las-vegas-nv-9-16-00
Title: las-vegas-nv-9-16-00
Author: Matt "Phobos" Berta
Date: Sep 20, 2000
Pre tourney: of course I can’t sleep much cuz my sleep schedule is all screwy, so I got about 3 hours before wakeup time. Got ready to go, listening to Godsmack... 5 minutes to departure time I skip ahead to Voodoo... damn that feckin song is powerful. Get to the place about 5 mins early, the TD and one other player are there... bad feeling have I for sanctioning purposes... a few more trickle in, we finally get an 8th player at about 10:45, thanx for being late, you know who you are.
Tourney:
First matchup is my dark Hunt Down (not the numbers one, no dueling either) VS
my nemesis Kris Lavigne’s (1830) TIGIH w/speeders.
Yay. I lost to this deck before because I played stupidly and thought I could take it easy. Well, I learned my lesson then and was determined not to make the same dumfeck choices as I had before. He seems to use about 5 or 6 of each speeder, Man. Flaps, 5 or 6 X-Wings and Red Leader, S-Foils, and Incom Corp. Oh, and 2 Kessels, which I really hate. I start IAO, Oppressive, and Mob. Points, he starts the LS equivalents of those (Insurrection, Wise, Staging). I get a Lord Vader in hand, so I’m happy. Pull Rendili, Deploy Executor Docking Bay from reserve, use Imp. Command to grab Ozzel outta there and seemingly space that I should put him at the Endor Dock Bay, so he hangs out at the Exe:DB and I say go. We have an unspoken agreement to always ignore Visage at the beginning of games when it would hurt both of us, no matter who’s playing dark. His turn he drains me with Luke and I flip him off (Luke, not Kris), drop some red card out of hand that isn’t immediately useful. He searches for a docking bay, gets the Home One and puts a speeder there, no visible effort to get Honor out yet, moves Luke over, my go. (What Visage?) 10 activate is cool, I love Mob. Points. Lord Vader picks up Luke, Death Star dock bay from reserve, father and son go there. Draw some more and find I’m ready to fly to space. Objective is flipped for remainder of game, cool. Visage, dude! Next couple turns he gets Hoth DB out and Honor, about 4 X-Wings to Kessel (damn my not having Monnok yet) draws/saves up some for preparation, I get guys out to Spaceport DB on Rendili (Veers, Ozzel, other small Imp) and CC:DB (Sim & Janus) and Tarkin keeping Vader company. Take a drain or two at Kessel before putting Chimaera and Piett in front of that. He decides to attack with another X-Wing there, Organized Attack and I have no grabber (dammit). He wins of course and sez "stack a card". Problem is, he didn’t deploy I Feel The Conflict with his obj and neither of us noticed. It isn’t anywhere in his box or anything, so apparently he lost it. So since I’m not stacking cards, I’m not afraid to throw small power forces on suicide runs against his speeders. Search and Destroy, Visage, and my multiple small drains being more than his 3 at Kessel gives me an eventual win of 22.
2(+22)
Highs: Hunt Down flipped and Visage chipping away for the entire game.
Lows: Not getting a real win against the player I want to defeat most.
Second matchup is my light, a slightly modified version of Matt "Old Skooler" Lush’s ROPs Killa (Home One instead of the insert, other small mods)
VS John Spadora’s (1698) SYCFA w/Brangus Glee Superstar style
Greaaaat. I played this matchup before and it went to time with me having 10 or so cards more than him. I knew it would be a slow game again just because of our decktypes. He starts Battle Order, There Is No Try, and I forget what else... He gets that damn Brangus in his opening hand and of course hops down to the docking bay. My opening hand is cool, Ben, Sense, 2 Elom, Capt. Han, no other dupes. I pull Home One DB from reserve and drop an elom there, not drawing cuz he Masterful Moved for a Monnok and right now I have NO dupes (cool). I know I’ve gotta get to that docking bay pronto to start a ruckus, so next turn I pull Tat:Dock bay and transit ben and that 1st Elom over to bother the Glee man. He runs off, of course, and I start drawing for Order to Engage, more stuff. I get Honor out before he plays a Monnok, which gets sensed, lose a sense instead of all the damn eloms and stuff in my hand, good deal. He gets Barquin to hang w/Brangus and we gamble every one of his turns, he wins the first 5 or 6. Finally with about 15 mins left get out Order with Ben and Leia and an Elom at DS:War Room and Jedi Luke w/green slicer to DS DB. He has Brangus and Barquin and Janus I think in front of Mr. Jedi Luke and he battles and plays Put All Sections On Alert to cancel Luke’s game text and prevent him from drawing battle destiny and for once I don’t have a fecking sense. I do get to slice Brangus tho, so I’m happy about that. destiny drawing time, he draws the Med. Chamber he retrieved a few turns back, and I just bust out laughing (in retrospect this was quite the @#$% thing to do, but it WAS funny!). Luke truly is one lucky Jedi. So he has to lose Brangus from a battle that he should have won. After that he plays kinda slow, I try and drain for as much as possible, but not in time. I managed to retrieve a few with Nar Shaddaa, so I have 33 and he has something like 18. Timed win, 3(+55)
Highs: Luke being the man and not dying EVER. Domination of the game in the last 15 minutes.
Lows: Goddam timed wins suck my ass, everyone thinks I play slow.
Third game: My Dark VS
Noah Singer’s (1704) EBO
Okay, I know Noah’s play style so I’m totally confident for this game. He hasn’t played EBO much so he’s not too comfy with it. I get Vader in opening hand again, and do the usual start, Rendili, Exe:DB, small guy there, go. Unfortunately Noah does like to make us lose to Visage and my hand is excellent so off the top, it’s Mara’s Saber. Dammit, this bothered me the whole game as she was gonna go to Hoth in case the Jedi showed up there (EPP Luke eventually did). I get Vader and Tarkin to DS:DB, and some ships up to Rendili. He pulls all the stuff necessary for EBO but doesn’t put any guys to the sites to play it... wierd. Visage and drains are biting him, I get Janus and Sim at CC:DB, some other guys at the SP:DB on Rendili. He drops Captain Han on the Falcon w/a Landing Claw there, damn that guy. Fortunately Godherdt was at Rendili’s DB so he comes up next turn and cancels it, and I smirk at him. He says, "whatever", like he’s got a fecking fleet in his hand, so I draw a bit for an Imp. Command to use w/whatever Admiral was in space. Then the battles begin. ECC Chewie gets to the Falcon, Sp. Ed. Wedge in some Xwing, Zev on Tantive or something and the debris and bodies start flying. No other systems on table means nobody’s going anywhere. It’s fierce and fun out there, but the Imps have much more resources. And disposable pilots, hehehe. Janus tracks me some mean destinys and after about 6 turns of both of us battling, I finally clear him out with only Flagship Executor left (whew!). Just before that clusterfeck ended, EPP Luke is at Hoth 4th marker with Blount and Orrimaarko making my life generally unpleasant. I had Mara, but with no saber or cannon fodder I wasn’t sending her down there to lose maybe 10 force to just take out Blount. (hehehe... send her down there) His drain of 1 and my Visage are my only pain, I am draining for a lot more and didn’t lose anything before the epic space battles occurred. So I drain him out eventually. He didn’t make it easy tho. FW by 13.
5(+68)
Highs: General domination in air and on ground, with the exception of Hoth, which was too cold for me.
Lows: Mara’s Saber lost at beginning of game meant that Luke lived. Guess she prefers the real thing over the "toy".
Fourth game: My Light VS
Noah Singer’s RalOps (him again?!?)
Well, with an 8-player tourney, it happens. I finally get to play a tournament game against RalOps with the RalOps Killa... I am stoked. I know it will take a while, tho. He starts Secret Plans and other junk. His first turn he pulls a Swamp from reserve to Raltiir, and drops a lone AT-ST pilot. Dammit, getting drained right away bugz me. I get an Elom to Home 1 DB, his turn. Presence on the Swamp, an AT-ST for the geek to pilot, another site to Raltiir (Jungle this time). My turn I am able to Signal for Bargaining table and I am happy cuz he’s staying on the Swamp. I eventually get setup all my docking bays, of course the <> one goes to Raltiir so that Jedi Luke can visit in a few more turns. Han and Leia in the Falcon get up to Raltiir from the DB, preventing the flip whole game, and draining for 1 (ya-hoo). Jedi Luke again goes off by himself with his ginsu knife, while Ben and Chewie sit next to him, with Order to Engage really frustrating him. He moves his last surviving walker over to the desert when I wave bye, not gonna come visit you. So he drains there, I run out of Eloms for the table. I deploy all of them and Nar Shadda for 9!! (One guy died in an early battle). Paid for it against the S. Plans, too. I eventually out-drain him at Cantina, Raltiir, Swamp and DBay’s. There was just nothing he could do. FW by 21.
7(+89)
Highs: Soundly beating ROps with the ROps killa, it does its job
Lows: Only winning by 21, I really thought it would be more.
So that’s the end, and I’m the only undefeated in our mini-tourney. Keen. 2 Reflections packs and a signed oversize Mara Jade card from ComiCon are mine. Nothing special in the Reflections packs except an Elom, which I found amusing. I totally spaced the end results so here is my best guess:
1. Matt Berta 7(+89)
2. Kris Lavigne 6(+??)
3. Jeff Lavigne 6 or 4(??)
4-6. Brandon Gravo 2 or 4(??)
Danny Rider 2 or 4(??)
John Spadora 2 or 4(??)
7. Noah Singer 2(-??)
8. Donnie (what is his last name?) 0(-minus a whole lot)
Not sure what the order was in 4, 5, and 6, I’ll write it down next time.