ithaca-ny-27-jan-01
Title: ithaca-ny-27-jan-01
Author: Doug "Phrim" Faust
Date: Jan 27, 2001
So I was actually running this tournament, and thanks to the fact that I was allowed to play we managed to get 8 people. I really liked this opportunity, because I don’t get to play against a lot of the people I know up at school in tournaments, since I’m busy running them a lot. Anyway, Brian Terwilliger showed up as promised, so he was the man to gun for.
As far as decks, I had been working on a Watch Your Step deck based around Tatooine Celebration and I’ll Take The Leader for the past week or so, and it seemed to work pretty well, so I decided to use that over my EBO deck which, though it was still good, had gotten a little stale lately. As for Dark, I was working on a Walker ROps deck with Imperial Commands and We’re In Attack Position Nows. So I came up with a deck that looked pretty good, but then I realized I only had one Imperial Command and no We’re In Attack Position Nows. And no one would trade them to me, as apparently everyone was trading for them. Oh, well. So I ended up with my old Hunt Down deck, which is a variant of what I’ve been playing since like Summer of 99, but I really didn’t have time to modify it for Ref2 at all. The only change was I switched out a Focused for a Prince Xizor, I probably should’ve added in Snoova too, but I didn’t have that much time to decide what to take out.
Game 1: My Light vs. Bob Schultz’s (1531) SYCFA TIE Defenders
Well, coming into the tournament I was a bit concerned about being kicked out of space by a dedicated space deck, but the fact is, TIE Defenders are obsolete. Anyway, first turn he puts a Death Squadron Star Destroyer at his Sullust. I got a pretty good draw, so I put down Mirax on the Pulsar Skate with a Bespin Z-95 and battle it away. I move my ships over to Tatooine, and then I play Out Of Commission, which does get the Destroyer OOP, but it gets grabbed too. Next turn, he puts out Sienar Fleet Systems with a Defender at Wakeelmui. I back up Mirax by putting down Theron on Red 10, and I put ECC Lando and a Palace Raider in the Cantina to flip. He puts down another Death Squadron Destroyer at Sullust, but I don’t have any ships so I can’t do anything. He’s got Dreaded Imperial Starfleet out, so my drains aren’t hurting him that much. I put EPP Luke down at the Tatooine Docking Bay put a RFC on my Z-95, and I play I’ll Take The Leader. He drops another Death Squadron Star Destroyer at his Endor. I deploy Melas with a Palace Raider at the Spaceport Docking Bay on Tatooine, and deploy Tatooine Celebration. At that point, he decides that he needs to do something, so he deploys 3 Defenders at Sullust, and moves everything (2 Destroyer and 3 Defenders) to Tatooine. I deploy the Outrider with Dash and a RFC, and I battle. Now, with I’ll Take The Leader out, all his ships without a pilot character on them (in other words, all of them) are Power -2. In addition, his Defenders are Power -2 where I have 5 maneuver, which Dash on the Outrider happily provides. Plus, Dash makes one of his Destroyers Power 0. So he’s got a power 0 Destroyer, 3 power 0 Defenders, and a power 5 Destroyer. He doesn’t have APTW, and his destiny doesn’t get past my immunity, while I get 2 destinies plus a destiny added to power. The end result, he loses everything exactly, and I lose nothing. On his turn, he draws some Force, and I continue draining and retrieving with Celebration. He puts U-3P0 at the Cantina, which I can’t do a lot about. He also drops The Emperor’s Sword and Shield at Endor, and retrieves a bunch of Force. I’m not about to do anything about that, so I draw up and find my Falcon and Talon Karrde. He deploys 2 Defenders to Sullust, so I deploy Capn Han on the Falcon with Karrde and battle. He again doesn’t have APTW to play, so I draw my 2 destiny (I should have drawn 3, but I forgot), and he lost everything plus 9. I have Order To Engage out, so I move the Falcon over to Wakeelmui. He deploys 3 more Defenders at Sullust and tries to play Short Range Fighters for retrieval, but draws a 4 and fails. His one Defender runs away to Alderaan, and he takes 3 for Order. I manage to retrieve my entire Lost Pile in the meantime, and I move the Falcon over in front of his Defenders at Sullust. He loses 3 for Order and runs away to Endor, where I’m not going to chase him. So after that it’s pretty much a drain race, except I’m retrieving everything he drains me for. The game ends in the next couple turns. FW+24, 2(+24)
Highlights: Beating a Space deck.
Lowlights: The game would have been a *lot* more interesting if he was using the Interceptor/TIE Cannon version. I don’t know if I could’ve handled that.
Game 2: My Dark vs. Jake Rich’s (1778) TIGIH Mains
I draw my opening hand, and I got the Emperor but no Vader. I decide it’s worth it anyway, so I drop the Emperor at his Landing Platform so he only gets to activate 2 Force next turn. He naturally moves Luke over and is captured by the Emperor, so I’ll take 2 Force loss next turn, but he’s off to a slow start. I get out my Death Star Docking Bay and move the Emperor over there, but my Vader isn’t in my Force Pile, so I continue having to lose to both Visage and TIGIH. So we both draw, and I’m still having trouble finding Vader, but eventually I manage to get the Lord and his Saber in my hand. He deploys EPP Obi to go fight the Emperor, but gets Barrier’ed. He tries to Sense twice and fails both times. Next turn, I deploy Lord Vader with his Saber (and grab Luke) along with Mara and her Saber, and I play Put All Sections On Alert on Obi. I play Force Lightning on Obi to make him nice and easy to hit, he tries to Sense and fails. So I battle, hit Obi easily, and play I Have You Now to get an extra destiny. I draw a 5 and a 6 for destiny, so my power is 28 vs. his 5, so he has to lose Obi and 23. Well, the game’s pretty much over at that point, he deploys some spies to cancel my Visage, but he can’t drain because I have Coward out. So I drain some more, and he draws up. FW+26, 4(+50)
Highlights: Well, it was a short game.
Lowlights: Not being able to find Vader easily.
Game 3: My Light vs. Brian Terwilliger’s (2153) SYCFA Scum and Villany
Well, I draw my hand and it’s awful, the only things that I could even deploy were Red 10 and a Bespin Z-95. Meanwhile, Brian’s telling me that his hand is like all blue, so I’m thinking plopping down Theron first turn in space would be a bad thing. I drew my Home One Docking Bay into my hand, so I go looking for the Spaceport Docking Bay to get more Force, and but I activated it, so Brian gets to check out my deck first turn. I end up playing Nar Shaddaa to get a Ralltiir Freighter Captain and deploy it to the Home One Docking Bay, just for the Force. I draw some cards and find Mirax and Theron, so I might be able to come to space next turn. He deploys Mara, Dr. Evazan, and 4-LOM into my Cantina, which is bad. Next turn, I go and find my Spaceport Docking Bay, but I notice that the Pulsar Skate isn’t there, so there goes my hopes of going to space. My hand is at like 12 cards, so I figure I have to do something, so I deploy ECC Lando and 2 RFCs at my Docking Bay and move the one on the Home One on over. Next turn, he deploys Jabba, Bragnus, and Ephant to the AC and deploys Scum. I did draw the Outrider though, so I should be able to deploy to space with some power next turn though. Next turn, I go pretend I’m looking for a Docking Bay so I can figure out whether I can deploy Dash and Outrider or just Mirax on Pulsar Skate this turn. Answer? Neither, of course, I activated them both. So I draw and find the Pulsar Skate. Meanwhile, he drains me away, and I still haven’t flipped my objective, because I’m drawing like no good characters for the ground. So next turn, I go looking for Dash, who of course isn’t there. So I deploy Pulsar Skate with Mirax, Red 10 with Theron, and a Bespin Z-95 with a RFC, and played I’ll Take The Leader. He deploys Jabba’s Cruiser with EPP Fett, Guri, and an ORS piloting, along with Bossk and Dengar in their ships. He battles, retrieves, and Dengar adds a bunch to attrition, and I end up losing the Z-95 and the RFC aboard it. He loses the ORS, but gets it back with Bragnus. So next turn I actually find Dash, so I deploy him on the Outrider. I put Wedge on the Outrider too, but he gets Barrier’ed (why Wedge and not the Outrider is beyond me). So I battle, Dash does his thing for 6, but Dengar still adds lots so I have to take down Mirax. I do draw the Falcon though, which certainly is good for the space battle. Next turn he battles, and I’m down by a lot, so I forfeit Wedge, who definitely covers. So I go look for Captain Han, who of course is not there. I decide not to battle, cause I’m not really killing anything except my own characters, because he keeps getting his stuff back with Bragnus. So he battles and the Pulsar Skate bites the dust. Next turn, I manage to find the Falcon, but I decide it’d be more worth my while go drain at Tatooine than to help me in the seemingly useless battle over Tatooine, especially while all his ships are tied up. So I consider what to do with my ships there, I think I might join the Falcon in a pilgrammage to the Death Star, but I realize that (a) if I move my ships away my Objective flips back to the 0 side and (b) if I move my ships away I can’t drain for 2 at the Docking Bay from I’ll Take The Leader any more. So I decide to battle after all, and I draw a 6 to add to my power, and a 5 for destiny. He’s low on fodder at this point, and he ends up having to lose both Dengar and Bossk because he doesn’t want to lose Guri. So I move the Falcon over to the Death Star to get my big fat drain. Meanwhile, he gets both Bossk and Dengar back with Bragnus and deploys them both to take out Captain Han. So meanwhile I continue playing like a scrub and deploy another Bespin Z-95 to Tatooine with a Palace Raider piloting, only to be reminded that I can’t battle Guri in Jabba’s Space Cruiser. So meanwhile he’s been draining me for 4 the whole time, so I’m short on Force, and I’m obviously not going to win this game. I move Lando and his 3 RFC buddies over into the Cantina to block the drain. Little did I notice that there was a Sniper on the top of his Lost Pile, which he gets back with Bragnus and kills Lando. Then he deploys Snoova with a Vibro-ax, captures one RFC, hits the other with Mara and operates with Dr. E, and beats down on the last one to win the game. FL-19, 4(+31)
Highlights: What highlights?
Lowlights: See above.
Game 4: My Dark vs. Jon Schultz’s (1879) MWYHL Mains
So I like playing against MWYHL decks, because it means that a first turn flip is very possible. Would’ve been nice if I actually drew Vader. So I get out the Executor Docking Bay, and notice that Vader’s in my Force Pile so I go draw him. He sets up on Dagobah with Yoda training Daughter. I go and put DLOTS with Saber at my Death Star Docking Bay and flip my objective, then I deploy Ephant to the Holotheatre. He deploys EPP Luke at my Cloud City Docking Bay, so I attack him with Prince Xizor and clear the site. He deploys Scout Luke with his Saber against my Vader, so I POSOA him, but he deploys Tawss Khaa and battles. I don’t choke Tawss, which is a shame, but I do hit Luke, and Luke hits Vader. But my destiny is low so Tawss lives. Tawss runs away to the Home One Docking Bay, so I deploy EPP Vader on the Death Star to flip it back. I go ahead and deploy the Emperor and Mara with her Saber to go along with Vader. He deploys Premiere Obi to the Cloud City Docking bay and moves Tawss there. I transit everyone over in front of Obi and Tawss. He deploys another Scout Luke there with his Lightsaber and Lightsaber Proficiency, and battles. He misses chopping Vader, I manage to chop Luke with Vader but I miss Obi with Mara. He plays Courage to add 6 to Luke’s power, which is now a monstrous 15. But if that wasn’t enough, he plays Jedi Presence so Luke is Power 30. Oooookaaaaay. He reduces my destiny so that Tawss and Obi live, and I lose the battle by 16, so I lose the Emperor and Mara. So I figure now he’s used his Courage, and he obviously doesn’t have a Glancing or he would’ve used it, so I duel Obi and win easily. That hurts him, because he’s not got 4 Lukes in his Lost Pile and Obi is out of play, so he’s running out of options to fight with. He deploys another scrub and battles Vader, but Vader hits someone so everything dies. I deploy DLOTS to the Death Star and flip my objective back. Pretty much all his characters are dead, so he just draws up. FW+23, 6(+54)
Highlights: First time I’ve dueled in a while, I seem to be dueling less and less as of late.
Lowlights: Power 30 Luke is, umm, unfortunate. :-)
So anyway, we were going to play 2 more games after this, but it turns out that 3 people had to leave, and a 5-person tournament isn’t much of a tournament at all. So we just ended there. I played a pick-up game against Brian with the other sides, since it was probably going to happen next anyway. I wasn’t doing bad, but he had Honor out and I lost No Escape off the top, so it hurt me bad in the long run, and I lost. So anyway, after the four games, Brian was the only undefeated, so he easily won it. Myself and Jon Schultz were the only 3-1’s, but I was +54 and he was +53, so I managed to get 2nd by one differential. Overall, it was a pretty good tournament for me, seeing as how my only loss was against #2 in the World.
Until next time...
--
Doug Faust - dlf14@cornell.edu
SM Rogue 40, based in Ithaca, NY
http://times.phrim.com/