melbourne-australia-18-02-01
Title: melbourne-australia-18-02-01
Author: Luca "Luca/Tzizvvt" Costanzo
Date: Feb 25, 2001
Yeah, well I came home after today’s tournament (25/02/01) after going 3-3 (eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) and not writing anything down to find that I actually had this report typed up, but hadn’t posted it, so here we go:
Today’s tournament was a 4 game premiere sealed built from a few sets of BB premiere followed by a 4 game open. Terry Lyons, the TD, had worked it out so that he could run entry for sealed + open for $15 or open only for $10. I figured for the extra $5 I’d just play the sealed as well, especially seeing as there was an EPP Leia up for a prize. Problem was that I overslept about 10 minutes, which was fine. Ronnie rang me the night before to ask me if he could borrow a Tatooine: Desert Heart and I’m like "sure". I set off to the tram stop and couldn’t remember if I’d remembered to take the Desert Heart with me, so I walked back home again. When I got there I realised that I had it with me ... so I felt pretty stupid when I missed my tram by about 5 minutes. I set off for a lovely walk to the city (which only took twice as long as a tram trip) only to find that there was some construction work going on which meant that my tram wasn’t running anyway!
Man that was annoying.
So I turned up only half an hour late to find that the tournament still hadn’t started. Terry then said that he had 4 spots left in the sealed, but that there were 4 players coming from Geelong who had already reserved it. Oh well. So anyway, I watched some sealed games and talked to Ronnie, who it turned out hadn’t actually gotten around to building his MKOS deck. He wanted to go with his stock-standard Hunt Down deck, which is really good. I convinced him to try something new, though and just built him the MKOS deck. He went undefeated with it, I think, so it wasn’t too bad, even though I left out a Reactor Terminal :(
Highlights from the sealed included Jek Porkins sensing a Tallon Roll (booya) and Ronnie winning the light sealed with pretty much no good cards except for two Surprise Assaults. One of the guys he played drained with Prophetess and a Mining Droid ... twice. 22 force loss right there. Man I’m glad that we don’t play too much Premiere sealed.
Decks today were COTVG. I decided to give it a shot because I thought that it would be good if I fixed the generation by playing both MPoints and the Sail Barge + Passenger Deck jobbo. Between Guri and Jodo Cast, I though that it’d do OK against multiple battle destines from WYS.
Light was Hidden Mains. I wanted to play something else, but didn’t have the time to build it, added to the fact that I was missing some cards for it. Bugger.
So just before the game start Ronnie and I have a game to see if my newly built Court deck can stand up to his newly built WYS deck. I look to be in a winning position, after having the Zuckmeister beaten down for 10 or so. Won’t make that mistake again! Little did I know that my first game would be ...
GAME ONE Dark vs Ronnie Wilcox’s WYS
Well, neither of us were impressed that we were playing each other first game. Ronnie also posted a tournament report of this game, so you can refer to that if you would like to. Basically, I just remembered that I had this TR written up except for the first game a few minutes ago, so I thought I’d post it, which means filling in the first game. I can’t remember it exactly, but basically I played guys, he played guys (duh). My guys were cool ’cause they had barriers and crap behind them. I think that Guri made an appearance and I beat Ronnie down at Tatooine, meanwhile I barriered Ronnie’s suicide Luke somewhere along the line and then killed him for good and ate his soup with Dannik Jerriko. After that I got some direct damage going from Search and Destroy and umm ... retrieved with Scum. Oh yeah- I can remember that at one stage Ronnie had a 4 rigged and didn’t Cantina Brawl away Bane Malar from lost pile. So, to sum that up, I won, but I can’t really remember too much about it.
2(+29)
The Good: Well, I tested out a new deck and won (well) with it.
The Bad: Umm ... can’t remember :P
The Ugly: Playing the guy that I playtested with. Seems like every TR that I read someone says "so first round I played someone from the same car," or something like that.
GAME TWO Light vs ??? BHBM
I felt bad about this game. I had originally planned on playing a relatively fun light deck, not a serious one. When I sat down and pulled out my starting stuff, I realised that I had the stupid dagobah IG-88 with me, so I put it on the table. "Is that your mascot?" asked my opponent. I said no and offered it to him. The fact that he accepted it made me feel even worse- now I’ve got giving someone a dagobah IG-88 on my conscience :P
Anyhow, I grabbed Kashyyyk, Home One: Docking Bay and LSJK there from reserve. My opponent grabbed Palpy to the Endor: Docking Bay. LSJK found his stick and went to the CC: Docking Bay in order to wait for dad. He was shortly picked up by Vader w/Stick, presenting me with the dilemma of whether or not I should just kill Vader and get my guy back. Janus and Sim made it to Palpy’s place, so I decided to deal with that first. Tycho with an Undercover, fully expecting to be singed, went to the Endor: Docking Bay and Ben with Stick and Lando with Booya Axe went to the Tatooine: Docking Bay to force my opponent to do something.
Zuck in Pimp-mobile arrived at Kashyyyk. Home One with Grand Moff Wedge and Haash’n piloting (last time I didn’t play Haash’n, Home One got Lateral Damaged three times in three games) promptly evicted it. Home One ruled space for the rest of the game. Palpy and crew transited to the dark side Cloud City: Docking Bay. Apparently Tycho had to use 7 force to follow them, so he just chilled. IG-88 and 4-LOM went to Tatooine, presumably to set up for a beatdown next turn. I Tunnelled for Mirax, deployed her to Home One and cool Chewie to Tatooine. Not wanting to get screwed by IG and 4-LOM, I move my dudes to Palpy’s site, rather than Vader’s. Palpy, Janus and Sim were joined by the two unique royal guards (power 9) and Mara. My opponent picked a fight. I cancelled Sim with Chewie, excluded some guy and made mincemeat out of Mara. I did have to stack a card, though. I rigged a 6 and attempted to mess Palpy (yeah, I got greedy) and drew a 6 and a 1. Nyeh. I rigged another 6 and drew some. Next turn, and after some random scrub joined Palpy and co another battle ensued. I opted to crush the two guards, then cancelled and cut Sim and excluded Janus. The battle damage wasn’t horrific, so my opponent was able to lose the scrub (Fett w/ gun or something) to cover it. At this point, my opponent figured that he wasn’t actually getting anywhere fighting me with a small crew, so he moved everyone (Palpy, Janus, IG-88 and 4-LOM) over to Vader’s site.
I deployed EPP Han with the crew and moved them over. You’d think that Palpy, Vader, Janus, IG-88 and 4-LOM would be able to take on Ben, Chewie, Lando and Han, so my opponent initiated. Unfortunately for him, I Fallen Portalled Vader, releasing a really peeved Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight. IG-88 had a shot at Han, but I played Put That Down! Cut, cut, shoot, exclude, draw and that was 15 battle damage. All that was left to do was play some edges.
2(+26)
4(+55)
The Good: Fallen Portal was really cool.
The Bad: Stacking cards sucks.
The Ugly: Umm ... where the hell was that Force Lightning?
GAME THREE Light vs John Lampe’s Endor Ops
John has been working on this weird EOps deck with the D*II. We had a discussion about it a while back and we resolved that even if you do get your death star blown up, you lose 12 force, but your opponent has wasted so much resources blowing it up that you pretty much out damage/drain them. Anyhow, it was set to be an interesting game, although I wasn’t convinced that Endor Ops could give anyone a run for their money. John pulled the effect that allows you to subtract from opponent’s movement destiny with Operational As Planned. My starting hand contained Captain Han and Grand Moff Wedge, but no one that I wanted to put on the ground. John deployed his effect, the death star, Combat Response (via the effect), but was unable to find IAO, so he deployed the moff guy to the bunker. I had a turn to draw up, hoping for a spy to beatdown on the moff with. All that I found was Home One. John deployed some matching interceptor/pilot combo to Endor, Secret Plans and Fighters Coming In (dark side I’ll take the Leader). Home One came down to beat it off Endor.
John got the death star up and running around turn 3 and moved it to Kashyyyk to get some damage in. I played Insight then used it to fetch Honor to give me some breathing room and drew some, still awaiting characters and stuff. John deployed Zuckuss in Ship, Virago and Fett in Ship to Kashyyyk. I activated, then tunnelled for Falcon. Super Falcon took out everything at Kashyyyk bar Fett (I hadn’t rigged), easily surviving the two destiny draws thanks to Fighters Coming In (which also made all of John’s ships at Kashyyyk power -2). For some reason, I then decided to test the theory by moving the Falcon away to death star and moving Home One to Kashyyyk. John deployed Baron Soontir Fel and his ship to the death star, running into a barrier. John also deployed Vader with stick and Fett with gun to the Cloud City: Docking Bay, some ships to Kashyyyk and Colonel Davod Jon to the Endor: Dbay who was joined by Mr Moff. I was sort of thinking "Oh yeah, ground," which I hadn’t had time to deploy to, so LSJK with stick came to beat the living tar out of everyone on Endor and Ben Kenobi with stick and Lando with Booya Axe took the Tatooine: Docking Bay.
The game was really approaching a critical situation with the Falcon one or two sectors away from the core and me now taking Death Star damage as well as some random drains. Perhaps the most important play occurred when John used the Superlaser to blow away Home One. Secret Plans made it impractical to edge back Home One, so I just let it go. Meanwhile, back at the ranch, John decided that he wanted to knock me off the Tatooine: Docking Bay, so a bunch of scrubs came down and got whacked. Darth and Fett joined the scrub or two that were left at the Tatooine: Docking Bay. Vader got messed and the rest of the scrubs died next turn.
It was getting really close. I had about 11 cards left. I looked over at John’s deck. It was easily twice the size of mine. Right, time to take action. Mirax Terrik put back a 5, resulting in John losing 12 cards, just to upstage Home One getting shot. I managed to get one Edge done, then that was it.
2(+12 or so)
6(+about 67)
The Good: Blew away the death star.
The Bad: Way, way too close for my liking. John’s right. I would’ve been better off just deploying Honor, killing everything that wasn’t at the system with the death star and only losing to a drain.
The Ugly: Fighters Coming In. It ended up doing me a hell of a lot more good than it did John.
GAME 4 Dark vs. Cody Ky’s Hidden Base
It was good to see Cody on the tournament scene. Cody’s rapidly becoming a very good player, but hadn’t been present for the last few tournaments. Cody was thus far undefeated. I started off with my court jank (YCHF in place of TINT + Oppressive), him with his hidden base jank (YISYW, Squadron Assignments and Do Or Do Not + Wise Advice). First turn, I grabbed Rendilli, Tatooine: Dbay and Sail Barge with Passenger Deck. Cody drew some stuff and passed it back to me. I grabbed Chall, Boelo and Merc Pilot from reserve and set up Scum. Cody dumped super-falcon down to space, POAS to my AC and said go. I didn’t have a barrier, so I was just cautious and drew up. Cody grabbed Wedge+Ship. Having found my Barrier, I ditched YCHF to grab S+D, which went well with the AAA that I found earlier. Arica broke cover and grabbed her stick, then Chall and Boelo moved over in order to have guys at all of the battleground sites. I figured that Cody didn’t have Battle Plan, but he ditched YISYW to grab it at the end of my turn. Grr.
The thing with court is that it’s easy to have really, really good space and space beatdowns are a reality (unlike MKOS, where you’re lucky to be able to hold off Battle Plan). Of course, Cody played I’ll take the Leader, which was really bad for me. Although Cody only deployed Outrider, Artoo In Red 5, Wedge in Red Squadron 1 and Super Falcon, it was enough to be a real struggle in space. Cody’s no idiot, so Melas was in the back seat of the Outrider. This meant that he had ability of 7 at all of his systems. Damn. I deployed Fett in Ship from reserve to Tibrin to hold off Battle Plan for a turn or two.
S+D, AAA and court, combined with some small drains, were really starting to eat into Cody. Cody deployed undercover Corran Horn to my AC to stop Mara’s drain and Court damage (Ephant Mon was next door). A flip later and a Kessel Run for 6 got Cody into a comfortable position as well as starting Leebo pinging at me. I had to do something. I deployed Fett (again) and ZiMH to Tibrin and probed. No. I moved ZiMH to Alderaan and Fett to Kashyyyk. During Cody’s turn, I probed Kashyyyk, which was his Hidden Base. Cody deployed R2 and Luke to complement the Wedge in RS1 that was already there. Barriers were on holiday. Cody beatdown on Fett good, but I had a Ghhk (of course).
Shortly after this, I messed with Corran Horn and started some more damage going. Kessel drain was going to be bad, but I knew that unless I acted patiently I was just going to get beaten off Kessel. I drew up a turn to get Xizor and started a rig. Next turn Xizor, Bus and Virago went to Kessel, well and truly killing the Outrider. Meanwhile, Zuckuss was sitting at Alderaan draining like he owned the place. Cody decided to move the Falcon, which had been retrieved and redeployed, to block the drain. In one of the weirdest moves ever, Guri, 4-LOM and IG-88 all went to ... Mist Hunter to beatdown on the Falcon. Mist Hunter with three droids on board? How many decks even play three droids?
We were nearing endgame and the battles had turned the game in my favour. Cody had barely any force left, so I moved Zuckuss and droids over to fight Wedge in Ship. Cody fought and the ships both stayed. Next turn, I first-striked Cody to death, retrieving an extra 3.
2(+26)
8(+103ish)
The Good: Good game.
The Bad: I had previously removed Hutt Influence because I didn’t think that there would be any decks cancelling drains around.
The Ugly: Cody managed to miss Zuckuss in Ship with X-Wing Laser Cannons (X was 0, to be fair).
I turned out to have been the only undefeated, so I took the tournament. Everyone’s entry fee had gone to pay for the morning’s sealed and we all know that it takes Decipher a while to get prize support out, so there were no prizes. Just before we were about to go, Terry (the TD) stopped Cody and I and offered us our choice of cards to the value of $10 from his sale folders, seeing as we hadn’t played in the sealed, so Cody and I walked off with a Xizor and IG-88 w/gun. Cool.
Props:
Ronnie for winning the light side sealed deck with a deck full of crap and two Surprise Assaults. 22 damage from SA in one game, in a 40 card environment... that’s gotta hurt!
Terry. Aside from running the tournament and being a really nice guy, Terry made auto-props by finding me a Jedi Luke.
Cody for playing a cool light deck.
John for doing so well with Endor Ops (*shudder*).
My game two opponent because he took a dagobah IG-88 to the binder for me.
Daniel and everyone who came down from Geelong for making the trip and playing. Pity we didn’t get paired up!
Christina Aguilera. Apparently she sings or something.
Slops:
The Met because I have to diss public transport.
Decipher for not updating ratings and stuff.
Mike Scheimer for giving my HB mains deck a 3 with NO constructive comments. If it’s so bad, why did it win me my third tournament with it today?
Whoever came up with the concept of ultra rares.