the-return-of-the-bad-player-tn-gs
Title: the-return-of-the-bad-player-tn-gs
Author: Charlie "CommieBoy" Herren
Date: Sep 14, 2000
I had decided to go to this GS back when I saw the date on the Decipher website. However, I could not get any details worked out for anything.. The original idea was for the entirety of Team Machine to travel there and split a hotel room for a night (for either the night before or the night after). Adam Beauchamp and Wes Addison both declined to go due to the lack of money and good decks. Since they were not going, that basically meant that THE MACHINE would not be going. That left Clay Ramey and myself. Neither of us really wanted to go up there without the rest of the team, but we had been doing some playtesting and I had come up with a couple of good decks to take, so we decided to go.
I talk to Jonny Chu the day before the GS, and he hooks Clay and me up with a place to stay. We set out for Nashville later that night, and get there in good time (doing close to 100 MPH most of the way there is good for things like that). When we get there, Chu and @#$%crack, err, Pras@#$%, err, Prasnatch (Praskac) are playing a game. TJ comes along a short while later, and we all start playign games back and forth. I have my musician deck built, but after playing many games with and against the TJ Holman ROps deck, I decided to go with it. It was a MACHINE. I changed like 8 cards in it, and was ready to go.
I woke up 4 hours later (uggh), and we all head out to the site of the GS. When we get there, we see Jim Colson, lots of Trek players, and about 10 or so players from the Huntsville area (including Chris Bentley). After a few minutes of waiting, the Nashville crowd and Scott Anderson all show up, and the GS gets started.
<end meaningless pre-tourney garbage>
32 or 33 players, lots of notables.....
Decks:
LS: Profit with mad character action. 28 of them, to be exact.. 7 eloms, 3 of each of Ben and Luke, 2 monks, a few random non-uniques, a couple of Leias, 3 Hans (all EPP).
DS: TJholman.rops with lots of tech in it. We-re in Attack Position Now + ROps = win.
Game 1: LS v. Steven Lewis (Court flip)
I was hoping to do well this game, as my lifetime record against Steven Lewis at the time was 1-0. Unfortunately, I happened to run into the worst possible matchup EVER for my deck. I draw my opening hand, no Ben or Luke. I activate, lose, and draw. Still no Ben or Luke. I activate, drop a couple of sites, and draw. I have like 19 cards in hand, and I finally have a Luke (still no Ben!). All the while, Steve is building up in the AC. He converted my AC with the CC engineer and is deploying aliens for ridiculously cheap. He has Boelo, Dengar, Jabba, EPP Fett, and other chaff there. I drop M@#$%a Luke, Luke Saber, and Lando with gun, and battle. My action, I throw Boelo back to his hand with M@#$%a Luke. He fires and hits Lando, but misses with his other 2 shots at Luke. I miss with Lando. I draw a 5, so he loses Dengar and his Engineer, I lose both Luke and Lando, and he captures Luke with All Wrapped Up and flips. He Trap Doors Luke to the Rancor Pit with the Rancor there. I play You Will Take Me to Jabba Now to move Luke back to the AC (where Jabba is) to avoid certain death. He battles, and I end up losing Luke and like 6 cards. He captures Luke again. I draw some more. He builds up at the AC, Trap Doors Luke again, and I play You Will Take Me to Jabba Now again to avoid the game loss by 35. He battles, I lose Luke and 12, and he captures Luke for a 3rd time. I track 2 5s (one on top of deck, one on bottom, and he Trap Doors Luke. He attempts to eat Luke and draws low. I draw my 5 and live. On my turn, I attack the Rancor and hit him with the 5s I tracked, so he goes away, and I have @#$%ured myself that I will not lose by 40. :P I get a drain set up at his 1/0 DBs with a couple of non-uniques and Boussh. He fights me so he can retrieve force with Scum. I eventually get drained out (who would have guessed?)
Full Loss by 29
0(-29)
Highs: Killing the Rancor and not losing a character to it.
Lows: Um, were you reading? :P No Ben until it was entirely too late.
TJ Holman lost to Clay Ramey, who was playing my TIGIH falcon deck. Why can-t I play the right decks? :P
Game 2: DS vs. Clay Wilburn (Huntsville, AL) (TIGIH/scouts)
I go into this game feeling a bit down, since I haven-t lost the first game of a tourney in ages, and never by that much. I pull some sites, drop guys at those sites, just like a good ROps deck does. I pick up Luke with Vader and move him to a 1/0 DB. I get We-re in Attack Position Now set up with 2 commanders on Ralltir. He sets up a drain on Endor with General Solo, Midge, and DOS with a stick, so he is draining me for 3, and I am hitting him for 5 a turn. He begins to use the ASP/Portable Scanner trick to set a 6 each turn. I drop Sim Aloo and begin to move all those 6s to the bottom of his reserve. I get Vader, Janus, Sim, Tempest 1, and Igar together, and start chasing his big group of scouts around. He is losing 5, while I am not losing any cards, so I end up draining him out fairly quickly.
Full win by 24
2(-4)
Highs: The deck worked like a machine. Sim Aloo worked him over like a pimple on prom night.
Lows: none
Game 3: DS v. Jim Sells (new-school ThroneRoom mains)
I felt pretty good about this matchup, because this particular ROps deck has mad tech in it to handle this matchup. We get started, and he has the traditional start for throneroom.. Drop 2/0s, draw, save force, drop guys. I drop DS612 at a DB to get some activation going. He drops cracken and another character (BoShek or Melas or something) to fight it, so I lose the guy and 1. Next turn, I drop Janus at a different 1/0 DB. On his turn, he drops Boussh and Anakin-s saber to fight Janus. He swings and hits, and I lose Janus and around 6. I get out CHYBC after taking a drain of 3, and now I get set to attempt to flip my objective. I am already several cards behind, and I am only activating around 10 force a turn. I start dropping guys to Ralltir. He drops guys to follow. A couple of timely barriers allow me to retaliate and remove his characters from Ralltir. After a long fight, I finally get out We-re in Attack Position Now and flip my objective. I have around 10 cards left, and he is doing no damage to me. He gets around CHYBC for a turn, but I use the Emperor in his shuttle with a pilot to help get rid of that problem. He does not have enough ships left in the air to hold 2 battlegrounds, and he doesn-t have enough force to deploy his Jedi Luke to Ralltir. After being behind by a lot of cards, I come back to win the game.
Full win by 4
4(-5)
Highs: The comeback! The reason I won is because of the way that the ROps deck is set up.
Lows: The early hits, the lenghty game.
Game 4: LS vs. John Hyland (somewhere in TN) (Court Skrillings)
I kinda expected Skrillings when I found out who I was playing, so instead of signaling out Goo Nee Tay, I pulled Honor of the Jedi. This game turns out to be quite uneventful. He gets out some Skrillings early, and inserts. I beat the skrillings down, he drops more, lather, rinse, repeat. I drain him fast and hard with lots of stuff, and he ends up drawing up with like 25 cards left.
Full win by 40
6(+35)
Highs: His insert popped, and he lost 4. Not having any problems at all with something that scared me a bit.
Lows: He just drew up.. he did not even try to win after the first few turns.
Game 5: DS vs. Jonny Choo (HBX)
I was not really expecting this at all. Our game was pretty non-interactive. For some dumb reason, I am not playing with Search and Destroy, so I know I am in for a really tough game. He gets out Rebel Fleet pretty quickly. I flip turn 3, and I start draining. I get my monnok, but when I play it, I only get 2 Landos in Falcon. He flips pretty quickly, and starts cancelling my drains. He drops Boussh and TK422. I get We-re in Attack Position Now set up, and I have Security Precautions on the table. I probe right on the 2nd try and he loses like 7 or 8. He is draining me for 3, I am hitting him for one. He drills the Executor with XWings, so I lose it and like 2 cards. He goes down to about 4 cards, but he uses All Wings Report in for 14 friggin cards. He kept replacing my Admirals Order, which reduced the damage he took by 3 each time he did it. I had lost a site from reserve pretty early, so I was unable to hit him for more than 1 in drains. I lose pretty uneventfully.
Full Loss by 15
6(+20)
Highs: Putting up a fight.
Lows: Me not playing Search and Destroy for the first time in a long time. Also, not playing Secret Plans. Blah.
Game 6: LS vs. Jim Sells (court flip, exactly the same as the one played by Steve Lewis)
I get a rematch, and I am not thrilled that I get to play the exact same deck I lost to in game one. The game starts the same as the game with Steve, but I can-t find a Luke this time around. I get Ben and stick after 3 turns of drawing, so I drop Ben, who meets a None Shall P@#$% (I grab). I draw for a turn, and I drop Ben, a monk, and a couple of ELoms. I kill off some of what he had in the AC, and he captures the Elom I forfeit. He gets 4Lom along with the other bounty hunters and such, and he kills Ben off. I slash 4Lom, so he can not capture Ben. I drop Luke, and he ends up getting hit with Hidden Weapons and dropped into the Prison. I drop Ben and Yoxgit into the AC, fearing Hidden Weapons. He ends up losing Dengar and another character, and I lose Yoxgit, who gets captured and dumped into the dungeon. I drop a bothan spy to the dungeon and free Luke and Yoxgit. I move the bothan, yoxgit, and Luke to the AC, in order to try to fight him out of the AC. He battles me. I throw Boelo to his hand, play Gift of the Mentor and clear the AC entirely, flipping finally. I have Order to Engage on the table, and Luke has a saber. I move Ben and Han in front of Brangus Glee. He drops Boelo and the CC engineer in front of Luke and fights. I have 3 cards left in reserve (all are 5s), so I throw boelo back to hand and draw a 5 for destiny, making him lose the engineer and 7 or so. He loses 3 for order to engage, and starts running away. I am hitting him for 6 a turn, he is hitting me for one or two, but I am low enough on force such that I cannot quite pull off the win.
Full loss by 11
6(+9)
Highs: Freeing Han. Having major balls and it paying off.
Lows: 3rd damn court deck I played. 2nd one that flipped. Every time Jim searched for the Rancor pit, it was not in reserve. When he dropped the Pit from hand, the rancor was not in reserve.
So I go 3-3, proving yet again that I do indeed deserve the title of "Bad Player." My losses were tough ones, with two of them coming from bad matchups.
Chris Prasnatch ends up winning, even after being stalled out by, err, having a timed win against Clint Hays.
Props:
- to Clint for the following quote: " If she looks 15 and acts 15, then she might as well be 15 because I-m doing her."
- to TJ Holman, for the techest @#$%ing ROps deck ever.
- to Prasnatch, for wrecking at the GS and lasertag
- to Clay Ramey, for letting me drive his car all weekend (my car is a piece of @#$% and certainly would not have made it to the GS)
- to Jonny Chu, for the place to stay and for being a pimp
- to Scott Anderson, for being the man.
- to Fat Mo-s, for the damn good burger (I know now why Clint likes that place)
- to the little girl who called clint a "@#$%"
- to my falcon deck, for being so money
Slops:
- to Gabe, for trying to tell me that I should stop using the "Bad Player" name
- to Bill Gordon, for retiring (why, man, why?)
- to the 6 SW players at QZar. Getting wrecked by kids is a bad thing.
- to me, for not playing my falcon deck
- to me, for changing decks at the last second
- to me, for playing like a schmuck
- to me, for not playing Search and Destroy
- to me, for not preparing enough for this tourney
- to me, for playing when I am so burnt out on SW
Anyway, this may be my last TR.. depends on whether or not I actually quit the game after worlds.
Later, folks
Charlie "Bad Player" Herren
2000 Dagobah Regional Champ
Winner of the 2000 Florida Grand Slam