kublacon-5-27-01

Title: kublacon-5-27-01
Author: Nick "JediBrain" Stefanko
Date: May 27, 2001

After running a successful tournament last weekend, I was looking forward to a small break before Tatooine hit the public. I got my Squadron Member boxes in the mail on Monday, but they went to my parent’s house, so I couldn’t touch them. My roommate had started looking into getting some Star Wars miniatures (he’s a big Warhammer freak, and found some books on SW Miniature Battles at the local hobby shop). He noticed that KublaCon was this weekend in Oakland, so I figured "Why not." Checking the event listings, I notice that there is to be a SWCCG tournament run by my good friend Steve Daniel. I took a look at my decks, which I had already outfitted for Tatooine, and decided that they wouldn’t work. I fall back on my RTP mains deck for Light, but can’t figure a good Dark deck to play. My first instinct is to play Hunt Down, something which I have never done, but decide against it. All throughout the week, for some reason(...), I had Jefferson Airplane’s ’White Rabbit’ stuck in my head. Everywhere I went, I heard it. Along that same train of thought, I thought about a Court deck. So, breaking out the headphones, I decided to kill two birds with one stone; I set Winamp to loop ’White Rabbit,’ opened DeckMaker, and made a Court deck, focusing on high-ability characters with a hefty SAC package.
With decks done, all there was to do was wait for the weekend. Friday afternoon, my roommate and I took Greyhound to my parent’s house; once there, I tore into my Tatooine boxes. I ended with a complete playset, missing 3 AIs and 2 other rares, and had a stack of about 20 doubles, including a Maul. So, I plugged the holes in my Tatooine-compliant decks (which I had also brought with me to show off and test). After driving around San Jose and Saratoga checking hobby stores for Star Wars Miniature Battles, my roommate and I crash at my parent’s house, and sleep. The next morning, off to Oakland.
I had never been to a convention before, but had a stereotypical idea of what I would see. I was not disappointed. After paying $20 to get into the place, I found the CCG gaming area, where Steve was playing in an L5R tournament, and Mike Hardy was teaching someone Young Jedi. I say ’Hey,’ and then my roommate and I head to the vendor boothes. We find the stuff we’re looking for (except they didn’t have any Stormtroopers or Ewoks :( , but they did have other cool stuff), and then we chill until the tournament.

Tournament time comes around, but the only ones there are myself and this little kid from Santa Rosa. Steve and I look at his decks, give him some rares out of our trade binders (including a Jar Jar and some other Tatooine rares), and I play a fun game against him. It was my Walker Garrison deck starting Ice Plains, You May Start Your Landing, IAO, Mob Points against his Hoth trooper/non-uniques deck starting Main Power Generators and Bargaining Table. I knew I would crush him, but I needed to test the speed of my deck, especially against an EBO deck. I Command for Veers first turn, play Walker Garrison for Blizzard 1 2nd turn, and move into his marker sites. I draw Target The Main Generator, and hope to draw my AT-AT Cannon immediately thereafter, but to no avail. I don’t pull off any Garrisons for drain bonuses; my direct damage from YMSYL and drains did him in.

So, the tournament was a bust. Another guy showed up later, and we did a little trading (would have done more, but he thinks that foils are worth double the non-foil version’s value). Hardy comes by and asks us if we want to play in the Jedi Knights Sealed tournament. Since it’s free, I sign up, as does my roommate. There are enough to sanction (!), so after Hardy shows us how to play, he gives us our starters and boosters, and we make our decks. I get an Empire starter, and pull crap in my boosters, while a few other people pull ’mains.’ I decide to go with the Vader theme, and Hardy starts the pairings.

Game 1 v. some guy (he walked by the booth, Hardy asked him if he wanted to play, and he said sure):

Well, we both didn’t know how to play very well. We deployed as much as possible, with me winning the first and third Control Checks (I won 2 planets). For the ’final confrontation,’ we played it wrong, so we had to go back and redo it. I ended up winning.

Game 2 v. Steve Daniel

Steve had disappeared, so to keep things even, Mike stepped in to fill his place. We played fast; he got out tons of guys and weapons while I couldn’t find a weapon or event to save my life. He thoroughly whipped me.
After this, Mike and I talked about how much this game sucked. He predicted Decipher would go belly-up because of all the lost money thrown into JK, and agreed that the resources wasted on JK should have gone into SW development. We also talked about how Decipher might fix SW in Coruscant, how "great" of an idea they had in hiring Joe Alread full-time, and about the West Coast Open.

Being tired, and anxiously awaiting the flea market, I drop. Mike says that game 3 will be the last, but I don’t care. He gives me 2 booster packs for my prize, and I pull an Emperor Palpatine, Imperial Overlord FOIL. I laugh hysterically, and hope that I can trade or sell it before people realized how dumb JK really is.

After a quick walk-through of the flea market, seeing nothing but books and Warhammer figures, my roommate and I return to my parent’s house, and Sunday morning return to a rather empty-looking UC Santa Cruz campus. We both saved our decks, so the next time we’re either drunk or high or both, we’ll try playing it again.

Thanks for reading, and sorry for this not being a real TR.