rexbanner-goes-to-d-con
Title: rexbanner-goes-to-d-con
Author: Andy "RexBanner7" Klema
Date: Oct 16, 2000
After a while, I call Delta to see about switching the name on the ticket. The lady I get says that it is no problem and since I bought the tickets electronically, she’ll send me an e-mail alert when the change goes through, and that I can expect the e-mail in 3-5 days. Good. Done and done...but not quite. About a week from D-Con, the e-mail still hasn’t come, so I decide to call them back. I call them up and the lady I get says that the never change tickets. WTF!? What do you mean you don’t change tickets? I told her what happened before, but she just passed it off as a mistake. I talk to her supervisor and he says the same thing. Well we’re screwed. I call back again to get someone else, and this person tells me that they only change the tickets if it’s an unrestricted flight, but ours is restricted. WTF?! Someone else just told me that you don’t change them at all. Whatever. Basically, we try twice more and get two more different answers. Delta sucks. Let that be a lesson to all of you; never fly on Delta. So Karl has to buy a ticket at today’s price, which is almost double what he would have paid. Again, Delta sucks. But in the end, everyone still goes, so it’s not too bad.
Me and Cody meet Karl at the airport around 6:00 for a plane that leaves at 7:30. The wait for the plane is nothing special, but when we get on the plane, we get this sarcastic stewardess. She says mockingly to us "Hey, why aren’t you boys in school?" And Cody, being the closest person to her, says back "Don’t worry, we’re just skipping." The stewardess gives one of those polite laughs and Cody adds "Actually, we’re just in recess." Then I chime in and say "The sad thing is, he’s the witty one." Uproarious laughter ensues (except from Cody; I don’t know why : ) , especially from the flight attendant. Then I give Cody one of those mock surprise looks and say "Oh, I guess I’m the witty one." More laughter ensues, but Cody just glares at me (this becomes a running joke for the rest of the weekend). Then the stewardess gives us wings (you know, those little plastic wings that little kids get when they ride on a plane), which are mad cool and becomes Cody’s good luck charm for the rest of the tournament. The rest of the flight is uneventful, except many "witty one" jokes. When we get into Florida, we meet Jeremy Oakes, the fourth member of our little expedition. We take an uneventful car ride to the Doubletree, which is where we stayed for the weekend. It’s pretty nice, and they have damn good cookies (and let me tell you, when Jeremy checked into the hotel, he got two complimentary cookies, not that they weren’t all complimentary, and ate them both! I’ll remember that Jeremy!). So anyway, we get up to the room and start testing decks. My DS is a Bring Him Before Me machine, so I barely play it. LS on the other hand, I have absolutely nothing for. I end up rebuilding one of my old Profit decks (which was pretty good at the time and all), tweak it very little, and play it very little, which proved to be a really bad choice. We test decks a little, then go to sleep around 3 am.
We wake up at 8 am, do normal morning stuff, and head downstairs to register. The line is absolutely huge and isn’t moving at all. Then, about 15 minutes into the wait, Karl starts to get nauseous. Apparently he drank the IHOP coffee (not very smart), and really has to puke. He ends up puking in this small @#$% styrofoam cup that was sitting on the table. Disgusting, but really funny if you saw it. I mean, that cup was tiny! He pukes some more in a garbage can, changes shirts, and is surprisingly fine the rest of the day. We get registered (after about an hour wait mind you), and head into the main room. Of course the registration is going slow, and the pairings are going slow, and what have you, so the tourney doesn’t start until about 1 pm. That kind of sucked, but anyway, on to the games.
Game 1: DS vs something Klaus from Germany’s (sorry, I’m horrible with names) Asteroids.
Asteroids? WTF?! Well, in any case, this game was officially over when a third or so turn Monnok took out four sectors and 2 Sanctuaries. The thing that made this game somewhat close was me never being able to find sites. I run 8 in the deck after the start, so they shouldn’t be too hard to find, but nevertheless. I Altered his S-Foils, his Rebel Fleet, and then his Yarna, just before he put down his Wise Advice. Bad timing! He set up at the Asteroids later, but by then I had found my sites and there wasn’t much he could do. The early Monnok is what killed him.
FW by 18 2(+18)
Highlights: Winning my first game. Altering all that stuff. That early Monnok
Lowlights: Almost losing (before the Monnok) because I couldn’t get out my sites.
So I’m doing allright. Most people I know lost their first game though, so I’m feeling for them. The next round pairings take a while and when they’re done, I’m left with a pretty tough matchup.
Game 2: LS vs Walter Cowert’s ROps
At first glance, this game didn’t seem like it would be that bad. Profit can easily kill ROps. Well, I made a couple mistakes when I built my Profit deck, but my biggest one was going skimpy on sites. I played Mos Eisley and Cantina x2 for drain sites, and the rest were 2/0s. That’s a bad thing when you play decks that give you no sites, or just generic crap where it’s their turf. I don’t know what I was thinking when I built it like that, but that’s what happened. It started out allright with me flipping really early and getting setup with Ben Kenobi freeing Han. He flips soon thereafter, but I’m doing Profit damage and draining because of a saber. No sites though. He’s draining me for 3 on Raltiir, and then he puts out Ability x3. That’s not good. So I start to make a move. Nabrun Ben and Han onto Raltiir (during my move phase), and deploy Masta Luke and Tawss Khaa to Raltiiir. Don’t flip him back though. One of the things that really hurt me this game was losing my Order to Engage off of the top. That was a very bad thing because I had some squads on Raltiir. He drains me one turn, and for some reason, I throw away a grabber, which is weird because I never throw away grabbers. So what does he do that turn? Trample Han (which I can’t grab now), and proceeds to get rid of Ben because of massive destiny. He then pulls that Trample next turn, tracks a Masterful Move, and Tramples Luke, hitting Tawss up for some overflow. BTW, still no Cantina or Mos Eisley. Having learned my lesson the first time, I set up Han in the Audience Chamber this time, but it’s too late. Ability x3 and drains do me in.
FL by 12 2(+6)
Highlights: Invading Raltiir. Getting what should have been a good matchup.
Lowlights: Throwing that grabber away. Losing Order to Engage off the top. Not drawing my sites at all.
Right now I’m not feeling too bad. I got that loss out of the way, so now I can get back on track. I’m meeting some really cool people, Kyle Craft, Mike Gemme among others, and seeing some people that I haven’t seen in a while, Hayes Hunter, Steve Baroni, Matt Rieks, and Neal Razi, who remembered me! I was quite impressed. Neal’s a great guy and it was good to talk to him again. Anyway, on to game 3.
Game 3: DS vs Bastian Proot’s There is Good In Him speeders
This deck should usually be nothing. I’ve got interior sites, 4 Vaders to grab Luke, mad SAC, Dengar with Gun, and plenty of beats to win battles. I draw my opening hand; Cantina, Emperor (I only play one cuz I only got one), and all red, but almost no SAC. I’m really mad because of drawing Palpy, but I just deploy the Cantina and save up enough force for him second turn. His first turn consists of deploying Ben Kenobi to my Cantina (WTF?!), deploying Maneuvering Flaps, deploying Goo Nee Tay (double WTF?!), and deploying random speeder to one of his docking bays. Now thoroughly screwed, I look over my options; can’t deploy Emperor except to an exterior site where he’ll get beat on, no characters in hand (still), no sites to save up force, and no Alters for Goo Nee Tay. Basically, I don’t do crap in the game. He overdeploys, and I underdeploy, winning a few battles in the Cantina when I finally draw Vader. I even won more battles than him. All in all, a total of three characters hit the table for me. I am thoroughly disgusted because a very winnable game turns into a loss due to a bad draw for me and a god draw for him.
FL by 12 2(-6)
Highlights: Winning more battles than him.
Lowlights: Just about everything else.
By now, I’m really not that happy. Cody and Jeremy aren’t doing so hot either, although Karl is kicking some ass. There’s no way I’ll drop, but I’m pissed that the draws aren’t going my way. But at least I’ll play some scrub. Yeah, right.
Game 4: LS vs Mike Kessling’s HuntDown
Well, I knew Mike as Troop 1023 (or something like that) from Decktech, and I knew his name from the listserve, so it was really nice to actually meet him. We weren’t to happy about playing each other, (especially when we were both 1-2) but it turns out that he had nothing to worry about. I get a decent start going with a Ben Kenobi is my opening hand. He starts Mara and I think that’s it, but he moves her right out to the Palace after getting her saber. He stockpiles his forces there, adding Vader and I think the Emperor, but again, I could be wrong. I free Han, but don’t want to even touch that site. I get out Luke to the Cantina, but some ability 4 scrub (I’m pretty sure it was Sim Aloo) comes down and kills him because he is able to Sense my Barrier with a 1 (remember, HuntDown is on the 0 side), and then draw a 4 for destiny while I don’t connect on the swing, and I draw pretty bad for the battle destiny. Eventually he starts chasing my Ben and Han team around with his huge squad, and I stop running at the Palace. In my hand I have a Sorry About the Mess, Fallen Portal, Narrow Escape, and Clash of Sabers. I’m fine. He moves his squad over, and on my turn I completely forget to Mess Mara. His turn, he Snipers my Ben with Mara by drawing a 1 first, then a 6 (the Emperor of course)! That’s not good. Then he checks my destiny with Sim, and battles. I play Fallen Portal, targeting Dengar (who had been added). All I need is a 1. I get a 0. WTF!!! Then I try to play Narrow Escape. He Senses, and draws another 1! Well, I’m screwed. He hits Han, plays I Have You Now, and causes overflow of about 20. Can’t do much about that, can you?
FL by 25 2(-31)
Highlights: Getting him down to 25.
Lowlights: Playing like a scrub, forgetting to Mess Mara, him Sensing things, but drawing good destinies, etc, etc. Still, a good game Mike.
That was definitely not a good thing. Now I know I have to win the rest of my games to even have a shot. But I know that I can do it, and if I do, I’ll have good enough diff to get into day 2. BTW, somewhere in here I ran into Michael Hawley (rayc on Decktech), one of my favorite people that play Star Wars. I talk to him for a while, but then run off because the next game is starting, after wishing him luck. He’s a great guy.
Game 5: DS vs Peter Sundholm’s Profit
Peter was a really nice guy, and we both wished each other luck, because we both knew that we had to win the rest of our games to have a shot. I start Mara and Dannick Jerriko (mad tech), and put Emperor in the Chamber first turn. He doesn’t free Han the whole game. I get out both of the Emperor’s helpers pretty quickly, and move all three of them out to the Palace, backing up the Chamber with 4-LOM. I do this after he gives up Luke to Vader of course, who sits at the Forest Clearing draining for 3 (he had his saber). When he deploys Boushh to stop the Vader drain, I just Sniper her. I had all the answers this game. Those quick drains and battle damage did him in. I love this deck!
FW by 22 (I think) 4(-9)
Highlights: Having all the answers, him never being able to free Han.
Lowlights: Having to beat Peter. He really is a cool guy.
At this point, Cody is feeling pretty bad. He’s 1-4, but he’s had to play Matt Sokol, Jim Li, and one of the Terwilligers, all of them being pretty close games. He’s spent, he doesn’t have a chance to move on, and it’s taking a long time, so he drops. Me and Jeremy stay in it, and Karl does too because he’s kicking ass. I’m feeling a little tired, and a lot pissed that I played my LS deck, cuz now it has to win twice. But I stick with it, and start my next game.
Game 6: LS vs Andy Parks’s SYCFA TIEs
My detail is going to start to go here, mainly because this is a lot to write and I’m going to continue on with the rest of the weekend. Basically, this game was a drain race. I was able to control his DS docking bay, so he had to pay to drain (Battle Order), but I wasn’t getting any sites out (again). I spread out to do Profit damage, but I can’t drain for crap. I make a late game attempt to go into space, putting Major Haashn (more tech) and Lt. Blount on the Independence. It gets chased around by the Flagship Executor for a while, but I make my stand at Kiffex because he deployed Chiraneu, and I can’t take that drain. I keep tanking my characters, but I can’t keep it up forever. He drains me down to one card, and battles. My destiny is....the Cantina that I had been looking for the whole game. The damage is just enough that I have to lose the ship, so I can’t pay to drain, and he drains me out the next turn.
FL by 7 4(-16)
Highlights: It was a really good game. Making a stand in space against a TIE deck.
Lowlights: Again seeing my Order to Engage go off the top. Losing a close game.
Well, I’m out of it, but I keep playing because I’m a real man (or something else really macho). But this is the techest moment of the night. Me and Jeremy are sitting at a table winging Trek cards that we found on the floor at each other. And from this throwing of cards came the greatest game ever; Hardcore Trek! (named that because it is the only, and most dangerous use for Trek cards) The rules are simple; you take turns throwing cards across the table, trying to get them to hang partially off the edge. When you get two hanging off the table at the same time, you win. Your opponent has a chance to knock those two off the table though if you got them both to hang off the table in the same turn. It’s the king game. We play this between games for the rest of the night, always attracting inquisitive people (more on this later). It’s such an awesome game. Anyway, on to game 7.
Game 7: LS vs Marc Thiery’s (I think that was his name) ROps
Good, ROps. I can beat this. Of course he manages to put the Emperor to the Palace something like the second turn. I free Han anyway and make the scrub move of the day; move Ben and Han towards the Emperor. His turn, he pulls Force Lightening (crap), plays it targeting Han (double crap), and pulls an untracked four! (triple crap) That pissed me off because his average destiny sucked, but yet he managed to pull that off. Whatever. So Profit flips back, and because I can’t find my other Han, I decide to invade Raltiir. Basically, I get in some pitiful drains while he tries to battle me off Raltiir. I was losing for a while, but then I draw my other Han. That was cool. The game swings around in my favor as I go back to doing Profit damage. He almost pulls it out toward the end, but once I flipped Profit back, the game was over.
FW by 5 6(-11)
Highlights: Beating a ROps deck. Drawing my other Han.
Lowlights: Him pulling off a blind Force Lightening on Han. C’mon! At least he wasn’t playing Young Fool.
So I’m on course to break even (my plan after I lose my fourth game), and now I get to play in my final game.
Game 8: DS vs Robert Bowles’s (I think) There Is Good In Him with scouts
At first I thought that this would be the speeder version, and I would have my revenge. But as the game went on, it was pretty obvious that it was something else. To tell you the truth, not much happened with this game, combined with the fact that I don’t remember much about it. It was basically me capturing his Luke, me laying the beats on some scouts, and me setting up some really fast drains to take care of him pretty quickly. I really don’t know what else to say here.
FW by 17 8(+6)
Highlights: Pretty much everything.
Lowlights: Pretty much nothing.
Well, I broke even at least, and came in 60 something place. Jeremy got 100th, and I was really tired because it was 3:00 am. Karl moved on, which was really cool, so we wished him luck and went up to the room. We bothered Cody a little bit, but then we went to sleep around 4:00.
FRIDAY
We got up pretty early that day, I think to play in a Reflections booster draft. It was pretty cool, but I got some crap in terms of sites. I went 3-3 which wasn’t too bad, but I finished pretty far back. Cody on the other hand, got a God draw for his deck. Here it is (keep in mind, this is a booster draft, no matter what you think); Princess Leia, Foil Millenium Falcon, Captain Solo, Lando Calrissian, Punch It, Redemption, Bacta Tank, Mantellian Savrip, Our Most Desperate Hour, and the Tatooine and Alderran to pull it off. That was rediculous. Needless to say, he went undefeated.
But the cool part of the day came during the Jabba’s Palace Sealed Deck that we played in later on that night. Let me tell you, LS is a pile of beatings in this environment. I went 3-1 with mad diff, only losing to a guy who pulled Ephant Mon and 4 Chevins. The important part came when we were playing, you guessed it, Hardcore Trek. I got Steve Baroni interested in it, and he played with us for the remainder of the weekend. We were sitting down at one of the tables playing, when Brian C. (sorry about not putting down your last name, but I know I’ll butcher it) came up with the quote of the weekend; "I don’t know what’s more sad; that you guys are playing this, or that I’m watching it...with interest!" We all start cracking up, and whipping cards around. That game is king.
Later that night we head over to IHOP. IHOP is king of resteraunts around here because the food is so damn good. I got 3 eggs, 3 sausage links, and 4 pancakes for $5.99. How awesome is that? We played that peg game (you know, the one where you jump over all the other pegs and try to end with one left), failed miserably at it, and ate. As we were eating, a bunch of Trek kids came in, and ordered drinks. We had all our cards from Hardcore Trek, and we were going to challange them to a game, but we figured that they’d be insulted. As we were leaving, one of them spilled his drink all over the place. Jeremy had this urge to run up to they’re table and slam down the card Red Alert! right in the middle of it. But he didn’t. C’mon man, it would have been really funny! So we retire to the room for the night, where we get into this huge card throwing war at around 2:00 am. I nail Cody in the shoulder with a Reflections pack and get Jeremy right in the bridge of the nose, but crinkle my Fight Club poster up in the process. Oh well, it was really fun.
SATURDAY
We wake up pretty late today and head down to play in Easy Come, Easy Go. It’s basically a sealed deck Iron Man where you had to play with all your cards. It was fun as hell, even though I lost my Vader in my first game, and I really urge Decipher to keep it around; it’s one way to get rid of all that Jabba’s Palace and Cloud City! I won my first game, but lost my next too, and then got dropped because I was in dead last. Who cares? It was so much fun. Jeremy ate his opponents Vader after he killed him! Great stuff. I go back up to the room and build a new LS deck based on Agents in the Court. It’s hella sweet cuz it’s a mains deck that doesn’t even bother to flip, and it used Tessek and B’omarr Monks for some sweet drains. It loses one game later on to Jim Li’s Brangus Glee deck, but it wins all it’s others, including a Set Your Course deck, a Bring Him Before Me, Endor Ops, and something else that I don’t remember. Anyway, we get set for Japanese Sealed Deck.
I get DS and draw not that many characters, but really sweet red; 2 It’s Worse, Limited Resources, Elis Helrot, Oota-Goota Solo, and other great stuff. I got an Imperial Class and a Victory class for space, but those were basically my only two starships. I go through 4 opponents relatively easily, including Peter DiBiasio (sp?) and Mat Allen, both great guys to play against and talk with. I make it into the final duel on diff, and go on to win by 21 because of It’s Worse and controlling space. So I win! I get a complete set of Hoth Japanese (which is on sale on EBay by the way. The name is RexBanner7 if you want to check it out) and a bunch of other Japanese packs. I pull an On the Edge too, so I’m really happy. Me, Hayes Hunter, Justin Desai, Steve Baroni, Mike Gemme, and Cody hang around for a while, trading Japanese cards, playing Hardcore Trek, and having a ball. We go our seperate ways around 1:00 am, saying goodbye in case we don’t see each other the next day. We get back to the hotel room and don’t really do anything weird for once.
SUNDAY
We wake up around 11:30 am, really puzzled and such. We don’t know when the checkout time is, so I call the front desk "Hello?" "Hi, I was wondering when the checkout time is?" "Oh, it’s at 11:00 am" "....I see. Thank you." *hang-up* CRAP!!! We all run around putting our stuff together, and make it down to the front desk by 11:45 am. Luckily, they don’t charge us for the extra day, so we check our bags with the hotel, sign up for the shuttle, and head out to IHOP. More great food there. IHOP is king. We get back and watch the team tournament a little, then play a few pick-up games. I do a little Kibtzing at that tourney, but then we have to leave. We all head out to the shuttle, where I listen to Paul Todd Felman talk to some Decipher rep for the whole trip. Pretty interesting really. We get to the airport really early, so we go to the bar (stupid being underage) to hang out and watch football. Karl gets stopped at the metal detector because he has steel-toed shoes on (note to self; hide bomb in false heel of shoe), but then we make it onto the plane. I swear to you, Me and Cody are sitting in aisle 4, and there’s at least 5 infants in the first 3 rows, plus some 5 year old in back of us that kept kicking our seats. Little punk. So I slip on my headphones and read The Iliad the whole way back (hooray for homework : ) We then take an uneventful car ride home, thus ending our D-Con experience. Now, time for the time-honored tradition of props and slops.
Props:
-Hayes Hunter, Mike Gemme, Justin Desai, and Steve Baroni for hanging out with us for the whole weekend. You guys are awesome, and we’ll try to make it up to Massachusetts some time, I swear.
-Jeremy, Karl, and Cody for being such cool roommates the whole time. We should do it again next year.
-Special props to Karl for getting into Day 2 and not embarrassing himself. Way to go man.
-Special props to Jeremy for co-inventing Hardcore Trek. That game is king, and we’ll be playing it all the time now. Look for it.
-Special props to Steve Baroni and Cody for joining Hardcore Trek. My winning streak is still intact guys; Bring It! :)
-Michael Hawley (rayc), because he is so cool, and he’s a great guy to talk to. I hope to see you around too.
-Matt Rieks and Kyle Craft from Colorado. I got to see Matt again, but I met Kyle for the first time. They’re both awesome people, and I hope I see you guys again.
-Neal Razi because you’re a really cool guy and a great person to talk to. Plus you remembered me from last year! I’ll keep in touch, man.
-Mike Kessling and Mike Fitzgerald, who are two really cool people that I got to meet in person. Rock on.
-Matt Sokol for winning, and Yannick for giving him some great games; you guys did awesome.
-All my opponents; you guys gave me some great games, even if you beat me
-All the people who played pick-up games with me. I owe you guys some credit for helping me with my decks.
-Decipher, because aside from day 1, everything went great.
Slops:
-Decipher for day 1; sorry guys, but it did take way too long
-Eric Hunter for not going
-I think that’s it
I hope to see you all around some time. Later.