denver-world-qualifier-weekend-day-three

Title: denver-world-qualifier-weekend-day-three
Author: Brian "HuntaWarya" Hunter
Date: Jul 7, 2001

Sunday, July 1st - The Team Tournament

First prize in the team tournament will be 2 boxes of Tatooine. The team for today will consist of John Arendt, Van Melancon, Chris Fanchi, and Myself. On the way to the tournament, Chris and I are discussing potential team names. I mention that John Arendt will probably be using his Maul deck. Chris has decided to use the Maul deck today as well, instead of the Hunt Down he used yesterday. And I myself have switched from the MKOS deck, to play the Maul deck. Van meanwhile, is using old school Hunt Down today, but still using a Darth Maul or two in his deck. Since we are all using Maul, Chris mentions that we could call ourselves "Team Darth Maul", but I suggest that calling ourselves "the Maulers" would probably have more class. I recommend calling ourselves "Just Give Us the Damn Boxes Already", but Chris just laughs. We arrive at the tourney and meet up with our teammates, who have arrived already. Chris mentions "The Maulers" to John, and he seems receptive to the idea. I again suggest calling ourselves "Just Give Us the Damn Boxes Already", but John, like Chris, just sorta laughs. Oh well. :) We have about 24 players today. I am still trying to match my 1st place, 2nd place, 1st place performance in the Mega Weekend, by going 2nd place, 1st place, 1st place this weekend. I already mentioned dark decks for our team, here are the light decks: John and I are using ANSB with podracing, Van is using Hidden Mains, and Chris is using WYS. On to the games...

Game One: ANSB racing vs. Justin Beal (1750)
Justin is using the same Agents of the Black Sun deck as the night before. we start up the race and he keeps me from drawing and he gets Emperor Palpatine. great. I play a step backward to reset us back to zero. He draws his next race destiny and it is...Emperor Palpatine. I get a couple draws and they suck. On his next turn he draws another 6 so he is up to 18 already. I draw 3 and pick 2, but am way behind. Xizor comes out to a battleground, joined by Guri again, and so he gets the early flip without having to worry about Xizor getting whacked. The next time I try to play "a step backward", it gets sensed by Xizor. He finally draws a low destiny in the race, and I draw high, so I get to within 4 and play neck and neck to seal the win. He gets Zuckuss in Mist Hunter, with 4-lom aboard, to my dagobah system, and then lands at yoda’s hut. with the drains plus the direct damage, I’m getting hit for around 7 a turn. I use on the edge to recover some life force, then use Ben Kenobi to clean some vigos off the podrace arena. that takes him down to just 2 battlegrounds, so honor of the jedi stops the drain at yoda’s hut. The game is surprisingly non-interactive, considering how battle-oriented our decks are. the deciding battle involves my falcon taking down his hound’s tooth and punishing one, establishing control over the only battleground system, which was critical for battle plan and menace fades. The rest of the game is pretty uneventful, and I end up with a win by 20.

2: (+20)

Game Two: the Maul deck vs. Christopher Baker Basler (1876)
Chris is using RST racing, which doesn’t bother me. But for my first race destiny I draw a JP site, and choose not to stack it. I get darth maul to the desert landing site early, and within a couple turns, have used weapon lev to give him his saber. Chris is winning the race with ease, and makes an early run at the bunker, with madine, corran horn, and midge, I believe. Jade and Gailid are hanging out at the AC, but battle plan is keeping me from causing massive damage. I elis helrot maul over and battle him, but I miss madine with the saber, and kill Midge. On my next turn I add Vader to the mix, but we still can’t hit anybody. I lose maul to the attrition, because I have another in hand. so Chris plays Out of Commission. I just sense it, with Vader, but...draw Emperor Palpatine for destiny...so the sense fails. I double-check to make sure that it is Vader who appears on the card "sense". Seems like he would know how to do it. hmmmm. Anyway....sure enough, the Out of Commission nabs Darth Maul. He brings more guys but Vader finally hits with the saber, and he loses control of the bunker. So he pops the charges and blows away Vader. He then plays a few copies of out of commission, and gets Vader. So my ds mains deck has it’s two primary characters placed out of play. nice. He wins the race without any difficulty, and I use Iggy to take out his last two remaining scouts on Endor. he brings epp luke down into Jabba’s palace, but i use elis helrots and some other trickery to keep mara and gailid alive. eventually I get a couple ships up to his endor system so that I can finally stop paying for battle plan. Orrimaarko deploys to the desert landing site, where I deploy Prince Xizor for the coup de grace, and a win by 14.

4: (+34)

All 3 of my teammates are now 1-1, so we have an overall record of 5-3. Not good, when there is at least one team who is 8-0.

Game Three: ANSB racing vs. Cortney Haggerty (1702)
Cortney is using Court, so I feel good about the match. I get DODN/WA down early, and put ben kenobi at the podrace arena, while he deploys Palpatine and jabba to his audience chamber. He moves epp vader in front of my ben kenobi and plays the circle is now complete to place him out of play. Since lando with ax was at the site also by this time, he has to lose 3 for order to engage on his next turn, since vader can’t battle lando. I struggle to set up in space, and have to settle for epp leia on the falcon alongside gold leader in gold 1. I win the podrace and use on the edge to stay ahead of his drains on the ground. He tries to use mara jade and vader to kill off my characters like Lando with Axe and Jedi Luke, but cards like too close for comfort and weapon levitation keep causing him problems. I end up with a win by 33.

6: (+67)

Game Four: Maul deck vs. Jason Keen (1883)
Jason is using Profit with podracing. I start Mara Jade and Prince Xizor, I believe. I use JP to convert his audience chamber, mara gets her saber, I deploy Maul to the landing site, and move him to the podrace arena (on his way to JP) Before long I get Boelo, Mighty Jabba, and Gailid down as well. I lose the race, which makes the arena a battleground. Maul has his saber by now and is draining 2 at the arena. Mara is draining for 3 at JP, and Jabba is draining for 2 at the lower passages. I have also set up search & destroy. Jason isn’t activating hardly any force at all, and Bad Feeling Have I is just adding insult to injury. He finally manages to deploy master luke (with luke’s saber) and Lando with Ax, against my Boelo and Xizor and pals. so I barrier. On my turn, I bring down epp vader, 4-lom, and aurra sing, and battle him back. Aurra Sing uses weapon lev to swipe Luke’s saber, and 4-Lom cancels luke’s text. Lando excludes Boelo, and then Aurra sing cleaves Lando with Luke’s saber. I use sniper/dark strike to make Lando lost, and Xizor prevents luke from drawing battle destiny. Luke goes to the bacta tank, but because of bad feeling, it costs jason 9 to bring him out of the tank. At the end of the game, Ben Kenobi and Master Luke deploy to the audience chamber. In the ensuing battle, I use iggy to capture ben kenobi, Xizor once again prevents luke from drawing battle destiny, and the overflow damage is bad enough to seal the game. I win by 15. Ah, more revenge. And it is still sweet. :)

8: (+82)

Our team now has two 3-1 players, a 4-0, and a 2-2. We are moving up in the ranks. The only other 4-0 players are Derek Mower and Casey Barson. But Casey already has TWO timed wins, so he just has 6 match points. therefore...

Game Five: ANSB racing vs. Derek mower (1775)
Derek is using speed deal, and gets dark deal on the table by turn two, establishing a drain for 13. I deploy battle plan, and he pays 12 to drain me for 12. He also gets Search & destroy on the table, and things are looking real ugly. I deploy Qui-Gon, who gets kissed by a wookie, while the falcon deploys with han aboard and takes out obsidian 7. Derek moves his trooper away from the site where qui-gon will deploy for free. I get Ben kenobi to the podrace arena. I get out OTE and start chasing around his dorky troopers with Qui-Gon. Search & destroy is no longer a factor but I’m still getting drained for about 6 a turn. I win the race, but can’t afford the retrieval. I have lost "I did it!" so I can’t place boonta eve podrace out of play to retrieve 4 either. and i have lost all my copies of "on the edge". I deploy epp leia, and she gets wookie-kissed as well. But he doeesn’t draw an uncertain is the future, so she comes down for free on the next turn, and helps Qui-gon chase troopers all over CC. He concentrates his forces at the CC docking bay, so I land the falcon so that Captain han can give leia a hand. He loses all his guys in the next battle, while I forfeit the falcon. I manage to clean him completely off of Cloud City, but I am down to 4 life force now, and I am still paying for battle plan, as there are no battleground systems on the table. He deploys a trooper to the north ridge, and starts draining me for one. He uses projective telepathy to cancel my drain on CC. At this point, he can either A) decline to drain me for the rest of the game, and re-draw his projective telepathy each turn to stay alive, allowing him to stall the game completely for the next 35 minutes and get a timed win, or B) drain me again with his trooper, and try to draw his second projective telepathy out of the other 3 cards he will have in his force pile, and go for the full win, and a good shot at taking 1st place in the tournament. He decides to drain, and draws the other 3 cards. I drain him back....no projective telepathy! He drains me down to 3 life force and no cards in my hand, and I use that 3 force to drain him out, and get the full win by 3.

10: (+85)

Casey wins in Game 5, to get to 5-0 with 8 match points. But he just played light as well, so we cannot play in game 6. The highest 4-1 on the opposite allegiance is...Derek.

Game Six: maul deck vs. Derek Mower (1775)
For light, Derek is using EBO done RIGHT. On turn one, I drop maul and move him to JP. On his first turn, derek pulls an echo site and ebg with ansb. He deploys ebg and I alter it. He seems unhappy. His next game action is to deploy the DODN/WA that he had in his opening draw. hehe. He then signals for rebel fleet. I get Mara Jade and Gailid to the Audience Chamber, and the drains on Tatooine start to get ugly early. He cancels one drain a turn with rebel fleet, but eats the other. I get Mighty Jabba out to the Lower passages to inflict more damage. He puts Tk-422 in the AC to stop the drain of 3 there, but Mara Jade takes him out with Sniper/Dark Strike. I get search and destroy on the table and the damage is really adding up. He gets EBO on the table and get some x-wings to hoth, draining me for 3 a turn. He splits out to Kiffex and Kashyyyk as well, but I use the Hound’s Tooth to buy myself a little time against the Kiffex drain. He loses all wings report in, and even if he had drawn it, secret plans would have made it difficult to utilize. I alter his rebel fleet to push through a couple of big late drains, and get the full win by 24.

So I finish at 12: (+109) and take first place in the tournament, meeting the goal I set for the weekend, which was to match the 1st place, 2nd place, 1st place performance I had at the Mega Weekend in Phoenix. I end up with 2nd place, 1st place, 1st place this time around, and a record of 15-1 in sanctioned games for the weekend.

Casey wins in Game 6, to finish 6-0 with 10 win points. He takes 2nd place. John Arendt goes 5-1 and takes 3rd. Van finishes at 4-2, and Chris has a rough day, ending up at 3-3. Our overall record of 18-6 is good enough to claim first place in the team tournament, and win the boxes of Tatooine. We split even. Van and John take one box, Chris and I take the other. Van gets all the goods out of their box, while John gets...the shaft. Chris pulls AI Watto, AI Threepio, a Padme, and a Qui-Gon. I get Aurra Sing, Maul’s saber, and 2 more Qui-Gons. That’s 3 Qui-gons I’ve pulled out of prize support this weekend. On Friday I had 2 Qui-Gons, by Sunday I have 5. Not too shabby.

Props:
To Chris, for driving.
To Scott, for running another smooth event, and getting the pairings up quick despite the modified swiss style needed for a team tournament.
To Casey, for going 6-0
To John, for taking 3rd and helping our team win the event.
To Chris Baker, for placing all my cool guys out of play.
To Jason Keen, for making the best of a bad situation in Game Four. He really wasn’t able to do anything the whole match, but he made the game a lot of fun to play. Jason doesn’t lose nearly as many games as he used to, but when he does lose games, he still loses them with class.
To the teams from other states, for shaking up the meta a bit.
To Team Scrubs, for duking it out through 6 whole games, exhibiting the heart and determination (and crappy decks) that we have come to expect from Scrubs everywhere. ;)
To Derek Mower, who had the guts to go all or nothing in Game 5, making for an incredibly exciting finish to our game.

Slops:
To Vader, for not knowing how to sense OOC.
To Van, for getting all the good cards out of the box he split with John. *lol*
To Everyone who says there are no good dark side decks. I used 3 different dark decks over the course of the weekend, and all 3 of them went undefeated. So there. :)

Until next time....thanks for reading.

Brian Hunter