smyrna-georgia-1-20-2001
Title: smyrna-georgia-1-20-2001
Author: John "Parn12" Digiovanni
Date: Jan 20, 2001
Luke decided to scrub out Friday night and stay home, but I do get someone else to travel up there with me, Jeff Anderson (its not as fun traveling alone, you know).
Anyways, I give the call to my COTVG (remodified to be a little better and for WYS) deck and my newly constructed WYS deck (and from the reviews I got on it, you’d think I were a scrub too). Court is just Court, and that is all that needs to be said about Court. My WYS deck on the other hand is a trip to play! It doesn’t do the Kessel Run crap, nor does it pull Kessel out for a menacing drain of 3 in a very volitile space deck, on the other hand it plays Tatooine Celebration and Nightfall/spies. A couple of Noble Sacrifices to boost a bit of differential or to just get some important cards back that were lost early on pretty quick. I’ll give more detail about this deck when I post it when I get a chance (it’ll probably be titled "Killing Court WYS Style").
Another change in the tournament setting today, Kevin wanted to play for once and Will volunteered (or something like that) to run the show for Kevin. Well, after a little pondering over using command cards or letting that god aweful software run the tournament Will whips out some cards and gets things going! (Good call Will!)
Game 1: WYS vs. Kevin’s COTVG
Needless to say, Court is the deck to beat these days. And Kevin was playing the variant of court to beat. He modeled it after Steven Lewis’ "Invincible Court," you know... the monster. Kevin played an awesome game! Got the Audience Chamber set up fast, and it took me forever to do anything with my nightfall, no spies came to hand ever, no Control/Tunnel Visions all game either. Anyways, I drop and flip quick... get up on the system too to play my Adirmal’s Orders (I stayed with No Questions Asked pretty much all game). Then it was just the smuggler shuffle to drain. I toss out Battle Plan to compound his problems with the force already, so its either drain (with Menace Fades in effect) or get some force to battle with. There were battles here and there in the game too, none of them were epic in caliber... but its Court, what game would be complete without Court battling? Pretty much all the battles were draws... clearing out some people and moving on with draining with our main forces. An early game breaker was a Noble Sacrifice on a Palace Raider to retrieve 5 force, then the Tatooine Celebration in the end helped a little on the differential. FW +28 (I think)
Highs: Wow, a well played game! Kevin is an awesome td as well as a player, though he is a bit rusty. I beat the "Invincilbe Court," which made me feel a lot better about future dealings against COTVG. Sounding like we were all high on weed for the game, oddly, we were the only table that seemed to be having a good time... the rest of the players were... well, dead (or at least sounded that way). Smuggler Shuffle all the way!
Lows: I really didn’t want to trounce on Kevin first thing, I think it has been ages since he last played, and that kind of game really doesn’t help your confience after such a drought.
Game 2 (2 +28ish): COTVG vs. HB Mains (sorta, ask Michael)
For any of you who haven’t figured this out yet, any well constructed Court deck can wipe out almost any HB deck, any day of the week. My opening hand is solid, managed to get S&D in it right from the get go. Typical start vs. HB, deploy Jabba The Hutt to the chamber, deploy the Tatooine Docking Bay (before Jabba just to make sure), grab Hutt Influence if it is in there, draw 1 or 2, and go. Only I managed to get the Cantina into my opening hand, so I drop it out for extra icons. First turn he deploys Bespin, loses 1 for Court, and draws a couple. Next turn I just explode. Chall, Boelo, and Gailid to the Chamber. On his turn he pretty much repeats turn 1, only he gives me Kessel this time (2 more icons instead of 1!). Next turn I do a little more rumbling, toss Ephant Mon out to the Dungeon, and then start cluttering the Cantina, get some Search And Destroy action going on. Finally he has enough and tries to go after me in the Audience Chamber... he pays 8 and deploys JK Luke to the chamber with a saber and pro. I tell him first to pay 2 more for No Bargain, then I totally destroy his turn with None Shall Pass. Later he gets wise and deploys JK Luke with saber and pro to the Great Pit, and joins him with Obi and OTSD Lando. Wonderful raiding party. He moves in. I fortify the Chamber with Guri, Mara+saber, and some other crazy stuff. Battle and get my 2 back for Scum. He can’t hit anyone at all, but he plays Gift of the Mentor... sure, I let it slide. He draws three and I correct him to only draw one because of Guri.. so he does, and then I cancel it with Boelo. Too bad he made me use my last destiny for stupid Lando, so only thing lost is a hacked up Lando and a couple of cards from my hand. He battles AGAIN with Luke and Obi... but Luke struts a little with Obi’s Jedi Presence. Mara cuts down Obi, cancel all his destiny, clear the site and lose Guri to cover battle damage. Game is set there when S&D kicks back in, so does COTVG, and all my drains. Not to mention canceling a 12 force All Wings Report In with a Secret Plans, awesome card. FW +19 (or so).
Highs: None really, just an enjoyable game... one that my deck did what is was designed to.
Lows: He didn’t even get to flip his objective... enough said.
Game 3 (4 +47): COTVG vs. Jeff’s Dagobah Clouds
Okay Will, I don’t understand WHY you had to get backwards with the pairings here, but hey, better than the computer. First, let me announce to the whole world for Jeff... that cloud deck sucks! Local Uprising on Dagobah to get sites... yadda yadda, encampment and Bog Clearing, Ithorians, Tibanna Gas Miners, Kaybec, sabers... sucks if you’re not playing CHYBC.. which I wasn’t. I sit down knowing that if I’m going to win this game I will have to do it in under 10 turns or its far lost. Thank the heavens I pulled S&D AGAIN into my opening hand, plus Chall and Gailid. I drop them first, deploy the docking bay, snag Hutt Influence, draw a couple, pass the turn. He starts his crummy deck. Next turn I drop and spread, no more than 2 aliens at a site to begin with, I know he has no attacking power at ALL. I drop S&D and make sure to nail him with Court and S&D every time they came around to be settled. He loses TK-422, I play the Cantina and Lower Passages, fortify both (Lower Passages with Mara w/ stick AFTER he lost TK). Game is over in 15 minutes. FW +12
Highs: Getting retribution for Jeff’s beating poor Drew earlier. Handing this deck yet another loss, without playing CHYBC. Not having a single drain canceled all game with Bargaining Table or Rebel Fleet.
Lows: Having to wait about 30 minutes or so to play my next game. Knowing that the next game would be my WYS against Drew’s Court deck... the one that spanked me relentlessly last week.
Game 4 (6 +59): WYS vs. Drew’s Hellish Court
Drew and I are so bored, we both finished our games lightning fast. So Drew asks about trades, especially Grand Admiral Thrawn, I have 4 so I say sure I can trade. He didn’t have any trades on hand. Well, we wander apart for awhile, then he comes and asks what I’m playing this week because I told him it wasn’t MWYHL... so jokingly I tell him HB because we joked about Court demolishing HB all the time. He believes me though, so I play along. Later he comes up, a bit before the game were to begin, and strikes a deal of sorts. If he wins he gets my Grand Admiral and if I win I get one of his packs for prize support. Hey, I knew the game would be fun either way, so I went in on the deal. Game starts and we deploy starting stuff, he laughs when he sees my starting stuff and says "Somehow I knew you weren’t playing Hidden Base." We snicker and the game resumes. My opening hand is awesome, Nightfall, OTSD Lando, Han w/ Blaster, Mirax, Palace Raider, Talon, and the Jundland Wastes. He starts a typical Court deck, only he gets Gailid, Jabba, AND a POTF on the Chamber right off. Ouch. My turn comes around and I play Nightfall and the Wastes, then drop Lando, Han, and Mirax there. Draw 1, I think. From there on in it is just a crazy force drain race. There are a few battles, a few hard battles that Talon saves me from some people getting smacked around with weapons, that and shabby draws. So I take care of the first wave and finish up Sorry About The Messing Iggy to clear him out of my neck of the woods. I play Battle Plan and take over the system (he mentioned having weak space in his deck earlier, so I didn’t go balistic on the system) and got my I’ll Take The Leader and Celebration going. From there on it was just simple numbers, I had the Cantina shuffle going, Leia with Anakin’s Saber at the DB 94, and still at the Jundland Wastes. Plus Menace Fades did its job again. FW +19ish
Highs: Court falls to WYS again, and this time to a seasoned player and a great deck! As always Drew played a kick @#$% game! I won the ’bet,’ still traded him the Thrawn... he had a box topping Han I needed to complete my collection. So in the end he got his pack of prize support back and a Thrawn, and even an Imperial Command... so everyone was happy.
Lows: As typical it seems against Drew, there were no lows.
Yet another awesome tournament... and I got 8 packs of r2 and a nifty foil Signal now, plus all my stuff from the last tournament, so I’m just thrilled. I finished the day at like 8 +79, and pulled in my first tournament win in a LONG time. It was another highly enjoyable tournament, well... I still say we should’ve stuck all those Poke-crap kids outside in the ’snow.’ They started herding through and tramping all sorts of crap in the middle of the third game. And to make a good day better, I got back in time to be a little early to work... oh wonderful joy.
Tournament Highs: 4-0, high as it gets. Smuggler Shuffle is awesome and worked even better! Played 4 great games, played 3 EXCELLENT players. Completed my box top collection and finally got something to say that I’ve actually won a blasted tournament.
Tournament Lows: My god the gas kicked my butt (literally) during the second round. Fair warning, stick with the brownie at the Waffle House than the tacos from Taco Bell.
Look for my light side deck "Killing Court WYS Style" to be posted in the next day or so. As for now, I gotta hit the bed so I can open the store tomorrow, wonderful.