los-gatos-ca-2-24-01
Title: los-gatos-ca-2-24-01
Author: Nick "JediBrain" Stefanko
Date: Feb 25, 2001
I was feeling in high spirits leading into the tournament Saturday. My Black Sun deck went undefeated (!) last weekend, and I had chosen to shelve my Ewoks in favor of a new Watch Your Step deck that I thought would do well. I had also received my letter of acceptance into Decipher’s Squadron Member program as Rogue 74, so my confidence was quite high. Hoping to win a tournament foil, which I could turn around into $50+ easily, my little brother and I jumped into my truck and arrived at the tourney scene 15 minutes early. Once the TD showed, we learned that she hadn’t received prize support since November (and has been at Bruce’s throat about it for awhile), so no expensive foils. The store donated Leia and Han box topper foils, so the top ranks did have something to gain. It was only a 4-game tournament, so this TR will be short (I apologize).
My decks:
LS - Sandstepping - Watch Your Step running Celebration and a few Palace Raider/Patrol Craft combos
DS - Jabba Is Dead - Black Sun bounty hunter beatdowns
The Tournament:
Game 1: DS v. Mario Panighetti’s Squassin HB
2nd turn I draw Tatooine: Jabba’s Palace, so I know I’ll be all set. He’s getting some matching pilots, including Farmboy Luke on R2 in Red 5 to Rendezvous Point, then moving over to drain. I had Elis-ed Xizor and 2 Vigos to Jabba’s Palace, and had spread with bounty hunter support to maximize my drains. I finally drew Zuckuss In Mist Hunter, and with a tracked 5 took out a lone Farmboy. Search And Destroy hit the table; that coupled with my objective damage and Vigo-enhanced drains tore right into him. He had flipped, but too late to do much. After draining him down to 2, and with First Strike out, Bossk In Hound’s Tooth suicided v. Home One, and Zuckuss took on the Semi-Super Falcon to end it.
Result: FW +28
Standing: 2(+28)
Good Things: The deck worked well.
Bad Things: Beating a scrub.
Compliment of opponent: He was in good shape, but flipped too late and didn’t challenge me on the ground at all. An EPP Obi or two may have slowed me down a bit.
Game 2: LS v. Dawson Dill’s Death Star: War Room start
I saw his start and didn’t know what to expect. The deck was unsleeved, and he volunteered information that he had cobbled the deck together the night before. He was a little kid, so I knew this would be an easy game. I flipped 3rd turn and was Celebrating the turn after that, though he wasn’t causing me any damage at all. He threw some non-unique Star Destroyers at me, but I easily overpowered them with high destiny draws. He never came to the ground, where I had Jedi Luke w/ Saber, Ben Kenobi w/ Saber (yeah, I paid 11 to have Ben run around), and some Palace Raiders in Patrol Crafts. Lategame, I Miraxed as much as I could to maximize my differential, but didn’t get everything back.
Result: FW +30
Standing: 4(+58)
Good Things: The deck worked quite well.
Bad Things: Beating a scrub down hard.
Compliment of opponent: He played well for a little kid with few good cards. I Out Of Commissioned his EPP Vader, which seemed to bring his spirits down.
I watched my brother playing John Monroe after my game finished, and predicted that if John won, I’d play him, and if my brother won (he had a bye 1st game), I’d play Alfred. Well, the game timed, and pairings started off Light, so I was screwed.
Game 3: LS v. Alfred Dong’s ISB Scum
I knew I was dead, having seen snippets of Alfred’s deck as he pummeled Steve Daniel with it earlier. He gets a God start (Tatooine: Jabba’s Palace, 3 ORS, and an Abyssin Ornament in opening hand, Scum And Villainy first card drawn). 2nd turn, to his drain of 2 at the Audience Chamber, I lost Kessel AND Menace Fades off the top. That clinched it for him. I flipped and got some meager drains in behind his flipped objective. He got Gailid and Mosep set up at the AC. After some small battling at Jabba’s Palace, I succumbed.
Result: FL -27
Standing: 4(+31)
Good Things: None.
Bad Things: Losing key cards off the top early.
Compliment of opponent: Alfred has real success with swarm decks, and with that God start he gets now and again, few have a real chance. We always play in a friendly atmosphere, so I don’t mind losing as much.
Game 4: DS v. Alex Stefanko’s WYS
He was pissed that this was the matchup, whereas I had seen it coming since half of the tournament participants were scrubs. Since we were both playing WYS, we had compared against one another last night, so I knew his deck. 2nd turn he gets EPP Luke to the Tatooine: DB and keeps him alive there all game. I got so character-screwed that it wasn’t funny. My hand for my first few turns was 4 characters, 2 of them extra Xizors, and all the rest red. Bossk In Hound’s Tooth and Zuckuss In Mist Hunter with 4-LOM w/ Conc. as a passenger tangled with his fleet a bit, retrieving with Scum. He got I’ll Take The Leader out, and began beefing up Tatooine sites. He flustered my attempts to kill off Luke, and kept the pressure on with big drains. I finally got First Strike out, but too late to do much good. Xizor got Out Of Commissioned at the ¾ point of the game, so I was left with no hope whatsoever. I ran around with his space force, trying to minimize his draining at Kessel, but ran out of Force.
Result: FL -19
Standing: 4(+10)
Good Things: None.
Bad Things: Getting character-screwed; not being able to do much battling.
Compliment of opponent: I thought it a tad extraneous the night before when I saw his 3 Talon Karrdes and 6 Ralltiir Freighter Captains, but the Captains pulled their weight.
Final Results:
Well, I didn’t do as well as I had hoped. My Black Sun deck is now 4-1, and since I’m running the tournament next weekend, I won’t have much of a chance to test it before the Enduro (4 back-to-back tournaments covering a total time of 26 or so hours of straight SW:CCG; this year, it’s a Swiss, R2 booster draft, JPSD, then another Swiss; LOADS of fun); the same goes for my new Watch Your Step deck, which I’m going to work on. John Monroe, despite getting 2 timed wins, won the 11-man tournament and chose the EPP Han FOIL, with Alfred Dong coming in 2nd getting the EPP Leia FOIL. I pulled 4th, and got a third Zuckuss In Mist Hunter and fourth Rebel Scout Luke in my R2 pack. After throwing the Scout to the vultures (scrubs), I sat down with Steve, played a game of Age Of Empires (which is a really cool game), got totally killed by his Persian deck, and then went home to lay on the couch until the morning, when I would return to my academic, consequence-free haven that is UC Santa Cruz.
Thanks for reading.