hardcore-mirkwood-mn-3-27-01
Title: hardcore-mirkwood-mn-3-27-01
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Mar 29, 2001
So, I scrapped that pile and built an ISB deck because it wasn’t Ties, Hunt Down or BHBM and because it might win.
My decks, then, were:
Light Side – Save You It Can
Dark Side – A version of Garrett “Deadbody” Larson’s “Squishy ISB” which I co-opted from his co-opted version of my earlier ISB which I had originally co-opted from Mike Bergum
I was surprised when Justin Fleenor and Brag Gregg showed up for the tournament. I asked if they had stayed somewhere in Minnesota after the Saturday tournament in St. Cloud. Brad said, “No.” They drove up from Des Moines just for the tournament, and they were going to drive back that night. Kudos to them, then; that’s hardcore.
The pairings were called, and the tournament started.
Game 1: My DS vs Bye
Okay, that stunk. But after a very slow beginning, I managed to squeek out a win by 0.
I watched Rich Jeffries play Justin Alfs. Rich was playing a WYS deck that he had slapped together and was talking about how much he hated WYS. I told him that we should all be able to beat him up if he played WYS and then lost with it. It wasn’t cause for Rich to worry, though, since he crushed Justin, beating him in a big battle, using Run Luke Run. I didn’t catch the end of the game, so I had to ask who won. Rich said he had, and I teased Justin about how Rich owned him. Rich beamed. “For once, I’m not the person who’s getting teased!” Justin challenged Rich to a grudge match, changing the battlefield to Raw Deal. Rich beat Justin again, and the humor value escalated. Justin demanded another rematch, and that time, he won. But, after all was said and done, Rich and Justin found out that Justin was playing an illegal deck with twice as many copies of one really good card as could be allowed by deck-construction rules.
Game 2: My Save You It Can vs. Dion Erbes’ This Deal Is Getting Worse
Dion revealed his starting effects, using Prepared Defenses to grab 3 of them, but he didn’t play Secret Plans. “What? No Secret Plans?” I asked. Dion explained that he meant to put it in the deck, but he had built the deck in too much of a hurry to get everything sorted out right. (That reminds me of something… Check out my tournament report: “Where’s My Monnok? The Full Report Mix”)
On his first turn, he dropped about 4 sites, and I thought, “Cool! I’ll get to complete Test 1 on the 2nd turn,” but he dropped Bad Feeling Have I as well. Dion ***always*** draws that card against me in his opening hand. It’s just sick. That meant that I didn’t have enough force on my first turn to deploy both Luke and Yoda. However, I had two Dagobah locations in my hand, so I deployed Yoda, Luke’s Backpack, the Training Area, Yoda’s Hut, the Jungle and grabbed Test 1. Dion activated a mess of force on his second turn and got out the Emperor and Janus along with Vader and some other stuff. I got Farmboy from the reserve and deployed him with Test 1. Battle Plan was forcing him to pay to drain for the next few turns, so he skipped a few drains, choosing to save his force to deploy Bossk in HT. I knew that once his drains were free, I was going to eat force loss like crazy, so even though I didn’t have Captain Han, I put Leia in the Falcon against Bossk at Cloud City (the sector) and battled. Dion drew a 1, and I drew a 5. Yoda at the Hut made me immune, but I wasn’t going to go anywhere near Bespin since Dion had enough to bring out the Executor and the Thrawn he’d pulled with an Imperial Command. Dion continued to set up on Cloud City, paying at times to drain me. I got Han on the Falcon and started feeling much better about the risk I had been assuming, leaving Leia as the lone pilot of some old freighter.
Sooner or later, Dion finally did deploy the Executor and Thrawn. I stayed at Cloud City, holding off the drains with On the Edge until Test 5 would make me immune to Imperial Command. Dion searched for something and showed me a 2nd All Too Easy that should have been a Secret Plans; I made a mental note not to fight for the Carbonite Chamber. I deployed Obi and Melas against the Emperor, Sim, Janus and some other guy, moved the SuperFalcon against the Executor and completed Test 5 with a 7, retrieving all of the 4 or 5 cards in my lost pile. On his turn, Dion drained me for a couple and battled Obi and Melas. Obi died along with all of his characters. Dion moved Lord Vader w/Saber and some other characters against Melas. However, the Executor was stuck. Dagobah, the only other system, was out of its range. On my turn, then, I deployed Test 6 and Luke w/Stick to join Melas. I battled with the SuperFalcon and an I Know. The battle damage was silly. Dion lost the Executor, Thrawn and 6 or 9 more. I was immune. Luke dueled Vader w/Test 6, and I started adding an additional destiny 7 in every battle.
Dion battled Luke and Melas. He swung and chopped Luke (which was why, I explained to Justin, Farmboy stays in my hand after picking him up…). I feared that Dion would have a Sniper / Dark Strike, but he didn’t so with 14 for battle destiny, Melas covered the damage. Farmboy came down the next turn, and I retrieve with On the Edge. The game ended shortly.
FW 4(+32)
We played one of the slowest games, so the new pairings were announced shortly afteward.
Game 3: My Squishy ISB v4.0 vs Graham Neal’s WYS
Good. This was the match-up I wanted to test. I got some activation going first turn by deploying Carida and a couple of docking bays. I chose not to deploy anybody to the DSII:DB since I figured the generation would just be wasted once Graham flipped on his first turn. So I drew the extra cards. Graham, however, didn’t flip on his first turn since he didn’t get the characters he needed, so I drew up another turn and got the card I knew would win me the game—No Escape. Why? Because everyone in the local meta plays the WYS with the generic DB and Insurrection and I’ll Take the Leader. And, sure enough, like clockwork Graham deployed his <> DB on his next turn, along with Dash to the system. I responded by playing my No Escape (sadly enough, getting Prepared Defenses back into my hand) and dropping 4 ISB agents, an AT-ST, Choke Lord and Mara. That cut his drain at the system to nil. I got in a couple good turns of drains while drawing for ships before Graham played Menace Fades and set up at a couple of other docking bays to eliminate my drain bonuses. I set the non-undercover ISB droid against one of his drains and drew for ships. We exchanged tiny little drains until I was ready to deploy the Chimaera with Thrawn, Bossk and a bunch of ISB pilots (to soak up attrition). Thrawn was Barriered, so I just let my stuff sit around. Graham played Han in the Falcon and another smuggler to battle, but I drew a 13 and only had to lose my two pilots while I cut deep into his forces with the attrition. Han flew away to Carida, and I took over control of Tatooine, deploying a couple more pilots to my ships and shuttling up one or two more.
I got both Secret Plans and Something Special into play to kill his retrieval. Over the next few turns, he got Owen and Beru to the Moisture Farm and Harvested for his ships and pilots before Owen and Beru were Trampled. He also deployed Blount and Leia to the Coruscant Imperial Square, but they, too, were shortly Trampled. Luke went to the Cantina, but I blocked that drain with an Undercover spy.
Graham was, then, locked down, draining me for 1 or 2 a turn, while I was retrieving one and draining him for 3 to 5 (Menace Fades really hurt, Graham). Finally, Graham decided to end the game by battling with Dash in the Outrider against the Chimaera, Bossk and Zuckuss before I could recycle the rest of my hand.
FW 6(+48)
Again, it was a long game, so I don’t have much detail for in-between games except that Brad Gregg asked me if I had won. I replied that I had, so I was still undefeated. He thought and said that if Mike Raveling beat me in the next game that he could “back door” another tournament. Now, THAT’s just getting silly. I don’t go for those repeat lightning strikes. The gall of that man! Trying to back door two Minnesota tournaments in a row… What was up? Had he arranged some sort of deal with Raveling? Had they developed a master plan to promote Iowan Star Wars victories? I would have nothing of it…
Game 4 (the moment of truth): My Save You It Can vs Raveling’s SYCFA Ties
Okay, as I had written in my last tournament report, both Mike and I understood that the important thing to do against SYCFA Ties was to establish control of the DS:DB. After using my first few turns to set up my Jedi Tests, I took control of the DS:DB with Obi w/Saber. This meant that Mike would pay 3 for each of his turns all game long. While I was setting up during my first few turns, Mike got Sienar to Wakeelmui, Dreaded Imperial Starfleet and drew a massive hand. Knowing my deck, he understood that his only chance would be to stop my SuperFalcon. He drew for his Tie Lasers, his Control / Set for Stun, the interrupt that adds to weapon destiny, Main Course (in case I had a Frozen Assets—he didn’t know my deck card-for-card), I’ve Lost Artoo! and all his “tech” tricks. He certainly had the time to gather them up. I didn’t even put the Falcon down until after Test 5 was completed. The only system Mike had put down, meanwhile, was Endor, indicating that he ***wanted*** the confrontation and was, therefore, holding a million anti-SuperFalcon cards in his hand. He must have been waiting for me to deploy the Falcon so he could kill it or disable it and then set up to drain at his other systems.
Meanwhile, I knew with Mike’s tracking and recycled 5’s and 6’s, I was going to need to complete Test 3 and have a copy of A Few Maneuvers in my hand. Since I was only playing one A Few Maneuvers in the deck at the time, I avoided playing it to recycle the 6, reminding myself that it was my “only hope.” I also threw out some other interrupts early, hoping Mike would use up his grabbers. I got him to take my Signal and OOC/TT, and then he used ***another*** grabber to pick up my On the Edge. Well, that made 3 grabbers, and I double-checked the 3 dots on Hell to Pay, breathed a sigh of relief, and deployed my SuperFalcon to Endor. Once Captain Han was placed on the table, Mike asked me to let him know when I was passing on my deploy phase action. Or something like that. I said I was passing. Mike, then, played Control / Set for Stun and drew a 5, which became a 4, but it was still enough to send Han to my hand. That wasn’t good. I had enough force left for Melas, so I deployed him and battled. Mike used 3 to target with his Lasers and then played his targetting interrupt (Note to Mike: You should have saved it, you would have hit a lowly 4-maneuver Falcon with a 3), blasting the Falcon to bits… Or so he thought. He drained for 2 on his next turn at Endor, deployed masses of back-up and drew some stuff. On my next turn, I deployed the other Falcon in my hand to Endor along with the other Leia w/Blaster and the Captain Han that had been bounced. Mike didn’t have any actions, so I battled and played I Know. Mike fired twice but missed each time (good old Test 3). To the resulting battle damage, Mike lost 3 interceptors, a squadron and 9 force out of his hand and reserve.
Test 6, Obi and the Falcon were hitting him for enough damage to finish him off, but after Mike successfully killed my astromech with I’ve Lost Artoo and set up another drain at Sullust. Sadly, Justin and Garrett, who had kidded me about including Farmboy in the deck, were unable to witness the final turns wherein I searched for R2 in Red 5, pulled Luke up with Test 6, deployed him against Mike’s lone Tie at Sullust and battled, to win 15 to 2 and force another 10 in battle damage from Mike’s hand and reserve. Mike drew up on the next turn.
FW 8(+60)
Owing largely to the first-round bye, I end up with a low differential, but as the only undefeated player, that’s good enough for first. I make some trades with Graham, who wanted my foil Signal, and with a couple of little kids, one of whom said he was “getting out of Star Wars,” I think, in part, because Mike Raveling, the meanie that he is, stomped all over the kid for a win by something like 436 differential. Way to go, Meanie Mike.
Ah, but we all know Mike’s philosophy is this: Beat them up in the first round, and they’ll play where they belong in the second.
He probably gave the kid a bye.
Brad Gregg, I believe, got 2nd despite his running conspiracy with Raveling. Other people got other places.
Cheers:
Brad Gregg and Justin Fleenor for being hardcore Star Wars players.
Mike Raveling for being the only player who makes a drain of 2 scary.
Dion and Graham for good games.
Rich for establishing ownership of Justin Alfs.
The St. Cloud crew for driving down.
Luke & the SuperFalcon for wrecking the Dark Side game after game.
Jeers:
Bye for being a terrible opponent.
Whoever stole the store copy of the new Scrye. I had to peruse an old one, dammit.
Scrye for the ridiculous price guide. $5 for a Jess? Yeah, almost…
Joshua “Stormcrow” Grace