williston-park-new-york-10-28-00

Title: williston-park-new-york-10-28-00
Author: Brad "Uncle Chall" Vogel
Date: Oct 29, 2000

I hadn’t gotten to play in a sanctioned tourney since September 2nd, and I was anxious for this tournament held at Grasshopper’s Comics. I wasn’t able to get any JPSD as the guy I get my Star Wars stuff from hadn’t gotten them in yet, so I was a a little worried about my performance at the tourney, but I was excited just to play in one. Anyway, I had the ACT’s (a national exam just like the SAT for those of you who haven’t heard of it) Saturday morning at 8 AM and got out at 12:30. I came home, and changed my HBX to an X-Wing Swarm like John Chu’s worlds deck which would cost me later as well as making a BHBM beatdown deck. I had little sleep, but I pumped my self up with some Creed and Beastie Boys in my Taurus as I raced to get to the store by the 2 PM start at 75 mph on the Southern State Parkway. Enough with the stuff before the tourney - Here’s the report. There were 12 players in attendance and Dan Sotelo was the TD.

Decks:

LS - An X-Wing Swarm deck much like John Chu’s worlds deck with my own mods.

DS - A BHBM beatdown deck with SAC. Now that I look back at it, it was a lot like Yannick’s finals deck. Could you tell I was too tired to be creative?

My rating coming in was 1746 with 36 games played.

Game 1: My LS vs. Alex Warshow’s (1546) DS Hunt Down Dueling deck.

I start with DoDN, WA, and YISYW, and he starts normal HD stuff along with IAO, MP, and No Escape(which looks damn cool IMHO). I started off by throwing down 3 X-Wings to the RP along with CD on the 2nd turn to put the pressure on him. He flips 2nd turn with EPP Vader at the Endor:DB and I start looking for Obi and Luke. I lose to Visage for 2 turns and off the top of my deck I lose both EPP Obi and EPP Luke each of which I played one of which meant I was screwed. I have a bunch of X-Wings at Endor and he attacks with Bossk in Bus and the Flagship Executor along with forfeit fodder. I lose a bunch of battles and lose force rather than immune to attrition X-Wings (Organized Attack) since I had so few and I wasn’t activating enough. He docks Vader up on the FE and we continue battling. His Battle Order slowed me down tremendously as well since my deck spreads out and I didn’t have the force to drain and continue battling. I Power Pivot the FE and he has to lose Vader and a couple force flipping back. I deploy Boushh to cancel Visage, but he flips back with Lord Vader at the Endor:DB. I lose another space battle and 9 force which brings me down to about 10 life force. With Boushh unable to drain due to his objective, I drain a couple of times before before drawing up.
Full Loss by 17

Record: 0 (-17)

Highlights: Making it a decent game after losing my only Obi and Luke in the first 3 turns.
Lowlights: Losing Obi and Luke off the top of my deck in the first 3 turns. Not being able to bring down Bossk in Bus which was out basically the entire game.

Game 2: My DS vs. Sam Diamond’s (1511) LS X-Wing Swarm.

He starts DoDN, WA, and SA while I go for IAO, MP, and YCHF. This game was just pretty boring as there were no battles. I have Mara w/Saber draining at the SP:DB and JtH w/EPP Fett at the Endor:DB. Boushh blocks the drain at the Endor:DB and I miss a Sniper on her with Lord Vader and his stick which is just sad. He gives me Farmboy Luke, and Lord Vader and the Emperor move to start dueling him. I somehow manage to lose every duel as he always has two 5’s or a 5 and a 6 to my crappy destiny and I can’t do any damage through dueling which was terrible. Eventually I sack YCHF to get S+D which does about 30 total damage to him, and he lost AWRI for 7 force. He is draining for 1 at Sullust for most of the game. I probe Alderaan with 2 Dreadnaughts and ZiMH and run from his horde of X-Wings and Cannons. Eventually I drain him out slowly as well as using S+D damage to finish him although the game was close to due to my lack of dueling damage and damage from my own objective.
Full Win by 13

Record: 2 (-4)

Highlights: Search and Destroy doing about 30 damage.
Lowlights: Missing Boushh with a Sniper. Losing every duel with Lord Vader vs. Farmboy Luke.

Game 3: My LS vs. Bucksun Lee’s (1629) DS BHBM with huge destiny and Emperor’s Power.

Buck tells me to prepare to lose repeatedly before this game, so I’m determined to beat him as X-Wing Swarm should take dwon BHBM every time. Anyway he starts IAO, MP, and NE while I go for DoDN, WA, and YISYW. I start out by spreading out with X-Wings at 3 systems while he gets Lord Vader w/Saber down to the Endor:DB with Blizzard 2. I do a couple suicide runs with EPP Luke before giving him to daddy to flip him over. He moves the Emperor and Lord Vader back to the TR to duel, but I win every duel with insane destiny since X-Wing Swarm has insane destiny. I barrier his major threats, and shoot down ZiMH and DiPO in separate battles with Cannons, but he wins 2 battles to make me stack 2 cards which has me a little worried. I POAS the Endor:DB and get out OTE to force his Devastator w/fodder to fight my swarm. Eventually, my pinging drains of 1 and his own objective finish him off.
Full Win by 16

Record 4 (+12)

Highlights: Beating a deck I’m supposed to beat and making Buck eat his words and winning every duel with EPP Luke vs. daddy.
Lowlights: Fearing the turning of Luke and not using AWRI lost to get back some force late in the game to boost my differential.

Game 4: My DS vs. Chris Wo@#$%a’s (1703) LS Spaceport Speeders Revival deck?

He showed me his deck earlier in the tourney to get my opinion of it which I told him might cost him later and now it was time to prove it. He starts out with WA, SA, and Insurrection while I go for IAO, MP, and YCHF. Basically, his deck sells Luke’s speeders to activate massive force and beat you down with EPP’s which I thought was a pretty good idea. I get down Mara w/saber and Lord Vader w/Saber at the Tatooine:DB and the Emperor, Janus, and Sim at the Endor:DB while he feeds me Master Luke to flip me over. I also get out ZiMH and DiPO to drain at Rendili which goes unopposed the whole game. His SS gets grappled as does my Sense. I try to Circle Obi, but he wins the SAC war. After he gets rid of more SAC when I tried to alter his TC, he ran out of SAC and I was able to use my 2nd Circle to take EPP Obi out for the game. I get out FS and he starts deploying EPP’s at Mos Eisley and the CC:DB. JtH gets taken out by a FP when I attack a lone EPP Han. I continually drain him for 3-5 force throughout the game, but he uses TC to track a 6 for On the Edge twice to get back in it. I FL EPP Leia with Anakin’s stick with a tracked 6 and battle Orrimaarko with the Emperor’s gang to make him lose some force and stack a card. Eventually, he runs out of steam after losing most of his characters in the battles at the end of the game.
Full Win by 15

Record 6 (+27)

Highlights: Playing well and playing against a creative deck for a change.
Lowlights: That fallen portal on JtH and losing way too much force from my own objective.

I end up in 3rd place behind Matt Ehrhart and Derek Halpern which wasn’t bad and get some bad Cloud City rares in prize support. Note that there was no entry fee which explains the bad prize support. Overall, I had a great time and I hope to see everyone soon for some Endor/DS2 closed tournament action in the coming weeks at Grasshoppers.

Props:
Chris Wo@#$%a - for a creative deck and the trade.
Sam Diamond - for using old, crusty polysheets like me.
Alex Warshow - for showing me that HD was back and having the balls to play the FE in a HD deck.
Bucksun Lee - for giving me that cool trade afer the tourney and providing me some humor.
Dennis Shea - for blatantly pointing out that Buck’s Traffic Control was on the table right near his cards.

Slops:
Bucksun Lee - for whining a lot during his last game.
Derek Halpern - for ONLY finishing 2nd to Matt and bothering the hell out of me throughout my game with Buck.

Hope you enjoyed the report and sorry in advance for any mistakes in the report,

Brad