melbourne-22-04-01
Title: melbourne-22-04-01
Author: Luca "Luca/Tzizvvt" Costanzo
Date: Apr 27, 2001
In the week before the tournament, my friend Matt who hasn’t played for ages came over to my place and we had a few games with my decks. I tried out some random decks and it became apparent that they were both pretty solid, so I intended to take them to the tournament on the weekend (last one before states). On the Saturday I decided to swap to Mr Falke and Mr Winkelhaus’ deck to see if I could shake up the Australian tournament scene a bit.
RANDOM BIT AT THE BEGINNING (probably better to skip this):
Saturday night rolled around and I’m thinking ’better finish building decks’, but NOOO. It was the last day of the school holidays so, of course, Matt and Drew dragged me along to some random party. Anyhow, Matt and Drew got drunk pretty quickly and picked up two of the skankiest girls I’ve ever seen and I will tease them about it forever. I was thinking that I didn’t want to get drunk, so I kept safe with a few drinks and just racked up some games of pool while keeping away from the mob that wanted to push me into the (actual) pool. I eventually decided that it was time to go, so I climbed into my giant bubble and rowed myself home.
Scores for the party were:
Me 99(+A lot of IOUs from the games of pool)
Matt 65(+An inflated ego)
Drew 2(-House Keys, Bottle Opener and all sense of self respect)
(Number out the front is percentage of brain cells left) So I won the party and got a nifty plain black pair of socks for my efforts, which I wore to the tournament.
Oh yeah, and I thought I saw god, but it was just my feet.
Anyhow ... on to our regularly scheduled programming.
THE TOURNAMENT
So after that diversion, I turned up at 11 or so to the tournament, which was another one of Terry’s two-in-one tournaments. Terry has had a series of tournaments which are a sealed in the morning and then a four game open, so I was fine to enter the open. Stuart Jones turned up for the open as well and we built decks and had a few games. We both had the same light deck, which wasn’t too much of a surprise, so we wanted some practise with it.
I played it against Stuart’s Hunt Down and lost because of a combination of making one or two mistakes (forfeiting Tallon Karrde instead of Lando with Gun ... legitimate mistake), some bad luck (not getting any Lukes or Tunnel Visions) and experimenting with some changes to the deck (replacing a Beggar with a Frozen Assets and not being able to use Stuart’s force for a beatdown when I would’ve had the chance). We swapped sides and got halfway through the game when the actual tournament was about to start. Stuart decided that there were only a couple of players worth playing and he’d had a few games with me, so he didn’t enter, which was cool because we were both a few cards short of a full WYS deck but managed to scrounge one up between us :P
THE DECKS:
Light: German WYS (obviously with a few changes including a Hoth: Docking Bay because Stu and I were a bit worried about force generation and that was all I could be bothered doing).
Dark: Court.
THE GAMES:
GAME ONE Light v Donald (Endor Ops)
Donald tends to consider every move very carefully, which means that things can get slow. That said, he’s a nice enough guy to play. Donald started with Combat Response, IAO and Decree. I decided to go for a first turn Outrider to put the pressure on. Donald responded with a unique interceptor and a cannon. So much for plan A. (Side note: Stuart was watching the game and the look on his face was priceless when he saw this. Something between horror and bursting out laughing.) Donald missed with the cannon and Stuart and I mopped our brows. Outrider did its thing and Donald lost the ship and then some.
I decided to flip with Mirax and a raider to another system. I also decided to put Luke at the Pub to get in a drain seeing as Donald had Perimeter Patrol and Ephant Mon set up. It became a drain race (yeah, I know it’s not supposed to go like that). Donald only deployed all of his ships to the Endor system. I didn’t need to beat them down, seeing as I clawed a ship. Donald had to do something, so some scrubs went to Endor to drain and I beat them down with like Melas and Tallon, who slipped by Perimeter Patrol quite easily, but were too powerful to play I Have A Bad Feeling About This. I drained Donald down to two, then detached the claw and picked two fights to win.
2(+23)
The Good: Easy game.
The Bad: Easy Game.
The Ugly: Cannons are huge.
GAME TWO Dark v Michael (HB-X)
We both got off to a quick start. I grabbed Jabba the Hutt first turn and POTF’d the Audience Chamber, then pulled Mara there next turn to grab her stick. Michael was a little bit slower, but set up X-Wings at three different systems with cannons and Incom Corp very quickly. An early Monnok when Michael had about 14 cards netted NOTHING. That’s right, no doubles. I did, however, see that he had some cool jank like Houjix, Spiral, Power Pivot, EPP Obi-Wan, EPP Luke and Slight Weapons Malfunction. I wasn’t going to be taking systems any time soon. I did set up the Barge and Search and Destroy, later spreading out to a third site with POTF. The pressure was on.
Michael, meanwhile, was still setting up and draining me. Michael decided to send EPP Luke to do his dirty work, who met with a barrier. I decided, for some reason, to make Michael use the Houjix. EPP Obi also appeared and was dispatched. I kept S and D up and running after that. Michael drew up to find Rebel Fleet and I kept a very rough tab on where the three X-Wings that had become a squadron were. I waited for him to deploy Rebel Fleet before Monnoking him lost to net three X-Wings. Michael did flip and cancel some drains with Hidden Base, but I deployed Battle Order and he couldn’t really pay to drain me. I threw some ships out to retrieve some force and Michael drew up.
2(+14)
4(+37)
The Good: Seeing the best hidden base deck that I’ve seen in a while and beating it.
The Bad: It took Michael a while to find Rebel Fleet.
The Ugly: Not much. Another relatively template game.
GAME THREE Dark v John (WYS)
If I haven’t mentioned it already, John has played WYS pretty much since it came out and I have played against him pretty much since it came out. Basically, I set up my generation first turn with the Barge, Rendilli and some docking bay and lost off the top to Court. It was Reactor Terminal, which John promptly Out Of Comissioned, then drew up some cards. I Monnoked John used, then set up the AC without too much fear of a Germanesque (is that a word?) beatdown. John threw EPP Luke and EPP Han at the AC and battled. I played Projective to prevent John from drawing his last two. John cut Boelo, missed the shot and managed to OOC Boelo. I topped up my AC and drew some. John drew and I Monnoked him used, AGAIN. I was content not to make a stupid mistake, so I just drew some and passed it back.
John sent Massa Luke to beatdown at the AC. I lost guys and beat him down next turn (didn’t draw destiny that time). John sent Outrider to Kessel. I made John pay 5 for the drain and then beat down on the Outrider next turn. I eventually set up Search and Destroy. John deployed Jedi Luke and Mirax, who I killed. John was losing force again. In John’s next turn, Lando came down and was replaced with Axe Lando and Melas or something joined in. John also deployed scramble. I deployed IG with Gun, captured Lando, hit Luke and Melas with Dengar and still drew some destinies. John had pretty much nothing left to fight with.
2 (+20 something)
6(+ about 60)
The Good: All went according to plan.
The Bad: John OOC’d all my cool stuff!
The Ugly: Still drawing 3 or so battle destiny with Scramble around.
GAME FOUR Light v Stephen (Get this ... ANOTHER Endor Ops)
So much for me being worried about not having force with Mr Falke/Mr Winkelhaus’ deck! Stephen was, once again, playing a fun deck with the not-so-awful Death Star II. Watch out for him if he decides to pull out something serious at states!
Stephen didn’t do too much first turn, but I decided to put the pressure on with Skate, Mirax and a Palace Raider to the DSII. Steve decided that he needed to stop that drain of 5 (as one does) and deployed a Death Squadron Star Destroyer with a DS-61 on it. The Falcon fetched R2 and 3PO, who fetched the trippler and I picked a fight, but drew a 1 for destiny (EPP Luke), so nothing happened. A second DSSD with Evax came down to the DSII and I had to play the other Bad Feeling card :P Another battle resulted in me drawing EPP Luke again. I decided to move off and flip my objective, seeing as a missed search for a DSII sector allowed me to see that Stephen was packing beatdown. Stephen set up DSII, deployed like Guri, Hound’s Tooth, Thrawn and started chasing me around!
I finally found Luke, so I set up a drain at the pub, while playing hide and seek in space. I had my drain of two and Stephen had a lot more, so he was ahead. He beat me up in space and made me lose Falcon with R2 and 3PO! The Outrider with EPP Han got a claw and moved to block a drain. Stephen beatdown on Wedge, Mirax and Palace Raider in ships with Zuckuss and other ships, so I lost Wedge for forfeit of like two billion, but drew two fives, which made pretty interesting 0s. It got to the stage when Stephen had me down to about 15 force and one card in hand, so he decided to spread out and left a DSSD with Vader piloting alone with the Clawed Outrider. It was a fair enough decision given that I’d lost R2 and 3PO and so couldn’t search for I Have a Bad Feeling About This.
Our game had gone on for a little while and we had attracted a bit of a crowd, seeing as the tournament was on the line. I detached the clawed ship and picked a fight. I played the one card in my hand. Guess what it was? Anyhow, you know the drill. I made the DSSD power 1 and drew the two 5s that I tracked from the Zuckuss beatdown, Stephen drew a 1, which became a 2. 19-3 = 16. 16 X 3 = 48 - 8 from Vader and 9 from DSSD = 31. Game.
2(+14)
6(+The Tournament)
The Good: Umm ... geez. What’s that card? I Have a something or other? Something like that.
The Bad: Drawing Luke for destiny two or 3 times early on.
The Ugly: Did you read that last paragraph?
So I took the tournament and that was that. After the tournament, I did some trading (does anyone have Palace Raiders for trade?) and played a game against Ronnie with WYS v SYCFA mains.
#SURPRISE GAME 1
We were bored, so we swapped around objectives and did some craazy stuff. I didn’t have Squadron Assignments, so I ditched Ronnie’s YCHF to search for Aim High, which I gave him to make myself pay more to retrieve when he initiated battle with Draw Their Fire (it was really swapped around). I finally got out Falcon, but inadvertently flipped WYS, which meant that Ronnie was adding battle destiny where I had two smugglers and I wasn’t activating much from the Death Star. I used Crush to search for three I Have You Now and then Grimtaashed Ronnie for them. Ronnie saved up for a few turns and came down with Thrawn and Chimaera (for only 25 force, thanks to WYS) and beatdown on my Falcon, so I had to play Artoo, IHABFAT, which sucked. I drew low and lost off the top. Next turn, I came down with Luke as fodder and fought. Ronnie used WYS to play Artoo, IHABFAT. Next turn Ronnie initiated a battle, played Don’t Get @#$%y from my lost pile with WYS and Imperial Command (even in this craazy format it screws people over) and beatdown on Falcon. Anyhow, Ronnie payed 8 force for Barquin D’an to the DS: Docking Bay and I remind him that I’m the one not taking battle damage there, so I beatdown on Barquin D’an. We decided it was all too stupid when Ronnie saved up for a few turns then picked a fight at the pub and played Run Luke, Run to move Luke over so that he could beatdown on the scrub that was with him ...
The Good: No. No, I’m not going to be doing this ...
So after this I played a serious game against John’s Ties ’cause he wanted to see if they could beat WYS. Basically, I did everything I was supposed to. I deployed to Wakeelmui, deployed Aim High and Battle Plan then sat back and waited. John was draining me for a bit, but I had messed Arica, so I was forcing through a few from drains. Anyhow, I waited for my chance, then beatdown on ties with DTF/Beggar for 20 or so. Why did I mention this? Some guy said that WYS would lose to ties! Just wanted to back up Martin and Bastian.
And that brings us to:
Props:
Michael for bringing back the ’Wings.
John for beating Rodney twice and coming up with a non-German WYS which beat Ties.
Germans.
Monnok for screwing people over twice in each game.
Stuart Jones for lending the random stuff to me.
The socks.
Slops:
Matt and Drew for contracting too many STDs.
I think that’s enough.
Correction to my last tournament report: The winner of the tournament was, in fact, Ronnie Wilcox, not Adam Amy as previously stated. This was Ronnies first tournament win, too, so congrats to him.
Luca/Tzizvvt Costanzo