mirkwood-the-real-deal
Title: mirkwood-the-real-deal
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Nov 29, 2000
here’s my brief take on the 11/28 tournament at Mirkwood.
I brought two silly decks that I threw together in Duluth
over holiday so that Mike Bergum could finally have a
chance of beating me while he prepared to re-enter the MN
tournament scene as a contender. My decks, though, won 3
out of the 5 games I played with him. So I figure that’s
more than good enough to bring them to Mirkwood for kicks.
Light Side: All My EPPs and Ewok Catapults (TIGIH)
Dark Side: Vader (in the Hunt Down format)
Game 1: My Light vs Mike Raveling’s Ties
He started Kuat, and I suspect ties, but he wasn’t playing
some of the more typical cards, so I got confused. Actually
I was already somewhat confused because I was trying to
think if there was any way for my Light Side to be
competitive with a player like Mike. Answer: No. At any
rate, I started without Chirpa’s Hut, Luke, Saber or
Landing Platform. BUT... I remember before any action is
taken! Whew! Nearly got that loss by 50+. He drained in
space. I drained on the ground. I went in space and won 2
battles, but he knocked out Gold Squad 1’s astromech droid,
and I couldn’t chase him around to battle any more. His
retrieval was better than mine, since mine was Hell to Pay
and then Hell to Pay again.
Game 2: Vader vs. Garrett Larson’s Fake-out Hidden Base
He started Insurrection, so I wanted to get Vader to the
Home One DB and make him immune to Lost in the Wilderness.
Lost in the Wilderness would have really sucked since Vader
can’t deploy to search for Vader. And though any search
party would have had a good success rate with all the 5’s
and 6’s in my deck, it’s damn tough to build a search party
when the only character in your deck is missing. That’s
right 6 Vaders, no other characters. No starships. No
vehicles. One Counter Assault. But the deck was about Vader.
So we each lose a couple, and he deploys Luke to the Home
One DB where I had thrown an early Presence of the Force.
Fine. No problem. I deploy Vader there, but don’t have
Obsession in my hand. Nor I Have You Now. Nor did I leave
enough force to battle because it appears I can no longer
do math. No problem. So Garrett deploys Leia and battles.
No problem. He swings and hits Vader. I’m only down by a
little power. No problem. He plays Skywalkers. Sure, why
not? This may be a concern. But I should be fine. I have
in my deck more than 30 cards of destiny 4 or higher. He
draws a few low and moderate destiny. I draw... 1. 1? Aw,
hell. I lose Vader and 9 more. No big deal. With Luke out,
a duel will swing things back my way. So I lose my 9. And
in that 9... 2 Vaders. Yuck. That’s half my Vaders! Well,
he drains for a bit while I draw for a Vader. He plays Out
of Commission. Well, that’s another single card that can
just wreck my deck. Fine. He misses Vader. The other cards
are all meaningless. He deploys spies to cancel Visage,
and I’ve lost Come Here You Big Coward. No problem. I get
another Vader into my hand and deploy him against Luke now
that I’ve finally drawn an Obsession. I play it. He Senses
and succeeds. Well, that sucks. So we battle and I lose
yet another Vader. He plays Out of Commission again and
gets Vader. I have no characters that I can deploy anymore,
so I concede. Good game.
After our very short game, we play again. Well, after
reading about Shadows (I don’t like it). This time, Vader
proves his supremecy. Crazy.
Game 3: Vader vs. Ryan’s Profit
Ryan’s the new guy who moved to Minneapolis from ND. So,
having noticed that he began his career in MN paired twice
against a Mr. Macy, I assure him that most of us play for
fun. And then prove my point. By playing a deck consisting
of Vader, 4 sites, 2 sabers and Red Cards. But this time
a whole bunch of early drains for 4 at Jabba’s Palace take
their toll. He moves Han, Chewie and some other alien dude
over to block the drain, and Han dies to Sniper. Vader
battles the other two and plays Main Course lost. Ryan was
playing Profit for the first time and didn’t know it very
well, so he was a bit stunned to learn that he couldn’t
drain on Tatooine after Han died. He had lost his other
Han somehow, so he just suicided by deploying Obi to the
same site. Then he battled Vader with Obi and an Elom. Ok.
Vader plays I Have You Now to add a destiny, then
completely ignorning the Elom, steps aside to duel Obi.
Obi draws a 0 and some other moderate destiny. Vader,
meanwhile, has Focused his Attack and draws 3 6’s. He then
proceeds to swing and hit the Elom and draw another pair
of 6’s for destiny. This is why Vader is cool.
Game 4: All set to play The Wormanator (Chad Steger) since
we think we should be paired, I get paired with Ryan again.
My EPPs vs his Raltir.
I thought he might flip and cancel all my drains. But since
he didn’t deploy an Imp to the Landing Platform (and never
deployed anyone to Luke’s site), I activated 7 force my
first turn--after drawing a perfect hand, consisting of 2
EPP Hans, I Know, the Home One DB and the Echo DB. I deploy
my sites, deploy the <> DB from my reserve to Raltir, Han
to the Home One DB, DB transit him over to Raltir, pay one
to move Luke to the Landing Platform and draw. His second
turn, he deploys an AT-ST and AT-ST pilot against Han and
battles. I play I Know, but he Barriers Leia. I grab the
Barrier. Han covers the damage. My next turn I activate
14 (5 at Luke’s DB site), deploy EPP Han from my hand to
Leia and battle. I have 18 power with 8 attrition to his 8
power. I lose Leia (having just drawn Life Debt), and he
loses everything at the site an a couple more, plus stacks
a card. He battles again his next turn, but I play Life
Debt, so Chewie joins the fray and I end up stacking
another card on I Feel the Conflict. Meanwhile, I’m
activating all the force I need to keep my mains at
Raltir. He deploys a couple of scrubs to the Executor and
Coruscant DB’s, so I figure he’s going to try to take over
Raltir shortly, so I move Han and Obi (who’s joined Han)
over to the Swamp and DB Transit Luke to Raltir. I also
draw until I get Kessel and the mini-Falcon. I throw those
down on some succeeding turn and start draining for 3 at
Kessel to go with the 2 at Luke’s site and the 1 with Obi
and Han. Meanwhile, I set up a Catapult and ASP droid at
the Landing Platform and move Luke to the CC:DB in hopes
of drawing my Off the Edge to retrieve 6. But Ryan deploys
characters to each of the Raltir sites, including Choke
Lord and a couple of scrubs against Obi and Han. He
initiated a battle there and choked Han on his first
action. I played Clash of Sabers to exclude Vader and
chopped one of his scrubs. He drew low, and I drew enough
to win the battle. Obi was lost, but it was merely a matter
of moving Luke to Vader’s site. I waited one turn, hoping
for an Off the Edge, but didn’t get it, so I lost a few,
then DB transited Luke to Vader. On my next turn, I
activated everything and put the Catapult back. With the
only card in my deck a 7, I attempted to turn Vader and
succeeded. After winning the game, I tried to move Vader
over to battle Tarkin, but that pesky Moff cancelled the
once-Dark now-Light Lord’s destiny! Ah, Ryan had the last
laugh. A fun game.
And so... I had no idea what my diffential was, but I got
a pack of Cloud City for my efforts--my recycling entry
fee. And all was cool...
Josh "Stormcrow" Grace