phoenix-grand-slam-mega-weekend-day-one
Title: phoenix-grand-slam-mega-weekend-day-one
Author: Brian "HuntaWarya" Hunter
Date: Nov 7, 2000
Thursday-Day Zero
Well, Mike fails to come up with the cash to make the trip. Randy isn’t exactly rich himself, and needs to stay home so he can go to work. So it will be only Van and myself representing Littleton at the Phoenix Mega Tournament Weekend. We leave at about 3pm in the afternoon. We were told that the trip would take about 11 hours by car. This was NOT the case. After about 11 or 12 hours, we stop for awhile to take about a 3 hour nap, before we go on to Tempe. However, it is insanely frigid outside, and the Jeep turns out to be pretty small when you are over 6 feet tall and trying to sleep in it. I might have slept an hour at best.
Friday-Day One
We push on to Phoenix, and then Tempe, and get our room at the Red Roof Inn, for just under $100 a night. This hotel has slightly more class than the Motel 6, but is 3 times the price. I don’t think I’ve ever stayed in a hotel this ghetto since....well, ever. The warmup tournament starts at 6pm, so we have a few hours to spare. We stop off at this restaurant called "Yee’s Chinese Buffet" The price for the buffet seems pretty reasonable, and we both like Chinese food, so this looked perfect. However, I don’t think I’ve ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant this ghetto since....well, ever. The soft drinks taste odd, the water tastes worse, the egg rolls taste like brown sugar, and the pork ribs look suspiciously like dog ribs. Needless to say, we don’t end up staying at the restaurant very long. We go back to our hotel, shower up, and playtest about 3 quick games, after watching a little television. We head to the tournament and arrive just a little before 6pm.
Right away, I can tell that Kyle Craft has decided NOT to take time off from the game after all, as he is in the store. With him, Tim McKnight. Also in attendance: Kevin Shannon, Clayton Atkin, Steven Lewis, and Clint Hays. There are also a wide variety of Tatooine players that are not Coloradans. I’m not sure how many players we had total that first night. Somewhere between 45 and 55, I would guess. TD Mike Girard gets the tournament underway surprisingly close to the posted start time.
Decks: Today I stray from my "change both decks every week" strategy that I have been using, and instead play the exact same decks that I used in Boulder last week. So it’s EBO with X-wings, and Hunt Down done RIGHT.
Game 1: EBO vs. Justin Beal’s Death Star II/TTO deck.
Well, I haven’t seen a "That Thing’s Operational" deck that I thought was any good yet, so when I saw his starting stuff, I felt like I was in pretty good shape. He gets Jerjerrod to the bunker right away, and sets up some guys at the endor db to drain me early. Meanwhile, I work on setting up the EBO, deploying no cards to battlegrounds, as is typical for this deck. He drops the tatooine system, and a tatooine site. Some guys go the tatooine site, and I use projection of a skywalker to numb the drain. The Death Star gets built in 3 turns flat, and heads over to tatooine. But since he doesn’t occupy the system yet, I don’t have to lose force to TTO. I finish setting up EBO at about the same time he deploys some ships to tatooine. The initial battle in space is pretty bad for him, but the Thunderflare survives, forcing me to lose force for TTO on his next turn. But Incom Corporation and Organized Attack ensure that it doesn’t take very long for the x-wings to clean him out of space. The endor shield is no longer protecting the death star, so the wings fly on over for extra drain potential. Jedi Luke wrecks the endor db, and pretty soon it is all said and done. full win by 30.
So I am 2: (+30)
Game 2: Hunt Down vs. Jason Ayre’s Throne Room Mains
I’ve heard Jason’s name before, and I know that he’s no scrub. His rating is 1893, and he shows no signs that he is intimidated. He takes the first turn in the game, and drops a bothan into the holotheatre on turn one, killing my visage and establishing a drain for 2. okay. I drop Janus in front of the bothan, and pull the exec. db from reserve, along with Carida. The spy gets backed up by a hnemthe, I believe, and they step over to the docking bay. I put the Emperor at the holotheatre, and Janus chases the aliens next door. He is deploying docking bays with insurrection, puts madine at one for extra activation with staging areas. madine gets scouts to help the early aliens fend off Janus. He also deploys oola to a db for even MORE activation with staging areas. Pretty soon, the scout collection is big enough that Janus gives up the docking bay, so I have to eat the drain of one. Mara Jade pays Madine a visit at the hoth db, and the general is no more. I finally manage to draw some vaders, and jason quickly hits me with oola. 2 vaders, ephant mon, and admiral ozzel. I consider chasing after oola with jade, but that just isn’t going to help, because the transit costs are to his advantage (oola is at the home-one db) So instead, I bring Mara Jade to the Executor db, along with Dr. E. The ls characters run around for a while, and Jade/Evazan are unable to get a battle going. Oola can’t keep up with my activation, so I finally get Vader out, and deploy the second visage, with the Emperor’s protection. The battles were relatively uneventful, no major force loss. But I slowly took board control away, and the visage damage eventually got the job done. Full win by 19.
So I am at 4: (+49)
Game 3: Hunt Down vs. Kevin Shannon’s EBO
With a rating of 2033, and a 4th place showing at worlds, Kevin is no scrub either. He is playing ebo/baragwin/ishi-tib/on the edge/intruder missles. I’ve used this deck myself before, so I feel that I have a fairly good understanding of how to win this match with Hunt Down. But things got a little strange...I drop Lord Vader to the executor docking bay by turn 2, and transit him over to one of my battleground bays, getting the early flip. Epp obi-wan comes down and battles me. With defense value 6 and immunity to <6, I’ve got a shot of vader surviving the battle, and making Kevin look stupid. Nope, the old man draws a 2 and a 7, and they both die. We both lose force to visage. I deploy the 2nd lord vader to the executor db, transit over, and flip again. On his turn, epp obi-wan. He initiates. Vader gets hacked again, this time a 5 and a 7. Obi-wan dies as well, and the battlegrounds are once again empty. Visage is taking its toll on both of us. I put the Emperor down to defend it, even though it isn’t exactly helping me too much at this point. He slowly puts ebo together with tibs and baragwins and yoxgit. The baragwins are helping him with the visage, but they aren’t doing a wonderful job of it, due to secret plans. Janus and Sim Aloo set up at one of my docking bays, and I manage to get vader out to the other. He actually doesn’t die this time! Search & Destroy comes out, and the baragwins are really being kept busy. Mara Jade drops to the north ridge, and strides under the shield. Suddenly, jedi luke is at the north ridge, flipping me back. Jade comes back out from under the shield, and duels him. But sure enough, he pops up good destiny again, including a 7. Jade loses the duel. The visage starts eating away at my life force, while the baragwins make it difficult to put Kevin away. But eventually he loses the race, and I win by 8.
So I am at 6: (+57)
After 3 games, I think there are only 3 of us left that are 3-0. Kyle Craft, Steven Lewis, and myself. However, Clint Hays has gotten off to a 1-2 start, and I guess he wanted to drop out. Steven Lewis, despite being 3-0, drops out along with him, and I think they go see a movie.
Game 4: EBO vs. Kyle Craft’s Hunt Down
Well, in this game, I move up from an opponent with a rating of 2033, and 4th place at worlds, to an opponent with a rating of 2142, and 3rd place at worlds. As usual, Hunt Down gets off to a quick start in this game. Kyle starts No Escape, but gets the decree out by turn 3 at the latest. Vader is down by turn 2 for an early flip, and as usual, I have no Transmission Terminated, even though I play it in multiples. He gets Search & Destroy running before long, but I am able to pile up a bunch of geeks at the north ridge and satisfy it. There were basically two turns in this game that were the deciding factors. Here is the first one: Kyle deploys zuckuss in mist hunter against my two x-wings at hoth (he has a 5 set-up for destiny, so he knows he can kill them both, and zuckuss will make my draw a zero.) On the same turn, he deploys the Chimaera with a pilot, against the two x-wings at Kiffex. He battles me with zuckuss, and I play organized attack. With the power bonus from that interrupt, plus the bonus from incom corp., plus the bonus from EBO, the 2 x-wings are power 13. Kyle draws his 5, giving him power 9. But the x-wings are immune. Kyle has to lose 4 cards to keep zuckuss alive. He battles at Kiffex, but I play Out of Nowhere. And my two battle destiny draws force enough attrition to drop the star destroyer. One of the x-wings at Kiffex survives, both of the x-wings at hoth survive. Zuckuss has to run away, and kyle gets drained at both of the systems he deployed to. The other key moment was this: I had used Boussh to cancel the visage in the holotheatre. Kyle drops down on her with Mara Jade, and a small army of other characters. Battles me, hits Boussh with the Jadesaber. the battle damage is enormous. But I DO have the Houjix, so I cancel the battle damage, and along with it, I cancel Kyle’s last shot at winning the game. Full win by 21.
I am now 8: (+78)
Game 5: Hunt Down vs. Jay Webb’s Hidden Base X-wing Swarm.
Oh goody, x-wing swarm. After Johnny Chu posted his D-Con x-wing deck, we playtested lots of matches with it, just to make sure we would know how to handle games against the deck. Hunt Down vs. X-wings is a game I played both sides of on several occasions. I was able to beat x-wings with Hunt Down, but beating Hunt Down with x-wings was almost twice as easy. So I knew this was not a favorable match for me, but still winnable. This game was severely uneventful, and extremely non-interactive. Search & Destroy plus visage was chipping away at his life force, while he plink-drains me at endor. I wait for him to split the armada before deploying to space, since there are 8 w-wings at endor, plus red leader in red 1, I think. He deploys about 4 more wings, so he splits out to control a total of 3 systems, including kessel. And here comes the flip. My force drains turn to nothing, and the direct damage is all I have going for me, so it is time to deploy to space. I put the Executor down at Kessel, even though I cannot afford to lose it (since the visage is half of my offense right now) I back it up with a couple of pilots (including tarkin I believe), and a bounty hunter ship. This way, I’ll have plenty of forfeit if the executor gets power pivoted, and won’t have to lose the super-class star destroyer itself. Well, the power pivot never happens, so the executor holds its own in space. I probe kessel, but that’s not his hidden base. He retrieves something like 12 force with all wings report in. I never probe another system besides Kessel, I just sit there and block the drain of 3. His flipped objective prevents me from force draining for the rest of the game, but the direct damage slowly whittles him down to nothing. Full win by 24.
So I make it to 10: (+102)
Game 6: EBO vs. Clayton Atkin’s Tie Swarm/SFS deck.
Well, I generally feel that x-wings have advantage over ties, even though the ties have the SFS benefit. However, Clayton is playing the old school ties. Yep, that’s right, "Tie Fighter", straight out of premiere. This enables him to play with Tallon Roll, which could be REALLY bad for my deck. With plenty of dreadnoughts and All Power to Weapons, the ties have pretty impressive stats, and will win the tallon rolls more often than not. Plus, Clayton has a rating of 1949 (don’t you know who he is??) and does not have a reputation for being easy to beat. He starts the Kashyyyk system, and deploys a lone tie there on turn 1 to establish the early drain of 2. I have no rebel fleet in opening draw, and no signal, so I’m going to have to let the drain hurt me for a while. He gets Wakeelmui with Mobilization points, but deploys no other systems. I start pulling my echo sites, and try to draw for something to cancel the drain with, but no luck. The tie at kashyyyk drains me once. He backs it with another tie or two. I get drained at Kashyyyk a second time, and he reinforces the system further. I’m setting up my ebo, but still have no way to stop the Kashyyyk drain. I use a new secret base to get Kashyyyk and convert his. This hurts his activation, but the drain is still 2. I eat the drain at kashyyyk for a third time, but this time I have the signal in my hand. I go get rebel fleet with the signal and drop it. I have corulag out now also, and finish establishing ebo. At this point, Clayton’s activation is not too impressive. He gets one from the converted kashyyyk, one from wakeelmui, one from the north ridge, one from corulag, and one for himself. 5 force is not enough to do much to me, so I drop some x-wings and fly over to wakeelmui. Now his deploy costs are extreme. The Sfs is keeping him from having a lost pile, but he isn’t really able to activate enough to do anything until after the turn that he drops kiffex and...either sullust or endor, I’m not sure which. Now he has enough force to start to fight back, but he is WAY behind in board control. The x-wings have started splitting out to my recently deployed hoth, as well as corulag, plus they are draining at Wakeelmui. We have a battle or two at kiffex, but the x-wing cannon keeps things in my favor. I grab the first All Power to Weapons he plays, and from that point forward, he really can’t contend with me anymore, and it is just a matter of draining him out. Full win by 20.
I finish the tournament at 12: (+122)
So I win the warmup tournament, which is cool. Knocking off Kyle, Kevin, and Clayton made me feel that the playtesting has paid off, and I was fairly confident that I was on top of my game, despite the lack of sleep. I wanted to at least win one of the 3 tourneys, and if possible, all 3. So, I was 1 for 1, and on my way. 1st place in this tournament got me a yoda t-shirt, and about 8 packs of Death Star II. I only had 8 or 9 yoda shirts already, so I figure you can always use one more, right? :) Maybe my amount of Yoda shirts will catch up to R2-D2 and Veers some day. Anyway, I open the packs, and.....yep, you guessed it, nothing I really needed. I get a pair of red squadron 1’s, which is interesting, but none of the cards I am missing for a DSII set. Oh well.
So that is it for Day One. I will post reports for Day 2 (the mega tournament) and Day Three (the grand slam) in the near future.
Props:
To Mike Girard, for running a very smooth tournament, despite the high number of players.
To Kevin Shannon, for beating my Mara Jade in a duel. Grr! And also for playing tough after the early loss to me, and coming back to finish 5-1, taking 2nd place.
To Steven Lewis, for finally coming up with a way to avoid taking 2nd place at a tournament. hehe. :)
To Jason Ayre, for beating Kyle Craft and Clint Hays, both of whom have ratings much higher than his own.
To the young lady who won the YJ tournament. I had never seen a female player win a card game event before.
And MAD props to Van, for driving to Arizona.
Slops:
To Randy, for saying we could make the drive in 11 hours.
To the city of Albuquerque, for not knowing how to post detour signs that can actually be followed.
To Van, for only bringing ONE CD for us to listen to on the way there.
To Van, for picking such a LAME CD, as the ONE for us to listen to. (who listens to The Smiths? Ugh!)
To me, for opening my packs of DS II, AGAIN, when I should know better by now.
To Van, for smoking 18,000 cigarettes in the Jeep.
To Van, for singing along with his LAME CD.
To the Red Roof Inn, for being ghetto.
To Yee’s Chinese Buffet, for serving food that cannot possibly meet FDA standards.
To the waitress at Yee’s, who never brought Van the pepsi he asked for.
To me, for leaving my sunglasses in the jeep while it was unlocked, and having them stolen.
And MAD slops to me, for misplacing my comb, and thusly having wild hair, ALL WEEKEND.
Until next time, (which will be soon)
Brian Hunter