graces-mn-states-report
Title: graces-mn-states-report
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: May 14, 2001
Tuesday night, my jedi training deck lost its first game to Tim Halverson. That
had me a bit concerned. Sure, he was playing Hunt Down, and, sure, people keep
telling me my jedi training deck is an auto-loss to Hunt Down and BHBM and
everything else, but this was the first time I had questioned the effectiveness
of my deck. There was a warm up tournament on Friday night, so I built a new
light deck to test out, either to throw people off my scent or to develop a new
deck that would have better odds against Hunt Down and BHBM. I was not certain
what percentage of the players in the area would use those two objectives as
opposed to the Scum, Ties and ISB that MWYHL absolutely kills. Friday, then, I
brought a Tatooine Celebration deck built off the Hidden Base platform with
docking bays and Staging Areas. It won the tournament, but I was concerned about
how effective it would be against Scum since I couldn
?t seem to fit Menace Fades
in the deck. Also, it beat the Hunt Down Zach Stenerson had brought, but it was
more a matter of luck than I would have liked. So, completely exhausted early
Saturday morning after reminding myself to stay awake on the drive home, I
settled on the MWYHL deck that has a counter for everything and is an auto-loss
to everything, too, somehow, despite the fact that at this point it had a record
of something like 15 to 1. And, yes, that included wins against BHBM and Hunt
Down. Anyhow, that just left me to decide which dark side deck to play. I was
going to go either with my Graces Vengeance AoBS deck or the ISB deck I had
twiddled around with a few times. The ISB deck won the tournament earlier that
evening, so it was rather tempting. But, I glanced back at a couple of my
tournament reports on DeckTech and noticed that the AoBS deck, though slightly
riskier, consistently won by a higher differential. So, I went with Graces
Vengeance, and that proved to be the key to my success at the tournament.
Meanwhile, Travis Bean had d-mailed me for a ride, so I had to get up about an
hour earlier than usual to drive out to the boonies to pick him up. Travis
actually lives on Boone Ave. You can not get more boonie-ish than that. I left
my apartment, then, at about, roughly, the crack of dawn and picked up Travis. On the way to Mirkwood, I
decided to run a small, cultural litmus test on our local boondocker, pointing out how when I went to a
neighbouring suburb in the recent past, I had noticed that all at the people at the Best Buy were deformed,
including the dude working the register who had snot hanging in a quarter-inch droplet from his razor-thin
nose. Travis acknowledged the trailer trash nature of the other suburb, so he passed test 1. Then I pointed
out how we were listening to the best in Finnish Club music, Bombfunk MC, and alluded to comments about
European MTV. Travis agreed that Europe was cool and American MTV sucks, so he got high marks on
the cultural litmus test and we drove on. We got to the tournament in time to turn in our deck lists. There
was about a half-hour left before the tournament, so Travis and I played a game of Warlord.
When the tournament was set to go, Dion Erbes, the TD, addressed the new
Decipher rulings, tournament etiquette, etc. He called the pairings, and we
began.
There were 42 players. Noticeable names included Mike Raveling, Josh Kohman,
Graham Neal, Garrett Larson and Justin Alfs.
Of course, since I gave Travis Bean a ride, I ended up paired against him in the
first game.
Game 1, my Save You It Can versus Travis Bean, Agents of the Black Sun
Travis built a TIGIH that was nearly identical to mine and played that for a
number of tournaments. I was flattered. However, that led me to believe that his
AoBS deck would also be quite similar to mine. I asked him if he had managed to
acquire 6 Palpatines to make a Dark Surgeon copy, and he said he had not. So, I
commented that that was okay since my AoBS was better for our local meta anyway.
Travis said, Good. So I new what I was up against, but the problem was that when
I had tested my Vengeance against my Save You it Can, the Vengeance had won both
games, convincingly. Fortunately, I also knew how to play against my own
Vengeance deck, better, in fact, than Travis knew how to use it. Space was going
to be key. If I could get Honor to stop the damage from his objective and force
him to pay for his drains with Battle Plan, then I would be able to complete
Test 5, retrieve, and gain total control.
So, I started with Insight instead of The Way of Things and scrapped that for
Honor as soon as he flipped. Travis set up by deploying a Presence of the Force
to the Imperial City for the first turn flip, then grabbing the Spaceport
docking bay on his next turn, moving Xixor over and deploying Palpatine to the
Imperial City. With Honor out, I was only taking the two force drain each turn
and focused on completing my tests and drawing for the SuperFalcon. Travis
started Crush to grab an Evader and Monnok combo, but I did not have any doubles
in my hand as I kept drawing to get the SuperFalcon. He played the Monnok used,
and I grabbed it. Travis then deployed a Presence of the Force on Carida and
established Zuckuss there along with 4Lom. The Monnok Travis had played had
kicked the Falcon out of my hand along with the Legendary Starfighter, but I
still had Captain Han, Leia with Blaster and the card of the game, Squadron
Assignments. So, just when Travis established his third battleground to get
around Honor while simultaneously getting past Battle Plan, I responded by
deploying Squassin, flashing Han to get the Falcon, backing him up with Leia and
blasting Zuckuss out of space. Unfortunately, Travis drew high enough to kill
both Han and Leia, so the Falcon became an empty shell at Carida. During my draw
phase, I pulled an Out of Commission and played it, removing Zuckuss from the
game. With Test 2 completed and Fett on the ground at Coruscant, I knew that
meant that Travis would not be able to draw a destiny in space. Melas deployed
to Carida on my next turn and established total space superiority.
Travis, on the other hand, deployed en masse to Coruscant, backing up Xixor, and
then backing up the Emperor. By the time I drew Obi and the Lower Corridor,
Xixor, Guri, Fett, Palpatine, IG-88, Fett-wannabe and a Vigo or two were all
accounted for. Again, with Test 2 in play, Travis was going to have a difficult
time drawing a destiny against Obi, so I set him up at the Lower Corridor. Now,
I was draining for 4 for free, and Travis was paying 6 to drain for 2. I
completed my tests, getting a 7 on Test 5, retrieved and then started causing
damage with Test 6. The game sped up exponentially as Travis was unable to stop
the 6 damage I was causing him every turn while I was playing On the Edge to
retrieve all the force I was losing. That lasted only a couple of turns, and I
won by 32.
FW 2, +32.
High: Winning my first game against a deck that, like every other dark side
deck, should have been an auto-win against my light. Putting Zuckuss out of
play.
Lows: Travis killed both Han AND Leia in that battle.
Ugly: Travis later told me that, severaltimes, he saw No Escape in the 6 force
with which he was paying to drain. Dude, that is when you DRAW those 6 force.
A light side win by 32 was only enough to get me into the second pairing. There,
I matched up against Josh Kohman, renewing the Battle of the Joshes. Kohman had
actually won the last game, with exactly the same deck match up. In that game, I
was not able to get out either of my anti-retrieval effects, and Kohman
retrieved everything he had lost, well over 60 force worth. That had prompted
the only change I made to the deck since I had removed all the Scanning Crews
that I could not play. After losing to Kohman, I switched out a fairly worthless
Hidden Weapons for another Twilek in order to grab my retrieval killers sooner.
Game 2, my Vengeance against Josh Kohman, Quiet Mining Colony
An opening hand Emperor proved to be the key to the game. I deployed him to the
Guest Chambers and moved Xixor to the Spaceport DB since I had a second Xixor in
my hand. Kohman activated 6, dropped Obi with Saber against Xixor, used 1 to
search with QMC and then deployed Battle Plan and battled for free. Both our
characters died, but I took about 4 or 5 overflow in damage. On my next turn, I
drained and set up Xixor at a DB to flip again. Kohman deployed another Obi
against Palpatine and battled. He swung and missed. I played I Have You Now.
Palpatine won the battle, Obi died, and I lost a force with Young Fool to place
Obi out of play. That meant that Palpatine would be invulnerable except to Luke,
and Kohman would be pushing his luck to bring Luke against the Emperor.
Battle Plan was slowing me down, but my drains and direct damage were still,
slowly but surely, eating away at Kohmans life force. Meanwhile, I was drawing
to get all the right cards into my hand while using A Dangerous Time to put all
the wrong cards into Kohmans hand. For example, all of Kohmans ships, or at
least 4 of them, were sitting at the bottom of his force pile while he would
have to draw above 12 cards in order to get at any of them. A Monnok used would
then limit his chances of successfully deploying any of them.
So Kohman started playing desperately and made two mistakes that lost him the
game. Mistake 1: After I had drawn Zuckuss in MH and Bossk in HT and had begun
to save enough force to deploy them on the same turn to Bespin, Kohman deployed
characters at two CC sites and deployed Celebration to Bespin, betting that I
did not have any ships in my deck. Of course, on my next turn, I deployed my
ships and cancelled Celebration. Then, he made Mistake 2: On his next turn, he
deployed Luke to Bespin to flip my objective and then flashed Moff Wedge to get
his ship, or vice versa, deploying him against Zuckuss and Bossk. He then
double-checked his force pile, to find 2 force active. He asked me if he could
take back his deployment of Luke, but because I also saw 2 force active and was
thinking X-Wing Lasers, I had to say, No. Moff Wedge, then, had to run away. The
game then turned into a drain race with my 5 to Kohmans 2, and I already had a
good lead to begin with. At some point, I lost Secret Plans off the top of my
deck, but I was able to Twilek for Something Special. Regardless, my Dangerous
Times did their job effectively as Kohman was never able to draw his Edge cards.
Win by 18.
FW 4, +50
Highs: Getting revenge in the Battle of the Joshes. Opening hand Emperor.
Lows: Feeling like a bit of a jerk for not letting Kohman take back his
deployment of Luke.
Ugly: What was Josh thinking to deploy Celebration without ships to back it up?
Lunch break at Wendys. When we get back Garrett Larson tells me how he and Tony
Lawrence were wrestling in the parking lot. Tony, apparently, spent a lot of
time making silly lunges at Garrett and bouncing off of him. I just shake my
head and think about how silly the whole situation is until Tony comes up to
Garrett, Justin Alfs and myself and starts talking about how Camerion Diaz is
ugly. Okay, I had to draw the line, there. Cameron Diaz may not be my favorite
female, but she is a far cry from ugly. Suddenly, as Tony continued to protest
his singular opinion, I understood why Garrett might want to toss Tony around
for a bit of fun.
Meanwhile, Garrett and Justin both know what I am playing since I told them.
They both saw the deck several times before, so there would not be any
surprises. And I know what they are playing since they told me. I got paired
against Justin for the third game, and he started praying that he would get to
play his BHBM against my jedi training. But it was not to be; I was dark side.
Game 3, my Vengeance against Justin Alfs, Spoiled Hopes TIGIH
Justin and I playtested this game once or twice. Each time the outcome was the
same. I won. However, in each of those games I was able to get the Emperor down
to the Endor Landing Platform early in the game. But, this time, I was unable to
get a first hand Emperor, and with all the force Justin was going to activate, I
could not risk Xixor at a battleground until I backed him up with Guri. So that
stunk. On my first turn, I grabbed the Death Star docking bay and found the
Emperor was in my force pile, so I drew. Justin activated altogether a sickening
amount of force, grabbed A Dangerous Time when I played it, drained for one and
moved Luke over to the Landing Platform. Of course, I expected the turn to work
just like that, but it still stunk because now I was going to have to try to
kill Luke instead of plopping the Emperor down at the Landing Platform.
Justin kept revealing his reserve deck to me by playing Throw Me Another Charge
and Fall of the Legend. He must have figured that since I built the deck he had
based his own design upon, he was not really giving away any secrets. However,
he was inadvertently revealing to me the location of his Fallen Portals. The
first two checks showed two Fallen Portals in the reserve deck. So I tried to
kill Luke with 4Lom and IG-88. Insertion Planning foiled my efforts, though, and
I stacked a card. The third check revealed no Fallen Portals in the reserve.
That meant that on my next turn, I was going to play Monnok lost. Which I did,
and I got both Fallen Portals.
Meanwhile, afraid to set up for the first several turns, I was falling behind in
the drain race. Not only was I behind in the drain race, but I knew that even
though I had both Something Special Planned and Secret Plans in play, Justin was
going to retrieve 10 force over the course of the game. Additionally, he played
Battle Plan and set up the mini-Falcon along with Moff Wedge and Blount in Red 6
at Endor. Endor was, then, death to my starships.
Unable to do more damage than Justin, and unable to kill off Luke with wussy
attacks, I was forced to slowly accumulate a sufficient strike force at the
Death Star docking bay to transit over and confront Justins forces at the
Landing Platform. Eventually, Xixor, Guri, Snoova, a couple of Vigos and maybe
another character or two squared off against Luke and company. And Justin made
the fatal mistake of the game. He ran Luke away. The Emperor seized the moment
to move over to the Landing Platform, and since Luke was crippled, I left his
massed forces alone and move the rest of my guys to the Death Star docking bay
to drain. Since Justin had deployed everything but the kitchen sink at Endor, I
deployed Zuckuss in MH at Carida to get past Battle Plan. Suddenly, I was
draining for 4 a turn to the 1 for which Justin was plinking me. Even with the
early lead he had established and his retrieval, the game was slipping away from
him, so he attempted to battle me at the Death Star DB. He
deployed Corran Horn,
and I Barriered him. Choosing not to battle without Corran Horn, he was stuck,
leaving me to initiate the battle on my turn. During my deploy phase I played
Put All Sections on Alert to cancel Obi with Sabers game text. I battled and
captured someone with Snoova with my first action, then captured someone with
IG-88 with my second action. The battle damage eliminated all of his characters
except Orrimarko, and I lost a Vigo.
My drain of 4 was killing Justin quickly enough that he had to risk the
mini-Falcon against Zuckuss. But I had been holding Bossk in Bus for just such
an occasion. The battle was the last occurance of note, and the game ended
shortly. FW by 10.
FW 6, +60
Highs: Winning. It would have been embarassing to lose to a deck I designed.
Lows: 4Lom and IG-88 were given no mercy.
Ugly: Luke the Gimp spending the last 5 turns doing nothing, absolutely nothing,
at the spaceport docking bay.
Game 4, my Auto-Loss Versus Everything versus Andy Newton, Hunt Down
Well, the odds makers had me at about 100 ? 1 on this game. After all, I was
training Luke. But the game was rather uneventful, and I dominated. Well,
actually, I was losing more force than Andy Newton for most of the game, but I
still dominated because I was not losing ENOUGH force to matter. With jedi
training, if I am not losing 3 or more force each turn before I flip, I am going
to win. Against Andy, I got Honor out on the first turn, and he never played No
Escape, nor did he occupy three battlegrounds to suspend Honor. Therefore, I
suffered no damage from Visage. Andy set up shop at one docking bay or another
with the only point of note about it being that it was not the Cloud City
docking bay, meaning, in essence, that if I was to put the Lower Corridor out
later in the game, Andy would not be able to walk over.
So, the game was divided into three fairly distinct phases.
Phase 1. Early game. Andy set up Vader at a docking bay as Hunt Down decks are
wont to do. I set up Honor and boldly took the 1 drain each turn while setting
up my jedi tests. He backed up Vader with some other folk, and I thought to
myself, He can have that docking bay.
Phase 2. Mid game. Andy was still paying to drain all the time and still failing
to hit me with Visage damage. I decided it was time to deploy Kessel and Captain
Han in the Falcon since I was holding both Leia and I Know. I also deployed I ll
Take the Leader. Andy deployed Zuckuss and 4Lom against me and battled. I played
I Know. Andy cancelled it with Scruffy Looking Nerfherder. Say what? How is
that, again? And I could not find a Who s Scruff Looking? for the life of me.
Mainly because I do not have one in the deck. That was cool, though. Anyhow, I
was set to lose Han and the Falcon when I realized, Hey, I have completed Test
2. So, maybe I did not get a destiny, but neither did Andy. So I won the battle.
6 power to 2. Andy tossed away 4 force, and on my next turn I deployed Leia to
the Falcon. I could not initiate battle since Their Fire Has Gone Out was on the
table, but neither was I going to take a beating. Andy deployed some other stuff
to space on his next turn and battled. My destiny cleared out his site, but the
10 destiny he drew broke my immunity of 9 and, though I was able to play
Legendary Starfighter, my Falcon was empty.
Phase 3. End game. So I ended up completing Test 5, but my two tracked 7-destiny
cards were too far down to reach to get on Test 5 and not far down enough to
activate enough to retrieve 10 with the flip since Andy had Secret Plans out. I
only had about 10 or 11 in my lost pile and an On the Edge in my hand, so I
decided to get the tracked Artoo in Red 5 that was exactly 9 cards down. Stupid
Secret Plans. I flipped with the permanent 0 or 7 and played On the Edge with
some rebel or another to retrieve 6 on my next turn. I got Han back into the
pilots seat of the Falcon. Luke and Obi squared off against Vader and whomever
Andy had with him. Luke completed Test 6 and became a Jedi. Andy, however,
decided to tech me out once again and played You Are Beaten on Luke to battle a
lone Obi-wan. He played I have you now, swung and chopped Obi and drew decent
destiny. I, like a moron, forgot to add my second destiny of 7 and took, yup,
exactly 7 overflow in the battle. Bah! Obi, however, cleared out Andys side of
the site, and those 7 overflow were the last force I would lose in the game. FW
by 11, maybe.
FW 8, +71.
Highs: What? I thought my deck was an auto-loss. Scruffy Looking Nerfherder.
Okay, so that was not my play, but it was too cool not to consider a game-high.
Lows: Not retrieving with Test 5.
Ugly: Empty shell of the Falcon causing Andy 2 damage each of his move phases.
At this point, my differential kind of sucks. So I figure I have to win both of
my last games to make the final confrontation or win big and lose small. Sitting
at the top tables are Travis Bean who has staged a minor comeback, Josh Kohman,
Michael Raveling, Justin Alfs and Nick Jeninges. I think they were there, at any
rate. I was a little focused and introspective. Sitting at the top table against
the only other undefeated player, I faced off against Graham Neal.
Graham had told me not long ago that he had added all sorts of tech to his decks
to be ready for my jedi training. He had a solid Hunt Down that would have been
a big problem, but I saw one of the cards from that deck sitting in a pile of
cards up for trade. That was good. That suggested to me that he would be playing
his reliable MKOS deck that was a fairly easy win for me with the only question
being the differential. But it was not to be. We sat down to play, and Graham
revealed ISB. And, to top off that surprise, it was not even the ISB Scum Graham
had turned into a wicked machine about a year ago. And to beat that, he started
with the Coruscant system suggesting a variant of Retardosaurus Rex, a deck
which is strong enough to set up a lock down against most decks but which runs
into trouble when it faces the only deck that actually locks down ISB, my jedi
training.
So, that was keen.
Game 5, my Save You It Can Apocalyptic versus Graham Neal, ISB
Graham had a poor, slow start, failing to draw either Piet or an Imperial
Command. He set up at his non-battleground docking bays for generation while I
started my training. When he set up a walker with an Outer Rim Scout, I grabbed
a Test and noticed that about two-thirds of my destiny were high enough to clear
the site with Obi and his stick. I battled and drew something high enough to
take out the walker and lost Obi, in turn. That left Graham to build back up
from scratch. The game seemed to move predictably enough with Graham trying to
establish a presence at the Endor DB and up in space. On the other hand, I just
kept training and picking away at his DB forces. Eventually, the I was able to
deploy the most expensive, least effective Falcon combo ever, consisting of
Lando with Axe and Leia with Blaster. A grabbed Command suggeted that I would be
relatively safe from an imminent beat-down since Graham would have to pay for
the ship, pilots, battle AND the Command. He deployed against me, Laterally
Damaged the Falcon, and battled. He did not have enough force for a Command, so
I played Punch It. I took out his ship, and Lando covered my damage. Shortly
thereafter, I completed Test 5 with a 7, retrieved my force and chased his space
fleet around with my SuperFalcon, choosing not to bother cancelling Lateral
Damage since I was at least a power of 21 in any battle, 35 if I may have
happened to have I Know in my hand. Test 6 started causing Graham some damage,
and before we knew it, there were only 7 minutes left in the game. That was
impossible. I had no idea so much time had passed. I had completely forgotten to
pay attention to time since I had never thought I would time out against Graham.
Meanwhile, I had only hit him for a couple force loss through the course of the
game and he was still draining me for 4 each turn at Fondor, Sullust and
Kashyyk. Then only 2 minutes were left, and it seemed like nothing had changed
except that the Falcon had stared down the Executor and about 4 other ships, and
I had had to lose Leia while he lost about 3 ships. I deployed Melas to the
Falcon and chased him around some more, realizing that I had forgotten one turn
to plink him for 2 with Test 6. Time was called on his turn, so he drained, and
I had one turn left. I made him lose 2 from Test 6 and then drained for 2, both
of which came from his hand, and recycled with Traffic Control. I had nothing
else to do, so we counted our cards. Graham had 15. I had 19.
TW 9, +90
Highs: Obi crushing a walker with the power of the force. Pulling out the win.
Lows: It was timed.
Ugly: I hate timed games.
Normally, a timed game throws me out of my rhythm, throws me off focus, but, of
course, I did not want that to happen, here, so I just reminded myself that if I
won my next game I was in the final confrontation. Graham had had some
incredibly high differential going into our last game, so he was still the top
light side player in the final game. Accordingly, we played again.
Game 6, my Agents of the Black Sun versus Graham Neal, Watch Your Step.
An opening hand Emperor deployed to the Tatooine DB, and on my second turn, Guri
deployed to the Spaceport DB, allowing Xixor to move over and start the Damage
Parade. Graham played a Tatooine Celebration variant of WYS and started Squassin
to get his ships up to Tatooine.
This game is kind of hazy to me because it fell in-between the timed game and
the final confrontation. So, I gave it away. I won this game and got into the
final confrontation.
Anyway, Graham was trying to control space while I was controlling the ground
with the Emperor and Xixor with Guri. I do not remember what happened to Luke.
Either I manipulated him away, or captured him. Luke stayed off of the table, so
I reaped the full benefits of the 7-side of my objective. I did my direct
damage, recycled high destiny and peeked during each of my battle phases to see
what the top of my reserve held in store. At some point, Graham flipped and set
up shop at Tatooine. I had not yet found my retrieval killers, so I did not want
him to set up Celebration. Instead, I saved enough force until I could deploy
Zuckuss in MH, Bossk in HT, Fett with Gun and transit Guri up into space,
backing up Xixor with everything else under the Black Sun.
Meanwhile, I continued to manipulate his force pile with Dangerous Time. Knowing
how much Harvests could ruin my fun, I kept manipulating the Moisture Farm to
the top of the force pile where Graham was certain to use it. At any rate,
Graham battled my two ships with Dash and some random co-pilot on the Outrider
and Captain Han, Chewie and an RFC in the Falcon. He drew 1 destiny, and I drew
3. I had to lose Fett with Gun to the attrition, and Graham lost two of his
characters. On my next turn, I played No Escape to get Fett back into my hand,
deployed him to Zuckuss, deployed 4Lom to Zuckuss and deployed IG-88 with gun to
Zuckuss. Graham had no barrier, so I battled and drew my 5 battle destiny to his
1. So much for the flip side of WYS. His space fleet went down in burning flames
to a total of 27 attrition. Shortly afterward, I slapped a Presence of the Force
on Tatooine, shuttled Guri down to rejoin Xixor and resumed the Damage Parade.
Differential did not matter anymore, so I have no clue what it was. Suffice it
to say, I won and made the final confrontation.
Josh Kohman, perched like a contortionist in his seat, defeated Garrett Larson
to go to 5 and 1, but he was 1 differential shy of second place, which went to
Mike Raveling.
This set up a rematch of the Minnesota Grand Slam confrontation, and, like then,
I was tired. Very tired. Anthony Lawrence hit us up for interviews in the pause
while Dion did deck checks. Asked if I had any advice for Minnesota players, I
replied that they should not play Watch Your Step because I will win against it.
Then, I found out I was going to have to back up those words since Mike Raveling
was playing Watch Your Step in our first game. Hmm.
Final confrontation, game 1. My Vengeance against Raveling Euro-style WYS Beats.
Shame on me. I had not read up on the German WYS deck. I saw it listed on
DeckTech and just kept thinking to myself, Oh, another WYS deck, how bloody
original. And then I clicked on something else each time. So, now I had to face
it, knowing very little apart from the fact that Mike wanted to initiate battles
because he was starting Draw Their Fire. I also knew I was in for a headache
with the Spaceport docking bay since Mike started Ounee Ta. How very meta.
I started my usual IAO, Mob Points and Crush. I played a first turn Monnok to
see if Mike had the goods to back up Ounee Ta and Draw Their Fire. He did. So I
stayed put and drew a card, saving one force since I had Guri in my hand. On
Mikes turn, he deployed some stuff. I deployed Guri to the Spaceport docking bay
and moved Xixor over to join her.
Early on, I start getting Mike Raveling Sweaty Palm disease and make a joke about that.
Though, that makes me wonder. Is Guri really a her? Do droids have a gender? If
so, how do you tell?
Again, with this game, the details are a little fuzzy now since I was tired after so many hours of card playing.
But I was able to get Emperor Palpatine and IG-88 to the Cantina while getting Xixor and Guri to the Death
Star DB. Mike played Han with Blaster, some scrub and Luke to battle the Emperor and IG-88. On his first
action, Luke targetted and missed the Emperor. I needed to flip my objective, so I targetted Luke and drew
a blind, fateful 5 to capture him. With Luke out of the battle, I forfeited the Emperor and deployed another
one on my turn. I ran IG-88 away from Han with Blaster since I did not want him to get shot with a Sorry
About the Mess. That battle, along with a Monnok lost that got two of his Dash Rendars, pretty much
turned the game irrevocably in my favor. Since Mike had the Artoo and C3P0 combo to allow all droids to
be battled, I spent the rest of the game trying to run IG-88 away from his characters while Mike kept chasing
him. We had a couple of battles in the Cantina with my Xixor and Guri against several of his scrubs, but he
never shot Guri, and when I was able to verify that something was missing from the deck Mike built, I
noticed that he only had 2 or 3 cards of 5 destiny in his reserve. So Xixor and Guri kept surviving the
battles. Zuckuss held space. Eventually, my drains and damage finished him off, and IG-88 retained
possession of his prized prisoner until we started picking up our cards. Full Win by 17.
We shook hands after the game, and my hands, though sweaty, were not quite as clammy as Mikes. So,
Sweaty Palm Diseaset is something I can never take away from him.
So, at this point, Zach Stenerson, who is my personal good luck charm, owing to the fact that I have won
every tournament which he attended, said, That is the best game I have ever watched. Except he used
contractions because you can do that in common English without creating strange typographical symbols. I
looked at him like that was no time to be sarcastic, but it turned out he was being sincere. Perhaps a bit
hyperbolic, but sincere. So, Zach, I am glad you were entertained.
The next game would not be among the best Zach had ever watched.
Mike and I agreed to take a brain-breather in-between games. And, now, I am reminded of one of the other
questions Tony Lawrence asked me. When asked what it was like to play against Mike in the final
confrontation, I told him it was like deja vu since we had played in the MN Grand Slam. Tony then asked if
that made it easier in any way. I said it was nice because Mike is an honest player and a nice guy. Being able
to agree on a brain-breather without any discussion was an easy example of that.
Final confrontation, final game. My Save You It Can If You Remember What Your Cards Do versus Mike
Raveling, BHBM.
Okay, I will make this short because there were only about 5 or 6 events of note.
1. Mike sets up early with Palpatine and Vader. I work on my tests. When Vader hits the table, I deploy Obi,
HotJedi, battle, chop Vader and stack 1.
2. Mike works at setting up systems. So I draw for the SuperFalcon. Mike started Crush the Rebellion to
grab his Monnok and Evader combo. All game long he has been paying to drain then taking his next action
afterward. Suddenly, he asks me how many cards I have in my hand. I have 12. Zach Stenerson who sat
behind my shoulder while watching the game can attest to the fact that I was shuffling my cards, preparing
to lose my double of the Falcon. Mike Monnoks me. Ouch. He gets nothing but two Falcons. But that is
enough. Very bad. So, now, I have no space fleet and need to either deploy against his Emperor in order to
get off an On the Edge or draw for the Lower Corridor. This is, anyway, a bit distracting and discouraging.
3. Meanwhile, I have been taking full advantage of the game text on Test 1 that allows me to exchange a
card from my hand for a jedi test in my lost pile in order to draw for other cards that might be more useful at
a given moment. However, I complete Test 3 at the end of one of my turns with, maybe, 8 or 9 cards in my
lost pile and say, Go.
4. I realize about two seconds after Mike activates his first force that I have just lost the game. I curse and
hit my head in self-disgust. Test 4 is still in my lost pile, and there are many less-important cards in my hand
at this point. Despite the fact that everyone tells me my deck is an auto-loss against BHBM, especially when
played by an opponent as good as Raveling, I was losing only 1 or 2 force a turn, and, if you recall, if I am
not losing 3 or more force a turn, I will win. Unless I forget to exchange a card from my hand for a jedi test
in my lost pile. There goes Worlds.
5. A few turns later as I am scrapping for every ounce of differential, Mike takes a look at the board after
one of his deploy phases and notices he has total control. He starts looking at his reserve deck and hand and
used pile. I ask him how many cards he has in his life force. He has 16 and 1 more in his hand. I plan to draw
on my next turn, but Mike manages to recycle a force.
6. I play to cause just one force worth of damage. But without the Falcon and with as little force as I have, I
can not do it. Though on my last turn, I do manage to battle the Emperor and Leia and win the battle. He
loses Palpatine, and I play Advantage. But Mike has enough force to pay to drain me out with his space
drains, and I lose by 17.
So, we split our games with equal differential. I have no idea what happens at this point, though, I figure if
we have to play a third game, I will play my AoBS and win. But Dion Erbes, our TD, says the ruling is that
the tie-breaker is that the tournament goes to the player who finished higher in the normal standings. That
was me, so I won by default. Not the best way, but given the mental slip I made in the last game, I guess I
will take it.
Final confrontation--
Highs: Mike is a great opponent. I always have to think, and I am severely punished when I do not.
Lows: For three or four turns I tried to cause just one point of damage in the last game and could not do so.
Ugly: Um, the not remembering what my deck was meant to do part.
So, I get first and qualify for Worlds Day Two, so maybe I will see you there.
Mike gets second.
Josh Kohman got third.
Justin Alfs got fourth, losing only to Mike and myself.
It would have been a good day for Team Mirkwood if about half of the tournament had not been from
Mirkwood, thereby nullifying the point of any distinction.
Cheers:
Mike and all of my opponents for good games.
Dion for running an excellent tournament.
Zach Stenerson for being my good luck charm.
Jeers:
Not any really. Even Herb was polite.
Josh Grace