colorado-states-3-31
Title: colorado-states-3-31
Author: John "Crash Beedo" Arendt
Date: Apr 3, 2001
Preparation:
For light side, it seemed the decks to beat were Hidden Mains, EBO X Wings, and WYS Raiders. Of the three, I thought Hidden Mains was the most difficult because it has such strong control elements (Battle Plan, Menace Fades, retrieval, Ben/Luke duo, mega falcon). The deck is just good. The key to beating all three of those decks would be to establish space superiority - EBO X would be the hardest. I decided on a BHBM platform or AOTBS, ultimately deciding on Agents because I felt like absolutely no one would be expecting a player of my caliber to be playing that objective. I went for the total surprise factor. Just think of it as any good Court / Scum battle platform.
The AOTBS deck was given to me by a friend - I tweaked it to conform to my own style - but since his state championship is in a week or so, I’m not going to publish the decklist out of respect and let him publish his version after his States are over with.
I was all over the place for Light. MKOS really caused me problems, because in general I like to win ground battles, and that deck is just pure beats. I tested Profit (seemed to be an auto-loss vs MKOS), AITC (good, but only against MKOS), different kinds of WYS, and ultimately settled on the TIGIH Scouts I had played a few months earlier. As Atkins said - it ain’t Hidden Mains or WYS! I’ll be posting my TIGIH soon so people can have a chuckle.
TIGIH / AOTBS - neither are big objectives in Colorado, so I dubbed my approach for the day ’Drunken Monkey’.
Game 1
Drunken Monkey vs Rebel Scouts (Eric Ward, local jawa)
Not much of a game to report here - he started RST Objective w Bargaining Table, not even Strike Planning. Hmmmm. The guy seemed in the 12-14 years old range and ended up placing last by the end of the day (and the TD’s
graciously gave him a nice prize for sticking with it). Here’s how the set up went: Xizor, Guri, and some Vigos got control of the DS DB, while the Emperor took over the Bunker with POTF to ensure that there would be no exploding Bunker. Then some bounty hunters started bushwhacking around the Rebel Landing site and Hidden Trail, eventually taking over the Back Door. I ended up apologizing a lot for whatever beatings got dished through the course of the game, because they were awful. Unfortunately, I couldn’t take it too easy because in a tournament where 5-1 could make it in, differential could matter - I got edged out last year by only a few points. FW + 29
highs: none
lows: beating on a kid who was just there to have some fun
After Game 1, Kyle had won by 41 and Brian had won by 38, so it was on. Brian refers to Brian Hunter, # 1 in the World, and Kyle Craft has been in and around # 3-5 for a while. Both had played light, and while I played dark
and could draw one of them, there were two dark players who won by more (one of them was Tim Mcknight, who drew Brian). Some of the other threatening people at the event who I thought could challenge as the day went on were
Matt Riecks, Josh Bader, Tim Mcknight, Jason Keen.
Game 2
Scouts of Doom vs Court (Alex Stein)
Alex had won by enough to place him in the top 5, so we got the call. He pulled Mighty Jabba with the AC, got a 0/1 DB, and let me go. Now, one thing Scouts does really well is generate a lot of force against Scum. I activate, drain, get Crix and his smoking buddy Mr Blunt to the Home One DB, move Luke, and draw for some beats - losing one 1 to Court. He starts securing the AC with Power of the Hutt chumps. The Back Door comes down with General Han and Chewie, a spaceport DB appears just outside Jabbas
Palace with Obi there, and Luke transits over - still looking for Vader, I guess. I was activating like 14-15 by turn 2-3 (plus Yoda Stews!). Mara tried to rough up Crix and Blount, but a knife in the back (Double Agent) kills her before battle. Boba Fett and Djas Puhr attack at the Back Door, but Boba goes down to Fallen Portal, Han feels good about Rebel Leadership, and the battle ends up 22 to 3 (I cancel Djass destiny and draw two 6s with Rebel Leadership). No ghhhk. Things went from bad to worse for the aliens as Brooks Carlson joined the crew attacking the Audience Chamber - meaning he could appear at the Spaceport DB with some scouts- no No Bargain-NSP crap - and still move with some Scouts into the AC in one turn for free with that freaky landspeed = 2. Alex battles Obi, Luke and the Scouts, Ephont went down to a lightsaber swing, letting Lando with Beatstick join the fray next turn, and battle damage ended the game. FW +29
Highs: Winning the game off of two apocalyptic battles - blind-flipping multiple 6’s.
Lows: Seeing someone flip like 16 off the top - twice.
Hunter beat Tim Mcknight (ISB Space vs Profit), and Kyle won big again. I edged Hunter on diff so Kyle and I got the nod for the next game.
Game 3
Scouts of Doom vs Kyle Crafts TIEs of Doom (SYCFA launchpad)
We both got decent starts, I did the usual (Bad Hair Crix to the Home One DB w Blunt) and he gets a first turn Emperor to the DS DB, to be followed next turn by the Piett / Merrijek planet-factory. Obi, Chewie and General Solo rough up the DB crew (Obi misses the Emperor), I cancel his destiny, and Piett / Merrijek run - he forfeits Palpatine to attrition. Crix and Blount move to Endor from Home One, Luke is at the Back Door, Han and Chewie return
to Endor and Blount and Crix eventually move to the Back Door to join Luke, while Obi stays on the DS DB. While all this ground shuffling and draining is going on, Kyle is dropping Black TIEs with their matching DS-pilots to space and getting some mean drains of two going. He’s recycling the Tallon Roll combo, and mocking my puny landing claws, daring me to deploy something (and holding the destroyers). Blech. I get some satisfaction when Admiral
Chim-chim-charoo goes off the top for a force drain. Corran Horn (spy killer! spy killer!) drops down on Piett and Merrijek (who gets the double agent treatment) and then Horn beats down Piett, moves back to Endor, and re-programs the U3PO Kyle had just dropped down. The guy is 100% pure beef - he’s even a Rogue Pilot, if you are so inclined to waste his murderous talents in space with Moff Wedge. Corran Horn - Hero of the Republic.
An EPP Vader had snagged Luke and ran off to Chirpa’s Hut - he runs from Col Crack and a few Ewoks, to join Admiral
Nozzel at the Back Door in front of Crix and Blunt. On my turn, Crix and Blunt battle Vader (Rebel Leadership inspires Crix, along with some Insertion Planning) and I win, stacking the 3rd, and forcing Kyle to lose Vader - I lose both Crix and Blunt to the swing and attrition. Crack and the two Ewoks join Luke at the Back Door, Arica comes down, breaks cover, takes Luke, and joins Thrawn at the Endor DB, facing off against Chewie and Solo (I had put out I Hope She’s Alright, so Kyle felt some pressure about
getting characters down I think). His uncontested drains in space were starting to hurt. Solo and Chewie rough up Thrawn and Arica (cancelling his destiny) stacking the 4th. Arica ran to the Spaceport DB at random.system,
losing two to my Ojbective by dragging Luke with her. However, Kyle counter assaulted Crack and the two Ewoks, drawing 12 to my power 8. He mistracked his 3rd destiny, if it was a 6 instead of a 1, that might have been it for
me. Instead, he used that last saved force for the assault, so I knew he no longer had barrier capability - I dropped Red Leader on the lonely Stinger he had out at a system (no Gurri), stacking a 5th card, and locking up a
very close game with some spillover. FW +5.
Highs: Beating Kyle - he took 3rd at Worlds and has the rating to back it up.
Lows: He had been saving the barrier all game. If he made a mistake earlier, letting me drop-strike the Stinger, I could have stacked a 3rd early and had the easy win with the cross. Also, that Counter Assault was close to game
ending.
At the next seat, we looked over and saw that Jason and Brian were going to time, the ultra efficient HB Mains vs MKOS Skrillings. It looked to me like Jason could draw the timed win if he just played smarter (he drew too much)
because he had some cancel stuff in hand and was retrieving - they were both draining for equal, but MKOS had the Den and 1 retrieval. But he drew too much on his last turn, time was called, Hunter got the last turn, and won a timed win 9 vs 8, or 10 vs 9 life force. Close.
Game 4
Drunken Monkey vs Matt Riecks WYS Raiders
Matts been playing WYS Palace Raiders since the beginning, and its wracked up a good win-record. In fact, I think the whole reason ISB Space has been so popular out here has been because of Matts deck and the clones. So I knew Id need an A-game to beat the deck. First turn, I activate 3, Twilek for Bad Feeling, activate the other 3, deploy the Coruscant DB, play Operational as Planned to add a 4th force, and Monnok lost. I get two control/tunnels - not totally bad. He deploys Home One DB and draws. I No
Escape the Monnok back, move Xizor to Coruscant DB, do the Monnok again (dont think I got anything) and draw. Jedi Luke w Saber goes to Home One, then moves to Coruscant to face off Xizor. However, the ultra cheap Emperor goes to the Spaceport DB (No Escape -3 - yippeee - I got to abuse that all game) and Gurri goes to the Tat DB, to be joined by Xizor from Coruscant. Luke follows Xizor, but 4 Lom comes down (I believe I had First Strike to stop the Portal,or he didnt have one) and Luke goes away, flipping me
(Gurri goes to the saber hit). Matt flipped another Luke off the top - yippeee. Bossk and Stinger (with Gurri) take over the system, he cancels it with the clawed Falcon (Mirax piloting). Eventually, Bossk would land and
Boba would join Gurri at the system, forcing Mirax to join the ground crews. BFHI, and the fact that I owned the DB’s, kept him from generating enough to go to space with authority. We had some ground skirmishes, but Force
Lightnings and Set for Stuns kept things in check, bouncing or removing the cards that would make the destiny draws too good. The game ender was when Zuckuss, 4LOM, and Xizor battled a freighter captain - a Raider reacted over on the craft, but thats still not ability 6 to get over Xizor, and I get 3 destiny (Jabba is Through with the Freighter Captain), and Zuckuss makes the forfeit zero. FW + 20.
highs: beating a deck that’s had a strong win record
lows: nothing really, he bargaining tabled a lot of drains with raiders and captains, would have been nice for a monnok to kick out some non-uniques.
Game 5
Scouts of Doom vs Josh Baders BHBM TIEs
I know Josh had defeated Brian a few weeks ago, so hes definitely got some game. Josh starts by dropping Merrijek to the Throne Room, while I get General Bad Hair going on Home One and move Luke. Next turn, I expect something... the Emperor to grab Luke, or perhaps Ephont to the Throne Room (since he started Power of the Hutt) - instead he gets systems, and drops some TIES with Sienar. Hmmm. Afterwards, we talked about how much of a mistake this was for Josh, since EVERY OTHER GAME he locked up the Throne
Room with Ephont first turn. Instead, Blount pops in there, leading Leia and Chewie Protector, and they’re all like, "What have we here, a lonely Imperial with his pants down and his finger in a scomplink," and Merrijek gets roughed up for like 10-12 damage. No ghhhk. In the words of TJ Holman- "Spies are good. Just play them. Don’t ask why - just do it." So, I took his advice. Spies are very good. And people should expect lots of them in a scouts deck. So, the rest of this game was me getting the Back
Door and Midge going, drain 6 on Endor, two in the Throne Room, I Hope Shes Alright rolls the direct damage, Arica goes to the Audience Chamber but gets knifed by Blunt, and the Leaders go to space late game for some claw action.
Too much, too fast for SFS retrieval to be a factor. FW +25
highs: the huge beatings on Merrijek
lows: getting the huge beatings on Merrijek because of an error. Ah well, thats one Josh will never make again.
Meanwhile, I believe Kyle and Brian faced off, Hidden Mains vs Kyles TIEs. Kyle talked a little friendly trash before the match-up, Brian sent some back saying it didn’t matter which side Kyle played, and then backed it up with a convincing win. Since we both played light, we wouldnt play each other until the final confrontation - which would work well for me. Yippeee. In last years states, I went undefeated until game 5 (beating Kyle in game 4 or 5 by a small diff like this year) and lost in game 6 to Hunter, while Kyle rolled past me on differential to get into the Final. This year, Brians timed win had him one rung below, and I dodged him until the final.
Game 6
Drunken Monkey vs Chris (Baker-basler?) WYS Raiders
Chris was 4-1 on the day, losing only to Brian, and because Hunter and I both played light, we didnt get matched and Chris got the top chair. I saw that Chris wrote a report already and described this game pretty well, he started with 2 OOCs, did a suicide Luke vs Emperor / Xizor and got Xizor immediately out of play. Blech. However, character removal served me well, with IG 88 snagging a Luke EPP, Force Lightnings killing key characters to prevent destiny draws, and Zuckuss w Gurri-Stinger beating down a Lateraled
Outrider. No need to go into more detail. I apologized for dishing a lot of beatings. FW +27
highs: Total board control, despite Xizor going OOP.
lows: Xizor, out of play, on turn 2! WTF!? Nice play, Chris, real good setup. Too bad hes a ’Springs player (meaning we won’t see him much cuz of how far south it is) - Chris will be a challenger.
So, it was on to the final confrontation for me and Brian, both going 6-0. Now, lots of people know Brian from the ratings (# 1 in the World), and since he placed like 3rd or 4th in Continentals last year, and then went on to the Phoenix Mega-Slam and won 2 out of 3 of those tournaments outright, it seems that people around the country are
noticing that the guy is fricking good. His style is pretty simple - play the basic power cards, use lots of control mechanisms, and do not make mistakes. I’d call him the king of old school but he doesn’t use a lot of SAC. Its ridiculously consistent, and minimizes a lot of the crap that happens when you play too much combo-licious tech (like me). I havent won a tournament game against him in 3 years - not that we play all that often, but probably a couple times a year, so I’ve been an 0-fer. So, I knew the
odds against me were pretty long going into the final confrontation.
I chose light first.
Game One
Scouts of Doom vs ISB Space
Anyone who has read a Hunter-report knows he’s been using a lot of ISB Space - its all about board control - sick drains in space with Chiraneu, using Gurri and Commands to stop the Falcon, and Den of Thieves, ISB -1, and Decree to control the ground damage. Vaders, Tarkins, Sabers and Walkers round out the ground beats. Real solid, great on the fundamentals, not a lot of bells and whistles.
He deployed the 1st turn Nozzel to the Endor DB, choking my activation, and this was the first time all day I didn’t have a Yoda Stew in my opening hand to drop some cards and have the first turn beats. I only played 3 Stews, so it didnt surprise me, but it could have been a little better. So Luke moves over, Home One DB comes out, Lord Vader snags Luke, and the game is on. Col Crack and Obi invade the Exec DB and attack Thrawn, causing like 8-9 battle damage after he gets carved up - no ghhhk. This annoyed Brian a
little because Im sure he plays a couple of Ghhhk combos. Stack One. Vader and a few ISBers were attacked by Chewie and Solo at the Endor DB (Vader had no saber yet, whew!), Han feels inspired (Rebel Leadership) and Vader and Merrijek are forced to run, while Ozzel and a Rim Scout I believe go to the lost pile. Stack two. Vader and Merrijek run to the spaceport DB I placed on Coruscant. Meanwhile, he starts getting some setup in space -Chiraneu on a Chimaera, and Boba Fett in Slave One at a second drain two system, the Exec comes to a 3rd system a turn or two later. 5D6 helped minimize the Midge damage on Endor. Over the course of a few turns, I get two clawed ships out, slowing the space drains a little. Crix and Blunt join Endor (for some dopie reason, I chose to bring Blunt to Endor instead of going to Coruscant and stopping ISB - d’oh - mistake # 1). That kept 5D6s -1 in action. I kept expecting to draw a Double Agent (I play 3!) or a Lost in the Wilderness to take care of 5D6. I get out the Tank, and
Orimmaarko and Lando attack Vader/Merrijek at Coruscant. Lord Vader now has the Saber, so hitting Orri is practically automatic. I insertion plan, and exclude Merrijek. We win the battle, so he loses Vader, stacks the 3rd (meaning Vader would never re-deploy), Merrijek gets Luke, he loses two for Orris text (winning a battle) and I make two more bonehead plays... I dont put Orri in the Tank, and I lose Lando to attrition, even though Insertion
Planning reduced it. Dumb.
(Heres an aside... had Lando stayed, Brian would have probably come down with a Walker for the beats. Now, hes a good player, so maybe he doesn’t battle there, expecting the Portal. If he does battle, I Fallen Portal Merrijek, freeing Luke, and Luke/Lando beat the Walker - Luke kills
the attrition, maybe I have Insertion Planning, whatever. I don’t think he had more Imperials to be pilots to seize Luke after the Portal, but he did have some ORS sitting on the Den of Thieves, so I don’t think Luke would get immediatley re-seized once Merrijek was gone. Anyway, its all academic - I’m kinda scrubbish).
Instead, Merrijek kept Luke, satisfying I Hope Shes Alright (I think I had it out), he busts up a Claw (and I still hadnt gotten Yoxgit the Claw-maker), Arica puts the kibosh on the Back Door (still no Double Agent! and Corran Horn hero of the Republic went off the top for a force drain) and
I end up losing to the space drains in a close one. FL -8.
Game Two
Drunken Monkey vs HB Mains (done right)
You know, a lot of the details of this game were kind of fuzzy to me. I know I was hyper focused, because I didnt think the bounty hunters had the goods to take out Hidden Mains if he were capable of getting JK Luke, Ben,
sabers, and The Good Book together. Round that out with the Hidden Mains recursive retrieval, and I knew it was asking a lot for me to win. Besides I was being scrubbish - like it took about 4-5 turns to realize he didnt start the usual Battle Plan. I got a fast start, with BFHI in the opening hand - wahoo! Brian had some opportunities to Alter it, and the fact that he went for my POTFs instead of
BFHI probably cost him the game - for instance, he never had a chance to drop a fully loaded Mega Falcon. So, early on, I believe a Jedi Luke goes down to 4LOM and IG-88 w Jabba is Through with Luke; an EPP Luke does a suicide attack against Xizor and the Emperor, the Emperor tells Luke I Have You Now (Brian Senses, I Control) but Xizor is lost and Brian hits him with OOC/TT (I had 6 cards in lost pile, he nailed the number). Hmmm. This was looking bad for Agents. Once again, I had the extra Xizor staring up at me in my hand when the Dark Prince went out of play. Meanwhile, the Emperor felt good at the DS DB with a POTF there... which gets Altered when Ben Kenobi came out to Tatooine. That convinced me to Twilek for the Oppressive
combo, since once Mirax came out, Brian’s Alter would be unstoppable. I monnok for a pair of Off the Edges, and quickly realize I need to bury them in the lost pile so the recursive Edge retrieval becomes a non-factor. Guri
on Stinger goes to space with Fett (I believe). Heres where things get hazy for me... there are skirmishes in space, with Guri and Lateral giving me the edge over the Falcon, and the second POTF goes up there. Brian almost Altered it the turn before the Oppressive Combo hit the table, but he drew a 6... his last Jedi Luke. He tried tracking the Luke for On the Edge for Corran Horn (Corran and Ben were chasing the Emperor around) but he mistracked, killing Corran. The Hero of the Republic, killed because he
fell down a hole. Damn shame. Thats the kind of mistake Hunter just doesnt make, and it was the second mistake in the same game - my lucky day. I know there was a point where Leia and Melas faced off against the Emperor and I pull a Force Lightning... at the end of the turn, I blind-fry Leia, so Melas gets tickled by the Emperor for some damage on my turn. For the most part, I was loathe to initiate battles because after the Monnok happened, I knew Hunter had a Fallen Portal, and he tracks 6s on command, and I never saw the Portal hit the lost pile. So it eventually boils down to Ben and KFC chasing around the Emperor and Dengar, and Zuckuss and 4LOM go to space to reinforce the drain of two, cracking the Home One with 3 battle destinies. Since he drew 6s consistently in space, my forces quickly got whittled down, losing Boba with a Vigo on board, Guri and Stinger, until it was the Falcon (back from Coruscant after fixing the lateral damage) with Chewie and Leia. I Stunned Chewie, and my destiny cleared the Falcon, while I needed to lose Zuckuss and 4LOM - the passengers - leaving Bossk alone. Meanwhile, he initiates the Kenobi / KFC match vs Dengar and Palpatine. After Kenobi hits the Emperor, I did the Used force lightning to make Kenobi -4, Dengar hit him, Dengar hit KFC, and we have a site clearing battle. The game comes down to Bossk at Corulag with POTF, and the Stunned Chewie returns to drain
for 1 at a DB. We both have about 10 cards or so in life, and a few in hand. My upper hand in drains wins the game. FW +9
So, I narrowly edged Brian out for the Championship. Both games were decided by mistakes on the part of the eventual loser - they were that closely matched. Thanks to everyone who stayed to watch the Final Duel - there seemed to be a good-sized crowd and plenty of congratulations. Sportsmanship at the event was very high all around.
Overall Props:
-Kyle and Brian - its tough playing in locals where there’s the # 1 and # 5 in the world on a regular basis, but they’ve really elevated the level of play in Colorado.
-Chris Fanchi, Mike Crill, Jason Keen - these are all guys who would place 3-3 or worse a year ago - I think all 3 stepped up with big days and ended up cracking the top 8, joining McKnight, Riecks, Bader as high placers in these
kinds of tournaments. The local scene continues to get more competitive.
-Collectormania, Randy - smooth tournament, he managed 50 players easily and was busy with the rulings.
-My friend Bill (a Magic Player) who put some time aside for last minute playtesting.
-Props to my friend who let me see his AOTBS deck - hope you do as well as I did with it! Also to the other guys on the team (Neal, David, Matt - thanks for all the help).
Thats it, thanks for reading.
john arendt
Crash Beedo
and
(for one year, at least)
Colorado State Champ