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Author: Scott "CRingwell" Lingrell
Title: rcon-ii-day-1-and-before-director-s
Date Published: 2000-05-10
So it all starts out last October 9th, after RamapoCon 99 get over with.
I email everyone for feedback and get some good ideas to start with making
the next RamapoCon. The biggest problem was going about having it so soon
to the last one, 7 months. I decided though that if I was going to make
RCon a regular event, May might me the best time for it. After having all
winter to think it over, I started this semester at Ramapo and started to
get things underway. I reserved the room from last year for Saturday but
was not allowed to have it other days, after much negotiations I was able
to get some large sized rooms for what I thought would be three great days
of tournaments and fun...I was definitely right on that one.
So the next three months required a lot of travelling to other area to
promote the tournament. I ended up travelling to Clarks Summit (PA),
Columbia (MD), Long Island, Staten Island, Albany, Philly, and countless
promote the tournament. I ended up travelling to Clarks Summit (PA),
Columbia (MD), Long Island, Staten Island, Albany, Philly, and countless
other places. It was great travelling! I also became a human plug
machine for the Convention. Much thanks for George Gundry, Nathan Brown
and everyone else that plugged this tournament everywhere they went.
A big thing that happened as far as promotion goes is when David Akers put
information about RamapoCon II on Decktech. Kim Caton wrote a article for
me with the schedule and then David put it up for me. Thanks again David!
The big thing that happened to me and turned this into a great convention
was the Ramapo College giving me $2000 to help cover the expenses of
getting everything I needed to make this tournament as exciting as
possible.
Here is a list of the prizes I got for RCon II
Champion Trophy
-2-6 place Trophies for Main Tournament
-4 Team Champion Trophies
-1 Uncut Premiere Rare Sheet
-1 Uncut Common MofDM YJ Sheet
-150 Reflections foils consisting of Darth, DLots, Obi, Yoda, Falcon
-Signed Mara Jade Poster (thanks Bart)
-Signed Mara Jade and Mara's Saber (Thanks Nathan)
-Sony Playstation
-Jedi Powers Playstation game
-SW Legos that Tom Hermley Keen gave me
-other SW Toys/items
-Sebulba Foil
-30 YJ Rares that Lembo and Haman gave me
-Tons of booster packs from Austin Powers, Young Jedi, SE, CC and JP
-A YJ and AP T-shirt
-40 RamapoCon II T-shirts
-Chilis Gift Certificates
-Signed posters to random people signed by everyone involved in the
tournament
-Signed Tanis and Velkin cards by Kevin Reitzel and Juz Pakes
So after I was able to get all of the prizes organized I needed to get
events planned. After all was said and done we had these events-
2 SW Constructed Friday tournaments
2 YJ Constructed Saturday tournaments
RCon Championship (Sat)
No Such Thing As Luck (Sat)
Booster Draft Sealed Deck using CC, JP and Premiere (Sat)
2 Austin Powers tournaments (Sat)
RCon Team Tournament (Sun)
Looking for volunteers to run the events was easy! I actually had to turn
people away because I wanted to give the Squadron Members a chance to
play. Here was the list of people I had running events-
Rich Haman
Ted Panczyszyn
Chris Gogolen
Jason Lembo
Doug Faust
Plus Bart Robinson and Blythe Hermley-Keen kept everything going on
Saturday!
So after the events, prizes, and Rooms were ready it was time to get some
special guests...Justin Pakes and Kevin Reitzel happened to have some time
and was able to make the trip with Dan Bojanowski, The Virginia State
Champ. The best part is that they came up as Three Star Wars players and
not Decipher guys which was great because neither of them had had the
chance to play in a while.
So come Friday, I was able to stress a bit and get things ready to start
up. So Jonathan Chu and Charlie Herren go and eat with me, during that I
meet up with Todd Thiener, Craig Berry, and Mike Blythe but they are tired
and want to get sleep so they leave for the hotel until 2pm. So waiting
around and getting ready we meet with Tom Hermley-Keen and Mike Dalton.
After going to the room that the tournament was going to be for and
noticing that it was a sauna, I decided to find a different room. After
finding another room the first tournament Rich Haman started the
tournament with 12 people including my only tournament participation
during the weekend (besides a thrashing by Travis for fun on Sunday).
Onto the games.
Game 1 Anktopot vs Mike Dalton's (2010) TR Mains
Mike and I have played these two decks plenty of times against each other.
My guess is 10 times in playtesting and 4 in tournament play. The one
time in tournament play I won was in states and I knew he would get
revenge, not to mention stay away from the D* Docking Bay this time too.
I don't remember much about this game except the game was very close back
and forth with me taking out his Falcon with Zuckuss and Vader piloting
and him picking off Vader a few times. The big blow that swung the game
was me leaving Dengar by himself at a site...he dropped EPP Luke and EPP
Han, hit Dengar then drew 2 destiny...I was able to play Res Luk Rauf to
get 1 Battle Destiny and I hit both Han and Luke but I lost 16 force to
the battle...game over.
FL (-15)
Highlights-Hitting Luke and Han with Dengar
Lowlights- Losing 16 in that battle...
So I get to play Todd Theiner next. We played last at an 8th Man at DCon
at a 3am tournament...we played about 4 or 5 am then so we both don't
remember much about it. I do know we split those games though.
Game 2 Juz's Revenge vs Todd Theiner's (1723) Hunt Down
This game went really well for me. In fact, I had a Character named Tawss
Khaa single handedly beat the Dark Side. I had Draw Their Fire out and
retrieved 5 times I battled with Tawss. To make it worse I predicted
right in each of those battles and retrieved 5 more with Tawss' gametext.
I was so happy, I had Todd sign my Tawss. The entire game I was drawing 5
destinies and his were extremely low. Not much he could do, especially
after canceling Visage. Before the game Chu was talking about 2 Tawss
Khaa's aren't needed...during the game I was shouting out how much force
she retrieved and it made me laugh...I guess you had to be there ;).
FW (+25)
2(+10)
Highlights- Tawss baby! 10 retrieved force from her.
Lowlights- None
Game 3 Anktopot vs Jonathan Chu's (1983) LS Juz's Revenge (Twigg Style)
So I know I can win this game because my lightside deck can never win
against the dark...strange but true. I had Visage going the whole game
and great activation too so having Hunt Down flipped early made his life
miserable. I used my Holonet's to cancel his TT's and that kept Visage
going. Put All Sections On Alert is definitely now my favorite card. I
was happy that I made a believer of that Saturday out of Juz when he put
it in his deck ;).
FW (+6)
4(+26)
Highlights- Beating the eventual Two-time RamapoCon II Champion ;)
Lowlights- not winning by enough ;)
Game 4 Juz's Revenge vs Jonathan Chu's (1983) ROps
This game was maybe close for the first 5 minutes but after that I was
dead. My deck cannot deal with the forfeit bonus that the IAO and AT-ST
Pilots get along with the Reacts. The destinies are all two high with the
objective...plus he started Resistance. How could he not. This game had
some chance but having Tawss and EPP Luke stranded on Yavin draining for 0
and Obi-Wan getting lost in the desert on Raltiir didn't help.
FL (-20)
4(+6)
Highlights- Using Projections to cancel drains
Lowlights- Taking out the Tibrin in my deck...not that it would have
mattered ;).
So I scrub out against good competition and take 7th place and Charlie
Herren gets the Captain Han Solo Foil. I go and check the phone messages
because Bart is coming up by train...and he leaves one. I wasn't sure how
long he was at the train station so I grab Gogolen to help me pick him up.
On the way to the car we see Juz, Kevin Reitzel and Dan Bojonowski (VA
State Champ). We show them to the room and all of a sudden 28 people are
in the room when we get Bart back! Everyone started coming out of the
woodwork. The tournament would have been larger but some of the Albany
guys wanted to tech for the big tournament tomorrow. This tournament
went extremely well with a great turnout. Rich Haman helped me keep this
tournament organized! It was great to see Juz, Kevin playing again for
the first time in a while!
Earlybird Tournament #2 Friday, May 5th.
# of games - 52
# of byes - 3 (1 player dropped after 3 games)
# of DS wins - 24
# of participants - 27
# of LS wins - 28
1 Jonathan Chu 8(+93)
2 Mike Dalton 8(+59)
3 John Lolli 6(+62)
4 Jason Lembo 6+(48)
5 Joe Giannetti 6(+42)
6 Richard Haman 6(+41)
7 Charlie Herren 6(+38)
8 Travis Desell 6(+22)
9 Chris Gogolen 4(+33)
10 Doug Faust 4(+21)
11 Adam Kronfeld 4(+14)
12 Dan Bojonowski 4(+0)
13 Todd Theiner 4(-2)
14 Craig Berry 4(-4)
15 Arthur Wright 4(-5)
16 Michael Canavan 4(-6)
17 Manny Rodriguez 4(-14)
18 Kevin Reitzel 4(-19)
19 George Gundry 4(-21)
20 Bart Robinson 4(-24)
21 John Terkovich 2(-21)
22 Thomas Hermley-Keen 2(-28)
23 Douglas Ellwanger 2(-60)
24 Alexander Meseguer 2(-76)
25 Brent Haertlein 2(-88)
26 Justin Pakes 0(-48)
27 Luis Rodriguez 0(-57)
So after the tournament (Which Rich helped again with!) I did my version
of Kevin Reitzel's 'Because I can' prizes for some cool gameplay events.
One of which was Manny Rodriguez having 4 biker scouts, 4 bikes, 4 biker
cannons all at the same site. The best one however was Tom Hermley-Keen
using sniper with 4Lom to cancel Yoda's gametext so he could battle him!
After the battle he even captured him with All Wrapped Up. The top decks
in the tournament were again Hunt Down, ROps, and Y4 Mains. A big thanks
to Kevin and Justin to being able to come up and play in their first
tournament in a long time. I believe this was Juz's first constructed
tournament since 1998 in Austrailia. As for Kevin, not exactly sure ;).
So I gave away the Jabba the Hutt foil to Jonathan Chu and I had some of
the George Gundry 'special idea' posters signed by everyone and gave them
away. There was also a group of younger players that I gave some of the
extra packs to and each of them also got Tanis and Velken signed cards. I
gave away packs of Jabba's Palace and Special Edition, which made everyone
happy. Afterwards, everyone went home and I went with Juz, Kevin and Dan
to show them where the hotel was. We show up, chatted a bit about tech
and such for Saturday's tournament.
Best quote of the weekend for me happened as us 4 were walking back to
Dan's car right after the #2 earlybird. I asked Juz what he was going to
play for Light Side tomorrow (Sat) and he said, 'I am going to play Juz's
Revenge since someone named the deck after me.' He didn't realized who
thought of the deck name so I kind of smiled and said, 'Juz, that was me.'
I thought it was funny, guess you had to be there.
So Juz and I worked on his dark deck and light decks, swapping cards out
of my deck and into his as needed. Saturday was going to be a good day
for him and some of the tech he used was just plain awesome. At about 3am
I got into bed in time for my 3 hours of sleep. Friday night was great
all of us sitting around chatting for a while, Kevin was making his deck,
Dan was just relaxing and Juz was trying to figure out some secret
tech...that tech was to be placed in his deck for Saturday.
So sleep was a good thing at 3am. Day 2 report will be coming
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