team-atlanta-vs-the-a-s-s-3-18-01
Title: team-atlanta-vs-the-a-s-s-3-18-01
Author: Adam "ADrake" Drake
Date: Mar 20, 2001
"There is no "I" in team"
-Unknown
This tournament was the one I had been waiting for. All year long, Team Atlanta (Charlie Herren, Clay Ramey, Stephen Micheal, Mike Kessling, and myself) has been preparing for a money tournament. Since we could not make it to Normal for the DPC, this was our first chance to test out the "team effect." In theory, five heads should be better than one for play testing and deck building.
Friday night, Jim Sells and Clint Hays rolled into town. After spending the night at Charlie’s house (LOTS OF HELP!) we all decided to spend Saturday night at Tim Jones’ place. Since we all knew what we were going to play, we got the chance to relax, play some WWF No Mercy, and watch a movie. Getting the chance to hang out with Jim and Clint was pretty cool.
After getting about 4 hours sleep on Saturday night, we all roll out to Marietta about 9:30am. After registering our decks, and chatting with some of the players that were there. Jeff Holmes had come in from N.Carolina and it was great to see him again. There were players from all over the southeast. Florida, Carolina, Tennessee, and Georgia were represented. The tournament began at about 10:30, with about 20 participants.
I decided to play a Watch Your Step deck with palace raiders, and harvests (how else would it be played?) and an Agents of Black Sun deck that Team Atlanta had been working on for about a month. Charlie, Clay and Mike all played similar decks. Stephen played the AOBS deck and an EBO Launching the Assault deck.
Game one: My LS vs. James "Chip" Nicholson’s DS Court Musicians
Actually, the deck belongs to Adam "Be-A-Champ" but he decided not to play. Chip began by deploying en masse to the Audience Chamber, so I let him have it. I quickly set up WYS with raiders in Patrol crafts and Luke JK in the Cantina. Chip dropped onto one raider sitting with Chewie at one of the DB’s I had deployed, and initiated a battle. I reacted with another raider in craft to get the three battle destinies. He shot Chewie with Dengar but forgot he could target vehicles (D’oh) I ended up having to lose one of the raiders and Chewie, but he was left with just Lyn Me and Kithaba. I dropped another raider, and Artoo&Threepio so I could play "Artoo, I have a bad feeling about this" (no destiny for you!) and wiped him out. He drew up before I could get my retrieval going.
FW 2 (+22)
Highs: My deck working well, winning the first game is always a plus.
Lows: Not getting off any retreival, never got Lars Moisture Farm...
Game two: My DS vs. James Stack’s LS HB Mains w/ OMBH
This was a great game. James is an Army guy, and he was extremely methodical. He actually deployed to Coruscant trying to kill of Xizor to set up an Out of Commission (it didn’t work). This game went back and forth, with us having some extremely good battles and lots of strategic movement. We were pretty even throughout, but he got off a late OMDH to go ahead of me. The game was called because if time, and he got the win.
TL 0 (-25)
Overall: 2(-3)
Highs: Had a really good game, deck worked pretty well...
Lows: Still lost.
Game three: My DS vs. Phil Gladney’s LS GMC with Sabacc
I really felt bad for Phil. he admitted to me before the match his deck was all messed up because he thought he could use Palace Raiders on Lift Tubes, but he was told he could not. the game started out pretty standard: him deploying his sites from his reserve deck, and me building up my ahnd for the beatdown. Sure enough, he deployed Luke with stick to the Lower Passages, and drew up. Unfortuantely he drew up to 13 cards, and got Monnok used. I deployed Snoova, Guri, and Dengar to the passages, initiated battle, shot Luke with Dengar, he hit Snoova with the Saber, and drew destiny. I had to lose Snoova and Dengar, but I cleared him off of Cloud City. After that I moved Xizor to the DS: DB 327, and pretty much drained him out. He got to play one game of sabacc, which I won.
FW 2 (+28)
Overall: 4(+25)
Highs: The deck worked like a MACHINE. I won a Z-95 in the game of sabacc.
Lows: None, absolutely none.
Game four: My LS vs. Will Raiman (A.S.S.H.O.L.E) DS HD deck
I will start by saying this: I am not the only person who thought what Will did in this match was both immature and anal. Both Jim and Clint thought he proved himslef to be a total A.S.S. Will is a pretty good player, I will not deny him that, but he has let it go to his head.
First turn of the game, Will looks for a DB. Upon not finding one, he must let me confirm there is not one. Instead of allowing me to view his deck PER THE RULES, he riffles through his deck to show me there is not one. I ask to see his deck, and he refuses. I call over the judge, who confirms that he must allow me to see his deck. Will continues to complain throughout the match. He gets a pretty good jump on me, and I cannot get Lars Moisture Farm to begin retrieval, but I was using Tat. Celebration for small retrieval. I dropped Luke JK w/stick, Chewie, and a Palace Raider on craft to a location where Mara was alone. I initiated battle and he clashed Chewie. I swung and hit Mara, but he dueled Luke and won. He drew a 2 for battle destiny, and I drew a 4, which I used HFTMF to make a 5 so Luke would not be immune. He forfieted Mara for 0, then said Luke was "alone" so he was immune to less than 7, which was totally wrong. We call the judge over, yada, yada, yada, and the judges (God knows how) rule in his favor. Will was being such a jerk, he was arguing with the judge even as he was making a ruling in Will’s favor. By this time, there was only about 5 minutes left, and I figured I would just get another time loss. I di not want this JERK to get a full win after he was a total A.S.S. not only to me but also to the judges. Will again got mad when I began to take my time with about 2 minutes left. He complained loud enough to get the judges attention, who then said I was stalling, and he ended up with a full win.
FL 0 (-24)
Overall: 4 (+1)
Highs: Getting to look through Will’s deck.
Lows: WILL IS AN A.S.S. Getting a full loss when it should hve been timed.
Game five: My LS vs Phil Gladney’s DS Big Blue
This was a matchup I wasn’t expecting... Big blue? WTF?? Anyway, he begind building up at Kessel, while I get WYS set up with a couple of raiders on crafts. He deploys Vader, Tarkin, and Cmdr. Nemet on Tempest One. I am unable to react (because of Nemet) and take a big loss. Fortunately, I was able to FINALLY get out the Moisture Farm and begin retrieval with harvest for the first time all day. I was also getting big retrieval with Celbration. I held onto tatooine with the Falcon and Pulsar Skate, constantly throwing pilots on to soak up attrition, and finally chased him away. For the second time on Sunday, my opponent drew up before I could get any decent retreival going... feh.
FW 2 (+17)
Overall: 6 (+18)
Highs: Finally getting LMF, getting to Harvest (WooHoo!)
Lows: None really...
Game six: My DS vs Jeff Holmes’ LS WYS
Ah, WYS. I had not seen a WYS deck all day, but here was one. I figured this to be a good game, and it was. Jeff is an old playtesting buddy and we know each others playing style pretty well. I start out pretty bad. Searching through my deck, I did not find the Coruscant DB, which made me go get another "less good" DB instead. He deployed Luke first turn on Tatooine, pretty much insuring a tough flip scenario for me. Throughout the game, I was digging for the Emperor, as well as other characters with which to battle. Unfortunately, I NEVER found the Emperor and my characters did not show up consistently. The game went back and forth, with him getting advantage due to his retrieval. We had a number of good space battles, but I could never control Tatooine to cancel his Celebration. I did stop him from drawing multiple destinies numerous times with Guri. However, his draining and retrieval did me in at the end.
FL 0 (-19)
Overall: 6 (-1)
So I went 3-3, which would usually not please me, but Charlie made it to the final. His 32 diff. win over Clint in the sixth game put Clint out of the final confrontation, which pitted Charlie against the A.S.S. himself, Will.
Will may be a pretty decent player, but Charlie is one of the best in Georgia, and he knew his decks inside and out, He also knew what Will’s decks could do, because of extensive playtesting vs both of Will’s decks (HD and HB Mains). In the first game, Charlie OWNED Will with the AOBS deck, prompting Will to hurl curses in Charlies general direction when his two Jedi Luke’s got Monnoked out of his hand. Charlie won the first game by 27 or something.
In the second game, Charlie had a slow start against Will’s HD deck. Will seems to never forget a Visage loss, and Charlie could not get any strong drains or retreival going until late in the game. once he did though, Charlie turned the tide. After insuring he would lose by no more the 20 force, Charlie mercifully drew up. Charlie won the $475, and each member of Team Atlanta got $50 and Charlie took home the rest.
Props and slops:
Props:
Charlie: YOU DA MF’N MAN! Congratulations Road Dogg!
Clint and Jim: for driving down to Atlanta to hang out and play. We gotta do it again soon.
Tim: for playing in a tournament just for the hell of it
Lisa: for letting all the guys crash at your house.
SLoth: for being a great interviewer...
Slops:
Will: for being a major jerk and baring your a.s.s. for all the world to see. Just like Jim Sells said, "God, that guy is anal!"
Me: for scrubbing out... 3-3 is not acceptible.
Well, I hope this was informative and entertaining. Sorry if I did not put enough game information in, but there was a lot to report, so I had to condense it a little.
Adam Drake
Proud member of TEAM ATLANTA