modesto-ca-3-30-02-undead-strawberries

Title: modesto-ca-3-30-02-undead-strawberries
Author: Clayton "TheDohMan" Atkin
Date: Apr 1, 2002

Our story begins about a week before the tournament when Kevin Shannon and I are talking over AIM about decks. He’s got 2 very good ones that he’s been killing everyone with, but alas, he’s borred with them and wants to play something different. So we throw some light ideas at eachother. After much deliberation, and many playtesting adventures on my part, we came up with something we both liked. I email him the final version which we called Undead Strawberries Ver. 43.530.3x beta. I liked the deck very much, but I also figured that with both of us playing it, it may get too much exposure. So I put mine to the side and put together a standard WYS. Standard start is Squadron Assignments, Staging Areas, and Insurection/Aim High. Believe it or not, I’d never played WYS in a tournament, so I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about. When it was the hot deck around, that’s when I was playing TIGIH scouts. For dark, I’ve been messing around with Senate beats. It’s not really my style of deck, but dang is it ever fun to play. (insert props to Brian Fred here :)

So the morning of the tournament, Kevin is supposed to meet me at Denny’s for breakfast. I gave him perfect directions......too bad he didn’t see the restaurant and proceeded to drive through all of Modesto. Stopping every 5 minutes and asking for directions. Of course, it doesn’t help that there are 4 Denny’s in town. Instead of waiting, Melissa and I go ahead and order our food. Coffee comes, and no Kevin. Food comes (20 minutes later....damn crack ho waitress’) and no Kevin. We’re just about to finish our meals when he finally walks through the door with his brother Eric, and Dan Mochizuki. Since theres really not enough time for them to eat, they decide to just head out to the card shop and stop by In-and-Waitforfreakinever Burger for some grub. Melissa and I finish our coffee and head out about 10 minutes behind them. On the way there, she loots my wallet and proceeds to tell me that she’s going shopping while I’m playing cards. Go figure.

I get there, and Kyle Ishimaru and Peter Nordstrom are sitting outside. I ask them why they’re not inside playing and it went something like this, "Ummm, it smells like Pokemon players in there." Haha. Sure enough, the card shop has a Pokemon league on Saturdays that runs until 1:00pm. (when were slated to start) I know it sounds pathetic, but they have one pretty good size league going. I’d estimate about 25 kids or so were there. Kevin and his posse finally show up and we head in. Typical Shannon, he eats and then puts his decks together right before we start. Not a bad turnout for Easter weekend. 12 people total. No Feldman because the weather was gorgeous and I’m sure he was golfing. Shawn Ely couldn’t make it either because his family was doing a lot of Easter stuff on Saturday. But, Jeff Miller from the Sacramento area made it. As did a few players from the Bay Area.

So we start promptly at 1:30pm after we clear the Pokemon players off of 3 tables.

Game 1 WYS vs Garrett Klever (1500) Hunt Down Dueling

This is hillarious. One of the last changes I made to the deck was taking out 2 OOC/TT’s because nobody thought I would need them. Also, I took out 2 Jedi Resiliance and 1 Run, Luke Run! for 2 It Could be Worse and It’s a hit. Early on I noticed he was losing very high destiny cards, so instead of getting Luke on the table, I decided to see If I could do it without him. I ate Visage for the entire game, but my drains more than made up for it. I put Mirax at Kessel 2nd turn and flipped with Melas in the Cantina and Phylo at the docking bay. He came at me, but I always had the It’s a trap or Dodge in hand. (or lost pile) Epp Luke did make one appearance to clear the Emperor out of the Cantina while Vader was clear on the other side of Tatooine. Full Win by 11

Score 2(+11)
The Good: WYS is cool
The Bad: Listening to everyone who told me that nobody duels anymore
The Ugly: Kevin’s undead strawberries beat Kyle Ishimaru’s LSC racing by 35.....ouch!!

Game 2: Senate Beats vs Josh Mendonca’s (1610)EBOX

As soon as I see his starting stuff I think....oh crap. This could be ugly. It was, but in my favor. I flip first turn with Lotti Dotti and Yeb Yeb with the Holocam at the senate. Drop This is Outrageous and wait. 2nd turn, pull 3 and drop Sidious to a drain 2 site and Tikkes to the senate.....now I’ll have enough force to do just about anything. He gets EBO set up and in effect 3rd turn with Ishi Tibs and Baragwins, and a couple ships at the Hoth system. But in order to get it all set up, he had to use a lot of cards from hand......he’s down to 5. I activate and drain with Sidious, he loses one of the 2 from hand. Use Lott Dodd for a Limited Resources, drain him at the senate from the top, use the objective to pull 2 from his hand, then hit him with limited. He loses his remaining cards from hand. I draw the bottom card from my force pile with Tikkes, and it’s ability x3. (evil grin) With no cards in his hand, I deploy P59 to the back door, throw down ability x3 and draw. Got a Defensive Fire/Hutt Smootch in that draw. Before he activates, he pulls a system with A new secret base, and I immidiately put it into his used pile with Defensive fire. It was that kind of game for him. Full win by 23

Score 4(+34)
The Good: Getting set up so early
The Bad: Nothing from my point of view
The Ugly: He never got another system out and This is Outrageous took care of his one drain. Defensive Fire rocks...he said I pulled a system out of his hand on 3 different occasions.

Game 3: Senate Beats vs Adrian Seymour (1700) Slave Quarters Choke starts Scrabled Trans, Wise Advise and ?

Very difficult game. I got to verify his deck 1st turn when he activated for his Shocking/Grimmy. I knew this would be a loooooong game. I lost my Coruscant Guard early off the top and he took advantage. His activation was about 15 per turn, so he was able to easily set up a bunch of destiny 7’s with Nekkid 3PO. He’d deploy a high forfeit character to the senate and battle....I’d have to lose 2 senators while he’s just lose the character and a couple cards at most. I had the barriers to stop this, but alas, he always had the desperate reach to counter. I’d replenish the senate......and he’d do it again. We did this for a few turns, and I was started to get pretty thin at the senate. The last time he came down there, I had to chose between forfeiting my last Tikkes, or Lott Dodd. I felt Lott Dodd was more neccesary at the time, and I’d hoped to get Tikkes back with Squabling Delegates retreval. It never worked. Next turn, Honor hits the table and the drains that I’d been getting at the Slave Quarters and the Senate were now gone. I had the opening for a good beatdown with epp Vader on Shmi, but he was able to Nebrun out of it. I got caught without a sence or ghhhk combo......arrrghh!! Time was called and he had 24 to my 19. Timed loss by 24

Score: 4(+10)
The Good: Where? Oh yeah, Undead strawberries beat Peter Nordstrom in a timed win by 10.
The Bad: He just played a perfect game and had the cards when he needed them.
The Ugly: Losing the Coruscant Guard early. Now that would have saved me a LOT of greif.

Game 4: WYS vs Kyle Ishimaru (2084) LSC racing.

Usually, Kyle would start with the Box, but I think Undead Strawberries freaked him, so he started with the weapon pulling effect. I start Squadron Assignments, Insurection/Aim High and Menace. First turn, he starts the race and drops the Emperor to the Generator Core. I look at my opening hand and decide to go HardCore. Activate, grab a docking bay, grab Kessel, and make sure I got the right ships in my deck.....I do. Mirax goes to Kessel, and Melas goes into the Cantina. (flip) He drains for 2, but instead of comming after me, Arica keeps Melas company in the cantina. He draws, but doesn’t save any. Hit him for 3, deploy Phylo to the other DB, and move Melas over. I’m dogging him already at this point. "Is this all you got? Wheres the Lord??" His turn, race destiny.....which are totally sucking for him...1,1 and a 3. Drains for 2 with Empy....then he deploys Lord Maul to the Generator. He wins the race eventually and saves enough to retreive the 6, while I just It Could be Worse away the damage. Every time he came down to wipe me out, once again, Dodge and It’s a trap were available. Game came down to me leaving epp Han all by himself at a docking bay. He comes down with epp Vader and battles. It’s a trap again. So next turn I’m going to end it. PO’d Chewie comes down with Life Debt in hand....but I didn’t count on his barrier....argh!! So instead of putting Chewie out of play, I lose a force and put him into my used pile.....hoping that Kyle would initiate against Han all by himself. He did. Life debt chewie from reserve for free. I shoot at Vader and......Broken Artoo, Han nailed the sucker. My 3 destinies were 6,5,and 4....add 2 to each of them for a whopping total of 21 in destiny plus 13 power at the site. Kyle just dropped his cards and shook my hand. Full win by 12.

Final Score 6(+22)
The Good: I like WYS. The Shield keeps it somewhat in check, but it’s still very easily abused.
The Bad: Where?
The Ugly: Kyles dark Combat deck hadn’t lost in like 3 months, and it lost twice today.

We had to cut the tournament to 4 games because some of the bay area players had to scram, but the rest of us stuck around and played some pretty intence pick up games. I played the WYS against Jeff Miller’s That Things Operational stuff.....and it beat him too. Even though my stuff was getting shot outta the sky every move phase...ouch!

Final Standings:
Kevin Shannon 7(+83)
Adrian Seymour 7(+82)
Dan Mochizuki 6(+31)
Clayton Atkin 6(+22)
Peter Nordstrom 4(+35)
Jeff Miller 4(+7)
Kyle Ishimaru 4(+5)
Marc Tassano 4(-30)
Adrian Reading 2(-13)
John Mendonca 2(-74)
Garrett Klever 0(-73)
Eric Shannon 0(-75)

With the 60 bucks entry fee, the store gave up 24 packs of R3, and they donated the Foil epp Han and epp Obi box toppers. Pretty cool stuff. Hope you all enjoyed the read...until next time, peace out.