chicagoland-il-june-mega-tourny-report
Title: chicagoland-il-june-mega-tourny-report
Author: Al "MoTU" Schaefer
Date: Jun 16, 2002
June 1st and 2nd:
Not a whole lot to report here, the June 1 tourny drew 17 players to St. Charles including two of Indiana’s best, Shaun Clarke and Brian Fred, not to mention some of Normal IL’s finest, James Bottoms and James Paluska. These four guys combined with the strong player base in St. Charles proved for a fun and exciting tournament day. This tourny, however, was supposed to be like a pre-regional warmup event, but apparantly all the WI ppl have converted to lotr, or they just didnt want to practice against some of the best competition in the region a week before the actual regional. Go figure. Brian Freds senate decks for light and dark dominated the day giving him an undefeated record, while his buddy Shaun Clarke came in second with his only loss going to Fred.
The June 2 tourny in Niles drew a surprising 10 players, apparantly all the IL players who weren’t at St. Charles the day before decided to show up and tweek their decks for regionals. Although, surprisingly 4 of the players dropped after 4 games giving Frank Amador the tourny win even though he had 2 timed wins in the tourny. Pastimes in Niles, however, was having a gigantic magic prerelease that same day and there were over 150 magic players in the store. I felt a little weird that i was excited to get 10 ppl for my local, and there were 150 magic players in the same room.
the Corellia Regional
Okay, ever since they announced that the Corellia regional was going to be in Niles, i’ve been gettin myself ready for it. I was trying out every deck imaginable and playing just as much as i possibly could. I also ran 5 tournaments between may 1st and the regional to help give the other players in the area plenty of opportunity to play. Surprisingly, this would be my first regional ever. I’ve played in states and continentals and dpc’s, but never a regional. Imagine that, i’m prolly closing in on 600 tournament games and i never played in a regional.
The decks: I played my hidden base deck that i had based on Brian Hunter’s which he posted on gpn, the only reason i brought it was because i was sure that it could beat Brian Freds dark senate, but i’ll get into that more later. For dark, at the last minute i changed my MEGA combat deck over to the one that Brian Hunter posted on dtech, i know i know, i should really make my own decks. The only reason i switched was because i thought that hunter’s combat would do a lot better vs a solid wys than my combat racing or watto. my only regret is that i wish i had more experience with the deck.
Game 1: hunter combat vs Karl Harford’s (1891) jedi council mains with destiny adders.
In my very few pickup games with the combat deck i had noted that i was having a hard time getting decent opening hands. either i wouldnt get a maul, or a command or piett, or i’d draw everything that i was supposed to pull from the reserve deck, like the executor, the db, and sabers. the game started out okay, despite a bad opening hand, and i was able to get maul out on the second turn with stick. i drained a few times and karl deployed a few twix’s and goo nee tay and he drew like a ton of cards. i was starting to get pissed that i hadn’t found a command or piett yet and i wanted to get my space goin, but when i noticed the size of karl’s hand, i monnoked him lost and nailed a couple of han’s and destiny adders and then i knew what he was up to. i made sure that maul stayed at the "hit to used pile" site and i got the phantom menace out in play and drew for a stunning leader. still no command! karl finally came down and battled maul with some epp’s and destiny adders. there were a few battles, but stunning leader, ghhk, and i have you now saved me from losing my ass. except in one battle. there was one turn where i knew he was getting ready to come down and fight maul and all i had in my hand was more maul and other random characters (like merrrejick) and all my starships. he drains me and i top deck fondor, then he battles me and i lose the naboo system off the top. F.UCK! after that i was tossing space @#$% like there was no tomorrow and we battled almost every turn. karl wasnt packing the combat shield so maul gave just about everybody the jedi finger and i think that made the difference in the game.
result: FW by 12.
Highs: winning my first game of a big event always makes me happy.
Lows: not finding piett, command, or merejick in time to pull my systems, DAMMIT!
Game 2: hb vs Karl Harfords watto
great, the one deck that i auto-lose to. hb just cant stand the quick damage of watto and inspite of a good draw, i manage to screw myself out of the game. karl flips on the first turn with watto and a monkey on tatooine sites. in my hand i’ve got like 2 systems and r2 in red 5 plus a we wish to board at once. on my turn, i activate 3 and play WWTBAO to get hot jedi. activate my other two and i flash r2 to renezvous pt and get v-luke and aquaris. karl tries to watto on his turn and i just point to hot jedi. the next few turns i pull my systems and ships, and grimtaash karls ever increasing hand to reduce it’s size. i must have had a major brain hemorrage in this game cuz i really missed some major stuff. karl had a huge force pile after a while and he deployed the executor the turn after i flipped to kiffex. he probes, and no that’s not it but he moves to aquaris and that’s my hb. with the executor on table and all my destiny adding pilots hiding in my force pile karl now gets around hot jedi and i cant get rid of the executor. so i do something really brilliant and throw epp obi down to watto’s junkyard where watto and epp dengar are hanging out. karl probes aquaris and f.ucks my objective. ***this is my main gripe with hb. pretty much anytime i play against hb i have to probe every f.ucking system to finally get the right one. the last few times i played my hb, all of my opponents have gotten it on the first or second try no matter what. i had a few ships at kessl and a few at naboo when karl deployed the executor, you’d think he’d deploy the executor to one of those 2 systems, then move away and probe the others. he must have seen the barrier in my hand or maybe he just didnt want to take the chance. either way, i now hate hb more than i did when the tournament scene was dominated by xwing swarm hb***, i spend the 8 or whatever it is to put watto away and i take dengar for a few cards. then i notice that karl still has a sizable force pile and about 8-10 cards in hand. I’m about to learn the lesson of the day, and that is "when playing hidden base with matching pilots never, ever, ever deploy a character to a battleground site unless you have houjix in your hand" karl activates a lot cuz i’ve got kessel, kiffex, naboo, and all my other systems out plus karl is activating like 8 on his own. he drops watto for free from reserve deck, and then deploys epp maul, thok & thug, and a bunch of other guys that are all power a lot. he cuts obi and i get no destiny and the battle damage is outrageous. he thought for sure i had the houjix, but once i threw 26 cards to the lost pile he was like "whoa, i thought for sure you had the houjix" i on the edge a few of it back, but he’s damaging me for a bunch every turn now and i just cant keep the retrieval up and i lose by 32.
result: FL by 32
Highs: well i guess i learned something; hb hates me :-P
Lows: well, let’s see: aquaris getting probed on the second try, obi gettin bent for 26, and losing the game by 32. IT"S A TRIPLE PLAY!
Game 3: hunter combat vs James Bottoms’s (1853) hb with matchin pilots
I’ve played bottoms a couple of times before and i he’s a pretty nice guy. i know this is a matchup i can win so i go into it with winning in mind. once again i dont find command, or piett, or any of my space stuff early. but i do get maul and his stick to naboo on the first turn and he’s followed up by palpy and janus a few turns later. i thought for sure i could do enough damage to bottoms in the early game that he wouldn’t be able to come back from it. but he played it could be worse a couple of times and i already grabbed the all wings combo. i actually got some space goin in this game and i, surprisingly, probed his hb on like the second try, yay! luckily for me james didnt deploy the ultimatum shield cuz i was draining him for 8 at my 2 naboo sites. i think that if he had played that shield he might have won the game, but i didnt tell him that during the game. there might have been one battle in the whole game, unfortunately combat vs hb is not very interactive.
result: FW by 13???
Highs: well, i have a winning record i suppose
Lows: not winning by as much as i could have, that loss by 32 reall screwed my differential for the rest of the day.
After game 3 we got a half hour break to eat, me, mark couture, steve kuperman, and edmund gray go across the street to wendy’s for some grubb. kupe is undefeated and i think mark and edmund weren’t doin so great, but they were still havin a good time. a few more IL players wander into the wendy’s and we find out that Andy Chidester, Kevin Brownell, and Kevin James are also undefeated after 3 games. it’s pretty cool to see that some of the local players are doing well in the tourny. after wendy’s we all go back and get ready for game 4.
Game 4: hb vs Matt Scott’s Roomate playing Brian Fred’s MKOS
I think this guy said that he just learned how to play the week before the regional and he was borrowing decks for both sides. I wish i remembered his name cuz he was a real nice guy, he just didnt know what he was doing. after a few turns, i saw that he didnt know what he was doin so i decided that i needed to win by as much as possible in order to make up for that loss to watto. he told me in the mid game that he didnt have any ships so i just spread out and started draining like mad. then i deployed epp obi and quigon to tatooine and battled for a lot. i really hate beating new players by big amounts cuz i really doubt that that motivates them to play more, but this was a regional and differential counts.
Result: FW by 27
Highs: gettin my diff back in order
Lows: beating down on a new player never makes me feel good about myself, i didnt cheat the guy, but i didnt exactly help him either.
Game 5: hb vs Andy Chidester’s (1654) tractor beams.
Andy is a good guy and he plays in my tourny’s often, once again, i knew he was a guy i could beat so i played the game with winning in mind. He started fondor, so v-luke in ship went there like first turn, i pulled systems and piled up guys at fondor. for like the first few turns, all andy did was load up guys in the exe db and i was foaming at the mouth to draw an epp quigon or obi cuz i already had corran in hand. for some reason, Andy didnt know that if i controled fondor he couldnt deploy the executor so that screwed him for a few more turns while i got off a few more drains. i was retrieving with v-luke and mirax’ing and manipulating my deck all over the place for the entire game. andy finally deployed a whole sh!tload of star destroyers and pilots to the systems, and only a few of the sd’s had tractor beams. time was running out quick in this game and i didnt want to rush andy cuz tractor beams have a very good chance at beating matching pilots. i spread out and drained keeping away from his sd’s with tractor beams and cancelling his drains with the objective. with like 2 minutes left, i finally bit the bullet and battled one of his fleets with a tractor beam, he ended up losing a lot from the site, but dash got tractor beamed and i had to forfeit a ship and pilot. i retrieved it all back on the next turn with an on the edge, but time was called and the game was over. i know i would have won this game if it had played out, but hey whaddya gonna do.
Result: TW by 25???
Highs: uh, only the outrider got tractor beamed
Lows: the timed win officially screws me out of a chance at the final four.
kupe is still undefeated going into game six and i’m pretty happy for him cuz i thought he had a good chance at 1st or 2nd.
Game 6: hunter combat vs Jeremiah Himmelbrand (2006) wys
well, at this point i’ve lost my desire to win cuz i know i cant get into the final four no matter what. then when jeremiah drops goo nee tay and fulfills menace fades on the first turn and i have no maul in hand, i felt like drawing up. but i figure i should play it out and make the best of it. when i search my deck for a db, i find that atleast one maul is in my force pile so i draw till i get him. jeremiah had battle plan in effect the entire game, and because of goo nee tay and battle plan, and the fact that i couldnt find vader to save my life, he was draining me on tatooine with guys who wouldn’t draw destiny on their own. i really hated that. i finally got the space mojo goin in this deck, but the 10 deploy executor and the 4 deploy piett and the 6 deploy thrawn really killed me in the speed department. i drew into a lat damage and i was able to actually win a battle in space and satisfy battle order for the last half of the game. but jeremiah’s excellent start and conservative play kept me from having a chance.
Result: FL by 12
Highs: yay, the tourny is over and i dont have a losing record
Lows: not doing as well as i wanted too
Kuperman apparantly got jacked in game 6 and just missed the final four. Brandon Schele, from WI, however edged his way in. Now this is what sucks, Brandon got rocked in game 3 by brian fred and got to play against ideal matchups for the rest of the day. He played against his little brother, got to retrieve his whole deck with hb and v-luke. he showed me his dark deck, Set your course for A$$, the whole thing relied on elis helrot beatdowns. wtf! i dunno, i guess brandon is a good player cuz his rating is kinda up there, but come on, if i were to play that dark deck in a tourny, i’d play against wys in every game and lose each one by 20 or more. the only wys bradon ran into was brian freds in game 3 and then matt scotts in his final four game. o well, i suppose i’m just bitter cuz i didnt do as well as i would have liked. then, to make things worse, shaun clarke showed me the updates to the dark senate deck of doom, and it turns out that the hb i was playin would have gotten jacked by it. a week ago i think i would’ve beat it, but with the changes he and brian fred made, i really dont think it’s possible to beat that deck with hb (or any deck for that matter, it’s f.uckin good ppl). after the regional, about 15 of us went out to eat at benningans and we had a pretty good time talking about the tourny, what new v-cards the pc should make, and other stuff like that.
June 15 tourny in Brookfield IL
This is the first time there’s ever been a tourny in Brookfield and this is also the closest to downtown chicago i’ve ever gone for a tourny. You’d think all the city players would show up for this one since it’s so much closer for them, but no they didnt come. I drive in from the northwest suburbs, with no kupe today cuz he’s got to work, and Eric Olson drives in from the west suburbs. Edmund Gray lives about 5 miles away so he took his bike to the tourny, which is cool. Mike Stock is our td today and this is his first time running a tourny. So that makes a beefy four players to go at it in a store that looks like it should be a dentist’s office. I’m serious, i must’ve driven by this place 4 times cuz it looked like a doctor’s office or travel agency or something.
Anyway, the decks for today are hunter combat with some changes now that i’ve played it a little. pretty much all i did was take out fondor for bespin and i added another accelerate and the free executor effect, i forget what i took out, but i also added the fallen portal killer and i wanted to add the bacta tank killer, but i just couldnt find the room. For light i’m playin the deck i should have played at regionals, qmc with sac.
Game 1: qmc with sac vs Edmund Gray playing Olson’s rops
when edmund see’s qmc, he’s like "qmc??? wtf???" then olson goes "... he’s playing sac!!!" edmund; "sac??? no way, al doesnt play sac. sac is gay." we start playin and edmund gets a pretty bad draw, all sites and at-st pilots, he deploys a few sites and i bust out the ounee ta shield. i activate like a ton on the first turn and i get v-luke to bespin right away, but i activated all my sites! no matter, i draw a few and let edmund go. he deploys a few more sites and let’s me go. on my turn i drop a few sites, leia and corran, celebrate and flip. i’ve also got wedge rsl at bespin with luke, but not so many aliens on the table yet for me. edmund flips on his next turn and i dont get to drain cuz i haven’t gotten any aliens, but now that i’m pullin cards out of my force pile every turn i’m gettin everything i need into hand. first, quigon goes to raltiir and battles lone at-st pilot, edmund reacts with the chicken walker 2 sites away, but i sense and edmund say’s "that’s gay" and gives me the finger. at-st pilot get taken for 8 or so. later, boba fett in ship is satisfying battle plan for edmund so dash in the outrider shows up and takes him and 2 more. then zuckass tries to satisfy battle order but mirax in ship and han+chewie+falcon take care of him, and a few more cards. that last one got me the finger again. now because quigon is stranded on raltiir, maul and vader are pretty much dominating my cc sites and there’s not much i can do about them at the moment. i think i dropped melas on vader to get rid of him, but maul stayed in the game the whole time. i also ended up retrieving a lot cuz edmund blew his shields on sac protection and the grabber so i ended up winning by a lot.
result: FW by 32
highs: qmc with sac!
lows: i dunno, it sounds dumb, but i kinda hate winning by a lot. it cant be fun for the other person and it doesnt really make me feel that great about myself either.
Game 2: hunter combat vs Olson’s hb
olson starts dont do that again to f.uck my mob pts combo and a quick executor. lucky for me i have imperial command in my opening hand for the first time since i started playin the deck. i command for piett and put him at the exe db, he get’s merrejick and i see that all my mauls are in the reserve deck. merrejick gets the bespin system and i’ve got the free executor effect and the chimera in my hand. olson does some random hb stuff on his turn and is kinda pissed cuz he cant find v-luke. on my turn i look with merrejick again and get naboo, 4 mauls still in the deck, but i have enough to put the chimera to bespin (satisfying ddta) then i pull the executor and deploy it for free, YAY! olson continues with random hb stuff and i fish for maul on the next turn. it takes him a while to get himself flipped, and in the meantime i think obi tried to come down and attack maul, but then i do like hunter says and play stunning leader, then combat him for 4 on the next turn. i think quigon came down and tried the same thing, but i only had the force field then and quigon drew good destiny’s so both him and maul died, but maul came back next turn. i keep draining on naboo like a bandit and chase olson around in space, surprisingly i get his hidden base on the first try. we finally had a battle in space and the executor with a few pilots ended up jacking the falcon for lando and captain han. imperial command is such a good card. olson didnt get his retrieval mojo goin until it was too late and i end up winning because of it.
Result: FW by 14???
highs: yay, the first time i’ve played olson in a tourny since like February and i won! thank heavens he wasnt playing rescue the princess.
Lows: none, this was the first time since i started playin hunter combat that everything worked like it should, what a good deck.
Game 3: qmc with sac vs olson’s dark senate of doom
the dark senate of doom is pretty much a carbon copy of the deck that brian fred and matt scott and who knows how many others used at the regional. olson does some random senate stuff on the first turn and let’s me go, i get mirax in ship to the system and finish. olson does more senate junk and flips. i get my third site out and flip and celebrate. the next 2 turns are pretty uneventful, but by the end of it olson has sidious at a naboo site, and i have v-luke at the system with mirax, and melas is sitting alone at the drain cancelling site on cc, while epp leia and pucimer are at the non-battleground site. now i know that olson is gonna come down with somebody to butt-rape melas, cuz that’s what the senate deck does. but i’ve got the path in my hand AND two senses. so i figure that i’m set, epp dark jedi will come down and battle melas, he’ll path away and i’ll sense any and all counters. so epp vader comes down to melas and battles, i path, olson senses, i sense, olson senses, i sense, olson senses. WTF!!! olson had all three of his senses that early in the game. F.UCK! well, the battle continues and melas gets taken for a few, but what’s worse is that now olson has a BIG edge in the s/a department. and my senses are buried under the melas fallout well beyond the reach of early game retrieval. especially when olson see’s me counting my used pile and mirax’ing. he throws down his 3 shields, the grabber, oppresive enforcement, and do they have a code clearance. so now i cant edge if i ever want to retrieve with v-luke again. but since the grabber is all filled up and his senses are way at the bottom of his reserve deck, i get to do some sneaky qmc stuff. after i activate, i path pucimer over to a bg site satisfy battle order, drain for 2, drain for 1 at the non-bg site, and 1 at the system, then celebrate my path back, and v-luke aome other random card back. i got to do this like 4 or 5 times and things were lookin pretty good, but it wouldnt last. olson spread out on naboo and started doin like 7 damage a turn. i had to be careful to keep 5 or more cards in my hand so i wouldnt get limited resourced, but yeb yeb is incredibly good and kept cutting down my reserve deck. so all in all, there was one battle the whole game and a whole lot of gayness goin on.
result: FL by 12???
highs: keepin the game close even though i lost the sac war.
lows: uh, did i mention that i lost both epp quigons in the melas battle.
Game 4: hunter combat vs Edmund’s wys pods.
wys, no matter how it’s played, is still by far the best ls deck out there. i was kinda pissed in this game cuz i never got a second dark jedi down to naboo for drains. also, edmund got menace fades goin on like the second or third turn. keep in mind that he’s playin racing and his starting effect was squassn, so he had to draw into his menace fades or use a tunnel vision. the only good thing about this one was that i got my space fleet goin pretty early and zuckass took care of a lone dash in the outrider with a little help from lateral damage and a random 7 destiny draw. maul was draining by himself for almost the whole game and edmund was doin a lot of damage do me because he had guys draining on tatooine, and i could almost never get his ships to battle. finally i got arica down to block the drain at the cantina, and then choke vader took out some smugglers at db 94. eventually edmund won the race and retrieved some cards, but he wasn’t playin the aim high shield so he couldn’t get the neck and neck tech goin. luckily for me edmund lost some epp han’s and angry chewie’s early on cuz they never hit the table and i get a win that could have easily been a loss.
result: fw by more than 10 but less than 20
highs: not making a whole lot of mistakes and getting a win
lows: like i said, edmund could have easily won this game if he got his hands on the cards he needed.
So i win the four-man tourny, but there’s no prizes cuz this is Mike’s first event. I really dont care about prizes anymore, i just wanna play. Afterward me, eric, and edmund go get something to eat and talk aboiut the upcoming lotr regionals, origins, and gencon. lotr regionals sounds like it will be fun if i can borrow some decks, and i know i’m not goin to origins so gencon is lookin like the highlight of my summer. maybe if i do well enough at gencon i’ll make plans for d-con, but until then d-con is still undecided. after we eat i tell olson that i’m gonna follow him back to the I-55 cuz that sounds a lot shorter than the way i came to brookfield. then i almost crash into him on the way, but i just barely miss him and it’s okay. but then i get to I-55 and i find that the exit to 294 is still under construction so i gotta take the alternate route in a whole pile of traffic and it still takes me like an hour to get home.
all in all, the last few weeks of sw have been a blast. i hope the rest of the summer keeps up this kind of intensity.
Props & Slops:
Props to...
- Eric Olson and Andrew Howard for doin an EXCELLENT job of running the regional, you guys are the best.
- Brian Fred and Matt Scott, co-champions of the Corellia Regional, congrats on the win.
- Steve Kuperman for goin 5-0 in the first five games of the regional and then missing the final four; damn.
- Mike Stock for bringing sw to brookfield IL, hopefully we’ll have more for next month.
- Pastimes of Niles for being a cool place to have the regional, that store is so huge, why did we ever do anything in Normal???
- Edmund, Kevin B., Kevin J., Andy, Frank, Mark, Stephan, Darrel, and all the Chicagoland ppl who played in the regional, way to represent!
- All the ppl from MI, OH, IN, and WI that came to the regional, we had 44 at the tourny, and it was a real great time.
- my wednesday nite hockey team for finishing first overall, and winning our first playoff game, just two more games to go and we win the discount for next sessions entry fee. woo hoo!
Slops to...
- Brandon Schele, for playing Set Your Course for @#$% and somehow making the final 4, you are a champ.
- That waitress at Bennigans for giving the regional players a side of attitude, if you hate your job then just quit, dont go on pissing off other ppl.
- That bag of rancid old food from wendy’s that i found under my car seat yesterday, How long have you been there?
- My boss for not giving me a raise or bonus or "hey al, nice job" when it turns out that i doubled the productivity in my department and saved the company a ton of money.
- the IL expressways surrounding chicagoland, cuz they’re all under construction to some extent and they want to raise the tolls to like $.75 and they just arent that great.
i dunno, i better stop there. i often lose a lot of stars for @#$% that i say in the props & slops.
hope you guys enjoyed reading the report, if you havent had your regional yet, i would highly recommend playing in it. for me, it was by far the most fun i had in a tourny since continentals at gencon last year.
so keep playin sw, and support the pc, those guys are volunteers and they’re doin a hell of a job considering they’re not getting paid for it.
later,
- AL