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Author: Michael "Longshot" Mendoza
Title: pleasanton-north-california-3-3-01
Date Published: 2001-03-05
This was the final tournament before the big Enduro here in
North California. For those who don’t know, Enduro is 4
tournaments (3 swiss & 1 sealed event this year) in a row.
Thus, you’re playing SWCCG for almost 24 hours. Nick
Stefanko was the TD for this event in which 19 people
showed, I think. It was also a nice change from 2 weeks ago
(where I did *really* badly).
I had decks made and read to play, and had made plans to
playtest against Kevin Shannon the night before the tourney.
So I head to Kevin’s house on the train and find out midway
there that I don’t have my decks. I’m worried I’ve lost
them or had them stolen so as I’m looking in my bag I miss
my stop. So I meet up with Kevin at the train station 25
minutes late, and with no decks. Turns out I just left them
at home, thankfully.
Kevin, being the cool guy he is, tells me I can use his
cards to make decks. But he doesn’t have the cards to make
what I wanted (he had lost his binder with many of his cards
in it). So I go with 2 of his ready-made decks: his MKOS
that he took to the DPC and his AITC/Sandspeeder deck. He
said he didn’t want to play those again, so I could use
them. I swap out his farmboy Luke for my EPP Luke (one of
the few cards I did bring), even though he was telling me
that Farmboy is so good in that deck. I didn’t buy it. I
also swap out DODN for Aim High. I expected to face many
Scum decks, but not much in the way of dark S/A.
We talk a little about his DPC experience too.....some crap
about a dice game and a brownie.....huh? And I show him how
to play battle.net using NetZero. Then we playtest and he
wins all but 1 game. I’m just getting used to these new
decks though. Anyways, MKOS starts No Bargain, POTH, & the
OE/TINT combo. AITC starts Aim High, Insurrection, &
Staging Areas.
Game 1: DS vs Stefanie Dittman’s RST
I soooooo expected to see Battle Plan, but thankfully she
never got it out against me. She tried once to come to Tat,
only to have her 2nd character bounced w/None Shall Pass &
have her other character beat down. Then she stuck to Endor
w/Crix, COK, & Wuta at a site, and Scout Luke w/Kensaric at
another site. I’ve flipped and am draining w/Gailid’s
bonus. She keeps forgetting to drain me, and I’m not really
paying attention either. I’m just trying to remember every-
thing my objective does. Its weird having played Court for
so long and then play MKOS.
I’ve got Scum & First Strike, so I deploy Dengar w/gun & an
Abyssin to Crix’s site, battle. I expected to clear the
site by shooting twice and drawing destiny w/Jabba’s through
with You, but I miss the shot on COK & he lives. I lose
both of them, she leaves Chewie alone. wtf?? Ok, I deploy
Mara against Luke & Kensaric, deploy Boelo to COK, Bossk in
ship to Endor (she has no ships there). Boelo battles, so
I retrive 3 & she loses 1, I lose Boelo. Mara battles, Luke
doesn’t have his stick & draws low, so she’s cleared & Mara
lives. Next turn the drains on Tat finish her. Win by 29.
2(+29). I’ve got the highest differential.
Best: Bossk draining for 2 at Endor cuz Mara was on Endor!
Worst: Not having anyone to deploy w/Boelo against COK.
Game 2: LS vs Alfred Dong’s ISB Scum w/ORS junk
Oh man, this is the worst deck a speeder deck can face. All
my drains were -1 on Tat since he had ORS at the Audience
Chamber & Lower Passages. To top it off, he got out Gailid
& POTF on *both* sites! I deployed CC: Downtown Plaza for
a drain of 2, but he dropped 5D6-Ra7 there to make my drains
-1. He knew better to come outside against a speeder deck,
until late game that is. Then he came out to battle some of
my speeders. The following turn I unloaded my hand and
tagged him for his characters plus 17. It wasn’t enough
though....he was just that far ahead. My T-47 Formations
helped, but I couldn’t match his drains......when he
retrieved 5 w/Abyssin Ornament and drained me out, that was
game. Lose by 8. 2(+21).
Best: The beating for 17 force.
Worst: I found out I had forgotten my EPP Luke. So I only
had 59 cards in the deck. EPP Luke probably wouldn’t have
made much difference though.......
Game 3: DS vs Paul McKelvey’s HB mains w/OMDH engine
This was a quick game. I flipped 2nd turn, and got all my
good charcters in my hand. So I’m draining in my JP sites
w/Gailid’s help, he sets his mains up outside at his generic
DB. Then Capt Han in Falcon & Mirax in Skate move from his
Rendezvous Pt to Tatooine. I can tell he’s getting ready
for OMDH. I deploy Secret Plans, and draw my 2 ships (Bossk
and Zuckuss in ships, the only ones in the deck). I deploy
the ships to his generic DB (which is between Desert Heart
& JP), move EPP Fett & Myo into the ships and they take off
to greet Han & Mirax. He drops Dash on the Falcon and
targets Han w/OMDH. My turn, I drop 4-LOM in space and draw
my 4 destinies (each +2). I clear the system and OMDH goes
lost. My big drains add up and quickly finish him off.
Win by 26. 4(+47). Now I’m #1 again.
Best: Clearing Tatooine in 1 battle and cancelling his 1
drain at the generic DB w/an Abyssin or Myo every turn.
Worst: None
I finish in time to watch Steve Daniel’s AITC speeder deck
lose to Andrew’s BHBM. Steve should’ve won, but he kept
forgetting to deploy Luke and was losing to Your Destiny.
Before he knew it he didn’t have enough force to even deploy
Luke (he only had scout Luke in lost pile, but he had
stacked EPP Luke! wtf?). So who do I play next game?
Game 4: LS vs Andrew’s BHBM
Andrew’s pissed he has to play another speeder deck. Well,
I deploy speeders everywhere since I figure he won’t be
dumb enough to let me beat him down seeing as how he just
played Steve’s speeder deck. I get some FAT drains w/T-47
formation. I deploy CC: Plaza and Back Door. I deploy Luke
to his Cantina (where he has Snoova w/Ax & Mara) and battle
but only kill Mara. I stack a card, then Luke comes back &
kills Snoova the next turn. Xizor and Guri go missing in
the desert from a Sandwhirl. He drops Vader to the Back
Door (Endor DB is not on table). wtf? Well, Luke can just
roam free on Tatooine then. Plus I drop Boushh to block
Vader’s drain. I’m draining for insane amounts, and end the
game with a speeder beatdown on Vader. Win by 24. 6(+71).
Best: Big drains, recycling Luke.
Worst: Stacking 2 cards.
Game 5: LS vs Dan Mochizuki’s MKOS
I draw a T47 Formation, so I deploy 3 sandspeeders to 3 Tat
sites, Hoth DB w/Incom, and hope he doesn’t mess w/them. He
doesn’t, and I get a 2nd turn drain of 7 w/T47 Formation.
After that, he draws to try to get his JP sites (I
converted his JP to start the game). So I’m ahead of him
in the drain race, he’s already lost quite a few cards. He
deploys to my Entrance Cavern though, so i see my chance to
strike. I pile the speeders on (engaging Flaps during my
control phase) and clear Xizor, Boelo, and someone else
along with 12 force. After that, he did some hit and run
tricks using Projective Telepathy (S&V was out) which
retreived a nice chunk for him, even though I had Aim High
out. But he had lost too much force early on and couldn’t
even flip his objective until really late in the game. Win
by 10. 8(+81).
Best: Big drains, big beats.
Worst: Having to deploy so much. Plus I had a rather large
hand.
Game 6: DS vs Dan Mochizuki’s HB mains w/OMDH engine
Basically a repeat of my game against Paul’s HB deck, except
this one was on the ground. I couldn’t draw my 2 ships, so
I focused on ground beats. He deployed or started Menace
Fades, and dropped Tawss to my Palace 1st turn, so I
couldn’t pull my Lower Passages. I wait and draw some (I
want to flip in 1 turn), he drains me. Later, I flip and
battle him to make him lose Tawss and 2 more. He saves &
drops a bunch of guys to my Lower Passages, and I run out of
None Shall Passes. Then he deploys Ackbar & Corran aboard
the Falcon at Tat. Great, now Menace Fades is in effect.
But its not in effect for long. We play around in JP for a
while....Ben keeps reviving guys and Chewie is blanking
4-LOMs text but luckiliy I’m drawing high enough to make him
lose 2-3 guys per battle. Finally I draw another Fett & IG
w/guns (they had died earlier), and I beat down the few guys
he has remaining. He loses everyone and another 12. Myo &
Boelo had been helping in cancelling battle destinies, and I
was just eating his big drain of 1 at Tatooine. S&V and
First Strike really helped me retrieve much of my lost pile.
Win by 26. 10(+107). As Dan and I were playing that game,
I found out that no one had more than 8 victory pts, so if I
won I would take 1st place. It felt good especially after
my 2-4 performance 2 weeks ago. This was my 1st tourney win
in the Northern CA scene.
Best: Great battles...and I won most of them.
Worst: Him retrieving 7 w/OMDH & another 5 w/On the Edge.
Nick provided some really good prizes (Reflections AND
Reflections 2 packs for almost everyone!), and he gave me
the choice between a Veers tshirt or Signal foil. Everyone
told me to pick the foil cuz I could sell it for $$$$, so I
picked it but I don’t think I’ll sell it. Unfortunately, I
didn’t get any packs though. Thanks for reading, watch for
my Enduro TR next week.....we’ll see what 24 hours of SWCCG
does to the human body!
Props:
Big Kevin Shannon for his truly awesome decks.
Nick Stefanko for another cool tourney.
Alfred for keeping me in check with that one loss.
Decipher for sending me my YAB foil.
Slops:
Kevin for trying to tell me to play Farmboy.
Northern CA weather for raining on the way home.
Me for making Kevin wait 25 minutes at the station.
Me for forgetting my decks at home, thus not letting me
test them for Enduro. |
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