wenatchee-wa-1-19-02-episode-1-only
Title: wenatchee-wa-1-19-02-episode-1-only
Author: Ryan "Shadow 13" French
Date: Jan 21, 2002
Star Wars CCG Tournament
Episode 1 Closed Environment
Hosted by the Rebel Strike Team
(http://www.decktech.net/43)
Every five weeks there is a tournament sponsored by Wenatchee Sports Cards on 1006 Springwater in Wenatchee, Washington, and supported by the Rebel Strike Team, a Decktech group dedicated to Star Wars CCG and Lord of the Rings TCG. This time, we decided to have an Episode 1 only tournament, to sort of try out the limited environment.
As always, the Tournament Director, Jason "azreal6" Herrin, followed the time-honored rules of Wenatchee Sports Cards tournaments: 4 rounds with an unconventional point-based playoff system and no record of differential, followed by a "final four" 2 round playoff of the top 4 players. Jason insists that these tournaments are sanctioned and receive official Decipher prizes, but I was never asked to fill out a Command Card or decklist, or even record differential, so I don’t see how that can be right. One of these days, I’m going to take over the logistics of the tournaments and make sure that our players get official ratings and rankings in Decipher’s ELO system.
Another facet of our regular tournaments is the slack attention payed to the rules. Jason himself forgot to include Boonta Eve Podrace in his deck, yet continued to play Start Your Engines as his starting interrupt. I noticed another player lose Presence Of The Force from his hand, a card that should never be in an Episode 1 only deck. Seemingly insignificant rules like the ban on opaque card sleeves or the rule that cards must be transfered between piles one-by-one are not enforced. Supposedly, the lax environment adds to the fun of playing, but serious players may be frustrated by the details.
That having been said, these tournaments are crazy fun! We all have a blast, trading between games (sometimes planning trades during games) and just generally having a good time. The entry fee seems a little high at $10, but that’s compensated by the 5 pizzas the shop owner bought for our 11 players. The atmosphere at these tournaments is just awesome, and they are always a blast to attend.
OK, let’s get down to the details. I prepared a LS Senate Podracing Space deck that I’m going to post here on Decktech someday soon since it works so well. For draining, I’ve got Naboo, Coruscant and Malastair systems, combined with the Senate chamber itself and Sei Taria to add to them. For direct damage, there’s the podrace, Mas Amedda, Gravest Of Circumstances, and I Did It!. For canceling Force drains, there’s Plea To The Court, which seemed to be all I really needed in most cases. For retrieval, there’s the podrace and I Did It! again, plus Yarua and Might Of The Republic. Common situations had me draining for 5 and retrieving 2 every single turn, quickly outpacing whatever the opponent tried to do to me. And for battling I threw in Coruscant Panaka, Padawan Obi, EPP Qui-Gon, and Theed Mace. My main strategy was finish the podrace ASAP and drop Obi with backup at the Arena to control that as my battleground site afterwards. Meanwhile, control at least 2 of the systems for the 3 battlegrounds necessary for I Did It! to remain in action and Sei Taria to add to drains. Wash, Rinse, and Repeat, because that action just kicks the opponent out of the game. This deck never lost in the week of playtesting I did. Even when it lost the Podrace, it still won the game. During one playtest game I drew up all but 2 cards desperately looking for A Step Backwards...didn’t get it, but won the Podrace anyway, went on to win the game. That kind of action doesn’t happen in Open games...only Episode 1. So I figure this deck is no good outside the Episode 1 realm.
For Dark, I had Lightsaber Combat. I started with the Destroyer Droid force drain canceler effect and played 4 non-unique DDroids, 2 controls, and 2 of the LSC drain canceler to make up for having no space. I had 3 Sidious, 3 Maul YA and 2 EPP Maul, all the battle droids that mention Jedi in their text plus the Verify droid plus the P-droids. With that mix I hoped to just out-drain the opponent and make him come to me, and crush him when he did. This deck never won a play-test game, because it was always played against my Senate Podracing Space deck...but it came close. Oh by the way, I had a Defensive Shield stack in both decks, to which I added The One Ring from LOTR TCG, just for laughs. Whenever I pulled it out during a game I always got a chuckle...
The interesting thing about our tournament format is that we flip a coin before every game to see which side we play. In 6 games that I played, every coin toss I won I picked Light, every coin toss I lost the other guy picked Dark. So I played 6 games with my Lightside while my Darkside deck sat in a box. And cried.
OK, I show up at 10:30am and play a friendly 5-player game of LOTR TCG to warm up. I do pretty well, but at about 12:30 we have to quit just as Tom and Mike are at site 7. Maybe next time we’ll play a bit faster...Mike (my brother, who didn’t play in the Star Wars tourney but came to watch) probably would have won since his Fellowship was mostly intact and he was already in the leading few. I was way behind everybody, and they would never leave me enough Twilight to play my Nazgul on the guys that were ahead. Oh well...
First Game. I draw my number, they call the games, I’m playing Tom, the only guy I beat last time I played in a Star Wars tourney here. Last time it was my Court deck against his malfunctioning Ewok deck. This time it’s my Senate Podracing Space deck versus his Lightsaber Combat deck. I won. By 22 as I recall. Deck worked flawlessly. This was the kind of deck I trained against, and he didn’t have the drain canceling stuff I did.
Second Game. I’m in the winner’s bracket, enjoying my success. I’m up against Dennis "PCGSAlucard" Jeffris, playing Invasion. Invasion was the one deck that I thought could give me trouble, because it has a superior activation platform and starts with a strangle hold on one of my systems. My fears proved correct as I was unable to rip Naboo away from Dennis’s impressive space force, and I couldn’t quite manage to keep I Did It! active long enough to retrieve much with it. In fact, I’m so used to not having it active that I rarely remember to use its retrieval. Anyway, I lost. By 10 as I recall.
Third Game. I’m 1-1, feeling OK since I’m up against a kid that looks between 12 and 14. Probably 12. He’s playing Invasion too, but I feel a little more confident going into this match. Especially since he just learned the game not too long ago. And according to his last opponent, he takes FOREVER to play. That’s not good against my deck, because stalling could allow the other guy to win before I can get all my retrieval going strong. Well I pushed and prodded him along, and we got far enough towards the end that when time ran out I was able to slip in a few Used Interrupts to up my differential, and beat him handily by about 12. Side note--Jason tried to enforce the antiquated "Hands Down" rule, but I set him straight and told him I had to finish my turn.
Fourth Game. I’m 2-1, pretty happy since I went 1-3 last time I played here. Until I find out that I’m up against Earl in this last game. Earl. Earl who played Dagocheese and dared to win with it. Earl who carries his decks around in an ornate wood cigar box. Earl who is like 40 or something. Earl. I start sweating. Turns out Earl is podracing too, right on top of the Watto objective. Luckily I notice that he can only Force drain 1 at each site with that thing on the 0 side. So I buckle down, go for all the activation i can get, and throw Watto back every stinking time I can, retrieval or no. problem was that against his deck, all his ground power is already at Tatooine so I’m having trouble controling a battlegound site to use Mas Amedda and Sei Taria. But he doesn’t have any space, so we’re about evenly matched. He wins the Podrace with Watto’s Box on the table, but my Defensive Shield wipes the damage down to 4 Force for me. I get my space drain retrieval engine going, and eventually pull out a very close win. I can’t believe it! I beat Earl! I was sweating the whole game, watching every action and being as careful as I possibly could. But I did it!
Fifth Game. The basic four rounds are over, and I’m third seed going into the Final Four playoff rounds. 3-1, an impressive record for somebody who’s only been in 2 tournaments, placing fifth in both (5th out of five and 5th out of eight). So I’m up against second seed Jason Herrin, TD himself. He’s playing Lightsaber Combat with a faulty Podrace start since he forgot to include Boonta Eve Podrace in his deck (go figure). So he’s really excited to see I’m racing. In fact, he goes on to win the podrace, blasting past me and causing quite a bit of damage. He also pulled an unconventional move, one that he thought would cost him the game: He put Tatooine Darth Maul in his Infiltrator at Naboo, and consistently moved him to block my pilots from existing. I tried like crazy to get the Radiant 7 with a Jedi aboard out to wax him, but I couldn’t draw Jedi for anything. Meanwhile he was putting droids on Naboo and draining like crazy. I never really got my Senators working right, either, so I took a pretty nasty loss, although I can’t remember the exact differential.
Sixth Game. So I’m now 3-2, in the loser’s bracket facing Dennis again. The TD asks us if we want to play it out or go by "points" to determine the third and fourth places. I remember that Dennis beat me early on, so I insist on playing it out and he agrees. He wins the coin toss and goes for Invasion again. This time I’m a little more prepared for his deck, I get all my cylinders hitting, and I barely manage to put up a good fight for the Naboo system and the Throne Room. My efforts are rewarded with a win. Meanwhile, Jason and Casey had already finished the Championship game, Casey’s Invasion waxed Jason’s surprisingly powerful Gungan deck to take first place.
So I wound up in Third Place, highest I’ve ever ranked in a Star Wars tournament to date, and all of it due to my plucky little Senate Podracing Space deck. A stupid little tech-deck, built on a lark after noticing all the compounding bonuses from controlling a battleground site and system built into each component. That crazy deck went 4-2 and won me an LS Cloud City Lando, a foil IG-88 In IG-2000, a Limited Premiere starter (rares: Han Seeker and Thank The Maker), a pack of Jabba’s Palace (rare: Kirdo III), and a $15 gift certificate at the Wenatchee Card Shop, which I cashed in for 5 Lord of the Rings packs. Not bad at all.
Our next tournament is February 23, Star Wars CCG Open Environment. Check out the Rebel Strike Team’s page for more details as they are decided (http://www.decktech.net/43). And look for the Rebel Strike Team (alternatively called the Rebel Fellowship) to start producing Lord of the Rings tournaments in Wenatchee and Ellensburg!
Ryan "frenchie6901" French
Rebel Strike Team Founder