Bespin and Beyond Tournament
April 11, 1999
Mega Comics, Gainesville, FL
This was the first B and B tournament in the Gainesville area, so just about everyone who came was playing in their first one. The sole exceptions were 2 veterans of the Jax tourney scene. Still, it promised to be a day full of fun and surprises. I wasn't disappointed.
Since Force draining was once again a viable option, I decided to go with Operatives/Clouds decks for both sides (Kirdo III for the Light Side, Corulag for the Dark). As I suspected, Operatives were the most popular decks of the day, but there were some pretty innovative decks besides. Here's how I did in each of my games:
Round 1: DS vs. LS Bothawui Ops
Well, I got to see right off the bat how my deck would fare against
another ops deck. Eric is one of the better players in Gainesville, and
his games are always a challenge. My starting Effect was Secret Plans
(sending Surface Defense right back into my Reserve Deck), and he started
out with Maneuvering Flaps. I'd been afraid of that. Cloud Cars would've
given me a hard time in the Cloud Sectors, since I had 3 Combat Cloud Cars
and 7 TIEs (all Obsidians) in my deck. Luckily, though, he only played
with Sandspeeders, so I had complete control of the clouds.
The game started off as expected, with each of us getting our objectives flipped on the 2nd or 3rd turn. It took me a while, but I finally got out Coruscant and ABCTTU before he was able to hit me for a lot of Force loss. He kept putting his ops inside the Sandspeeders to keep Bubo at bay, but the Ithorians weren't so lucky. He managed to kill one Bubo with Leia w/Blaster Rifle and an Operative, but I got another one out fairly quickly and kept harassing him throughout the game. Force drain -1 was taking its toll on me, as were the 2 Projections of a Skywalker he got out, but I was still draining him for 5 or 6 a turn when he decided to come down to my Forest with a couple of Sandspeeders (souped up w/Maneuvering Flaps), an Incom Engineer (adding 2 to battle destinies), and Harc Seff (using X Force to reduce Force drains at adjacent sites by X). He was doing everything he could to shut down my Force drains, but Vader w/Lightsaber and the Operatives proved too much in battle, and the Tibanna Gas Miner at the Forest was still letting me Force drain for one at each cloud sector. In the end, it was a Force drain race (he kept getting Ithorians out and could still Force drain for 2 or 3 a turn), but ABCTTU at Coruscant proved to be too much for him to overcome. Had he played with Cloud Cars, it might have been a different story. Full Win by 13. 2 (+13)
Round 2: LS vs. DS TIE Force Retrieval Deck
This game was against one of the Jacksonville players, so it was
uncharted territory for both of us. I started with Bargaining Table, he
started with Sienar Fleet Systems. I felt confident about shutting down
his Force drains in space once I flipped the Objective, but was afraid he
would have ABCTTU to shut mine down as well. Either he didn't have it or
was unable to get it out: either way, it hurt him big. I drew Maneuvering
Flaps, an op, some Cloud Cars, and a Cloud sector into my opening hand, so
things were looking up from the get go. I got enough ops into my hand by
turn 3 to flip the objective. He had very little ground support, but
managed to get down DVDLOTS to battle one of my operatives and a Tibbana
Gas Miner (Yikes!). He tried choking the operative and drew a 1 for
destiny, then I drew a 5 to take out Vader (which made me mad because I
had a beat down waiting in the wings). He then tried to control my Cloud
sectors, but there's nothing like a souped-up Cloud Car in the clouds
(except maybe 6 or 7 of them). Not even All Power to Weapons was enough
to avoid some serious battle damage. On the ground, I was draining
steadily for 6 a turn; but without a ground force, there was nothing he
could do about it. Full Win by 26. 4 (+39)
Round 3: LS vs. DS Corulag Ops
This was the match I'd been dreading since I found out that Mitch had
come down from Jacksonville. He'd won his previous B and B tournament
and, as usual, he had some unpleasant surprises waiting for me. I
started out again with Bargaining Table, he started with Den of Thieves.
Oh boy. We both flipped our objectives early on, and sure enough he got
out Coruscant and ABCTTU to shut down my Force drains completely (until I
was able to get some Ithorians out). He also got Bubo out to my swamp,
but I got down an op, an Ithorian, and Rennek (put in the deck for the
sole purpose of keeping Bubo from attacking). I also had Kebyc and
Tibbana Gas Miners in hand, but their primary function had been shot down
so I got them down to occupy sites with the ops. He didn't battle me on
my turf, but he did get down Chief Retwin to block one of my bona fide
Force drains (so now I was down to 2 a turn), compared to the 4 a turn he
was getting on Corulag. I decided to go over there and battle him with my
souped-up Cloud Cars (gotta love Maneuvering Flaps) and EPPs (which I was
finally starting to get into hand). None of the battles were decisive (he
had Skiffs reacting all over the place to off-set my power bonuses), but I
was able to keep him from Force draining for more than 1 a turn (which
Bargaining Table took care of) and he was having to deploy in abundance to
keep me from flipping his objective back. I was draining for 2 a turn, he
was draining for 1. Games like this just aren't designed to be played in
under an hour. Sure enough, with about a minute left I caught Chief
Retwin without enough Force to hide from battle, but I wasn't able to make
him lose enough Force for a Full Win. I was already ahead on Force at
that point, so the battle didn't make a difference. Time-out win by 13.
5 (+52)
Round 4: DS vs. Hidden Base
I was in first place, but the second place person [5 (+43)] was also
playing Dark Side, so it became a race. When I heard he was playing
Mitch, I couldn't help but feel for him. He was in for a long game (I
mean that figuratively as well as literally). But I still had HB to worry
about. I knew the only things I had to fear from this deck was LS
Coruscant, LS Kiffex, and EPPs. Kiffex I couldn't do anything about
(except for Den of Thieves when it came time to drain), but I held DS
Coruscant in my hand until he deployed his version. Meanwhile, I set up
my objective and got it flipped on turn 2 or 3. After converting
Coruscant to shut down his drains altogether, I just focused on my ground
forces, and didn't worry when he flipped HB. I still had a drain of 6
going after he was done cancelling all of my big drains (without a halfway
decent ground Force, HB gets eaten alive by anything that says Force drain
-1 on the flipped side). I probably shouldn't have deployed as much as I
did, but I was afraid he would hit me with a Swarm in the clouds, so I
beefed up my defenses there. After verifying his deck, I also saw
some characters, so I set up a destiny draw at each site. After that,
all I had to do was Force drain and wait for him to go on the offensive.
He was never able to. Full Win by 23. 7 (+75)
After my game, I had to wait and see how John did against Mitch. That easily had to be the most entertaining game in the entire tournament. LS Mains and Toys in battle against DS musicians is a sight to behold, let me tell you. It took 10 minutes just to sort through the weapons phase and the adding up of power (you thought Brainiac was bad? Nizuc Bek, Lyn Me, Umpass-Stay, Rappertunie, and a host of other musicians constitutes one of the most confusing and annoying power segments of all time). After the smoke cleared (need I even mention that a game with 2 or 3 such battles is bound to time out?), John had 6 victory points, so I took first place and the much-coveted DVDLOTS T-shirt. I think John got the better end of the deal: the shirt is way too small for me to wear (I'll keep it as a souvenir, though) and he got Han Solo and TK-422 out of his prize packs. Still, it was a fun day for everyone involved. Thanks to GAWD for running a great tournament, and as usual to our gracious host, Mega Comics.
Tycho