vegas-done-right-aka-jesus-in-sin-city
Title: vegas-done-right-aka-jesus-in-sin-city
Author: Brian "HuntaWarya" Hunter
Date: May 5, 2001
Warning: This may be the second-longest tournament report you have EVER read. get a cushion for your chair. :)
Well, in the last couple of local tournaments before the DPC, I had been trying out a new dark deck (new for me, anyway) That being the tie interceptor swarm deck based off SYCFA. I didn’t post tournament reports for either of those tournaments, so that nobody would know the tie swarm was comin’. While using the ties, I stuck with Hidden Mains in those two locals. Both decks went 3-0 both times. So the tie deck gets off to a 6-0 start, and the Hidden Mains deck gets up to an overall record of 31-1. But they weren’t easy wins, because the competition at locals around here is getting pretty nasty. In the last local I went to before Vegas, my immunity to players rated <1800 was only good in one game. All 5 of my other opponent’s were rated 1800+. So anyway, I have decided to use the ties in the warmup tourney, along with Wys with palace raiders and harvests. For the Dpc, I figured I would use R. Rex ISB and the Hidden Mains.
On the Monday before the DPC, I get a pretty bad sore throat, but I’m not really too worried about it. Chris Fanchi (who is planning on travelling with Van, Cory, and myself to the DPC) comes over to playtest, and we concentrate primarily on the WYS beatdown deck. We pass the deck back and forth, trying it against a good variety of dark decks, and can’t find ANYTHING this deck can win against. So I decide I need to make ZERO changes to my dark decks in order to defend against the German Beatdown, because the deck just totally falls on its face.
On Tuesday, I add in sneezing and a runny nose to go with my sore throat. nice. Tuesday night I cannot get to sleep at all.
On Wednesday, I tack on coughing, nasal congestion and a mild fever. Wednesday night I sleep 1 hour.
When I awake on Thursday morning, I have lost my voice and can only whisper. The fever is raging out of control, and I develop a pretty nasty headache. Van decides he can’t go to Vegas after all, so all plans to go to the DPC get flipped upside-down. I consider just making the trip with Chris and Cory. But I don’t have cory’s number. Turns out, nobody does. We were just relying on him calling Van, which never happens. So now it’s just me and Chris. I talk to Tim McKnight, who is supposedly driving down with Josiah and Kyle, so they have room for one more. so I sign up for that spot and chris doesn’t know what he’s gonna do. thursday night, Tim decides he can fit Chris in the car too, so all 5 of us can go together. I send Chris a dmail telling him to call me in the morning if he wants to go. thursday night I sleep 4 hours.
Friday morning I still have no voice. Since Chris hasn’t called, I try calling over to his place, but he apparently hasn’t woken up yet. So Tim, Kyle, and Josiah arrive at my place and we head off for Vegas without Chris. Before going out to the car, I pop a handful of antihistamines/decongestants and wash it down with the remaining contents of my bottle of NyQuil. These 3 guys have brought enough CDs with them to sink a ship, so we’re not lacking for music during the drive. We listen to everything from Ac/Dc to Korn to the Dave Matthews Band to Bon Jovi to 311. When it’s my turn to pick CDs, I mix in some Smashing Pumpkins and Gravity Kills. We end up listening to a lot of the Offspring, Eminem, and Blink 182, but hey, they’re just kids, they don’t know any better. ;) In fact, of the 4 of us, I’m the only one old enough to drink/gamble in Vegas, but I can already tell that I won’t be healthy enough for it. Midway through the drive to Vegas, my voice starts to come back a little. It sounds awful, but at least it is more audible than my whispers. Josiah had a morning class, so we end up leaving later than anticipated. It becomes clear that there is no hope of getting to vegas in time for the warmup tournament. This means my tie deck is still an unknown factor, so I’m considering using it in the DPC along with hidden mains instead of the much anticipated ISB deck. But I decide to wait until I see some of what’s popular in the warmup tourney. Either way, I don’t think I want to use the WYS deck in the big event, because nothing will be more heavily prepared for than that objective.
We arrive in Las Vegas, and drop off Josiah with his "buddies", who he will be spending the weekend with while the other 3 of us play in the DPC. We then head over to Awesome Hobbies, site of the warm up tourney. when we get there, game 3 is underway. It is a 4 game tournament, so by watching games 3 and 4, we will be able to see every deck in the tournament. In Game 3, I watch Clayton’s Ralltiir Ops deck go down to Casey Barson’s Asteroid Sanctuary. In Game 4, I settle in to watch the top 2 games. Dan Christy uses his MKOS Abyssin swarm against Ohmy’s AITC Viet Cong deck, while Alfred Dong uses MKOS swarm against Brandon Gravo’s WYS Beatdown deck. Ohmy uses Bo Shuda/Order to Engage for a boring win over Dan, but the other game is much more interesting. No bargain + none shall pass makes it very difficult for the German Beatdown deck to work it’s way into the palace, so I figure Alfred has an edge in this match. I watch almost the entire game. Alfred makes only one major play mistake, Brandon makes a good 4 or 5. But despite a good deck matchup and superior play, The Brahma Bull is unable to pull out the win. So Brandon finishes atop the 4-0 players and wins the warmup, meaning he gets free entry into the DPC itself. while I’m watching the warmup tournament, I start bleeding from my nose. Friday had been the first day since Monday that I had actually not added a new symptom to my illness. But now I had one, and it’s called: bleeding from my orifices. Nice. I start to wonder what having the ebola virus feels like. Kyle trades away a bunch of Outer Rim Scouts, so I guess he is not playing ISB Space the next day. He has a hunt down deck he likes, but is also thinking of playing an Agents of the Black Sun deck, even though he has never used it before. Tim’s dark deck is BHBM, so he knows he has to change decks before the DPC starts up. We get some blank decklists from Girard, and Kyle arranges it so that we can sleep at Ted Hansen’s place.
We hit up Taco Bell for dinner, and head to Ted’s to discuss the decks we had seen. Lots of Ralltiir, lots of MKOS, very little big blue, very little tie swarm, and almost no Hunt Down or BHBM at all. Lots of WYS, lots of EBO, not much Hidden Mains, not much TIGIH. Kyle decides to use WYS with Palace Raiders, even though everyone will be ready for it. and he chooses his Black Sun deck, even though he’s never played it before. Tim builds big blue ISB and settles on a flipping Hidden base deck for light. I decide to stick with ISB and Hidden Mains, and put them on the decklists. Ted does not tell any of us what he’ll be playing the next day. Friday night I sleep two hours.
Saturday morning comes. I get some Comtrex from Ted and down a couple of those. I then take more decongestants, and more antihistamines. I douse the back of my throat with chloraseptic spray to dull the pain of my sore throat, and I’m good to go. I have just taken 4 different kinds of medication within 5 minutes, and I’ve slept a total of 7 hours over the course of the past 4 nights. time to play some STAR WARS. We pack up and head to the T&M Center.
We turn in our decklists, pay our entry fees, and I get myself a few cups of water to try and bring down my body temperature to counteract the fever. It’s not working too well. I make a few trips to the men’s room to blow my nose, and on one of them, catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. Not good. I look like Death warmed over. I come back to the playing area and watch Kyle school Matt Riecks in a game of Jedi Knights. I ask how one of the judges how many people have paid entry to the tournament, and I hear that it is 72. But for only having 72 players, there are a lot of rating points in the room. We have the #1 player (obviously), along with #3 (Jonathon Chu), #5 (Kyle Craft), and a host of other 2000+ players from various regions. We do not, however, see TJ Holman and Chris Praksac, which is a little disappointing. Both of those guys have enough rating points to be worth beating, and TJ’s absence means that nobody will get to knock-down the very first defending DPC champ. I get approached by someone I don’t recognize, who is holding (get this) a Jesus Christ action figure, still in the original packaging. I would later discover that the figure belongs to Danny Rider. Where does one find and purchase a Jesus Christ action figure? I have no idea. But in any event, he requests that I sign the package for him. He and his buddies scrounge up a pen for me to autograph with. So next to where it says "Jesus, Lord of All" I sign my name, and underneath that, write the words "Son of God". He shows off the package to everyone nearby, and there is a round of applause from everyone at the table. David Irvine has described the signing of the Jesus action figure to be the "funniest sh*t ever".
Game One: R. Rex ISB vs. Danny Lamar
Danny is playing ebo, so I start Imperial decree. Within a turn or two, I can tell this is EBO-X. He gets EBO up and running and takes over a system before I get the decree in effect. But I use den of thieves to cancel his drain and buy myself time. Pretty soon I have 2 systems and a site to my name, so Decree shuts off his bonuses. We battle very little in space, I pretty much let him have whichever systems he lays claim too, and settle for draining him, well, everywhere else. He has no way to stop the Chiraneau bonus, and we have a very straightforward game. No surprise power pivots or anything like that. And in a game with no surprises, the Retarded Dinosaur will put you on lockdown every time. I end up with a full win by 26.
2: (+26)
Game Two: Hidden Mains vs. Chris Shaner (rating: 1948)
Chris starts ISB, with No Bargain and Power of the Hutt, so this must be ISB Scum. He looks at his opening draw, and makes some comment that indicates it isn’t bad. Well, he drops Jabba’s Palace on Turn one, along with the Den of Thieves, I believe. So yeah, that’s not bad. Early in the game, he puts Jabba’s Space Cruiser at the Rendezvous Point, with an ORS piloting, and moves to Dagobah. On the following turn, the cruiser would land at my yoda’s hut, for what would be an uncontested 2 point drain the remainder of the game. He sets up his scum & villainy in Jabba’s palace, taking control of all 3 JP sites early. I deploy to the docking bays, and to Corulag, setting up menace fades and battle plan. But Chris comes to space, and it’s no joke. Guri on the Stinger, Ig-88 in IG-2000, Zuckuss in the Mist Hunter, Bossk in Hound’s Tooth, and plenty of non-unique aliens for forfeit fodder. He draws four battle destiny at a time while limiting me to one. And the combination of Hutt Influence and SE Jabba allow his non-unique aliens to soak a lot of attrition. It takes Shaner a while to find his grabbers, so I’m "edging" for retrieval like a madman just to stay in the game. But eventually he gets Secret Plans down, and grabs the edge cards. The fact that I can’t kick him out of space prevents menace fades from working, so he is eating me up on the ground. I invade the palace and inflict heavy losses (he is forced to battle me due to OTE), but although I murder hordes of his aliens, the drain in Yoda’s Hut proves too much, and I go down for a full loss by 18.
2: (+8)
So, Shaner finally nets a win against me (I was 3-0 against him lifetime, going into this match), and news of my early loss surprises those who hear of it. Despite my poor health and sleep deprivation, I played a very solid game. But Shaner had a good draw, played a strong match, kept the pressure on, and there just wasn’t much I could do. I figure 6-2 will be good enough to make the top 4, if I can maintain a good differential. Unfortunately, at the rate I’m going, I’m on my way to 4-4, not 6-2....
Game Three: R. Rex ISB vs. Kris Lavigne (rating: 1862)
Since Kris is 1-1 with a low diff, he probably didn’t count on getting paired against the world’s top player. He doesn’t seem real happy to see me. He starts Hidden base, and since I am unsure of whether he’ll use inserts, I start YCHF as my 3rd effect. This turns out to be a flipping HB-X deck, with S-foils, organized attacks, and all the other trimmings. Early in the game, Kris deploys the Savrip, which is pretty dismaying, since the Masterful Move was the last card I cut out of the deck the night before. Kris spreads far, wide, and EARLY. So I have to ditch YCHF to grab Battle Order before I get plink-drained to death. I start deploying conservatively in space, take a death grip on the endor docking bay with a walker and a couple pilots (since it is the only battleground site) and wait for my activation to build up to the point where I can try for a good beatdown. Kris is now spread so thin that I decide he must be relying on battle-prevention cards (barrier, hyper escape, etc.) as well as the savrip. I play a monnok lost, hoping to kill some of those evasion cards. This attempt fails, but I do kill a few x-wings and a couple laser cannons. As it turns out, he has no hyper escapes or barriers in hand, but is holding some nice savrip fodder, and a houjix. I decide to split my beat-down to two systems, cleaning him off both of them, allowing him to hold the houjix. He flips Hidden Base to cancel my drains in space, and I start carefully chasing him around, probing (wrong), and probing (wrong). I probe incorrectly about 5 times, and sullust is the only option left. I have an amazing knack for probing every system BUT the hidden base before finally finding it. I probe sullust to place his objective out of play. He drops Jedi Luke to endor to try and counteract battle order, but I had been saving Lord Vader for such an occasion, and Luke doesn’t last very long. I make him burn the houjix in another one-sided battle in space, and eventually drain him out. win by 22.
4: (+30)
Game Four: Hidden Mains vs. Brandon Chong.
Brandon is playing Court, so I am not real worried about this match. However, I get just one character in opening draw (melas). He puts down mighty jabba in the AC on turn one, and I decide I will risk putting Melas alone rather than losing cards to court damage. I put melas at my tatooine docking bay, and save a force to bluff a barrier that I don’t have. Melas ends up staying alone at the docking bay for 2 additional turns, while I try to find some characters that will help me. I guess the threat of fallen portal was enough to keep him off my back until I am able to give Melas some good backup. I take control of space, and when he uses his court objective, the independant ships he wants to deploy from reserve are just not there. I hold Corulag with almost no contention, so battle plan does it’s job rather nicely. We have some brief skirmishes on the ground, at the great pit of carkoon, where I steal Snoova’s axe with weapon levitation, but he still manages to capture someone with all wrapped up. Jodo Kast keeps me from drawing multiple battle destiny with JPSD Lando. He forces me back to the docking bay, but doesn’t chase me. So I sit and retrieve with my edge cards, and slowly wait for him to bleed out. I ultimately win by 28.
6: (+58)
The fever is subsiding, and I’m starting to get the chills. I head back to the restroom, and see myself in the mirror again. The good news is: I don’t look like Death Warmed Over anymore. The bad news is: I look like Death Served Cold. While blowing my nose, I notice I’m starting to get blood out of it again. It looks kinda like tomato. Too thick to be tomato sauce, but too thin to be tomato paste. When the blood comes out of my nose, it intensifies my headache drastically, leading me to believe that the blood was doing something useful...like...keeping me alive. I go into another coughing fit, and I would’ve expected some of my major organs to come up, if it weren’t the fact that I’ve coughed most of them out already. I’m keeping them in a nice little ziploc baggie that I left with Girard when the tournament started. I come out from the restroom and notice that Girard has put the baggie with my organs in it up on top of the table, for public display. Next to it is a little handwritten sign that says "touch the #1 player’s internal organs, $1". Girard is holding a fistful of singles, and when he notices me watching this fiasco, he gives me a big grin and a thumbs-up.
Game Five: R. Rex ISB vs. DJ Andrews (rating: 1965)
This would end up being the most unpleasant game of SWCCG I have ever played in my life. It was filled with arguments, foul language (mostly mine), questionable tactics, and controversy. During the time that has passed since the game’s conclusion, DJ has made what I consider to be a genuine effort to make a mends over what happened during this match. So, rather than try to destroy DJ’s reputation, I have decided to just put this match behind me, and move forward. That being the case, I made a promise to DJ Andrews that I would not include any of the details of this game, when posting my tournament report. From what I understand, he is not exactly the most popular player in Arizona, and I have no interest in saying anything that would get him even more enemies than he has already. So, to make a long (and ugly) story short, I lose this game by 7. My congratulations to DJ Andrews for being the first person to ever give my ISB deck a loss, even if I didn’t exactly like the circumstances under which it happened.
6: (+51)
I return to the restroom to clear out my nose again. I can’t recall ever feeling more sick in my life, except perhaps the time I had Pneumonia when I was 12 years old. At 3-2, my odds of making the top 4 are slim indeed. I talk myself out of dropping from the tournament, and just hope that I won’t end up in a hospital room before leaving Las Vegas. the remainder of my games will be must-win situations, and a timed win will kill me just as surely as a loss. Well, at 3-2, maybe I have an easy pairing or two headed my way....
Game Six: Hidden Mains vs. Eric Bruen (rating: 2056)
Okay, when I said easy pairing, playing someone over 2050 wasn’t exactly what I had in mind. Bruen is playing MKOS and reveals Pote Snitkin as his rep. I have gone to time before in this EXACT matchup (hidden mains vs. MKOS Skrilling swarm), so I knew I would have to keep things moving along. He gets the sail barge out for activation, and I decide to invade JP early to try and prevent a long, drawn out drain race. I kill off Jabba, Ephant Mon, and a host of skrillings before my forces dwindle to the point that only Lando w/ Axe survives. I run him off to the Lower Passages to stare down Boelo. But he gets pounced on by Bib Fortuna and Chall bekan. I manage to exclude Boelo with the Axe, and kill Chall with attrition, but Lando goes down. So I set up with the second round of mains, this time at the docking bays. menace fades and battle plan are doing their thing, since I have Home One and the Superfalcon sitting at Corulag. But he comes up with Zuckuss in Mist Hunter, Bossk in Hound’s Tooth, and a passenger for forfeit. He redeploys Jabba (to get the +2 to each battle destiny draw), battles me, draws a 4 and a 5, which would turn into a 6 and a 7. I make him redraw the 5, and he gets another 4, forcing 12 attrition instead of the original 13. that allows me to forfeit home one for exactly 12, keeping the falcon intact. I draw 2 6’s in my 3 battle destiny, and force enough attrition to clear him out of space entirely. Eric has grabbed 2 of my high destiny recycling interrupts, which allows my edge cards to go free. But without the high destiny, I am edging for smaller amounts than usual, and still having to pay for secret plans in the process. But it’s still worth it, and I’m keeping ahead in the race. We hear that there is only 2 minutes left in the round. I know I have the game in hand, but I can’t polish Eric off in just two minutes. So I ask if he will allow me to have the full win, so I can have a shot of still making top 4. After all, full loss or timed loss, he’s out either way. But Eric says he still has a few tricks up his sleeve, and wants to see if he can pull ahead. So I say okay, and we continue. He drains, battles me in a couple places (retrieving for Scum & first strike, while making me lose to first strike), and does pull ahead in life force. But the trick up my sleeve was the other on the edge I was holding, and the Run Luke Run I had been tracking for destiny. So I pull 5 cards back from the lost pile, and move ahead again. 20 seconds left in the round. Eric surveys the playing field, sees that there is no way to pass me up again, and in an excellent display of good-sportsmanship, lets me get the full win by 18.
8: (+69)
Game Seven: Hidden Mains vs. Alan Sagan (rating: 2025)
Well, there aren’t a lot of tournaments up in Canada it seems like, so only a few Canadians have played enough games to get up over the 2000 mark. Alan is one of them. Alan notices that we both have a differential of exactly 69, and he finds this remarkably amusing. :) He starts ISB/Coruscant with power of the hutt, no bargain, and secret plans. So, I am up against the same ISB scum deck that Chris Shaner beat me with earlier, only this time, it’s being used by a player with an even higher rating. The only good news is that I have never lost to a Canadian player, or any Non-American, for that matter. His opening draw somehow manages to be even more impressive than Shaner’s. He gets not only Jabba’s Palace in opening draw, but also the Audience Chamber, allowing him to use JP to pull the Lower Passages, getting all 3 JP sites down on turn one. he deploys SO heavy to his JP sites that I don’t even get a chance to think about deploying there. I am forced to stick to my docking bays, draining there, and at corulag. Zuckuss in Mist Hunter deploys to Corulag, with an ORS piloting, and zips over to Dagobah. for the second time today, I would end up with a rim scout in my yoda’s hut, draining me for 2. zuckuss flies back up to dagobah, and waits until it is time to go to Corulag and challenge me. I use menace fades/battle plan to limit the drains at JP, but the drain inside Yoda’s Hut is still stinging pretty bad. I play on/off the edge liberally, since he doesn’t seem to have a grabber. secret plans slows the retrieval, but can’t stop it. Since he didn’t start TINT/OE, I sense one of his abyssin ornaments, making him hold the other until he is ready to retrieve. He comes to space with Guri on the Stinger (again) and Bossk in Hound’s tooth (again), with additional aliens for forfeit fodder (again). I am getting sick of those cards. He then lateral damages home one, but I alter it. Zuckuss flies over to join the crowd of ships at Corulag. I battle valiantly at Corulag for a while, but slowly get overwhelmed. The spiral goes down, and then Home One goes down. I continue retrieving with edge cards, and am doing everything I can to keep my head above water (his presence at the Corulag system has taken battle plan and menace fades out of effect, so I’m getting drained pretty bad now.) I alter hutt influence just to be spiteful. Unfortunately, I have removed the surprise assault from the deck, or I could have killed him instantly. I finally have to evacuate Corulag, and fly the falcon to dagobah, and land in front of his ORS. OTE forces the little guy to battle me, but Alan has the Ghhhk. the falcon takes off to Dagobah again. On Alan’s next turn, he puts out Tatooine with the Occupation, and flies Zuckuss over from Corulag to defend it. not good. Must..not...lose...to...Canadian. The falcon flies in front of Zuckuss, which will force Zuckuss to suicide himself, cancelling the occupation. Alan drains me for 5, then makes me lose two to his occupation, dropping me down to just 4 cards. But he has no way to keep me from draining him out on my next turn so I get the full win by 4. Alan had me dead to rights in this game, but luckily for me, he neglected some crucial gametext in the last few turns of the game, allowing me to pull out the victory.
10: (+73)
That differential is not good enough to get the job done. I know I need a much bigger win in game 8 than I got in game 7, if I am to have any chance of sneaking into the top 4. I head back to the restroom again, and continue to be amazed by all the different colors I can get out of my nose. I notice that Jonathon Chu is in the restroom as well. this is at least the 5th time he has been in there between games. Is he taking a piss after every single game or what? I start wondering if that’s the REAL reason everyone calls him "the Yellow Menace" ;)
Game Eight: R. Rex ISB vs. David Irvine (rating: 2119)
Well, when I was sitting at 3-2, I knew I would have to win my next 3 in a row to have a shot. I didn’t know that all 3 games would be against players rated over 2000. And David is, of course, not just over 2000, but over 2100 as well, and there aren’t many of those. He starts an ebo setup, which leads me to believe that he is probably using the same EBO-X deck that brought him to the top 4 at the last DPC. If I go down to this deck, he will probably be in the top 4 once again. Fortunately, David’s Deck is about 4 cards different from the old EBO done RIGHT deck that I posted back in November, so I know exactly what it is capable of, and how to stop it. I start decree again, and use his rebel base locations for a quick flip, using a walker to prevent any unwanted ice storms. He gets EBO set up and piles x-wings at the hoth system. no opposition on the ground yet, so the decree is doing it’s thing. I get ambushed at the executor docking bay by bousch and epp obi. obi survives the battle, and would later transit over to the hoth docking bay to try and take me off the ice planet. He uses suicide epp obi strikes with bacta tank to knock pilots off my walkers. We battle some in space (thanks to his order to engage), and he’s getting the upper hand there too, using organized attack to prevent the loss of his ships. But the organized attacks run out quickly, and I start battling back, taking x-wings down as fast as I can. Vader helps me get rid of obi-wan, killing the old man while David’s bacta tank was occupied by an Arcona. the Arcona comes back out to stop the drain at the north ridge, but I prevent it from reacting by using those rebels won’t escape us/ghhhk. After that, David doesn’t really have enough life force to move his ships around adequately. He’s been kicked out of space, I cancelled his order to engage, and there are just no options left, so he draws out and I win by 22.
12: (+95)
Chu and Kyle have traded off wins in games 7 and 8, and have both finished at 7-1. Chris Shaner has finished at 6-2, with a higher differential than my own. So I know there are at least 3 people ahead of me, before I even ask. there does not seem to be a consensus about whether or not I made it, so I just wait for Girard to call out the top 4. Sure enough, my differential did the trick, getting me into the #4 spot ahead of FIVE other 12-point players. So, the tournament included the #1, #3, and #5 players in the world, and all 3 of us made the top 4 of the event. (One of the Terwilligers has passed Kyle up for #5, but on the day of this event, that had not happened yet) So Chu is #1 and gets to play the bottom player (me), as well as choosing the deck matchup. Kyle and Shaner face off, with Kyle getting to choose the matchup. Kyle elects to play his undefeated AOBS against Shaner’s TIGIH scouts. Chu chooses to use his Yavin 4 mains against my King of the Dinosaurs with Learning Disabilities. With a 6-2 performance in the swiss, my rating has definitely taken a hit to get me here. But the sanctioned games are behind us now, so I no longer have anything to lose. All that’s left to do now is try to turn $150 into more.
Meaningless Bonus Game #1: (Semifinal matchup)
Retardosaurus Rex ISB vs. Jonathon Chu (rating: 2182)
Most of the time, I would expect Jon’s deck to be able to put up more of a fight than it did in this game. I don’t actually know if his Yavin 4 deck has what it takes to get a win against ISB or not, but I at least know that...say...8 games out of 10, it would not be THIS easy. His deck gets off to a pretty slow start, and only gives him one twix location early (Chief Chirpa’s Hut). the rest of his 2/0 locations evade him, keeping his activation pretty slim while he waits for Merrejk to put out some battleground systems. And although the light-side icons on those systems would eventually enable Chu to deploy anything he wanted, I don’t believe he ever puts out a starship the entire game. I set up guys at my endor docking bay, and ships at the endor system, and put down battle deployment. Jon comes at me with Jedi Luke and Epp han, but the AO keeps them from drawing more than one destiny. Since I kept my pilots in the walker, my losses in the initial battle are minimal. OTE will force me to battle back, but that’s alright. I bring down Lord Vader, with his saber, and inflict some damage. Chu replaces han with another and battles me one more time before having to give up on the site for a while. He might have reinforced the site, but his db transit costs to endor were just too high. I use Chianeau to increase the drain in space, since there is no risk of menace fades spoiling my fun. I lose Secret plans off my deck and get it placed out of play by OOC. this is bad, since my deck uses no grabbers to stop retrieval. He plays an on the edge, and that tells me all I need to know. I twilek for SSPFT, and he quickly plays an off the edge to get back a few more cards before SSPFT will start placing his retrieval cards out of play. He doesn’t do much more retrieving after the deployment of SSPFT anyway. He eventually returns to endor, and his mains start getting the upper hand on me this time, but by that time, the space drains have worn him down to almost nothing, and it doesn’t take long to finish him off. Differential in the semifinal does not count for anything, so nobody wrote it down, but I believe it was 24 or so.
After the Yellow Menace fades, I start plotting my strategy for how to tackle Kyle in the all-Colorado final. And then Chris Shaner comes over to play me. I catch my breath, and ask Kyle how he lost the game, since the deck matchup is very much in his favor. He throws up his hands in disgust, and blurts out a few things about how he couldn’t draw any of his 8 million Emperor Palpatines, and activated the Coruscant Docking Bay on turn one, preventing him from deploying it and moving xizor over, and how his hidden weapons with Jodo Kast didn’t work out the way he wanted it to. Since Shaner placed ahead of me in the swiss style, he gets to pick which match we play first in the final. I am still picking up cards from my ISB deck, and I ask him if he wants me to put it away so we can play the other match first. But he says no, he’ll play his scout-deck first, so we get underway.
Meaningless Bonus Game #2:
Retardosaurus Rex ISB vs. Chris Shaner (rating: 1948)
I play Imperial Command on turn one to get ozzel and drop him to the endor docking bay to cut Chris’ activation. So he comments that I must have Vader in my opening draw. (which I do not). So I ask something along the lines of "do I?", and he says "yeah, you’re not stupid". Well, show’s what HE knows! When I look through my deck to pull the exec db, I notice I have activated another Imp. Command, so I draw it up to get Piett with. He activates, moves luke over, flips. I activate, and look for another docking bay, getting my endor landing platform to convert his. Since I notice I have activated Lord Vader, I choose not to deploy Piett. Instead, I just transit ozzel over onto the executor, and draw up vader, then lose 2 to his objective. He deploys Madine and some random scout to his home one docking bay for generation. I have the saber for Vader, and a rim scout (who is a spy due to ISB), so I decide I will go in there, wreck his 2 guys, and then transit ozzel over for free, and hand-off luke to vader. But then I realize that the random scout scrub with madine is delevar, who prevents the light side’s characters from having their forfeit reduced at same site! Well that changes everything, because now I can’t clear the site in one battle. I decide not to invade the home one docking bay, due to Delevar’s nifty game text. So I pick up Delevar, and turn back and forth in my chair, showing him to everyone who is watching the game. I put delevar back down, and just settle for putting vader and friends in the exec. db where I can drain for one and stop losing force to his objective. Chris sets up a spaceport docking bay at Coruscant, and puts blount there with some pals to flip me back. he also drops some guys to the endor docking bay, and sets up I hope she’s alright, to draw vader out into the open. grrr. merrejk has begun to pull my systems and I am slowly starting to drain in space. Well, the coruscant docking bay has general solo, so I decide I will try my luck at the endor docking bay instead. I bring Vader, ozzel, merrejk, 5d6, and an ORS over. (piett had moved to the bridge of the Executor) Chris comes down on me with the Daughter of Skywalker, Orrimaarko, Sgt. Junkin, Wicket, and who knows what else, 7 characters in all. Battles me, plays Take the Initiative and Insertion Planning. Wicket excludes 5d6. I draw a one for destiny, which Insertion Planning turns into a zero. I lose the battle by 23. So I lose ozzel, merrejk and the rim scout for 15, and then lose eight more cards to battle damage, and then stack a card on insight. ouch. vader runs back to the exec db, so I start losing force to I hope she’s alright again. Chris gets some of his guys to the home one docking bay so they can transit onto the executor for free, but when he tries to do so, I point out that he cannot move to the exec db when I occupy it. so he sends all his guys back out to the 2 battleground docking bays and waits for me, with 6 or 7 characters at both locations. I continue to drain in space and lose force for IHSA. eventually he gets the back door out, and moves some of his guys from the endor db to the back door. this lets vader make his return to endor, along with a walker, 5d6, and another pilot or two. I stop the damage from IHSA, and drain him out in space for a win by 8.
Meaningless Bonus Game #3
Hidden Mains vs. Chris Shaner (rating: 1948)
Well, I already lost this game once today, so let’s see if I can lose it again. Shaner is not lucky enough to have the JP in opening draw this time, so that helps me a lot. By the time he sets up in his palace sites, I already have the super falcon at corulag, backed by Hasshn piloting Home One, and I have a couple guys at the tatooine docking bay. Battle Plan and Menace fades are all set to go, and he doesn’t have the tools to take on what I’ve got in space. We trade drains, mine for free, and his not. I play a few edge cards, but he grabs both on the edge and off the edge. He puts out ability, ability, ability, but I deploy the Spiral, Melas, and a couple other characters on my next turn and cancel it. Now I have all 3 ships at Corulag and he really can’t contest me there. Jabba’s space cruiser goes to the rend. point, with that ORS piloting again, and moves to dagobah. But I have OTE out, so I fly the falcon from Corulag to Dagobah, knowing that if he lands, I can land too. He chooses not to battle, loses the 3 for OTE, and flies back to the rendezvous point. I fly the falcon back to corulag. He puts walkers down at the exterior tatooine sites, with hordes of non-unique aliens aboard (he has used the den of thieves to cancel a drain for the past 8 consecutive turns). the walkers are more than I want to deal with, so I let him chase me around tatooine a little, using the cc docking bay to maintain menace fades. I play out all 4 of my edge cards onto his grabbers. He never challenges me in space, and decides to draw out. since differential is a non-factor, I don’t bother to recycle any of my used interrupts back into the deck, and am content to settle for a win by 16.
So I win in Vegas, and am one-for-one in DPC events. It will be interesting to see if either TJ or myself can repeat at any of the 3 DPC’s that are coming up soon (Ramapo, Atlanta, Denver), and if not, who will be the first to win 2? could be interesting. We head back to Ted’s place, stop off so I can buy some more Nyquil, and order Pizza. Kyle and Ted do some drinking. Ted’s funny when he’s tipsy. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. :) We watch Office Space, followed by Rounders (though I was the only one who stayed up long enough to see the ending). I load up on meds in the morning and eat some leftover pizza. we go pick up Josiah and return to Colorado. I use up most of Tim’s box of Kleenex on the way home, but survive the trip. As of today, my illness is definitely in recession. I have now been sick for 11 days, but it looks as though Brian Hunter will survive. sorry. ;)
MAD Props:
To Tim McKnight, for driving to Las Vegas.
To Ted Hansen, for letting us crash at his place.
Props:
To Mike Girard, for running a big event with no major mishaps, once again. excellent work.
To Mike Sinclair and Nathan Magro, the assistant judges, for helping Girard pull this thing off without a hitch.
To Eric Bruen, for doing the right thing in Game 6, and not screwing me with a timed win. I will return the favor any time.
To Chris Shaner, for showing everyone that his 3rd place finish in the AZ Grand Slam was no accident. this guy is for real, and when his rating goes back over 2000 again, don’t think he doesn’t deserve it.
To Chu and Kyle, for going 7-1 and backing their ratings.
To Brandon Gravo, for winning the warmup.
To Mike Girard, for giving me most of the profits he made when letting people touch the baggie that had my internal organs in it. He only kept a modest 30%. :)
To Danny Rider, for having me autograph the Jesus Christ action figure. *lol*
To Nyquil, for being the only medication that relieves symptoms caused by the ebola virus.
To all the cool Tatooine players it was good to see again (Ted Hansen, Jason Ayre, Casey Barson, Tim Guzman, Brian Garrison, Matt Berta, just to name a FEW)
To all the players it was good to meet for the first time (Jonathon Chu, Eric Bruen, Alan Sagan, David Irvine, just to name a FEW)
To the people who had the guts, and the faith, to shell out 70 points to buy me for their DPC Fantasy Team. I guess it was worth it.
Slops:
To the Ebola Virus. ’nuff said.
Thanks for reading.
Brian "The HuntaWarya" Hunter, Lord of All ;)