nashville-tn-1-27-01

Title: nashville-tn-1-27-01
Author: Andy "Solo337" McClure
Date: Feb 2, 2001

NOTE: I sincerly apologize if I submitted this twice. I don’t think I did, but.....

--Pre-tourney junk
It all started at the local tournament 2 weeks ago when Steven Lewis brutally beat me like a red-headed stepchild for something like 31 cards with a killer WYS deck that I was totally unprepared for. I hadn’t had a beating like that in months, and I wanted a rematch. I walked up to catch the tail end of a conversation between Jim Colson and Steven about a convention in Nashville (about 2 hours away) the following weekend and a small local constructed deck on Saturday. Steven told Jim he would probably be there, and he would talk to Clint Hays, Jonathan Chu, Jim Sells and maybe some of the other Nashville guys and get them to come to. Sweet! I thought to myself, Clint Hays, Steven Lewis, Jonathan Chu and Jim Sells at the same tournament! I am SO there!

After much planning I convinced my mom (she didn’t want me to go by myself) to drive me and my friend Ben to Nashville for this convention. Ben is a good friend of mine, and a pretty good SW player, but his rating hasn’t been updated in a long time, and when he first started he lost a lot of games, so his rating is only 1504. I had recently been playing fun decks in the local tournaments (they are good decks, but not my best), so I needed some real decks. I love WYS, so I made some modifications to my current WYS to make it more powerful. The finished copy is on my page. SHAMELESS PLUG: Go check out my WYS deck called, “Watch Yo’ Step Andy Style.” If you haven’t seen it, it is just smugglers and Tatooine Celebration with some sweet interrupts. It’s pretty strong, and I had nothing else for LS, so WYS was it.

Believe it or not, unlike every other time in my entire SW career, I had a lot more trouble with a DS deck. Abyssyins are awesome, but a good WYS can beat them almost every time, especially with a well timed and well-tracked Cantina Brawl (“hmmm… I drew a 1 destiny, you lose all 6 Abyssins”). BHBM is cool, but WYS limits is on generation and that new Luke would force me to duel. Hunt Down is cool, but I couldn’t find any This Is Some Rescues (or I would have played Hunt Down). So I was really hurting for a DS deck that could take on WYS. I thought about my choices, and talked with some other SW players about what hurts WYS. I couldn’t decide on a deck that would beat WYS, and I expected that Steven would not be playing WYS (or he would be playing a different version than the one he played against me), but it would be the biggest deck there. ISB has been good to me, and is very versatile, so I decided to combine it with all the anti-WYS I could fit in and the final product was an interesting Tatooine Occupation deck with huge damage potential and it killed WYS. I ended up with ISB Overseeing it personally, with Imperial Commands and Thrawn for space, along with a good sized space fleet and Battle Deployment (the best anti-WYS card in the game) and Guri. It was weird, but it worked pretty well. However, apparently I didn’t consider what it would do against EBO, as will be shown later on.

Ben had a WYS with Kessel Runs that I helped him build and a really cool Agents of The Black Sun deck that works pretty well, believe it or not.

We got bad directions off the internet, and spent a long time looking for the right place, and we were probably 20 minutes late when we found the correct building, and paid SIX DOLLARS just so my mom could park and walk us in to see how long the tournament would last! Once we got in the building we were totally lost and afraid the tournament would start without us, until we saw Jim Sells and Steven Lewis across the walkway. We asked for directions and found out that before Ben and I shoed up, they only had 6 players, so Ben and I made 8. Finally we found the correct room, paid our entrance fee and sat down to see who was there. Chu had showed up, as had Steven and Jim Sells, and 3 squadron members were playing, including our friend Matt from Huntsville. Clint Hays was there, but he wasn’t playing in the open because Steve was using his cards or something.

After a little chat, our odd little tournament got started- 4 Expert players (Chu, Steven and I were over 2000, and Jim Sells had fallen below 2000, but he is a great player, too), 3 Squadron Members, and then there was Ben and his massive 1504 rating :-)

End pre-tourny junk--

First round: My (2008) DS Anti-WYS ISB vs. Steven Lewis (2143)
Ah, first round I get the rematch I’d hoped for! I heard I was DS, and prayed he was still playing WYS, though I doubted it. As I suspected, he had something else, and started A New Secret Base on the power generators. As I looked through my deck, I realized I had forgotten about EBO when I threw the deck a few days ago, and I had no Resistance, no Imperial Decree and had even dropped my Battle Order for some reason. I set up quickly as usual (ISB invented speed) and got off some quick drains, but finally he set up EBO and started dropping 1 X-wing per system to rack up the drains. There just isn’t much to say about this game. He drained in space and wouldn’t battle me (with cards like Hyper Escape and barriers) and I drained on the ground, but he blocked a lot of mine with Arcona (I couldn’t find my Ghhk/TRWEU), and an opening hand Rebel Fleet (of course:-). He drained me for 6-12 a turn, and I drained for more like 4-8, so he beat me out. It was a decent game (something like 14 cards), but I could have smacked myself for not keeping EBO in mind when I built the deck.
FL 0(-about 14)
Game highs: Not a whole lot.
Game lows: I hate the feeling that these X-wings are out in space drain for massive amounts and you CAN’T FIGHT THEM even though you want to so bad! Plus I forgot to stick in something against EBO.

Ben had lost his first round, too, to Jim Sells, who was a nice guy and gave Ben some pointers after the game.

Second round: My WYS vs. Matt Reed’s (1563)BHBM with lots of aliens.
I drove all the way to Nashville to play a guy I play 2-3 times every week! Oh, well, Matt is a great guy, and I still didn’t know what he was playing because he has about 5 or 6 different BHBM decks, and he loves to play off the wall stuff.

He starts Mob. Points and IAO and Something Special Planned For Them (I think) and just like any BHBM he dropped the Emperor to the D*2 Docking Bay first turn and pulled Carida. Now he was getting a ton of force (something like 11), and I was getting 7, so something had to be done. I had some weak characters in hand along with a Barrier (Japanese no less) and an Order To Engage. I dropped Mirax to the Jundlund Wastes (from my hand) and a Raider to the Cantina to flip my objective (cutting his generation by at least 3 cards per turn) and deployed Order To Engage and saved 1 force for Barrier. Matt had enough force for 1 main, but my Barrier would have blocked him from battling and he would had to eat the 3 for OtE. Matt knew me and my love for barriers, so he saw right through my plan and deployed EPP Vader to the Tatooine Docking Bay and moved him to block Mirax’s drain. I thought about how cool it would have been right then if I hadn’t had a Barrier and was only bluffing and had saved Mirax and some cards damage due to the 1 force I had active. From there it went downhill for Matt. I am having trouble remembering the game, but as I recall Battle Plan and Menace Fades hurt him all game long, as did Palace Raiders and Patrol Crafts, and Celebration. I think I also ended up beating some aliens for damage in the Cantina with a well timed Blaster Proficiency. I killed Vader a lot of times and finally drained him out. FW by something like 20 or a little more. I honestly can’t remember.
FW 2(+20?)

So now I am getting my confidence back a little bit and hoping to play one of the big dogs third round. And I get my wish!

Thrid Round: My WYS vs. Steven Lewis’ Biker Scout RalOps
Ha! I knew I would see RalOps, and I was packing Ounee Ta baby. I pulled it out to be my starting effect and thought about how much it would really help me this game. It normally makes a HUGE difference and spells disaster for the RalOps player as Enhanced mains drop for cheap and murder the poor little troopers with forfeit =0 weapons and multiple destinies, but what would it do for me? I had 1 enhanced weapon in the deck (ECC Lando), and my aliens could drop for free, but who cares about 1 power Palace Raiders? I couldn’t put them in patrol crafts because High Speed Tactics would murder them without a hope of surviving, and I began to worry about this game. Most decks I play would murder RalOps with Ounee Ta, but this one was still gonna have trouble, and it turned out to be one of the best games of SW I have ever had.

Anyway, the game gets started and I am totally unsure what to do. I haven’t played against RalOps hardly at all since Ounee Ta, and never with WYS. I couldn’t decide whether to start Ounee Ta, Squadron Assignments and Battle Plan, or OT, SA and Menace Fades, but I decide to go with Battle Plan because I knew I would want to get into space earlier that he would. I get a sucky opening hand with no decent characters, so I don’t go to his Raltiir site. Instead I throw Mirax to the Raltiir system to slow him down and draw, hoping to get a Karrde or Lando or something like that, but get junk (sans Captain Han). He drops some Biker To Raltiir and I decide I need to back up Mirax, so Captain Han grabs his boat and flies to help the damsel in distress (he’s good at that, isn’t he?). Steve drops 3 Imperials to 3 sites, Search and Destroy and Bossk in Bus to the system to flip, but I barrier Bossk so he can’t run from the Falcon’s fury. I need to block Search and Destory and decide I can probably beat Bossk for some cards if I flip my objective (thus adding a destiny), and I have another Barrier, so I take a little risk and drop Chewbacca to the Jundland Wastes and a Palace Raider to the Cantina to flip. I battle and draw a 6, a 0 (suck) and another 6 and cause about 5 cards damage. I lose forfeit-enhanced Mirax to his RalOps-enhanced battle destiny, and the Falcon keeps control of Raltiir. He doesn’t drain on his turn, but searches his deck for any card and drops Arica undercover to the Cantina. I have a barrier in my hand, and I know he will probably break-cover and beat my little raider, but the Raider is power 2 and forfeit 5, so he can take a decent amount of battle damage if he has forfeit. Steve still has force for an EPP Vader or something so I decide save my Barrier just in case. As I suspected, he breaks cover and draws a high destiny and I have to lose a few cards for damage, but it was worth it. If he could have deployed EPP Vader, I would have too much damage to recover from, most likely. Meanwhile, the Mighty Chewbacca sat at the Jundlund Wastes blocking S&D. For a while I launched sucky attacks on Raltiir with my crappy (cheap, but crappy) aliens (Palace Raiders really suck when you can’t put them in Patrol Crafts). We fought back and forth, and he had to devote a lot of forces to Raltiir, but I never could control the site I needed to flip him back to 0 (the Falcon was now parked at Tatooine to satisfy Battle Plan, but I could have easily moved it to Raltiir as needed). At least once (I think 2 or 3 times) I was 1 Biker away from controlling the site I needed. And once I got 2 destinies and all I needed was a 9 total to clear the site, but I drew an 8. He finally got Fett In Slave 1 to Carida so he could drain free and his drains started eating me alive. Chewbacca was still sitting at the Jundlund wastes draining 1 per turn, blocking S&D and keeping my objective on the 7 side, but that was my only damage and he was using Overseeing it Personally to drain for about 7 a turn (my Menace Fades was no where to be found). However, I had an several aces up my sleeve. I was retrieving like mad with On The Edge and some basic tracking (with the help of interrupts like Fall Of The Legend and OOC/Trans Term). By this time, most of the other games were over, and I overheard Clint talking to Chu (I think), and he said “Steve is murdering him 7 to 1 in damage, but he gets back 5 a turn with on the Edge.” I had some more powerful cards. I dropped Order To Engage and moved the Falcon to Carida. He would have to battle me or lose 3, and I would have won the game if he had battled, because I had Punch It and Legendary Starfighter, which would have tripled the damage I was causing him. Plus if he ran to Raltiir he would have to pay for his drains (which he couldn’t have done easily, because he was getting low on cards and wanted to do other tuff with his force. The way I saw it, Steven was going to have to lose 3 and run to Raltiir (Fett couldn’t make the jump between Carida and Tatooine), or fight me and have Legendary Starfighter damage for the rest of the game. However, being the great player he is, Steven had a third alternative. He dropped a Presence of the Force on Raltiir and battled the Falcon, played Projective Telepathy and SURPRISE didn’t pay his 2 force and the battle was canceled. He then ran Fett to Raltiir where the Pulsar Skate was still sitting empty. Well played, Steven, I thought, well played. All the while, Chewbacca was still having his one man draining party at the Jundlund Wastes and blocking S&D and keeping my objective flipped. I don’t have enough ability in pilots to get destiny against Fett, so I drop Talon into the Pulsar Skate and move Captain Han to Raltiir. This whole time I am still retrieving 4 or 5 force a turn and sometimes I played it twice per turn, despite Secret Plans, and there was no grabber in sight. However, his drains were eating me alive! 2 with Arica at the Cantina, and about 5-7 on Raltiir, against my Wookiee in the desert draining for 1. I kept pulling tricks to block drains (like controls), but it wasn’t enough. Where was my Menace Fades? I knew I hadn’t lost it…. Finally the game was nearing an end, and I was up slightly in total number of cards. I activated all the cards in my deck, and thought about my options. I am losing this game in 2 more turns of draining if I can’t get Menace Fades. And finally it hit my like an oncoming Greyhound. My whole deck was active, and the first thing I had done this game was play a Tunnel Vision. It was still in my lost pile, and I hadn’t thought of it until just now. I played it from lost pile, and I could have killed myself for not thinking of it earlier. I deployed it and dropped Jedi Luke with Saber to the Cantina to eliminate Arica’s drain of 2, but couldn’t battle since I didn’t have any destinies. I moved Talon in the Pulsar Skate to Tatooine to satisfy Menace Fades (combined with the Mighty Wookiee who was still controlling the Jundlund wastes) and left the Falcon parked in front of Fett. So in 1 turn I cut his damage from 9 per turn (or so) to about 3 or 4 per turn. He activates and drains and battles with Arica. I swing, and my first destiny is a 5 but to my dismay my second destiny is Mos Eisley and I miss. I proceed to draw an On The Edge for destiny and he draws a high enough destiny that Luke dies and Mara lives. How stupid was that? I thought. But, I could use it to my advantage, I thought. I had an On The Edge in my lost pile, and now I knew that a 5 was on the bottom of my deck, so I activated so that I had 1 card in reserve deck, and played my On The Edge, and proceeded to draw Mos Eisley. I looked down at the site I had just drawn and I wanted to cry. After all this! This incredible game, this epic battle between good and evil, between me and the great Steven Lewis, and the Dark Side triumphs because Han fell off a cliff while piloting the Falcon. Without even finishing the game, I told Steven good game and shook his hand. Steven only had about 5 or 6 cards in his deck. I was that close to winning the game. What happened, I mused, how did I miss up a tracking job that easy? I KNOW I drew the 5 first, not Mos Eisley. Clint had been watching the end of the game closely, and he said that I had put the destinies back the wrong way, I hadn’t mistracked it.
FL 0(-4 or 5)

Game Highs: This was one of the most intense, thinking games of SW I have ever played in my life. Other
than forgetting about my Tunnel Vision in the lost pile, I played very well, IMHO, and don’t know what I
could have done differently.

Game Lows: What an awful way to end a perfect game! I killed Han because I put the cards back in the wrong order. Plus, Jedi Luke dying to Arica in the Cantina while she survived was definitely annoying. Plus, I hate losing to RalOps even though I was packing Ountee Ta. I see how it happened now, because even if they are free, Palace Raiders off of Patrol Crafts aren’t going to do a whole lot.

PLAYER OF THE GAME: Chewbacca, Protector. I can’t even tell you how many cards he saved me
throughout the course of the game. He kept my objective on the 7 side when I only occupied the Wastes and a system, he blocked S&D from about the 3rd turn of the game on, and he drained for 1 every turn of the entire game almost. He kept me from paying for my own drains, and he knocked out Overseeing It Personally a couple turns at the end. I left him alone in the Jundlund Wastes, and he survived the whole game without being able to get destiny.

After the game, Steven and I agreed that it was definitely one of the top 10 best games we had ever played (probably my best).

Fourth game: My Anti-WYS vs. Squadron Member Josh’s (I forgot his last name) Hidden Base
I loathe Hidden Base. It has been a thorn in my side since Special Edition first game out, and I hate it as much now as I ever have. The game was so boring (as is every game with Hidden Base flip) that I don’t even want to describe it. I was worn out mentally after my last game, and wanted to go to sleep more than anything. The game was utterly uneventful except that, as always, my guessing was horrible and the last system I probed turned out to be the Hidden Base. I played badly and forgot to make him lose for Search and Destroy a bunch of times, and forgot to retrieve an ISB Agent a lot of times, and I ended up winning the game by 1 card because he forgot to move Mirax to block a drain of 2 at the Tatooine system. Sorry about the lack of detail, but it was incredibly boring and I don’t remember it very well, except the fact that I played very poorly.
FW 2(+1)
Total for the tournament: 4(+6, I think)
Game Highs: Not too much. I played badly, and almost nothing happened.
Game Lows: Building the best anti-WYS deck ever, and playing EBO and Hidden Base with it. That stinks!

Well, Chu beat Steven second round, and Jim Sells beat Chu fourth round and went undefeated and won the high-quality tournament and took home a Signal foil. Chu got second and Steven third (or maybe it was the other way around), and I took fourth. My friend Ben got fifth, higher than all the Squadron Members, and I don’t know who got sixth, seventh and eighth. It was a great tournament overall, and well worth the drive, even though I lost 2 games.
And now for the props and slops!
Props:
To Steven Lewis- for beating me in one of the best games I’ve ever played.
To Steven Lewis- just for the look on his face when I killed Han with On The Edge. It was hilarious. I would have been rolling on the floor if I hadn’t felt like crying.
To On The Edge- just because I have 3 copies of it in my WYS deck, and I end up playing it at least 4 times per game
To Ben- for doing better than all 3 Squadron Members, despite his 1504 rating.
To Ben- just for having a rating of 1504. I mean, he’s played like 40 games to raise his rating 4 points, and if that’s not funny, I don’t know what is.
To Jim Sells- for winning a rough tournament with 2 of the top 10 players in the world there.
To Clint Hays- for being a cool guy in person.
To Jonathan Chu- for remembering me from DecipherCon.
To Chewbacca, Protector- for being an INVINCIBLE machine at the Jundlund Wastes.
To Everclear- because they RULE, and they made the drive there and back 10 times better.
To Pilfer The Trash- for being totally BROKEN Fluxx T-E-C-H (inside joke :-)
To the word “tech”- for being really, really fun to use and abuse (i.e. “There’s a McDonald’s right down the road? TECH!”

Slops:
First and foremost to me- for losing to RalOps even with Ounee Ta.
To Steven Lewis- for beating me in one of the best games I’ve ever played.
To Jedi Luke- for being Arica’s b-i-t-c-h.
To Arica- for acting like she was his friend, then beating the crap out of my little Palace Raider.
To Dash Rendar- for being one of the first cards I lost off the top to Steven and staying there, in my lost pile, all game long.
To the Nashville parking place- for charging $6.00 for 10 minutes of parking, and because they would have charged us another $6 for my mom to park to pick us up (so she didn’t park).
To Decktech- because I’m pretty sure that they are going to mess up all the apostrophes in this TR.

Hope you enjoyed-

Andy