seth-goes-to-mirkwood-6-23-01
Title: seth-goes-to-mirkwood-6-23-01
Author: Seth "Ooryl" Van Winkle
Date: Jun 28, 2001
The next morning we get up at about 730 and take off in Fleen’s car. Fleen is driving, Nate (one of Fleen’s friends with a really bad rating) is riding shotgun, Stebbins had left nut, Karim is riding @#$% and I have right nut. Ride up is uneventful, we listed to Blink again, but Fleen’s CD has a different hidden track which is something to the effect of "I tried to @#$% a dog in the Ass." It’s the funniest damn song I’ve heard in a long time. We pull into Mirkwood at about 930, and we think we’re going to have to wait outside for a while, but it turns out that the store is already open. The other group of Iowa guys (Brad Gregg, Eirc Vanderplugm, Shawn Banwell and Rob and Dan Lyon) are already there due to Brad’s speedy driving. Since the store is closing all their stuff is really cheap. I buy the last 7 packs of Special Ed, only notable rares are a Harvest and CCT. I got a blank LS card which is really cool though. Fleen, Brad, Banwell and Jim Li all buy OTSDs and play with those, it looks fun so Eirc V and I buy JPSDs and play with those. I get Artoo and a Gift, but didn’t get a signal to start Seeking An Audience to pull Artoo and neither of us pulled an Audience chamber, so it didn’t matter. I have about 25 characters, so I just out battle Eirc’s characters and I win by 15-20.
Chris Perman was the TD for the tournament, we got a great turnout with about 40 people, I think about 11 were from Iowa. The top teams were Team "X-SAC" consisting of Jim Li, Mike Raveling and Zach Stenerson, Team "Butt Pirate" with Josh Kohman, Graham Neal and Brad Gregg, and Team "Our Moms Think We’re Cool" with Josh Grace, Justin Alfs and Garrett Larson. Me, Stebbins and Fleen decide on Team "Fat People Are Harder To Kidnap."
Our decks are:
Me - MWYHL Mains with Racing and SYCFA Interceptors
Fleen - RST Racing and Walker Garrison
Stebbins - Flip HB with Squassin and Chain of Command
Game 1, LS vs. Eric Vanderplugm (1543) with Huntdown Racing
Eric V used to play a lot, but he had a falling out with our play group and hasn’t played in tournaments for about 2 years. He just started playing again recently, and I haven’t had a chance to play him yet. He starts the Huntdown package including Epic Duel. He starts the race package with Watto’s box as his effect. I start my race stuff with Insights. This was my start all day. He activates, initiates the race and cheats with Sebulba. Then he draws. I activate 4 and get a Yoda’s hut. Both Yoda and Honor are in my force pile, so I draw. I also get Goo Nee Tay. I’m behind, so I use Anni’s text to draw 3 and choose 2. We race during his control phase again and I catch up a little, but stay behind. On my turn I deploy Yoda to the hut, get another Dagobah site, deploy Goo Nee Tay and Honor. We do some more racing, he plays a Pod Collision and Hit Racer, but misses with the Hit Racer. I can’t find my Too Close For Comfort. He gets Lord Vader with his saber to the Arena, but doesn’t flip because its not a battleground yet. He keeps loosing to his Visage. I come down with EPP Obi and Eric plays Circle. I draw 3,4 he draws higher, Obi is placed out of play and I loose 9. I draw up, saving 11 force. At this point, Eirc is up in the race, 21-20, so I get the extra draw. During his control phase, I draw a 5,1,5 and he draws a 7, so he is up 31-30. He gets Mara and Janus to the D*DB. During his battle phase I play A Step Backwards to place his 7 and my 5 back, so now I am up 25-21 and during his move phase I pay 11 to retrieve 11. He looses 11. On my turn I come down with Luke and Han to his D*DB. I battle and swing at Mara with Luke and miss, then I shoot at Mara and hit her. I draw ok destinies and both his guys die, my Han dies. He looses to Visage again. I retrieve 4 from I Did It! and 4 more from an Off The Edge. I may have killed his Vader near the end, but I don’t remember.
Full win by 37 2(+37)
Highlights: Visage and Watto’s Box were light side cards this game, 2nd turn Honor was cool as was the A Step Backwards that won the race.
Lowlights: Obi got circled.
Stebbins lost, Fleenor won so we are 2-1.
Game 2, DS vs. Nate (1426 or something like that) with Profit Podracing
He starts Profit with the racing stuff and I can’t remember his effect. I start SYCFA, Prepared Defenses for Mob Points, SAC killer combo and Secret Plans. I kept this start all day. I also got to start Arcia undercover in the chamber. As with all games against Profit with my Tie deck, the game quickly turned into a damage race. It took me forever to get SFS and for the longest time I only had one system out. I also couldn’t find a Palpy and didn’t want to deploy Battle Order till I had him at the D*DB. He frees Han and gets 5 back. He forgot to draw race destiny several times even though I was always sure to tell him when it was my control phase. He finally completes the race during my control phase, but the turn before he had consolidated his forces to one site so I deployed CHYBC to cancel his retrieval. My U-3PO got sorry about the messed. We are both finally doing lots of damage, I have all my systems out with guys at all of them and he has drains of 3 and 2, with 3 from profit damage. During my turn I have 8 cards left in my force, all in my reserve deck. I know that 1 is a Short Range Fighters. I activate 7, saving 1 for a destiny for the Short Range. I drain for 8 and he is down to 4 force. I draw all 7 cards and the Short Range is the force that I saved for destiny. On his turn he does exactly 8 damage to me and I die.
FL by 4 2(+33)
Highlights: I got to start Arcia which was cool, stopping his Podrace retrieval with CHYBC
Lowlights: The end of the game. I had a 1 in 8 chance of losing and it happened. Oh well.
I think Stebbins and Fleenor both lost too, so we were 2-4. Ick.
There was a lunch break after 2nd game, I wasn’t really hungry so I didn’t buy anything. Karim bought a Pepperoni Pizza from the store, but he’s Muslim and isn’t allowed to eat the Pepperoni so I stole it.
Game 3, LS vs. Andy Newton (1756) with Huntdown Racing
This game was exactly the same as game 1, except I didn’t get Honor and I didn’t want to ditch Insight for it because I wasn’t sure if he was playing number. He got Vader to the race arena and I got Obi there. For some reason I had no reserve and he Cricled Obi. I canceled the duel with Jedi Escape, but he deployed No Escape and dueled again. Poor Obi, this was just not his weekend. I cancel his Collisions with Too Close For Comfort and pull ahead with A Step Backwards. I win the race and we get a 22 force swing cause of Watto’s Box. I come down on Mara with EPP Luke and EPP Han, battle and miss the swing with Luke, but hit on the shot with Han. I draw high and overflow from the battle kills him.
Highlights: Visage and Watto’s box are my new favorite light cards.
Lowlights: Poor Obi.
So I won again, Stebbins won, Fleen lost, so we are 4-5. I tell then that they are not allowed to lose again. No one ever listens to me :(.
Game 4, DS vs. Eric Wetterlind (1687) with Rontos and Racing. This game was extremely non-interactive. He wins the race in 4 or 5 turns and we do our losing/retrieving from that. I get set up quickly with SFS and ties at systems. He makes the mistake of deploying Obi Wan to the D*DB, so I start doing the evil deploy a tie, retrieve 1, battle with first strike I retrieve 1 you lose 1. He draws destiny, I lose the tie and place it in used pile from attrition. He has no Tatooine DB, so Obi is stuck. He has guys draining me at Tatooine sites, but I have U-3PO at one site and Dreaded Imperial Starfleet is out, so I just lose about 2 and I retrieve those when I do the tie thing at the D*DB. He plays Surprise Assault on some of my drains, a total of 4 time I think. But I grabbed the first one so they are expensive. And I cancel two with Tarkin’s Orders. He dies to drains for 6 every turn and interceptors attacking his Obi.
Full Win by 20 6(+76)
Highlights: I got drained by 4 Rontos, First Strike trap is evil, canceling Surprise Assaults with Tarkin’s Orders is cool.
Lowlights: Racing is gay, lose 6 to a Surprise Assault that got through.
Stebbins lose, Fleen won so we move up to 6-6.
Game 5, DS vs. Josh Kohman (2021) with QMC
He starts Keeping The Empire Out Forever, Squassin and the SAC killer combo. I pull Wakeelimui, activate and deploy Wakeelimui with SFS then draw. He activates, gets a site with QMC and draws. I activate, play APTW lost to get 3 interceptors and deploy them and one more interceptor to Bespin. Oh his turn, he activate and gets a site. Then he shows me Cap Han to get the Flacon. I’m not really awake, so I ignore the barrier in my hand. He then deploys EPP Leia and the "Super" Falcon is complete. I wake up and barrier Leia. The Flacon flees to Wakeelimui. I drew two Interceptors last turn, so I activate and deploy them to Wakeelimui for 4 and 3. Ick. I check my destinies and about half will hit. I deploy a laser cannon on the Falcon, Lateral Damage the Faclon and battle. I and shoot my cannon for 3 and miss. I shoot again and miss again. He draws a total for 12 for destiny, so I lose both interceptors with no overflow. One goes to used pile. Oh his turn he flips his objective with Puchawhatever and RSL Wedge and moves the Falcon to Bespin to cancel Lat. Damage. Before he ends his turn, I play 2 lost APTW and get 5 Interceptors. I activate and deploy 3 of the Interceptors and a Dreadnaught. I battle and play APTW. He shoots my Dreadnaught with a Intruder Missile and hits it. His draws are a 1, 2, 2 and I draw a 3. Power 50 to 12 for a difference of 38. "Super" Falcon and 18 please. He begins making a comeback with On and Off the Edges. He is also draining me for 5 with Puchy and Wedge. I come down on Puchy with EPP Vader, but he Paths away. Vader is killed by an EPP Obi. I get another system out with 2 interceptors there. Palp is also deployed to the D*DB and Battle Order comes out so he is slowed down further. A Luke with Saber visits Palpy, but misses the swing with a 4 and 1. I retrieve 9 with Short Range Fighters one of which is my EPP Vader. I track him back into my hand and he attacks Puchy. There is no Path this time, so Vader chops him and draw a fairly high destiny. The overflow kills him.
Full win by 16. 8(+92)
Highlights: Beating on the Super Falcon, and on Puchy.
Lowlights: Missing both shots with the Laser Cannons
Fleen won so he is 3-2, Stebbins lost AGAIN so he is 1-4. What a scrub.
The last round has some interesting parings. Team X-SAC members Raveling and Stenerson play, giving that team a 2 (+0) for that game. Team Butt Pirate members Kohman and Neal will also play, giving their team the 2(+0). So it all comes down to the game between Brad Gregg and Jim Li. If you remember, they were the ones at the center of the Iowa vs. Minnesota fight last summer. Its pretty much over now, but there are still some underlying tensions between these two.
Game 6, LS vs. Adam Lewis (1662) with Huntdown Pods and Odds.
So I get to play against Huntdown racing all three games. Lucky me. I get Honor out 2nd turn so he loses to his Visage most of the game. I cancel his Collisions with Too Close For Comfort and Pull Ahead in the race with A Step Backwards. I win the race, but he has CHYBC out so I don’t get to retrieve the 4 cards in my lost pile. On my turn after the race, I come down with Qui armed with his saber, EPP Luke and EPP Leia. He attempts to duel Luke with V’s Obsession, but I Jedi Escape to cancel it. Then he tries to Force Lightning Leia, but misses. I battle and shot at Palpy with Leia and hit him with a 4. I hit Vader and he misses Luke. He plays I Have You Now and his total battle destiny is 8. I subtract 2 from attrition with Yoda, so just Leia dies. Both his guys die. On his turn, he deploys Choke Vader with saber to the cantina and its my turn. I come down with Leia, Han, and Lando. Then I Nabrun Qui and Luke over. I battle. He misse the Choke on Lando and misses his swing, but I hit him with mine. I have power of 27 to his of about 10, so Vader dies and the overflow kills him.
Full win by 33 10(+125)
Highlights: Beating on Vader and Palp.
Lowlights: None
Jim Li beat Brad Gregg so team X-SAC wins. Fleenor lost his last game to finish at 3-3, Stebbins won to finish at 2-4. Team Fat People Are Harder To Kidnap came in 6th out of 12 teams, despite my valliant efforts :) Team X-SAC won the team event. Dan Meyer, a SM from Northern Iowa went 6-0, knocking off several good players to take first with his hardcore cheese decks. He has been accused of cheating for doing things like flipping Huntdown while Vader was at the race arena when the race was going on, but I’ve know him for abut 4 years and he would never intentionally cheat. He is prone to making mistakes because he doesn’t get to play much though. I got 2nd with my huge differential, so Iowans took the top 2 spots which is cool. Jim Li got 3rd, Adam Lewis got 4th. Not sure of the places after that. We wanted to stay and play bball with some of the Minnesotans, but Fleenor had a bloody nose during the tournament and was being a pansy saying things like the loss of blood made him lightheaded. So me Stebbins, Fleen and Nate take off. We ride back to Mason City in Fleen’s car. Stebbins and I get dinner at Hardees, I have a monster roast beef sandwich with curly fries and a Mr. Pibb. We drive the rest of the way home and listen to more music.
Props and Slops:
Major Props to Dan Meyer for shocking everyone and going 6-0. If we had our heads together and had me, Dan and Brad G on a team, we would have won. But we’re stupid, so we didn’t.
Props to:
Stebbins and Fleen for driving.
Karim for being the coolest Muslim SWCCG Player I know.
Eric, Nate, Andy, Eric, Kohman and Louis for the games, I had a great time playing you guys.
Eric V for the JPSD game.
Blink 182 for the laughs.
Mike Raveling, Graham Neal, Jim Li, Zach Stenerson and all the other guys for being cool to hang out with and talk to.
Chris Perman for running a great event.
Vader for Choking Qui
Leia for shooting Palpy.
Watto’s Box and Visage of the Emperor for being my two favorite cards today.
Eric W for playing with Rontos.
Major Slops to Brad Stebbins for being a huge scrub. You suck man! ;)
Slops to:
None really, even Herb was civil.
Seth Van Winkle
Iowa Scrub