viper-tracks-phoenix-az-4-20-01
Title: viper-tracks-phoenix-az-4-20-01
Author: Steve "BlackViper" Marshall
Date: Apr 23, 2001
So this is my last tourney before the Vegas DPC, and I need to work on my tracking - I must be PERFECT for the trip. So I read up on my articles and reconstruct my sabacc deck. I posted it on my member page if you want to see it. I made a couple changes for local meta, but it’s a nice deck. It’s not designed to win as much as it is to track. If you want the perfect suppliment to my tracking articles, build that deck and play some fun games with it. I generally track 4 cards at a time in my LS, and 9 with my DS (it’s hunt down, so I track more). Well, this sabacc deck circulates so many cards back into the deck that I’m able to track up to 14 cards at a time. Count from the bottom and from the top, and know where they are in the Force pile. That’s the key. Anyway, this isn’t a tracking article, so I’ll move along.
I went out to see Freddy Got Fingered before the tourney with a buddy of mine, and it is the ultimate utopia for any Tom Green fan. If you don’t like Tom Green, you really shouldn’t go see it. ("Get the **** out of the way!" "How many LeBarons do you see?") I loved it. I wasn’t sure if it was going to have a story, or if it was just Tom being a complete idiot like his TV show. Turns out it actually has a storyline. Who knew? So I drive Jeff home and arrive at the tourney 45 minutes late. They never start on time, so I could care less. I show up and find 7 happy faces to greet me as I enter. They decide to ditch the sealed event they were considering now that this thing is sanctioned, and we start first round pairings. Decipher’s boards haven’t changed in a few weeks, so my rating going into the tournament is still 1710. Here are my decks:
LS: HOW ABOUT A NICE GAME OF CHESS? (QMC tracking machine w/ sabacc)
DS: High Destiny Hunt Down w/out duelling
GAME 1: LS vs. Chris Shaner’s MKOS Mains (1907)
Shaner playing MKOS? Nah, couldn’t be - Outer Rim Scouts don’t have a unique leader. Turns out he plays a pair of Chevins to flip and uses mains, adding 2 to all his destinies. He asks me what I think of his idea, and I’m quietly reminded of Patrick Hug’s deck from several weeks ago... ;-)
Vader hits my Cloud City. MY CLOUD CITY! How dare he! I drop Jedi Luke and a stick and notice that he’s unarmed at the Chasm Walkway. I swing at him to drop him to the Weather Vane for all time, but I draw a pair of 1s. Okay, it takes me at least 4 turns to stack my deck. I draw a destiny 6, and Vader goes away. Luke dies to I Have You Now. I play Out Of Commission as Vader is sitting in the Lost Pile with I Have You Now and Prepared Defenses - I get Vader. SWEET! I finally find a Lando and a sabacc and start having fun at the Casino. Very appropriate before a Vegas trip, I think. I’m enjoying my Into The Ventilation Shaft / Desparate Reach combo, but he catches The Bith Shuffle & Desparate Reach, so now I only get 2 more chances to retry. After a few games, I’ve won both of his sabers (Mara and Vader), and I’m happy about it, even if it is a pair of destiny 1 cards floating through my deck. He is draining me at my system, which is the only real weak spot to this deck. I can’t stop the drain up there. He also catches Cloud City sabacc, so I’ve only got 2 more games. The Trooper Sabacc will have to tide me over, and that’s fine by me.
Palpatine visits the sanctuary of Cloud City also, so I’ve got to beat him up real good. He gets hit with a lightsaber, which is good - Shaner won’t lose Palpy if he’s not hit. Out Of Commission again, but this time there are about 10 cards in his Lost Pile. I don’t care - I get the Dark Jedi Master anyway. So much for his little I Have You Now trick - he’s out of Jedi! I have Hunted Down And Destroyed The Dark Jedi - SWEET!!! They won’t be back. He starts a pile of useless cards he can lose. I start tracking my 5 and 6 destinies for perfect sabacc and start winning games. Xizor hit the lost pile and I OOC, but I miss. Mara hits the lost pile and I OOC - I miss again. That’s okay. When we were done, he had 8 cards out of play and I did him in with damage and drain.
Unfortunately, this wasn’t the tournament game. In the actual game, I couldn’t find a Lando or sabacc all game and he beat me up and drained me out quite easily. It wasn’t very fun or interactive, so I decided not to write about it. :-)
FL by 14
0 (-14)
The Good: Playing the fun game after the horrible, horrible loss
The Bad: Having the horrible, horrible loss.
The Ugly: In the actual game, it took me 8 turns of drawing to find a sabacc (after searching for sites and all). Did I forget to add that card?
Props To Opponent: This was fun, and I made sure to return all his cards back to him. I’m going with Shaner this weekend, so I’m glad I lost to him now instead of later.
That’s not too bad. Every time I’ve played here at the Outer Rim, I’ve always gone 2-2, so I’m not really off track. Maybe I’ll have a brownie before every tournament instead of just the big ones...
GAME 2: DS vs. Robert Seymour’s WYS (1591)
After seeing the power and versatility of the myriad WYS variations, I changed my DS around a bit to counter it, especially keeping in mind DJ’s Back To The Primative version (since he won States and all). I’m confident that with a little luck on draws, I can beat the deck consistantly. As it turns out, Robert is using a couple pieces of DJ’s WYS in his own, so this might be good for me.
Now you must keep in mind, all I asked for was a LITTLE luck on draws. I guess someone upstairs didn’t hear that one important word, because Robert got the worst cards and destiny draws that I have ever seen a single player get in a single game. He drops Luke on Tatooine, but Mara comes down with her saber in hand to stop that once and for all. I hit Luke, and he draws a 0 for destiny. In his battle damage, he loses his other Jedi Luke. This is around turn 2 or 3, mind you! No Lukes, so I shouldn’t have a problem staying flipped for the rest of the game. He loses the Lars Moisture Farm and some other random stuff to my really heavy drains and Search And Destroy and Visage. I keep my Forces coming as soon as they make it to my hand, ensuring that his forces will remain few. That’s how you win - you drop heavy support early, and he’ll be struggling to keep 2 smugglers together.
Dash hit the table his first turn, and I kept clear of him. I don’t like Dash - just ask Pat about that one. Zuckuss and Thrawn dropped in front of Mirax to stop a drain, and I’m holding an Imperial Command in hand. I am careful to avoid Dash. until I find my Lateral Damage, which I never do. I let him hold Kessel, as he started Battle Plan and couldn’t hold ground. He didn’t drain me because of his own card, and my S&D, drains, and Visage eat him alive.
FW by 15
2 (+1)
The Good: Everything good that could have happened actually happened for me.
The Bad: Everything bad that could have happened actually happened for him.
The Ugly: Losing both Lukes on turn 2 and drawing the random 0 for destiny really sucked for him.
Props To Opponent: Robert is fun, but I don’t think I’ve lost to his WYS yet. Lateral Damage always wins this game for me - luck did it this time.
DJ isn’t here, so I don’t have any funny anecdotes or quotes of the day! And Girard’s not here either, so no one can call the waa-mbulance for me! BOO HOO!!!
;-)
GAME 3: LS vs. Ryan Hemre’s MKOS (1506)
Ryan wrote to me awhile ago after I posted my tracking articles telling me how wonderful they were and wanted to go to tournaments with me. That was cool. He showed up to The Outer Rim once to meet me, but I was out with a buddy and missed him. We planned on going to Tucson for a tournament once, but his family made other plans (as did most of the others that were going), so this is the first time I’ve actually met him. He tells me about the time we didn’t get to go to the tournament as planned, and I thought that I had ditched him and now he was upset. Turns out I was wrong - I’m still in the clear for now. He drops down a Mage Knight as his good luck charm.
You like my tracking, Ryan? Well, let me introduce you to my personal practice deck. I’m gonna track so many cards your head just might explode. ;-)
I got my sites out of my deck and started the tracking mayhem. We started several games of sabacc, and I managed Perfect most of the time. I swear I took nothing but characters out of his deck every time I won. On one of my Perfect hands, his draw was a pair of his rep, Pote Snikkan (sp?) and both were lost. SWEET! Jedi Luke drops down with his saber to the Desert Heart, because I knew he had the None Shall Pass in hand, and I didn’t have Ounee Ta yet. Luke was stranded, but he would have a drain of 3 so it’s not that bad. He drops down the Sail Barge with a Merc Pilot at the helm and EJP Dengar aboard along with 3 Skrillings or whatever they were. Luke hits Dengar and lives through the attrition, and I choose to lose 3 cards to battle damage instead. Aim High was started of course, and Han and Chewie, both with blasters, drop down to the desert as well. He gets thrown off of the desert, and Chewie is my only casualty. I still get 2 shots and 2 destiny if he tries to beat me up again. He would drop Den Of Thieves next turn and cancel my drain of 3, but that’s okay, I guess.
On the other planet, Lando’s GOT to be cheating because he’s getting Perfect Sabacc every time. Okay, one time I drew a pair of 6s, but Lando quietly subtracted 1 to make it all good, even though it wasn’t perfect like the others. After a couple such rounds, Lando even won the Mage Knight to use as his own good luck. His drains are inconsequential, and I’m hitting him hard with my drains and direct damage every turn, so he draws up.
FW by 16
4 (+17)
The Good: Tracking is a beast. I’m ready for DPC.
The Bad: I’m not sure which deck I’m going to bring, so it’s hard to practice.
The Ugly: My mains beat the crap out of his aliens. Losing both copies of his rep on turn 4 really sucked for him.
Props To Opponent: This was a really fun game, and he’s got a good attitude about him. That’s good.
Every LS game won, so everybody gets to play the same people again.
GAME 4: DS vs. Ryan Hemre’s Hidden Mains (1506)
This was just ugly. I get all of the 0s out of the deck turn 1, reminding me of my game with Kitani. Visage damage, he loses Tatooine. No Desparate Hour for you - now this really is your most Desparate Hour. I hit my Docking Bays hard and set up S&D early with drain-enhancing sabers and Janus, and he started hurting really early. He dropped Corran Horn and Tawss Khaa to cancel my Visage, but I dropped CHYBC the next turn to stop his drain. After my game with Mr. Kitani, I decided I didn’t like people draining on my own starships.
Captain Han and Artoo & Threepio are a Rendezvous Point and try to move away, but I point out that the Falcon doesn’t have a Hyperspeed of 12 and therefore can’t go to Carida. The Falcon tried to jump 12 parsecs - the Falcon failed.
He uses a Stone Pile and takes both Xizor and Guri. They were gonna beat up on his Executor guys! DOH! Jedi Luke drops onboard thinking he will safely flip my objective, but it turns out that the Holotheater isn’t a battleground. Good - now I’ve only got 1 jedi to worry about. He shows up in EPP form in front of Vader, and Captain Han makes the most impressive play I’ve ever seen - He’s onboard the Falcon at Rendezvous Point, and he tries to jump off into open space, make a U-turn around Dagobah using its gravitational pull, misses Tatooine (because it’s on the bottom of his lost pile), and finds Bespin (amazing because the system isn’t on the table), and lands on the Docking Bay. I point out that he can’t usually pull such a stunt, but then he loses his footing and slips off the edge of the Docking Bay into the abyss of gas below. He failed, and now Obi has to face the Dark Master alone. He’s tracked a couple cards to the top of his deck, and I call the judge! "He’s using my own articles against me - that’s got to be cheating somehow!" ;-) I kill off the old man, but I don’t remember if Vader lived or died. It didn’t really matter because I had 3 more in hand. He chases after Vader and his Master several times and keeps killing them, but along with the extra darth vader costumes, I’ve also got 2 palpatines in my hand as well. After Vader returned for the 4th time, he stole the Mage Knight to use as his own good luck (it was a different one this time). Eventually, I beat his mains up real bad. I was draining 4 to his 1 at the end, and I had more Life Force left anyway.
FW by 12
6 (+29)
The Good: DS just has better mains. Vader is a beating.
The Bad: Tatooine off the top turn 1? That’s like losing EBO or something... (props to Mike Sinclair anyway)
The Ugly: Captain Han kept trying these insane maneuvers, but he apparently sucks as a ground character and as a pilot because he never got off of Rendezvous Point.
Props To Opponent: He really is fun, and he keeps ranting and raving about me and my articles. It’s nice to know that I’ve helped so many people out with the articles, and I am truly humbled that someone likes me and my game this much.
ALL RIGHT! I WON MORE THAN 2 GAMES!!! SWEET!!!!! Maybe I’ll start watching Tom Green before tournaments... Anyway, it was fun and I think I’m mentally ready for Vegas. No, I KNOW I’m mentally ready for Vegas. No one is unbeatable - all the greats have losses to their names. I will emerge victorious. I’ve also got to turn $50 into $135 at the blackjack tables to go to CA next month for fun - I can handle that. Here are your top 5:
1st: Chris Shaner @ 8 (+49)
2nd: Jared Arthur @ 7 (+89)
3rd: Steve Marshall (me) @ 6 (+29)
4th: Shawn Dix
5th: Me Hug (what kind of a name is that?)
PROPS:
* The Outer Rim and Jared for hosting us
* Shaner for playing a fun game after beating me so bad
* Ryan for making the trip
* Garrison for choosing this night to come and play - we wouldn’t have been sanctioned without you
* Me for tracking
* Dark Jedi for kicking total butt (when they’re not out of play by turn 4, that is)
* Tom Green for being cool
SLOPS:
* Captain Han for failing at everything he tried to do
* Me for losing the first game due to bad draws - if I’m going to lose, at least make it because he outplays me!
* Me Hug for using a "unique" surmane
* Me for not knowing how to spell "surname" on the first try
* Jared for timing out instead of winning the tournament - next time!
* My mentor for placing lower than I did - you’ve really got to stop doing that
Thanks to everyone who came - it was fun! See you in Vegas. Until then,
-Steve