maryland-15-oct-00
Title: maryland-15-oct-00
Author: Doug "Phrim" Faust
Date: Oct 16, 2000
Unfortunately, I haven’t really had time to build decks at all recently (just time to write tourney reports--heh), so I’m still with my Hidden Base/Strike Planning (which is good; prolly would have kept it regardless), and my Dark Deal with Big Ugly Imperials (which I really need to change). There were two Endor/DS2 tourneys in the region too this weekend, but those required I make new decks, so they were out. Anyway, I manage to get to Greg’s house okay, albeit a tad bit late, and we take off. Greg needs to run a few errands before the tourney, and we get to the store about noonish. Not just any store, mind you, Greg runs his tourneys in a Bagel store. It was pretty cool, Greg was good friends with the owners, and he worked there for like 13 years, so they let him use the store on Sundays after they closed. Kinda cool having it there too, cause getting food whenever you wanted was definitely cool. :-)
Anyway, I wait around for the tourney to start, and eventually Pat Sullivan and Mike Gandy show up. Mike asks if I want to play a friendly game, I only have the two decks I’m using in the tournament, but I don’t care, so I play. They’re mopping the floor in the store or something, so we end up playing on the sidewalk outside. Anyway, I’m going along fine, but he keeps dropping guys to my 1/0 Docking Bays, which gets really annoying. He’s got two 2/2 troopers at my Hoth Docking Bay with a POTF, and Myn at my Home One Docking Bay, along his the Emperor at his Yavin Docking Bay, and Vesden at his Exec Docking Bay. I’ve got EPP Obi and EPP Luke in my hand. I use Madine’s text to get Blount into my hand. Unfortunately, I don’t have enough Force to deploy Obi, Luke, and Blount and battle in two places like I wanted, I think I’m one short. So I instead decide to attack Myn with Luke and the Emperor with Obi (he’s already lost one Emperor off the top, so I’m thinking this is prolly the last one). I attack Myn, so he deploys like 10 unique troopers as a react and plays Trooper Assault. Hrm. I had just read Myn, he said your troopers could react to his battle, but I thought that meant move as a react, not deploy as a react. Kinda funny, I used to know all the rules by heart a year or two ago, but now half of them have been reversed, so I always get mixed up. *shrug* So I lose Luke and 14. I then battle the Emperor, but I miss him with my Saber (drew a total of 7--doh), so I made him lose 3. Anyway, the Executor comes down and chases away my Falcon, so now he’s draining for lots per turn, and I can’t get the Falcon away from his ships to drain. So I lost. I’m kinda glad that was a friendly game; I would know better next time against Myn. And I never flipped, so he still didn’t know what my Hidden Base was for the tourney, which is always a plus.
Anyway, some more people show up, and we have 10 people total. It’d been nice to have a little more, but then again the store was kinda small, there wasn’t much room for more than that (although Greg had claimed running a 20 person tourney in there, I still dunno if I believe him). :-) So we get started...
Game 1: My Dark vs. Aaron Moore’s (1953) TIGIH Hit and Fade
Well, I don’t really know many people here, so I have no clue I’m playing like the highest-rated player here. :-) Anyway, he starts TIGIH with Draw Their Fire, Do Or Donut, and Wise Advice, I think. Well, starting Draw Their Fire is a pretty bold thing to do, so I’m scared, but still not sure what he’s playing, I’m thinking maybe Speeders. I draw my Downtown Plaza, but I hold it for a while for that reason. Anyway, I deploy Mara and her Saber at some site, and he deploys some EPP and kills her. So I deploy the Emperor and Kitik at a site, so he comes down and misses the Emperor, but kills Kitik. He tries attacking the Emperor again, and misses again, but I take a couple damage (and it’s all working out for him with Draw Their Fire). In the meanwhile, he’s inserting Anger, Fear, Aggression, and he never has any characters on the table (except Jedi Luke on Endor), so he’s battling me, and I can’t battle him. He’s playing lots of Frozen Assets too, but it’s a nuisance at most, didn’t really have too much effect. So I deploy Sim to back up the Emperor, and he deploys and EPP and kills him. I finally draw Vader in my hand, so I go capture Luke cause he’s being annoying and transit back to Cloud City. I move him over to the Downtown Plaza, which is nice because I get to drain for 3 (I had a Saber) and I could retrieve sites, but he kept playing lots and lots of Out Of Commission and managed to put most of my lost sites out of play. In any case, he never does manage to kill the Emperor, though I lose lots of Force to DTF in his trials. He tries attacking the Emperor with EPP Leia and EPP Han, so I lose some Force, and Han dies, so Leia runs away to the Docking Bay. I deploy Janus just to kill Leia, but he apparently has a strong dislike to losing to his own DTF, so he On The Edges Leia and names a 6 so she dies. I was just going to do that this turn, but since I have the chance, I deploy Bossk In Hound’s Tooth at B:CC (which I was saving, because I knew he’d come down with a ship and kill it as soon as I put it down), and set up Dark Deal. Janus runs over to the Emperor’s site. As expected, he makes short with of Bossk with a GLiG1. He also deploys ECC Chewie and EPP Han and kills Janus, and tries to play Slight Weapons Malfunction, but I’ve got Crush out so he can’t draw more than two destinies. So the Emperor lives, and so does Han, but Han doesn’t run away because he’s got a 6 on top of his reserve. So if I try to battle him, he’ll shoot the Emperor because Wise Advice is making my defense value -1 or something. So I drain him for 5 at the Downtown Plaza with Vader, and he doesn’t have enough to lose and still keep the 6 on top, so he just On The Edges Han to kill him. My drains of 3 and 5 are really starting to eat him away, he battles me once more with EPP Leia but doesn’t kill the Emperor, and his AFAs keep on popping, but after a while he just runs out of stuff, so I win. FW+7, 2(+7)
Highlights: Winning a close game against a really inventive deck.
Lowlights: His deck was pretty darned scary, I thought I was gonna lose.
Game 2: My Light vs. Scott Valentine’s (1734) Corulag Ops
I was kinda glad to play Scott, since he’s a good friend of mine, but I’ve never played him in a tourney before (secret squirrel don’t count). Anyway, he says he’s tired of everyone playing ROps or BHBM, so he decided to play Ops instead, and Greg almost slapped him upside the head for playing it. :-) In any case, I flip like the 2nd or 3rd turn because I draw lots of systems, and I’ve got Wedge and Tycho draining at Kiffex, and Lando in the Falcon draining at Coruscant. He deploys Zuckuss to Kiffex and probes, and doesn’t find it, so he deploys a Dreadnaught to Kirdo and probes, and finds it. He moves both ships over to block my drain at Coruscant, but I deploy Home One and blow everything up. But he flips his Objective, so my drain of 5 a turn suddenly turns into a drain of 3 a turn, and I couldn’t drain for more in space if I wanted to. He’s got Myn on his planet (he moved over from the Coruscant DB) on some enclosed vehicle that reacts, and I’ve already learned my lesson with Myn today, so I know I’m in trouble if I try battling. So I’m really not sure what to do, so I deploy Boushh to block a drain, and draw. Well, about the third card I draw is Corporal Beezer. I use Beezer so rarely that I had completely forgot that she was in my deck; had I remembered I could’ve just got her with Madine as soon as I saw Myn. Anyway, I’ve got an EPP Luke in my hand, so I need to decide where to fight. I can’t really get a good beatdown anywhere, so I decide (after a good deal of thought) to just go after Myn so I could make more attacks later. He’s got Myn driving a Patrol Craft and an Operative, so I come down with Luke and Beezer, and he Barriers Beezer, but Beezer still works whilst Barrier’ed. So I Clash the Operative (no battle destiny is much better than two) and fight, Smoke my destiny, and kill Myn and the Craft. He deploys Overseeing It Personally on the Emperor, which could be bad, then he deploys to a 4th site and moves the Operative where Boushh is over, and Boushh follows. But that leaves a lone Colonel Davod Jon at a site. I had managed to draw an EPP Obi, and I’m thinking if I could slice the Emperor, that would be very good for me. So I activate all but 3, then look at my destiny, 2 4’s and a 3. So I have a 1 in 3 chance of hitting the Emperor with my Saber, so I decided not to risk it, so I dropped Obi on Davod instead. I hit Davod and Smoked my destiny, so he lost a bunch of Force, and I lost Obi. He deploys 3 troopers to battle Luke and Beezer, he plays Trooper Assault, and I Clash Felth and hit one. So he loses a trooper and the operative, and I have 6 damage, I could lose Beezer to cover (with Insurrection), but I decide to lose Luke instead because I have another one in my hand. He doesn’t have enough Force to run away with his remaining non-Clashed trooper, so I come down with Luke and battle him, and he loses by a whole bunch, winning me the game. FW+18, 4(+25)
Highlights: Beating Ops is always a highlight. :-)
Lowlights: I really wasn’t on top of my game, but Scott like reminded me of everything: that Beezer still works while Barriered, that Felth was still Clashed and I could battle his lone trooper, and lots of other stuff. I need to start remembering that stuff myself...
Game 3: My Dark vs. Patrick Sullivan’s (1795) TIGIH Speedabeats
Wonderful, another TIGIH deck. Anyway, for some reason I’m thinking he’s playing EPPs like Aaron, but I realize he’s not when he Signals for a Maneuvering Flaps and deploys Yarna. I get out the Lower Corridor and the Docking Bay. He starts dropping Speeders all over the universe. He puts down Incom Corp at his Hoth DB, and puts 2 Speeders there. He also put 2 or 3 Speeders at my Cloud City DB, which proceeded to annoy me to no end. I deploy the Emperor at the West Gallery, I figure he’s nice and safe outside. He deploys S-foils and I Alter it, so he Controls my Alter and I Alter it again. I finally manage to draw Vader, so he comes down at the Endor Docking Bay and captures Luke. Kinda at a loss to what I’m supposed to do with him though. I could move to Cloud City, but he’s got 3 Speeders there and prolly like 5 more in his hand, and that would be bad. Keeping him on Endor was another option, but whatever Speeders he had in his hand would still prolly hurt. So I moved him to my Death Star Docking Bay, where he was nice and safe (or so I thought). Funny, having to worry about having Lord Vader and his Saber nice and safe. Anyway, on his turn he Revolutions my Death Star Docking Bay, and proceeds to deploy all the Speeders in my hand and take out Vader, freeing Luke. Out of sheer spite, I fetch an Evader with Crush and use it, but it prolly hurt me in the long run, because he could drain for more without the Revolution. I know he’s got X-wings in his deck, because I saw the S-foils, so I drop Cloud City with Zuckuss, Fett, and Obsidian 8 there. I’m hoping he attacks, because I have a Sense in hand for Organized Attack, but he never takes me on. He gets out Endor: Back Door and Cloud City: Downtown Plaza and puts Speeders there. By this point, I’ve pretty much given up on Dark Deal, as it would be hard to set up and easy for him to cancel, with him holding 2 CC sites strongly. So I decide to take a chance and deploy a lone Kitik to the Lower Corridor, so he deploys Boushh, breaks cover and battles. He draws a 5 for destiny so he thinks it’s 8-8, but I get to add 3 to my power because of the Cloud City text, and he loses Boushh. I manage to draw up Mara, Vader, and their respective Sabers, but at this point I’m pretty much in damage control mode. So I deploy Vader, get in one round of drains with him, then I deploy Mara and move Vader over to block his drains just so I could live, and I almost live long enough to get another round of drains in, but I end up losing my last card to I Feel The Conflict. FL-16, 4(+9)
Highlights: Umm, I dunno. I killed Boushh with a lone Kitik...?
Lowlights: Dark Deal should work against Speeders. It really should. :-) I prolly deployed my Docking Bay too early.
Game 4: My Light vs. Philip Wolff’s (1449) Dueling Hunt Down
Well, I kinda feel bad for Philip, as the pairing were all messed up; among other things, there were two people on the same side of the Force that dropped. Anyway, I’m 2-1 and he’s 0-3. He starts Hunt Down, and I’m not liking Visage from the beginning. He drops Premiere Vader down at the Endor Back Door 2nd turn, and flips. So I deploy Cracken and EPP Obi at the Holotheatre to cancel Visage. He deploys Mara with her Saber and Jodo Cast there and battles; Obi hits Mara, Mara hits Obi, and everybody dies. I play a Boushh at the Back Door to block his drain, and get my systems out and flip. I’ve got Lando on the Falcon, Wedge on Red 1, and Elyhek on Red 7 at Kessel draining. He uses Mob Points to fetch the Executor and deploys it to Endor and probes. Not it. So he moves to Roche. I deploy the Independence and the Liberty and battle him, and I draw a 5 for destiny, so I win 20-12. He doesn’t want to lose the Executor (typically not a good thing with Hunt Down), so he burns for 8. Next turn, he puts down Mara on the Executor and plays Bossk in the Bus and battles, I forfeit the Liberty to the Used Pile, and he loses Mara. So the Independence runs away to Kessel. I get bored and kill Vader with EPP Obi. He moves the Executor and Bossk, with one other ship I think, over to Kessel. He probes (not it), and I battle him, he loses everything but the Executor, and I lose the Independence. So he runs away to Endor for a drain of one. I deploy EPP Luke to the Back Door and break Leia’s cover (he no longer has enough Force for Vader). So he drains me for one for a little bit and I get rid of some of the cards in my hand, and I drain him for 5 and win. FW+20, 6(+29)
Highlights: My deck worked just as it should...
Lowlights: I never did blow up the Executor...
So anyway, Mike Gandy goes undefeated to win the tournament. Pat Sullivan edges me out on differential to get 2nd, and I end up with 3rd. I’m cool with it though, still trying to recover the 150 ratings points I lost over the summer. :-) After the tourney, me, Greg, Scott, Pat, and some other folks go get some pizza for dinner, and then we talk for a bit, and then me and Greg take the long and uneventful trip back to Jersey...
I’d just like to thank Greg for driving me down and running the whole thing, and all the players for just being cool people. And the Bagel Shop for making the whole thing possible, of course. Until next time...
- Doug Faust
http://times.phrim.com