denver-world-qualifier-weekend-day-two

Title: denver-world-qualifier-weekend-day-two
Author: Brian "HuntaWarya" Hunter
Date: Jul 6, 2001

Saturday, June 30th - The Open

So after the miserable 2nd place finish on Friday, I go home and change both of my decks. (sure, the dark deck didn’t actually lose a game, but it still deserves to be punished anyway. After all, it is hunt down racing, which is what I lost to, so I’m pissed at it. hehe) Since my "anti-hunt down" light deck was apparently not "anti-hunt down" enough, I scrap it in favor of something even MORE "anti-hunt down". I switch to a flipping hidden base deck that utilizes multiple spies to cancel visage, plus transmission terminated to cancel visage and/or blow away the imperial holotable, plus Aim High to stop racing retrieval, and so on, and so on. It’s the biggest stack of HD racing hate ever. For dark I go to MKOS mains (with Dengar as the rep, cuz he’s the man!) with capitals and imperial command. It’s just a big ol’ pile of good darkside battle stuff. the Executor, Thrawn with Chimaera, Guri with Stinger, Vaders, Tarkin, Maul, Jade, Palpatine, Janus, sabers, the whole nine yards. The decklists ask for deck titles, so I am using:

Light: "I am sick of Hunt Down", my HB flip deck
Dark: "Hunter’s Brillianter Pile", the MKOS deck

I figure, people named Hunter win Opens, and people with Piles win Opens, and people named Hunter using a Pile, definitely win Opens. So it should be all good. We get around 40 or so players today, including a surprise appearance by Kyle craft. So half of the world’s top 4 are represented today, along with several other dangerous opponents, including the always wily John Arendt.

Game One: Hunter’s Brillianter Pile vs. Chris Latta (1633)
Well Chris is rated below 1800, so I am immune. He’s playing a Hidden base flip deck himself. He puts out ralltiir early, so I can expect Kessel running. However, he loses Kessel off his deck to an early drain. That stops the drain of 3 at kessel and stops the Kessel running. Worse yet, without the Kessel system, he struggles at getting enough systems out to even flip his objective. He does the best he can, giving his predicament, and plink-drains me relentlessly at his systems while I wear away at him on the ground. The game is not very interactive, and since my drains are bigger than his own, he runs out of cards while I still have 22.

2: (+22) Currently 8th place.

John Arendt, Patrick Napier, Josh Bader, and Jared Arthur had wins in game one by 40, 40, 37, and 32 respectively. But they all played light side, so game two pairings will be fun. With a win by only 26, Kyle Craft is the top dark player, pitting him against John Arent early. My modest win by 22 makes me the #3 dark player, so I go against Joshua Bader

Game Two: I am Sick of Hunt Down vs. Joshua Bader (1879)
After Josh beat me last night, I immediately beat him back in the following game. Now I get a chance for more revenge. better yet, Josh has not changed his dark deck, so I get a chance to play against the deck that beat me. His deck, in case you did not read the Day One report (which you can find on my member page), is high destiny Hunt Down with racing and dueling. Josh uses start your engines before drawing race destiny, to make sure he draws high. Then he deploys no escape to pull the start your engines into hand, so that he can do it again next turn. Sure enough, Josh wins the race in just 3 turns again. I lose 11 force, but Aim High stops his retrieval. I start tossing out systems, with matching pilot combos. I make sure the ships are high enough power to withstand the threat of counter assault. Corran Horn invades the Executor holotheatre and cancels the visage. Lord Vader comes down, and I barrier him. Corran Horn gets on the comlink to rebel HQ to request assistance.
Corran: "Mission accomplished, the Visage is down. But I’ve got the Dark Lord breathing down my neck, and I don’t think that Barrier will hold him long. You guys better call his Momma quick!"
On my turn, corran runs to the meditation chamber. He catches a glimpse of Vader using his own comlink, but thinks nothing of it. Turns out that Vader was on a call with Elis Helrot. On Josh’s turn, he uses Elis to move Vader to Corran’s location.
Corran: "Have you guys got that Momma on the line yet or WHAT??"
Rebel Tech: "We’re working on it"
Corran: "Well work faster!"
Vader swings at Corran Horn and hits him. *Ring, Ring* Josh plays I have you now to add an extra battle destiny.
Woman’s Voice: "Hello?"
Josh draws a 6 and a 5 for battle destiny, putting the battle damage into double-digits.
Rebel Tech: "I’m looking to speak with a Ms. Skywalker?"
Woman’s Voice: "This is she."
Cheers erupt in the Rebel Headquarters, as they have successfully called Vader’s Momma! I play the Houjix, cancelling the battle damage, and Josh is dejected. He picks vader up and puts him at the podrace arena to flip, but once I have my objective on the 7 side, he can’t drain me at all, while the drains at Kessel and Kiffex begin to eat away at his life force. I use on the edge to retrieve my lost cards, and begin tracking them with Mirax for re-use. Josh deploys another Visage, but Corran Horn (who I had retrieved and drawn again) cancels it again. My objective keeps Josh from drawing out, and I eventually use the edges to retrieve all the force I had lost earlier, netting myself a win by 39.

4: (+61) Currently 1st place.

Ah, victory is sweet. But revenge is SO MUCH sweeter. John knocks off Kyle in Game two, so we will play at the top table in Game 3. Meanwhile, Napier defeated Matt Riecks to get to 2-0, and will play against Jared Arthur.

Game Three: Hunter’s Brillianter Pile vs. John Arendt (2125)
John is using RST with podracing, which is a match I feel I can win with relative ease. But my deck struggles early, as I cannot find Merrejk, Piett, or any of my imperial commands. So Endor is the only system on table through most of the game. As the race goes on, John deploys to the bunker early, bringing Epp Obi, Lt. Blount, and General Madine, followed by the epic event and 2 explosive charges. I deploy 4-lom, Mara Jade (with saber in hand), and the rep himself (Dengar), and initiate. 4-lom cancels obi’s text, so John has no weapons to fire. Dengar lowers his boomstick and puts one through the Old Jedi’s cranium. He then casually uses an over-the-shoulder shot to waste Madine. Meanwhile, Mara Jade manages to swing down Lt. Blount (by drawing a 1 and a 2). John plays rebel leadership to add a battle destiny, and forces enough attrition to kill both of my bounty hunters. John blows the charges, killing Jade and his epic event. Soon after, he wins the race, getting the epic event back in his life force. He then uses 2 force with his objective to go get it again. Mighty Jabba and Aurra Sing are draining at my JP sites, while I use the Emperor and EPP vader to drain on Endor. The Chimaera goes to the Endor system, piloted by Ozzel. This time Corran Horn leads the charge into the bunker, followed by orrimaarko and general solo. He redeploys the epic event, and plays another explosive charge. I deploy admiral piett and guri to the bunker, and move epp vader inside. We have another battle. Vader hits orrimaarko, and I use sniper/dark strike to make him lost. attrition kills Piett and Solo. On my turn, I deploy Tarkin with Vader and take hold of the bunker for good. John kills off the Emperor with his remaining characters. I deploy Blizzard 2 to an endor site, and put thrawn on the chimaera, then move ozzel down to pilot the walker. the super home one comes to town, and I lose control of the endor system. Fortunately, I had finally gotten the Tatooine system on the table, so I was able to maintain a space presence and not fall victim to my own battle order. John’s objective never flips, and I drain him out shortly thereafter, for a win by 17.

6: (+78)

On the lunch break, Chris Fanchi and I hit the Taco Bell, which makes it all worth it. In Game Four, I get paired against Jason Keen, so I am pretty smiley. John Arendt comments on how happy I look. You see, Josh Bader was the last person to win a sanctioned game against me, and today I had beaten him by 39. the last person to win a game against me before that was Jason Keen, and now I had another opportunity for revenge. I am practically giddy with anticipation as the game begins.

Game Four: I am Sick of Hunt Down vs. Jason Keen (1883)
Jason is playing his Walker garrison deck today. I start deploying systems and pilot/ship combos. He gets both his systems out right away, along with the 6th marker, all of which is very lucky for his deck. But his draw is short on walkers, so he ends up needing to use the admiral’s order "battle deployment" to get more combat vehicles from reserve and force more direct damage. I get DSII wedge together with Tycho, along with an x-wing cannon, bluffing a pretty nasty power pivot/cancel your destiny situation. But Jason will not be fooled, and battles me with his Executor, due to OTE. He loses nothing, I lose a pilot to my bacta tank, and immediately redeploy it aboard the ship. I pile up some ships at the hoth system instead, where thrawn is on the Chimaera. This time, Jason cannot risk the battle, so he loses 3 to OTE and moves his ship away from Hoth, cancelling rebel base occupation. Epp obi takes over my non-unique forest, while epp luke holds down the echo docking bay. Jason has walkers at most of the other hoth sites, but menace fades keeps him from playing a "walker garrison" to wreck me. He probes a few systems, but not the system he needed to, and my space drains put him away for a win by 23.

8: (+101)

Ah, did I mention that revenge is sweet? ;) At this point there are only 3 4-0 players. Jared Arthur has double the differential of the 3rd undefeated player, so he will face me in Game 5. Meanwhile, there are still some a few 3-1 people to watch out for, including John Arendt, Kyle Craft, Mike Girard, and Josh Bader.

Game Five: I am Sick of Hunt Down vs. Jared Arthur (1895)
Jared starts Bring Him Before Me!! Holy crap! Auto-win in Game 5 sure sounds good to me. Full win by 19. Oh...wait...you wanted game details or something? okay. Let’s see, he gets the emperor to the dsII docking bay right away, and on turn two he puts out Emperor’s Power and Vader. On my second turn, I activate both of my lukes, so I cannot deploy one from reserve to give to Vader. So I have to eat the 3 force loss from Your Destiny before deploying Luke on my following turn. Meanwhile, I deploy Tk-422 to block his ground drain, and get out wedge and mirax on their respective ships at endor. He deploys Mara Jade, with her saber (vader has his saber also), and inserts on me! He has 8 to my 4, but then moves Vader over and captures luke, flipping his objective, and effectively keeping luke from being "on table". That puts my total up to 6, so I only lose 2 force when the insert pops. I then deploy YISYW, and he pitches the rest of his inserts asap. He starts losing one force to his objective every turn. He started Battle Order, so I get epp obi out to my non-unique forest, which also establishes menace fades. He has trouble drawing up more characters to attack obi with (since jade, palpatine and vader are all busy already), and his late-game strikes against Obi prove ineffective. I flip my objective and start the heavy drains in space, while his objective continues to ping away at him. He moves Vader and Luke onto the death star to duel me, but I don’t think he actually won any duels. He probes in space, but like my earlier opposition, is unable to locate the hidden base. He does, however, grab On the Edge and then sense them, stopping my attempts at retrieval. So I have to settle for the afore-mentioned win by 19.

10: (+120)

John loses in Game 5 to Alex. Alex was the other 4-0 player, who is now 5-0. John is effectively out of contention now. Kyle won in Game 5 to reach 4-1, but just played the same allegiance I did, so I won’t see him in Game 6. I won’t see Bader in Game 6 either, since he just lost to Kyle. Other 4-1 players include Justin Beal and Mike Girard. But they ALSO both just played light, so I can’t play them either. The only other 4-1 player is Jared Arthur....

Game Six: Hunter’s Brillianter Pile vs. Jared Arthur (1895)
Jared is playing a flipping hidden base deck. But he has a lot of characters to attack the ground with, including several epps, and even Qui-Gon! So, search & destroy has very little effect on him. Neither does battle order. I spread thin on the ground, relying on my barriers to bail me out. Sure enough, I get caught by the bith shuffle/desperate reach combo card, allowing his epps to cause some real damage, including the death of Gailid. I probe his hidden base within a couple of tries, and so he continues to deploy mains to my JP sites. At one point, epp leia leaves the audience chamber to go block Xizor’s drain. I had few cards left in my hand, and most of my personae with either in play or dead. So I guess he felt this was a safe play. But it was not. I deployed Darth Maul alongside the dark prince, followed by 4-lom. Darth Maul (naturally), says: "Somebody better call my Momma, to come pick me up, cuz I’m ’bout to KILL somebody up in here!" The droid prevented leia from shooting anyone, and Xizor kept her from drawing battle destiny. He loses Leia for 6, plus 11 in spillover damage. Jared’s drains are bigger than my own, but he is starting to run real low on life force. I eventually track down Porkins on Red 6 with Grand Admiral Thrawn, and when jared tries to move away, he is stopped by the text on "something special planned for them". Porkins is too fat to reach the directory containing the number for Thrawn’s Momma, and the ensuing battle ends the game instantly. Full win by 18.

So I finish at 12: (+138)

Alex loses in Game 5, and his differential is too low to make the final. Girard is also 5-1, with a differential too low for the final. Kyle Craft lost in Game 6 to John Arendt, so he’s out. The highest 5-1 player is actually...Justin Beal! Here’s the top ten:
1) Brian Hunter 12(+138)
2) Justin Beal 10 (+96)
3) Michael Girard 10 (+69)
4) Alex Ruge 10 (+46)
5) Miguel Alderete 9 (+49)
6) Christopher Baker Basler 8 (+70)
7) John Arendt 8 (+68)
8) Casey Barson 8 (+59)
9) Kyle Craft 8 (+46)
10) Jared Arthur 8 (+46)

Justin Beal is a player from Arizona who I had only played against once before. But I have read several of his tourney reports, so I know that he basically considers himself a scrub. I’m not sure exactly what his rating was before this tournament, but after the tournament, it is about 1750. So, although my immunity to players with ratings <1800 was not of ANY use in the last 5 games of the tournament, it WILL work in the final confrontation! Nice.

I elect to use light first in the final, so that if I need to draw out in the other game (since dark side sucks), I will know how low I need his life force to be before it is safe.

Meaningless Bonus Game #1: HB Flip vs. Justin Beal (1750)
Justin’s dark deck is Agents of the Black Sun. Fairly old school, using the traditional character mix. But it is not quite Dark Surgeon, because this version utilizes Hidden Weapons and some offbeat droid tech. He uses cards to retarget weapons fire toward iggy, to keep xizor from getting hit when guri isn’t around. and he also uses Oh, switch off to keep his droids alive. Anyhoo, he gets Xizor out to the Coruscant docking bay, while I deploy ships and systems. Xizor comes out to a battleground, joined by Guri and a vigo, and I can already tell that I don’t want to go tackle the dark prince. I use epp luke, joined by Corran Horn, to flip him back by going to his other docking bay. Down come fett and pals. He tries to hidden weapons luke but fails. Tries to shoot corran horn but fails. So he loses a couple guys while I lose corran horn. xizor brings the entourage over and luke has to flee. His next attack would successfully kill Luke, enabling him to flip again. The ships are spreading out in space. I play an on the edge to retrieve a few cards, but someone points out that I did not pay for the secret plans that he started. The secret plans was below his other two starting effects, so I had never seen it. But that’s my own fault for not making him tell me what he started, so I tell him that he can cancel my retrieval if he wants to. He decides he doesn’t want me to retrieve the cards for free, he wants me to pay for it. But he lets me go back and retroactively pay for secret plans rather than cancelling the retrieval. He gets the Mist Hunter and the Punishing One up in space to probe with, but isn’t having any luck yet. He sets up search & destroy. I get my non-unique forest out, and put epp obi and luke there. That satisfies search and destroy, sets up menace fades, and flips his objective back. On a couple of occasions, he puts a card from hand into his used pile to look at his force pile, even though he is on the zero side of his objective. I remind him that he cannot do that, but I don’t make a big deal over it, since he was cool about the secret plans thing. He also asks me to lose force for his objective during his control phase a couple of times (for having Xizor and Palpatine at battleground sites). I again remind him that he is on the zero-side, and he apologizes. I say it’s no big deal, since he was cool about the secret plans thing. I chase his bounty hunter ships around with wedge, who is armed with an x-wing cannon. He tries to move his ships away, but I remind him that he cannot move before losing force for order to engage. He seems to have forgotten all about the order to engage, and seems upset that he went on to his move phase before considering battling me. So, I let him back up to his battle phase so he can weigh his options. (why do I let him do that? That’s right: because he was cool about the secret plans thing.) He ultimately decides to stick with his original decision, and does not battle. So he loses 3 and moves away. In the late game, he attacks luke and obi at the forest, but they will not go down. Justin is never able to probe out the hidden base, and the space drains take him out for a win by 19.

Meaningless bonus game #2: Hunter’s Brillianter Pile vs. Justin Beal (1750)
Justin’s light deck is QMC, so I start playing like as if I am playing against QMC. But this is not your average QMC deck, which I quickly learn the hard way. I spread out guys on Tatooine and set up the Executor at the system, for a good amount of drain, plus occupation damage. QMC doesn’t have many characters that it can afford to "go on raids" with, it uses most of it’s character base to set up on Bespin. So I thought I would be fine spreading out on Tatooine, but I saved force for barrier just in case. Down comes Qui-Gon Jinn armed with a lightsaber. WTF? I barrier him and it gets SENSED! double WTF? QMC with big mains and actual lightsaber cards coming to kick my butt on Tatooine, backed by sense/alter, instead of epps flitting around on Bespin. Oh yeah, and he also has gen. calrissian on Gold squadron 1 at the bespin system instead of the super falcon, so that he can use han on the ground. Interesting, eh? So I try to adjust to the new situation, and evaluate how I can make a comeback, because I’m getting drained for 3 a turn in my own audience chamber, plus I’m taking drains in space at his system (since I am protecting the occupation at my own system), and a drain of 2 at the carbonite chamber (where Obi is hanging out) I have YCHF out so Qui-Gon’s defense value is minus one. So i decide to go capture him using Iggy and a tracked 6. But I still can’t track worth a damn, so am off by one card, and miss the jedi. (i SWEAR y’all are in TROUBLE when I learn how to play this game!! I know I’ve said it before, but I mean it!!) Instead I draw the 6 for battle destiny, and Qui-gon just laughs at my silly little droid since he is immune. I take vader and 4-lom against his epp obi, so he just paths away to safety, and uses the north corridor to cancel my drain. I back up 4-lom and vader with tarkin, so the north corridor is mine, and I use it to cancel HIS drains. I’m still draining for a few here and there on Tatooine, and making him lose a couple a turn for occupation. The drain of 2 at the north corridor is helping me catch up, but he is still draining me in the AC for 3 and plinking away at me from the bespin system. We are both running real low on life force. Eventually he moves Gold Squadron 1 and red 6 over in front of my Executor, which is being piloted by Commander Merrejk. So I have 14 power at the system. With DSII wedge co-piloting Gold Squadron 1, he would also have exactly 14 power at the system. He then assigns wedge as a passenger, so that his power is now 11. I consider this move for a moment. I can either leave the executor at tatooine to protect the occupation, hoping it survives until my next control phase (and with 14 power and merrejk’s 6 forfeit, you’d think it will), or I can move away, lose the occupation, PLUS let him drain me for 2 at my own system, just to avoid the battle. Red 6 is armed with an x-wing cannon. Justin has 3 cards in hand. I decide that if I stay at the system, he is going to battle me with his 11 power to my 14, and then play the damage doubler. He will then use power pivot to reduce my power to zero, destroy the executor, and win the game with battle plan. I move away from tatooine, lose the occupation, and let him drain the extra 2 at my system. The next cards he loses to my force drains is the damage doubler. I drain him out a turn later, for a win by 5.

So I win this really big plexiglass trophy thing. I also get about 8 packs of Reflections II, 7 packs of tatooine, 3 packs of death star II, and a tournament foil. Naturally, Justin and I also both earn the bye into day 2 of worlds.

Props:
Chris Fanchi, for driving.
To my light deck, for killing Hunt Down, just like it’s supposed to.
To revenge against jason and josh, for being sweet. :)
To the rebels, for calling Vader’s momma in game 2.
To John Arendt, for taking care of Kyle so I wouldn’t have to deal with him. hehe.
To Taco Bell, for making it all worth it.
To Jared Arthur, for managing to use BHBM against me and lose by less than 20. (sure, he lost by 19, but that is still less than 20!) Only Kyle Craft had ever pulled off a loss by less than 20 before, when using BHBM against me.
To Justin Beal, for blindsiding the tournament and making the final.
To Justin Beal, for being a good guy to play SWCCG against.
To all the travellers who came in from other cities, who helped make the whole weekend more interesting.
To my light deck, for having a sneaky hidden base. In 4 games, not one of my opponents ever probed the hidden base successfully.

Slops:
To me, for still not knowing how to track. (must...read...Steve Marshall...articles)

See you for the Day 3 report (the team tournament!) Thanks for reading.

Brian Hunter