ithor-national-04-28-01
Title: ithor-national-04-28-01
Author: Fernando "Garion" Medalón
Date: Apr 29, 2001
Yesterday we played in Madrid (Ithor) our National Championship Tournament. This was my third National, though I have been to many other minor tournaments all the previous year, so I arrived at Madrid with a really high morale and prepared to win. I live in Zaragoza, which is 360 km from Madrid, so the Zaragoza´s team (Pedro Guzman, Jose Pedro Sanchez and me) went out at 6:30 a.m. so we can arrived at 10 at Madrid.
The tournament started at 11:30 but it was soppoused to do at 10:30 (so we woke up so early for nothing, sic).
I went to the tourny with my two latest decks, my LS deck was a HB with red pilots and their ships and Mirax and Dash for retrival with Kessel Runs and Luke JN, DOS and Corran Horn for ground beatdowns and drain if possible; my DS deck was a SYCFA with Star Destroyers, IAO and Staging Areas for early high activation, Imperial Command + Admiral Piett + Commander Merejk for taking out the systems and Admiral Chiranau for winning the drain race.
FIRST GAME: Vs. Eduardo Gonzalez (LS)
He played a Local Uprising in Endor with strike planning for force choke and farm as strating location. I played the Imperial command + Admiral Piett + Merrejk (to hand); I drew Kashyyk in my starting hand so I deployed it and I search for a Docking bay (Coruscant) and a D* site, I deployed Piett at D* db and draw.
He started sarching for a <> site and the Endor db and draw. At the end of his turn I played an Imp Command for Chiranau.
In my second turn I deployed Merrejk to D*, deployed Fondor from reserve deck and search for Executor, deployed it at Fondor (for 7 force) and Chiranau (with We Are In Attack Possition Now on table) and Ozzel. I drew the rest and I passed the turn.
Edardo searched for Gen Madine and Corporal Midge and deployed both to Endor db, draw and passed the turn.
So I started my third turn activating 16 force and draining 2 at Fondor so I started deploying Sullust and my fleet of star destroyers with admirals and I finnaly win the drain race, even as Eduard tryed to invade the D*, but with Choke Vader, Tarkin, The Emperor and the help of Put All Sections In Alert (cool card to deffend D*) I threw him out.
FW: 2 +7
SECOND GAME: Vs. Eduardo Gonzalez (again!?)
Ok, this time he played a Court deck.
He started deploying Jabba and another unique alien, deploy a db with IAO, draw and passed the turn.
I started searching for Endor, Gen Lando and Gold Squad 1 and deployed them to endor, deploy Tatooine (I drew it in my starting hand), draw and pass the turn to Eduardo.
Eduardo started deploying locations and unique pwerfull aliens, but by my second turn I deployed Luke JN with saber to Tatooine and in the 3 turn DOS with blaster rifle (if hit by Leia target is LOST!) and control enough locations to win the drain race.
With Luke and Leia on table (in Tatooine db so I can use Insertion planning and Fallen Portal) I didn´t loose force from the objective but in my first two turns, and controling Kessel, Coruscant and Rahital with red 8 and its pilot (for a drain of 2 there) I win again the drain race.
FW: 4 +13 Wow! last year I didn´t win my two first games. I was doing a good work this one.
THIRD GAME: Vs Pablo Tobias (Light)
Pablo was playing a WYS deck as his LS deck, so I was quite prepared against him as I played a lot against this deck in Zaragoza.
I started with my normal tech of Imp Command for Piett for Merrejk and deployng a db and a D* site.
Pablo deployed Luke to the cantina for a early drain of two, deployed Kessel from reserve deck and passed.
So I was activating hugh force in my second turn so I started to deploy my fleet (very carefully) and draining.
In my fourth turn I invade Tatooine with Choke Vader, Tarkin and The Emperor, Pablo made a cool beatdown deployng Luke (I killed him in my third turn), Han w/ gun and Chewie with rifle; he start the battle, so I choke Chewie with Vader (destiny 4 and Chewie is lost), Han fires his gun to Tarkin and miss so we draw destinys, Pablo draw the first of his two destinys and is a zero, what a bad luck, I don´t cancel it with Tarkin and I draw mine, 6! cool destiny, Pablo draw his second one and it was: A ZERO AGAIN!; cool for me bad for him. This was the most important battle of the hole game and he loose because a really bad luck.
FW: 6 +22 It was 3:00 p.m. and we went to eat with a good possition for me (I was fourth by the time).
We started the second part of the tournament at 4:00 p.m and can you imagine who I played with? That´s it again against Pablo Tobias. This is starting to be really annoying.
FOURTH GAME: Vs Pablo Tobias (this time DS)
Poor Pablo, I killed him in 6 turns as I flip my HB in my third turn (I started with Tatooine and Raithal in hand).
He was playing a quite solid Agents Of The Black Sun, but I still think is a very weak deck and he lost the game for 19 force.
He started deploying Emperor Palpatine and a docking bay (Tatooine db) and moving both to Tatooine.
In my first turn I deployed Endor from deck and Tatooine and Raithal from hand so in my second turn I was activating 10 force (cool for HB decks) and I made a beatdown to Tatooine with Luke JN with saber and Insertion Planning in hand so I beat Palpy with the saber and draw a destiny of 5, he draw a destiny 4 which I reduce by 3 so total destiny for Pablo was 1; Me: total power 13, inmune to attrition <7 and destiny of 5, Pablo: total power 10, and destiny 1 so I killed both Palpy and Xizor.
From thiat point I easly kill him with my high drains and retriving with a Kessel Run using Mirax as the smuggler making the Run from Raithal.
Easy game to win.
FW: 8 +41 Good for me and I was second in the game, cool.
But then I played (again my two last games, what a @#$%! against the same guy) with the first place guy at the end of the tournament, Miguel Angel Perez.
FIFTH AND FINAL GAMES (I loose both of them but I learnd a lot).
Miguel was playing a cool WYS deck, really very solid and with lot of battle damage (I Have A Bad Feeling About This) and a SYCFA nearly the same as mine but with Mara and both Mara´s and Vader´s sabers for good drains at sites.
I tried to play the better I could but he win me in both games quite easly.
The best thing of playing against a cool player like Miguel is that you learn a lot about how you must play your own decks and it´s weak points, but not only this, you also learn how other people fight your decks an how they play their own ones, and that is also very important in order to know how do you must kill them and what to add or take out from your decks and strategy.
That´s why I am thankfull to Pablo, bacause is when you loose when you learn the most, but I also tell him that I will surely kick his a$$ next time.
Game 5: FL: 8 +35
Game 6: FL: 8 +28
So finally I went eighth from a total of 40 players in the Ithor National, and I feel I did a really cool work for my second big tournament. The most interesting part is that I´ve learn a lot about how people play out Zaragoza and how to defet them, and that´s really important for a player.
THE BEST: my eighth place and I now know a lot of more frinds in Madrid, Barcelona, Vigo, Sevilla, etc.
THE WORST: my to frinds from Zaragoza didn´t do a very good work because of bad luck. Pedro Guzman finished 15 with 6 +12(not a bad place) and Jose Pedro finished 28 with 4 -17 (I know he can do really better as he is a good player).
And playing my 6 games against the same three players, that´s not very fun.
I hope next time we all do better than in this tournament, but I am really happy because last year I went in place 21 out of 43 so this time I did it quite better.
Thanks for reading and rating it, I hope it was interesting.