oldie-but-goodie-pre-dpc-mirkwood-mn
Title: oldie-but-goodie-pre-dpc-mirkwood-mn
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Mar 22, 2001
For Tuesday’s tournament at Mirkwood I played a couple of decks that I had been testing for the DPC in Illinois. However, my brother decided to visit during the DPC, so I decided not to go to Illinois. Regardless, I had some solid decks for Tuesday.
Light Side = TIGIH with Uber-Destiny
Dark Side = SYCFA manipulator
It turned out that a complete carload drove down from St. Cloud this week as Louie and Nick were able to bring Scott Poster and Josh Kohman with them. Kohman was testing his decks for the DPC.
The first round has some classic pairings such as Mike Ravelling versus his primary playtester, Graham Neal. Rich and Robert Jeffery, the two brothers, were paired against each other (for the second week in a row—the previous week they actually had to play each other twice!), and I was paired against Kohman in the Clash of the Joshes.
Game 1: My TIGIH vs Josh Kohman’s Hunt Down w/Dueling
Well, this could have been a much tougher match-up for me, but apparently Josh didn’t know the primary rule of how to beat TIGIH—always apply the 1st turn force choke. Josh didn’t have an opening hand Vader, so he played a Twi’lek and drew up. We each lost one. On my turn, then, I got to activate too much, drain, put Madine and Blount at the Home 1 DB and move Luke over to the Landing Platform. On his second turn, Josh still didn’t have a Vader, so he drew some more. So we’re both still losing force to Visage because I haven’t drawn an OOC/TT yet, but I get to activate like crazy on my next turn, draw until I have a sufficient beat down squad ready for Vader and then save the rest of my force. Like clockwork, Vader comes down on the next turn to capture Luke, and this is the one turn that Hunt Down gets flipped. For, on my next turn, I drop Obi w/Saber (I got to verify Kohman’s deck when he searched for a DB and saw a bunch of random destiny, 2/3rds quite low; and he got to verify mine that turn when I searched for a DB and saw 10 out of 12 cards at 5 or higher—so we weren’t going to duel just then). Obi gets back-up from Cracken and Calrissian. I battle, chop Vader and draw a 6. The dark Lord swings at Obi but fails horribly and draws a 3. Kohman loses Vader, 8 more and stacks one. It goes downhill for Kohman from there. He deploys another Vader at some point only to be equally crushed. Meanwhile, I drain and retrieve about 10 with On the Edge. Finally, he just draws up to end his misery.
FW 2 (+32)
Meanwhile, Graham Neal, playing with all the anti-Ravelling cards, manages to beat Mike Ravelling’s super-tough WYS deck by 10 force.
Travis Bean won by 34 with his light side (a tribute to my own—thanks, Travis, I’m touched), so I don’t have to play Herb Macy.
Instead, I get paired against Anthony Lawrence who won with his Hunt Down after turning Jedi Luke to the dark side of the force. A good victory for Anthony, it unfortunately meant that he was about to get S-Crewed by my manipulator and Mi’yoom.
Game 2: My SYCFA vs Anthony Lawrence’s Rendez-Vous Point
Anthony laughs at my objective, calling it outdated. “You still play with an objective?” he jokes. And he starts Rendez-Vous Point with Squassin, Insurrection and WA/DoDN, indicating that this is some sort of tribute to Ravelling’s deck of the same ilk which (I thought) had disappeared into the murky depths of unplayability.
Anyway, I get Mi’yoom out first turn and grab an Evader/Monnok, Screw somebody and let Anthony go. He flashes Hobbie’s ship to get Hobbie, and for a second, I worry because I don’t have any ships, Come Here You Big Coward or even a Twi’lek in my hand. And I don’t really want to eat that big, fat drain of 3 at the Death Star. So I pull my first ever TECH (Jedi?) MIND TRICK and start counting all of my force icons on our locations. Then I start adding up a couple of imaginary deploy costs on the cards in my hand and watch while Anthony waves Hobbie around in front of Carida and Alderaan and finally settles on deploying him at RVP. Whew! At any rate, I fortify a couple of ground drains while Anthony flashes a couple more ships for pilots and gets a decent fleet at RVP before finally moving them to Sullust. With Wedge Leader and one of the destiny-to-power adding Red pilots joining Dash in the Outrider, however, I have little inclination to battle the assembled fleet. I do, however, now have Zuckuss, Bossk and the Chimaera all in my hand. So, after he moves the fleet to Sullust (and I’m checking his hand every turn), I deploy my ships to 3 other systems for bigger drains.
Anthony refuses to draw for the most part, except for when he draws past my activation (and then I simply Monnok used). So his hand is kept in check the whole game, turning it into a fairly uninteresting drain race which I win by 25.
FW 4(+57)
Between games, I go watch the end of the match between Chad “Wormanator” Steger and Rich Jeffries. Chad, who will be going to the DPC, had e-mailed me in the last week to get advice on a Profit deck he was thinking of taking to Normal. My advice was, “Don’t.” So, sure enough, Chad’s still playing Profit on Tuesday, and while Ravelling and I watch, we notice a bunch of sloppy plays by Chad and Rich. After the game, Mike and I proceed, for the edification of our dear friends, to point out all the silly things they did and the options they had. I get a chuckle out of commanding them to “Play it again! Play it until you get it right!” Mike agrees, unable to abide by such unwarranted mistakes. Oh, well… it was funny at the time. Trust me.
The pairings are announced, and I get paired with my light side against Travis Bean who, with his tribute to my deck, knows the power of the Good in Vader. He, unfortunately, is still playing BHBM. Autowin. I offer him a full loss by 5 before the game begins, but Travis refuses. I tell Travis, “That’s the last mistake you’ll ever make,” and we begin.
Game 3:
Travis also ignores the 1st turn force choke. What? Hasn’t he experienced the setback from a force choke against his TIGIH? He chooses, instead, to set up Palpy with his Power at the Throne Room. I activate bunches and drain for one. Since Travis is going to have Vader in the Throne Room the whole game (I start Rebel Scout Luke), losing duels, he tosses an extra Vader from his hand… BUT I have an OOC/TT. Well, that’s my next action, obviously. He moans and takes the two cards, Vader and Prepared Defenses, and shuffles them, presenting the backs to me. I have a choice between shiny sleeve and scratchy sleeve and opt for scratchy sleeve. Booyah! Vader’s gone. He will not harm his boy this game. I celebrate, Travis groans, we make more noise than we should, and I comment, while I’m drawing cards, about how I shouldn’t draw any more cards. So when I get my Tunnel Vision, I stop.
For the next few turns, Travis draws for aliens to battle Luke while I just activate force and wait. Finally, he brings Snoova, Blizzard 2, Ephont Mon and 4Lom against Luke. As soon as 4Lom his the table, I take an action—Tunnel Vision. I grab my Clash and exclude 4Lom. Travis battles anyway, fearing my beat-down the next turn, and when the smoke clears, I lose 3 force and stack 1, and Luke is standing at a site across from only a confused, stunned, stupidly powerful droid.
So, I’m still winning the drain race and waiting for Travis to take another action. He finally deploys Mara to the Tatooine DB, and I launch General Han, Cracken and Leia w/Blaster against her. Leia fires and hits her, I play Insertion Planning, I draw 12. He loses a force to add a destiny and draws a 6, which I cancel, and a 1. So he loses Mara and 17 more. And he stacks another.
The game ends shortly. I win by 32. Travis, you should have taken the loss by 5. Told ya.
FW 6(+89)
Kohman approaches me while I’m reporting the result and tells me he’s “catching up” to me. After our game, he won the next two by 25 and 29. Pretty good. I tell him I won by 25 and 32 and, for once, I catch Kohman speachless. Amazing.
Game 4: My SYCFA vs. Graham Neal’s WYS.
This is probably the toughest match-up I can think of for my SYCFA because of the possible force choke and all those freaky non-unique aliens that, impossibly, do good stuff.
I fail to draw an opening hand Vader or Emperor, so I figure I’m screwed, but I do get Mi’yoom and play her at the DS DB. I draw into Janus and First Strike (key card against WYS). Graham counts out how much force I’ll have next turn and starts deploying his unique males to flip his objective. He puts Han w/Gun down against Mi’yoom and blows her away. I respond w/Janus against Han and First Strike, use Janus, draw nothing worthwhile, battle to retrieve Mi’yoom, and Janus dodges a falling portal before karate chopping Han into submission. I draw and finally get a Vader. Two, in fact. Graham kills Janus on the next turn with Luke and some silly alien, choosing to lose Luke to attrition. I then battle the silly alien with the Choke Lord and lose Vader to a 5 and Fallen Portal. Grr.
I lose another Vader off the top of my deck to a drain, so the Lord Vader in my hand needs to survive as I am starting to run out of Vaders. He deploys at the Executor DB and transits to an unoccupied Tatooine DB. Graham, at this point, is in control of the game, but the drains aren’t that bad, 2 at the Cantina and two drains for 1. So I’m still holding together. Vader gets back-up from Dr E & Ponda Boba on my next turn, so they’re golden, but with how many aliens Graham is still holding, I can’t afford to move into the Cantina and risk losing Vader. It’s still a drain race, then, which I’m losing.
I see Graham lose his Outrider, shortly, so I deploy Bossk at Tatooine and start to balance the drain race. Mi’yoom meanwhile clears out a couple of Chewies, Lando, Han and Melas. Yeah! Score one for the ugly chick.
Graham suddenly spreads out his forces everywhere, dropping the Back Door, his Endor Landing Platform and deploying to all the unoccupied sites. Well, that does it. I can’t eat those drains, so Vader and Dr E/Ponda block the drain at the Cantina, the Emperor is sitting at his own drain at the <> DB, and I have Xixor, now, refusing to battle at the Back Door. Graham, meanwhile, refuses to battle Xixor, so the alien prince and a Raltir Freightor Captain just stare each other down for a couple of turns.
Finally, I drain Graham down so that he runs out of destiny to draw multiple in the Cantina and still Fallen Portal Xixor, so I initiate at both locations and retrieve 1 while Graham loses 1. Vader and Dr E & Ponda battle first and clear out the Cantina, so Graham’s objective flips. Then Xixor battles the RFC, and without the +2 forfeit, the RFC is unable to soak up the battle damage. I win a close game by 10.
Meanwhile, at multiple points in the game, I realize that I would have forgotten actions if Graham had not reminded me, so I thank Graham for his honesty.
FW 8(+99)
I go undefeated to take 1st. Graham, as always seems to happen, gets knocked back with low differential down to 4th or 6th or something like that. I don’t remember who had the other places.
Cheers:
Mirkwood for continuing to host us.
Graham for a good, honest game.
OOC/TT for winning my game against Travis.
Me for developing a new Jedi Mind Trick.
Jeers:
This report’s too old to remember any jeers.