dpc-vegas-out-of-cake
Title: dpc-vegas-out-of-cake
Author: Jonathan "jonnychu" Chu
Date: Apr 30, 2001
--------Long Pre-tourney stuff:
It all starts with DPC Normal. I had finished sixth and was disappointed -- top four was so enticing, and so close. Anyway I was determined to do better at the next.
So I’m talking to Clint Hays, and he is still keen on going to the next one, although Steve Lewis and Jim Sells, who he usually travels with, probably won’t. Turns out they won’t for sure and Clint wants to, but doesn’t think he’ll have the funds so he backs out, leaving me to fly solo out of Nashville. I get an email from Scott Anderson, who is quite possibly the coolest guy I know. We work out something so I’ll be stayin with him at the NY, NY Hotel, lodgings are set, and I get my ticket. Aaron Kingery from Albany is also pretty excited to go, but he, along with TJ and Praskac, can’t make it at the last minute, so the east coast is sorely underrepresented.
Anyways for decks I wanted stuff that fit two criteria: not to be WYS, and not to be Hidden Base. Maybe that limited my options, but oh well. The only thing I could think of that could take on Scum, Hunt Down, TIEs, and anything else or at least have a partial margin of success was the tried and true Throne Room mains. So there it was. For DS, Hunt Down Hoostino-style looked real good, so I tweaked it out a little to fit my style and my deck was set.
Since both these decks are unoriginal and rather uncreative, I won’t post them as separate decks but will include them here, with limited commentary:
Dark: Hunt Down beats
Objective (1)
Hunt Down
Locations (6)
Executor: Docking Bay
Executor: Meditation Chamber
Executor: Holotheatre
Rendili
Death Star: Docking Bay
Cloud City: Docking Bay
Characters (18)
Lord Vader x3
Darth Vader, DLOTS x2
Emperor Palpatine
Grand Moff Tarkin x2
Janus Greejatus
Lieutenant Cabbel
General Veers
Admiral Ozzel
Admiral Chiraneau
Grand Admiral Thrawn
Mara Jade
Arica
Prince Xizor
Guri
Starships (4)
Chimaera x2
Zuckuss in Mist Hunter
Bossk in Hound’s Tooth
Weapons (3)
Vader’s Lightsaber x2
Mara Jade’s Lightsaber
Effects (11)
Crush the Rebellion (start)
Imperial Arrest Order (start)
Mobilization Points (start)
Secret Plans
No Escape
Search And Destroy
First Strike
Visage Of The Emperor x3
Lateral Damage
Interrupts (15)
Imperial Command x3
Twi’lek Adviser x2
Prepared Defenses
I Have You Now
Evader/Monnok
Masterful Move
Holonet Transmission
This Is Some Rescue
You Are Beaten
Weapon Levitation
Trample
Sniper/Dark Strike
Vehicles (2)
Blizzard 2
Tempest 1
Comments: Rendili was supposed to be Carida (so a Lat Damaged Pulsar or Outrider at Tatooine wouldn’t be able to move there) but I forgot to change it... This Is Some Rescue over a second Holonet because of the destiny... the Walker/Trample package because Fallen Portal is nasty and Trample/Janus is a great anti-spy package and can help against the Bastian/Falke one-turn beats. What I like most about this deck is the built-in force choke and the early damage; against WYS you end up choking LS more than he chokes you, if you sit on his docking bays and deny him force activation.
Light Side: Y4 Mains
Locations (11)
Kessel
Spaceport: Docking Bay
Cloud City: Docking Bay
Home One: Docking Bay
Home One: War Room
Hoth: Echo Base Command Center War Room
Yavin 4: Massassi Throne Room
Yavin 4: Massassi Headquarters
Rendezvous Point
Dagobah: Yoda’s Hut
Endor: Chief Chirpa’s Hut
Characters (18)
Luke Skywalker, Jedi Knight x3
Obiwan with Lightsaber x3
Han with Heavy Blaster x2
Leia with Sporting Rifle
Chewie, Protector
Mirax Terrik
Lando with Vibro Axe
Melas
Tawss Khaa
Orrimaarko
Lieutenant Blount
Wedge, Red Squadron Leader
Corran Horn
Weapons (2)
Anakin’s Lightsaber
Luke’s Lightsaber
Ships (3)
Millennium Falcon
Home One
Tantive IV
Effects (10)
Ounee Ta
Insurrection (start)
Staging Areas (start)
Your Insights Serve You Well (start)
Aim High (start vs Scum)
Battle Plan
Order To Engage
Honor Of The Jedi
Draw Their Fire
I Hope She’s Allright
Interrupts (16)
Heading For The Medical Frigate
The Signal
Bith Shuffle/Desperate Reach x2
Out Of Commission
Out Of Commission/Transmission Terminated
On The Edge
Off The Edge
Fallen Portal x2
Clash Of Sabers
Weapon Levitation
Sorry About The Mess/Blaster Proficiency
Shocking Information/Grimtaash
Throw Me Another Charge
Rebel Barrier
Comments: Lots of choice cards here. Grimtaash and I Hope for TIEs, Clash and Ounee Ta for Scum, standard OOC for no good reason. DTF for retrieval with On/Off the Edge, Kessel for Hunt Down late game, Blount over Tycho for the ISB advantage, good high destinies. I like it because if you draw one or two 2/0’s early you get rolling. I like it over Hidden Mains because if you can get one 2/0 or so in your opening hand, which happens quite often, it’s like having an objective that says "start with 5 force, while giving your opponent none" since you get to go first. And the mental advantage if that happens can be considerable.
So the day before I leave (Thursday), I go over to the Jim Sells residence to playtest. We’re playing and Steve Lewis, who I haven’t seen in ages, comes over. So before I know it we’re off packing in a tech-ed out purple Chevy from the 60’s to somewhere in Middle Tennessee to pick up a waterbed. That’s all I knew.
We get to Steve’s uncle’s house and go into their bedroom to help move the waterbed, only to find it still full of about 2 tons of water, with only a hose attached to the little waterplug thing and the other end in a bathtub. At that rate it would take about 200 years to drain. So being the mental wizards we are, we roll the blob of a mattress onto the floor toward the tub. It’s a battle all the way to the finish and here are three grown men and an Asian prodding this purple lumpy waterbed 10 feet, and it’s winning. We finally get it into the tub, outmaneuver the bastard so the plug is down in the basin, and squeeze out the water. The whole process takes about an hour and a half, but we proved victorious, and I felt incredibly teched out for the tourney. If I could accomplish this, what couldn’t I handle?
Friday rolls around and I fly off west. At Vegas I meet Scott Anderson in the airport and we grab a rental car and drive the short distance to the NY,NY, which is just too awesome. Our room is about a mile from the elevator, the farthest room possible -- what do you expect for the cheapest room in the house? But we got down to playtesting, and both decks were doing well.
A little before eleven we run back to the airport to pick up Scott’s friend Dwayne, an old roommate of his from school who just wanted to come hang in Vegas. On the way back, we encountered something that quite possibly changed my life forever.
--------The Brownie?
Quite simply, we saw the God Denny’s, king of all Denny’s. Like everything else in Vegas, the sign was plastered in lights, but hell, I’ve never seen a Denny’s surrounded by a halo. It must be a premonition.
So in we went for the ultimate advantage: the Brownie.
The three of us went in (Dwayne was really confused) and without hesitation, we proceeded with the operation: "We want three of these."
To our complete dismay and horror, the waitress replied: "Sorry, but we’re all out of cake."
OUT OF CAKE??? My jaw dropped and all hell broke loose. In the Denny’s from Heaven, prepared to receive the tech, we instead got the big shaft. So I had to settle for a grasshopper, which proceeded to give me the cramps all night, and of course it didn’t do at all for me what the Brownie, aka the Real Deal, would have. This was proven the following day.
--------The Tourney
72 (or so) people showed up for the second DPC. From the east, I only saw David Irvine and Scott Anderson representing. There were people from all over the west, though, from a lot of different states (and Canada too). Notables included Paul Feldman, James Lafferty, Brian Hunter, Kyle Craft, and Clayton Atkin, among many others.
Absent were John Arendt and Kevin Shannon, both of whom I hoped would show up. The tourney got rolling around half past ten.
Game One: LS vs Jason Makohon (1876)’s ISB
I was a little worried about this -- I had seen so many different ISB variants I wasn’t sure what to expect. He started IAO and Mob Points and got out some docking bays quick, so I expected the trooper variant with Suba. Luckily I got a good hand and early on got four or five 2/0’s out for some crazy activation. He flipped with some eclectic 2/2 ISB guys and put them on the Death Star: Docking Bay in Blizzard 2. I sent Blount and Melas on the Tantive to Coruscant to reflip. I slowly whittled down his ground forces with my enormous activation advantage, retrieved some with my Edges, got my sabers out to up my drains and set up destinies to make him lose guys in every battle. There wasn’t much he could do with me capable of activating my entire pile every turn -- I had complete control of my destinies.
FW 2 +27
The Good: Y4 with a good jump is a machine. Jason was fun to play against and was a smart opponent.
The Bad: He was fishing for ships early on to kill Blount but couldn’t find any... nor could he get a Vader. Without either, it was tough to hang.
Game Two: HD vs Patrick Garcia (1835)’s WYS
Again I got a good jump and was able to deploy DLOTS with saber relatively early to Tatooine, sitting on his docking bay and not the Cantina for his force. He needed to flip to limit my horrendous activation at DB’s and the Executor sites, so Melas went to the Cantina and Mirax/Pulsar went to the system. Mara Jade and saber came down next turn, clearing out the Cantina and stayin alive, causing some overflow. He killed Visage early but No Escape brought it back and it hit him for a whole lot. Massive drains and Visage took him past the point of no return and soon he ran out of cards.
FW 2 +21
Cumulative: 4 +48
The Good: Great opening hand, No Escape was good for me and so were my destinies. Playing against a cool opponent.
The Bad: none really.
Hunter lost his 2nd game, I think to Chris Shaner, which was surprising.
Game Three: HD vs Casey Barson (1864)’s WYS Bastian-Style
I was afraid of this matchup since there’s little I can do to avoid the one-turn beatdown except stay on my sites (for Crush and so he can’t do the adjacent-site Run Luke Run stuff) and deploy smart in space. My hand was decent and Vader came down within the first three turns, but he reflipped Hunt Down (and kept doing so throughout the game) with an EPP Luke in the Cantina. Mara came down to clear him out and reflip me; I wanted to kill all his Lukes so I could come to his sites with less fear. I saw a bunch of good cards go to Visage and my drains, including the Triple Bad feeling card, some ships, and an EPP Han. Battle Plan was slowing me down, but I think at this point I was up.
EPP Luke came down again in the Cantina, and he left one force. I activated a whole bunch and took a gamble by deploying Xizor there, hoping he wouldn’t barrier hoping he would save it for something I could deploy with my 10 remaining force. But he stopped Xizor in his tracks, and I (made a mistake?) deployed Guri as support.
He came down with EPP Han and thought for a second. His power was nine to my eleven and he knew, as did I, his triple-damage card was sitting at the bottom of his pile. He wasn’t flipped but could have by deploying Wedge to the adjacent site. He was weighing the odds and joking about it, but ultimately he decided not to do it and instead put down Wedge in the Cantina and battled. Turns out he hit Guri with Luke’s saber and killed her with a Blaster Profiency, hit Xizor with Han, and drew a combined 5 for destiny to my 4. So I had a bunch of overflow that could’ve been much, much worse.
The rest of the game consisted of me killing Luke with Veers, Tarkin and an Imperial Command to clear the site and Visage damage, combined with Thrawn making an appearance in space to chase away Theron Nett at Kessel. We played around with Draw Their Fire but neither of us could abuse it so eventually he ran out before I did.
FW 2 +10
Cumulative: 6 +58
The Good: I came away with a win that shouldn’t have been. Playing a third fun game against a great opponent who was a blast to play against.
The Bad: playing like an idiot and expecting the beatdown, but not caring about it anyway. I was lucky with this one.
Game Four: LS vs Tim Guzman (1901)’s Court beats
I knew of Tim before, had heard a lot of good things about him, but had never met him and was excited to play. My opening hand was the best hand I had ever drawn: 3 2/0’s, an Obiwan EPP and a few other guys. I activated my 4, grabbed Home One Docking Bay and noticed another 2/0 in my force pile. So down went my sites and I drew up some more guys and the location, taking the Court damage. He came down with Mighty Jabba and I cleaned him out the next turn.
He took some small damage from Court and DTF (or First Strike, I forget) before the one big battle of the game: he had EPP Vader, EPP Boba, EJP Dengar, ECC IG-88, Mara with Stick, and 4-Lom EJP at my Spaceport DB facing off against Lando with Axe, Obiwan EPP, Chewie Protector and Orrimaarko. 4-Lom’s gametext got cancelled, Fallen Portal took out Dengar, Mara’s stick got Weapon Lev’ed, Vader traded hits with Obi-Wan, and we each lost a guy to attrition. Next turn I came down with my second wave of guys and cleared him off the planet. He took some more Court damage and we had a few brief skirmishes in space, but that was that -- I retrieved a bunch to up the differential. There was really little he could do when I was outactivating him by almost double digits early on, but he played a good game.
FW: 2 +30
Cumulative: 8 +88
The Good: Everything; being able to set up all my destinies and getting everything I needed because of my ungodly activation.
The Bad: nothing for me..
So by now there were only five or so undefeateds, including Canadians Alan Sagan and AJ Delisle and Kyle Craft (I forget the other[s]). I got squared off against Alan on Table one.
Game Five: LS vs Alan Sagan (2025)’s ISB Scum
I drew my hand and it was OK: I got off to a decent start with a 2/0 and then a few more by turn 4. Wedge hit the Home One docking bay for some increased activation, and eventually Jedi Luke found his saber and landed on Coruscant: Spaceport DB.
Alan, on the other hand, couldn’t find a single site until turn 6 or so. I got to verify his deck and saw a whole bunch of Jabba’s Palace sites, a Tatooine, and a slew of ORS’s. Many, many gray cards. When he drew up to about 16 or 18 cards, I hit him for a Grimtaash lost, hoping to kill off ORS’s and None Shall Passes, but to my dismay I only got a pair of scouts.
So he took drains of 2 for a long time before setting up all his sites in one turn and the planet; Chall, SE Jabba, Ephant, Boba EPP and Dr. Evazan/Ponda came down for beans, along with Scum, escorted by enough ORS’s to flip the objective. But I had seen only one None Shall Pass in his hand and was activating over 20 force by now. So he had to pick, and I knew it would be tough, so first came EPP Leia, who got through; Chewie did as well, and Han got the None Shall Pass. Tawss and some more scrubs came down to soak up the hit, and between tracked destinies, Clash, and luck making him draw a 0 to keep all my guys alive, I took out nearly half his crew. Jabba also got OOC’d so he would never be seen again.
He spread out the turn after, setting up Occupation in space and leaving all but Boba, who was clashed, in the chamber. I couldn’t find my Order To Engage, but it really didn’t matter. Blount reflipped him and I tried to clear him off the system, but I really didn’t know what I was doing and Lateral Damage hit me for about 10 cards. I should’ve spread out on the ground to stop his drains and limit occupation, taking advantage of Fallen Portal at JP, but I didn’t and opted to take the puss method by safely draining for 2 with JK Luke and 3 at the Audience Chamber. I retrieved about 9 cards with my Edges and drained him out.
FW: 2 +13
Cumulative: 10 +101
The Good: Him not drawing sites! It would’ve been a pain to bust into Jabba’s Palace once he was all set up...
The Bad: Not getting Ounee Ta, not drawing as a good a hand as before. But I’m certainly not complaining!
Only three undefeateds were left now: myself, AJ, and Kyle. Kyle had a timed win so he was a notch under, but his differential was insane.
Game Six: DS vs Arian Delisle (1912)’s wacky Canadian deck
His deck was indeed just that: he started MWYHL and Signalled for Yarna. I was fearing some crazy Canadian machine and was happy to see DLOTS in my opening hand. So I got flipped first turn; Visage got killed by an OOC/TT, but next turn I Twi’leked for No Escape and got it back to hit him some more. He set up Yoda at the hut and Dagobah: swamp, but he wasn’t activating nearly as much as I was. Momaw made a brief appearance in the Holotheatre, knocking out Visage but then going undercover; Prince Xizor came down next turn to keep him in the shadows as Visage got turned back on. Mara Jade with her Saber took over the Cloud City: Docking Bay, backed up by old-school Cabbel and Admiral Ozzel; Vader got his saber out and Tarkin covered his back. Search and Destroy then got set up.
I saw a bunch of spies fly off the top, along with Xwings and red support cards as he was losing 4 to drains and 4 to Visage/S&D every combined turn. He got out a few Xwings to Kiffex, and I didn’t challenge him there in case he lock S-foils and beat me down; Kessel flew off the top, along with Coruscant. Late-game he came down to Kessel and then Grand Admiral Thrawn in his ship and Zuckuss decided to take it over. There wasn’t much he could do; he never drew Boussh, or TK, or any other guys so ground was unchallenged the entire game.
FW: 2 +21
Cumulative: 12 +122
The Good: My deck was the antithesis of his.
The Bad: Nothing!
So Kyle won his last game; I believe at this point Hunter lost his second, to DJ Andrews. There was some controversy over it, as time was called; apparently there was an insert in his deck that may have popped, or something, but the piles got mixed up and DJ demanded a full win (and got it). Something like that. Anyways it didn’t affect my next game, which was
Game Seven: DS vs Kyle Craft (2153)’s WYS
Another WYS! He started the Lewis WYS start so I was fearing the raider beat-down. My Hunt Down struggled in playtesting sometimes against the Lewis deck; it really depended on the draw.
Well in this game, the draw was everything. I got No Escape, Lord Vader, his saber, and Mara in my opening hand; what luck. So Executor DB came down, Lord Vader transitted over with his saber to Tatooine: DB to flip. I held back Rendili and my docking bays to deny him force. He came down with Wedge Antilles at the Home One Docking bay to get generating; Transmission made short work of Visage, but again No Escape brought it back. Mara crushed Wedge (but she couldn’t find her saber) to give me 2 more force generation at his docking bay. The game was all downhill from here. A raider and Chewie ECC made a stint to challenge Lord Vader, but Chewie got YAB’d and the Raider was smushed under the boot of the dark lord. It was a dark time for the Rebellion.
FW: 2 +28
Cumulative: 14 +150
So I was in for sure, win or lose, and in first place, as he had the timed win so even if he won his next game, I would still be the only full 7-1. Nice position to be in. :)
I got squared off against Kyle once again for the last game.
Game Eight: LS vs Kyle Craft (2153)’s Agents
For everything I did in the game before that just schooled him, he came back against me and outdid it. I got absolutely hammered. I didn’t get out my 2/0’s until about turn 4, and his deck was just absolutely outactivating me. Turn 2 found Xizor and Palpatine sitting at his Coruscant DB with a Presence; I had to spend a turn to deploy Jedi Luke to a generic docking bay to keep him from manipulating and direct-damaging me. He slapped down a bunch of guys with guns and sensed a Portal, a Sorry About The Mess, and every other red card I proceeded to play the rest of the game. All I did was run around avoiding his guys and pinging him for maybe 5 the entire game (his lost pile was miniscule) and eventually he trapped me and killed Luke with a Hidden Weapons, beating the hell out of the remaining Obi-Wan. He only won by 21, his smallest victory with the deck for the day, but because he couldn’t find his Broken Concentration to throw the 20 other cards in his hand back. It was a darker time for the Rebellion.
FL: 0 -21
Final score: 14 +129
The Good: I’m in! I’m in!
The Bad: The severe beating of an Asian.
So the final four:
Me
Kyle Craft
Chris Shaner
Brian Hunter
So the playoff for me would be against Brian Hunter, who I was anxious to play. I got the choice of decks; the matchup would either be Hunt Down vs Hidden Mains, or my Y4 vs his infamous ISB space.
I didn’t want to do Hunt Down because the prospect of losing to my own Visage for a good portion of the game while he got his lost cards back with Edges didn’t seem to appealing. Of course, now I would have loved to try the matchup, but no dice. I called Y4 after some hesitation and hoped to get a good draw. In playtesting against Clint and Scott Anderson the deck had performed admirably when the draw went my way; I found that since his deck was slow, if I could get a fast start my destinies would be more or less set up by the time he could manage a strong ground force and I should be able to clear his site. Also I had more goofy red cards like Clash and Weapon Lev, so I had the battle-card advantage.
In the game, quite the opposite happened. My opening hand consisted of Home One Docking Bay, 5 red cards including Ounee Ta and two Out Of Commissions, an EPP Obi, and a Melas. Not a lot to work with. Worse, I didn’t activate a 2/0 for the next two turns. So as he was getting set up with Piett, Merrejk and systems, I couldn’t even activate a decent amount until I put down my first twix site turn 5. By then he had the Executor out at Fondor and soon the big drains commenced. I made a brief challenge against Blizzard 2, Merrejk and Piett piloting at Endor Docking Bay with Jedi luke and EPP Han, and drew good destinies to kill both his guys, but next turn Lord Vader with saber came down, along with some 2/2 guy in the Walker, and Battle Deployment to limit my destinies. I didn’t barrier Vader for some funny reason and from then on it was game. I couldn’t muster up enough offense on the ground; I couldn’t find a saber, or 2/0’s until it was too late to matter; Blount never made an appearance; I also forgot about the crazy Docking Bay transit cost to Endor. So I couldn’t even give Hunter a good game. He controlled the board and while Kyle just beat the hell out of me in game eight, Hunter choked my life away like his deck is supposed to.
I was beat and left, but everyone knows the result: Hunter over Shaner in the finals. The next morning, I caught a 6 am flight out to return to Nashville for a late afternoon final.
Overall the event was great! I had no complaints at all. The location was good, it was great to meet all the west-coast people I didn’t know (everyone), and the city was awesome. Count me in for any other events in Vegas. I just wish I could’ve stayed a couple extra days.
Props (in no particular order)
-Scott Anderson for hooking me up with his room, getting that Visine (it really helped) for my messed-up eye, and being the damn coolest guy I know
-Girard and all the guys who ran the tournament; they did a fantastic job
-the UNLV cafeteria for having decent school food
-Alan Sagan, for playing a great game despite the worst start I have ever seen
-AJ for being funny as hell and for playing such a goofy LS deck
-all my other opponents for the games
-Albany guys for their input on Hunt Down and Y4
-DPC crew for organizing the event
-Steve and Jim for beating the hell outta that waterbed
-all the west coasters I got the chance to talk to throughout the day for being open and friendly.
Slops
-all the people who wanted to come but didn’t for reasons other than financial and real conflicts
-the Denny’s, which was the worst experience of my life
-the Grasshopper, which gave me the cramps all night
-my eye which was tearing up all day long... I dunno what the hell was wrong with it.
-the goofy purple truck with the stick shift that jammed up against my pants, and the waterbed for nearly beating the hell outta us
Thanks for reading, and if you’re going to RamapoCon III, June 7-10 [plug], see you there!
Jonny Chu