geoff-is-the-king-of-correllia-heh
Title: geoff-is-the-king-of-correllia-heh
Author: Geoff "gsiva" Snider
Date: Aug 19, 2001
the weekend starts on thursday, the pimpest day of the week. having gone to work WAY too much lately, my life sucks...so it’s so good to get the f uck out ’o dodge for the extended weekend stay at the o’hare holiday inn with heisler, olson, hunter, and heisler’s little pocket buddy. i get into chicago around 4pm and after a bit of driving around, i find a strip club, "get my freak on" and go butt-wild with some hotties. these lesbians are all about dildos, and so they’re just sitting there for like an hour and fisting each other with these large blue lube-covered @#$%s. i’m enjoying this alot, but them they’re like "your hour is up and that’ll be $400" and i’m like "whoa." you can imagine how that all ended.
so i finally get to the "doubletree club" which is about 10 minutes away from the rosemont convention center. hunter is like "this room is a pile" and decides to switch hotels by talkin’ sh1t with some hotel mofos. we head over to the o’hare doubletree, and after some time waiting outside, hunter has procured a free room at the o’hare holiday inn...right across the street from the convention center, which is pretty damned phat. so we get to order all sorts of room service, etc. from the hotel restaurant, hang at the bar, and we’re only a three minute walk to the con center. i stay up pretty late thursday night making my ep1 closed environment decks. light side i go with senators, qui-gons, queens, and 2x farting donkey. no battlegrounds, 4x we must speak to the jedi council, and start with shmi’s hut to get 3p0 out. i’m kinda worried about the podrace, but whatever. there’s not much to stop that damned box except 5x a step backwards, but the senate package is too huge to accomodate anything more than 2x too close for comfort. i toss anakin’s podracer out of the deck in favor of a second jar jar. oh well. dark side is desert landing site + podracing start, and watto’s box. i played 5x maul, 5x maul strikes, 2x stick, 3x collision, 5x destroyer droids, unique droids, 3x we must accellerate our plans (to get collision), and 6x sense, 2x alter, 2x kedar the black, and 3 random 2-drain battlegrounds, 2x lana dobreed.
friday, the tournament starts at noon. i’m thinking, DAMN! there could be as many as like...30 people playing in this thing, and if i keep running into dark side podracing, i’m bound to lose at least 1 game if not 2. oh well. so then i find out that only 8 people are playing (2 of which are hunter and heisler).
game 1 vs. dark side podracing w/some jizz
this is some random kid that has 0 idea what he’s doing...i think he’s playing with like battle droid blaster rifles or something like that. he wins the podrace, but not before i’m entrenched in his Mos Espa marketplace and retrieving 1/turn, i’ve controlled the senate, and i suck on the 11 card loss knowing full well that i’ll just retrieve it all eventually. sure enough, those 11 force are the only force he’ll make me lose all game. i keep my characters on the table with my senate effects, as well as cancel EVERY drain he initiates. it’s an intense package to handle, but if you can make it work it’s pretty tat.
game 2 vs. dan spaid’s LS senators.
he gets a good start like a champ, but i’m draining for 1 at the landing site, sensing his podracing interrupts, and i win the podrace. that’s pretty much game, but he lingers on at some random tatooine site. maul is awesome with "the phantom menace" and fights off some jedi. i alter his drain-cancelling political effect, and that’s it. i think i won by 28 or something like that.
game 3 vs. illinois player (grim?) and DS senate
we mess around for senate superiority and eventually i take control. if i’d known what all my good cards do, i might’ve done a bit better than winning by 20, but oh well. there were a few battles at some of his naboo sites, and the queen helped me retrieve a few. woo hoo. blah.
game 4 vs. heisler’s LS shmi’s hut podracing’
we’re podracing...blah blah blah...i get out maul and sense like 4x a step backwards. i win the podrace (but it’s close) and we get on with the rest of the game. he has ALOT of force after dropping 4 locations on the first turn (including the jedi council chamber), and i’m a bit lacking. he has shmi sitting with 3p0 at shmi’s hut, so i save for like 3 turns to go hit them up for a couple of cards with rune haako and 2x destroyers, but obi-wan reacts over and knocks out my droids. 3p0 dies, and that’s all good. i’m able to track Lana Dobreed, and get rune over to naboo 2/2 site to drain for 2 a couple turns in a row. he’s picked up qui-gon and is systematically eliminating all my mauls with a tracked 5 and 10x 4-ability characters. i lana dobreed kedar over to naboo to block qui-gon’s drain of 3. he doesn’t have the resources to keep bouncing qui-gon in and out of his hand, and so i eventually get a couple guys to attack valorum by himself and take him for 8 cards or so. that’s game. prolly the only good game of the event.
so i’m one of the first people to own an EPP maul...whatever that is. they’ll send it to me or something like that. it should be pretty nifty, ’cause all the maul pictures look pretty good so far.
after the tournament i hook up with some old chi-town area friends of mine (chris and mike) and we head out for dinner...eventually ending up at Dave & Busters. now i’m pretty cynical about suburban yuppie hangouts, but this place was like...pretty neat. i just let myself get kinda caught up in playing shooter games and after a bit, i found myself falling into my old ski-ball habit. what a f ucking rush it is when you get that little wooden ball into the 50 point slot! awesome! i’m the ski-ball masta! i get like 120 ski-ball tickets, change them in for a coupon to see what i can get. i decided not to wait in line to get a D&B mug, so i just head over to the bar to show off my 120 tickets. i walk up to chris and i’m like "look what i got!" and he’s like "wow...120" and then he points to this HUGE pile of tickets and says "this is what michelle won" and my jaw drops as i see like 1000 tickets stacked neatly on the bar in front of his girlfriend. at this point i’m thinkin’ that i either must really suck...or else she’s just really good....OR i’m just playing the wrong freakin’ game. i trek around D&B to find the best tickets/dollars ratio game ’cause i’m hell bent on winning some huge f ucking stuffed animal (for some primal raging reason that my mind just cannot suppress). i find this "slot-machine-esque" thingy. the light on the machine spins around, lighting up pictures of fruit and the #7. all you have to do is stop the light on the 7 three times in a row and you win 100+ tickets. THIS MACHINE IS THE MONEY! i hit this thing up for like 2000 tickets (it was a little harder than i thought it would be...mainly because i think it was rigged to not hit Jackpot more than x times in x minutes). i end up cashing in my zillion tickets for a giant PIKACHU because "even pikachu listens to An Older Code" and pikachu is the f ucking funniest electric mouse that i’ve ever seen. pika pika. pikaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. chu. i also get a silly mr. potatohead doll, and i feel that i’ve finally got all that "i’m the kid that never won a damned thing" notion out of my head. i’m a champ. i head back to the hotel around 1:30 am and finally get around to making my decks for the KING OF CORRELLIA tournament the next day. luckily, the damned thing is only supposed to be 4 games and starts at 2pm. okay...so i’m sittin’ there thinking "i really want to play WYS ’cause i’ve never played it before" but then i’m like "hmmm...maybe i should stick to what i’m used to." whatever. i sell out ONCE AGAIN for the year and head to decktech on hunter’s laptop to steal the "bottomly WYS" deck that clint posted. wtf. i feel like a freakin’ whore, but oh well. for the DS i’m thinking (as i was before continentals day 2) that i’d really like to play the brangus deck. however, it’s pretty much the same dilemma that i’d have with WYS...i’ve never played either deck, and i really don’t think i’d be able to run them at their peak efficiency unless i’d had lots of practice. at the last minute i decide to head back to playing the PILE, and the ISB scum deck...both of which i ran at day 2 of continentals. the ONLY new coruscant cards that i used were 1)jedi council chamber (in place of some random 2/0 location) and 2)IAO secret plans (in place of just secret plans)...whatever.
i get to the event late, ’cause hunter and i were tweakin’ and whatever...and they’re like "if you want to play then you’ll play each other" and i’m like "f uck this...i really didn’t want to play anyhow" but then hunter is like "what the hell...let’s play" and mike and chris are there too saying "well...we only came to play because you said you were going to play too" so i give in and play.
game 1 LS vs. hunter’s I’m Sorry force gen platform w/mains
we kinda fight back and forth for a couple turns, but i’ve force choked him with goo nee tay and 2x revo on his -1 drain 2/1 sites. he captures han with ig88 and that kinda crimps my plans, but i’m draining for 3 at the carbonite chamber with QGJ/stick for several turns and slowly whittling him down. battle plan is out, so he’s not draining me for 1 at bespin system in favor of saving force for a beating. there are a couple more battles, and since hunter is kinda out of practice, he makes a few critical errors. THEN every time i try and cut/shoot someone, i draw a 2/0 site for destiny...wtf. oh well. i think i win by about 18 or so.
game 2 DS vs. mike wood’s profit mains
i’ve played this matchup once before (against sokol at continentals) and i’m thinking of all the mistakes i made then and what i should do/not do to play a better game (or flawless game). i get the money start on him, converting both his sites and starting chall/baby jabba/ors + bad feeling on turn 1. turn two i’m draining him for 4 with a None shall pass in hand. i’m slowly whittling him down to about 30 cards or so, and he’s slowly gaining a foothold on me with ben kenobi and qui-gon. icky bad combo for me, so i just keep avoiding, battling, retrieving with scum and HIS draw their fire. about 10 turns into the game, mike says "have you been paying for aim high?" and i’m like "aim high? oh no!" ...i’m thinking that when i kept looking over at his starting effectsl, i kept reading "insurrection" and that was it...’cause i’m not used to looking for the second part of the card title on Insurrection. oh well....i think i retrieved about 8 cards more than i should have, but i don’t think it would’ve made a huge difference. bargaining table kept me in the game when he finally flipped, and my scum kept me in the game by constantly recyclying my 5-destiny cards. i won a critical battle in the late game, getting rid of han. that was pretty much it, and i think i ended up winning by about 28 or so....not sure though.
game 3 LS vs. craig berry (?? is this right?) SYCFA ties.
i start DDTagain, so he’s auto-slowed down by this. qui-gon and shmi take over the DStar docking bay and drain for 2 a couple of turns. he doesn’t start with any SAC protection, and drops Dreaded Imp. Starfleet early, only to have it altered...and then he deploys SFSystems without a tie at wakeelmui and i alter that. he deploys proton bombs and collapses the Dstar docking bay to kill off qui gon, so i drop JK luke and drain for 1 at obi-wan’s hut. he plays dark waters and i alter it. he plays U3p0 and i play corran horn. i’m playing cat-and-mouse in space between wakeelmui and the Dstar with han/leia/chewie/falcon and sootir fel and company. it was a pain, but it kept his resources tied up. i finally get my b’omarr monk and make obi-wan’s hut a drain of 3. two turns later that’s game. i think i won by 15 or so. if he’d started with Oppressive/doOrdonot, he probably would’ve won...and maybe if he’d played another system besides e1 coruscant he might’ve made it closer. battle plan was the lynchpin of this game, keeping me in the money early and restricting his options late.
game 4 DS vs. tom plis? and HB matching pilots.
i know this is like an auto win for me, and he doesn’t seem phased by my power of the hutt. whatever. i get the money start and by 3rd turn i’ve got all 3 jp sites, i’m flipped, bad feeling/no bargain are out, and i’m draining for 6. drain for 6, drain for 6, gailid comes out and i’m draining for 9, draining for 9. i decide that i have to retrieve some cards (’cause i’ve got 12 in hand) and i drop bossk with 4 passengers and fight mirax/hobbie in ships. retrieve. retrieve. retrieve. i end up getting 9 cards more into my deck before i drain him out and win by 32. i think he lost his hidden base off the top....whatever. he wasn’t very intuitive about his game.
so olson’s like "snider is the king of the jizz-moppers" and i’m like "tech tech tech" and i get a WHOLE BOX of coruscant (the first good tournament prize in a lont time) and an It Could Be Worse foil. woo hoo! 3 more destroyer droids in my pocked is pretty phat, and we went out drinking that night. heh...beer is my friend...maybe too good of a friend...maybe i should lose 40 lbs too good of a friend. heh. so room service is good, free cards is good, beer is good...uhm...what else is ther? uhm...a life goddammit! get one please! i really should.
hey baby...i’m the king.