madskills-at-milford-ma-9-6-01
Title: madskills-at-milford-ma-9-6-01
Author: Michael "MadSkills84" Pistone
Date: Oct 9, 2001
So there was another Milford Tournament this month, just like there is every month. Wow. My friends Rich Hinds and Matt McGann decided to take a break from the game so they can play Raw Deal, so I had to work things out with my padawan Jon "Wow" Bragg to find a ride to the tournament. Well things were looking grim, and we finally decided to bribe Rich Hinds to give us a ride even though he wasn’t going (pay for his gas and give him a few bucks) but Jon’s father didn’t like that and gave us a ride anyways. Cool.
So since it was up in the air whether we were going or not, we didn’t playtest much so I just whipped 2 decks together and helped Jon build 2. I was using WYS and Dark Surgeon and built Jon a Watto (which i should have used) and he built himself a LS Senate after trying 9872149874932712349 decks to beat DS Senate (well LS Senate didn’t even work that well either but might as well try).
So we get to the tournament about an hour and a half early and the store isn’t even open. We are walking in downtown ghetto Milford and go to the busiest Dunkin’ Donuts ever and got some breakfast. Now I’ll explain the layout of downtown Milford. It seems there are only 3 things they have for sale in Milford, jewelry, signs, and places to make signs and laminate them. We past Milford Sign, Milford Sign Shop, Milford Sign Maker, Milford Sign Place, Milford Sign Laminator on this trip. Why they need so many signs you might ask? Because the town is so ghetto they are always getting stolen I guess. Then we past by a store called "Moron’s Jewelry", good old Milford.
Then we came across this old boarded up store that had the biggest spider-web on it I’ve ever seen with the biggest spider on it. But the spider was dead, and then an even bigger Spider came down to eat it, it was pretty cool. So then in the distance we saw the card store, a shining star in the sky of beat to hell stores of Milford. We got there and it wasn’t open yet, so we had to keep walking around. Jon saw the music store next door, and we walked in expecting it to be ghetto like the rest of Milford. Alas to our surprise we walk in to the biggest music store I’ve ever seen in my life. After walking around I came across the biggest case of Harmonicas ever. What a great idea, try out Harmonicas to piss the music employees off. Well I expected just to goof off with these for like a half hour until the card store opened and then just pretend I didn’t have the 5 bucks for one. However, after playing one, I was hooked. Can you believe they have Harmonicas that cost 100+ dollars? Hmmm, maybe in 6 months when Star Wars is dead???? Oh I’m rambling again. Well yeah I bought one and started figuring out some tunes and we went into the card store which was finally open.
We still had a little less than an hour to spare so I decided to look through their box of commons and uncommons. I found a few and went to buy them and the woman was like "they will be a buck each". Boy I wish I could get away with selling my uncommons for a buck each. Christ I’d like to sell rares for that much. I convinced the woman to let me have them both for a buck because I needed them that bad, and they would never sell SWCCG again in like 6 months. Well then Steve Brentson came in and asked me if I wanted to play a game, and I said sure, might as well get used to playing again.
So he pulls out Watto (which I played against at the last tournament) and I got my WYS deck. I’m not going into details here, let me just say it was good that I got that game out of my system because I sucked. To top it all off, my horrible luck was with me too. Hope this isn’t a sign of things to come.
Well people start showing up finally and we are about to get under way, some of the notables were Eric Hunter, Justin Desai, and Brentson. Notably missing: Baroni, Scheimer.
Pre-Tourney Stats:
Rating: 1735
Games: 98
Decks: WYS Solid, Dark Surgeon (No podracing, because podracing is gay)
Game 1
My LS vs. Joshua Loneau (1500) YMSYL
So I get a chance to redeem myself with the WYS deck. He starts with the marker site and uses twi-lek for YMSYL because he hasn’t bought much ds2 yet (he was making a comeback in the game he said). So I start Battle Plan/DTF, Insurrection/Aim High and Squadron Assignments. His turn he draws and says go. I start fast flipping 2nd turn. He gets out a walker and starts dealing direct damage while I am draining unchallenged all over Tatooine. I realized he wasn’t going to fight me so I just held back on my sites. I lost Menace Fades (doh) and he got off a walker garrison drain. Thank god for control tunnel visions. In the end I showed him how to track when I retrieved 19 with my edges.
Fw 2 +23?
Highs: Redeeming my WYS.
Lows: Losing Menace Fades.
Game 2
My DS vs Johnny Vegas (1550s) QMC
Nice. I get to play mista Johnnnnnnnnnnnnnny Vegas! He pulls out QMC and I pull out my AOBS and we both say at the same time "This is gonna be a good game". Indeed it was. I did not expect QMC in the meta, as this is a tough deck for Black Sun needing to kill Luke and their lack of space power. I dealt damage unchallenged in the beginning, but soon he got his drains and retrieval going with Cloud City Celebration. It is a pain in the @#$% killing Luke against QMC because of Path Of Least Resistance. Needless to say, I didn’t kill Luke until Johnny put him in front of my drain out of necessity. That proved to be the end, as we were both hurt by battle plan (he only had space, I only had ground) but I could deal direct damage of my objective. Wow, great game Johnny.
FW +4
4 +27?
Highs: An incredible game.
Lows: None it was an incredible game. Killing Luke would have been nice.
Game 3
My LS vs. Steve Brentson (1900s) Watto
So yeah this was the game we playtested before the tournament. Needless to say I played better this time but it wasn’t enough. Opening hand, I got nothing to use with Squadron Assignments. He gets the first turn flip, deals me damage lets me go. I just draw because I have nothing good yet. His turn he bluffs, I pay 2 and out comes Bossk to Tatooine. He backs Bossk up with another ship, and puts more people on the table. This came clearly comes down to him taking the system early and not giving it up. I fought with him on the ground but Watto can take over sites like no other.
FL –16
4 +11?
Highs: It was a good game, taught me a lot.
Lows: Not getting anything to use with Squadron Assignments.
Game 4
My DS vs. Steve Brentson (1900’s) WYS
Yeah in case you don’t know, WYS is the best deck. He did exactly what I couldn’t do in the previous game, set up space early. After he did that he just set up one site and protected Luke there. I threw everything I had at Luke to no avail. Not much to say here, he just kicked my ass.
FL –17
4 –9?
Highs: Nothing
Lows: Everything, my DS was a poor call.
Game 5
My LS vs. Ben Rodriguez (1600s) Endor Ops
Ben Numb is a cool dude, he and I have had our rivalry going for a while lol. It was a pretty standard game with WYS, draining all over Tatooine uncontested. Naked droid was a god for me this game, helping me get Goo Nee Tay and recovering from an early Overwhelmed in space. He played cat and mouse with the Falcon for a while but couldn’t establish any substantial drains. And then the On the Edges worked their magic.
FW +23
6 +12?
Highs: It was a cool game, recovering from Overwhelmed in one turn.
Lows: Getting overwhelmed.
Game 6
My DS vs. Rick Gaudioso (1799) WYS
So Rick, Brentson, Eric, Justin, Me and at least one other person were all using WYS. That’s 6 out of 14 people. Tell me the deck is not good. So I get a God start with Grotto Weribee to his Tat. DB first turn, Bad Feeling Have I and the flip. He took all the damage early, but turned things around by establishing himself in space. Then, in the play of the tournament, he used the Cantina shuffle to move Luke, Talon Karrde and Wedge in against my lone Emperor. He deploys Chewbacca. I used force lightning on Wedge and killed him. Wedge went to the Bacta Tank, and came back out, leaving Rick with one force to battle. He battles, I projective telepathy. Sorry Rick :-P But he continued to drain me and used It’s a Hit and controls to cancel my drains, shutting me down.
FL –12
6 + or – 0
Highs: Getting a good start
Lows: Having a crappy finish (just like the tournament)
Eric Hunter won the tournament going 6-0. Me and Jon went to the Bouncy Ball Papa Ginos and to our delight, the Bouncy Ball Machine is back!!!! I got like 82497528479527 bouncy balls and gave all but one to this little kid there. We played with the bouncy ball while waiting @#$%ing 40 minutes for the pizza. There was no one in the store, and the guy kept making pizzas, but none were coming out of the oven. Does their oven eat Pizza? I don’t know but I sure wasn’t eating any and I was mad. We kept waiting and finally the stupid blonde got us our pizzas and all was good and we left.
Props:
Justin for picking on someone who he thinks looks like Hitler.
Brentson for telling Eric how to "alternately" pay for a piece of pizza.
Jon for doing well in his 2nd tournament.
Eric for domination.
Hayes for sticking with the game.
Decktech for keeping the game going.
Bastian for giving me the idea for Black Sun (too bad I suck with it)
People who helped me with decks and playtesting
Bouncy Balls
Me
You
Slops:
The ghettoness of Milford
The stupid @#$%ing people at the Papa Ginos
Decipher
Have a good day