comic-con-open-2000
Title: comic-con-open-2000
Author: Tim "Info Broker" Guzman
Date: Jul 25, 2000
Well after being out of town for a couple of weeks, I am one beat man. I nearly slept all
day on Monday. The first weekend Chris Hines and I went to Origins and had a blast,(I
never had time to write a report from that.) Then this past weekend a lot of us went to
San Diego Comic-Con from Vegas. We had three car groups driving up. So a total of
nine people went up from Vegas. I had the hook up for a place to stay. Matt Lafontaine’s
Mom calls me up and says she has a Nephew in San Diego who owns this Apartment
Complex and that I can stay in a one Bedroom Apartment for free. So I canceled my
room reservations and jump on that opportunity. Now when we got there, this was just a
one bedroom apartment so it was a tight squeeze with 5 people staying with me. Never
the less it was free so it was worth it.
I was practicing with proxy decks a lot before this Tournament, because I expected to
get my DSII cards on time before the event. I thought I had some cool ideas, but it meant
little really. As it turned out I didn’t get my cards in time. So I ended up playing with my
old decks with what little cards I was able to borrow from others. We had some good
players at the event with, Paul Feldman, Clayton Atkins, Greg Miller, Kevin Shannon, Joe
Floyd, Jim Lafferty, Steve Greenburg, and many others. Here are the decks I went with:
DS: My Huntdown with more Systems to get around Honor of the Jedi, and one more
Alter, and some surprise assaults instead of Torture, and Imperial Barriers were added as
well.
LS: My Profit with DSII cards added to make it rock. Like adding the new starting card
and insurrection and activate more at Docking bays. It generates a lot of force it was fun.
With not that many DSII cards and not really that much time to playtest I didn’t really
expect to do very well. Plus I really didn’t think my Huntdown could hold up, but it did
fine, and I really didn’t have time to build anything else anyway. I was determined to have
a good time and talking with all the players and putting a face to the names I see here was
cool. I didn’t take any notes so all my games are from memory.
Game 1: My DS vs Paul Todd Feldman’s EBO
When I saw this I was so happy. My Huntdown takes down EBO 8 out of 10 times.
However this time did not prove to be good for me. I used to play with 3 evaders in my
deck, but I took it down to 2 and he was able to get an early choke going with an
revolution on my Med Chamber. I did find my systems eventually, but it was little to late.
I deploy to hoth with ships to slow down some drains, but he was backing up with ships
also. Soon I ran out of ships and he did get a good beatdown on me. Honor of a Jedi
prove to hurt me this game. I wasn’t losing from my Visage, but if I starting draining on
the Executor I would be the only one losing from visage. I did have a drain their for 4 but
when he got Rebel Fleet out it meant little. I had some bad luck during this game as well.
Ever SAC draw I did I drew a 6 or 7, but ever battle I did I drew a 1 or 2. The only good
thing is that he was having some bad draws as well. I end up losing by 16.
FL by 16
0(-16)
Highs: Playing Paul Feldman, we never did get matched up before so this was the first
time.
Lows: Bad destiny draws...yuck
Game 2: My LS vs Tony Ameng’s SFS with Flagship Ops
I friend of mine just built one of these decks and it could be brutal and have retrieval
pretty good. I was a little worried at first, but I figured I could do ok with a few good
choices. He set up FSO really quick and was draining a system sooner than I expected. I
spread thin at my sites and freed han to retrieve my 10 force that I lost through his drains.
I did a well time Grimtaash to get rid of 3 ties and 2 All power to weapons out of his
hand. I altered his Dreaded Imperial Starfleet so he could stop my drains, and then profit
damage did him in. Not to mention I hit him again with another grimtaash so he didn’t
retrieve to much. Full win by 24.
2(+8)
Highs: Grimtaash saves the day.(twice)
Lows: Not much really
So now I am thinking if I win every game by 25 or more I might be in the final. Of course
that is a tall order, but there is nothing wrong with hoping and planning :)
Game 3: My DS vs Matt Lafontaine’s There is Good In Him
Matt is a up and coming player from Las Vegas. We did some playtesting so we know
each others decks pretty well. He is starting to make some really good decision to win
games. First turn I get Vader out to capture Luke which almost was a bad decision on my
part. He comes down and beats up on Vader so I lose Vader. He then plays Out of
Commission and the only two cards in my Lost pile are Twilek and Vader so I am like
CRAP. Lucky for me he grabs the Twilek and I am saved. I think I would have lost this
game if he chose Vader. We had some good battle in space, he did get some ships to fight
against me, but he couldn’t stand up to my fleet. Vader with 4-Lom and Mara was taking
care of the ground and I squeezed out the win by 15. Full Win by 15
4(+23)
Highs: Occupying three battle grounds to still make him lose to visage.
Lows: Playing someone from Vegas, seems to happen all the time.
Game 4: My LS vs Wayne Waitman’s Endor Ops
Endor OPS oh my god I didn’t think I would do well against this. I was hoping for a
good starting draw and at the same time hoping he didn’t get ephant mon on his starting
draw. Well as it turn out I did get Boushh in my starting draw so I deploy her to the
Bunker first turn. That proved good later in the game. He got burned a couple of times
with Narrow Escape and OTE out. I had to do some Jedi Mind tricks to keep him
deploying to his systems just to get him to deploy more stuff from his hand. He was
draining like made in space with the character that adds to drains and Ominous rumors, it
was bad. I had to lose like 8 a turn. But I kept asking question like “how much power
you have there?” and “do you have ability there?” So he kept deploying some back up
which I was happy about. I did my damage and it was enough for the win. Full win by 10
6(+33)
Highs: Well I was winning, but these new DSII cards are keeping my dif low.
Lows: Not being able to take out his force at the Endor Docking bay.
Well I didn’t have a chance anymore for the final, my dif was to low, but I was still going
to try and have a good finish. My other Vegas players were doing pretty good as well.
Chris Hines was pretty close to me so I was thinking we might play each other, but as it
turn out we didn’t and we played with the same side so we didn’t have a chance to which
was cool.
Game 5: My DS vs Chris Baker Baster(sp?) HB deck with weapons.
He had a cool looking deck. But everything was going my way in this game. My first turn
I activate and draw a couple and save some. His first turn he loses the effect ‘your insight
serves you well’ and grabs Honor of a Jedi(like everyone else was doing). He deploys a
ship to the Point and says its my turn. I deploy Vader to the Med Chamber with Presence
all ready there, and flip my objective and then Alter Honor of a Jedi. YES good draw and
he didn’t have it immune to Alter yet. Well since he didn’t have any Visage protection
except for that, that hurt him for awhile. I was winning all battle in space and my senses
was hurting all his cool interrupts. I was subtracting 2 from his battle destiny’s because
Vader was at the Med Chamber and he seemed to be always drawing 2’s. He did manage
to cancel Visage with a spy and then on the next turn he drain and I hit him with a
Surprise Assault and a track destiny 7 and 5, so that was game for me. Full Win by 24.
8(+57)
Highs: Altering Honor of a Jedi, second game I played and still got around that awesome
card.
Lows: Everything really went my way I really can’t think of anything.
Game 6: My LS vs Steve Greenburg’s Bring Him before Me
Oh great I have to play a World Finalist, and on top of that he is playing the one Objective
I didn’t want to play against. On his first turn I figured out it wasn’t going to be that bad,
because he was playing it fake style which was cool, but not enough to win. What he did
was get the Emperor to his throne room and the effect where he can draw battle destiny
and was playing SFS in space. He never had a Vader in his deck. It was a good deck and
I loved the Idea. Apparently many others included James Lafferty were playing this deck,
and it did quite well. I was able to Grimtaash him for some important cards and even
cancel SFS with Alter. But he just got in back. There is little to say in the game because
the only thing he was doing is draining me in space and I was draining him on the ground.
I had some bad draws here and there, but I was still making him lose more force than he
was making me lose. Toward the end of the game I drain him for 8 with one character
everywhere, and made him lose another 8 to profit damage. I did that twice to finish him
out. Full Win by 11.
10(+68)
Highs: Winning against a cool strat, I thought, and going 5-1
Lows: Having 20 cards in my hand and only 2 were characters early in the game.
Well Chris Hines ended up losing to Peter Nordstrom so he only went 4-2, and all other
Vegas players did about the same record. The Final was going to be Kevin Shannon vs
Jim Laffety, Clayton was undefeated until his last game which just barely put him to third
place. My differential was only good enough for 5th, but I guess I was happy for that.
Here is the Top 10
1. Kevin Shannon, 12(+104)
2. James Lafferty , 10(+111)
3. Clayton Atkin, 10(+104)
4. Peter Nordstrom, 10(+84)
5. Tim Guzman, 10(+68) ME DUH :)
6. Eric Bruen, 10(+39)
7. ??? Sorry missed the name
8. Travis Frazier
9. Alfred Dong(sp?)
10. Steve Greenburg
Props:
Matts’ Mom for hooking us up for a free room
James for always being the coolest
Gary and Michael for coming down and talking tech with a group
The cool Party on Saturday night. Sorry had to drop the Sealed deck for that party.
Gary for asking if I would be on his team, to bad I played in Star Wars RPG seek peek
instead, that would have be fun to play on his team...oh well
Comic-Con for always having some of the best Women to look at every year.
Shannon Baksa for signing so much of my stuff.
And many other signatures by many other people.
Slops:
Not many but there were some.
Decipher for not having Glass anymore, although I know the reason I still think its kind of
a bummer. Plus no more prize support for everyone who played in the tourney’s.
Comic-Con for have some of the most expensive food around.
Mark Hamil for not want to sign any Star Wars stuff just wanted to promote his Return of
the Joker in Batman and Beyond.
Me Not getting any DSII in time.
Well I wont be able to make it to Gen-Con this year, so my next big one will be LA Slam,
and then DCon and then later this year at Arizona Grand Slam.
Until next time,
Tim Guzman
PS. I always seem to forget to mention something and some of my buds out there get
upset. So you know who you are, just get over it, and see you soon :)