pietreport-europeancontinental-13-8-00
Title: pietreport-europeancontinental-13-8-00
Author: Maarten "PIET" Rossou
Date: Aug 18, 2000
A quick recap, I went 4th at my regional and now I am preparing for the European Championships.
So I play my elom deck against Koen's Raltiir and it looses, my Bring him before me deck looses with a bad starting hand (emperor in force pile) against his Regionalwinning deck, so I am puzzled about my decks.
I ride with Johan Haneveer to Brussels, while we talk about old-skool starwars (Matt Lush is like the Johan Haneveer from Texas), basketball and some @#$%.
We arrive too late for the endor boosterdraft (with 6 people) and see Martin Akesson sweeping the field in the Grand Slam. We scout a bit for what kind of decks people play, hook up with Koen and eat at the Quick. The Quick is like a Belgian MacDonalds or Burger King except the name fits the time it needs for their food to get cold, not for their service. But they had this menu with a SouthPark glass, so that's pretty cool. Since we don't get glass anymore from Decipher
Enter rant 4: Where are the cool prizes? The prize for the Ryloth regional of 99 were stolen from a car in Belgium, because they were send to the wrong COUNTRY, the prizes of the national 2000 are nowhere to be seen. Whassup with that?
So we play till like 3.30 in the morning, go to sleep (I was sharing a room with the lovely Johan Haneveer, I'll spare you the details, but the rumours are true ) and get up early to go to day 1 of the continentals, in which 7 other Dutch guys will try to make it to Day 2, with Johan and me already qualified.
We enter the third anthology sealed deck, which gets changed in a second anthology sealed deck, cuz Big D didn't provide enough third anthology (there were 8 participants) which gets changed to a boosterdraft with endor, jp and clit city, because of player demand.
Johan wins the boosterdraft with 4 wins, I win 3 full and 1 timed so Johan has never lost a sealed deck game and I am 23-3.
In the Epp overdrive I pull the broken Boba Fett and Johan the lousy Darth Vader. In total I have Boba, Tanbris, Wuher, a stormtrooper and a trooper guard for my hitsquad, together with 2 Tie scouts and a tie Fighter for airstrikes. I go 2-2, Johan wins 4 and gets an EPP Leia. First 6 got either an EPP Leia or a Han. (Check the prize support!)
So 3 Dutch guys make it to Day 2, and I still don't know what to play.
We go to the Quick and then to the hotel and I decide not to doubt anymore, go for Koen and Johan van der Meer's light deck with modifications and I blatantly copy Haneveer's Hunt Down, which we improve a bit.
So we (Haneveer and me) are both going to play Hunt Down, but with the best tech you can ever create: White Bordered .
So my decks:
Light: Loki, Angel of Death (I just watched DOGMA) with the new objective
Dark: Johan plays this deck too, with white bordered tech inside.
I will try to give a summary without telling to much about the decks, since I don't know if the creators of the deck want to give away their secrets.
Round 1 LS vs Markus Wuest with Ralops
So much for an easy matchup, Markus is the European Champion defending his title today and just missed the cut for day 2 at Worlds.
He didn't put an imperial at my docking bay first turn, but fetched one of his, Rendili and a Raltiir site. Together with the Raltiir tech: a twix site in your opening hand he activated a bunch and put vader at endor to pick up luke. He avoids my superfalcon untill he has built up an impressing space fleet and he goes to battle and gets a punch it. He loses everything, I loose Han, I make the falcon even more legendary and from that point on it's a damage race (legendary against search and destroy) with an occasional drain. A lategame kessel with spiral seales the game for me. Full win by 3
Tech update: always put an imperial at the docking bay, in the best case an undercover (cant capture) or Vader, but anything will do.
Round 2 DS vs Bart "TraininGay" Ouwehand
Damn!, I was being outteched: he started whitebordered Dagobah. A first turn Honour, a difficult matchup and no grappler for me (It Could Be Worse which he played like 14 times) and a full loss with 11.
Tech update: Must kill a training deck before test 5, and play a grappler for dark.
Round 3 DS vs Johan "Royalty" Haneveer
He's @#$%ed with this matchup (Hunt down duel against Profit) and he knows it. Fwin 27
Tech update: Avoid bad matchups for your deck. (I know this is a hard one but it works)
Round 4 LS vs Martin Arcimovic with Ralops
He was a not such a good player as Markus, and he cant do a thing: Fwin with 21.
He played with the emperor and overseeiing it personally, but I think that is not a good version of Ralttir, he flipped turn 4 or 5, which is too late most of the time.
Round 5 DS vs Fabien Jacques with There is good in him beatdown.
Start with Presence of the force on his docking bay, first turn vader is a killer. He also knows this matchup is bad for him, he's loosing 4 force a turn fast and activates not much. Fwin 34.
So the ranking after 5 rounds is a follows:
Martin Akesson 5 wins and a big differential
Jan-Willem Sipkes, wrongfully accused of being a Belgian player with 4 wins +76
Maarten Rossou, me with 4 wins +76
Martin Falke, 4 wins
Peter di Biasio, 4 wins and a low differential.
I can't play Akesson, because of pairing (I told you Swiss sucks) so Jan-Willem has to play for the second time against him, while I play Mr. "I track both your and mine destiny" Falke
Round 6 LS vs Martin Falke with trooper Ralops
So this is it, if I win this one, I have a pretty good shot of getting in the final. But I have to beat Martin Falke, one of the best players in Europe. And he's playing his superfast trooper raltiir.
Before he activates, he gets out Carida, plays Tactical support: getting a leader of ability 2 and 2 stormtrooper cadets and sacks his You cannot hide forever for a Search and Destroy. And activates 3.
He then deploys Trooper Davin Felth at my docking bay, fetches one of his, deploys a ralttiir site, with the leader and 2 cadets, deploys one site from hand and deploys search and destroy, moves his troopers for free (it was spaceport raltiir) and I lose one. Worst of all, it was a WHITEBORDERED raltiir and a WHITEBORDERED felth that were killing me.
I activate 4, with my hand full of red cards. Bad mmmkay. But I have battle plan and an Anger Fear Agression, so I deploy that, fetch a docking bay, give luke to felth and lose one.
In short, he loses badly to my objective and to my inserts and a battle against Captain Han in his Falcon, while he knew I play I know was bad for him and with all the luck in the world I defeat him.
Tech update: Do NOT battle the superfalcon, its bad for your health.
So the good news is that because of Jan-Willem loosing to Akesson, I am in the final! The bad news is I have to play a Machine from Sweden by the name of Martin Akesson.
Final Games:
Game 1 DS vs Akessons 'dodge this' speed profit deck
This was a very cool game, I deploy mara in the chamber from start, second turn lord vader. He comes down with Ben and Masta Luke, but Ben gets beatened. Sense, alter, sense, alter. But because of my nerves I forget to play I have you now, but he still gets a beating. He moves ben away the next turn and we start loosing to Visage. I deploy the emperor on endor: forest clearing with Presence ot Force but a horde of Beggars come down to beat him: Melas, Epp Chewie, Jedi Luke and Epp leia. The emperor stays cool and Lightens Chewie up using the force and now I do play I have you now. Draw 12 for destiny, but the old man gets sliced by luke. Only Melas survives.
I deploy tarkin on Jabba's Palace, move Vader out and elis to endor, to beat up Melas. He reinforces with Taws, and since I cant seem to draw my saber they cover most of the damage.
Mara gets a beating in the chamber, but because of secret plans he cant retrieve and I drain him out. Full win by 13.
Game 2 LS vs Akessons Ralops
Well nothing new and exciting in his Ralops deck, but its still very good. As you can read in my report, my light deck wins most of his matchups against ralops. But I draw like @#$%, he draws pretty good, makes no mistakes and I lose horribly. I lose with 19, but he had like 15 cards in hand, so it wasn't even remotely close.
So for all my efforts, and to comfort me for just loosing a free ticket and hotel in America, I get a Rainbow-prize: 2 DSII boosters, 2 SE, 1 JP, 1 Clit City, a WB new hope and a WB hoth. Also I receive an Epp Luke package and all the EJP cards. Should have sticked to Magic.
Congrats to Martin Akesson, and good luck to him and all the other Europeans at DecipherCon 2000!
Maarten Rossou
Mad props to Johan Haneveer, for being one of the coolest SWCCG players I know.
Props to:
The Reservoir dogs, Koen, Johan, Pieter, Arjan, Daniel and Sebastiaan for being cool guys and giving me a kick-ass light side deck.
Jeroen van Beers, for letting my borrow his Emperor and Jedi Luke, and for playtesting
All other players which I have played against and who make this game work.
The sloppiest slops ever to:
Decipher, for not making Star Wars the game it could have become. For their distribution and for not putting enough money back to the players from which it comes. For not updating their homepage with game-related stuff, for putting out Austin Powers, for making Young Jedi a MoneyGame. And for everything else they have @#$%ed up.