the-european-tour-2001
Title: the-european-tour-2001
Author: Martin "Mart" Akesson
Date: Aug 9, 2001
Wednesday I leave my town for Jespers Larssons place in Lund, southern Sweden (which is a 7 hour drive for me, I live in the middle of this country). More then 30 degrees and no airconditioning, I drive in my underwear but still I’m sweating like never before. When I arrive In Lund jesper tells me he has to get his passport from his parents house. Then I realize I have no passport with me. This might be a problem. But I phone home and tell some random friend to go get my passport, scan it and mail it to jesper, so we print a copy and pray that that one along with a schengeln-drivers license will be good enough. We play a few games, and since I haven’t got any tatooine cards yet I am a bit out of date but I still manage to beat his LS twix mains with my dark side twix mains with presence of the force.
Next morning we go up early and drive to Malmoe, where we take the train to Essen. The first four hours we get a table on the train, so we just play games all the time. Then we change trains in Hamburg, and the next train was an old crappy one that made lots of sounds. Also, it was even warmer outside then the day before, and the window was broken so it couldn’t be opened. We barely survived. When we arrive in Essen, Markus Wuest picks us up and we go to his place where my first box of tatooine awaits me. I open the box in less then five minutes, and start to build the podprofit deck. Martin Shumacher shows up, and we playtest until about 22.30 or something, when we head for the local pub for food, happy hour long drinks and german beer. Great beer btw.
The next day we go to Bastian Winkelhaus place and playtest all day. I make final adjustments to the podprofit deck and decide to go with that one. Dark is a problem, but I have a twix mains deck that is good enough unless you face like space or something. It uses 8 twixes, presence of the force and the all kinds of annoying beatdown interrupts possible. We go to bed at half past 3 and sleep for 2 hours, then we get up, take a shower and drive to Antwerp, Belgium. We have a hard time finding the convention center, because following Belgian signs and directions (if there even are any) is a science no one of us master. All of a sudden we see a paper that says decipher tournament or something, and we follow those signs (there is one every 5 meters or something). Eventually we find the convention and most of the good European players are already there. The tournament starts with only one hour delay (that is great, isn’t it?). I am one of the last persons to register, and they have already done the pairings, so they just say "great, then Martin Falke don’t have to get a bye" and I am like "aren’t the pairings to be random" but I don’t think the director understood what I mean. Anyway, my first game is against Martin Falke, I am just glad I don’t have to play dark against him. It was over a week ago I played this tournament so my memories are not as good they should. About 75 people made this an 8 game tournament.
Game 1:
LS against Falkes brangus/TIEs
He plays TIEs, therefore no podracng start. He gets a good draw with this only system, his only grabber and this is some rescue. However, he don’t get any characters at all, no brangus. He draws a big hand, since he needs his characters, I grimtaash him used, and free Han early for early damage. I win the race, and get I did it on table, with that card on table, I don’t loose with the light deck. He doesn’t do any damage to me, and I can retrieve without problems. I think I beat some of his characters up in the end, not sure, but I know I won by 32. A non-interactive game, and his deck never got going.
Game 2:
DS mains and twixes against Scott Lathams QMC
I get a great start with one or two twixes, palpatine and maul. I drop maul to his locations and draw. He deploys some site and draw. I get palpy down to his other site, and I twilek for bad feeling have i. Third turn I occupy a fourth site with vader and fifth turn I occupy the 4th with arica. I was sure this was my game at this point. But Scott makes a great comeback. He deploys Leia with blaster and path her away when I attack. I put vader with saber in front of leia (I monnoked him lost for 2 epp lukes the turn before, so I felt safe for a beatdown). I save some force since I have set for stun, you are beaten and I have you now in hand. In his control phase, he disarms vader. Then he deploys EPP han, ECC chewie and corran horn. Aim high is no table. He attacks. I cant play you are beaten because of disarmed. I try to set for stun han, but miss. He shoots vader with chewie. Then I play I have you now, I draw a 0 and a 1, and he draws big destinies. I have to loose vader and 15. all of a sudden I am low on force. Battle plan is on table, and Scott controls the system. Maul chase his characters around, but he paths them, and drain for free. I don’t drain much because menace fades is also on table. My force starts to run out, and in the end I cant drain him anymore, and he pulls the win by 5 fore. Not good to lose the second game.
Total: 2 (+27)
Game 3:
Dark against MWYHL hit and rund dockingbay mains. Not sure who the player was.
As soon as I see the objective I think I am screwed, since I have no battleground to drain at. However, first turn I drop maul with potf on mauls hut. I get to look through his deck in his turn so I see no jedi testing. He deploys a docking bay and I deploy my characters there for more drain damage. He commes to me, but I beat him down. He tries to drain me on maul’s hut, but I put down ig-88 and a tracked 5 to capture him. I initiate and he plays loosing track putting my crap destiny on top. I try to use Janus, but he then calls the judge over to see if I can do this during battle. I feel a little scared, since I heard that judge make strange rulings, but he says I can. So I capture luke, and he has got one character less to worry about. He stone-pile 4 of my cards. No harm done. I barrier some of his hit and run guys, beat him up and then drain him to death. Win by like 10
Total: 4 (+45?)
Game 4:
Light against a german guys court.
Court.. great. I start goo nee tay. You activate 7 force the entire game. How hard is it to win a game like that? I pull of the race, deploy I did it and hit him with hit and run mains once or twice to get rid of boelo and ephant mon. then Qui-Gon goes down and free han. He tries to attack me again in the audience chamber, but I barrier and beat him for some 20 cards or something.
Fw + 25?
Total: 6+ (70?)
Game 5:
DS against German guy with wys beatdown
This is a matchup I should loose. I go down quick with mains to casue some early damage. I know the beatdown is commin, but I have bad feeling on table, so that saves me one or two turns. I monnok him lost and see that he has got all the beatdown stuff in his hand. Beggar, luke, han, run luke run and blaster proficiency. Now, I managed to pull of a cool trick; Since he knows I know he has got beggar in hand, I draw all my force so that he wont deploy it. I have maul with saber and vader at the docking bay. He deploys melas to my dockingbay to flip (he has some random ship at kessel). He then deploys han to melas site, and luke to the adjacent site. He has got 2 force saved. I play operational as planned (he had no beggar on table). He thinks of what to do for a few minutes, then decides to initiate a battle (for free with battle plan). He retrieves a force with first strike, but I remind him that he has to pay 1 force for secret plans. He pays, and only got one force left, I pay my force for projective telepathy. He realizes he can’t pay, so he moves luke over and it’s my turn. I sniper Han, play you are beaten on melas, attack and play I have you now. He hits darth maul, and make him lost with blaster proficiency but I still cause him some damage with vader. After that I drain him out and win by like 8 or something. If he hadn’t spent that force on secret plans, I would have been toast.
Total 8 +(78?)
Game 6:
Podprofit against Martin Shumachers Brangus with SAC
We playtested this before, and I know I will win. He gets emperor, janus and brangus down quick, and inserts on me. The inserts reaches top and I loose about 8 since I have threepio and qui-gon on table. With qui-gon I win our small sac-wars, and that also wins me the race. Out of commission makes sure neither the numbers nor the podracer collisions come back. Free han gives me 5 force back, the race gives me 10 and on the edge gives me 5. draw their fire makes it even more, and even though he drains me some I pull of the win by 25 because he has no way of retrieval, and I do.
Total 10 +(100?)
Game 7:
Light against Jimmy Falens Dark surgeon
Jimmy starts no aliens in the chamber, but get palpatine there turn one or two. I deploy qui-gon there, and both of those characters stayed there pretty much the entire game. Xizor and Guri move to the DS dockingbay, and he flips and casue me some damage because I cant find my luke. Palpatine and qui-gon keep on batteling in the audience chamber. Honor of the jedi get down, so I don’t have to loose to his objective, and boushh blocks his drains on death star. I win a close race, and he looses 6, and one is no escape. I cant retrieve because of secret plans, but I retrieve for I did it. Eventually some guy with a lightsaber hits palpatine in the audience chamber and han becomes free. Now I start to cause him some damage. But ig-88 shows up, and kills han of. I have no more characters left in the deck by now, and I cant cause him any battle damage. Obi and luke are at the same site. Jimmy deploys ig88 to obi and lukes site and initiates a battle to retrieve one force. He shoots at luke, but I play to close for comfort. I swing at ig-88, he plays droid shutdown, but I sense it. Then I slice him and cause battle damage enough to win me the game.
FW +15
Total: 12 (+115?)
Game 8:
Dark against Bastians WYS beatdown
I know I am screwed from the beginning and tell him not to beat me bad. I don’t do much this game, basicly I draw lots of cards while he drains me in space. I drain him some on ground and deploy bad feeling have I to avoid the trippler card. I drain him some on ground, and get maul in zuckuss ship into space to block drains… not really much else happened, it was a non interactive game that I knew I would loose. FL -15
Total score: 12 +97 I think.
Bastian takes the first place, and Koen Meijsen takes second. Since me, Koen and Jesper have a coach for Sweden to catch, koen hasn’t got the time for a final confrontation, so he gives the first place to bastian. Julien Riviere places third, and qualifies for worlds with koen, since bastian already qualified. Jimmy Falens takes 4th and I take 5th.
Then we say goodbye and see you at worlds to all the players, and we ride with Johan Vandemeer to the Antwerp bus station.
The coach to Sweden was.. Terrible. Every now and then a shock of concentraded urine-smell shocked us, and it was crowded, so we hardly got any sleep at all (well, I slept some in the aisle of the coach). The bus took 13 hours, then we head back to Jespers place and playtested all night. Thuesday we playtested pretty much all day. Still no good dark decks. Playtesting on Wednesday. Thursday, we pick up Alex and the Latham brothers at the station, they stayed at Markus place after the tournament. We playtest all night. Friday, we get up early, since there is a coruscant pre-release at 12 o’clock. Before that I have to pick up Chris Moore at the Airport. It takes us about one hour to find our way to the convention, it is almost impossible to find anything in malmoe for that matter. They have to wait almost one hour for us until the sealed deck starts. I get crap, and win 2 and loose 2 games I think. I didn’t really like the format, you got way to many characters, and to few low destiny interrupts and such. I buy a box afterwards.
After the pre-release there is a team tournament. I team up with Koen and Jesper. In 4 games I win both with light side (+39 and +42) and loose both with my dark deck. There goes the rating points. Nevermind, we still won the event and got some boosters…
Getting back to jespers place in lund (which is about 25 km from there) is a problem. 7 people are gonna sleep there, and my car is designed for small japaneese guys, and absolutely not more then 5 of them. But before we do that, we have to find the car… which is not as easy as it should be. No one remembers where the car was parked, so we walk around all the blocks around the convention center before I finally find it. That took us about 40 minutes. Our next problem is fitting 7 people into the car. I drive, obviously, Chris and Rod sit in the front seat and the other 4 sit in the back. We pull all the windows down, otherwise it is impossible to shut the doors. Then I start up the car, and realize there is not very much fuel in the car. So we drive to a gas-station, stop there, open the doors and everyone except me fall out. We put some bills in the machine, but no gas comes out. We try every single button there is, but still no gas. After about 20 minutes of desperate trying, we try another small bill. This time about 2 liters come out. So we put in another, but this time no gas. So we write a note, put it in their mailbox and go on to the next one. Our next problem is finding our was back to jespers place. As I said before, it is not easy to find your way in this town of the devil, but after like 40 minutes or something we get back. Next stop is jespers place (we were actually staying at his girlfriends place) where he has got a computer. Alex needed to book tickets back to London. This takes another 40. Then we go back to jespers girlfriends place, it is now around 2am, we build some decks and go to sleep.
We get up early, as usually. 7 persons hit the shower, write some decklists, then we are on our way again. We arrive a little late, as usual. First game I get paired against jesper. I have to play dark against my own profit deck. Great. Today I play a kind of maul’s hut deck with the jabbas palace sites. I get a good draw, and deploy maul and mara with saber first turn, and I convert his audience chamber. Sebulba is good at racing today, and I am in the lead for a while. I bunker up my guys in the audience chamber. I try to play podracer collision twice, but first turn he cancels with to close for comfort and the second time he senses it. Well, I still have a chance to win since I drew great racing destinies. However, he draws a six and a seven the last turn, and that’s just game. I cant win to that deck if I did it is on table. He gets it out, and deploy all his guys to some site. I bunker up at audience chamber with emperor, janus, maul/saber and vader/saber and ghaana gleemort (or whatever). Since I don’t have any force saved, he can just nabrun his guys in, kill me off, release han and I can’t do anything. I managed to keep the loss down by drawing though, and only lost the first game by 18.
FL-18
damn. I now lost my first game, which means I have to win the remaining five.
Game 2 is light podprofit against scott latham with brangus deck.
Brangus deck is a great matchup. I get threepio and qui-gon down first turn. He deploys janus, brangus and emperor and inserts on me. The insert pops, and I lose 8. I shuffle the odds away with out of commission. I win the race a turn later, and get the cards I lost back. I also release han. He starts to drain me at the holotable, and with emperor and vader at jabbas palace. I kill them off with my hit and run guys, but loose a few cards doing so. I retrieve once with on the edge. All of a sudden, ig-88 comes and sends han to used pile. I have to draw some cards to get a tunnel vision so I can cause him some more damage, and while doing so he has the time to drain me for some cards, so I didn’t win with as many as I hoped to do. FW +28
Total: 2+10
Game 3, Light against tommy lee and his dark surgeon.
He starts no aliens. He deploys presence of the force to coruscant dockingbay, keeps emperoro there and xizor/vigo at the death star docking bay. I loose some cards, but retrieve them back when I rescue han. I attack him at his docking bays with obi-wan, and try to out of commission xizor when he dies, but I fail, and xizor returns. I loose to his objective and drains for some turns, then I find honor of the jedi, and eventually also deploy luke to flip him back. The judge commes and pick up my dark deck for checking against the decklist. Winning the race gives me some more cards back. Also, I have by now caused some damage with profitdamage and drain at the audience chamber so he is low on force. I hit and run attack him with luke and obi-wan, and in the end, when he draws his cards I on the edge for 4 cards. FW +38
Total: 4 +48
I go over to the judges to collect my dark deck. I ask them if its ok, and they’re like "I am afraid it isn’t ok". "What do you mean by not ok?" and they tell me theat I have written original version of evader instead of I have you now in the deck. By the rules they have to DQ me since I have already played with the deck, and I don’t argue since I know theyre right.. but I feel like I have spent a week of playtesting for no purpose. Since I an already qualified for worlds, it is not such a big disappointment as it would be otherwise, and the playtesting has been so much fun, so I don’t regret it now afterwards. I stay around and play some games with the directors and watch the remaining games. Rod latham and alex tennet plays in the final, and alex wins both of his games (with the podprofit deck and the dark surgeon), which gives him the title, the glass thing and he also qualifies for worlds.
Me, jesper, chris and koen go back to jespers place, have some drinks and look through the coruscant cards. The others go to some pub, but I stay at home sleeping. Next morning I get up and drive the seven hours it takes for me to get home. I have now reached the thanks section of the report.
Thanks to:
Jesper Larsson - playtesting, a place to stay, being a cool guy to hang out with.
Markus Wuest -for a place to stay, picking us up, driving to Antwerp, ordering a tatooine box for me, for the food, the beer, the playtesing and for being a cool friend.
Koen Meijsen - for being one of the funniest guys ever, for playtesting, for the cd’s and everything.
Alex, Rod, Scott - for joining the European tour 2001, it wouldn’t have been the same without you guys.
Chris Moore and Martin Shumacher - for at least playing in half of the tour, for being cool playtesting partners. Special thanks to Shumacher for telling me how to shuffle an asteroid sanctuary deck. That was great dude.
Bastian for having the perfect woman in natural size on the wall.
Johan Vanermeer for driving us to the Antwerp station.
Julien Riviere - I have to give some fat props back to you man! Same goes for Jimmy Falens
Martin Falke - what the @#$% did you do?
Emil Wallin - you bet me you bastard! Too bad you missed the final
Marc Thiery for making it to Sweden. You are indeed a cool guy.
Yannik for always discussing decks with me.
Everyone I played with during this tour, thanks guys.
@#$% off:
Myself for not being able to write a proper decklist.
Belgian tournament directors for some really bad rulings.
The OK/Q8 gas station for ripping us off.
The city of Malmö for being a labyrinth.
The sauna-train.
The urine-bus
The guy who refused to sell me curuscant until the pre-release was over
That’s it, so next stop will be worlds I suppose, hope to see you there!
/Martin Akesson