the-brownie-is-no-brownie-tatooine-rev

Title: the-brownie-is-no-brownie-tatooine-rev
Author: Michael "Dvader" Girard
Date: Jul 10, 2000

So I finally get to talk to my good bud Jeremy after the Endor regional. He is touting the Hawk's Dark deck and convinces that I should take a look at it. I get the testers together and go through a guantlet on the Fourth of July, the dark deck gets wasted. I re-talk to Jeremy and he is still touting it, giving me some pointers left and right, telling me what I should be doing with it.

Me and my boy Garrison leave for Vegas Friday morning. After another boring Arizona car ride, we arrive making good time. We check into Arizona Charlies and head to the strip to be tourists. The beer at the Moo-Brewery isn't that good, so we head towards the Mirage. After lunch at The Dive, I sit down at a 1-5 stud table. I get smirks from older guys who think that I am just some dumb kid looking to throw his money away. I take two hands on flush draws and bluff three other hands out. I end up going $100 up in like 20 minutes. Brian comes and drags me away (cause I can never seem to leave when I am up). We go back to the casino, find Conklin, give him crap for having bad decks and head back to our room. :-) I stop at the 4-8 stud table, six hours later I leave down $40, I was at $180 and I was just telling myself to finish the last row on that rack...but it just didn't happen.

We get up and head for the restaurant for the tournament. I don't know why it is, but every tournament in vegas has to be in a dim lit place. The buffet included about the typical mexican food, but we had to pay for the drinks so that sucked. We arrived only to find that YJ was only in the second round. We ask Tim Guzman where the nearest Denny's is, he says there is a waffle house nearby, we say "NO, we need a freaking denny's". We find one and after a freaking 15 minute wait, we get seated. We look at the menu....no brownie. We ask the waitress, she has no clue, they have never had brownies. So we were screwed (only later did we find out that it is actually the choco cake). So we fill out decklists and head back.

My Decks
Light Deck - "I am Raph's Tech Light Deck" - Version of Raphael Asselin's deck, minus the jedi training cause I use Boushh/Reflection.
Dark deck - "Table 13 @ the Mirage" - Newer version of my Vegas Style, added Lobot and some other tech cards.

Game One
DS - Vs. Vegas guy's Ebo
I start stealing xwings. He gets set up. The thing that I noticed with my deck is that it has very little offense other then sabacc. I need to make modifications to add more offense. He is draining at two systems, I am retreiving with sabacc, so we are breaking even (except for the cards that he is losing to sabacc). I put lobot by himself at the docking bay. He comes with leia and Han, I barrier han. I lose lobot. next turn, it's epp vader/ig88. capture leia, hit han, + 10 or so cards. that does him in, I put zuckass (in my hand the whole time) at yavin4, beat on some ywings and fulfill battle order. I squeak one out.
FW +6

Game Two
LS - Vs. Brett Kitani's Hunt Down
I have previously beaten this deck by a bunch because he has no undercover spy protection. Well he draws first/second turn. This is where the game gets out of hand. I have a grimtaash, I should do it used, but I feel ballsy and do it lost. He doesn't have one double out of like 18 cards, but he does have a sniper, hutt smooch, and a you are beaten. I guess I am screwed. My second mistake is when I thought I had stacked the deck right, and I played luke, swung and hit tarkin and drew a 3, instead of a five which I thought was stacked. So I make him lose a couple here and there to Anger Fear, never get the falcon/han so I am done for.
FL -18 or so.

Game Three
DS - Vs. Brian Choongphol's Profit deck
I had him by his balls for the first couple turns. I scanned him and all he had was epp lando in his opening hand. I pulled lando to the tower, and dropped lobot. On about the fourth turn, he drew up and I didn't have a scanning crew. So the next turn, Boushh came to the tower. I lost lobot. Next turn came epp vader, he just narrow escaped away. His turn, he replaced lando and uncontrollable furyed vader. Well that was pretty much game. I lost ig-88 to some drains and profit damage. I am telling you, I need more offense in this deck.
FL by 20something

Game Four
LS - Vs. Shane Werner's Suicide Huntdown deck
Thas right, one of the @#$% talkers from Vegas. Well, needless to say, I played this game like a champ and gave it too him. I anger feared him, visored visioned him, and drained him at kessel, never going below 6 cards in hand. He lost and had to eat the bread.
FW by high 20's

Game Five
DS - Vs. local guys profit
I think he was relatively new. I set up lando and lobot. sabacced....a lot. beat up some stuff at Bespin:CC with zuckass in ship. epp vader beat up some characters, ig-88 captured ben with a tracked 6 destiny. I won
FW by high 30's

Game Six
LS - Vs. Brian Choongphool's TDIGIWATT deck
I insert some anger fears, visored vision away some cards. set up boushh and reflection. It's funny cause about 5 or so turn into the game he counts his deck and he is already down like 20 cards and he doesn't know where they went. He sets up dark deal, I beat on some ships with falcon/han/spiral. His ties/tallon rolls keep missing his hand. I end up draining him out after epp luke beats on some fellas.
FW by 20something.

I finish 4-2 +20something. Good enough for nineth place.
Arizona took top 3
4 of top 5
6 of top 10
12 of top 15
we took 14 from arizona and they all finished 3-3 or better.

Josh Martin won playing Ebo/Arconas and Classic Manip.

Not bad. Next stop Origins. I may take another look at the Hawk's deck, after all. I gots to beat down Lingrell with some mad tech. :-)

Props
Jeremy - thanks for the tech
Brian - thanks for riding with me
Josh - cause you are a pimp
Brandon - cause you aren't
Tim - for the 30's mustache
Brett - for a good showing
Jen - for showing that girl's kickass at YJ
Sinclair/Don - thanks for showing
Jay - for not showing

Slops
Dennys - for not telling us Clint meant that it was a choco cake and not an actual brownie
Hines - you know why :-)
My Inability to leave a poker table while up

Later,
Mike G