girard-goes-to-denver-6-29-7-1-01
Title: girard-goes-to-denver-6-29-7-1-01
Author: Michael "Dvader" Girard
Date: Jul 3, 2001
June 29th -July 1st
Pre Tournament stuff
Alright, I was originally not going to go to this event, but I had the funds and decided, what the hell. The only problem was that I needed a traveling companion. So I ring up Brian Garrison about 3 or 4 weeks ago and he’s all for it. So time passes and it’s like the Monday before we are supposed to leave. He’s remembers that he has to move over the weekend so I am stuck without a buddy, cause those of you that travel by car a lot, know that you always have to have a travel companion or else you fall asleep and then you die, etc (note – for those of you back east, you have no conception of traveling distance so this doesn’t apply to you). I call up Justin Beal, who is a relatively unknown player who has been playing for about a year and a half who is starting to get better at his game and is learning the finer things in the CCG world, he’s all for it, so we leave Thursday night around 5:30pm and set out. The trip was relatively uneventful, it was awfully nice not to fall into a random.snowstorm over Raton pass (see Grand Slam tournament report from last year). We get into Parker, after going through a toll road. I mean, really, who the hell has the balls to put a toll road this side of the Mississippi, it’d be like someone playing HuntDown and ThroneRoom Mains. We pull into Collectormania which looks like a nice quaint little shop and boy are we smelling like CarRideFunk which is bad. We were supposed to meet Joe Helfrich there so we could go clean up before the Warmup event but he was no where to be found. So Justin and I play in the Sealed event. I went 3-1 losing to a guy who drew up 20+ cards to find his counter assault and I lost about 15 to that, Justin went 2-2. I pulled two mauls in five packs 
Warmup Event
I don’t remember much game detail about this event. I decided that I would do more scouting then actually playing for the DSII set. So I made some two minute decks. My decks were 2-minute WYS starting with seeking an audience for some threepio/mess action (and everybody thought it was tech  and MKOS balanced, that just gets wrecked by profit w/the camp. I went 2-2 but I wasn’t to worried about it. I scouted out the Pods and Odds deck that beat Hunter (to give him his only loss of the weekend). So I tech my deck, Joe finally shows up and we head back to his place to shower and sleep
World Qualifier Tournament
Justin wakes up says he feels good about the day, I get a weird feeling and we go to the tournament. I make sure to take care in filling out my decklist, ensuring that it is 60 cards on my list and 60 in the deck. I hand in the lists and wait for the first pairings to be called.
Decks
LS – Lingrell’s RST Boomrace deck – made minor modifications to add more podracing interrupts and SAC/Numbers protection
DS – You May Begin Losing Force – Start your landing deck that is big beef, has enough high destiny shiznit to make sure I don’t lose the podrace everytime.
Game One
Dark Side vs. Jack Barbaria
He started Shmi’s hut and did some Threepioing to get cards in hand. I beat him off of Hoth and start to set up. He comes down with some random peeps that I knock off with the Walkers/good characters. His mains don’t stand up to Walkers so I am controlling my planet while he is still Threepioing. We are about even for force, cause Jedi luke is draining at the 5th marker with his stick and I am pinging him randomly. He drops a squad (epp obi, quigon, chewie) in front of Imperial Walker and Ozzel. I barrier both obi and quigon. Next turn I drop tempest 1, igar, blizzard 2 and some pilots. I wreck them and direct damage for the win
Full Win 2 (+18)
Game Two
Light Side vs Jason Keen’s Start Your Landing Deck
Jason is a cool guy from Denver, at this point I am 0-2 vs. Keen in Sanctioned Tournament play (I wrecked him in the sealed deck, but that didn’t count). He gets off to a slow start, I set up the bunker and the podrace. I time it just right where I win the podrace and on the following turn I blow the bunker and drain for three at the back door. The 17 force loss with the last 11 of it coming from random places in the piles (cause of The Shield is Down) was too much for Jason. He got a late game Garrison off for like 15 or something and then I showed him how he could maneuver around to block some of my drains to cause more damage. Basically making him a better player, etc.
Full Win 2 (+15)
Total 4 (+33)
Game Three
Light Side vs. Alex Ruge’s Set Your Course Flip
I don’t play with Menace Fades or Aim High therefore I lose this game. 2nd turn I come down to the DS docking back to take out xizor and 2x death star gunners w/ Jedi Luke. He Puts all Sections on Alert and luke is toast. So I spend a few turns resetting up the bunker. He blows alderaan and starts setting up his drains. Now mind you I can’t find Home One for the life of me and Artoo and red 5 are stacked on the podrace. He drains for some at Kiffex, I win the race and cause him some damage. Next turn he just plays two SDs and retreives the 6 force, I’m like, alright how many more could he have. He starts locking down systems. I blow the bunker and drain for 3 at the back door causing 11 damage. Two turns later, he retreives it all with ties and Star destroyers. And now he’s draining for 5 at kiffex and 4 at rendilli. So I draw up home one, lay it, but it’s too late. In my last 4 force was artoo in red 5 and I was holding the landing claw and luke in my hand the whole time.
Full Loss 0 (-13)
Total 4 (+20)
Justin is still undefeated
Game Four
Dark Side vs Casey Barson’s RST racing if he has to deck
I always love playing Casey cause it’s always a blast, we always go back and forth during the games about each other’s mama and how backwards of a state Utah is and how random Arizona tournaments are. He makes the mistake early in the game and tries to battle me off the 2nd marker. I work his guys over and plant some guys in the bunker with ghhk back up. He doesn’t contend me in space so I am draining at endor for 2 or 3 and then at hoth for 2 and he is paying for battle order. And I just cause too much indirect damage to him. I do some maneuvers on Endor to keep him from coming to Hoth (moving the Emperor around and whatnot) and I win the game.
Full Win 2 (+12)
Total 6 (+32)
Justin just lost to Jared Arthur. 2x Arizona players at the top table heh
Game Five
Light Side vs John Towner’s BHBM odds, etc
I should have known. He got a really bad draw. He got the Emperor and Tech Mor down and inserted by turn two. I creatively moved around the odds until I got the number canceller card. Then I went to town. I won the podrace (he was stacking vaders, I was stacking 5s and 6s) and started to setup to blow up the bunker. But instead I just manuevered around vader and drained in space and where I could on the ground. I beatdown a stickless vader and caused some overrun damage and then just avoided for the win.
Full Win 2 (+19)
Total 8 (+51)
Game Six
Dark Side vs Josh Bader’s Hidden Base
Josh is worried about his rating too much at times, but that’s alright, he is still a mizor. I got to verify his deck about turn three and I am seeing xwing cannons and power pivots and good stuff like that, so I know that to win this game, I am going to have to pick and choose my space battles. I set up on the ground and start direct damaging him there. When I verified his deck, I saw an extra Tatooine so I know it wasn’t that. He has kiffex, hoth, tatooine, Colurag, and kessel out. Well it turns out that it was the last system I probed. The battle that I chose to fight was the dominator with ozzel and zuckass in mist hunter vs. a lateral damaged artoo in red 5 and wedge in ship. I add a destiny and I out power him and clear off wedge and ship. I just maneuver for the next few turns and then lock down hoth with rebel base occupation. The turn before I win, I drain for two at the marker, one at the docking bay, start your landing damage for two at the 5th and 3rd marker, occupy for 2 damage at the 2nd marker and the docking bay and then lateral damage for the win 
Full Win 2 (+18)
Total 10 (+69) 
So I finish in 3rd behind Justin who had 10 +90something and Hunter who went undefeated, etc.
I went 4-2 at the team tournament, nothing too exciting.
Props
- Scott and Collectormania – thanks for the weekend and I hope that your new business opportunity is all that you expect it to be
- Brian Hunter – for the great games this weekend and your positive non-elitest attitude
- Justin Beal – for being a great travel buddy and for qualifying for Worlds.
- John Arndt, Jason Keen, Matt Riecks, Kyle Craft – for being fun as usual
- Chris Fanchi – for the great game 6 in the team tournament
- Jared and John – for helping to represent Arizona
- Joe Helfrich – even though I know he won’t read this, for the place to stay 
- Jon Dunn – for helping me playtest my decks
- Charles Hickey – cause I wanted to play Treva Horme this weekend
- Casey Barson – cause you and your crew are a bunch of misors and you know it
- The Wahhhmbulance – for finally coming to visit Brian after he lost to Josh Bader’s Dark deck
- Raton Pass – for not blizzarding there or back
- Denver’s Weather – for trying to accommodate us and mimic Arizona’s weather
- Alex Ruge – cause he just wrecked me with a good deck
- Caldera Righim – for being such a beating of a character
- Geoff Snider – cause….I have too? 
- Enrique Huerta – for bringing Justin along and showing him stuff like Self Distruct mechanism and Oh swich off 
- Collectormania – for being a great store all around
Slops
- Joe’s apt – for being on the other side of denver
- A.I. – cause I haven’t thought about a movie that much since….I can’t remember
- The 16 hour car trip – cause it was long
- Kyle Craft – cause I didn’t get my swing at the Ratings Piniata 
- Artoo in Red 5 – for not being there the only time I needed it all weekend
- Denver – for being so centrally located that it’s not close enough to anywhere to drive etc
- The Coyotes – for letting JR slip away
- Avalanche – cause they were everywhere
- The New Mile High stadium – cause it was too plasticy looking
- Denver – for having a freaking toll road. What is this New Jersey??!!???
- Brandon Allen – cause Beal said I have to
- Decipher – for not having a DCI-esque company that can handle all the tournament stuff so they can concentrate on putting out the same quality product they have for years, etc
See you all at Origins in a couple days
Michael Girard
3rd place at Collectormania Open, first place in our hearts (jeez, I’m such a sap)