huntsville-the-deep-7-14-1
Title: huntsville-the-deep-7-14-1
Author: John "1ManScanCrew" Camp
Date: Jul 18, 2001
It’s my first time at a tournament at the Deep. I was surprised how well organized the tournament was. It even started on time! In Knoxville you can count on AT LEAST an hour delay. EVERY TIME. I met Jim Colson, and we traded some cards. He’s a pretty cool guy, and runs a heck of tournament (several actually with all the Trek tuff going on). The best part of this tournament is that a bunch of Nashville guys, including our during-the-school-year Knoxville TD, Jon Tomayko, drove down.
Game 1: QMC tubes vs. Robert Jones (1656) no-obj. ties
He starts Kashyyk because it is a battleground, thus allowing him to use Mob. Points to grab Wakeelmui. He also starts Secret Plans and the SAC killer. I start Keeping..., Squad Assignments, and Menace Fades. On his first turn he has Seinar up and running, and he also deploys Something Special Planned for Them. That right there is when I make a decision that hurt not only my game but my tournament. Going into the game, I felt like I MIGHT win a drain race if I could just get to Bespin long enough to flip, and then loop my 3 Edges (2 off, 1 on). With Pucamir, carbon chamber, and core tunnel w/ Lando (I have no saber), plus Guest Quarters and West Gallery, my drains max out at 9. With all the good dark side drain systems, my guess was that he could go higher, plus he has the tie deploy retrieval and eventually the once-a-gamer. But as long as I’m not battling him, that is a pretty limited retrieval scheme, and I’m pretty good at looping the edges, especially with Keeping the Empire Out Forever. But without the ability to loop the edges, I figure that I NEED Bespin (so that I’ll have BIG celebration, and he’ll have to pay Battle Plan). I know on a good day it is POSSIBLE to get the jump on a tie deck in space battles, but Saturday wasn’t that day. Ten Numb, Wedge, and Elek made some noise and even controlled Bespin for a turn, but all that did was give him more ties in his lost pile to retrieve, and reploy to retrieve more. I ended up throwing too many ships at him, and just feeding his retrieval engine. One note here, I used to use I’ll Take the Leader with this deck, but some where along the line I started using the concentrate all fire. I think I’ll go back to I’ll take the Leader… it really would have helped. Anyway, I am dedicating so many resources to throwing ships at him, that I never really even use the every turn tunnel vision. I start whittling away his life force a little with my drains, but I wait too long to draw up, and he uses his once-a-game to retreive like 9. Full loss by THIRTY-FOUR!!!!! What’s wrong with me??
0(-34)
Highs: Meeting Robert. He’s a laid back guy and fun to play. His tie deck is FINELY tuned. Apparently it had better be finely tuned after he’s played it for like a year.
Lows: Losing my first game by 34. I don’t mind losing, but I DO mind getting byes. It’s a pain to justify to my girlfriend (soon to be wife…note to anyone reading this: screen your potential girlfriends based on their tolerance to your various nerd activities. It’s too late for me, but you can still save yourself) why I need to blow 4-5 hours of a SATURDAY AFTERNOON/ EVENING playing Star Wars. When I spend one of my 4 games on a bye, I am un-satisfied.
Game 2: Me sitting on my ass.
I blew an hour sitting on my ass, so I’m gonna write a report on it. You don’t have to read it. I sit around and watch my friend Matt play Chris Bentley, who also turns out to be a pretty cool guy. Matt is playing a goofy WYS with racing he’d been messing around with. He didn’t have time to tear it down and build something else, so he was stuck with it. I wasn’t paying too much attention, as I was still frustrated with sitting around on my ass, and frustrated that I would only get to play my new TTO! one time. Anyway, Chris gets Maul to the Cantina first turn and pretty much sets about owning Matt. Matt fumbles around with a REALLY slow race. Chris didn’t have a racer, but I swear, if he’d been stacking he STILL might have beat Matt... even in his "generic" pod. Chris has the game, until Matt pulls off a Luke, Han, Don’t Get @#$%y, triple-the-damage combo in an otherwise meaningless battle. The insane damage completely wipes out Chris! In the mean time, I get a full win by 0.
2 (-34)
Game 3: QMC tubes vs. Brian Buchanan (1662) Landing Site mains with racing
Alright I think this is the right guy, but EVERYONE at the tournament was new to me, and there are lots of random names floating around in my head. At any rate, he ALSO turns out to be a pretty cool guy. The match-up was tough for him, though. He got Maul to the site, but only got one drain of two in before menace fades put a stop to it. I didn’t even start squad assignments, because between podracing, mains, and I’m at that point guessing SAC, I really didn’t think he had much space to speak of. In fact, after I got Wedge and ship up there, I never bothered to reinforce. I flip, and he Elises himself to Cloud City. We spend a few turns playing Elises, and Paths, until he finally gets one of those senses I knew he had to have and gets Leia alone with Maul. Watto and Aurra Sing are still at another site, though, and Chewbacca is at yet another. I used the used portion of Sorry…/ Blaster Proficiency to add 3 to Leia’s blaster fire, and eliminated Maul. He drew low, I drew high, and both were gone. After that I got my SAC killer down. He groaned, and I think resolved not to play any more SAC, which was good for him because I also had an old-school control waiting for his next sense (yes there is a "C" in SAC). Somewhere along the line he wins his race, but aim high prevents his retrieval. Chewbacca, epp Luke, and epp Obi become involved in a very odd series of small battles with the likes of Bane Malar, Dr. Evazan, Arra Sing, and Dannik Jerrico. At one point, somehow Obi has Bane and Dannik cornered with Luke in a lift tube at the next site over. Order to Engage is up, he has no characters in hand, and he’s facing an eventual beat down, plus at least two turns of Order to Engage damage. He opts to end the misery with a battle, so he initates against Obi, and Luke reacts. Both scrubs lose forfeit, and I draw a 6. He draws a damn site! He loses 15 and both my characters stay. Throughout the game, I played 5 or 6 Edges for about 25 force, and retreived about 6 more with Celebration. The game actually was closer than this report sounds. In the end, I get a Full win by 18.
4 (-16)
Highs: Getting a solid win and owning Cloud city. Meeting Brian.
Lows: Dude, at some point Robert wanders over to watch is like, "hey, John, where are your effects?" I look around and don’t see them! Brian and I let Robert look through my reserve and force pile, but thankfully they haven’t been absorbed into them. We all start laughing when we realize my friend Matt must have accidentally picked them up after he got beat by Matt Crigger next to us. That whole thing made a long game even longer.
Game 4: TTO! vs. Jason Wade (1639) WYS Harvest
Okay, now I meet Jason, and he is also a pretty cool guy. I know what you’re thinking, and no it wasn’t a big love fest up in the Deep. I was just very impressed with the comfortable, friendly environment vs. the Knoxville KGB, which sometimes was not (though it was getting better ever since Jon Tomayko started running tournaments a couple years ago... it was just more the environment caused by the non-wars players in the store more than anything). He gets his stuff rolling while I get the DSII built. The game plan was pretty cut-and-dried for me. I put the flagship executor and the chimera at the Death Star. Once their jobs were done, I shuttled up Jerjerrod and Merrejk to the Executor, and put Thrawn on the Chimera. Eventually I moved the DSII to Tatooine. I then deployed the Conquest and the Devastator to Tattooine, and moved up the chimera and executor. He had a pretty impressive fleet of smugglers, and 2 destiny... but it wasn’t gonna hold for long against 47 power plus 3 destiny plus tons of forfeit fodder. I ran him out of the sky and eliminated his celebration. Here’s my big mistake of the tournament. I knew Harvests were coming, so I twileked for something special. BUT I FORGOT TO DEPLOY IT. He harvested on his turn, and again during my activate phase. Great, net retrieval of 6 becomes net retrieval of 14 thanks to me being a moron. After the Devastator and Conquest go to Sullest, I have TTO damage of 3, and 2 Chiraneau assisted drains of 3 apiece. I finish him off in a REALLY close game. Full win by 5
6 (-11)
Highs: First TTO! use gives a strong win! It was a great game against a great opponent. Meeting Jason.
Lows: Bantha droid killing Lat Damage, him verifying my deck and placing Imperial Command out of play, and out of commisioning Monnok killed pretty much any non big-ship-related star wars playing for me.
Alright, the tournament wasn’t bad. I really like playing at The Deep, and managed 2-1 against real people. Somehow my 6 win points were good enough on their own merit to finish 6th out of 19.
Props:
-Me for recovering and finishing 2-1
-Matt Mathison for coming down from Memphis this weekend and playing
-Jim Colson for a well run tournament, and for the nice trades
-The Deep, for being a great place to play cards
Slops:
-Joe Hennessey, for driving down, but wussing out of playing in the tournament
-Chris Riccardi, for not playing Star Wars anymore.
-Not being in college anymore. Why the hell did bust my @#$% to finish in 4 years?
-Byes