our-moms-think-were-cool-at-mirkwood
Title: our-moms-think-were-cool-at-mirkwood
Author: Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace
Date: Jun 24, 2001
Mirkwood Coffee & Comics was closing its doors for good after one last Star Wars tourney, a big team tourney to say farewell to the store that has been the pulse of the Twin Cities, nay!, of Minnesota Star Wars for over 2 years.
I had been laid up in Duluth with a broken leg and hadn’t had a chance to play since before Tatooine came out. Mike Bergum, my former mentor who had once placed 8th at Worlds, played a couple of games with me in Duluth, but owing to a lack of Tatooine cards, he didn’t quite get me up to speed on the current meta. I read some reports here on DeckTech and decided that I was going to be bored silly by 3P0 decks and Hunt Down dueling with Pod Racing and pure cheeze. My goal, then, was simply to make something else.
Also, I needed to figure out if I could get to the tournament. I was working on that matter when Justin Alfs wrote that he and Garrett wanted me to join their team. I said, "Sure." Then, later, I was contacted by Josh Kohman and Graham Neal. I figured I had a better chance with them, but, hey, Justin and Garrett asked first. And I’m not the type of guy who’s in it just to win. I just don’t like to lose.
Anyway, while I was making plans with my family to get down to Mirkwood and talking to my ex-girlfriend about visiting and getting a ride back to Duluth, I constructed a SYCFA flipping deck with A Million Voices Crying Out. I posted it here, and some people ridiculed it, but I didn’t have enough Mauls to make the BHBM I wanted or any desire to make a cheezy-arsed Hunt Down. So I kept my SYCFA. For light, I had previously built a Hidden Base one-turn beats deck with a pod racing start. That was fun, but I knew that a one-turn beats deck would always be hit or miss. Far too risky for most occasions. So I fiddled around with a pod racing EBO with matching pilots deck, and that’s what I had when I went to Mirkwood.
Meanwhile, my ex-girlfriend decided she was a Tool to be used by her current boy and would, thus, have no time to visit or drive me anywhere, so I made some rather mundane travel arrangements with my family. Blah.
I got to the store and found Garrett who asked me if we should be one of three different team names. "Our Moms Think We’re Cool" was the most interesting of the three, so I said, let’s go with it. Then we played a game to test my EBO, and Garrett tore it apart. So I figured,"Screw it," and I threw my one-turn beats back together.
There were just over 40 players. 41, I believe. The teams everyone expected to contend for the top spot were team X-SAC, consisting of Mike Raveling, Jim Li and Zach Stenerson, all rated over 1950. And then the team consisting of Josh Kohman, Graham Neal, Brad Gregg and some juvenile team name.
Game 1: My light side against Dominic (?) SYCFA flipping
He set up for many turns while I just kept working on the perfect hand. He was flustered and forgot a good many things while I was winning the podrace and... still working on my perfect hand. Finally, he blew up Alderaan and started setting up destroyers at Kuat. But he didn’t move anything away from Kuat. Strange. I was worried if he suspected that I was playing a one-turn beats deck since I hadn’t done anything but deploy systems and Threepio and such for the whole game thus far, so I deployed Luke to the DS docking bay, hoping to draw him out. I don’t know if that had anything to do with anything, but on his next turn, he moved a couple of star destroyers to Rendili. On my turn, I deployed Han, Leia and Chewie on the Falcon. Draw Their Fire. I’ve Got a Bad Feeling About This. Battled and played Protector, I Know and Life Debt. The battle damage was 27, then tripled. So after he lost one star destroyer to damage, I took the next action to place Boonta Eve out of play to retrieve 4 before the game ended. The one-turn beats worked. FW by 38.
I had opened a few packs of Tatooine, and I looked through my commons and found the card Dominic needed. I handed him "A Jedi’s Resilience" as inspiration.
Garrett also won, and Justin lost. Justin, prior to this tournament, had been rated over 1900. I know I’m getting a bit ahead, here, but he’s not going to be over 1900 after this tournament. Man... If it wasn’t for the fact that I had signed on to the team based on friendship in the first place...
Game 2: My Big Blue versus Herb Macy’s MWHYL
This didn’t promise to be a good match-up. First of all, my SYCFA was going to lose all of its drain bonuses, and secondly, I didn’t like Herb Macy. Dislike might have been a mild term. But I figured I’d try to be civil. No reason to bring grudges to bear and all that...
Herb started pod racing and Brisky Morning Munchen. I wondered if he was high on crack or something--partially because I hate Jar-Jar. I had a good opening hand and started setting up with no intention of ever flipping. I figured that it would be far better for me not to waste the card slots and also to keep SYCFA on the zero side where I took no damage at Death Star sites. During my control phase, Herb initiated the pod race and drew two 7’s. I drew destiny just to track it, and it was something like a one. Yeah, that’s worth stacking... Not. An early command fetched me Piet with enough force to deploy both him and Merrejk and fetch a system. But on Herb’s turn, Jar-Jar Superstar landed and annihilated Piet. Merrejk grabbed another system on my turn, but then Jar-Jar killed him on Herb’s. I had an Emperor Palpatine in my hand at that point, for most of the game, in fact, but I just could not stand risking the Emperor against some stupid, suicidal alien. Man, that blew.
Anyway, I set up in space to get nickel-and-dime drains and managed to deploy both Secret Plans and Come Here You Big Coward before Herb won the podrace. So, he wasn’t able to retrieve, and I just lost all the crap that I had intended to use to flip my objective. I’d played MWYHL enough to know what was going on, so I spread out in space, keeping, however, 6 ability at each system. The drains were catching up to Herb as I was blocking his with Arica. Finally, Herb started to draw for a ship. He kept on drawing, and, after he was done, I played Monnok used. It turned out that I had messed up his ships. My drains, then, were approaching critical mass as he was running out of force with which to retrieve, so he had to confront me. He tried to choose my weakest system and set Moff Wedge and Jek in matching ships against Motti and two destroyers. I played Command to add a destiny, and the attrition was enough to kill Porkins. I had to lose a destroyer, but on my turn, the game ended after I deployed the Devastator, Laterally Damaged Wedge’s ship, deployed First Strike and battled. There might have been another turn of draining or something, but it was all done in that battle. FW by 18.
I was happy with the game less because I won than that I was pleasantly surprised that I had just played a game with Herb that was actually (*gasp*) fun.
At this point, then, I was at the second table, despite being really rusty. I felt pretty good, but I hadn’t played anyone really tough. Garrett had won again, and Justin had lost. We went to Burger King for lunch and made fun of Justin. Dominic and his team were at the BK, too, and Dominic said that he had won. I said, "Well, then, you need A Jedi’s Concentration." I pointed out to Justin that I could find another copy of A Jedi’s Resilience to give to him.
Game 3: My light side against Dan Meyer’s Hunt Down pod racing with inserts and counter assaults and, hey, didn’t I see this deck posted about 10 times on DeckTech? I bet you came up with it yourself, didn’t you?
Blah. I lost the pod race. Meyer deployed Vader to the pod race arena. He cheated when he could. I had to make him be honest about everything, but, just now as I write this, I realize he cheated by flipping Hunt Down when Vader went to a site (the pod race arena with race totals >0) that was not a battleground. Well, stupid me. Anyway, I went through the process of getting my hand all set up, but Dan had started Watto’s box and drew all high destiny. I had managed to play A Step Backward once or twice to balance things out a bit, but I kept drawing low, and he was able to stop me from drawing twice. After the podrace and Visage damage, I didn’t have enough force left to deploy my characters and still draw my 9 destiny. I only had about 5 left. So, I battled, but I was only able to force 21 overflow. I didn’t have any characters left in my hand. Only Leia remained at the site. Some other stuff happened, and I lost by 20 in the hottest game of the day, in a crowded store by the window. And, now, I wish I had paid more attention. I don’t usually suspect people of cheating, and I thought the things I was reminding him of were simple oversights. But, man... cheating at Star Wars... What does your cheating gain you? A cookie? I mean, get a life. FL by 20.
I had dreamt of somehow winning the tournament after being away for a while, but there wasn’t much chance of that now. So I decided I’d be happy with 4-2. Garrett won again, and Justin finally won. So, after 3 rounds, we had 3 losses, and people were talking about how a team might take the tournament with only 6 total losses.
Game 4: My DS against Scott Poster’s WYS.
He started Squassin and pod racing. I started the usual, except I started Something Special instead of the SAC killer. He slowed me down a turn or two by Grimtaashing a couple of my Death Star Gunners, but I just fetched them back with Put All Sections. He was looking for some ships and characters while I was moving toward Alderaan. Dash and an RFC set up shop at Tatooine in the Outrider. I saved force for one turn and beat the snot out of them with Ozzel about a destroyer after Laterally Damaging the Outrider. So, I finally blew up Alderaan after a few turns, and Scott was getting some drains on the ground with Luke and Saber at the Cantina and the Lars family with another copy of Dash at the Moisture Farm. He inserted on me, and I made him get tape from the counter to mark one of my opaque sleeves. So help me, I know it was a Decipher ruling that I need to have my own marked sleeve, but if someone’s going to play odds against me, they can go fetch tape. With Alderaan blown away, I started deploying Star Destroyers and retrieving force and setting up drains of 4, then getting Chiraneau and making them all drains of 5. But Scott kept finding copies of Control/Tunnel vision and cancelled two of my drains with it for what seemed an eternity. And I couldn’t find a copy of U3P0 or Arica to save my life. Vader managed to chop up the Lars family, but Luke was still a thorn in my side. Finally, with drains of soemthing like 18 to 3, I managed to put enough by Scott to get the win. FW by 6. A good game.
Garrett also won and was now 4-0, carrying Justin on his back since Justin had lost again and was looking, hoping to finish 3-3.
Game 5: My light against Brad Gregg’s BHBM
I was fairly optomistic about this match-up since the Emperor had a tendency to come out to play in BHBM decks. I initiated the pod race right away and stacked a 5 and a 5. Brad tried to decide where to deploy the Emperor, the Tatooine DB or the Death Star II DB, but my destiny might have scared him. He chose the DSII DB. I worked on setting up my activation and my hand and was pretty happy to get copies of Han, Leia and some destiny adders early. On Brad’s turn, I drew another 5 and 5 for race destiny, and he deployed Maul and moved the Emperor over. I figured it was early, but what the heck, I’d give it a shot... So I searched for Luke and failed to find him. Brad verified my deck and basically got the jist of it. That’s, of course, the one thing you never want your opponent to do against a one-turn beats deck--discover that it’s coming. So I deployed Han and Leia. I initiated a battle with I’ve Got a Bad Feeling... but Brad sensed it. It was a good thing for him, too. On my first action, I played I Know. Brad had no action. I couldn’t believe he didn’t have a Force Lightning, but he didn’t. So, I shot at Maul twice, thinking that I had two 6’s in the deck and could possibly hit him. I drew two 4’s. But then for battle destiny I pulled big with 3 5’s and one 6. Brad drew a 1, so my power was 28 to his 12. His characters covered the damage, and I wished he hadn’t had that Sense in his hand. He got 0 overflow instead of 31. Oh well. But this is where I handed him the game. 3P0 had been at the same site, working his magic for me, and like a dope, I lost him to keep Han and Leia together. So, right, I was now playing a one-turn beats deck that couldn’t drop Luke and had Han and Leia stuck at a DB draining for 1 a turn. Brad set up in space with the Executor at Endor, but because he had put out the Endor DB, I was able to deploy the Falcon to it, deploy Chewie to Han and Leia and transit to the Falcon, then chase the Executor around. It worked for a bit, and with the pod race damage, the game was going in my favor, except that I was chasing Brad’s ship around instead of beating the bloody tarnation out of it. So he just played intelligently until he could get a Command and a Lateral Damage. At one point he asked me what the power of my Falcon was, and I said, "9." Then he said, "And about 20 destiny." I promised that I couldn’t draw 20 destiny. Looking at the cards in my hand, I decided I could only draw about 9. He ran that turn, too. When he battled me, though, I ended up taking 14 overflow. I played Life Debt as an action in the middle of forfeiting, to search my reserve for my 2nd Falcon, but it wasn’t there, and all was lost. Drains and Search and Destroy damage finished me off. I thought it would be funny on my last turn to draw until I had 4 cards in my hand and then lose 3 of them to play A Step Backward to take Leia into my hand. Apparently, Brad didn’t catch the joke. But it didn’t matter. FL by something.
At 3-2, you just don’t count differential. There’s no point. Garrett lost, and we kind of lost our shot at first for the team thing, too. But none of us cared, so that was okay. We kept hanging out with Eric Wetterlind who had already bounced around on a couple of teams after showing up at Mirkwood to play yet another tournament with his classic Ronto decks. Mad props to him for Ronto style.
Game 6: My dark against Justin Fleenor’s Bunker-blower
Well, I needed to beat at least one Iowan for the day, so Fleenor was the unlucky victim. But my confidence was shaken after losing to two (!) Iowans on the day already. Man, that sort of thing just doesn’t sit well with the soul. Fleenor tried to play Out of Commission before I even took an action. He was just a bit anxious. So it was going to be one of those games... I had not bothered to put in a grabber and had a feeling I’d regret it. With his podracing and bunker-blowing, I was set up to take 14 direct damage and let him retrieve another 14. I just didn’t like those odds. So when he raced first turn, I drew a 6 and decided to stack it. Why not? I set up and moved toward Alderaan over the first turns while he started with the Crix-and-Scout machine. But Vader paid Crix a visit, and then Justin had to draw for his scouts. U3P0, also, paid his scouts a visit, so there wasn’t any damage for a while other than the pod race. I blew away Alderaan and started setting up destroyers. Justin blew away the Bunker, but Come Here You Big Coward kept him from retrieving. In short, he couldn’t do anything about my drains in space. One turn they were for 10. Then next turn for 15. Zach Stenerson and Mike Raveling, who were playing next to us, overheard me say, "Take fifteen drain," and they just kind of whistled in empathy for Fleenor. Corran Horn messed up my undercover spy, but I deployed Arica who had been watching U3P0’s back all along. I managed to retrieve 15 from deploying star destroyers. I thought that was cool. FW by 20.
So I went 4-2. Not one of my better finishes, but I was happy since it was my first tourney in a long time. I was just glad to get a chance to play instead of sitting around my house again with the stupid broken leg propped up on a couch. So, thanks to everyone who I played that gave me a good game.
Justin finished 2-4. Garrett lost his last game and finished 4-2. We were well out of first for the team thing, but we had one of the better names. Really, the only funnier name belonged to Fleenor’s team, team "Fat People Are Harder to Kidnap."
Raveling, Li and Stenerson won the team tournament and redeemed their competitive drive with results. Kohman, Graham and Brad Gregg had to resign themselves to 2nd.
Cheers:
Garrett and Justin for inviting me to join their team.
Justin for taking all the jokes like a man and still giving me 5 stars on this report.
Garret for not losing too much and not having to take all the jokes like a man.
Brad Gregg, Fleenor and just about all of the Iowegians for driving up.
A Jedi’s Resilience. After the tournament, Dominic said he went either 3-3 or 4-2.
All the Mirkwood crew for making Mirkwood a fun and special place to play games.
Mirkwood for being that place.
Jeers:
People who cheat at Star Wars.
Hunt Down dueling with pod racing, inserts and counter assaults, in general, for being a really boring, crappy deck.
Hidden Base one-turn beats for being a really cool, but really, really crappy deck.
Joshua "Stormcrow" Grace