July 19, 1998 This was my first regionals, so I had no idea what to expect. When I walked into the conference room at the Holiday Inn, I was actually surprised at how relaxed the atmophere was. There were lots of boys/men milling about, talking, trading, and putting the last minute touches on their decks. Beakman and I paid our six dollars and just waited for the pairing to begin. I won't bore you with all of the little details, but the following is a report on the six games I played and how they went.
Game 1: I played my LS Hoth/Cloud deck against a JP Abyssin deck. Before the game officialy started, I counted the cards in his deck and discovered that he had a 62 card deck. After that got fixed, things got rolling, but he bever really got into the game. He started with the not-surprising JP/EtE combo. My plan was to stay put on Hoth until I could see what he had planned. As it turns out, I didn't realy have a choice, because this guy had at least five None Shall Pass in his deck and although Obi-Wan attempted to go chop Galid up, he got sent back to my hand *five times!!* Fortunately, I got all three clouds occupied, and a Gas Miner (accompanied by Kebec) on the ground. My opponent was apparently afraid to spread out in Jabba's Palace without an ability of four at each site, so he never drained me for more than four a turn. The only attempted invasion of Hoth came late in the game when Vader came down at the fourth marker, but a quick battle in whick the Dark Lord was targeted by Luke's Blaster ended things pretty quick. It took 27 minutes for me to win with a +14 differential.
Game 2: I knew that my dark side deck wasn't going to hold up very well, but I unprepared for the spanking I received in game 2. Both the LS player and I started with the Hoth system, and so I started with the Ice Plains instead. He started with Yavin and Haven. He played a very fast LS space deck, and I just couldn't keep up, especially since I had to keep an ability of four at each cloud sector just in case part of his space fleet dropped into the clouds for a visit. I simply couldn't find a third Hoth site that would allow me to put down a walker and play Walker Garrion, and later (much too late) I discovered that I had accidently left out a second copy of the Hoth Mountains. I was too afraid to deploy the Defensive Perimeter, because he'd already attempted to deploy a ground strike force, but Hutt Smooch sent Leia back to his hand twice. Only at the very end of the game was he able to get Leia and Momaw Nadon to block the drains on the ground (I guess it wasn't worth eating into his differential to deploy any more). At any rate, even with Imperial Decree, I just couldn't keep up with the force drains. Within 35 minutes, I'd lost by a whopping 26. *Note - this guy actually went undefeated until the last round, but then got the snot beat out of him.
Game 3: This was another game with my dark deck, but I have virtually no memory of this game. I know that my opponent had intended to do some sort of asteroid sanctuary/ space drain thing, but he never really got it going. I used the Obsidian 7, Obsidian Squadron TIEs, and the Death Star Assualt Squadron to mess with him while he desperately tried to find the matching pilots for his starships. My cloud drains were somewhat slowed by the fact that I had to keep an ability of 4 at each sector, but the bonuses on the ground helped a lot. This was the only time that I got Walker Garrison to work, but it really hurt the poor guy, and I won by 16 force.
Game 4: Thankfully, I got to return to my LS deck of flying H'nemnths for this one. My opponent started with JP but with All Wrapped Up instead of EtE. That was a big red light to avoid invading JP unless absolutely necessary. On my first turn, I managed to get a cloud sector and a cloud car down, as well as the Hoth War Room and an Ortolian. On turn two I drained at the cloud and at the war room, and he deployed Cane Adiss on the War Room. Fortunately, I deployed Luke with Anakin's saber and KFC. When I drew, I got the third marker and the generators, a perfect accompanyment for the fourth marker that was already in my hand - all I had to hope for was that he didn't have anything to delpoy to the War Room until I could get the shields up. As luck would have it, he didn't deploy to the War Room and I got the shield up, but there was now contraversy as to whether or not he could still deploy there. The first TD said yes, but two others said no - a very lucky break because the official ruling from RBL (made the Monday after Regionals) is that if Cane Adiss is deployed legally, it is still in effect even after the shields go up. With the Gas Miner and Keybec, I was taking six off the top of his reserve deck plus the stuff on the ground, and he was only getting me for five or six on Tatooine. Finally, he sent Bane Malar to the outtermost Hoth marker and moved him in one, but Obi-Wan and his saber, an Ortolian, and three cloud cars took care of that little problem. The rest of the game was force drains. He spread out a bit on Tatooine and ate into my differential, but I still won by 8 force.
Game 5: I knew I would lose this game from the very start. My opponent was ranked in the top 100 in the world, and I had played him before. His light deck started with Yavin and Haven - a good way to kick off a space/insert/ultimatum deck. Since we've already established that my dark deck left a lot to be desired, I'll just give the highlights. It took his first insert forever to come up and when it finally did, I canceled it with Torture (one of my two moments of glory in an otherwise painful game). He'd never seen anyone use the card before and had to read it twice before he blelived that I wouldn't be losing 9 force. His little space fleet kicked the hooey out of my cloud cars, and so even the cloud drains were down to a minimum. More inserts came my way and I lost 6 for NTMTO. My only other moment of happiness was when I surprised the heck out of him by delpoying the Death Star Assault Squadron in response to his Anger, Fear and Aggression, and wreaked a little havoc on a corvette of his. The next turn, another insert came up and coupled with the drains, I was out of it. I lost by 16.
Game 6: I was very glad that I got to play my LS deck in the last game -- too bad I lost because I was stupid. Without going through the whole stupid story, I basically drew one too many cards without realizing that Mosep was on the table. He was playing a Tatooine power deck with lots of sabers (fortunately, I got ultimatum in effect).If I had been able to traffic control on the next turn, I would have also drained for 15 and the guy would have been toast. Instead, I didn't pay close enough attention, and he won by 13. It didn't help that the guy was also a jerk. It didn't bother me that I lost to him (I lose quite frequently), but it really bothered me that he made me lose my cool.
So by the time the dust had cleared, I had 6 victory points with a -17 differential. It certainly wasn't an amazing performance, but way better than I had expected. But the coolest part was that I met a bunch of really great people. There were a few players from Alabama and Georgia who were as nice as could be (even when they were cleaning up the floor with our decks). I even met another female player who wasn't a weirdo - in fact, she's a TD in Alabama. Beakman and I are talking about driving up to Atlanta for the Open there. If we go, I'll tell you all about it.
Queen Jawa