it-can-be-a-little-rough-in-mirkwood-mn
Title: it-can-be-a-little-rough-in-mirkwood-mn
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Mar 21, 2001
It was a good tournament (no Herb) with decent turn-out and the, now regular, attendance of the St. Cloud contingent. One of those St. Cloud boys, Nick Jenninges, had actually had the **audacity** to win the last week’s tournament (my timed win had taken me out of the running), and so that couldn’t be allowed again
For the tournament, I was running MWYHL Test Through 6 and a slightly modified version of Raveling’s SYCFA Ties. Yes, I’m aware MWYHL isn’t the strongest deck out on the market, but I was just so sick of everything else that even remotely had a chance that I opted to train Farmboy. SYCFA was strictly anti-WYS, and though I normally hate weenie decks, it was a nice change of pace. I had never played swarm tactics before.
Game 1: My "Farmboy Strikes Back" versus Brad’s (?) BHBM w/Sabaac.
I didn’t take notes at all, so I can only hope I remembered Brad’s name correctly. I’ve played Brad before, but he’s not a regular at Mirkwood. He started the interrupt that let him pull the Security Tower and Bane Malar, so I knew what was coming and knew all I had to do was get a Push card into my hand. However, since he was playing BHBM (and I was training Luke), I had to start Insight instead of Wise Advice In case I needed it to pull Honor.
His first turns were rather slow since he deployed the Emperor first turn and didn’t have a battleground site in his hand. I was able to set up comfortably and complete Test 1 on the 3rd turn. Also, I had drawn Wise Advice early, so that hit the table right away. Lando visited the Security Tower and was joined by Lobot and Ephont Mon. I continued to ignore them while I completed Tests 2 and 3. About this time, Brad finally gets Vader to the Casino and moves his Lando & Gang over and plays a Sabaac. That gets grabbed. And Aim High is on the table, so, since Brad played Sabaac with only one force saved, he can’t pay to retrieve. I respond by setting up the SuperFalcon at Kessel-the game’s only battleground system. So Battle Plan continues to kick his @$$. Meanwhile, he plinks me for one each turn while I continue to set up my tests and then drains for 2 (with a Presence of the Force) while I drain for 3 and get back my lost cards by playing On the Edge to target Leia or Han with tracked 6’s and 7’s. I keep expecting him to grab the On the Edge, but the grabber never shows (and since he doesn’t have Oppressive out, I play it when he doesn’t have 3 force saved). By the time Brad gets a 2nd drain set up at the CC:DB, with a 2nd Presence, I’ve completed Test 5 (and retrieved everything) with a permanent 0 or 7 for destiny (gotta love R2 in Red 5), so I respond by deploying Obi w/Saber and Melas to deal with that problem. Obi and Melas stand up to Snoova, Dr E and Ponda Boba, Xixor and IG-88 w/Gun. Brad gets his 3 destiny with Emperor’s Power, and I get my destiny of 7. When the smoke clears, I stack one, but Melas stands firmly in command of the docking bay. On my next turn, I deploy Test 6, pick up Luke and give Melas some back-up.
Since I’m retrieving whenever I want and firmly in command of the entire game, Brad takes the opportunity to set Bane Malar, Bossk w/Gun and some other lesser character against Melas and Farmboy. He battles, and I end up getting Advantage on Luke. So when he moves Vader over to Luke’s site, Luke is a power 6 captive (+1 from Test 2, +2 from Advantage). Then, when he moves Vader to the DSII Docking Bay, Luke whines about how he wanted to go to Tosche Station and pick up some power converters. Vader slaps the boy with a wicked backhand, but Luke won’t have any of that. He’s fully trained, dammit! So he lets some anger and aggression take over him and snaps Vader’s neck with a sneaky Strangle. The rest of the game didn’t matter. Advantage and a drain at Kessel (along with Test 6) wiped out the remainder of Brad’s life force.
FW 2 (+27)
Highs: Strangling Vader. Hell yeah! Farmboy strikes back
Lows: Um I had to lose Obi in that battle at the docking bay.
Ugly: I was firmly in control of the whole game even though I was doing nothing to him for the first 7 turns.
In-between games, Graham tells some sex jokes. Wouldn’t be a Mirkwood tourney without Graham’s high-school response to sexuality. But, then again, in-breeding jokes really are funny (even if they happen to strike a little close to home just kidding! Geez).
Dion Erbes shares a story about a cannabilistic mouse that ate the faces and brains of its fellow caged-in mice in a kindergarten classroom.
Game 2: My Ties vs Nick "Look, I can play WYS, too" Jenninges
Nick actually had a really good version of WYS, and he played it equally well. And that’s why he won the tournament the previous week. But I had a good opening hand, and I had the card that Raveling’s deck lacked, Ghhhk. Not to mention, I’ve learned my lesson about recurring retrieval and started with Something Special Planned for Nick. So, on my first turn, I set up 2 Ties at systems to drain for 2 each and one at the DS:DB so I can activate after my DS activation is cut down by two-thirds. Then, I leave my last force, holding a Barrier in my hand. Nick ditches his Insight for a Squassin, deploys 2 of those little vehicles and draws. Cool! I get to activate for 3 at the Death Star twice this game. So I do and draw some. Nick catches me with a lost Grimtaash/Shocking, and I lose 2 Dreadnaughts (which proves to be costly) and a couple of Always Thinking With Your Stomachs (which also proves to be costly-about the point in time Nick gets away with draining at the Moisture Farm with Owen and Beru). I set up at another system and drop Secret Plans and Dreaded Imperial Starfleet onto the table. Nick get Dash into the Outrider and drops him against my lone Tie at Tattooine; I barrier, but on my next turn, I don’t have anything to deploy for a beat-down-nor do I have a Dreadnaught to move my Tie away Grr So I just sit there. And when he battles me on his turn, I Ghhhk it. I then deploy some more stuff and retrieve my Ghhhk, kill Dash, and on his turn, again, play Masterful Move to retrieve my Ghhhk. Cool, huh? I thought so.
Anyhow, we have several battles in space, the majority of which I lose horribly and Ghhhk. But I win a couple with the weenie hordes and force Nick to lose all his ships, blasting them out of space with Tie lasers, so that in the last few turns, he drains me for 1 at the Moisture Farm and 1 at the Wakeelmui DB while I own space and drain for 8 to get past all the retrieval that he managed to pull off, despite my anti-retrieval effects, and win by 8.
FW 4 (+35)
Highs: Baron Fel, Emperor’s Sword, Tie Interceptor and Dreadnaught wrecking his Han in Falcon and Dash in Outrider. Ghhk retrieval.
Lows: Two turns of drains at the Cantina with no non-unique Tie to DIS.
Ugly: Nick must have retrieved 20+ force despite BOTH Something Special and Secret Plans.
I’ve played in the two longest games (or two of the longest games) to this point, so there’s little break time before the next game.
Game 3: My "I Kicked Vader’s @ss Once, and I’ll Do It Again!" vs Jerry’s anti-WYS
Jerry gets the Cool Deck award for his approach to WYS-bashing. He started Jabba’s Palace with the DS equivalent of Careful Planning to get the Cantina. He said it crushed WYS, and I believed him since he accidentally dropped a Jawa during one shuffle and I knew he was playing First Strike. Very cool, then. Jawa Tech.
I started Battle Plan again (as always), so Jerry spent the first few turns drawing and setting up masses of activation-Audience Chamber, IAO, several DB’s. That gave me plenty of time to complete Test 1 and set up Test 2. Jerry knew the Jedi Test text, though, for Test 3 (since he said he had a MWYHL deck, himself) and moved Test 2 to Luke and Yoda, away from the Jungle.
Meanwhile, he set up Sim and Janus at the Cantina and tried to deploy IG-88 at the Tat: DB w/Search & Destroy, but I pointed out that it would be cancelled since Iggy didn’t "occupy" the DB. That, meanwhile, tipped me off that I should deploy the Honor in my hand and that he didn’t, likely, have a Barrier, since deploying Iggy had used all his force. That meant, on my next turn, after I failed (!) Test 2 (say what?!!), that Leia w/Blaster was able to go to the Cantina and battle. I missed the shot at Sim but drew a 5 for destiny to win the battle, and since Leia survived an attrition of 1, reduced by 2, I slapped an Advantage on her (mainly for fear of the next turn’s beat-down) and started drawing. Once I got an On the Edge, I knew I could sacrifice her if Jerry had anything really vicious. He did, but Vader ended up deploying to the Tat:DB. Go figure. Xixor joined Janus, so I didn’t get a destiny. But Leia shot Xixor and Janus had to move over to Vader to avoid the beat-down when he would draw a destiny (Test 2). I was quite pleased, since the other option was to move Vader to Janus’s site and drain for 2 rather than 1.
Jerry continued to set up on Tattooine and paid to drain for 3, then 4 a turn. But I, meanwhile, had managed to get Han in the Falcon up to Kessel with I’ll Take the Leader in play. Han sat there and taunted Jerry while I dropped Obi to the Audience Chamber to get around Battle Plan and Search & Destroy and started the retrieval with On the Edge. Jerry kept looking at his hand, but he couldn’t find a Hell to Pay. So I got away with it. Hehe. Blue-hands-on-breasts Mara deployed undercover to block Obi’s drain, but I chased her away by deploying R3P0 to the same site.
At about this time, Jerry realized I had him locked down and was within sight of flipping and retrieving a bunch so he deployed Zuckuss in MH and Dengar in P1 against Han and battled. Of course, I Know Zuckuss is coming, so Leia nods to Brian Hunter and pretends to call Han’s Momma, but she’s got one of those little play-toy phones that just makes the beeping noises. Han Punches It! And Zuckuss and Dengar go down in Legendary flames along with 12 from Jerry’s reserve. I, meanwhile, lose Leia. On his next turn, Jerry cuts his losses by drawing up (though this act would have deadly repercussions). So I win by 19 with about 7 in my lost pile and as many in my hand
FW 6(+54)
Highs: The space battle.
Lows: Jerry drawing up. :-P
Ugly: Uh, the space battle. C’mon, what did you expect, man?
After three games, then, I’m the only undefeated player, so if I can just win one more game I can get a foily something or another.
And I get paired against Jerry. That will teach him to draw up!
Game 4: My "1-More Drain-2 System Than Raveling’s Ties" vs Jerry’s MWYHL
Okay, so, uh, I’d tested this match-up before, right. Having played this several times during the boring hours of midnight to 1 AM, I knew that for my Ties to win, I’d have to quickly set up drains at several systems. Once the SuperFalcon came down, I’d be SOL.
Luckily, I had a brilliant opening hand. I Twi-leked for Sienar, lost All Power and a force to get 3 Ties and deployed 1 Tie to the DS:DB and 1 to Kiffex to get past Battle Plan and establish a 2nd turn drain of 2. I had a Masterful Move and Operational As Planned in my hand, so after I recycled and Jerry took his first action, I played Operational and then used MM to grab my Ghhhk.
Jerry gets set up to attempt Test 1, deploying Yoda, Yoda’s Hope, Luke’s Backpack and DOS by the 2nd turn. Meanwhile, I set up another drain at Sullust. Jerry brings the lovin’ hurt with Moff Wedge piloting the Wedgemobile, and a Tie Interceptor crashes to the used pile while I play my Ghhhk to cover the damage. On my turn, I replace his Admiral’s Order with my own and beat up Wedge with a Dreadnaught, Emperor’s Sword, All Power and a Tie or two. Wedge covers the damage, but that’s one ship down, and I resume my power draining. Jerry completes Tests 2 and 3, but I rarely have enough ability to draw a destiny anyhoo and then my destiny really don’t matter, do they? Except for the turn after I Ghhhk the battle damage from the WhaddupFalcon (Cap’n Han and Melas) and respond by battling with a Dreadnaught and Merrejk, Fel in Saber 1and some other Ties. Oh, and the All Power. Jerry has his Punch It! Even with the -1 to each of my destiny, they’re a total of 9 and despite the fact that I lose all my ships except an interceptor Jerry can’t play Legendary because he lost the battle. Melas dies to cover his damage, and I Masterful Move to grab my Ghhhk after his first action in his turn. Han battles my interceptor, and it dies. But on my turn I blast away the Falcon with Lasers and a tracked 5 when Jerry has no cards in his hand. I then drain him out for the win.
FW 8(+84)
So I get first which earns me a foily Imperial Decree. But some sucker (Just Alfs) trades me 4 or 5 very useful combo cards for my stupid foily card-with a thumb smear-while Graham "Mr. Cheeze" Neal derides my trading acumen. Attempting to realize the value of foils, I still don’t like them, man.
Raveling gets 2nd, and then I don’t know where other people finished. Jenninges was probably 3rd, but we Twin Cities natives won’t take kindly to this St. Cloud boy trying to take our ratings points much longer
Cheers:
Mirkwood for running tournaments every week.
Herb for not being there.
Leia for knowing so much.
Cap’n Han for being the scruffy looking nerfherder who loves her.
Jerry’s anti-WYS deck.
Yoda for being an adorable muppet.
Jeers:
Palace Raiders.
Raltir Freighter Captains.
Dash Rendar.
Mirax.
Melas.
Original Wedge.
Lando w/Gun.
And the rest of the WYS goons.
Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace