pleasanton-ca-4-7-01
Title: pleasanton-ca-4-7-01
Author: Nick "JediBrain" Stefanko
Date: Apr 8, 2001
The last tournament I had been to was the Enduro three weeks ago, so I was looking forward to playing. I hadn’t done much with my decks during that time (finals, trip to Montreal, Spring Quarter beginning), but I didn’t think that they needed much work before Tatooine comes out. So, Thursday night, I ran through my decks, made some strategy checks (so I remembered how to play with them), and prepared for the tournament. Friday afternoon, I got to my parent’s house, and Saturday morning, with my unclean brother in the passenger seat, drove up to Warmasters in Pleasanton for Steve Daniel’s April tournament. Along the way, he pulled in front of us and we had a good time flipping each other off all the way to Warmasters.
The Tournament:
My decks:
LS - All For Her - mains with insanely high destiny draws with the RTP backdrop
DS - CPI Navy v3.0 - manipulator that clears the table with Commence Primary Ignition
Game 1: LS v. Jonathan Brookner’s BHBM
At the last tournament prior to Enduro, this guy had been quietly accused of cheating, so I was watching him like a hawk. I got 8D8 to the Death Star early, but couldn’t free Leia for a few turns. He had Arica camping the Massassi War Room, Palpatine and Darth Vader at the Yavin 4 DB, and Xizor and Kir Kanos at the Death Star DB327 when 8D8 finally freed her. I deployed EPP Obi and Owen & Beru to protect Leia, and got her to the War Room battle-free. Palpatine had moved there a turn earlier, and Arica broke cover. He didn’t battle, so on the next turn I deployed Corran Horn and battled. I lost EPP Obi and Corran, he placed Arica and Palpatine out of play. 8D8 ran the Death Star Plans for 12. EPP Luke was being escorted by Vader, so I targeted him next with another EPP Obi. With Vader, Palpatine, and Mara OOP, I was feeling pretty good. 8D8 ran the Plans again after I cleared some more of his characters. He had secured some space drains, which got me worried after I mistracked for an On The Edge (called 5 since I was tracking a 6, but drew a 5 instead). Battle Plan came down, following up with Wedge RSL and Corran to wipe out his last site. The battle damage from that last battle won it.
Result: FW +34
Standing: 2(+34)
Good Things: Winning despite never finding my other 2 Prisoner 2187s after the first one was killed.
Bad Things: Mistracking.
Compliment of opponent: He played it well; securing drains early to whittle me down. Miraculously, he drew a 6 for battle destiny in just about every battle
Game 2: DS v. Philip Green’s HB mains
I got a slow start, but fortunately he didn’t get any spies early. Ephant Mon came down to the Conference Room, followed by M’iiyoom Onith, which raked Philip all game coupled with Evader & Monnok and Defensive Fire & Hutt Smooch. Ben Kenobi was out, so A Day Long Remembered was impossible. I blew away Tatooine, then Corulag, eliminating all battlegrounds, allowing Come Here You Big Coward! to work its magic. He finally infiltrated the Death Star, and like a huge, incredibly stupid scrub that doesn’t know how to stay on the victorious path, I moved my characters to challenge him. This cleared a lot of my characters, killing Ability, Ability, Ability. Fortunately for my stupid self, time was called, and I edged him out by 2 extra cards.
Result: TW +14
Standing: 3(+48)
Good Things: Winning after making mistakes.
Bad Things: Offensive battling with Navy Troopers w/o the support of Trooper Assault and Put All Sections On Alert.
Compliment of opponent: He made all the standard HB mains moves, and was doing small amounts of damage around my Undercover spies prior to CHYBC! hitting table and battlegrounds disappearing. I heard he won 2nd at the last Warmasters tournament; he’s excelling at the game, moving off the Scrub List. Good job, fellow SJ-er!
Game 3: LS v. Chris Green’s MKOS Abyssins
Finally; I play this deck vs. aliens!! I start Seeking An Audience instead of Echo Base Garrison. First turn, I pull and deploy Artoo; he responds by deploying Ephant + Mighty Jabba to the AC. Second turn, I pull A Gift, then pull and deploy Threepio, and subsequently Gift him. Chris wasn’t happy. While 8D8 went to go get Leia, Chris set up a big trap at the War Room, which I was forced to fall into (had Death Star Plans in hand, and wanted to drop it while flipped). So, after she is freed, I drop some protection, and move the crew to the War Room, flipping. Down comes EPP Fett and a horde of Abyssins in his wake. That one hurt. I dropped Lando w/ Vibro to Tatooine: Jabba’s Palace and cleaned house, and was then joined by Corran Horn. ECC Iggy and some Abyssins came down, capped Lando, and made me lose Artoo; Corran then ran to the Desert Heart. His drains increased in number, and I was running out of options. I used On The Edge on Corran for some tracked high retrieval, but his drains tore them back into the Lost Pile, followed by the rest of my Reserve.
Result: FL -17
Standing: 3(+31)
Good Things: Winning battles @ JP. I Surprise Assaulted some of his drains, and made him lose a few.
Bad Things: Walking into that trap.
Compliment of opponent: Played very well. He recovered well after A Gift came out early, and was able to focus on beating my brains out.
Game 4: DS v. John Monroe’s HB mains
I’m bummed that cheesy Abyssins worked me, and now I have to play against another HB mains deck, but this time doing worse. In my opening hand, I see 3 Death Star Gunners. It’s already bad from there. I deploy one, prepping to pull the Superlaser. Down comes Corran Horn, whom is targeted by Put All Sections On Alert, followed by Wedge RSL. He battles, I lose a few, and then send the Gunner to used to get my Superlaser. I get 2 more sites and Ephant Mon + Gunners at the middle site, and move out to blow up Alderaan. I do so, then move to Tatooine. Lando w/ Vibro and Dash invade the other Death Star site, so now I have to track high to blow up Tatooine. I do so successfully, and then dropped AAA and sat back, watching for trouble. At this point, I was down to 3 cards. His drain at Corulag for 1 every turn did me in. Time was about to be called, and I had one left, so I drew up to give John the full win.
Result: FL -5
Standing: 3(+26)
Good Things: Bringing it down so close.
Bad Things: Early on, I had lost a CPI and Evader & Monnok off the top. His hand size was huge all game, which kept M’iiyoom off his back and me hurting.
Compliment of opponent: John’s a great guy and a great player. We spend large amounts of time on around turns, plotting out our moves, and neither of us complained to the other about it. It’s always great to play against him.
Game 5: DS v. Tony Massung’s Cloud City Sabacc deck starting just the Casino.
I’m feeling bad because I’m in Scrubland. I see his start, and predict an auto-win for me. I set up 3 sites, Palpatine, M’iiyoom, Barquin D’an, and 3 Gunners, and begin to move to Bespin, which I had to draw a lot to get. He’s got ECC Lando and EPP Obi holding the Casino, while Arica was chasing EPP Luke around to block his drains at other CC sites. We played Sabacc 4 times; he won twice, we tied once, and I won Obi’s Lightsaber from him. I set up a 5, and two turns later, Bespin gets blown away. AAA came out, I moved to Hoth and blew it away w/ ADLR on it, then sent my Gunners to my Used Pile. M’iiyoom worked his hand, while Barquin retrieved my entire Lost Pile. Once I was done and sitting back, he graciously sped through, since he had no non-Cloud City or space locations and no ships whatsoever in the deck.
Result: FW +45
Standing: 5(+71)
Good Things: That’s right, I won by 45. I had the bare minimum out on table.
Bad Things: Playing a scrub and absolutely beating the holy hell out him.
Compliment of opponent: It looked like a decent deck, using Sabacc like mad, and probably did fairly well against non-CPI DS decks.
Game 6: LS v. Tony Massung’s ISB
I felt kinda bad winning with such a huge differential, and felt a little worse when we were paired up again. My opening hand was godly: 8D8, EPP Luke, Chewie Protector, and Skywalkers among it. I freed Leia quickly, and flipped fast. In the meantime, he was pulling docking bays and dropping a lot of weird ISB agents and Probe Droids, along with a Blizzard Walker (the non-unique one), at the Hoth DB. He drained there, and I Surprise Assaulted, making him lose 4. Next turn, he drained again, and I Surprise Assaulted again, this time drawing very high and making him lose 18. EPP Obi and Lando w/ Vibro battled them, knocking off a few of them. 8D8 ran the Death Star Plans, retrieving my entire Lost Pile. Prisoner, Chewie, and Luke were then chasing him all around. He decided to split his forces, and EPP Obi came back to clear one site while the rest blocked the other site, making him run. I drained him out from there.
Result: FW +43
Standing: 7(+114)
Good Things: Surprise Assaulting for big losses.
Bad Things: Playing the same scrub that I had beaten the holy hell out of and beating the holy hell out of him again.
Compliment of opponent: He did quite a bit of damage to me early with his ISB-enhanced drains, but couldn’t withstand the Surprise Assaults once I drew them.
Results:
After winning, scrubbing, and then winning big, I pulled in 5th out of 20 people. Mike Mendoza got first. I got a pack of CC (which I gave away immediately), a pack of D*II (in which I pulled a Rise, My Friend), and a Court Of The Vile Gangster. After hitting the restroom, I drove myself and my odorous brother back to my parent’s house.
Thanks for reading!