madskills-at-milford-mass-9-1-01

Title: madskills-at-milford-mass-9-1-01
Author: Michael "MadSkills84" Pistone
Date: Sep 5, 2001

Well another month, another Milford tournament. Rich Hinds said he could drive Matt McGann and I to it so we planned to go. Matt McGann and I built like 14 decks to playtest with to find out what we liked best, we asked Rich Hinds to play but he had stuff going on :-/. Well due to the popularity of WYS I decided to build a very general DS deck for versatility, but with a focus on beating WYS, the strongest weapon for the LS right now. I went through every deck under the sun until I finally decided to go with a Scum variant of the Court objective due to its high speed and power in space which can really give WYS a run for its money. Since WYS is the biggest LS threat right now, I realized other smart players would be preparing their decks for it, so I decided not to play it and play something else that would throw people off guard. My friend Dan Mailloux and I came up with a Staging Areas deck using the Jedi Council Chamber start, which I posted a few days ago. It worked really well in playtesting and was really comfortable to play with because of its simmilarties to Hidden Base Mains. The night before the tournament Rich could finally playtest so he and I went to Matt McGann’s house for some quick playtesting. My DS won 1 game and my LS deck split 1-1, but it was my fault it lost so I felt confident about my decks. I ask Rich what time we would leave for the tournament, which started at 12, and he said 10:30 will be good. I recommended to him that we should leave earlier due to the Labor Day weekend traffic to which he responded "we’ll see". He drops me off at home and I make some changes to my decks.

The next morning, I am sitting in my livingroom waiting for him to pick me up and it is now 10:45. He pulls in and I say something along the lines of "we should definately leave earlier next time". Matt McGann has me look at his dark deck and make about 8 card changes to it and I let him borrow the cards he needs for his LS MWYHL deck he built the night before. I let him see my darkside deck and we try to find room for one more card I wanted in there to no avail. Right around now Rich says "oh, whoops I think I missed my exit and we are going the wrong way." I call 411 on Rich’s cell phone to get in touch with the card store to tell them we will be a little late for the tournament, then I call my mom to get directions on how to get to where we want to be going and she helps us out and we turn around and get on the road we should be on. It is now 11:15 and the ride usually takes an hour so I’m hoping traffic isn’t as bad as I feared.

We make good time up and actually show up at like 12:05 so I am thinking ok they cant have started yet. Sure enough I walk in there and Jared Greenwald (the tournament director) is announcing the pairings but he lets me play the person who was going to have the 1st round bye. Cool. Rich and Matt come in next and get paired against each other. 2 other guys come in 10 minutes later and play each other so we have a turnout of 20.

Notables:
Eric Hunter, Steve Brentson, Mike Gemme, Justin Desai, Steve Celluci and Ross Littauer

Rating going into the tournament:
1658 w/86 tournament games

Game 1
My Court vs. Ross Littauer (1663) Profit Podracer

Ok this was definately not the matchup I thought I would see but maybe I can salvage something this game. I deploy Mighty Jabba and Fett w/gun off his objective. He starts Seeking an Audience. I activate then we start the podrace, I draw a 1 to his 8 so I don’t bother stacking (I dont play a podracer). I deploy Boelo with power of the Hutt, deploy a docking bay and draw. His turn he drops the naked droid to the ac, deploys 2 twixes and draws. My turn I activate, podrace again he draws low, I don’t stack. I deploy Ephant Mon to the chamber and draw a few more and say go. His turn he deploys Artoo to Jabba’s Palace and plays A Gift on him and says go. I start activating and point out Ephant makes Artoo unable to move into the AC. I say "it’s my mistake" but Ross is cool and says "no that is too game-breaking i’ll take it back" and i say "if you want you can take it back to your hand or keep it on the table, i dont care" so he leaves them on the table. We forget to podrace. I did not have anything else to deploy and didn’t want to spread out of the AC so I just draw and leave a force bluffing a barrier. He activates and deploys Ben and Qui Gon with saber to the AC. He battles, I play hidden weapons targeting Ben, and I draw a 4. He hits Ephant Mon with qui’s saber. I cancel his battle destiny and draw 3 battle destiny, but he has enough forfeit to cover. Now that Ephant is dead he moves Artoo w/A Gift into the AC and i’m toast. From then on all my drains are crap and destinies are crap and he screws me over retrieving by freeing han, winning the race and I did it. I try to draw a system to drain at to deal some damage to no avail. I got outmatched and outplayed and because of this slaughtered.

FL -31

0 -31

Highs: I will play a scrub next round and get the diff. points back probably.
Lows: Everything, I have not lost this bad since I played Hayes at milford like 6 months ago.

Game 2
My Council Mains vs. Wynand Rovers (1430) SYCFA mains

I played Wynand once before and remember he doesn’t know his own cards that well so my whole attitude for this game was to keep my differential up as much as possible. I set up a few docking bays and was draining for about 3. He kept trying to pile guys at the Death Star Docking Bay to move over to some of my drains but Epp Obi kept coming back to haunt them and kill them before the could set up strong in the early game, while I dealt damage through drains and started tracking some of my sixes. He built up his site and moved away from the DS docking bay to go to Coruscant were yoda and Jedi Luke were. I was winning the drain race so I decided to play the run away game for a while. I deploy phylo gandish and 2 scrubs to the DS docking bay cuz he has vader, maul, and mara at the coruscant db so i know they will not get beat down. I move my guys to other dockin bays that he is not at. He moves into the Jedi Council chamber to drain me for a lot. Well I drain him for liek 6 and then retrieve 10 with an on the edge and an off the edge. I deploy Honor to make the drain at the council smaller and move some guys to the coruscant db to lure him out. I track my edges. He goes and drains and follows me to the coruscant db. I drain him for 5 at two other docking bays and do more retrieval with edges and move yoda and luke to the spaceport db which was on coruscant. He then decided to spread his guys out and only follow me with a few guys. Then I drained him, edged again and beat him down to get the win.

FW +29

2 -2

Highs: Tracking the best I ever have
Lows: Nothing

Game 3
My Council Mains vs. Mike Rodriguez (1611) Watto deck

He starts podracing and wattos box, I don’t have a racer. So his first turn he starts the race and deploys watto and draws. My turn I pull a docking bay and kill Watto with Obi w/ Stick. His turn we race and he kills Obi with Maul. My turn I get another DB and pull Yoda with the Jedi Council Site, move him over to the Coruscant DB and say go. He drains and comes down and kills Yoda with vader and deals some overflow damage to me. I now have more cards in lost pile than he does and he is outdraining me and will win the podrace so in desperation i play a blind off the edge after i deploy epp obi to the CC docking bay. I draw a 6 and breathe a sigh of relief. From there on it’s a tight game after the podrace i need to stay in it and I do by tracking on/off edge and putting big guys who soak up a lot of damage in front of his drains while getting my drains through. I must have played on/off the edge 6 times this game. I deploy Battle Plan cuz his drains are more spread out and mine more focused and this hurts him, he makes a mistake by moving a scrub over infront of jedi luke w/ stick to block a drain and i beat him down and edge (pun intended) out the win.

FW +5

4 +3

Highs: Continuing to track well with the LS Deck
Lows: Nothing

Game 4
My Court vs. Ben Rodriguez (1675) Profit Podracer

Oh @#$%. I would never for the life of me expected to play 2 Profit decks in a tournament, but it happened. He started Goo Nee Tay. I deploy Fett and Jabba again of the objective. I activate and we start the podrace, he draws low and I draw high so I decide to give him a run for his money and try to win the race. I deploy Ephant Mon first turn and let him go. His turn he draws. My turn he forgets to race and I keep piling up the AC. I deploy Mara to obis hut for the drain and let him go. (I knew mara would die but I wanted to make him waste his characters as far from the AC as possible) Mara gets her @#$% kicked and he plays advantage. Crap. He draws and sets up more force while taking court damage. I deploy more to the ac and draw. I take advantage loss, he takes court loss and we are pretty much even. He wins the race and swings things in his favor, by retrieving 10 and me losing 6. He keeps moving in, unable to drain and I keep piling guys up at the audience chamber, I draw a few and draw Kashyyyk which means i will get some drains going and if I do not give up the audience chamber I can probably win. He moves in for the kill with: Bommmar Monk, Ben w/saber, Lando w/gun, Qui-Gon and a saber, Jedi Luke. During my control phase, fett w/gun is disarmed. I activate and deploy Jodo Kast and we battle...here is how it goes. I hidden weapons ben, draw a 4 operate wtih evazan. He uses landos text to target boelo and he’s excluded. I shoot lando w/ dengar w/gun and operate. He swings and misses fett w/gun. I shoot bommmar monk, play jabbas through with you, and execute with evazan. So he is left with qui gon and jedi luke. I draw 4 battle destiny, and all in all he has to lose luke and qui gon. He looses luke and old ben’s him back and loses qui gon. I lose dengar and dr e. His turn he deploys another qui battles again and my multiple destinies kill him and make the guys die while i still have jabba, boelo and fett alive in the ac. My turn I deploy Bossk in ship to Kashyyyk and from there on win the game with my drains.

FW + 13

6 +16

Highs: Holding the AC
Lows: Having Fett disarmed and losing another podrace.

Game 5

My Council Mains vs. Rick Gaudioso (1753) Senate

I was worried about this matchup but I thought I stood a chance against it. Rick proved me wrong. He deployed the Coruscant system about 2nd or 3rd turn which was tech because by controlling it I could not deploy rebels to Coruscant locations. He canceled a drain every turn and drew incredibly high destinies. I kept trying to establish either a force on the ground or in space but it didn’t work because he kept killing everyone and stopping drains of mine while draining me for 2 at kiffex, then adding 3 to it with the political effect. My only saving grace the whole game was tracking on/off edges and playing it like 5 times to keep myself in the running trying to keep his differential down. Good job Rick, your deck shut me down.

FL –16

6 +0
Highs: Tracking well
Lows: Getting shut down

Game 6

My Court vs. Jim Brogan (1421) Tosche Mains

Well I thought his start seemed odd so I played a very reserved game. I set up ephant, boelo, mighty jabba at the audience chamber and had a few suicide battles on the ground to kill off his guys. He searched for something and I got to verify, finding about 12 destiny adders and 4 jedi presences. So I set up another site w/ fett, dr e and guri allowing him less destinies. I soon drew my Kashyyyk system and set up pressure draining there and for 2 on the ground and the 1 direct damage from court. I drew Galid soon after boosting the drain at the AC by one. He came down with a few people to the audience chamber but I killed them all and had control of the game from then on.

FW +20

8 +20

Highs: Playing well
Lows: Nothing

So I went 4-2 and here is how the 20 people finished.

1 Eric Hunter 10 (90)
2 Justin Desai 10 (84)
3 Michael Gemme 8 (58)
4 Stephen Cellucci 8 (33)
5 Ross Littauer 8 (31)
6 Michael Rodriguez 8 (22)
7 Michael Pistone 8 (20) -Me
8 Rick Gaudioso 8 (4)
9 Paul Maholick 6 (29)
10 Steve Brentson 6 (20)
11 Michael Schiemer 6 (13)
12 Ben Rodriguez 4 (-17)
13 Matt McGann 4 (-28)
14 Rich Hinds 4 (-35)
15 Jim Brogan 4 (-42)
16 Richard Dobson 4 (-47)
17 Peter Harrington 4 (-55)
18 Kenneth Alcus 3 (-74)
19 Johnny Rivera 2 (-29)
20 Wynand Rovers 2 (-77)


Props:
Rich for driving
Matt for playtesting
Dan Mailloux for helping me with the LS Deck
Steve Celluci for the game
The Numbs for the games
Rick Gaudioso for the game
Eric Hunter for DOMINATION
Justin Desai cuz he is cool
Mike Gemme for the same reason
Peter Harrington for the trade
Papa Ginos for letting me eat Taco Bell in there

Slops:
Rich and Matt for going 2-4 :-(
Missed exits on the highway
Papa Ginos for shutting down the bouncy ball machine