the-short-report-from-norm-11-18-00-aac
Title: the-short-report-from-norm-11-18-00-aac
Author: Norman "Norman" Horn
Date: Nov 19, 2000
At about 4:40 we begin. There were 16 players in this tournament. My Dark deck was a big-battling Hunt Down variant with some extra tech, namely Blast Door Controls and Dengar with Blaster Carbine. I hate being Barriered and I hate losing to Speeders (so far I havent yet). I also hate Blast the Door Kid and Narrow Escape. My light deck was EBO Ketwol with my own touches. On to the games. Oh, and may I add I was not Barriered the entire tournament, thank you very much.
Game 1: Hunt Down vs. Chris Hunters EBO Ketwol
Chris is a great player and is fun to play against, win, lose, or draw. I start IAO, Mob Pts, and Secret Plans, he starts Strike Planning, DoDN, and Squad Assignments. My turn, I deploy Captain Sarkli to the D*2 DB and draw till I hit a Vader. He deploys ANSB, searches for sites, deploys, and draws. Next turn I deploy Rendili, Endor DB and Lord Vader and the Saber to flip, move Sarkli and draw, getting Search and Destroy (YAY!!!!). For the next few turns he works on setting his people up while Im milking every single force I can out of his deck. He finally gets out EBO and Battle Blan, but on the next turn I deploy Mara, Saber, and Emperor to North Ridge. Decree and Blast Door Controls also hit the table. Now its a drain/retrieval race. He deploys Gold Squad 1 and Gentleman Calrissian to Hoth. Worse, though, is that he deploys Blount and Wedge to the Holotheatre, canceling Visage. Next turn I deploy Executor to Rendili because I believed he couldnt mass a good assault without those two guys to help. Whats wonderful is that Im preventing Frozen Assets from trapping me. Pretty soon Executor is backed up by Fett in Slave I and I again try to concentrate on ground. Next up comes Blizzard 2, Janus, Sim Aloo, and Dengar with Blaster to the North Ridge. I move Mara and Dengar to MPG to activate Decree and hes now basically hopelessly trapped. So Chris decides to go crazy and deploys Luke with Saber to Endor DB, where Vader and Sarkli are leisurely lounging around. Up they come for the battle ahead. The bad little son tries to surprise Vader with a saber swing but cant seem to get a total destiny of 9 for the hit. Vader parries and also tries to swing, but cant connect. My unlucky self cant get over the low weapon destinies and I draw a zero battle destiny. AAAARGH! Oh well, he draws a 4 and I lose Sarkli. He db transits Ketwol to Endor and ends his turn. Bad move bucko. I play You Are Beaten on Luke and battle the poor, lonely Ketwol. Poor ol Ketwol gets sliced, diced, and bashed to a pulp. He loses about 8 force. Chris knows hes going to lose now, so we have a few more battles together just for fun. For instance, we decided to find out if Gold Squad 1 w/ Millennium Falcon could stand a chance flying against Palpy, Janus, Sim, and Blizzard 2. As you might guess, he smashed into the ground with a resounding thud. Also, Luke with Lightsaber generally wont budge a Lord Vader with a Saber. Full win by 17.
Score: 2(+17)
Game 2: EBO Ketwol vs. Joe Trembleys Bring Him Before Me
Now everything seems to go downhill. Joe starts the traditional IAO, Mob Pts, and YCHF, I start the traditional SP, DoDN, and SA. Lucky for me I draw ANSB in my starting hand! There wasnt much to this game, he played Endor sites while I tried my darndest to get anything to work but to no avail. I made some two idiotic errors, though, which lost me the game. One, I forgot to move Ben and Orrimaarko and got beaten for 7 force. Two, I forgot to drain once. AAAAARRRGGGHHH! That wont happen again. I get a timed loss by 17.
Score: 2(0), or at least thats how he scored it
Game 3: Hunt Down vs. Lynns M&T Tatooine
This is one of those games you live for. She starts Audience Chamber and Yarna. I go, hmm? Basically about half the game goes by with me draining with Vader/Saber and a Rendili force and doing Visage damage while she is deploying nothing. In the meantime Im slowly backing up my forces in preparation for a possible beatdown. Eventually she deploys Artoo and Undercover to the D*2 DB, where I have a lone Admiral Ozzel. She then deploys Luke and I barrier him, despite the fact that I know she cant battle me until she gets Ben to a battleground. She doesnt manage it, however, so Ozzel was safe for the time being. Next turn I move Ozzel and wait. She moves her force to Endor, which consists of Luke, Chewie, Leia, Han, and Figrin. My turn, I deploy Dengar, Janus, Blizzard 2, and Grand Moff Tarkin and battle. I hit Luke with the saber and Chewie and Figrin with the Blaster (knowing I had some possible low destinies, which paid off). She plays Rug Hug, Protector, Life Debt, and Skywalkers, OH MY! She draws eleven total battle destiny! By now were both laughing our heads off because she caught me completely by surprise and Im thinking this is soooo funny! I dont think Ive done anything like that since the SE release when I was playing a DTF/Frozen Assets/Nabrun Leids Kill Everything deck. So everything goes completely haywire, Chewie and Figrin are shot, Vader and Luke are slashing anything and everything in sight, Han is screaming, Leia is crying, Ozzel is cowering, Chewie is bellowing, Tarkin cant seem to get his eyes off the hole in his chest, everything is going nuts! When the smoke clears and everybody dies, all that is left is Leia with Blaster Rifle and Blizzard 2. And you can guess what happens next Blizzard 2 runs away as fast as its ditzy legs can db transit to the second Death Star. Next turn, she force drains and draws. My turn, the payback. I deploy Lord Vader and Vaders Saber (again) accompanied by Mara Jade and her Saber. Leia gets smashed into very tiny pieces, but manages to take Mara with her. Oh well. I drain her out. Full win by 23. What a fun game!
Score: 4(+23)
Game 4: EBO Ketwol vs. Matt Schmaltzs Court of the Vile Gangsta
Well, I started this game off very badly. Matt and I are good friends, so as we were talking about the latest news Im pulling out my starting stuff but fail to realize that Im taking Do or Do Not AND Battle Plan, instead of Squadron Assignments. I fail to realize this soon enough, so I end up having to bear with it. Oh well, Ill manage. I end up making a bunch of mistakes because of my bad attitude, but here Ill highlight some of the interesting events of the game. The first major event was his deployment of Zuckuss in Mist Hunter, Iggy with Gun, and 4-Lom with Gun to Endor where I had Tala 1 + Cracken and Red Squad 1 + Wedge. I Barrier him (see, he should have played Blast Door Controls too!). Hahahahaha. Next turn I deploy Gold Squad 1 + Calrissian and Green Squad 3 + Blount (hmm) and battle, making him lose all that and a couple more. I deploy Legendary Starfighter on Falcon and lose Blount/GS3 to attrition. That basically eliminated his space assault, so now hes plagued by Battle Plan, whereas I have Orrimaarko, Obi-Wan, and Han with Gun at JP to satisfy it. The next move was also key. I had a tracked 6 just waiting for drawing. He has Mara + Saber + Evazen at the Cantina draining for 3 a turn. I have JK Luke. We battle. He swings, Luke dies, he makes him immediately lost because he knows I have a high destiny waiting. Crud. Next time as a last ditch effort I send Luke with Saber in. This time he succeeds in hitting Mara, not getting slashed, and also eliminating Evazen too! YES! He also tries a last ditch assault by deploying 4-Lom with Gun and Fett with Gun to battle Ben, Orrimaarko, and Han. He manages to hit Han but cant draw a three for destiny to make me lose Orrimaarko too. I draw a 1 for destiny (grr) and Fetts forfeit covers everything. He now cannot stop the drains and has only a total of 2 for his drains. So I eek out an 11 force win.
Score: 6(+34)
Well, I somehow managed to place third in the fury of it all. Probably the best part of all, though, was that my brother Dustin Horn got first place for the first time in any tournament. He usually ends up behind me, but he played masterfully that night and kicked some major butt, going 3-1 with + [some freakin high number] differential. Whats neat about it was that his only loss was by one card in an extremely close game with another good friend and cool guy Todd Vandewalker. Of course, the next game Dustin beat Todd by about 10 I think. Im sorry if thats not right, Todd. BTW Dustin was using an EBO Mains deck and a Dark Deal variant that you really have to watch out for. Anyway, it was a great tournament I was pleased to be a part of. I look forward to the next tourney in December.
I will close with a few words: PLAY BLAST DOOR CONTROLS!!! The card kicks, my friends, so if you are in a meta with lots of defensive strategies, play it.
Oh, another parting word:
Theres no such thing as a free lunch, and even if there was, that wouldnt be a guarantee against indigestion. John Allen Paulos, in Innumeracy.
Hmm, interesting See ya later!
God bless,
~Norman