mr-wow-goes-to-bridgewater-ma-02-25-00
Title: mr-wow-goes-to-bridgewater-ma-02-25-00
Author: Jon "Wow" Bragg
Date: Feb 25, 2001
---- Pre-Tourney ----
So, in the middle of January, about the time R2 comes out, my friend Mike Pistone tells me that our store owner wants to decide the fate of his cases’ foil topper in a tornament. We agree. Originally it was going to be a 6 person Free For All between the local players, but our store somehow got a 2nd Jap. Vader, and we decided, why not throw an open tournament. Soon enough, word was that the Hunters would be making an appearance, and perhaps a few more. A few of the scrubs from my 1st tournament in Dartmouth hoped to fight for the Vader (or at least give me a chance of not coming in last), but alas, we had to wait for Gameday to see.
Mike and I playtest on the Sunday and Monday of our school’s Febuary Vacation. My Dark Deck has pretty good sucess, my light... does not. Simply speaking, my Light won one game the entire week, to a deck that Mike had never played before. He beat my deck the next game. That’s what you get for being a scrub I guess. We have a mini-tournament on Wednesday, Mike, Matt McGann, Mike Jenkins, and I battle it out. I end up coming in 3rd out of the 4 with a -2 differential. I buy a R2 pack with my store credit, and get a blue squad b-wing... yeah me. Mike bends up his Foily Emperor (ouch), that blows. I get a Foily Wedge for my Foily RS1, hurray! My Light Deck goes 0-2 and my Dark 2-0. Not cool, for light.
The day before I attempt to trash my light deck and build a new one. But this one blows even more, so I’m stuck with my 2 good old decks.. hurray.
---- Decks ----
LS - "Wow’s - "New BoShek Deck v2.0" - Flipping Hidden Base w/ Squadron Assignments - It blows pretty much. It loses to Hunt Down, and seems to have a hard time with Zuckuss, so I’m pretty screwed against most of the good players with this deck. I can sometimes avoid S&D and Battle Order because I have a few mains in there, but dueling and stuff gets ugly. I really don’t want to face Hunt Down, and MKOS and Court aren’t going to be too pretty either.
DS - "Wow’s The Man Deck v2.0" - Semi-Swarm MKOS w/ Amanaman As Rep - This is by far the better of my 2 decks. It abuses Mosep, Galid, Puny Jabba + Gang. I basically stack the AC with Jabba’s Twerps (Boelo, Ephant, Bib, etc.), and move out slowly to my 3 other sites trying to avoid battles (unless I can easily defeat them.) It’s destinies rock because of the +2 flip side of MKOS, the only problem it seems to have is a early game beatdown in the AC.
---- Drive Down ----
Pretty Uneventfull... maybe because I live like 5 minutes from the store?
---- The Tournament ----
The Tournament starts around 1:15, we play 1 hour rounds, and we have 15 players. A Bye is given to Mike Pistone 1st round. Byes blow.
Game 1
======
My DS VS Eric Hunter’s(1981) Throne Room Mains
As we sit down I figure this is going to be some short lived game. Eric did not surprise me. I start the usual, MKOS, Desert Heart, Tatooine: JP, Power of the Hutt, Resistance, and No Bargin (with PD), and Well Guaraded with MKOS. My Rep is Amanaman with is Amanin warriors. He gets to go 1st, with sorta pisses me off.. but oh well, that’s what you get for activating 2 turn 1. He drops like 3 docking bays and a few twixes 1st turn, now he’s activating like 14 turn 2. I get a decent opening hand, but none of my 4 none shall passes, that’s not good. I deploy AC + puny Jabba and grab Bib and say go. He activates a zillion, drops Mirax, grabs a docking bay, draws up a couple says go. I grab the lower passages and I search for someone with Power, but all that’s in there is Hutt Influence, ok I can block his drains, I deploy an Amanin for 2, begin to draw up get a twi’leck, and I grab Scum and Villany. Now I’ve got about a 12 card hand, and no None Shall Passes. Next turn he’s got the full tracking is easy with Mirax thing going, and begins to set up some on the edges for the next few turns, but in the mean time he prepares to kick my ass. He smiles and says go. I drop Amanaman to the Tat:JP and Bane to the LP, flipping my objective. I move Bane inside draw up and get one of my none shall passes. He deploys Jedi Luke for 10 to the outside, I none shall pass. He pays a ton more and drops both EPP Leia nad EPP Han to my AC... aww crap. He battles, I cancel a destiny with an Amanaman in my hand, he plays I know, gets a bunch more. He shoots Bib and Amanin. I draw excellent destiny (a 5 with +2 MKOS I believe), enough to kill leia. I have no force, so no tech this game. He moves EPP Han out of the AC outside. Next turn I deploy Xizor and another Amanin to my AC, move Amanaman inside, flip back. I draw up getting 2 more none shall passes, and my techy, Imbalance. Eric deployes Jedi Luke to the AC, I none shall pass, he then does a 5 retrieval with on the edge, I imbalance (he loses 3 of the 5). He gets pissed off, I laugh. HHe drains me for 3 constantly outside. He then manages to take over The Ac. Great, I run to the LC. Where, he procedes to come down with even more mains like Lando and Obi and whoop my ass. in the end he’s got a drain of like 8 going on and my deck cracks under that much force loss. He tries to retieve a ton, but I imbalance again. In the end he takes me down with 31 cards still in his deck.
Highs: Not increadably bad against a 1900+ player. I was hoping to avoid the big guns this tourney, but at least it’s game 1. Imbalance is the funnest card to play.
Lows: Well I got my @#$% kicked 1st round. My better of 2 decks lost game 1 which is not a good sign of things to come. I also realize I’m not wearing my 2-2 t-shirt, which means I may go 0-4. 1-3 or 3-1. He also OOC my: Amanaman, Amanin, Xizor, Bib, Ephant, and Boelo... not cool, not cool at all.
Total: 0 (-31)
The game only lasted about 20-25 minutes, but overall Eric was a cool kid. Almost everyone was done when we finished was surprising. I watched my friends’ Matt McGann and Rich Hinds played, and noticed another game with Training and Harvest and stuff so I was like.. ok whatever. I watched Mike Pistone and Eric Hunter play Raw Deal for a bit and wandered around the hall. Then the next pairings were called.
Game 2
======
My LS VS Dave Mailloux’s Scimitar TIE Bomber Tech(1484)
We sit down, we’ve met before, although I don’t think we played. He starts the Kuat system and says "I bet you’ve never seen this before" so I say "Ties or Big Blue?" He dropps 3 random effects, fun stuff like, YISYW, IAO, and Planetary Sub. So I say "You going to bomb me?" I deploy my starting stuff, Hidden Base w/ Marker, Rendevous, Ultimatium (#s and heavy drains), Squass, and DODN/WA. We both agree we got hands full of crap (well not litterally), he grabs Wakiemellikieii (you know what I mean), and drops SFS. I say.. ok Ties, I check my hand, I’ve got a Full Throttle which is good, and Cpt Han. Hurray. He deploys the Tat:DB and deploys Dengar. He says go. I have Roche and Kessel in my hand.. great. I drop them both and grab Endor. I signal for Haven and deploy Cpt Han + Falcon with Squass for 3 to the Rendevous. I deploy POAS onto the Tat:DB, limiting his inital drains, move to endor free free and say go. Next turn he deploys CC:DB and Snoova + Axe. I say alright, he deployes Endor DB From hand and moves Dengar there. he says go. I activate drain, grab Kiffex and draw up. Into my hand comes Control/Tunnel, Lando + Axe, R2 in R5 and a few other cards. He drains for 2 and I take them. He deploys Big One to Wakey, and I’m a bit confused. So my turn I activate a @#$%load and deploy Corlag from my hand and Courscant from RD, drain and stuff, I Tunnel Vision for RS1 and grab new Wedge. I deploy them to Courscant and put Corran on the Falcon (Zuckuss sux). I drop GLinG1 to the Rendevous Point and move him and Luke to Endor, I move the Falcon to Kiffex. The next turn he begins to deploy some Scimitar Squad Ties to the Big One and drops Imperial Fleet (drop ties here to block drains card). He deploys to my Corlag Zuckuss and Bossk in ships. Great, bounty Hunters. He says he doesn’t wanna come after Luke and GLinG1 cause of there raw power, I don’t blame him. after all I got a Out of Nowhere and Darklighter spin in hand. I draw up and flip blocking 2 of his drains all turn. I bring Lando w/ axe down to the Tat:DB to drain from some. I move my Luke and Dutch group to Kiffex over the next few turns, and deploy Tantive IV to Wakey, making his ties deploy +4 (Courscant + Wakey) He constantly loses Ties to used pile with SFS and blocks my drain of 3 and deploys it and retrieves one. It’s a pain in the @#$% in my opinion. He royally beats down my Lando with some scrubs. I manage to exclude someone and kill another but Lando goes down. He moves away to the CC DB. The next turn I bring down the Bacta Tank and Obi. He has an EPP Vader and Dengar at Endor. I drop Obi down and nail vader, with my beautifly tracked 6s. He gets obi thou, and draws 2 scimy ties, both destiny +5 so I have to lose Obi and 14. Ouch. Where the hell is my houjix now? his turn he beats down Tantive IV too. By this time we’ve got just a few ships scattered about, however I’ve got Luke and Cpt Han and Corran in the Falcon still duking it out for drains for 3 and 2. In a miracle I manage to get my 2 on the edges at the same time, and have 2 6s track, I take Obi into hand and search for his ship, and sure enough my 2 6s are the only 2 cards there. I get back all my great cards. (WHERE IS YOUR IMBALANCE? Booyah). Wedge and his ship suddenly retake Kessel, Obi kills Dengar easily and I’ve got drains of 3,3,2,1 going and he’s got 1 and 1 both being blocked. he takes out GLinG1 and Luke has to be Bactaed after a major space beatdown, but he makes the mistake of taking out my drain of 2 and not for 3. I have 2 cards left, he has 7. I drain for 3,3,1 and win.
Highs: Finally my LS Wins. Obi kicks @#$% agian. Ties blow in space.
Lows: Drawing 14 for battle destiny with 2 cards ain’t funny. Neither is taking out my luke with 2 cards left. Taking out my drain for 2 instead of 3 cost the game, and I hate winning on one stupid mistake, but it happens.
Total: 2(-29)
Game 3
======
My DS VS Dan Mailloux’s (1600ish) Local Uprising on Tatooine w/ Celebration and Launching The Assualt
Note this isn’t Dave, it’s his brother Dan =) So anyway, we have played before. He killed me the 1st time I played him with a pre-famous EBO Baragwin deck. I lost by 38, that sucked. This time, I’m back out for revenge ;). He starts local uprising, but with the Tatooine System, so I feel a bit better, it’s not flipping ops or something. I get an absolute god hand. my rep, a non unique, Puny Jabba a Twi’leck and he gives me about 7 force to start off with. I search for a site and grab my AC and check for the stuff I need. I plop it down at the AC and drop Puny for 2. I then grab Chall with the AC Game text for another 2 and grab a Amanin with his text I drop the Amanin for free and grab Bib and deploy him for free. I say go. He says "uh oh, fast start." I’m not 100% sure of the order of events that occured, but he grabbed Launching the Assualt and deployed it to Tatooine and grabbed the H1 DB and dropped Mirax there, I believe Corran Horn also came down there. My next turn I manage to pull out Ephant for 1, the Lower Cave, and my rep. I draw up quite a few grabbing a none shall pass, death mark and Xizor. By this time were both activating a zillion force, he drops Obi to outside and I bounce him, he deploys some scrubs to his starting farm. saves a ton and says go. I activate drain, drop Death Mark target Mirax (who’s on the H1:DB), and target my outside JP. I draw up a few more characters saving a bunch and say go. He deploys EPP Obi and EPP Luke down to my outside place so he can drain for 2. I have no bouncies, so I say ok. He also plops down H1 at Tatooine. Bah. I have Both Boba in Ship and Bossk in ship in hand, but I’ll need to conserve force to do take it out. At this time, I decide it’s time to beat him down. My aliens deploy -2 outside to obi+luke’s location, and I’m not letting him drain for 2. It’s Time For ::WOW’S PLAY OF THE DAY:: So from my hand I deploy Djas, my Rep, the Sail Barge, an Amanin, a CC Engineer (reducing my attrition by 2), Xizor, grab Boelo and deploy him drop First Strike and battle, I retrieve 3, he loses 1. He plays Gift of the Mentor Giving him a whopping 2 swings and 3 destines, but oh no, he doesn’t. From my hand I play Wounded Wookie cancelling Obi’s game text (1 swing, 3 destinies), I then use Boelo and Amanaman (from hand) to cancel 2 of his destines! He gets 1 swing 1 Destiny. He knocks off Xizor and I draw a 5 (+2 from MKOS), not a ton of battle damage because he drew like a 5, so I lost an Amanin and he lost Obi. Now, my friends, here is why I play Amanaman: I use my remaining 2 force to Behead Obi. He’s out of play and I add 1 to attrition, does that rock or what? His turn he runs like a little pansy off into my desert. He moves Ackbar up into the H1 and grabs the Tat:DB and moves Mirax down. He drops Tat Celebration which pisses me off. Bah. He says go. By now his lost pile is quite large, but it seems he has nothing on the table so has a pretty large hand and force pile. I gather up enough force to bring down Fett in ship and Bossk in ship. He’s immune less than 10... I draw a 3 (+2 = 5), and a 2 (+2 = 4) Total.. 9! Son of a @#$%! missed taking down H1 by one attrition point. He loses Ackbar and like 5 force, and I lose both the ships trying to avoid a beatdown. After getting extremly pissed off I make the stupidist move of the day I have one force so I move Chall over to the Lower Corridor to add to my drains. I have 3 none shall passes in my hand and feel safe. That screwed me over, Lando and Dash come down, and beat my @#$% down for Chall and 11. OUCH. No ghkks... arr... That cost me the game. By now he’s retrieving a ton of force through Tat Celebration and On the Edge, and I just can’t stop it, so to minimize my losses I end up drawing up my last card. We agree that even though he won by 23 cards the game was much much closer. He agrees with me that my dark deck is pretty strong, and had it not been for Chall being a complete moron and not drawing destiny, I probably would have won, but I didn’t which brings me down even farther in the ratings.
Highs: Kicking Obi and Luke’s ass. Placing Obi out of play
Lows: Chall getting his @#$% whooped + Me not tracking some decent destines to take out Home One. My Better of 2 decks going 0-2.
Total: 2(-52)
Game 4
======
My LS VS Ty Hanson’s(1543) Court Deck
So when I get to the tourney, Ty is the only out of town guy there, he’s from either New Hampshire or Vermont, but was down here for the weekend for a wedding the next day, so he decided to bring his up-north tech. He’s playing Court, which was one of the few decks I hadn’t played agianst up until this point, even though like 1/2 the people there were playing it. So anyways, I read over his objective and finally figure out the whole court damage thing, luckly I knew about the flip sides get bounty hunter ships out text, which I was a bit nervous about playing a heavy space deck. My hand is decent, I get Cpt Han, a Signal, Dash, 2 systems, and random stuff. He deploys Ephant with Power to the AC so I’m like whatever. I decide to deploy 3 systems (Endor, Roche, and Kiffex), signal for Haven, deploy Captian Han and Falcon for 3 to Rendevous and move to Endor. he drains for one and brings Boelo down to the AC, not cool, I decide against invading it. He says go. I decide to stop losing to court damage and like a mofo, deploy Dash to the Rancor Pit. I drop Corran onto the Falcon for some Zuckuss protection. Next turn he drops none other than the Sarlacc, eats Dash and throws him out of play. Great. So I decide to go all out space, next comes down tala 2 with blount aboard, and moves to endor, after I deploy Corlag. I draw a few and get Wedge, and Obi so cool. Next turn he gets down the Tat DB and drops Dr.E Ponda combo and like Snoova with Ax to hold it and flips, he says go. I deploy my last 2 Systems the next turn (Courscant + Kessel). I drop Wedge and Ship to Kiffex and move Blount, Han and Corran to Kessel. The next turn he draws up like 2 cards and says go. I deploy Tycho and Ship to Corlag and say go. Down comes the beat down. Zuckuss, Bossk, and Boba in ship whoop Tycho’s ass. I houjix to save my ass. The next turn I plop Obi down in his 2 person AC and wipe out Boelo with a swing but lose Obi to a destiny draw (he cancelled mine). I draw up Foily Premiere Luke and his Foily R2inR5. He moves over to Falcon and Tala 2 with Ig now aboard (shoot). This is about the time I kick his @#$% royally in space. I drop Luke in his ship for 4 (luke is free hurray!), play a few manuevers to pump up r5 manuever to 8, battle, darklighter spin, play out of nowhere, and get 2 destines of 6 and 5, he has to lose like everyone to battle damage and attrition, luckly I managed to get the tank out and send Luke there, but Tala is dead, so is Corran. His turn he uses Jabba’s Twerps to retrieve like 3 of his ships (@#$%). Next turn Wedge gets his turn at a beat down, and it’s all over. luckly his drains and my flip kept my drain loss to nothingness, and he took some heavy hits from Kessel and Kiffex all game. he did manage to probe me on his Wedge beatdown (last turn),but by then it was worthless.
Highs: Taking out all the BHs, take that you pansies!
Lows: Wedge and Tycho got beat down bad. Bounty Hunter Ships demolish space fleets. Dash out of play turn 2. Ouch.
Total: 2(-71)
Final Confrontation
===================
Steve Baroni’s Anti-HD vs Hayes’ Hunters HD.
I didn’t see the whole game, but Steve’s deck apparently was built to beat Hayes. He got Obi’s App. down at the Executor causing a force choke on Hayes. Hayes did manage to monnok out 2 Obis and 2 Obi apps. But in the end I guess Obi got down and killed Hayes bad. Hayes forfieted the 2nd game to give Baroni the Vader, and Hayes got the store Credit.
Final Standings
===============
They weren’t announced, so I’m not 100% sure:
Hayes went undefeated 4-0, but didn’t play Baroni before the final round
Baroni went 3-1, losing to Eric Hunter
Eric Hunter went 3-1 losing to Hayes.
I do know about the top 7 or 8 players (out of 15) went 3-1 or better. Which means most of us scrubbed out...
PROPS
=====
Jared - 2 Great Tourneys this weekend, starting with this one (he basically ran it here)
Mike Pistone - Letting Jared borrow 2 decks, and only losing to Baroni and Eric
Hayes Hunter - For Being #3 in the world, and representing Kashyyyk, winning Bridgewater, and being like 7 feet tall.
Eric Hunter - For Being the 1st good player to whoop my @#$% in a tourney.
Matt McGann- For Helping Playtest a ton this week, and showing me the power of DS Space, BEFORE the tourney.
Rich Hinds- For Losing to Hayes so gracefully lol.
Tim, the MageKnight Scrub - For Selling me Dengar in Ship and Blount Cheap. And selling us packs and stuff there.
Dan and Dave - For Having the Sweetest Last Names, and Having some of the most f-ed up tech on the planet.
Ty - For Coming down from up north, and giving me some advice on my deck
The Rest Of Ya - For all coming to Bridgewater, and getting us 15 people at our first tourney.
Scholars - For Selling Cards Dirt Cheap, and letting us play.
Abyssian Ornament/Wounded Wookie - Although you can’t retrieve, you kicked Obi’s Ass.
Houjix/Out Of Nowhere - For Being One Of The Best Combo Cards, Ever.
Boelo - For Cancelling Destines! Booyah
MKOS - For Just Plain owning, although you sucked this tourney.
SLOPS
=====
Scholars - Well, they send us like a 1/2 mile away to play cards, and it’s in a church, so everyone was all nervous and stuff.
Chall - For Being a @#$%ing Ability 3 @#$% who can’t draw destiny and has @#$%ty forfiet. (-1 Deploy and pull a non-unique is cool thou)
Tycho - For Scrubbing Out in Space
Wedge - You Too, you can get out of the DS2, but can’t beat up Dengar and Zuckuss... bah.
Battle Destiny Of 9 - For Still Blowing because I Can’t take out Home One
Me - For Being a Complete Scrub This Weekend