geoff-goes-to-continentals
Title: geoff-goes-to-continentals
Author: Geoff "gsiva" Snider
Date: Aug 6, 2001
so i went off to gencon thinking "man will it be cool to play in a big L5R event again!" but alas, i was sorely mistaken. i went to the day one qualifier on thursday morning with my crane dueling honor deck, figuring i would AT LEAST take top 16 to qualify for the semi-finals on saturday...and i’m playing well...beating everyone....i’m doin’ okay at 3-0 and then round four i take a loss to another crane honor-runner. no biggie, right? WRONG! this guy just got MAD amounts of gold out on turns 1-4...unfortunately ALL of that gold was from honor-producing holdings which he proceeded to beat me with. why can’t i get gold starts like that? i don’t get it. anyhoo...no biggie. i don’t mind losing to people who play a straight up good game (even if it is kinda cheesy). game 5 i win, so i’m like 4-1, and i’m told that ALL 5-1 players will qualify for saturday. needless to say i have to play against another cheesy ALL-GOLD-honor-running phoenix (which, again is not so bad), but he’s a guy that plays here at my store. he gets stupid-good amounts of honor-producing holdings for the first 3 turns and proceeds to beat me the same way that i got beat the first time. no biggie right? RIIIIIIIGHT. then he like makes some VERY unnessessary stupid moves that could cost him the game...and he STILL WINS. either i am a very bad player, or i’ve been doomed to loose to scrubs forevermore. i just hate losing to that kind of stupidity. either way, he did go on to grow a brain and place top 16...qualifiying for saturday’s event...AND taking top 16 on saturday (i think?) to play in the final four games on sunday. oh well...good job bob. blah blah, enough of my complaining. i storm away from the L5R area and vow to do well at the SWCCG continentals (of which i’m already qualified for day 2). i hate my life.
SOOOOO HERE’S THE SWCCG PART OF THE REPORT.
i’m bored for all day friday (after sleeping in a LONG time). i sit around and play brian fred like 4 games in a row, and he’s a champ. i seem to have sluffed off my "i can’t beat brian fred" mojo that i used to have going a couple years ago, but whatever. i play the pile against his MKOS two times, and against his ralops deck once. ounee ta is a good card, as is qui-gon. i’m a champ too.
i’m already qualified for saturday, so i didn’t have to play yesterday....i DID hear that holman won with brangus/wys, smoking everyone...AND like 75% of the field was brangus/wys. whoa. that’s scary. i’m pretty confident that the pile can beat most scrubby players fielding brangus (or at least pull a low-dif loss) as long as i draw both my catch-cards for Put All Sections and Control/SFStun. it’s my dark deck i’m worried about (’CAUSE I DON’T GOT NONE!).
dave irvine is staying with us too, and we’re equally concerned about WYS. we talk about it and decide that the only way to go is ISB/Scum, mainly ’cause drain bonuses are huge, you control the ground, if you get a good start you drain for 6-9 on turn two, AND there’s huge destiny to be had in space with Guri/bossk/dengar/4lom/zuckuss. the one thing scum cannot handle is qui-gon, so we’re like 4lom is the key! but then there’s that Wookie protector b1tch....so we have to throw in "decoys" for the protector. Gamall Wironic is the first ’cause he’s a total deterrent to guns targeting people AND he’s a champ when he flys into the used pile. Bane Malar is decoy #2 because he’s good at copying wookieprotector and lando w/axe. jodo is the other anti-wys stuff, along with 2xguri/2xstinger. it’s fatty-fat-fat goodness...or so we think. unfortunately i’ve NEVER played an ISB scum deck before, and i need to practice...but it’s like 4 f ucking am and i have to sleep. irvine goes with RST/Racing...same as day one.
saturday morning is here, and i have to take a sh1t real bad. gabe lost in JK, so he and his pocket buddy (they really like...wrestled on the bed and stuff) go and play Warlord like a couple ’o champs. we’re off to play the continentals, and i’m ready to r@pe the snuggle bear (if possible).
game 1 vs. DAVE IRVINE of all people running RST racing.
he starts racing right away, and i get a decent start with a second turn flip...secret plans comes down right before the race ends, so he has to pay. he’s ready to blow the bunker, but i drop Guri/Gamall/3x ORS/someother monkey. he can’t control the bunker, and ends up losing all his guys...and the game. oh well. i think i won by 14 or so.
game 2 vs. guy from wisconsin playing MKOS. sorry guy, i wrote your name down, but i can’t remember right now.
he starts oppressive/no bargain/power of the hutt, gets the sail barge and passenger deck first turn. i revo the passenger deck, drop 2x twix, get 3p0 and start cycling looking for more twix/revo. he gets the full contingent at the audience chamber, but i dump qui-gon w/stick JKluke w/stick and tawass khaa at the lower passages, walking into the audience chamber the following turn. he can’t take the drain of 4 for very long, and i end up taking him off the palace with various other characters. qui-gon can take a HUGE beating because of the power -1, so i end up winning by like 15 or so. SAC is a major factor, with me altering or sensing everything he does. i’m such a nice guy ’cause i let him take back an action or something....it was like pulling teeth. whatever.
game 3 vs. corey faherty’s mkos.
he’s running the same deck as the last guy (almost to the card) and i know going into the game that i SHOULD tool him. i play it the same, plopping qui-gon and JK luke with sticks at the the lower passages, while he goes out on the sail barge to try and smack up my bomarr monk/obiwanw/stick sitting at obi’s hut. there’s alot of cat ’n mouse in the palace. scum is altered two times, HotJ protects me from TINT/opressive, and it’s all good. for some reason, i sit in front of his pileup of guys on the sailbarge (like a moron) and he smacks me up, removing everyone i’ve got. this was a major turning point in the game, ’cause that extra drain of two was really getting to him. there’s some more battling in the palace, but for some reason i forget that MKOS makes your REP into a leader, allowing boelo to cancel destiny with myo. ick. this is bad. there’s some more cat and mouse, and just when i think i’m gonna take it, he smacks qui-gon for 4 cards. i have 1 card left, he has 2, and Battle Order is out. i have qui-gon left, and he has 0 peeps out. i don’t want to be a d1ck, and so i draw up and give him the win. oh well! if i have to take a loss, then it should be by 2.
game 4 vs. matt sokol’s profit mains
he starts the camp w/ two other effects, and i get a HUGE start on him (after forgetting to get my ORS with chall) dropping JP, JPachamber, AND lower passage on turn one with jabba, chall, gamall, boelo, etc...and i start to drain a bit. he saves force for a couple turns, gets master luke and ben kenobi out there to take over JP. i can’t seem to stop the jedi buildup, but i evade it for a bit.
PAUSE! here’s where i become a total hypocritical moron. i am a mofo. at this point in the game i am losing to matt’s drain at the lower passage (even though he didn’t even say "i’ll drain you for 4"). he’s not flipped, but i am...and i’m not retrieving ANY isb agents. dumb@ss geoff. total dumb@ss. with the kind of start that i got, i should’ve raped him, but i suck really bad when i try and play decks in a tournament that i haven’t even tested once. i apologize for not giving as good a game as i got. he was eventually able to free han, but gamall wironic was missed by like 8 lightsaber swings so the audience chamber wasn’t a total disaster right away. i eventually grabbed nabrun leids, so no more teleporting around the palace. after about three turns of him draining, i manage to track a 3 and send Ig-88 (with Ghhk in hand) to capture han. this is the crushing blow, for i’m pretty sure that if he’s got only one card in hand, it’s not going to be han. ig-88 sends hand to the used pile, and it’s several turns of free drains, etc. for me before he comes out again. the last drain of 5 or so wrecked him, and guri + wrecking crew came to make ben kenobi lose one card. game...i win by 9 despite my moronic game.
game 5 vs. david irvine’s isb/scum (DAVE! AGAIN!)
i feel like a chump, playing against a deck whose components i know card for card. irvine is like "you know you wouldn’t play like this if you didn’t know what i was running" and i was like "uh huh" and kept on going. it’s not like i’m going to throw the game. oh well. needless to say i draw ALOT of cards and plop down a large group of guys in the palace, jar jar hits gamall, the wookie cancels 4lom, and there’s alot of carnage. it’s like EVERYONE there dies, AND he owes me 14. he’s got 4x ORS on bargaining table, and so he drops them to a site to flip, eventually retrieving alot more isb agents. there’s nothing i can do to stop him from retrieving, and i’m not going to go fight his 20 power without qui-gon...and i can’t seem to track any good destiny (plus all characters with guns are either already lost, or with my other dudes in the palace). i eventually drain him out by spreading out with lightsabers. win by 9
game 6 vs. johnny chu’s WYS.
i’m optimistic going into this matchup, simply because if i get a good draw, that’s pretty much game. i get an @ss start, having to search for the palace and drop it on turn 2. he gets out menace fades. i flip on turn 3, knowing full well that he’ll get MFades...but i have the bargaining table for the cantina (or kessel) drain. unfortunately i can’t grab his first tunnel vision, and he uses it again to grab Battle Plan. he pulls kessel into hand, but instead just deploys mirax to tatooine. i can’t draw ships...he has melas in cantina... i can’t draw guys....all i have is like twi-lek x2 and hutt influence! GREAT~! anyhoo...chu is a champ, because he knows that if i can cat-and-mouse in space between two systems, i’ll win it by satisfying battle plan. he piles 4 ships at the system, and the death of me (red 145 w/theron nett and laser cannons) is there too. i pile everything i’ve got on the system and don’t battle (it’s like...guri on stinger, zuckuss w/jodo kast/boelo/ephont mon, bossk w/2x ors, and dengar). that’s like 4 destiny with 0 immunity for him, pluse adding 4, PLUS he gets 0 destiny because of Jodo/guri/boelo/ephont. he’s a champ and plays that stupid-good card SORRY ABOUT THE MESS on zuckuss, he’s lost, he battles, shooting guri, eliminating her, uses dash on bossk, and i draw like a 10 for destiny. i owe everything and 8. i lose all my ships...he has battle plan control and starts retrieving cards. i draw up. full loss by 24. ick...but if i have to lose to someone, i guess i don’t mind losing to chu. good guy, good game. he plays it like a champ.
chu goes on to @ss-r@pe scott diehl by like 50 dif in two games and become the cont.champ. whoa.
i sleep alot and it’s fun and i come home and it’s good.
later