the-bull-at-comic-con-01

Title: the-bull-at-comic-con-01
Author: Alfred "ThaBraHmaBuL" Dong
Date: Jul 25, 2001

Keep in mind that this TR is LONG. If you want to sit back and feel your @$$ grow, this is for you.



This whole trip would be planned MONTHS ago. I had my heart set on it for even longer, and had no doubt in my mind I had a good shot at taking it. The problem, was the decks. I had no clue as in what to play, especially for Dark. Hunt Down? Tried it. BHBM? Tried it. ISB? Tried it. Mains? Tried it. SYCFA? Tried it. Garrison? Tried it. They ALL suck and have at least a few weaknesses LS can exploit. Oh, and Brangus? Why dont I just do Raltiir, because THATS more solid than Brangus. I eventually decide to drop it for now, and think about it when I get to San Diego.

So it arrives. Thursday morning and Im ready to head out. After heading to the San Jose airport, I found Dan Mochizuki and we sat and shot the breeze waiting for our flight to let us on. About 10 minutes before they do, Jeremy Commanduer arrives and starts to check in. We jump on the delay-free flight and get there in one hour. We part ways as Dan and Jeremy head to the hotel and I head to the Con to grab a badge.

Im at the Con and theres no line, so I walk right in and get a badge for a whooping $60.00 since I no longer qualify as a "kid". I head down to the Decipher booth and see some familiar faces. I sign up for the Coruscant Prerelease, and catch up with the Lodi crew. Kyle Ishimaru shows me his misprinted name and I head up with him to get it changed. Im about to leave the registration area and I think for a sec....on the plane, Jeremy showed me his badge, and it said "Jeremy "Spock"". So I turn around and walk up to the typist as had her type up "The Game"....because, well, I AM THAT DAMN GOOD. :)

I play in the Coruscant Prerelease(which will be in another report), and pull ABSOLUTE CRAP. So after getting embarrassed horribly in the first game, I drop and give Paul McKelvey my cards. I @#$% around the con for awhile, get my Chewie, Corran, Thrawn, and Talon signed, and were off to dinner following the Voyager Sealed. We head to dinner at TGIFridays in a neighboring town, and we kick it as the SF crew come in on train, and Clayton Atkin comes in on car. We head back in time to let Clayton in, and we just stay in the night as Clayton reveals his mysterious "Kills ALL" DS deck......to be MKOS with Skrillings.

Clayton plays his MKOS vs Dans WYS, and Dan crushes him horribly. After revealing my LS to him, he realizes MKOS WILL GET OWNED tomorrow if he tries to play it at the Open. I decide to keep the Maul deck I had constructed, since I can play it well and easily. For LS, I decided to keep the Mess deck Ive had for the past few weeks. Its proved its worth vs more than one deck, and can crush anything out there, given you know how to deal with it. After writing word for word every card on the decklists, I pass out around 3-4, and Clayton wants to wake up early to fix his DS.

I get waken up by a phone call at 8, and Clayton is already right next to me, all cards in front of him, trying to get his DS to working order. After borrowing quite a few cards from me, he ends up with a deck VERY similar to Hunter’s MKOS. Clay heads out to breakfast as I lay there listening to "The Game" and "My Way", and get psyched for the tourney. Dan and I check out and I put on my sandals(yeah, SANDALS, because my feet were BURNING on Thursday) and head out for the mile walk to the Convention Center.

We arrive there about an hour early, and I get in line to have Jeremy Bulloch sign my Boba Fett, and I sit down for a nasty Turkey Sandwich, after paying $7.00 for it. I take some retarded Con survey, then head up to turn in my decklist and check in. Lodi Crew is here in full force, and SF crew is ready to go. SoCal represents with James Lafferty, John Borders, Eric Bruen and John Patchell. Out of state contenders with Mike Girard, Tim Guzman, and Matt Berta. Other NorCal players are Clayton Atkin, Peter Nordstrom, and Paul Fel......wait a minute. No. Hes not here. This would indeed be, a Feldman-free event. Thats the stuff. I meet up with Aaron Wyle and Cat Ceder, and Cat and I split Raw Deal games between my Triple H and his Undertaker, and finally things are getting on its way, and its game time.




The Decks


Light: Qui-Gon is GOD - Slave Quarters/Lars Farm start, Threepio with Messes and Mains to smash.

Dark: WYS Sucks - DLS/JP start. Its a Maul deck.



The Game


Game 1: LS vs. Travis Frazier’s DS DLS/JP Mains

My LS is better than this deck, AKA my DS. He starts off with both JP sites in his hand, and draws a few. I set up Threepio, Luke, Owen with Shmi at the Farm. He comes down with Vader and fights, I miss the hack and he misses the choke, and I draw too low and Luke bites the attrition. I try again with Qui-Gon and I take care of him. We have a few skirmishes over the ground over the game, and a few SAC wars, but in the end, Harvest proves to be the nail in the coffin, I retrieve all I lost, and after a few desperate attempts at draining me, I drain him out for a win by 34.

Cumulative Score: 2(+34)
Highs: An easy game to start the day
Lows: Too easy


Eh, I won by too much. Didnt do it on purpose, but just ended up that way. I figure Id end up playing those guys sooner or later, so I minus well get it out of the way.



Game 2: DS vs. Eric Bruen’s LS City Outskirts Podracing Mains

He starts City Outskirts with Podrace crap, but doesnt get his one effect. I thought that was strange, but whatever he wants on his pizza is his choice. I get some force going and drop EPP Vader and Maul to the Outskirts first turn. He now realizes he’s missing his one effect, which should have been Goo Nee Tay. He responds by dropping Qui-Gon to JP. I Elis but he Senses. So I draw and drain for awhile. He backs Qui-Gon up with Ben Kenobi, and I come down with Mara, Aurra, and Xizor and draw some Senses with You Are Beaten. I battle, and miss the hack to, but he draws low so my guys survive but I lose a few thanks to Qui-Gon. He runs to the AC and I give chase. He wins the race, so Im on the lower end. I Elis Vader and Maul to Qui-Gon and Ben. I battle, and Dark Strike and the hack take care of Ben. Qui-Gon Nabruns to the DLS to hide, I follow with the Elis on Maul and drop Vader and 4-LOM there to destroy him and 8 more. Eric is being force choked, only getting force from the aforementioned sites and my JP sites, he activates a whooping 7 a turn. So I spread a little and drain, confident he has nothing that can hurt me. He never gets out another character, and I drain him out. Win by 19.

Cumulative Score: 4(+53)
Highs: Never played Eric before this....solid player
Lows: Too easy....mistake kinda sucked too




Game 3: LS vs. Nick Boll’s DS EV-9D9 Podracing Madness

Nick starts JP, Podracing, and Expand. He grabs all the sites first turn, except the Droid Workshop which he managed to draw for race destiny(and didnt keep). I throw Shmi to the Quarters and Threepio to the Farm. He draws a Collision for race destiny, and drops the Workshop from deck. He proceeds and drops EV-9D9 there with a few droids. I have NO Menace Fades or anything that halts non-bg drains, so I need to react to that. Down comes Qui-Gon (w/ stick) and Corran there. His turn, he draws Hutt Smooch for race destiny. He drops a TIMER MINE on me, and Im like, WTF. So anyways I have to walk away to the Lower Corridor on my turn, and give him a drain of 4 there on his. I drop Owen and Beru and slide Shmi over, and draw up alot. He draws a Twilek for the Mine, and a Collision for race destiny, and proceeds to drain for 4 there. He drops about 3 more droids there and another Timer Mine. Crap. Well I managed to draw a Control/Tunnel Vision, so I try it on my turn for Boussh. No dice. No biggie, I can Harvest and try again. Nope. He grabs it. Well I Harvest anyways to get some force back and stay in the game, and move Corran and Qui-Gon to the AC for a drain of 3. He draws a 1 for race destiny, and is just shy of winning it. He drains for 7 and drops Forced Servitude to my Rendezvous Point, and draws a butt load. I drain on my turn and he drops EV-9D9 to suck up 2. I start assaulting his Lost Pile with Out of Commissions and nail EV-9D9 soon enough.

I draw a few and find the Mos Eisley/Cantina shuffle, Blaster Prof combo, and Boussh. He finishes the race and drains for a 13 point loss on one turn. I Harvest to get a few back. He draws up some more and then realizes something. Apparently that card he was looking for was Hutt Smooch, which he drew for race destiny 3rd turn. I drain on my turn, and I drop Boussh to the Workshop and set up the Shuffle with EPP Luke and Obi. I Threepio a few cards and find Nabrun. He cant find his Hutt Smooch, and at this point, I wouldve Sensed it if he tried. I drain on my turn, and Nabrun Luke to the Workshop to Sorry EV-9D9 to clinch the win. He scoops up to give me a win by 13.

Cumulative Score: 6(+66)
Highs: Winning that tough game....Nick reminds me of Matt Smith
Lows: Whats with that score? Im going straight to hell.



At this point Mike Hardy comes up to me and tells me about my stupid dif numbers. So I sit down and talk to some friends and I clip my badge(The Game badge, on the bottom of my shirt) to the edge of the table, and I manage to BREAK it. So now the clip fell off and I have to slip it in my pocket. Somehow, this would cause me a game, because I didnt have time to go upstairs and get it fixed.



Game 4: DS vs. Mike "Michael" Girard’s LS WYS Palace Raider

Im sitting around and they call my name and Im playing "Michael" someone. I ask who, and its Girard. He flips over "Watch Your Phil", and I whip out my DLS/JP start. Girard gets a kick out of my badge. He sets up FAST, with Palace Raiders to 2 sites with a Patrol Craft and another Raider for one and a Raltiir Captain at another. I dont have a chance to react, and I know he has a Barrier in his hand for me. I cant STAND that card, much less in WYS where only ONE thing cancels it, and Im not drawing it. I drop Maul, Vader, Xizor, Mara, Jabba, Aurra, and anyone else worth dropping on subsequent turns but its no use. He wont fight me, Im not about to fight him and his 3 destinies, and his space drains are murdering me quite fast. I eventually duke it out and take out one Palace Raider, while he takes out 3 of my guys. WYS is damn ridiculous. Anyways he ends up working me by 24, but man this game was probably the most fun I played at the Comic Con, me and Girard went nuts with the trash talking and the crap phrases. Biggity Bam!

Cumulative Score: 6(+42)
Highs: The Game itself, even though I lost
Lows: Losing of course, but Girard would kill everyone that day, so no biggie.
So I talk some more trash with Girard and I run upstairs and get a new holder so my badge is back where it should be. Even with Girard up there, Tim Guzman is doing well and is leading the pack. Im pretty upset at my loss, but theres nothing to say a 7-1 player wont get into the final. So I head back down and Clayton is gone. Apparently he decided to drop. You do what you have to do, but I mean if youre going to play, you minus well play.



Game 5: DS vs. Justin Beal’s LS QMC Jar Jar hack

Man. This guy looks JUST like Buh-Buh Ray Dudley. Anyways he has classic post-Tat QMC....again with no Insurrection, so Elis is my key to winning this game, and you have no idea how much. I grab some JP sites and drop Maul and Mara w/ stick to JP for some early pain. He takes it the first few turns and uses his objective for some sites. I drain and draw. He finally deploys Red 7 to Bespin, and Obi w/stick and Jar Jar to flip, then moves them together. My turn, I hit a Monnok Lost to check for Quite a Merc, and nail 2 Paths for my trouble. I Elis Mara over. I drop EPP Vader and Circle Obi. He plays Resilience, but I just pay another force and do it again because Circle is NOT unique. I proceed to drop Aurra and the Dr. E combo and initiate. I hack down Jar Jar with Mara, and he tries to explode him vs Dr. E. Its 2 vs 2 so I need to draw high......but I draw a 1. Thankfully he draws a 1 as well so it misses. I draw a 5 for destiny and its Jar Jar and 22 more. After that, he drops Luke to another CC site, but Im holding another Elis. The rest is history. Win by 35.

Cumulative Score: 8(+77)
Highs: Strong win after a big loss
Lows: Nothing much




Game 6: LS vs. Joseph Floyd’s DS SYCFA Brangus TIE Numbers

Joe starts off strong and gets Brangus, Palpy and Tech Mor early with a 2nd turn Insert. I have the insert killer in my deck, unfortunately its not in my hand, so I just activate all and drop Artoo and E:1 Threepio to the farm to knock off some pain with it. He sets up TIEs and moves Tech Mor to a TIE Scout. Like an idiot I drop Owen and Beru to the Farm, where he comes down with EPP Vader and takes out Artoo and I lose Owen and Beru to attrition. Back to square one. He drops Kiffex and moves the Scouts over to make it worse. I activate all and draw. He drains. I activate all and draw. He drains. I activate all and draw. He drains and hes getting pretty frustrated at the insert(Although I dont seem to mind :)). I Threepio before I activate and finally draw it. I choose not to activate and deploy it, much to his disliking. He drains some more and draws a few.

I drop the shuffle and drop Qui-Gon and Corran Horn to the Cantina. He drops EPP Vader again and takes me out, but he takes some overflow. Im getting sick of Vader so I draw a few and hit Out of Commission to nail him and Brangus. I drop Boussh and EPP Luke to take care of Brangus. He draws for some stuff to use but appearntly isnt finding anything. I Harvest a bit, and I get Qui-Gon to the Cantina again with Shmi backing him up. I have the shuffle and the Farm, and hes not reacting to it. So I break Boussh’s cover and drain for 2 more at the War Room. Hes only dealing 2 a turn to me, but eventually drops Kashyyyk, but its too little too late. With the numbers gone, and no ground support, I out drain him easily. Win by 15.

Cumulative Score: 10(+92)
Highs: Playing Joseph, another high ranked player Ive never played before
Lows: Nothing much



At this point, I am one of quite a few 5-1 players, including James Lafferty, Matt Berta, Nick Boll, and Kyle Ishimaru. Paul McKelvey just took a dive with double losses to Girard. Berta is just below us with a timed win on one of his games.


Game 7: LS vs. Jordan Harrison’s DS ???

So Im sitting around the table and I have no opponent. Bojo and I-Ming look around and they cant seem to find him anywhere. He starts the clock and I start to look around the room. Bojo checks the restroom, and no avail. I sit around until the clock winds down 10 minutes, and Bojo picks up my command card and gives me a full win by 30. Apparently, his ride was a friends mother, whom they told to come by at 7:30, a bit early. So he was downstairs trying to negotiate with her, but she would have none of it. Sucks though. Believe me, I wouldve much rather earned the win than get some DQ-type win.

Cumulative Score: 12(+122)
Highs: Nothing much
Lows: This whole thing


Actually this ended up screwing me more than helping me. The 30 point win threw me farther than I expected. Also, this ate up my LS game for this round, which I had more faith in, and which I could crush Girard with......oh, and because Im Light, I cant play Girard, because, yeah, hes Light too. My Game badge is there and I cant even use it on him. Rats. :) So I end up playing against.....


Game 8: DS vs. James Lafferty’s LS WYS Basic

I HATE this deck. I swear. Yeah its my fault for not changing my Dark, but this is ridiculous. He opens up fast like Girard, and flips in space, and abuses MY force with Beggar. I get guys out, but its useless as always, because he never comes down until late game. Kessel is bringing me pain, and I cant help it because he took out Executor quite easily. I just sit around and try to inflict as much pain and make him commit as much cards to table as I can, because my deck has an unprecedented auto-loss to Watch Your Crap decks. Loss by 27.

Final Score: 12(+95)
Highs: James was a fun opponent
Lows: Watch Your Whiz sucks BALLS.


So to make it all even worse that huge loss knocked me down a few, behind Lafferty and McKelvey. No Cali players would even make it in the final. James couldnt make it unless Eric Bruen won, and Kyle Ishimaru, Nick Boll and I took another loss each, leaving the only one player with one loss left to advance into the finals against Girard.....Matt Berta. Understand that I was REALLY close to making it in, and I was quite upset that I didnt......look at these possible players to advance into the final, depending on the situation:


James Lafferty: If Eric Bruen and him won thier games

Nick Boll: If he won his last game

Kyle Ishimaru: If he won his last game

Matt Berta: If ALL the 6-1 players took losses before the final

Myself: If I won the last game


Looks like Matt lucked out and ALL the 6-1 players lost thier final game. So its Matt and Mike in the final. I didnt actually stay for the final confrontation, having a long walk back to the hotel ahead of me, I opted to take off instead. Read Girard’s report for the brutal details if you want. Here are the top 7 to my recollection:


1st: Mike Girard
2nd: Matt Berta
3rd: James Lafferty
4th: Paul McKelvey
5th: Alfred Dong
6th: Nick Boll
7th: Tim Guzman


We got a turnout of 77 people for the open and even though we ended with about less than half, 5th isnt bad. I get my glass and for the 2nd time at Comic Con, I manage to get 5th. Two years ago, I got the SAME spot and ANOTHER glass with the 5th place name on it. Not only that, but I get 5th in the tourney before the con as well. What is this?! I pull complete crap from my 2 packs of Tat, and I take off and walk back to the hotel for the night, too tired even for dinner. I get lost in the dark in a foreign city, but luckily, I dont get lost too easily and I find my hotel and hit the shower after trying to find some painkillers for the blisters on my feet. Dan and Jeremy are already there, and are playtesting for the Trek Open the following day. Now for props and slops:


Props


Mike Girard: For winning the whole thing, and doing it undefeated style

Jeremy Commanduer: For making this whole trip possible

Dan Mochizuki: For being there and for winning the Trek Open

SF Crew: Even though you all sucked, you gave a sparing shot and you make the other times fun

Lodi Crew: For making me an "honorary member" and for staying at the top table with me the whole day

James Lafferty, Joseph Floyd, Nick Boll, Eric Bruen: For being fun opponents

Anyone who had a convo with me: It wouldnt have been the same without it

Dan Bojanowski, I-Ming Chen, Josh Certo: For running a smooth tournament

Cat Ceder, Aaron Wyle: For Raw Deal and all the shiznit only you guys know about

"The Game" badge: For being that damn good


Actually I have NO slops, because I had alot of fun and there wasnt anything wrong, so I will leave it at that. If you made it this far, youve just read 6 pages. You must be BORED :)


Look for a Prerelease report and the LS deck to be up soon. Until then, Im going to get this arthritis in my wrist checked. Damn laser mouse.....


Alfred Dong
The Brahma Bull
CA State Runner-Up