enduro-rd-2-roseville-ca-3-10-01

Title: enduro-rd-2-roseville-ca-3-10-01
Author: Michael "Longshot" Mendoza
Date: Mar 13, 2001

This is a continuation of the Enduro tournament. See part 1 if
you missed it before you read this one. So the 1st quarter of
Enduro ends before 4 PM, and the 2nd quarter starts up at 4:30
PM. I decide to stick with the FlOps deck for dark (it did go
2-0) and stuck with EBO as well. The EBO lost only cuz I
played it poorly. So here we go....only 12 more games to go.
BTW, no rankings were given between tournies, but I knew that
there were several 4-0 people from the 1st quarter. I went 3-1
in the 1st quarter, but had good diferential. 6 (+65).

Game 1: LS v James Weldon’s Endor Ops (Mob Pts, Something
Special Planned, Combat Response)

I start ANSB rather than my 3 effect start. EBO is running by
turn 2. By 4th turn he’s just been drawing and I’ve got 2
xwings each at Hoth, Sullust, & Fondor. He drops Zuckuss to
Fondor, then Executor, which is barriered, then Thrawn &
Pelleon. Wow. So I decide to throw down at Fondor. I drain
and move all my xwings over. He battles (he used all his
force so he didn’t draw last turn & thus has nothing to
deploy this turn). I play Org Attack, he loses Pelleon. I
soon realize I’m stuck there now with Something Special
Planned on table. Oh no. So I draw like mad looking for more
Org Attacks and more xwings. I draw them, and I hold Fondor
until he moves his fleet away. Meanwhile, Zev & Hobbie are on
Rogue 2 at the North Ridge, while Boushh, Iceboy, and Wedge
transit to the Endor DB (for 10!) in their speeders.

He drops some guys like Xizor and Vader to Endor DB, but my
immunity holds up throughout the battles and he loses a bunch
of guys while I lose Boushh during one of the battles where he
had big power. As I said, his fleet spreads to Endor, I play
AWRI for 8, then replace 6 xwings to boost my differential &
follow him to Endor. No more battles happen, since my drains
next turn finish him. Win by 34. 2 (+34).

Best: Showdown at Fondor and Endor DB.
Worst: Something Special Planned hampering movement.

Game 2: DS v Nghia Nguyen’s WYS (Goo Nee Tay)

See, this is where FlOps is soooo cool. He thinks I’m playing
straight up Hunt Down and thinks about his start. He decides
he doesn’t want the 1st turn Vader and starts Goo Nee Tay
rather than his 3 effect start. Huge for me! I setup FlOps
in like 6 turns (couldn’t get it going), and have some big
drains at all my systems. We’re losing to Visage & he’s
losing ships off the top. I like to see that! I drop U-3PO
to the Cantina, he gets out Owen & Beru to Harvest twice &
the Harvests go OOP. Then he drops Underworld Contacts! Now
I can’t cancel where he has 2 aliens (which is everywhere
except at the Lars Farm). He deploys the Audience Chamber &
Wedge and Luke in there.

Meanwhile, I have control of Kiffex, Kashyyk, Tatooine, &
Rendili. Big drains. Whenever he draws OOC/TT, he plays it
as OOC (not canceling Visage), so I guess he likes the both of
us losing to it. I’m retrieving most everything I lose w/SFS.
However, things go bad when I have Flag Executor w/Piett at
Kiffex (and FlOps is on a VSD, not Executor). He drops Mirax
& a RFC in the Skate, battles and draws 5 & 3! The Executor
dies! Where was my Imperial Command? I thought he had lost
his ships, but oh well. It slows me down a bit, but I’m just
sooooo far ahead in the drain race its not even funny. I
chase the Skate around a little, retrieve w/SRFs and drain
him out. Win by 13. 4 (+47).

Best: The Hunt Down fake-out!
Worst: The big E going down in flames.

Game 3: DS v Yannick’s HB (BatPLan, Strike Plan, Insight)

Oops, I mean this game is vs. Kevin Shannon, who is playing
Yannick’s HB deck that uses only like 7 characters and a
bunch of destiny adders. I setup FlOps as usual, get 3 TIEs &
a Star Destroyer at Kashyyk and Endor. I save 3. He plays
Frozen Assets, then DTF, Gold Squad 1 to Kashyyk with Luke,
EPP Leia, Gen Solo, and Chewie Protector aboard. That took
a lot of his force, so he plays Descent into Dark to
recirculate immediately, then he battles and plays I’ve Got A
Bad Feeling About This (triples battle damage when you initiate
where you have lower power). He plays 6 destiny adder cards,
ends up doing 44 damage to me (I can’t play my Imperial Command
due to DTF + Frozen Assets). That is tripled to 132 damage.
I take my deck and flip it over to my lost pile. Lose by 24.
4 (+23).

Best: At least I don’t get -132 differential.
Worst: Losing on the 4th or 5th turn.

Game 4: LS v Jason Henderson’s Hunt Down (IAO,Mob Pts,BatOrder)

Great, the worst matchup (other than ISB) for my EBO is Hunt
Down. Well, I start Insight, Wise Advice, & Menace fades. I
lose Insight to get HoTJ, and it saved me this game. After the
1st turn, I never lost to Visage again. After I get EBO going,
he deploys heavy to Hoth and takes over 4 sites. But HoTJ
kills all those drains and he’s losing to Visage since my Luke
is at the North Ridge. He avoided the North Ridge (expecting
Ice Storm I assume). So I’m draining for free and Menace Fades
is in effect. The big drains in space kill him. No battles
this game. Just me draining and him losing to Visage every
turn. He seemed pretty bummed about something too. Win by 24.
6 (+47). Wish there was more to say, but that’s it.

Best: HoTJ, drains, and getting the 24 differential back.
Worst: He seemed mad at the world, maybe cuz he couldn’t get No
Escape or Resistance (but he never even had 2 BG sites).

So that ends the 2nd quarter of Enduro. It is now past 9 PM,
& Alex and I are feeling a bit tired. He was ready to leave.
He didn’t play as well as he would have liked, and didn’t feel
like sticking around for more. But I told him to hang in there,
& we just grabbed some pizza and beer and chilled for a bit,
talking about how we had done so far. Boy, was I starving. I
also played some WWF Raw Deal (Steve Austin rules!). The 3rd
Quarter was ready to begin at midnight, so I’ll pick up there
in part 3.

Apparantly some people want the FlOps deck posted, so I guess
I’ll post it for review since it’ll be easier than D-mailing it
individual people. Lets see....its 3-1 right now, and my EBO
is 3-1 so far as well. My total score now is 12 (+112). I
think any dark deck I played would’ve lost to Yannick’s deck
though. I just didn’t expect it. I had read it on decktech,
but didn’t recognize it when Kevin played it.

Thanks for reading.