livingston-nj-9-23-00
Title: livingston-nj-9-23-00
Author: Ted "Rogue15" Panczyszyn
Date: Sep 26, 2000
So I head out to New World Manga in Livingston, NJ for Blythe Hermley-Keene’s inaugural tournament. Her hubby Tom is a good player and nemesis to me so I figure it appropriate to pillage his wife’s tourney. I get there at about 12:05 and pairings are just being made. I get some ribbing but they manage to fit me into the first round. Steve Brentson arrives 15 minutes later as to the Rodriguez brothers, so I dont feel so bad.
My Decks: DS: Big Pete’s Revenge (on Decktech)
LS: Some lame LS Mains and Toys Deck with HB start and Train to Test One with lots of Tatooine sites.
My Games:
Game 1 v. John Lolli’s HD/Duel Deck with Docking Bays
I love my games with John. I rarely win, but he knows he has to work against me because I often do things unconventionally. We basically activate mondo force early due to our many location-pulling cards. I signal to get out Honor so that he loses for visage until he gets big daddy on the table. I go to Tatooine sites with Ben and EPP’s, we exchange force drains for a few turns until he gets a few more charaters to fight me. He has no SAC protection, which is great because I manage to sense "Circle" despite the +4 modifier. He pulls out I have you now, but I still manage to cut Mara down with Ben’s LS and we basically clear out all of our characters. We redeploy more Ben’s and Vaders and we clear the site out again. He has Bliz 2 at CC Docking Bay and Palpi at DS-DB. I take out the Bliz 2 with EPP Obi and He and Palpi keep playing hide the salami between the 2 docking bays until he manages to outdrain me. FL by 8. 0(-8).
Props: some good battles, John didn’t whine like usual
Slops: My deck sucks
Game 2 vs. Kim Caton’s Dago-boring Deck
If you’ve read my previous report (9/2/00 ROchester) and read the deck you know its all about the beatdown. Kim’s deck is designed to sit and watch you look stupid trying to stop all of her direct damage and force-loss reduction strategies. It is an original deck few can master. Everywhere I set up presence to drain, she could counter it, either with a jedi test or some other interrupt. My deck is SAC heavy, but she starts with Wise Advice, which only recirculates the cancelled interrupt or effect. The only battling that occurred is when she finally had Red Squadron x-wings, laser cannons, and Tantive out to drain at Kessel and to block my drains at Endor and Kashyyyk. It was a pretty boring game after that and I pouted the whole time to make her feel bad. FL by 10. 0(-18)
Props: Making Kim feel bad, sticking a song in her head that stayed there for the rest of the day
Slops: Playing a friend, boring deck to play against
Game 3 vs. Tom H-K’s Profit/Sabaac deck
Woohoo!! This was actually fun!! I give him Mara and Dr. E for the Audience Chamber and first turn I have her vibrator in hand. I cant drain there, but he can’t release Han either. He works BoSHuda and OTE out there eventually, so I scurry away like the coward I am (now THAT is a broken combination, Decipher!!) He has the Audience chamber filled with all kinds of aliens to do Sabaac and Figrin D’An and stuff...when he finally flips Profit I take a lot of direct damage, but he can’t keep up with Mara, VAder, GMT, Palpi, and various bounty hunters draining in space and on ground. He left Tamtel Skreej by his lonesome so Vader and Tarkin clean up the mess for a full win by 5. 2(-13)
Props: Beating Tom, playing against a whacked deck, winning half of the sabaac games.
Slops: being 1-2 (oh well!! ;-)!!!)
Game 4 vs. Jason Lane’s Rallops deck
Please refer to every other TR where I play against rallops for commentary. I did get EPP Luke, FO Thanesspi, and KFC on Raltiir quickly to slow him down. I tried to hold a few Raltiir sites but he circled OWK and that was the end of my offensive on Raltiir. I tried to mount a force drain and battle crew on Tatooine, but he deployed walkers and brought his characters over to Tatooine too. Add the 3 to attrition and I was screwed. Jedi Luke made his tournament debut, however and that was kinda cool..especially since he was Immune to attrition less than 9 thanks to Yoda!! I did manage to train Tawss Kaa late in the game, but he never had a significant drain bonus anywhere, especially since I altered "overseeing it personally. FL by 18 2(-31).
Props: Jason getting a wad of ratings points for beating me. getting Luke out, training someone...
Slops: Obi getting circled, playing rallops
Game 5 vs. George Gundry’s BHBM deck
All i recall about this game is the fact that Luke went back and forth about 8 times. We duked it out on numerous planet locations. Many characters were lost...it was glorious!! He deployed Emperor’s personal Shuttle at Carida and put Palpi on there at one point for an easy drain. I saved up for a few turns and put Home One, Ackbar, and Tantive (or Spiral, I forgot) and slapped him around like the crusty old bastard he is. He had to lose everything plus a few more, but I couldn’t keep up with his battles on the ground. I was in a hurry to finish my Lunch from the Chinese Food place, so losing or winning wasn’t an issue. Fl by 15. 2(-46).
Well, I get the bye for game 6 ( I really suck!!) and ask if I can get my fabulous prizes so I can leave a little early. Traffic was horrible so I wanted a head start. I kindly told them to give any packs to a new player, but they were giving out other cards too so Tom offered me a Foil Jabba the Hutt. That made the tourney all worthwhile!!
I think the final standings were 1. Pat Ziagos, 2. John Lolli, 3. Steve Brentson. Pat’s faithful sidekick Joey Gagliardi was there too, picking on bigger players and making me laugh the whole day long. I learned that Joey doesn’t like brocolli, so I wonder how I can use this information for further extortion.... (for those of you that know and love Joey, you’d understand why that is important)
I will be in Rochester, NY for a special tournament this saturday. The prize is a set of Limited Premiere Rares. On sunday I will be in Clarks Summit, PA, where I may get to play Joey again!! Woohoo!! Look for my double report early next week!!