minneapolis-minnesota-8-22-00
Title: minneapolis-minnesota-8-22-00
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Aug 25, 2000
except for holidays) for a mere $1, and each tournament typically draws 12 to 20 players.
Owing to the frequency and low expense of the tournaments, theyve become great
opportunities to play new, strange and fun deck ideas while, simultaneously (owing to the
presence of such players as Jim Li, Michael Ravelling and Graham Neal), providing
chances to meet some stiff competition.
Anyway, on to the rest of the report:
The Star Wars tournament at GenCon was a dismal experience for me due to the number
of rounds (I knew Id leave early as soon as they announced it was 8 games), conflict
with other events, sloppy play on my part during one game and a miserable encounter
with some fellow who was blatantly cheating. I dont mind losing, but I really dont like
playing against someone whos a bad sport or arrogant or just plain obnoxious. This
fellow was a terrible sport.
But I did learn a bit about the meta game, post D*2. I hadnt brought a very good DS
deck with me to the tournament, then, and I wanted to integrate the new cards more fully
into my deck. Docking Bays & Mob Points seemed all the rage with the BHBM
objective, but I didnt have an Emperor. It idea occurred to me, though, to use the 0 side
of the Court objective to search for docking bays (instead of IAO, saving me one effect
slot), grab Hoths and Yavins, and I could play Imperial Decree (because I love that
card).
So, I threw that deck together without planning to flip it, but I realized a Profit deck
could spoil it as it was. I threw in a couple of Trap Doors, the Rancor and its Pit and
tested the deck against my LS Training deck. It won 2 out of 3 with Search and Destroy
cutting out a good chunk. And it was only a Tuesday night tourney, so that was good
enough for me. It would be, at any rate, a fun deck to play, and thats what I was really
looking forward to--fun--especially after my sour tourney at GenCon.
LS: MWYHL, Training Luke through Test 6.
DS: COTVG, pull everything from the reserve deck.
Game 1: My LS vs Chads (dont know his last name) BHBM.
Chads a good guy and seems to play more for moral victories than tourney points. He
once played a super-weird trooper deck against me using that interrupt that prevents all
movement if he draws a destiny lower than the number of troopers on the table. It almost
worked, too. Anyway, I expected something of that style when it turned out he was
playing pretty much a straight BHBM mains & toys deck. Though I have to credit him
with the idea of using the D*2 anti-ops effect (you know: occupy their system, kill their
deck...) to ditch it to retrieve the top card of his lost pile. (It ended up retrieving the
Executor for him--which never came into play.) I just waited for Vader to show up and
deployed HOTJ which, with Battle Plan, slowed my force loss to a manageable amount
while I sped through my tests to flip. I eventually flipped but got only a 4 since I had
mis-tracked my 7s, and I still had a couple of force left in my lost pile. He was sitting on
Endor with Vader and Mara holding two sites. I left Vader alone and pulled Farmboy
Luke back from Dagobah to set down Jedi Luke and Obi w/Saber vs Mara. He removed
Luke from battle with You Are Beaten, but Obi hit Mara for enough of a loss that the
game was decided. I controlled his Endor system with a multiple-destiny drawing ship
and he had to pay to drain for 1 each turn with Vader.
FW 2 (+14)
Game 2: My DS vs. Jerome Flynns Profit.
Well, you can probably tell that this game was decided by a couple of battles. He hit
Mara hard with Jedi Luke, early on, for some damage from my life force, but then he
Nabrunned Luke w/Saber and Proficiency over to face Vader. Vader then showed why
hes still the baddest dude in the galaxy when he Levitated away Lukes 4-power stick
and then proceeded to target and hit and beat up Luke (with the aid of Blizzard 2) for
something like 13 extra force from the reserve deck. Of course, I had started Secret
Plans, so this was a bit of a problem for Jeromes deck, and, in the end, he never flipped.
I continued my piddly drains and pulled off a win by 22. Or something like that. All the
differentials in this report are estimates.
FW 4(+36)
Game 3: My DS vs Michael Ravellings scrub beat-down
Michael had some EPPs in there, too, but he lost a lot of them to early damage (Mara,
Fett w/Blaster and Dr. E vs Leia w/Blaster--hit, lost; Chewbacca--hit, lost; and
Orrimarko). So he was left to play most of the game with characters like Melas and 2/2
pilots. However, he must have been playing 4 or 5 Out of Commissions because they just
kept hitting me, and I couldnt for the life of me draw one of my two Hell to Pays. Jabba
quit for good, then Fett, and... just when he showed up in my hand (typical)... Vader.
Uggh. That was killer. So I was left to face his seemingly endless hordes of weenies with
the likes of Tarkin, Igar (and wheres his walker?), Dr. E in Blizzard 2 and ECC IG-88.
But Iggy proved to have what it took when Michael plopped down Han w/Blaster, Wedge
and Momaw to drain at my <> DB on Tatooine where my Iggy was sitting all by his
lonesome on the other side. My next turn, Iggy Snipered Han (capture) used the text on
COTVG to search for a DB and saw this his weapon destiny were all quite high, initiated
a battle, fired to send Wedge scurrying back to the used pile and beat up on Momaw. I
moved Iggy over, flipped my objective and started drawing for a Trap Door. Eventually, I
drew one along with my Rendili (I had opted to search for the Executor earlier since
Michael started Rendez-vous Point w/Insurrection, Strike Planning and Squassi). I
plopped down the Rancor Pit, Rancor and Rendili w/Zuckuss (he didnt really have
enough force to beat me up there). I dropped Han to the Rancor and expected a quick
feeding, but Michael played Fallen Portal--and missed. Han had only stunned the Rancor,
who then gnawed on the famed smugglers bones, dropping Michael to something like 5
or 6 life force, which quickly disappeared.
FW 6 (+62)
I had won that last game by 26 or so, my biggest of the evening, but when the pairings
were called out I was on the same side as the player with the highest differential. Oh,
well. My LS deck was fairly solid, but I didnt expect that I could win by much.
Game 4 (last game): My LS vs Garretts (great guy, dont remember his last name) Ties
He sacrificed his drains for the first few turns, allowing me to go straight through my
tests. He didnt drain until he got out Kiffex and a sizable fleet there. I ended up flipping
with Artoo in Red 5 as my tracked 7 and paid 10 to retrieve 6 or so. My next turn, I asked
him what his power was at the system, what it would be after he played All Power to
Weapons (and I had a grabber waiting for that one), and checked to see how much force
he had saved (a lot). I had Home 1 and EPP madness--Han, Leia and Chewie--but only
enough force for Han, Chewie and Life Debt. Yet, considering my destiny of 28, I would
still be up by enough power at the start of the battle that I didnt figure I would lose by
too much. So I battled and he reacted and played All Power, which I grabbed, and I lost
Han and Chewie and one or two more from my deck. But he had all his ties there with no
capital ship and, thus, no hyperspeed, so I moved Home 1 over to Wakeelmui. The next
turn, Home 1 cleared out Wakeelmui with another Han and Leia, I think, and I Altered
his SFS. With Aim High in play, things were looking good. I had a good armada of ships
in my deck, including the Gold Squadron 1 combo, and we just kept battling according to
my calculated terms. Garrett managed to pull off a moral victory when he blew away the
Landos Falcon with a Tie Laser; he needed a 5 and got it. Ultimately, however, 2
damage each turn from Test 6, Battle Plan and my space armada--which deployed at
systems other than his space armadas--secured the victory for me by 13. Or thereabouts.
So I managed to go undefeated through the tournament with a differential of something
like 75, which wasnt very high, at least not for our player base. But Herb Macy, who was
sitting at the top table, must have had a squeaker, because I ended up getting first ahead
of TWO other undefeated players. Another kid, Jon, had gone undefeated, too. But I
knew he had won one game by a mere 4 since a crowd had gathered (with permission, of
course) to watch his game when it was the last game running (2nd game in the
tournament, I think).
At $1 a tournament, any prize support is really nice, especially when you pull the Spiral
in your one pack of Special Edition.
--Joshua Grace
PS After the tournament, I played a game with one of my friends, Justin Alfs, whose
EBO deck with Rogue speeders ended up killing me by 6 or 7 force, causing me to
rethink DS space--five bounty hunter ships and the Executor just arent enough...