hoping it doesn't pop, or go lambda, lambda and barich at coruscant for free and pay one to clear the system? Well I make the wrong decision - I deploy one op to retrieve, barich and the ships and battle to clear. He drains for 2 (i have to lose them from my hand -- they abyssin and the op) and I drain for 7, search for a site and clear up the insert. He drains for two again and I'm down to two cards in my deck, and his insert. So I have no way out and he wins by 5.
8 +82
Highlights: it had rained and the humidity broke!!
Lowlights: He totally played me like a chump.
So Lolli got into the finals against Ziagos. I felt really bad ---- Travis had won by 29 and had I won by 23, I would've been in, otherwise if I had won by less Travis would've been in. But of course, I choke like a bum.
Lolli won the final duel 2(+1) to win.
The tournament was run well by Rich Haman and it was a lot of fun playing goofy decks that nobody expected. Ywings and Lambdas? HEll yeah!! The true tie situation was a little odd at best --- stacking the points in their favor. I'm at a loss for a solution. I don't know who finished top 10 - i just know Travis got 3rd and should've been in finals had it not been for me playing like balls and perhaps the true tie scenario.
Thanks for reading,
Jonathan Chu