milford-ma-5-5-01
Title: milford-ma-5-5-01
Author: Hayes "Hayes" Hunter
Date: May 10, 2001
States came and went. It was fun, but I’ve been trying to pull myself away from Star Wars until Tatooine comes out (yeah, right, like that’s working). Anyway, I really hadn’t planned on playing in this tournament, I was just going to sell some cards and distribute some RamapoCon Flyers (RamapotatoCon to the Quebecers). As it turned out there were 15 people playing, so I decided to make it an even number (2 more people joined after the first game, thanks to stupid Mapquest). My decks were the same as at states, Hidden Mains with the addition of an Ounee Ta, and the same old MKOS Abyssins (with Projective Telepathy tech :-). Rating was 2198 going into the day.
Game One
Hidden Mains Vs Michael "rayc" Hawley’s (1775) HDADTJ Duel
He starts the standard + Crush to protect against my numerous Clashes, so I opt for YISYW to be my third effect to get Honor. He just gets Carida and the EX: DB and we lose to Visage. I am pleased to see him pitch a Twi’lek from hand as I had drawn Honor in my opening 8. I just deploy the standard DB, Dag, and hut, put down Honor and pick up to get JK Luke. I only lose to Visage once more that game because he had spread out in a vein attempt to block my drains late game. Luke comes down, before Vader, with his saber, and I just start draining. Between Visage, the fact that he had to draw for an additional turn to get the dark lord, and my early pressure he has trouble doing much of anything. When Lord does come down I barrier him still on the Ex to buy myself another turn. Finally when he has about 16 of so force left he drops Tarkin, Palp, Janus, and Sim Aloo, then moves Vader along with Tarkin in front of my Han and Luke. My turn I draw a tracked 6 for Han’s SATM, offing the Lord (YISYW was still out and SATM adds with Han) then I battle and rape Tarkin with the rest of the guys in my hand. I think a blind Off the Edge gets me back some force.
FW +30
(2+30)
Highs: Erm... I like Mike!
Lows: He couldn’t catch a break.
Game Two
MKOS Vs Steve "Stevie B" Baroni’s (1969) HBX
Steebo told me what he was playing before the tourney thinking I wasn’t going to play, though I refused to look over his decks. It really didn’t have any impact on the game because MKOS swarm is the absolute worst match-up for HBX. I just got a fast start with Scum, Chall, MJ, and Gailid to the chamber. I set up my palace drains, bouncing Boushh, and Defensive Fire & Hutt Kissing his alien undercover spies. I never saw S+D, and had nothing to retrieve so I ended with a big hand, but a win none the less.
FW +21
(4+51)
Highs: Neh.
Lows: It was a boring game.
Game Three
MKOS Vs Mike "MadSkills84" Pistone’s (1581) WYS Raiders
Mike had me get up early that morning so I could tweak his decks for him for today’s tourney (again he thought I wasn’t going to play). Anyway, when I looked for my first JP site I saw both Jabbas, both Gailids, and both Challs sitting in there, so a fast drain set up wouldn’t be happening anytime soon. So I was curious as to what the hell could be in my force pile. The answer to that was SPACE. Ungodly amounts of it, for any Scum deck. So I just drew up my Myo, Xizor, Virago, Bib, and Guri, to go with the Scum, First Strike, and Stinger in my hand. His turn, he pulls the Spaceport DB, and puts Han and Talon in the Falcon to it, then moves them up. Seeing how there are only Tatooine locations on the table I have no trouble pulling Jabba, and deploying all the Jank from my hand and flipping. I battle, he loses one, I retrieve my starting interrupt, I flip a 3 (which is really a 5) and a 5 (a 7) and cancel his single destiny, clearing the Falcon of it’s occupants. I am then able to set up my drains on the ground and just fend off his space attacks. Like he came with Dash and Wedge in the Outrider, and threw Mirax on the Falcon. Even though he was flipped, Guri kept him to a single destiny, which Myo took care of, and I again, drew very well. I retaliated with Zuckass and BinHT to wipe him off the system.
FW +26
(6+77)
Highs: MKOS SPACE
Lows: I knew his deck better than he did.
Lunch Time! Me and Steebo hop in my car and head to McDonalds, which was a lot further down the road than I remembered. Thanks to traffic and the incompetence of the cashier we got back later than anticipated, causing the overall tourney to run late as well (sorry Jared). All the sugar I got from the McFlurry was enough to keep me singing my next game mostly in bad Italian opera.
Game Four
Hidden Mains Vs Mike "MadSkills84" Pistone’s (1581) AOBS- Craft Variant
Well I knew this deck, too, and frankly, I was a bit apprehensive. Tangent time: the whole reason I like SW, as opposed to other games on the market, and games like chess, etc. is because of the minimal amount of luck involved. SW is more about mental discipline and deck construction, than it is what the top 15 cards of your deck are. So, being the anti-luck person that I am, I hate dueling and I hate hidden weapons. It’s not so much that luck gives the "lesser" player any more of an advantage, or disadvantage for that matter, than it does the "better" player- it’s that it creates a situation the "better" player can’t control. Back to the game, he had a good 8 and so did I. I managed to get JK Luke with saber to his Imperial City (with his POTF) and I killed off Xizor giving me a nice drain of 3 for a good part of the game. From there I just kept Luke fortified, and was able to lure him into Sensing the wrong interrupts. Hit and run EPPs kept him from developing any sort of strike force to retaliate with, then I got off my edges to boost the differential some.
FW +26
(8+103)
Highs: Ho hum.
Lows: I dunno.
Game Five
Hidden Mains Vs Steve "Stevie B" Baroni’s (1969) Chu’s Biker ROPS
Ounee Ta. I start it, he loses. In theory, at least... Actually I had a hard time cracking the ROP barrier. It had been a long a long time since I’d played against ROPS in any form so I made some poor decisions, opting to boost my activation rather than prevent his flip. OTE came out fast and there were very few turns he didn’t lose to it, or was at least forced into sacrificing a biker scout or two for the good of the empire. Later game I was able to flip him off and managed to kill everyone but Vader, unfortunately it was REALLY late game when we reached this point. He had more force on the table, but I had a big hand and 2 Edges in hand which woulda put me over for the timed win, at a minimum. In what I took to be another great gesture of sportsmanship from Steebo, he initiated a fatal battle against some of my mains with a lone biker scout. As it turns out, Steve hadn’t put his "Decipher" name on the command card and knew that I had gotten anything BUT a full win, I woulda have lost points on the game.
FW +16
(10+119)
Highs: It actually wasn’t a bad game. Afterwards we played for fun, except this time I was playing 59 cards (no Ounee Ta), and he won by like 3 (I had a pretty poor start).
Lows: Steve trying to protect his rating...
Game Six
MKOS Vs Brian Cieszynski’s (1741) Profit
Profit? WTF? This woulda been a really good game, actually, had Brian been able to get one of those 6-8 Jedi Lukes into his hand, as opposed to on the top of his deck to be lost to drains (happened like three times) or drawn for destiny (twice). Basically, I just got the mad fast flip, and spread holding NSP, and using Gailid. Brian just had to draw. He couldn’t get his locations so he never had enough force to deploy en mass until it was too late. At one point he came to the palace (not the heavily fortified chamber, or the passages where elephant man says no to Lando) with Obi, who I let stay, expecting JK Luke, then Lando with Axe. Bib and Boelo got 3 Twerps, Boelo was excluded, Brian draws a 0 and a 6, which I cancel with Myo, and in the end he loses Lando (who he revives) and then a couple. My turn, I drain, then drop the remaining 5 Abyssins in the deck from my hand and fight. Boelo is excluded but everyone on his side must die to cover all the damage while my Abyssin’s hit the used pile. Late game, I have a big hand, like 12, all red, and he Nabruns some guys who were hanging at the Rebel Landing Site over to the AC, but Mighty Jabba is huge, so I flip like 10 attrition twice clearing the Chamber and I just drain him out.
FW +24
(12+143)
Highs: Well, I did win the tourney
Lows: Brian is the man and I hate to beat him
I won an Imperial Decree foil, which I gave to Brian, along with $32 for an IOU on a box of Tatooine. Steebo grabbed second, and Mike "The Rattler" Schiemer took third with Johnny "JohnnyVegas" Rivera. I head home and hit the sack.
PROPS TO:
Jared for a well-run event, and for getting the ratings thing fixed
My opponents for excellent games
All who attended
Tom Shea, TJ’s owner who WILL make it the best gaming store in Mass
Johnny Vegas for being a movie star :-)
Aaron for being cool
Ross and Steve cause their Ross and Steve
The new guys that just started playing 6 months ago
Paul Maholick for being there
And anyone who bought cards off me
SLOPS TO:
Steebo. Dude, I know your cards are with Deck, but you know you are a good player- you can win with crap, so don’t freak about the rating
Anyone who didn’t show up that wasn’t suffering from post-inebriated anxiety
McDonalds just cause
But wait... There’s more!
Wednesday the ratings are updated (thanks Jared) but I see I’m 14 points below where I should be, so I talk to Jared and he calls Bruce who will set things straight. I also talk to Kyle Huer who says that all the cards for Tatooine will be revealed at least a week before the street date, so we’ll have plenty of time to mull things over before RamapoCon.
Sunday I head over to Kris "figgiedan" Earl’s place to play in a CC sealed deck and to sell some cards. In case you couldn’t guess, the format sucked cause out of like 90 cards we each only had like 10 with ability and there were only 5 people of us. Anyway, that died out pretty quickly and we just spent most of the time playing Jedi Knights, which I must say, is a cool game. Look for NH State champ Brian Cieszynski to win all the JK events at Ramapotato.
Up next will prolly be a TR detailing Kyle Craft’s eminent arrival and the trouble we’ll get into up with the Albany crew (Hayes Hunter? Stay away from Star Wars? I laugh at the thought of it). Should be a good tourney...
As always, thanks for reading, and until next time...
-Hayes "Hayes" Hunter