jeeps-report-for-hastings-mn-6-16-01
Title: jeeps-report-for-hastings-mn-6-16-01
Author: Peter "jeeps" Jacobson
Date: Jun 18, 2001
or:
July 16, 2001
Hastings, MN
MVP Cards & Collectibles.
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I decided to get out of the funk I was in. The last two tournaments have been disastrous; I placed quite low at MN States, going 2-4 and seeing my rating plummet 87 points(1612). A few weeks later, I was able to attend a Tuesday Night 4-gamer at Mirkwood in Richfield, MN. Again, there, I faced Jim "Stimmed Jim" Li and Brad Gregg (from IA) in the first two games and lost. I ended up going 1-3. Not much of a difference. I checked prior to writing this report and found that my rating has been updated to 1629, so I am going up somehow. Anyway, I was weakened and distraught, but determined to make a walk away from a losing tournament again. Anyway, I had e-mailed my RSVP to Nick Kolnik, Bravo 63 and told him that I was coming up. I felt I needed to do this because MVP can only house 12-14 players MAXIMUM, so I knew that this was important to do. The only tournament I have ever won happened to be here, at MVP, so I figured if there was a place to make a comeback, it would be here.
I arrive and the first person I see is Jim Li. I couldn’t believe it. The sharks were circling. My wife came up with me and she likes to antique shop, so she dumps me off at MVP. As I am getting out of the car, I notice Jim getting back into his and begin to drive away. Next, I see the owner of the store putting a sign up on the door. I began to panic; was the tournament canceled? Postponed? What’s going on and where is Li going? So I hightail it in my Dr. Martin clunker sandals down the street and begin to beat on Jim’s hood, window.. whatever I could grab. Out of breath, I gasp, "Where are you going?" Jim replies with a little annoyance in his face (probably residue from the slight fear I gave him that he was being car jacked), "In back. I have to park in back." I responded sheepishly with, "oh... heh heh. Okay then." Because of the size of MVP and the other shops, parking for this event was going to be in back. Makes sense, right?
After that briefly awkward moment, I enter the establishment. I see a few people, Nick Kolnik, Bravo 62 being present up front and center and very organized as usual. I quickly fill my command card and Jim Li follows me in shortly to do the same. I find out that Graham Neal would be in attendance, but that Michael Raveling would not. I was feeling a little better because sometimes, I know that if I "lay low" I can avoid an early demoralizer like at Mirkwood and make it far into the tournament with at least a 4-2 performance. Well, no sooner does this thought escape the synaptic regions of my brain, does a very slick and shiny BMW show up with 3 passengers arrive. At the helm is Michael R. Raveling. Of course, his vehicle is immune to attrition <5 (<7 if he wears a muscle shirt). Mike was wearing his muscle shirt. Passengers: Graham "Cracker" Neal, Anthony "Umbrella Man" Lawrence, and Paul, Graham’s young padawan learner. This was getting to be interesting. I believe 12 did show up, making things crammed. The Darwinian Laws were in session here; if your game was announced first, you got first pick.
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For this tournament, I am using somewhat simple, yet original decks. For light, I am running Jedi Mains using a simple Obi’s Hut start and Scrambled Transmission (for Shocking Info &Grimtash), Insurrection (pull my two DB’s), and Effect X (Aim High against Pod Racing; Don’t Do That Again against Mob Points; YISYW against a regular Huntdown, no Mob Points).
For Dark, I am running my Dual Huntdown (pun intended). This one starts IAO, Crush, and I will Find Them Quickly, Master to pull If the Search Was Correct to get my 5 Sith Probe Droids out for some early retrieval to offset any loss from Visage and to help with retrieval later with Abyssin Orn. It’s a fun deck with some simple tech.
Okay. We get started. I get matched up with Steve from Des Moines.
Game 1: My LS Jedi Mains/Obi’s Hut vs Steve’s (1500+)MKOS.
Opening details of this game are a little fuzzy. I remember getting Threepio w/ Parts Showing into hand, but I also used Were You Looking For Me to get R-3po and another Threepio with parts to put back into my deck with Threepio’s text to get an "engine" going. He shows me his rep, some Nikto I can’t remember which one... that species all look the same to me ;-). He then uses that effect that lets you pull aliens and Jabba’s sail barge and Hutt Influence... forgot the name of that card... and he gets Hutt Influence. He then looks for Jabba with the text of Audience Chamber and deploys him. He says go. I activate and deploy Threepio to Home One DB after I fetch it. He’s safe there. I deploy Ben to his Hut for two, I use Threepio’s text and say go. His turn he gets Ephant Mon down with Jabba. Okay, looks like my Artoo isn’t going to be rolling in and A Gift-ing anything... hmm... but R-3po could. I used 3po’s text during his turn and draw Yoda’s Hut. Good. One more 0 out of the way. We continue this way for a few turns (my way of saying, I can’t remember what the hell happened). I get Qui-gon and Luke into the Audience chamber. I use Smoke Screen to give me a 7. He draws low and I keep my Jedi and clear his site with saber slashing. This game was very close. He has the Jabba’s Sail barge out at the Desert Heart waiting to ferry his characters between my sites and his and I can’t cross without +1 land speed, so I am stuck at the palace. He also has Darth Maul camped at the Inner Passage (or whatever it is) with saber with a Nikto. He plops Mara with Saber at Obi’s Hut. I then drop Coran and battle. It’s going to be close, but I track a 5 and he doesn’t. He swings and misses, then draws low for destiny. He lose Mara and I play Advantage on Coran for a slow force loss of 1 during his move phase. I eventually get r-3po over to block is potentially disastrous drains as A Gift to Jabba. This game was neck and neck. I was able to manipulate my cards in my reserve and block force drains. I had 5 force for the last 3 turns and he had around 5. With Lightsabers and Advantage, I win by 2!
FW 2 (+2)
Highs: Pulling out a great, great game. 3-p0 with parts showing rocks!
Lows: Steve’s frustration. He was a great opponent and a great sport, but I knew what he was feeling. I didn’t want to make him feel any worse, but he didn’t drain me for his full potential with Maul, not knowing a Gift effects aliens, not Mauls...
Game 2: My Ds vs. Anthony Lawrence’s (1631) Jedi Mains.
This game was frustrating. I start Hundown, I will Find Them Quickly, Master, Crush, and IAO. Anthony starts City Outskirts and uses Careful Planning to get The Farm and Spaceport Street. I start. Interesting. Anthony gives me three force to play with, so I get to deploy Vader to the Executor DB and move him down to the Tatooine DB I had for a starting location to get Vader down and have Tony lose first to Visage. I look for a Sith Probe Droid and retrieve one (Prepared Defenses) and say go. Tony spends a few turns getting Vaparators and Hydroponic Stations down to draw into hand his first two cards he activates. He also gets Qui-Gon down to the City Out Skirts, an Arcona to the Spaceport site, and Leia w/ Blaster to his Dune Sea. He gets Ani’s Saber on Leia, QuiGon’s Saber on QuiGon and LS Proficiency on Leia, Electrobinocs on QuiGon and Meditation on him too... Now he camps there, while I build my forces. his deck is so... chunky... full of effects... I get No Escape Down and begin to deploy for dirt cheap to his <> sites. I then get Bad Feeling Have I to slow his deployment down. He doesn’t do much, but I don’t feel like tangling with his suped-up characters, and feel that I am still in charge. His drains become too large to handle, but he plays very slow, actually READING my HD objective... hmm... I think that the biggest, most popular deck type for DS is Huntdown... if it takes you three minutes to commit this card to memory, then well... WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? Sorry, Tony... I am teasing, of course ;-) Time is called and I have 1 force left after Visage. He has 3. Tony takes a timed Victory over me... ML -3
Current Standing...
2 (-1)
Highs: none
Lows: I don’t know what happened. I had a TON of characters down on the ground. He had no space. If I had one more turn, I would have drained him out and had a win... dang. Tony wasn’t the most gracious winner either, seemingly wanting to jump around and shout out that he won inside a very small room. Yeah...
There was a lunch break between games and Mike Raveling, Graham Neal, Anthony Lawrence, and Padawan Paul, travel to Burger King. Hmmm. Flame Broiled. There we talk about Hara-kiri and Seppaku. (side note: Both mean the same thing according to my dictionary. Mr. Raveling, so we’re both right ;-)). We also ask Tony to pull up a table, but he finds that the tables at Burger King are bolted to the floor.
Game 3: My Light Side vs. Andy Newton’s (1756) Walker Garrison
Andy is a wonderful player. He very honest and seems to always be in a pleasant mood. I have played Andy several times before in St. Cloud and at Mirkwood, but have never beat him. Andy starts with You May Start Your Landing, Mob. Points, and IAO. Therefore, I start with Scrambled Transmission, Don’t DO That Again, and Insurrection. I get a decent opening hand. Andy draws the 3rd Marker into hand, not letting him use his effect, but he only wants the 3rd marker, so no big deal. He draws up and says go. I activate, during my control phase find Shocking/Grimtash with Scambled Trans and deploy Ben to his Hut and say go. On his turn, he needs to start generating force, so he gets Adm. Piet down to the Executor DB and looks for Merrejk to get his battle ground system out. This is where I borrow a little tech from my friend Justin "Mucking @#$%ic" Fleenor. I cancel his scomplink access with Shocking where Merrejk is, nullifying his text. I continue to build a respectful force on Hoth at his Echo Base DB and we battle a few time. He eventually gets a system by drawing it, so I know that he can start deploying like mad. I Grimtash lost his hand and see a TON of Star Destroyers. and two Imp. Commands which go lost. I feel good about that. He deploys the Devastator to Hoth and uses his Mob points to look for the Executor, which he finds. I don’t think he’ll deploy it, but I do know he has a sizable force. Still, I hold onto my Home One and Falcon just in case things get ugly late in the game. He deploys Janus to my Tatooine DB and moves him over to Obi’s Hut. I then deploy Corran on my turn to kill Janus. I draw a 5 and he draws a 2 for destiny, thus keeping Corran at the Hut. I then deploy Advantage on Corran for a slow loss of 1 during Andy’s move phase. Meanwhile, he had Cmmdr Igar aboard a Blizzard Walker and Emp Pal at the 5th Marker. I decide to load up on Hoth and make him battle me, hoping that he would forfeit the Emperor Palpatine to which I would play End of A Reign and make him lose more force, but that never happens. Accidentally leave a hole for him to slip through where he can move away from my forces and plink me for a few more turns with You May Start Your Landings text of having a walker at a Marker Site. He also gets Admr. Chiraneau to the Devastator, Imp Decree, and another Star Destroyer to Fondor for added drainage. I need to get him away from controlling his second Rebel Base battle ground site, so I go to Space to make him leave Hoth. I wait to battle on his turn to soften the force drains. He has Devastator, Chiraneau and Ozzel aboard. I have Falcon, Wedge, and Leia w/ Gun aboard. I end up losing both Wedge and Leia and I believe I drew a 0, or something. He was able to keep his fleet. I left the Falcon floating in space. Later, I was able to get Home One up there and shuttle Han aboard his ship to fly around to block his big drains at Kyshhykk. This was a game of cat and mouse, but I squeaked a win from Andy by 5. FW +5.
4 (+4)
Highs: Finally beating, Andy, an excellent opponent. Being 2 and 1 now and sitting far enough away from the big guns for the time being... maybe they’ll end up taking each other out... we’ll see. Having Raveling watch our game and giving my welcomed pats on my shoulder when I did a good thing...
Lows: It was a very close game, so really nothing.
Game 4: My DS Dual Huntdown vs. Timm Halverson’s (1668) LS QMC.
I have never beat Timm before in tournament play or otherwise, so I was a little nervous. Timm is an intense player who always brings his unique strategy to the game. I was wacked around by his WYS inserts a while back, so I wasn’t looking forward to seeing what he brought today... QMC was his flavor. I start I Will Find Them Quickly, Master, IAO, and Crush. He starts Keeping Them Empire Out Forever, Sqassin, and Do Or Do Not/Wise Advice. This was a good game from my stand point. I got a Lord Vader and his stick down first turn and flipped my objective. I look for If the Trace Was Correct and get a Sith PD out to retrieve one. I was able to keep Timm from flipping for several turns. Guri and his ship were smoke screens for me to keep Timm from going to space too soon... since she’s a droid, she can’t be battled. Timm uses Fall of a Legend to get a Weather Vane out then draws. I force drain him for a couple and notice that he loses a few non-unique cards to the drain (namely, a OOC/Trans. Term). I deploy some characters, 2 Sith Pds- one from hand the other from reserve-Xixor, Tarkin, & Guri. I play Probe Droid Telemetry on is lost pile and remove 3 non-unique cards. On his turn I do it again and he loses a few more. Next, Timm gets QuiGon down with a Baragwin at the CC site that allows you to lose just hit characters to the weathervane and draws. I move Vader and now Tarkin over to QuiGon’s Location. I play You Are Beaten on QuiGon. On his turn, he forgets to move the baragwin, and when he finishes drawing, I tell him that he should have move the Baragwin away because I can still battle it. He starts to put cards back into his force pile like he is going to move the baragwin away, but I tell him it’s too far past that phase. He says with annoyance "So you’re not going to let me move him?" and I grimace and nod, knowing that this will hurt him. He replies, "well, that’s cheap." I don’t know... I would think the concept of "cheap" would be me letting him move out of a bad situation only to win the game later because I let him take back a huge mistake... so we battle and I do the dumb thing. Forgetting about the location’s text, I swing and hit his Baragwin, thus ending the battle and saving him. We both realize that I made a mistake and that battling him would without swinging would have messed him up. Eventually, he cancels Visage and gets Cloud City Celebration out. We battle and I weapon Lev GuiGon’s and Luke’s saber from him. He Weapon Lev’s Vader’s. Timm is getting frustrated because his destinies are so low. After the battle his throws his hand down and starts to pick up... normally, I would challenge this because it’s not sportsmanlike. The tournament Guidelines also dictate that quitting isn’t a "strategic option." and he could have been asked to leave the tournament. I didn’t feel like challenging him since I beat him, so I let it slide and win. FW +15
6 (+19)
Highs: Playing and beating Timm for the first time. Probe Droid Telemetry being a great card with Sith PDs...
Lows: some very tense and awkward moments... quitting...
Game 5: My DS vs. Andy Newton’s (1756) TIGIH beatdown.
This is a game to tell he grand kids... it lasts 10 minutes. I don’t get a first turn Vader, but I do have one in hand, so I wait and deploy Xixor to his DB, look for The Trace, get a Probe Droid, retrieve. Although none of this limits his activation this time because Xixor isn’t an Imp, I wanted to get a force down there. We lose to Visage. His turn, he gets Crix down to look for scouts like mad. We both lose to Visage. I also notice that he uses "We’re You Looking For Me?" to get Artoo & Threepio... now I should have saw this coming... this card ruins my droids... and I didn’t see it until it was too late. Andy sets up a nice force. I take Luke with my Vader to the Exec. DB and flip my objective. He lets me get my little retrieval out. He cancels Visage with Blount and Cracken at the Holotheater. I put a droid there, at the Endor DB and at the C DB. He starts to deploy little runts to my sites with lone Sith Droids. I am now starting to get a bad tingling sensation in my spine. I realize that he has Artoo & Threepio. Next thing I new, he was battling my droids and making me stack cards on his Feel The Conflict card. He tries to turn vader after having 3 cards stacked and fails by drawing a 5 (he needed a 6 and had about 12 6’s so it’s only a matter of time). I can’t do much, so I frantically try to move to his locations where he has characters, but on his next turn, he activates and goes right for the Vader Crossing... sure enough... a 6. Vader crosses Go without collecting his $200 and I lose... big time... FL -30
6(-15)
Highs: Thinking I had control
Lows: Finding out I didn’t have control. Atroo & Threepio... Look Sir, Droids is going into ALL my DS decks now... THANKS ANDY! ;-)
Game 6: My LS v. Timm Halverson’s Court of the Vile Gangster.
This game is over very quickly. I gain control of Tatooine with Ben and Quigon and move to his audience chamber. We battle and I use Smoke Screen to get a 7 battle destiny against his Jabba and Mara. I weapon Lev Mara’s saber from him. I do about 15 battle damage. Timm throws his hand down and starts to pick up his cards. FW +28
8 (+13)
Highs: winning, I guess.
Lows: See above.
So, I don’t play any of the big 1900+ players at this event. Raveling loses to Jim Li twice in games 5 & 6. Graham loses to Jim Li by a bunch. Jim Li had 7 Emp. Pal’s floating around in a Dark Surgeon Deck he copied from Decktech... sheesh, Jim... see Jim’s report for a recap of his conquest.
Final Standings
1st: Jim Li 12 (+120-somthing)
2nd: Grahah Neal 10 (+80 something)
3rd: Michael Raveling 8 (+50 something)
4th: Peter Jacobson 8 (+13)
5th: Andy Newton ( I think)
Props:
-- To Nick Kolnik for running a smooth tournament with excellent prize support.
-- Raveling for his encouraging shoulder pats. Thanks man!
-- Andy Newton for being a class act... and turning Vader.
-- MVP for being so "cozy"
-- Jim Li for gracing us with his presence
-- Burger King for bolting their tables to the floor.
-- Anthony Lawrence for bringing an umbrella when we all said he was nuts (it rained like HELL for about 10 minutes).
-- Raveling for driving me to BK and for spotting me $.50 for pop.
-- Steve from Des Moines for playing a great game one.
-- Timm for giving me the wins ;-)
-- Neil Armstrong for making it to the moon.
Slops:
-- MN weather.
-- Anthony Lawrence for rubbing in his victory.
-- Timm for "thowing down and picking up" before the game was over (I still think you could have done something man!)
-- MVP for being too "cozy."
-- Hara-Kari and Seppeku for being ugly ways to die...
Thanks to all who read this.
Peter Jacobson
Bravo 62
Bespin