st-cloud-2001

Title: st-cloud-2001
Author: Michael "Gilliatt" Raveling
Date: Jan 21, 2001

Pre-game stuff:
The monthly St. Cloud tournament rolled around and I had enough free time to come out of retirement to attend. We arrived at the card store after an hour long drive with Josh Grace torturing me with his ultra loud music. The turnout was pretty big with a total of 30 players but most seemed to be new players or people I had not seen before. The usual suspects were there like Graham Neal and Josh Kohman. For light side I was playing a Watch Your Step ground pounder and for dark I was playing a Black Sun Agents space fleet. Promptly at 10:30 we started to play. Dion Erbes was directing today.

Game On:
Game 1: My Light versus Max Moore.
I start Watch Your Step with the Cantina, Tattoine, and Docking Bay 93 with Insurrection, Staging Areas, and Aim High. Before he shows me what he starts he says that he needs a rebel from my deck and then I realize I am playing an old school CCT. I give him Theron Nutt. He reveals CCT with All Wrapped Up, Mob Points, and Combat Response. For his first turn he deploys Bane Malar to take Theron Nutt captive but leaves them both at the Security tower. He deploys his Cloud City docking bay. On my turn I get a first turn flip with a Ralltiir Freighter Captain at the Docking Bay 93 and Wedge at the Cantina. I also deploy Goo Nee Tay and that card hurt him all game. On his turn he deploys Carbon Freezing to the Carbon Chamber and uses the game text of the Console to get Ugloste. He moves Bane Malar with my Theron Nutt over to the Carbon Chamber. My turn I deployed Mirax to his Cloud City Docking Bay and Melas with a Palace Raider to the Carbon Chamber to battle Bane. He scans Melas and I draw 2 destinies to kill Bane and free Theron Nutt. Then I draw till I have enough characters to really do some damage. His turn he deploys Ugloste and regular 4-Lom (not my character of the year 2000) with Boba Fett’s gun. ??? He initiates a battle against my Mirax but I Fallen Portal and kill 4-Lom. So he does nothing to me. On my turn I deploy a Ralltiir Freighter Captain and Talon Karrde to the Cloud City docking bay and beat up on Ugloste for about 6 damage. I move Mirax to my SpacePort Docking Bay and Melas to the Security Tower to drain Max out. On his turn Max tries to deploy Boba Fett using Combat Response to get Slave 1. He doesn’t have enough force to deploy him with Goo Nee Tay out so he puts Slave 1 back into his reserve and he draws. On my turn I drain and sit on my active force. He is done and doesn’t deploy any more so I drain him out with my characters at every site on the table. I saw both the Special Edition Boba Fett and the Cloud City Boba Fett go to his lost pile. This was Max’s second tournament and I gave him a healthy smashing. He only went 1-5 his first tournament but at this tourney he was destined to go 3-3. A nice improvement. So I have a FW 2(33) and I am at 2(+33)

My Dark versus Ben Faith
I have faced Ben before and gave him a healthy smashing as well. He remembers that game but I don’t. I start Agents of the Black Sun, Coruscant, Imperial City with IAO, Mob Points, and There Is No Try/Oppresive Enforcement. Ben starts with MWYHL with Way of Things, Do or Do Not/Wise Advice, and Squadron Assignments. I should have started Secret Plans instead of There Is No Try/Oppressive now that I think about it. On my turn I activate my 6 and get Rendili deployed along with the Coruscant Docking Bay. I deploy the Stinger to my Rendili all alone because I know that MWYHL takes forever to get rolling. I move Xizor to the Coruscant Docking Bay to give me some nice activation. His turn he does the standard MWYHL and gets Yoda’s Hut, Training Area, and Yoda’s Hope. I activate and drain him for one. He plays It Could Be Worse and suddenly I have an idea. If I could draw my Bith Shuffle/It’s Worse I could give him a nice force loss. I deploy Kiffex and put out Zuckuss there. I move the Stinger to join my favorite bounty hunter ship. I draw my Bith Shuffle/It’s Worse. Ben’s turn he gets out Daughter of Skywalker and puts her down with Yoda’s backpack. Now I that is overkill and he will succeed in every training draw. Down comes Test 1. On my turn I drain at Kiffex and he does not play It Could Be Worse so I can’t kill him. I deploy Black Sun Fleet and draw some looking for more systems and more firepower. On his turn he succeeds in training test 1 and puts out test 2 at Yoda’s Hut which I move to the Training Area so I don’t lose any of my attrition. He then uses Squadron Assignments to get Wedge with Red Squadron 1 and puts it down at Rendili. Maybe he didn’t know what Black Sun Fleet did? He read it when I deployed it but he must not have made it to the control phase part. Anyway, on my turn I activate and move Zuckuss over to Rendili on my control phase. I deploy IG-88 in IG-2000 and battle. He has to lose both cards to attrition and then I move the Stinger to Rendili to join the growing space fleet. Ben’s turn involves training to test 2 and deploying test 3 at the Jungle. He forgets to move his guys over there though so I am saved a turn while he draws and saves some force. On my turn I do the Cantina shuffle in space and drain for one at Rendili and two at Kiffex after I move Zuckuss there on my control phase. He plays It Could Be Worse and I play It’s Worse for 13. He loses 15 cards. (NOTE: now that I think about it this may have been illegal because I heard somewhere that It’s Worse adds to the drain as a drain bonus which is canceled by Test 1. Anyway he should have asked the TD and I still don’t know any better.) After this he kinda gives up because I have killed his whole deck now. I set up Sullust with Boba Fett in Slave One and Endor with Virago. Now I have a massive drain and he can’t concentrate any more as he is making mistakes with his training. He comes to space with a weak Mon Calamari which I smash into bits. He only gets up to test 4 before I drain him out. FW 2(27) I am at 4(+60)

My Light versus Josh Kohman(rating - 1969)
Kohman has been beating me the last three or four times we have played so I know this will not be an easy game. I start my Watch Your Step versus Kohman’s Hunt Down with Mob Points, IAO, and No Escape. Kohman pulls Rendili and the Executer Docking Bay. His first turn he puts down Vader with Saber at my Cantina and draws. I lose one to his objective and I look at my hand. I have Melas with an Out of Commission in my hand. He has one card in his lost pile. I can kill Vader for the whole game on turn 1. I deploy a Ralltiir Freighter Captain to my Docking Bay and then deploy Melas and battle Vader. Vader swings and chops Melas and I draw a low 3 for attrition. I play Heading For The Medical Frigate from my lost pile and add 1. I still have to lose 4 other cards to his battle destiny but Kohman loses Vader. I then play OOC and I guess right getting Vader. Kohman’s character package is almost all dead. He deploys Ephant Mon to the Executer Docking Bay and draws. On my turn I deploy the Spaceport Docking bay and put some wimpy smuggler there and draw a fallen portal. My objective flips again. He activates all he can but does nothing but draw. On my turn I get down a Ralltiir Freighter Captain and Mirax to the Cantina and for some stupid reason I do not cancel Visage with my OOC and I lose for that thing the whole game. I am also losing my Nar Shadda Wind Chimes to my lost pile and not playing them to get my Palace Raiders out. So they are all hiding on me. I deploy Jedi Knight Luke to the Back Door and now I am draining for huge. Josh puts down Zuckuss at my Tattoine and he knows all my mannerisms so he knows that I can’t do anything about it. He deploys Battle Order to try to slow my drains down. I pay 3 every turn and Josh really doesn’t have any other guys but Vader to work with so I drain him to death. I lost for Visage the whole game when I had an OOC in my lost pile I could have used. I still am not playing this objective to its full potential. FW 2(16) 6(+76)

My Dark versus Kohman(rating - 1969)
We are matched up again and Kohman knows this game is all about revenge. I can see it in his eyes. Kohman starts with Massassi Throne Room, Staging Areas, Insurrection, and YISYW. Kohman starts off by saying "I have a bad hand" and then deploys the Echo docking bay and gets the Home 1 Docking bay. He deploys no-one to them so I know he got a bad hand. I start off by deploying Kashyyk so I can keep Rendili in my hand till later, and moving Xizor to the Coruscant Docking bay so I can have some awesome activation. On his turn Josh deploys Captain Han to the Echo docking bay. I am stupefied. My turn I deploy Boba Fett in ship to Kashyyk and draw. Josh deploys Obi with Saber to the Tatooine Docking bay and moves Captain Han to the Home 1 docking bay. On my turn I try to play the signal but I drop my Always Thinking With Your Stomach on the table by mistake and Josh looks at me with wide eyes. I try to grab it up quick but Josh always watches what I do every turn so he sees that card. Now I can’t play it on Obi so I deploy U-3P0 there and call it good enough. Josh wonders what kind of Mind Game I am playing and I must have really confused him by my excellent use of clumsiness. On his turn Josh deploys Home 1 and battles my Boba Fett but I get a 5 in battle destiny and he draws a 1 so he loses two. Then Captain Han joins the fun on the Home 1 and I have to check Captain Han for any sort of funniness but his text is pretty lame when not on the falcon. On my turn I deploy Ig-88 in Ig2000 and Stinger with Guri aboard. I battle Home 1. Josh plays I Know and gets out Leia with Blaster because he thinks he will be getting multiple destiny but I show him Guri’s game text. He calls over the TD and has a nice debate about my use of Guri as a constant Imperial Command. So Josh only gets one destiny and I get 3. I draw enough to wipe out Captain Han and Leia but I lose Ig-88 in Ig-2000. Josh deploys Mirax and Blount aboard Home 1 and moves it to my Sullest. On my turn I deploy No Escape and get Ig-2000 in hand and deploy it with Zuckuss to Sullust. Dark Sun Fleet comes out and the Virago comes to Rendili. I then move everything to Sullust except the Virago which stays at Rendili. On Josh’s turn Leia comes out in the Falcon to try to kill the Virago but I barrier it. He battles with the Home 1 and I fail to draw above his immunity but he has to lose about 14 in battle damage. He moves it to Kashyyk. On my turn I move Zuckuss on the control phase to Leia in the Falcon and deploy 4-lom and Ig-88 with guns to that ship. I battle and he loses everything from that system. I then move everything except Zuckuss to Kasskyyk. Josh deploys more guys to Home 1 and draws some. My turn I battle it again and Josh has to lose all the guys that were on the Home 1. Josh isn’t doing me any damage and I finally kill the Home 1 to gain space superiority. I have almost every bounty hunter ship on the table and I spread them out to drain. FW 2(24) Now I am 8(+100)
After the game I ask if he had Luke w/Saber the whole game in his hand and Josh says yes. He was saving him for when I moved Xizor to a battleground so that Luke could come down and chop him. I never did and Xizor lived happily at Coruscant the whole game. This is the same deck Kohman played last week. That will teach him to play with the same stuff week after week.

There are only two people who are undefeated, Josh Grace and me.
My Dark versus Josh Grace(rating - 1939)
Josh starts TIGIH with the new Scout Luke with Strike Planning, Staging Areas, and Insurrection. I pull Rendili and move Xizor over the Coruscant docking bay. On Josh’s first turn he activates and drains me. I lose Labria from my reserve. I have Always Thinking With Your Stomach in my hand and I am sad that I don’t get to make Luke go missing in this game. He then moves Luke over to the Endor Landing Platform. I play No Escape to get Labria into my hand and I deploy him undercover to Luke’s site. I draw looking for some stuff to play with. Josh puts down Crix Madine at the Home 1 docking bay and then gets Blount to sit at the Echo docking bay. I can’t find anything good and Josh is getting huge activation next turn. I deploy the Stinger to Endor and put down Dark Sun Fleet and then put Guri down in it. I wanted to see if I could make Josh deploy to the system thinking he could battle Guri only to discover that she can’t be battled. Then I could smash him next turn. Josh isn’t that stupid though but that was probably my only chance to win. Josh activates enough force to put down General Solo with some guy down at the Spaceport docking bay. My turn I realize that my ruse has not worked so I deploy the Virago at Endor to drain. I have 2 barriers in my hand but I draw all the way up to 1 force. Josh then activates about 20 force and drains me his one. He then gets Cracken with Madine and puts him down to visit Xizor. Then down comes Obi with Saber who gets a friendly Imperial Barrier. Then down comes Leia with Blaster who gets nothing because I am stupid. Josh battles and shoots Xizor but I draw a 5 battle destiny and Josh draws low so I don’t lose any more than Xizor. Now my force activation has been kinda hampered. I have enough to deploy Zuckuss in Misthunter to Endor and U-3p0 to the Imperial City. Josh’s turn, he gets out Corran Horn and breaks Labria’s cover. He gets out Squadron Assignments but can’t find the falcon when he looks for it. Then I move U-3P0 over to the Spaceport Docking Bay and Josh moves Corran over there to break U-3Po’s cover. I have to do something about that stupid guy so on my turn I use Labria’s text to look at my reserve and I have a five sitting on top. Now I deploy another undercover on Labria and then deploy Ig-88 with Riot Gun. I battle and capture Corran Horn but I send him the used pile and I don’t draw destiny because I figure that U-3Po means I am not alone at that site. That was probably a mistake, one that I should have asked the TD about. Oh well. I Ghhk for Ig-88’s battle damage and sit. Josh tries to get the Falcon again on his turn but it still isn’t there so he draws some. I get out a Dark Waters at Josh’s Spaceport Docking Bay and then do a Twilek and grab Come Here You Big Coward. Josh plays On The Edge and retrieves five when I reveal what I had taken. Then I realize Josh has two battlegrounds and try to take back my grab of CHYBC but it is too late. He deploys the Falcon with Lando to the Spaceport Docking bay and I barrier it. Josh deploys Wedge in Red Squadron 1 to Endor. He then puts out an x-wing laser cannon and I immediately play Overload to blow it up. Out comes Battle Plan. Down comes Corran Horn again but in Red 6 at Endor. Josh spreads out his guys at Coruscant to drain me for 2 on the ground both at my Coruscant locations. Josh battles at Endor and has to lose Corran Horn and Red 6 while I lose Guri for attrition. Then Josh tries to move the Falcon up to Kashyyk so that Wedge can join it but I point out that he said the Spaceport Docking Bay was at Rendili. Wedge decides to try to escape to Kashyyk. I get to move Zuckuss to Wedge’s system on my control phase and smash him up with Boba Fett in Slave 1. Wedge covers all the battle damage and I move all my ships together. He moves the Falcon up to Rendili with General Solo, Chewie Protector, Leia with Blaster, and General Calrissian. He does an On the Edge of Lando but misses and has to lose Lando. I do the Cantina Shuffle to drain for 3 at my systems but I have to pay. I need to find Guri if I am to battle Falcon and have a prayer in this game. She does not want to come. I end up stranding Zuckuss at Rendili after Josh moves to Kashyyk and I move the rest of my ships to Endor. Josh deploys Artoo In Red5 to Scout Lukes site and flies him up to Endor to do battle with my bounty hunters. I battle him and he plays Out Of Nowhere to draw two sixes which kill all my ships at Endor. Now I am dead and I try one last ditch battle at the Falcons system but General Solo cancels my only battle destiny because he is with Chewie. Ick. I die. FL 0(-9) Now I am at 8(+91)

There is only one undefeated player now. I get a rematch to try to beat him.
My Light versus Josh Grace (rating - 1939)
Josh starts Ralltiir Operations. I am flabbergasted. He says that I should have an easy win with this game. Sheeoot. I gladly start with Oonee Ta. No one else the whole tournament started this against him. He started Mob Points, IAO, and Secret Plans. He Imperial Commands and deploys Ozzel first turn to the Death Star 2 docking bay and doesn’t deploy any non-unique sites. On my turn I get a first turn flip with a Palace Raider at the Tatooine docking bay and a Ralltiir Freighter Captain at the Cantina. I thought that I could play Insertion Planning in the Cantina so it seemed like a good move. On his turn Josh deploys the Spaceport Docking Bay and activates just enough to get a Mara with her Saber at my Cantina to chop my guy. He has First Strike and I can’t even play my Insertion Planning which wouldn’t have worked anyway. He only draws a 1 in battle destiny so I lose 3 force. Here is where Josh realizes that he is missing a card from his deck. In one of his last games Josh’s opponent must have walked off with one of his cards. Josh goes and finds the guy to get his Executer Docking Bay from him. Apparently the guy was such a bad sport that he didn’t even tell Josh that he had one of his cards in his deck and wasn’t going to either. Josh adds the card into his deck and reshuffles his reserve. On my turn I can’t flip my objective again because I decide to go with Luke with Saber and I battle Mara. I actually remember to do the game text of his First Strike to retrieve and I chop Mara but she also chops Luke. I get a good battle destiny of 5 but Josh gets good as well but he still has to lose about 2 force for that battle. On his turn he activates his full force because I didn’t flip my objective back and he deploys an At-St to Ozzel with Lord Vader to the Executer docking bay. Josh gets out 2 more non-unique sites at Ralltiir. On my turn I deploy en-masse to Ralltiir with 2 smugglers at the Swamp and 2 more at the Jungle. All of them near free from Oonee Ta and I have about twenty force left over. I flip my objective back. I draw up and get a bunch of good characters. Josh moves Vader and Ozzel with At-St over to his Ralltiir Spaceport Docking Bay. I deploy Talon Karrde with Han With Blaster, Lando with Blaster to the Docking Bay and I move all my smugglers to join them. Josh has Battle Order set up by this time so my drains of one and two are costing me three but I have plenty of force with Oonee Ta out that I can afford to pay for every drain and get all my guys out. There is something sweet in deploying all your characters and still having a full force pile. Josh tries to trample my Lando with Blaster and succeeds with a 6 and we proceed to move all around Ralltiir with me chasing his guys with all my smugglers. Jedi Luke comes out to Ralltiir to aid in chasing Vader. We get a little sloppy in the mid-game as I think both of our brains were starting to die and we get into an argument about if I could react with my Patrol Craft or not. I was ready to play Don’t Get @#$%y from my reserve with Luke reacting to Han with my Patrol Craft but we had already moved on to the weapons phase. Then when I tried to do it again Josh said I hadn’t declared my driver so I didn’t get to do the react again. Oh well. I got the Bacta Tank going. Josh was amazed by my forfeit 12 Wedge. So was I. He played Trample about a hundred times and continued to use Imperial Command to stop my multiple destines. Josh spread out to 4 Ralltiir Sites and I spread out to battle him at each one to retrieve with his First Strike. I battled so that I could retrieve while he lost his force to finish the game. FW 2(25) 10(+116)

So I take first place and get the trophy. I also get about five Reflections 2 packs and get a Foil Jedi Luke in one of them. At the start of the tournament there were 30 players, but we ended up with 26. It was great to see several new players and a lot of players that hadn’t been to a tournament in a long time. Hopefully we’ll see them all come to the other tournaments in the future. It was an exciting tournament. There were 20 games with a winning differential of 30 or more. The highest today was a 48. No player went undefeated. There were 3 players with only 1 loss.
Props:
Graham Neal. For being a good SWCCG player and a good friend too.
Jingjing and Sue. Just cause I like to talk about girls.
Swenson. For his years of encouragment.
Stenerson. For being the best. Baby, you’re the greatest.
Grace. For always giving me a good fight.
Dion. A great tourney.

Slops:
No one gets slops. It was good.
Kohman. He just needs to get slops from time to time.
Josh Grace’s radio. My ears are still wringing.

Anti-slops:
Kohman. This will balance out the above slops.

Here are the results of the tournament:
Number of games: 6
Number of players: 30 start, ended with 26
Number of Games: 84
Light Full Wins: 39
Light Timed Wins: 1
Light Bye Wins: 0
Dark Full Wins: 39
Dark Timed Wins: 3
Dark Bye Wins: 0
Biggest differential: 48
Lowest differential: 1
1) Michael Raveling 10(+116)
2) Travis Bean 10(+113)
3) Josh Grace 10(+72)
4) Robert Bartell 8(+85)
5) Graham Neal 8(+53)
6) Josh Kohman 8(+47)
7) Josh Hagen 8(+27)
8) David Jones 8(+4)
9) Josh Wiitanen 8(-4)
10) Nick Jenniges 7(+30)
11) Mark McKenna 6(+39)
12) Andy Fox 6(+6)
13) Tyler Williams 6(+1)
14) Adam Lewis 6(0)
15) Travis McGinnis 6(-7)
16) Scott Poster 6(-12)
17) Max Moore 6(-29)
18) Justin Dittmann 6(-50)
19) Chad Clasemann 5(+31)
20) Brad Kovaleski 5(+25)
21) Jason O’Leary 4(+43)
22) John Golombecki 4(-16)
23) Matt Voigt 3(-52)
24) Chris Burns 2(+16)Dropped after game 2
25) Bryany Iheme 2(-45)Dropped after game 3
26) Michael Becker 2(-72)
27) Ben Faith 2(-80)
28) Joshua Vanderpool 0(-53)Dropped after game 2
29) Tony Mishow 0(-98)Dropped after game 3
30) Justin Braith 0(-180)