frankenmuth-michigan-on-4-8-2001
Title: frankenmuth-michigan-on-4-8-2001
Author: Andrew "Gwaihir" Ehret
Date: Apr 7, 2001
Well at 8am on Saturday I get up (ugh what is this a school day?), and my friend Jim West picks me up right out side my dorm door. The deal was I would pay his entry fee if he’d chauffer me around and play in this tourney instead of some lame tourney later in the day in Livonia. It was nice to ride in his parents new Miata convertible; it was such a nice day so we could take the top down. We make really good in time on the way up to Frankenmuth, which is like 2 hours north of East Lansing, because Jim always speeds when he’s driving a nice car.
So we have time for a little lunch type meal at around 10:30, and the sub shop is closed, so we try Burger King. Turns out it’s not 11am yet so they won’t serve us lunch and we have to get a fast food breakfast. A long discussion ensues on how a fast food breakfast is the cheapest, nastiest, source of fat possible in the US economy. We eat our greasy $3 meal anyways and start looking for the Wickson Memorial Library where the tourney is.
As it turns out the Wickson Memorial (I have no idea who he is) is being rededicated today and the place is full of war veterans or something. So instead of playing in the nice reading room like normal the tourney was in the basement. So I go down to what turns out to be a very large basement and find the place swarming with at least 15 players. I was expecting this tournament to be a ratings brawl between like 8 or 9 high ranked players but instead it turned out to be an interesting day full of new blood and interesting deck ideas from players I had never met before.
Decks:
LS- WYS which had a 20-0 tournament record entering this tourney. It not like the patrol craft version you always see on Decktech, it’s my own personal heavy space version.
DS- A rather new ISB space deck with the talon roll combo card for falcon removal and some walkers to hold the sights. It was 2-0 in its only previous tourney.
Game 1 vs. Ben Deschaine
I was surprised when I picked up the command cards for my first matchup and saw that my opponent had a birthdate of 1991. He must have been like 2 years old when I started playing this game. It turns out he is playing a pure space light deck using squadron assignments and pretty much every character in the game that has his own unique X-wing. My only moment of fear was when he played Haven on my Yavin4 and used that to lay out like Wedge, Hobbie, Kier Santage, and Jek Porkins, all on their matching x-wings in one turn using almost no force. Using tricky movement patterns, Something Special Planned for Them, and Battle Order, I kept sticking him in bad situations where he had to use all his force just to drain and move. A well time talon roll helped me to end the game early. Full Win by 24
2(+24)
Game 2 vs. Jason Comstock
I’ve never actually played Jason before but had seen him play in several other tournaments and have seen him time out many times. Trying to avoid a timed game I played a little faster than usual and this was stupid of me. Jason was playing a hunt down dueling deck and first turn he threw Vader with a saber to my cantina and used CTR to search his deck for I Have You Now. This was my worst nightmare, to make things more problematic my WYS drew Kessel, a docking bay, and a wad of interrupts. Faced with a Vader doing an unacceptable 5 damage by being in the cantina and visage; I later deployed Han with blaster and Melas to the site and Dash in the outrider to kessel. This flipped my objective and I figured 2 battles destiny would clear the Vader and solve the problem. The prediction is true as I kill Vader and lose only Han to attrition. Sure Melas was now alone in the cantina but I had 10 cards in my force pile I was ready to draw and he had a little hand, what could happen? Turns out those ten cards don’t contain a houjix, my savrip, or even another character. Two turns later a new Vader, Tarkin, and Dengar with gun, do about 13 damage to the Melas and I can do nothing about it but take the force loss. Nevertheless Kessel had been hurting him the whole game, and I completed a kessel run with the falcon for 7, so I had a chance in the endgame to win. I had an 8 card hand and he did 5 damage on his control phase. I lost 5 random things and saved Luke Jedi Knight, Battle Plan(he had no ships), and Melas in my hand. He played the combo sense & uncertain is the future and made me shuffle my hand into my reserve and redraw my hand. I drew up an admirals order, a few maneuvers, and a sorry about the mess. I would never see Luke or battle plan again. Full loss by 5
2(+19)
NO my undefeatable WYS was beaten, after an amazing run of beating 1800,1900, and 2000 players it ended up losing to a person I didn’t know in the basement of a library. I must give props to Jason who always had a response for my moves and played the uncertain is the future at the perfect time.
Game 3 vs. Jason Daenzer
Jason was a nice guy playing a cloud city mains beat down deck. He had this HUGE bag of non-name brand onion potato-chips delivered to him mid-game and the smell of those things was kinda nasty. Anyways I set up space easy and had Merrejk and Admiral Piett at the Executor:docking bay early game. He had been saving all his force and tunnel visioning for a few turns. He got all ready to deploy the beatdown on my guys with Boussh as the spy but I played Never Yarnal and killed Boussh ruining his big chance for damage. My big space damage added up fast and I won this game rather quickly. On an interesting note he played It Could Be Worse on my drain I played It’s Worse for 14 damage and he used another It Could Be Worse with exactly 14 force left in his force pile to cancel all the damage. Full Win by 21
4(+40)
Game 4 vs. Sundeep Vikraman
Sundeep is a quiet guy who showed up with some Ann Arbor people from the evil place known as the University of Michigan. He’s only played in like 4 tournament games but he has the 1900’s down there tutoring him and he made big strides. He played ROPS against me and used a quick flip Overseeing Personally mega-drain strategy. I defeated this using Menace Fades and control of the system to keep unflipping his objective. I actually had to run away in space (something I’m not used too) when he played Thrawn on an s.d. and an intercepter with a cannon. I drained every turn at the 3 systems he wasn’t at and eventually wore him down. An early Kessel Run actually led to Leebo doing his damage for 10 turns, something that rarely comes up in a game. Full Win by 22.
6(+62)
Game 5 vs. Jeremiah Himmelbrand
Jeremiah has like 500 tournament games under his belt and playtests with his buddies every week so you can always expect him to play something solid. For darkside he had a SYCFA tie deck and he was kinda @#$%y and joked with his friends that it was an autowin for him. Little did he know my WYS slaughters every version of ties. My early ground drains with lando and talon karde at the cantina and luke at the docking bay were shut down by dark waters and U-3PO respectively. I intimidated his ties by playing surprise assault and won a key battle by playing a few maneuvers on my falcon after he drew destiny for his cannon. The real turning point is when I got Legendary starfighter on the falcon and left it on Waka forcing him to pay more then he could handle for his ties. The two damage every movephase from legendary finished him off but I had a huge hand so it ruined my differential. Full win by 10.
8(+72)
Game 6 vs. Jeremiah Himmelbrand
Well its Jeremiah again, so no easy game for me. As it turns out 3 people have one loss going into the last round and since we were all on the same side of the force we can’t play eachother and this tournament will be decided by differential. So I have to win and it has to be big, because first prize is a foil Imperial Decree and I haven’t won a tournament foil yet. Jeremiah is playing test1 MWYHL EPP beatdown with on/off the edge for retrival. He too tries to destroy Piett and Merrejk at the docking bay and this time I didn’t draw Nevar Yarnal to kill his spy. So Lando with axe ,Leia with gun ,and Han with gun come down on my two scrub characters. Luckily Lando fails to exclude and my destiny is decent so I end up losing both characters with no battle damage and he loses Lando. On my turn I activate everything but 4 cards and I have Igar/Tempest 1/Trample in my hand. So I look at my deck with imperial arrest order and see 3 destiny 6 and 1 destiny 5(So that’s where my Nevar Yarnal’s were). I deploy Igar and the walker, trample Leia, and draw 2 6’s for destiny against lonely Han. He takes a lot of damage and its game over. Full Win by 26.
10(+98)
Thanks to the random forces of fate, and my impressive last game win, I end up winning the tournament by one differential and getting the foil Decree! I might deserve this after I was robbed of a Lord Vader when I went 4-0 last month but finished second due to differential.
Final Standings (Thanks to tournament director Joe Gaus for these results and for running a tourney that he couldn’t play in due to the unexpectedly high turnout of 17.)
Andrew Ehret 10(+98) *ME*
Nick Glazer 10(+97)
Joseph Giannetti 9(+85)
James West 8(+70) *my ride and playtester*
Josh Nutt 8(+61)
Sundeep Vikraman 7(+6)
Jason Comstock 6(+22)
Jeremiah Himmelbrand 6(+20)
Jacob Sebrell 6(+4)
Alex Deschaine 6(-35)
Beau Roussaeu 4(-36)
Nathan Duckworth 4(-43)
Mathew Manning 4(-51)
Jake Zoller 4(-70)
Jason Daenzer 4(-72)
Zak Deschaine 4(-75)
Ben Deschaine 3(-59)
Well thanks for readings this, I’m looking forward to states on April 28th, hopefully we will have 40+ people show up.
Andrew Gwaihir Ehret