wal-mart-stickers-and-the-anti-draw

Title: wal-mart-stickers-and-the-anti-draw
Author: Charlie "Bad Player" Herren
Date: May 6, 2001

2001 Georgia State Championships tournament report
05 May, 2001


It all began around 2 weeks before states. I had my AOBS deck tweaked and set to go for states, but for LS, I really had no idea what I was going to end up playing. I messed around with a HB mains deck, but quickly took it apart, as I don’t really feel comfortable with it and don’t have enough time to tweak it to the max. I ended up building a standard WYS raider deck but with a bigger space package. I talked with a lot of different people with questions about the decks I was going to play, as I wasn’t really confident in the WYS raider deck either. Cancelled reacts, quick Monnoks, or Lateral Damage/Imperial Command would absolutely hammer it. I had been messing around with the WYS beatdown deck as well, so I decided that it would be the most effective deck. I took my own version of the deck (taken from ideas from watching Clint Hays play the deck) and modified it a lot to somewhat mimic the Winkelhaus version of the deck, with some notable differences (2x tripler card and SATM combo and zero Clash of Sabers, among other things).
Around the same time, I had been talking to Jim Sells, who had intended to come down from Nashville to visit and check out the metagame in GA (TN states = may 12th or something). He let me borrow 2 Emperor Palpatines, so I increased the number of Palpatines from 3 to 5. He also hooked me up with Power Pivots, as I couldn’t find any out of all of my cards.
Jim left Nashville for Atlanta on Friday afternoon, and we both arrived at Tim Jones’s place around 5:30PM-ish. Mike Kessling, Andrew Morris, and Adam Drake end up finding their way to Tim’s as well, so we all played random games with decks in preparation for states. I was a little reluctant to bust out with my states decks as I didn’t really want to tip my hand just yet and let them know what my states decks consisted of. We all went to bed around 5AM or so.. Kessling and I both predicted that the top 3 will consist of me, him, and a random person, and that we’d both be in the final..

I ended up waking up at around 8AM and fill out my decklists, take my shower, and put on my infamous "whitey will pay" T-shirt, which I always seem to wear to big tourneys.. everyone else woke up around 10AM or so. Clay Ramey, who had spent the week in England on a senior trip, showed at Tim’s around that time. We all hung around until 11AM or so, and we all went to The War Room (same as the location for DPC Atlanta). I made my rounds and talked to everyone, from Adam Beauchamp and the remaining members of Team Machine to the Augusta crew and more. 36 in attendance, 6 games of Swiss with a 2 game final.

Decks:
DS: "Oh You Didn’t Know?" v2.0, my own version of AOBS with high destinies and 5 Emperor Palpatines.
LS: "Rock Bottom", WYS beatdown

Game 1. DS vs. John Iodice (HBX)
John is an old-schooler from the Atlanta area.. he played a lot from the game’s release until around Endor, when he decided to take a while off of the game (newborn children take precedence over SWCCG).
John starts HB with the DODN combo and Squadron Assignments.
I start Mob Points, IAO, and Crush the Rebellion (as I did in all my DS games).
I pull my Coruscant DB on turn 1 and move Xizor over. He gets out a system and a few Xwings and moves them over. I search for my Death Star DB and couldn’t find it. I end up dropping Empy to Coruscant, Broken Concentration and Secret Plans and drawing up the rest of my force pile. He drains, drops another system or two, drops some more Xwings, and spreads to a 2nd system. On my 3rd turn, I ended up dropping the Death Star DB, POTF on the Coruscant DB, Dengar with gun to the Death Star DB, dropped Search and Destroy and a Vigo to Coruscant. I then moved the Emperor and Vigo to the DS DB and Dengar to the Coruscant DB to keep Search alive. He starts losing 6 on my turn and 1 on his. Meanwhile, he’s draining me for 1 and 1, and I’m setting up my space fleet. I end up dropping Guri in Stinger and a Vigo in ZiMH and fought DS2 Wedge with his ship and 3 Xwings. I had dropped First Strike and used Broken Concentration to make him move the last card of his force pile back to the top of his reserve, so he couldn’t play Organized Attack. I Set for Stunned Wedge before the battle started, and retrieved that with First Strike. I drew high on my two destinies, so he lost 2 Xwings and Red Squad 1. The rest of the game consists of me moving my ships to probe and block drains. I end up winning with around 15 minuntes left.
Full Win by 27
2(+27)

Highs: Playing John, who is a good friend and who is always a pleasure to play against
Lows: Having to beat someone who hadn’t played in over a year.

Game 2. LS vs. Phillip Gladney (Ominous Rumors/Imperial Command) (another Atlanta local)

Side note: I’m sure you’ve all heard of "the draw." Well, what proceeded to happen this game was all a result of "the anti-draw," which is when you draw a @#$%ty opening hand and then proceed to draw useless crap for several turns. If a deck gets "the draw," there’s no way in hell that it could lose. The opposite is true for "the anti-draw," as in if you get it, then you lose no matter what. This is a term I’ve decided to coin to basically describe exactly what happened in this game.

He starts Mob Points, SSPFT, and Oppressive Enforcement (non-combo).
I start Draw Their Fire, Squad Assignments, and Insurrection (as I did in all LS games)

My opening hand was something to the extent of Run Luke Run x2, Tallon Karrde, Millenium Falcon, tripler card, something else not useful, and Beggar x2. Most of the time, this would be considered decent against space decks, but if you can’t draw Tunnel Visions or other ships, then you basically lose the game.
He gets a quick start, with Admiral Piett and Merrejk to the bunker on turn 1. I activate, drop a DB, and draw. I get 2 RFCs, Theron Nett, and Xwing laser cannons. He drops Ominous Rumors and Kessel and Fondor. I convert his Kessel, Tunnel for Dash (Tunnel gets grabbed), and deploy it with the Outrider to Fondor. I drop Han on it as backup, and draw like mad for another ship. He drops Dengar in Punishing One at Fondor, followed by Executor (barriered), another Star Destroyer, and Vader and Tarkin aboard the Executor. He dropped a walker to the Endor DB and moved Piett and Merrejk inside. I had everything in my hand to win the game at that point, except that I needed an Xwing. I had the cannons, Power Pivot, Dash, and the bad feeling tripler card to initiate, shoot Dengar, add a destiny with Slight Weapons Malfunction, make the Executor power 0, reduce the power of the other Star Destroyer by 8, and draw 2 destiny. I have no Tunnel in hand, though, so my only hope is for Theron Nett’s ship to be in the reserve deck. I search for it with Squad Assignments, and it wasn’t there. I run and draw some, finding the Pulsar Skate and Mirax. He drains, then moves to block my drain. I search again with Theron Nett, still finding nothing. I drop Beggar and use like 18 force that he had saved up to drop Luke, Lando with gun, and some scrub smugglers to the Endor DB. I initiated battle and cleared the entire site. I ran away again. He activates like 16, drops Bossk in bus, ZIMH, Lateral Damages my Outrider, and fights. I use Hyper Escape from lost pile to run to a vacant system. I search for a 3rd time for Theron Nett’s ship (still no Tunnel) and failed AGAIN. It turned out that it was on the bottom of my force pile, as I saved a force all the time for a barrier or Hyper Escape. I move to cancel Lateral Damage and transit from Endor to Tatooine (to spread there and drain). He starts a mega drain in space by dropping a Star Destroyer and Chiraneau at another vacant system. I finally manage to get an Xwing up, but it was the 5th try with Squadron Assignments when I did. He was outdraining me, and I couldn’t really do anything about it, as I lost my other two ships off the top to drains and I only had 1 ship left.
Full Loss by 18
2(+9)

Highs: Scratching my balls after the game ended.
Lows: Read the game description.

Kessling also gets hit with the "anti-draw" this game and loses. Adam Drake beats Art Rhodes by 24. Clay and Drake are 2-0, Kessling, Andrew Morris, Stephen Michael and I are all 1-1. Stephen ended up complaining about a kid who would fan out his piles to track a foil in his deck.. I went up to Kevin Goddard (the TD) and asked him about the situation
Andrew passes around some Wal-Mart yellow smiley-face stickers, and I put one on my shirt to cover the head of the figure of the "whitey" on my shirt.

Game 3: LS vs Art Rhodes (Chu-style HuntDown) (Augusta area)
I was looking for revenge for not winning states last year, and this was my chance. We were both 1-1, and another loss would mean elimination from contention for the championship.
He started SSPFT, Mob Points, and Crush the Rebellion.

He gets the Executor DB , Ozzel, and Carida in his opening hand, and drops them all and draws. We both lose 1 to Visage, then I cancel it. I drop Ounee Ta to pick up my OOC/Transterm, then I drop Mirax in the Skate to Tatooine (via Spaceport DB). He activates and draws again. I drop Kessel, move the Skate there and draw a couple. He finally drops Vader to the Executor DB with his saber and transits both him and Ozzel to the Tatooine DB. By this time, I have everything I need except for the Beggar. He only has 1 force left, so I decide to chance it and go for the win. I drop Luke to the Cantina, Han and Wedge to the DB (flipping my objective), initiate with the tripler, play Run Luke Run, swing at vader and hit. He swings at Luke and hits, and plays Dark Strike, making me lose Luke. I fire at Ozzel with Han, hit Ozzel, and play Slight Weapons Malfunction. I draw low, so power totals are 16-11. He loses both of his chars and 15, and I lose Han. He activates, drops Chimaera and Thrawn against my Pulsar Skate, drops Lateral Damage, and fights. I end up losing the Skate, Mirax, and 13 (after an Imperial Command and a high draw). We&#8217;re about even at this point, and I have Han on the table. I drain, drop Dash and the outrider at the Spaceport DB, move Wedge over to join, and fly them up to Tatooine. He drains me at Kessel and draws. I move the Outrider to block the drain at Kessel. He drops We&#8217;re in Attack Position Now to add to his immunity of his capitals, and fights. I draw 2 destinies, so he loses both the Chimaera and Thrawn. I lose Han. I drop Chewie with Gun and some other scrubs in the cantina and fight. I draw high on destinies after missing both shots, so he loses Thrawn, Xizor, and 4. He&#8217;s draining me for a couple, and I&#8217;m draining him for 5. He drops Xizor #2 to the <> DB. I end up dropping Lando with Gun, Tallon Karrde, and a RFC against him, battled, hit Xizor, and drew high, so he lost Xizor and 15, which ended the game.
Full win by 15
4(+24)

Highs: Actually getting a beatdown off, having a lot of things fall right after the previous game.
Lows: the beatdown that matched mine, making the game close.

Art and I go into the neighboring grocery store to buy some lunch. We ask a woman behind the counter about the price of chicken fingers, and she says "Three dollars a pound." Art gets around 2 pounds of chicken fingers (can&#8217;t remember if he ordered that much or not), and got charged $1.50 for it. I got an entire rotisserie chicken for $3.50 when the sign in front said $4.99. We go out and chat a bit with some people, and apparently the same thing that happened to Stephen Michael happened to another person by the same guy. The incidents in both games were similar, and the person who did it just happened to be 3-0 at the time. I went to where the rest of the Team Atlanta members were gathered and basically told them what they need to do if they play against him. Pairings are announced, and Adam Drake (3-0 at the time) sits down to play Paul Myers (kid mentioned in above 2 references).. I pat him on the back and tell him "you know the drill, man" and wait for my pairing to be announced.

Game 4. DS vs. Chris Simmons (MWYHL test to 5 with heavy space)
Chris is also a local from the Atlanta area..
He starts Battle Plan, non-combo Wise Advice, and The Way of Things.

First turn, I signal for Broken Concentration (broken is exactly what it is against MWYHL) and get Xizor and a Vigo to the Coruscant DB. He gets out Yoda and a test. I get out the Death Star DB and Emperor Palpatine and move to the Death Star DB. He gets out another site, and draws. I play Monnok used, drain, drop a POTF on the Coruscant DB, and move the Emperor there. He drops Honor and drops Son of Skywalker on Dagobah. He also converts my Coruscant. I start hitting him for damage, eventually taking over the Coruscant system. I get out Search and Destroy a bit later. He completes test 1 when he has about 15 cards left. I used A Dangerous Time/Broken Concentration to keep Squadron Assignments and mains off the table. He never force-drained me at all this game, so I won pretty handily.
Full win by 29
6(+53)

Drake gets "the anti-draw" and loses, Clay, Kessling, and Andrew Morris are all 3-1. There are 2 people at 4-0, one has a timed win.
Pairings are announced.. Kessling has to play Andrew, and I get to play none other than...

Game 5: DS vs. Clay Ramey (HBX with inserts)
I don&#8217;t really like having to play Clay, since we playtest together more than we play any other Team Atlanta members (mainly because he lives about 5 miles from my house).
He Signals for Echo Base Garrison on the start, and I&#8217;m sure he&#8217;s playing inserts at this point.

I get out the Coruscant DB and a Vigo on turn 1, and move Xizor over to join him. Clay digs for his droids and systems for the first 3 turns and drops some Xwings. He drops Yarna on his first turn, so I doubt I would have been able to monnok him for more than 2 interrupts or maybe some inserts. I get the Emperor to the Coruscant DB with Dengar and get Xizor and a Vigo to the Death Star DB and set up Search and Destroy. He drops Honor, and I don&#8217;t have No Escape or a Twilek Advisor in my hand. He also drops his 3 droids in front of Xizor and inserts. I pull a Force Lightning on his turn and my turn, and activate 3 force. I drain him a bit, exchange the positions of the Vigo/Xizor and Dengar/Empy sets, and pull a Force Lightning. He activates, drains me for 2, and drops EPP Luke against Xizor. He hits Xizor with a swing. On my action, I Set for Stun one of his droids, then I Force Lightninged another. Xizor&#8217;s site is cleared, and I flip back. Next turn, I fry the other droid and activate all my force. His insert pops, hitting him for 9 cards. I reflip by dropping Xizor #2. He flips his objective, so I come to space with Bossk at one system and Guri/Stinger and ZIMH against 2 Xwings. I drop First Strike and Broken Concentration and fight off the two Xwings. I move to probe more systems and block drains. He hits up Bossk for 3 cards with a few XWingsI eventually probe him and drain him out, putting all the cards in my hand back with my objective and probing.
Full Win by 31
8(+84)

Paul Myers beats John Stack (the only two undefeated after 4 games), Kessling beats Andrew, and Drake loses his 2nd in a row. I&#8217;m looking forward to the next game, as it looks like I&#8217;ll be able to control my own destiny by playing the last undefeated person...

Game 6: LS vs Paul Myers (exact copy of Dark Surgeon)
I&#8217;ve been looking forward to playing this kid, as he talks lots of trash online to other people, and since the whole foil incident allegedly occurred previously. Before the game starts, Jeff Holmes (who ran the YJ state championships and who was helping Kevin Goddard run the tourney) showed us to a private table and watched almost the entire game.

He started the usual Dark Surgeon stuff and does what that deck does on turn one every time (gets out Kuat and the Coruscant DB, moves Xizor over). I begin the trash-talking by basically telling him that I knew every card of his deck and could ramble off the decklist if I needed.. I get out a DB for the first couple of turns, and take control of Kessel early on with Dash and a RFC in the Outrider. He gets out the Death Star DB and flips his objective by moving Dengar with gun and Xizor to tatooine on his 2nd turn. He monnoks me on his 3rd turn, seeing Don&#8217;t Get Coc.ky, Run Luke Run, tripler card, Slight Weapons Malfunction, EPP Han, and the SATM combo. However, he nailed 2 of my 3 EPP Lukes with that monnok. He drops characters to the Death Star DB and retreats there. I activate, pull my other DB (a turn late) and notice that my 3rd Luke is in the force pile. I knew he didn&#8217;t play more than 1 monnok, so I drew up to 15 cards, getting the Luke. He hits me for 2 , then gets a POTF and a Vigo to the Death Star DB. I fortify at Kessel with the Falcon piloted by Chewie with gun and Mirax. He drains, and then hits me for 1. He deploys even more characters to the ground, such that his only fighting chars left are 4LOM with gun, IG with gun, and Guri. I realize that he hasn&#8217;t taken over the cantina yet, and that I can easily win the game if I do so, since he has very few characters that aren&#8217;t on the table. I end up moving the Falcon to Tatooine to flip again. IG and Guri find their way to the table, and he transits a great deal of his force to the Tatooine DB, leaving Djas, Xizor, and a Vigo behind. I drop EPP Luke and Han to the Cantina, land the falcon, and walk Chewie and Mirax in to join the fun. I have drains of 3 and 2 set up, while he has drains of 2 and 1. I drop Lando with blaster, a RFC, and Tallon Karrde to the DeathStar DB. Lando meets a barrier. He hits me for 1, drops a POTF to the Tatooine DB and 4-LOM to the DS DB (which meets a barrier itself). He transits Dengar, Fett, and IG to the DS DB. I hit him for 5 in drains, attempt a SATM on Xizor and miss. I transit Lando and crew to the spaceport DB off of Tatooine and move Chewie and Mirax back over to the Tat DB (Chewie gets fried by the emperor). Mirax takes off to the tatooine system. He had pitched a couple of ships to a drain, so I figured I could get away with that ship at the system. He drops ZIMH and Lateral Damages the falcon. He battles and draws a 6, I draw a 5. I lose Mirax, the ship, and 3. He loses his ship. He transits all but Djas, Vigo, and Xizor from the DS DB to the tatooine DB. I move my crew back to the Death Star after draining for 6. He&#8217;s running low on cards at this point, so he drains me and moves Fett with gun over to the spaceport DB. I drain him for 5, knocking him down to 2 cards. I drop 2 scrubs in front of fett, fight him, make him lose to Draw Their Fire (1 card left). He hits a scrub and loses fett. I fight him at the Death Star DB, retrieve another force and he loses his last card.
Full win by 9
10(+93)

Highs: Winning a game I should lose about 75% of the time. Giving myself a good chance at making the final.
Lows: Lots. At numerous points during the game, either Jeff Holmes or I had to tell my opponent to hurry up. He seemed to be stalling by deliberately taking lots of time to shuffle his deck. His first turn took like 3 minutes, when it shouldn&#8217;t take more than one. The game ran to time, but we were granted an extension due to this.

I get up from one of the hardest games I have ever played to many handshakes and congratulations.. Lots of people thought that I was going to lose that game, and I, too, knew that it wasn&#8217;t exactly a favorable matchup. People start to tell me that I got 3rd again, which really made me frustrated, as I didn&#8217;t want what happened last year to happen again. All the games end, and Kevin starts the announcement of places. Mike Kessling gets first, I get 2nd&#8230;

Here&#8217;s a list of the results after the first 6 games:

1. Michael Kessling 10 (98)
2. Charlie Herren 10 (93)
3. Paul Myers 10 (78)
4. Trevor Bradley 10 (70)
5. Tony Zamberlan 10 (66)
6. John Stack 8 (87)
7. Clay Ramey 8 (55)
8. James Boyd 8 (45)
9. Stephen Michael 8 (43)
10. Phillip Gladney 8 (37)
11. Austin Sheppard 8 (34)
12. Neal Weaver 8 (14)
13. Landon Sommer 8 (9)
14. James McNash 8 (9)
15. Arthur Rhodes 6 (33)
16. Adam Beauchamp 6 (29)
17. Adam Drake 6 (17)
18. Andrew Morris 6 (10)
19. Andrew Harwell 6 (-18)
20. Tim Jones 5 (-10)
21. Chip Nicholson 5 (-20)
22. John Iodice 4 (-14)
23. Carmine Arca 4 (-21)
24. Nick Archa 4 (-30)
25. Josh Huskins 4 (-46)
26. Roger Schneider 4(-46)
27. Luke Heerman 4 (-50)
28. Robert Koper 4 (-55)
29. Chris Simmons 4 (-58)
30. Rick Steep 4 (-62)
31. Joshua Gruver 3 (-14)
32. Bruce Lang 3 (-61)
33. James Barrett 2 (-44)
34. Alex Heerman 2 (-69)
35. Henry Dunn 1 (-103)
36. Rebekah Gruver 0 (-106)


Mike and I end up taking a break from the turmoil, I grab a soda, stretch a bit, and the final begins.
Mike chooses to play dark first.

Finals game 1: LS vs Chu-style Huntdown
I feel good about this matchup, since I had played against it before and won it.
He starts IAO, Mob Points and Crush the Rebellion
(I apologize, but the details of this game are a bit fuzzy to me.. here&#8217;s what I can remember)

First turn he plays Imperial Command for Ozzel, drops the Executor DB and Ozzel there, then drops Lord Vader and saber at the Tatooine DB. I Transterm his visage during his move phase. I activate, drop the home one DB, and draw. He hits me for 2, then draws. I drop the spaceport DB off of tatooine and get Dash/Outrider to Tatooine via that DB. He drains me for 2, then drops the CC DB with Mara and Saber there. I drop Luke and Han at the Death Star DB against Vader. I swung at Vader and missed. He hits Han with Vader. I draw high on the destinies, so he loses Vader and 3, while I lose both Han and Luke. I move the Outrider to Kessel. He drains for 2, then drops the Chimaera and Thrawn, and I barrier the ship. I don&#8217;t have a tripler card in hand, and I&#8217;m not flipped, so I can&#8217;t cause much of a beatdown. I drop a pilot on the outrider and drop Mirax in pulsar skate and fight. I draw high, he draws around 6, so I lose Mirax and he loses the ship and pilot. I keep the drain at Kessel going, spreading to Tatooine as well. He has trouble finding another Vader and finally does so a couple of turns later. I drop Luke, kill mara and use the SATM combo to make her lost. Eventually, I win the drain race.
Full Win by 17
2(+17)

Highs: getting a good start. Keeping Visage off the table.
Lows: none

Finals game 2: DS vs Chu-style Throneroom mains
He starts Insurrection, Staging Areas, and Your Insight.
He goes first, dropping Mirax at the Home One DB on his first turn (no 2/0s). I end up activating my coruscant DB, so I pull my Death Star DB. He pulls the Hoth DB from reserve and draws (still no 2/0s). I activate, drop the coruscant DB, a POTF, the emperor there, and move Xizor over to flip. He drops Jedi Luke to the Home One DB and transits over to the Death Star DB with Mirax. On my turn, I drop Snoova and Vibro-Ax and IG with gun. I fight, and capture Luke with Snoova, flipping me back. He loses mirax and a few. I run IG to the empty Spaceport DB and Snoova to where Xizor is. He gets out Savrip and establishes a force on that DB with Han with gun and Orrimaarko. I run IG away and drop some guys to battle him. We go back and forth, but he decides that he wants to draw up since he knows that without Luke, he stands little chance (even with Savrip).
Full Win by 18 (lots in hand)
4(+35)

Highs: the quick capture of Luke, which helped me establish board control and win the game
Lows: having to beat Mike, who is a good friend of mine. Mike getting "the anti-draw" yet again...

So I end up winning, and it was 11PM, 10 hours after the tourney had begun. We all go to Buffalo&#8217;s for some food, and I end up macking a bit on the waitress there, although I do it very poorly because I&#8217;m so damn exhausted. Jim Sells, who had been taking notes at the GA states, drives me and Clay back to meet up at Tim&#8217;s, we all play WWF No Mercy on N64 and we all crash pretty early this time around.

Props:
- Mike Kessling, for the strong finish and the most relaxed final ever.
- Kevin Goddard and Jeff Holmes, for running the tourney VERY well..
- The War Room, for a great venue for states and DPC Atlanta
- John Iodice, for teaching me how to play Texas and Omaha Hold-’em....
- the cute waitress at Buffalo’s, for putting up with my antics at midnight
- Clay, for agreeing with me that it’s funny when your own insert hits you for 9.
- Andrew Morris, for the ride to the tourney and the Wal-mart sticker (6-0 at states with it, 1-1 without it)
- the lady at the deli of the grocery store, for not being able to use a scale or read signs.
- Art, James, Tony, and the others for travelling from Augusta to make it
- unamerican.com, for the "whitey will pay" T-shirt
- Paul Myers, for deploying all his fighting characters really early :)

Slops:
- Paul Myers, for seemingly attempting to stall me out, and for the incidents earlier in the day
- Mike Dalton. If you don’t know him or don’t know anything about him, then you certainly don’t understand.

Thanks to everyone for reading this far...
Later,
Charlie Herren
2001 GA state champion
2000 Dagobah Regional champion