sokols-dcon-2000-report
Title: sokols-dcon-2000-report
Author: Matt "MattSokol" Sokol
Date: Oct 11, 2000
Ok, so Wednesday night rolls around and I drive over to the Twiggs house. I walk in and get greeted by the Team Albany “Waaaaaazzzzzzz Uuuuuuppppppp!!!” I start talking with Brian about college and how much mid terms suck. Chris comes in and we all start talking tech and about how light side is weak. The twiggs start talking about this Dagobah deck and I start telling them about my hidden base mains. We continue to talk about the same stuff that we discussed over the Team Albany list serve; “blah blah blah light side is so weak.” Same-o-same-o.
So it turns out that Art Wright and Aaron Kingery, two Hugh members of Team Albany, got an earlier plane down, so its just Brian, Chris and Marty Twigg, going down on this plane with me. We get in the car and head out. All this time my Bro is like, “^&*% I wish I could go, School and money is keeping me on the DL for this one.” He was missed horribly this weekend and I so wish he was at Dcon with us.
Johnny Chu, another Hugh member of the team got a good rate to stay with Clint Hayes and his crew, so he stayed with them. But we were not without his tech on this trip. Every night for weeks before Dcon we would talk with Chu about decks and all.
When we get to the airport I find my sister waiting to wish me luck and all. We continue to talk tech and the Twiggs mom and my sister both stood there looking @#$%-eyed at us like we where from mars or something, but it’s all cool. I am like hidden base mains is solid, they’re like Dagobah is hot, we still had no idea what to play.
On the plane ride to Atlanta (that was our connecting plane), we both compare deck and talk more tech (oh man I am so going to over use the word tech in here). So Chris looks at my mains deck and I check their Dagobah…. 3 hours into our trip we still had no idea what to play.
Dark side was an easy choice. We all had BHBM decks made, and just wanted to play those. The twiggs bhbm was standard with SAC and all. Mine was the most teched out pile of cards. It was running responsibility of command with much anger in him. That was my choice deck for day 1 and 2, and the team event. Hayes Hunter was also playing this deck after a long phone call we had about how broken this deck was. Check it out on decktech when I post it under the name Team Albany budded it, “The Beast”. It is so hot you get Luke with the objective and just put command and anger on obi and watch them cry. This deck was the only reason I was able to make it to day 2 and 3.
So we final get that long plane ride over and head to the hotel, and have our decks pretty much set in stone for day 1, bhbm for dark and Dagobah or hidden base for light. We sit at the airport trying to get a cab at 3 in the morning. Marty sets something up and we finally get on our way to the hotel. I start saying things like man we are in Orlando and can’t make it to the parks, how balls is that. We all start laughing about how decipher has our passion for cards and our money. Good car trip.
We pull into the Hotel and Scott comes up to say hi. He’s all like how’s your light side? Hahahah, we are like SOLID, what a pile our light sides were. All of a sudden we hear, “Hey you losers Waaaaaazzzzzz Uuuuuuupppppp!!!” There was Art screaming at us from the open gaming room. Art asks if we had a good trip and if our decks are done, we’re all like hell ya our decks are mad solid. So he gives us the key to the room and we go up for some play testing.
When we get to the room we find Aaron Kingery there with some guy Art said could stay with us. So we start talking tech with Aaron, and Chris leaves to go play some games with Art. While Chris heads out Brian and I start up some games with Aaron. My light play tested ok, so we figure any light that can go 2-2 day 1 will get you to day 2. My light was running the standard hidden base mains with docking bays and Ben. About an hour later Chris comes up and is like; “^&*# my Dagobah deck got schooled.” So we all settle on a version of hidden base mains. Around 4 or 5 am I hit the sack, hoping to get a good 4 hours of sleep.
9 am comes around and we do deck lists, shower and Make our Team Albany shirts. Marty gets these cool red shirts from McDonalds and we all put our names on the back and Team Albany on the front. After we get done with our shirts we head done to register. When we get there the line is about the length of a football field, so we get all worried about making it on time. Then the Decipher reps come through and are like; “don’t worry everyone will get into the opens, we may to start a little late.” A little late?
So 11 o’clock rolls around and we get done registering and head to the gaming room. We start talking with some people and find Johnny Chu. We start talking about school and then some star wars. We finally end our conversation I head over to talk with Chris. He’s talking tech with this kid, so I go over and introduce myself. It turns out that I am talking with Kyle Craft, holy #$%^ the man behind the legend. So we start talking tech and I am like; “Man this kid is cool.” And let me tell everyone that Kyle Craft is one of the coolest kid I have meet playing star wars.
So we start asking him my Hunter didn’t show. It turns out that he couldn’t get a plane ticket or something? We’re all like whatever.
1 o’clock rolls around and we finally start the open, 3 hours late. I think a lot of people had a misconception about how easy day 1 was going to be. Day 1 was the hardest tourney I have ever played in. It turns out that all the good players from around the world wanted to show up for this event.
Before I get into any games I wanted to give my opinion on the whole DQ thing. First off it was totally uncalled for to DQ anyone in this event. Maybe warn them or something, maybe give them a 30 card lose in their next game, anything but DQ them. I heard that they DQ ed a guy playing star trek before the event took place….its not like he had a 1 hour car trip to Dcon, no he flew all the way from Australia. Now come on that ridicules.
I don’t remember too much from day 1, I don’t have any scores to look at, so I will go over the 2 games that I remember most.
Game 3 day 1- my light hidden base mains vs. Steven Lewis’s scum court deck.
I am a little worried about this match up, but I think I can win with Ben and Jedi Luke bring the beat down at Jabba’s Palace. So I get a monster hand, by third turn he has Jabba at the audience chamber and I have General Solo and Chewy at a Tat site, Ben, some scrub and Blount at a docking bay, and DOS and a general at the endor docking bay. DOS and Ben both have there light sabers, so I draining for like 6 a turn. I am thinking I have this game in the bag…….on his turn (like the 5th turn of the game) he drops 5or 6 guys against Ben and company. He then hidden weapons Ben, Ig-88 captures the scrub, and blount gets hit by boba’s gun….so I am like; “Oh that’s not good.” I get hit for some insane amount of force loss. From there on out he just destroys me with random battles and retrieves force with scum. I think at the end of the game he had maybe 3 or 4 cards in his lost pile? Hahaha I totally got destroyed that game. Loss by 20 something.
Highs: playing Steven Lewis and getting a mad good hand.
Lows: getting killed. Watching bobafett capture Luke with hidden weapons.
Game 8 day 1- my dark “the beast” vs. Mike Fitzgerald’s throne room mains deck.
So I get this match up and I am like, “I know who this is, but I can’t remember were I heard his name.” From his decktech web page I though he would be anything then what I saw. He was this cool, calm and collected guy about my age. He was very cool in our game and he seemed like a nice guy.
Ok, to the game. It starts off fast for me, I get spies down everywhere against him. I get Mara and her saber with some scrubs hitting him for three at the throne room, and vader and some scrubs hitting him for 2 somewhere else. The game is going really fast, we both are draining fast, but he doesn’t get any cards he needs…. Honor and battle order go off the top and a late game responsibility and anger on Ben don’t help. Win by 7 I think.
Day 1 comes to a horribly end. Right before the start of the 8th game Johnny Chu gets DQ ed. He was 5-2 going into the last round and only needed a win or a small lose to get in. Twigg and I almost started crying when we heard what happened, it totally sucked.
It ended and only Chris and I get into day 2 (he finished 18th and I got 36th). My dark side won 4 games and my light went 1-3. What a pile that deck was, I needed to change my deck for day 2.
So it’s like 3 am right now and day 2 starts at 10. We all sit down and start to make deck. Chris likes his light side but wants to change a few cards and he keeps his dark. We sit in the open gaming room and start on our decks. I like my dark so I change maybe 2 or 3 cards and do my deck list. For light side I was very troubled. I had no idea what would win.
All this time we are sitting with Hayes Hunter and some of his friends when this MAD hot chick comes over and starts talking with Hunter. We’re all like what the hell, why is she here talking to Hunter and getting in the way of my deck building. So all of a sudden they get up and go leave to do you know what. We all start laughing and screaming at them as they leave, what a good time.
For light I final deiced to go with the advice of Johnny Chu. For mouths before Dcon he would talk about how good x-wing swarm was. So I built the deck and playtested one game vs twigs bhbm. I won the game with drains at kessel and epp hit and run. The deck was solid and ran very fast. Chris and I finalize our decks around 5 or 6 am and go to bed.
9 am comes and we are soooooooo wrecked from lack of sleep. We say good bye to Aaron and Brian, and head out. We see Art down there and say Hi.
Day three starts around 11 or 12 only a couple of hours late.
Game 1—Dark (the beast) vs. Jason Burrow (hidden base)
Ok he’s playing the normal matching pilots deck with kessel runs. So we each start out fast setting up drains. He flips and I go to air getting his hidden base and setting up my own drains in the air. Right now he is winning the drain race and making me lose mad cards when I sense or alter his stuff (do or do not and wise advise out). I draw some more and finally get my responsibility and anger in hand. That comes down on a pilot in the air and the 4 force a turn from that does him in.
Full win by 3
Highs: winning game one. Watching the beast work like a charm.
Lows: only winning by 3. Having to beat a really cool kid in the 1st game.
Game 2—Light (x-wings) vs. Ray Bordier (BHBM)
He’s playing the standard BHBM with sac and guys. I flip early to cancel his drains but Search and Destroy in doing mad damage to me. He comes to air and legendary starship gets played. Order to engage help against his ship, but the all wings report in for 13 force win me the game.
Full win by 4
4(+7)
Highs: beating Ray. Winning with my light.
Lows: none.
Game 3—Light vs. Carlos Bravo (hunt down dueling)
I see his start and I am very happy. X-wings turn into auto-win mode against hunt down.
He has trouble finding Vader early in the game so Honor protects me while visage hits him for like 8 cards. He has a mad hard time setting up and search and destroy makes a late game entrance. He finally comes to the air and gets my hidden base, but x-wings bring the beat down and legendary gets played again. Late game he gets around honor and makes me lose 2 turn to visage and search. Kessel drain wins the game in the end.
Full win by 14
6(+21)
Highs: winning, and playing a really cool guy again.
Lows: none
Game 4—Dark vs. Bastian Winkelhaus (hidden base)
For this game I find it very hard to say nice things about this guy. He totally trashed talked my deck after the game and over the following days of the con. People told me all the nice things he said about me in private so I have a good idea what this German is like.
So the game starts and he has no idea how bad my hand is. I am running two hoth war rooms for my combo. I just draw because he is playing hidden base with matching poilts. Draw, draw, draw…nothing for the first 5 or 6 turns, all this time he has flipped hidden base and set up drains. So what happens is he drops Blount down against my Emperor, being the scrub that I am I play force lighting. He says ok and I draw destiny….. BAM what do you know a hoth war room…man I couldn’t even get Blount with a force lighting, what is that? So he brings the epp hit squad to follow, hitting emperor and then drawing like a 4 and 6 for battle destiny. Ouch, good play on his part…I think I lose 15 to 20 force in that battle. I go to space now but my effort is to late. He killed me because I never could get my combo going against him. But it’s all good.
Full lose by 24
6(-3)
Highs: Getting to laugh every time he canceled a force drain, he would throw his hands in the air and snap his fingers…..hahahah that made losing so much easier.
Lows: getting a bad draw and losing to a guy who was a total jerk.
Game 5—Light vs. Kyle Craft (rops)
So we start the game by talking about how much Rops can kill hidden base, all the time I am thinking auto-win. Man I play like a scrub that game. I so had the game won if I could count cards. I flip like 3rd turn and so does he. Ok here’s where I start to play like a scrub…..one turn he left janus alone with no force to react….hahaha and what do I do (while holding obi and luke in my hand), I activate it all and forget to save destiny’s. Wow what a lame mistake. Then a couple of turns later I count my force wrong and can’t play all wings report in because of secret plans. Man I should have won that game. But it all worked out. What made the game close was one turn he went to kessel with 2 ships…big mistake, I think I smacked them around with like 60 power to his 20.
Oh well I am 3-2 at this point
Full lose by 12
6(-16)
Highs: playing Kyle.
Lows: Playing like a scrub.
So now I was playing in the sea of @#$%, as Clint Hayes calls it.
Game 6—Dark vs. Ben Isaacs (test to 6)
I feel really bad about this game he forgets to do everything. Lose for this, save force for this, everything. The game was very uneventful, I just set up drains and he tried to test. What made the game close was I had a hand of about 25 cards. I didn’t know what to do against him. He never came down to fight and never played AFA or stuff like that. When it was all over he started to cry and say I was a bad opponent and all. I am just like, “dude you forgot all your cards, just play better next game.” He gets mad and I go turn in the scorecard.
Full win by 12
8(-4)
Highs: still having a change at day 3.
Lows: making him cry?
After the game everyone comes over and starts say; ”Sokol, how could you make a kid cry?” I feel really bad about the whole game, and wish things had worked out better.
Game 7—Light vs. John Arendt (hunt down duel)
Dude this guy was one of the coolest people at the whole event. He was mad cool to play against and an all around nice guy. So the game starts off by him asking if it was Chu’s x-wings (chu beat him the day before with this deck). So I try to play it cool and all but he’s not fooled. This was one of the best games in my life.
Ok here it goes: Honor comes out 1st turn, so he loses to visage for the first 3 turns. I set up fast, flipping 3rd or 4th turn. Spy’s come down to cancel visage and block drains. Order to engage hit him for 9 cards that game. His ships that come to the air get the beat down, but legendary never gets played. So I am winning the game but he gets around honor, so I am losing 2 cards a turn form direct damage. Ok, so I have to get some cool tech going, he has two cards in his hand so I drop obi at the forest (at yavin 4) and say go. So he picks up Vader of his turn. I drop civil disorder on my turn, drain and say go. His turn he drops Vader and duels. I am all like what? You only had 2 cards in your hand. He wins the duel and I lose like 9 cards. This makes the game MAD close, but civil disorder kills him off before I lose my last card to visage.
Full win by 1
10(-3)
Highs: beating last year’s wild card winner.
Lows: None that I can think of.
So right now we all figure that 6-2 gets to day 3 and maybe 2 or 3 5-3. So my diff sucks so it comes down to a must win!
Game 8—Dark vs. Jimmy Faelens (hidden base mains)
This was a weird game because I knew all I had to do was win, so I draw mad cards to set up the beast’s combo. He knows that I am playing the docking bay version of bhbm, so he sets up mad guys at one docking bay. I think he’s got like 40 power sitting at the endor-docking bay. All I do is put responsibility of command and much anger in him on obi and sit back and watch him lose 4 cards a turn. He tries to spread out but I don’t care. I’ll lose one to a drain at a docking bay. Order to engage gets altered, I got 3 battle grounds to take care of honor.
All this time Yannick is playing Chris twigg right next to me. I am hoping Chris can pull it out, but Yannick pulls it out by like 5 cards to get into day 3 over Chris.
Full win by 9
12(+6)
Highs: Getting into day 3. Watching the beast work perfectly.
Lows: None, I am in day 3.
So the tourney gets done by 11pm and the 12 finalist pick up there stuff and head out. I meet up with Chu, Clint, Steven Lewis, and Scott Anderson, and they’re like want to go to Denny’s and get the brownie? S I jump in their car and we leave.
Ok so this is where Clint turns into himself. He’s all like; “Sokol I never thought you would get into day 3. I am very surprised to see you here. I had a list of about 20 people I thought were going to make it, and your not on it.” OH was I pissed, not only did I win 2 grand slams this year (one with twigg) but I kicked his butt in one to win it. Man I was so pissed at him, he sooooooooo under-played my star wars abilities, and coming from Clint, one could see why I was pissed.
So we get to Denny’s and we eat dinner and talk about what we’ll see on day 3. So we all talk about a dark that will beat; Yavin 4 mains, Hidden base, and Dagobah. So they’re all like; “I don’t know”, and I am thinking about bhbm or a lame ev-99 drain deck.
Ok then the brownie comes and things get mad funny. We all start eating in and I am getting full, I can’t finish the brownie, and if you looked at Clint’s article you know how bad that is. So they all start making fun of me, “ahahaha if you don’t finish the brownie your going to lose mad hard.” So I just take my spoon and shove it all down. After that I ran to the bathroom and started throwing up like a champ, I must have been in there for a good 5 or 6 minutes.
When I get out everyone is laughing at me, but I try to play it cool.
The car ride back I talk to Chu and he gives me some confidence and just says play what I know. I start to think about what my brother said to me, “Matt you’re a good player, don’t let any get the better of you.” Dan said some other things like how his mentality helps him win and how good we were as players and all that. So I felt really good, but VERY nervous going back to the hotel room that night.
When I get back to the room I find Team Albany hard at work on decks. Art, Aaron and Brian are working hard on a dark deck, and Chris leaves to go play some games. We start the night off by making fun of Clint (because he said all that nice stuff about me). We had a good laugh and got to work.
The first part of the night was spent making an ev-99 drain deck….. Failure.
The next deck idea was a construct the Death Star…………………. Failure.
So finally we come up with this dark deck based on Kim Caton’s old ISB. Dude the deck runs mad cool. We figure it can beat Hidden base, Mains, and Dagobah. So we build the deck and I play two hands with it.
So right now its like 4 am, and I am running on like 3 hours of sleep. We start thinking about a Hidden base deck that run inserts. Everyone’s like; “Matt you need some sleep, go to bed.” I just go; “Hey guys make my deck and wake me in the morning.” Being part of Team Albany is the greatest thing, not only did they build my decks but they play tested them for me and everything. I love those guys so much. Right now I want to thank Brian for making my Dark and light, Art and Aaron for helping play test it, and to Chris who added his #2 player in the world wisdom. Also to Johnny Chu for telling me how good x-wings are.
I wake up around 9 and start on my deck lists. Ok so here’s when it all happens, my light comes up at 59 cards, not realizing it I go down to register and hand in my deck lists. Once they start to review them Juz calls me in. He’s like your one card short…..i get all happy and add a civil disorder. Not having a Luke really hurt.
I start talking with everyone about how I wish I could play Clint round one. Everyone from Team Albany (Brian, Chris, Chu, Art , and Aaron) are all wishing me luck, and they start to call the pairings for day 3.
I start thinking about Dan, my bro, and all the things he said to me. This pumps me up for the start of the day.
Game 1 Dark vs. Clint Hayes (light hidden base insert)
This is what I wanted play against. This game was a killing; the only guy he could fight me with was Jedi Luke. ISB agents came down to drain for a ton on the ground, his drain at kessel got an outer rim scout sent to the den, and any drains of one was an ISB agent to the lost pile and then back to my deck during my draw phase. I got his hidden base on my first try ( I knew it wasn’t kessel because he lost it off the top), Search and Destroy plus a drain of 10 killed him fast.
Full win by 21.
2(+21)
Highs: Destroying Clint after he said I shouldn’t be in day 3, and watching Clint’s face get all red after the game.
Lows: After the game I had to go to the bathroom to throw up because I was so nervous and happy at the same time.
Game 2 Light vs. Yannick Lapointe (standard BHBM)
Wow what a bad time to find out you forgot a Luke in your deck. I think an insert popped once for a couple of cards, but your destiny KILLED me the whole game.
Full lose by 15.
2(+6)
Highs: only losing by 15.
Lows: Luke? Luke? Where are you Luke?
After the game we all laugh about it and I head for the bathroom again because I am not feeling so good.
Game 3 Light vs. Brian Rippetoe
He start the 3rd marker and 5th marker start so I am thinking, “Drain Race Game.” First couple of turn we just deploy sites and drain, I flip like 4th turn draw for my inserts. After a few turns he comes to air and gets my hidden base. I battle and play legendary, and with order to engage out he has to battle me. I finally clear him out of the air and get my first insert in his deck. He’s got a drain of 7 on the ground and gets two limited resources off against me. He had the game won if the insert didn’t pop on my last turn, I drain for 6 and POP, lose 8 cards, good game.
Full Win by 2
4(+8)
Highs: winning a mad good game.
Lows: winning by so little.
So as off right now I think I have a good change of getting into the finals because I have my dark next round.
Game 4 Dark vs. Raphael Asselin (test 1 with AFA)
This game was really uneventful. I set up my drains at the deserts and he gets test 1 off. I start drawing like a champ and play an Abyseen Ornament. Count my cards right and then just Set for Stun boshek (he was the guy trained to test 1). From there his AFA’s keep it close, but because of the ISB objective he can’t really drain. I think I had my drains going for 7 or 8 a turn. He couldn’t come down and fight me or drain, so AFA did about 20 cards worth of damage.
Full win by 15
6(+23)
Highs: Beating the first world champ, and making the final duel.
Lows: Nothing.
First off I want to say that if Kyle Craft had lost his final game I wouldn’t have made the duel, thanks Kyle.
Ok I think there have been enough reports on my final game and I just want to clear some things up:
- Yannick is one of the best players in the game.
- If I had a Luke in my deck it would have been a better game one.
- I want to thank everyone who said all those nice things about me over the message boards (my bro told me everything), and all the not so nice things.
- I know I could have put the druids in the spiral, but I forgot.
- Ok this is what really bothers me, Yannick did have a change to draw up, but if he did I would have won the game. I had an Ornament waiting in my to play on the 4 outer rim scouts I had on the table. I would have gotten 4 cards back to win the game.
- Yannick’s light is a machine; it was just the sandwhirls that won me the game.
- Guess I am not day 3 material right Clint?
I want to thank everyone who supported me in the final games, but the most thanks go out to TEAM ALBANY. I couldn’t have won without you. Thanks to Brian for my dark and Chu for my light, thanks to my brother for the confidence I needed so bad. And thanks to everyone else who was there telling me I could win and to never give up.
I guess I can end this report with some Props and Slops:
Props:
-to decipher for being the coolest company.
-to Juz for running a great 3 days of tourney play.
-to Team Albany.
-to DecipherCon for being the coolest
-to John Ardnet for being a really cool guy.
-to All the Canadians for being cool.
-to Steven Lewis and Jim Cells for being mad cool.
-to Scott Anderson for being the funnest guy there.
-to Kyle Craft for being cool and winning the last game.
-to the dark deck for being a machine.
-to Mara Jade and Arua Sign (however it is spelled) for being there.
-to all the decipher people for being MAD COOL.
-to everyone else who flew to DecipherCon.
-to Gary Carmen for being the best world champion ever, and for giving me mad advice to follow over the next year.
-to Mike Dalton of New Jersey for sticking up for me over the message boards.
Slops:
-NONE, this was the best weekend of my life…..I can now check #1 off my life goal list.
Thanks for reading I hope it wasn’t to long. I hope to write a report about the Team Tourney and put my decks up on decktech.net.
Thanks again everyone, and to Team Albany for being there for me.
I just want end on a note to everyone.....if you want something so bad you can come true...look at me I finished 36 day one and then went on to have a monster weekend. I guess miracles do really happen.
Matt Sokol