raleigh-nc-8-18-01-absolute-money

Title: raleigh-nc-8-18-01-absolute-money
Author: Mike "OQrygg" Merletto
Date: Aug 19, 2001

About a week ago, Don Weinstein sent out an e-mail to the local list about the upcoming Star Wars events. Among DragonCon and DecipherCon is a local he*s running with a box of Coruscant for first place. Wow! There*s also a box tournament about an hour north of here, so I know that ours will only have local players. I read one tournament report from the store, and every player was a scrub, so I all I needed were decks that beat scrubs, but could also handle the decks good players would be using (I was looking at Hidden Base, WYS, Hunt Down Duel, and Senators). Rob Werbicki and I talked about decks for a couple of days the previous week and we both decided the way to get better (not playing wise, but performance wise) would be to play solid decks.

I had Yannick*s GenCon LS deck built, and it was a machine so I was feeling confident about that. I had the Brangus Racer built too, but couldn*t get all the cards in time. I remember hearing about old RalOps that used the Responsibility/Much Anger combo, and I figured that would do good in the local meta. I typed one up quick and it looked like a monster. School started on Monday so I had little time for decks during the week, but the time I did have was spent working on the DS. I passed it by Jared Napolitano on IM since he always used to play RalOps, and he tells me to change a bunch of cards. I take most of his advice, and the deck looks 17273686286101 times more solid. Friday night I add Guri in to take care of WYS and my decks are set.

The tournament starts 45 minutes late and there are 23 players. The decks of Team C0ckbomb are:

Me: LS - Yannick*s Dagobah Racer; DS - RoC Solid RalOps
Eddie: LS - WYS Racer; DS - Hunt Down, no duel, no race
Kimo: LS - Profit; DS - TDIGWATT Pain
Rob: LS - Test to 2 Beats; DS - SYCFA Flipper

Game One: DS vs. New Guy (1500)
I start RalOps and IAO, Mob Points and the SAC Kicker. He starts only the Jedi Council Chamber. He told me that he had played before but this was his first tournament. He had also made his decks at 1 AM that morning. This wouldn*t be pretty. The game didn*t involve too much though. I flipped third turn, set up the Shaft on EPP Han. He deployed Hoth (huh?) and moved Han up onto the Tantive. I thought somehow he was going to cancel the Shaft on me (since he used Hoth), but he never did. I follow with Zuckuss in the air while he has the Home One draining for zero at Carida. The Shaft hit him for around 20 and my drains did the rest. FW by 30.
Total: 2(+30)

Highs: The DS working in its first real game; learning how to play RalOps while the game progressed; meeting a new player.
Lows: None.

After this game we go back to the video rental section of the store. They had all these Japanese porn movies and in a fit of laughter Kimo ends up hitting one on the end of the shelf and in a domino effect knocks the rest down on a 6 foot shelf. I haven*t laughed that hard in a long time. Back to the games...

Game Two: LS vs. Edwin Harris (1586)
I start MWYHL, Podrace Prep and Honor Of The Jedi. He starts Agents Of The Black Sun, Start Your Engines and Presence to auto-flip. Edwin always asks me for DS deck ideas over IM, but I wouldn*t tell him this week since the tourney was going to be big. Apparently he had tried a bunch of DS decks to find out what worked the best, but he wound up using something he had built the night before. The whole game is described in his first turn and my opening hand. My hand was Yoda*s Hut and 7 red, without a Tunnel Vision OR Signal; I play 5 combined). His hand had CHYBC and No Escape.

So I eat his objective damage until I find Jar Jar*s Tank and set that up with Draw Their Fire. I don*t get enough on one turn to drop Yoda and Jar Jar, but I need to kill Xizor so I never set up Yoda. My first attempt fails and he draws big, so I lose Jar Jar and 4, which I use It Could Be Worse, but he It*s Worses for 2 extra. My next time I miss again and lose 4. All the while I win the podrace (vs. a Podracing deck, and I didn*t even need to use A Step Backwards!) but CHYBC stops my retreival (even if I had the characters, there was only one BG on table). CHYBC also stops my retreival from Draw Their Fire. I only manage to find 2 Anger Fears the entire game, and the only characters to hit the table besides Jar Jar are EPP Luke and Obi, each only once. I*m tracking his cards so I know who to Jar Jar which is my only form of damage. Somehow, I manage to whittle him down to 9 Force. FL by 9.
Total: 2(+21)

Highs: Being a tracking machine.
Lows: My hand, my draws, CHYBC, No Escape.

So now I*m bummed. I will have to win the next four games with good differential to have a shot at winning. I shove that to the back of my mind and continue playing.

Game Three: LS vs. Jason Baucom (1841)
I start MWYHL, Podrace Prep and Battle Plan. He starts the Senate Objective, Maul*s Site, IAO combo, Mob Points combo, and Imperial Decree. I get a good starting hand, but Jason has the anti-draw. I complete Test 1 quick and finish the race before he even flips. Jason has about 35 cards in his hand when he finally flips. By then I have my destinies tracked, stacked, and everything in between. EPP Luke is holding the Tatooine DB and Obi is on the Arena. I have Red 5 on top waiting until I have the cards in lost pile to retrieve the 6 with Edge, but he does some weird senator thing to make it lost. Garbage. Choke Vader attacks Luke, but he gets sliced and I draw huge destiny so the site clears and Luke is feeling Resilient. Maul attacks Obi, and he gets sliced and has some overflow to deal with. I have a steady stream of Anger Fears going with my retrieval. Pings, Anger Fear, and battle damage take down the senators. FW by 33.
Total: 4(+54)

Highs: Being a tracking machine, once again.
Lows: That senator taking out my Red 5.

Game Four: DS vs. Adam Weinstein (1809, State Champ)
I start RalOps, IAO, Mob Points and the SAC Kicker. Adam starts Hidden Base, Squadron Assignments, Insight and one other effect (Insurrection?). I get a second turn flip while Adam gets out his systems. I have 2/3s of the Shaft into hand and then Adam attacks at the Forest with EPP Luke and General Cal. I Ghhhk the 8 damage and Luke remains alone. He moves Keir Santage in ship over to Raltiir to flip me back, but then I remember I drew the remaining card of the Shaft (Responsibility) for battle destiny, so I try to remember how far down it is, then track it around.

I can*t activate up to the card on my turn, so I throw down EPP Vader, Tarkin, and 4-LOM on EPP Luke. I blank Luke, hit him, and draw big, so that*s Luke and 8 more. My next turn I draw up Responsibility, but there is no valid target on the table. On his turn, Adam flashes Wedge but his ship isn*t there, so I figure I*ll have to wait until next turn to get the Shaft out. But Adam puts Wedge on the Queen*s Ship to complete Our Most Desperate Hour. On my turn I grab the Flagship, put Dengar In Ship and the Shaft in front of Wedge, while the Executor goes probing, but first letting me flip back. Adam has huge tech for his Hidden Base by using Alderaan, so you think that*s it automatically. So I go and probe thinking I*ve nailed it, and boom! He says no! Huh? I finally find his base and set up Search And Destroy. I deploy Secret Plans the same turn as S&D, but when Adam goes to retrieve for his OMH, he forgets about Secret Plans so that kills him right there. He deploys EPP Obi to the Hoth War Room to get around S&D, but Mara and Stick cleans him off of that site. Drains, S&D, and the Shaft end it quickly from there. FW by 20.
Total: 6(+74)

Highs: The DS working against its first challenge.
Lows: I played kind of ehhhh, but you can do that with Raltiir.

Game Five: LS vs. Adam Weinstein (1809)
Adam asked that if I wrote a TR, I wouldn*t talk about this game. His deck looked good, but like he said, my LS was anti-his deck. The coolest part of this game was every time I inserted Anger Fear, I got to put on my homemade red sleeves (since Adam was using red). I used white-out and painted a $ sign on the back because Anger Fear is absolute money. Rob forgot his, so he had to borrow mine during game four, bastard. FW by 35.
Total: 8(+109)

Highs: Getting an auto-win (even though I didn*t know it)
Lows: None

After this everyone is telling me that I*ll have to play Ray Franks for the box. I*m nervous now because Ray owns me. I*m 1-4 (or 5) lifetime against him and the only time I*ve beaten him was when I won my first tournament. When Ray*s game finishes, it turns out he lost and I play his opponent, Ryan Obman. Ryan has become a good player recently and we always wound up playing when he was starting out, but I haven*t played him in a long time. We sit on the floor at a make-shift table in the video section, take off our shoes and get ready to play for the box.

Game Six: DS vs. Ryan Obman (1669)
I start RalOps, IAO, Mob Points and the SAC Kicker. Ryan starts QMC, Keeping The Empire Out, Insurrection combo, and another effect. I check Ryan*s command card and see his only loss was with this QMC to Adam*s Secret DS. Hmmmm... I flip second turn so it shuts down his early drains. Going into the game I was scared that he would be using aliens so the -1 didn*t effect him, but he was just playing mains. I get to verify early on and see he has 3 Off The Edges and 4 Paths. After he flips I give Captain Han in Falcon a good walloping with Zuckuss and Dengar, along with Lateral Damage of course. That causes 8 overflow, but he proceeds to play 2 Edges (I grab the first one) to get back 9. He played them blind too! Before then I was almost sure I would win, but I had started questioning it after that. He kicks me off of Bespin with Captain Han in Falcon with Luke, so my Battle Order is hurting me bad. I set up the Shaft on Leia with Tarkin in front, but he Paths away then shoots Tarkin with Panaka, so I lose a couple. Then I put a scrub in front of Leia again but he Paths again, and of course I Janused back my extra grabber because I was afraid of Grimtassh. So he beats on the scrub once again as a crowd starts to gather around. Edwin tells his friends that if we time, he wins the box since he just beat Ray but I say that if we time out and I lose, I*ll just draw up because Yannick is right about the timed games (it won*t affect you if you lose, but it*ll help the winner to get a full win).

Back to the game: On my turn I pull Navy Trooper Fenson, see a Ghhhk in reserve, and just drain for a few without putting my stuff down. My next turn I get the Ghhhk, play Fenson in front of Leia, but he can*t lay the beats even though he Paths away. He moves Panaka in front of Fenson to block the drain, and EPP Vader comes and smacks Panaka around for overflow while Fenson gets shot. Leia is at one CC site, Qui-Gon is at the middle one and Vader is at the drain cancelling one. I grab Ozzel, throw him in front of Leia since I know he can*t beat me down anymore (none in hand). I cancel his drain, then he loses 4 since he *s run out of Paths. On my turn I drain out his last two cards and I earn $55 on the day. FW by 19.
Total: 10(+138)

Highs: Beating him down a few times; getting the box.
Lows: Not playing too hot.

So I win the box and my second swiss tourney, which is cool. I get some things that will help out my decks (namely the IAO and Mob Points combos) and be good for trading (Maul Strikes, extra IAO combo). Before the tournament, I had decided that I had spent too long just lingering about the 1700s, so I told myself that I would break 1800 within the next three tournaments. Guess what my rating will be updated to? 1801. Cool. So now, time for props and slops.

Props:
Adam, for letting me own him. (j/k man =)
Don Weinstein, for putting a box on the line.
Eddie Brown, for making me laugh. =P
Edwin Harris, for propping me and tracking against me.
Jared Napolitano, for helping me out with the RalOps.
Me, for going 3-0 with RalOps in my third through fifth games using the platform.
Me, for winning the box.
Money Sleeves, for protecting my money Anger Fears.
Overflow Beatdowns, for making my games not all time out.
Rob Werbicki and me, for beginning to play SOLID decks now.
Ryan Obman, for playing a helluva game and taking Ray out of contention.
Yannick, for posting that hugly LS deck.

Slops:
Eddie, for being so confident about the box being his.
Rob, for going 1-2 with a SOLID Dark. =)