Hi! This is Wraith from Gainesville and Minion and I just got back from a Bespin and Beyond Tournament at The Brandon Comic Shoppe in Tampa. It was hosted by someone you might know, if your from the Dagobah region, Rob Silmser (Gold 44), who hosted the last regional held in Tampa.
This was my first BnB tourney so I was clueless as to what to play or what to be prepared for so I just went with a couple of my old decks that I modified from BnB play. I played Local Uprising/Bothawui for Light Side and Jabba's Palace/Scum & Villainy for Dark Side.
The tournament was scheduled to start at 9PM, a regular time for Friday night tournaments there, but we had to wait a little for another player to arrive so we'd have eight players for a sanctioned tournament. The strange thing was, we'd (Minion and myself) come down with two of our buddies from Tallahassee (Chris and Matt) so we had just as many out-of-towners as Tampa folk at this tournament. When I asked our TD about the turn out he said they usually get about eight regulars on Friday nights and a larger crowd for Saturday tournaments, but there was a general feeling of apathy towards BnB tournaments even thou he'd only run two prior to this one!
Well, after some enlightening discussion on the Tampa SWCCG scene, we got our eighth person, Rob waived the $3 entry fee in honor of us showing up from out of town, and we began
Game 1: My Jabba's Palace Beat Down(DS) v. Matt's Local
Uprising/Bothawui(LS)
I plagued Matt with Womp Rats early on and then sent a force of Chevins to
continue the pounding, but ended up losing several Chevins to my own Womp
Rats because Matt began putting out Cloud Cars which Womp Rats find even
stringier than Chevin meat. I began to establish myself at Jabba's Palace,
while Matt drew cards. Then in one turn he put out the three operatives
with his Cloud Cars needed to flip Local Uprising and I found myself
draining for only three force a turn. I expected this and began a long
string of assaults on Bothawui using Chevins, Bubo (who got rid of the
annoying Womp Rats) and Bounty Hunters using Dr. Evazan's Rifle, but Matt
countered with drains at the Clouds and on the ground and when all was said
and done we timed out and had a natural tie!!!
Low point: watching Womp Rats eat Chevins
High Point: fun game all around
Result: Natural Tie 1(0)
Game 2: My Local Uprising/Bothawui (LS) v. Dan's ISB/Coruscant Clouds (DS)
This game was decided before it began unfortunately. Dan was caught by a
rules problem the whole game; he appeared to be unaware of the destinction
between Systems, Sites, and Sectors and so when he constructed his deck he
believed he could apply his ISB modifiers(+1 drains, -1 oppponent's drains)
at any location. I became aware of this when he tried to lower my force
drains on Bothawui using an ISB agent on the Thunderflare in orbit. To
make matters worse he had no battleground sites in his deck at all, only
systems, clouds, and Coruscant locations. What kept this game close was
ABCTTU countering my force drain bonuses.
Low Point: once again the rules get in the way of fun, ruining what could have been a good game.
High Point: none
Result: Full Win +2(+17) [3(+17)]
Game 3: JP Chevins v. Chris' Cloud City Celebration
Ah, we meet again young Skywalker; Chris and I have played countless times
(he got me into SWCCG) and this promised to be another epic battle. Again
I set myself up at Jabba's Palace while Chris struggled to draw sites. None
Shall Pass kept the EPPs away while I put Chevins, Jabba & Boelo, and
various bounty hunters on Cloud City. Chris held me off as long as he
could, but didn't get CC Celebration until late in the game, and he never
drew any of his three Pucumir Thyriss's. In the end I was draining for
eleven and he was retrieving three and draining for three.
Low Point: none for me, bad draws for Chris
High Point: playing that mental game of second guessing and bluffing you
can only play with someone your familiar with
Result: Full Win +2(+15) [5(32)]
Final Game: Local Uprising v. Minion's ISB/Dark Deal/Sandwhirl/etc. etc.
Deck
In the final game I needed Matt to beat the only player ahead of me
(another Tampa area TD) and a victory over Minion, who I've also played a
million times (we often construct our decks together). Minion started with
Coruscant/ABCTTU and got out Waakeluumi & Sienar Fleet Systems on his first
turn!!!, but I had a good draw as well and got both my objective flipped
and the ABCTTU canceled, using Spiral, on the third turn : ), Minion then
proceeded to destroy my small space fleet with TIEs, and retrieved the
ABCTTU. I got my full drains for one turn before he Twi'lek Advisored for
the ABCTTU and slowed me down again. From there on out I deployed
Ithorians and operatives and drained Minion while he hunted for Dark Deal
and the necessarry sites. Minion put down two Cloud City sites in order to
drain me before he could do Dark Deal, and I sent EPP Luke and Obi to dea
with that. Ine the end I got good draws and he didn't.
Low Point: ABCTTU got deployed on me twice!
High Point: I did cancel it early on
Result: Full Win +2(+25) [Final Result 7(57)]
Results: Matt failed me for the last time (choke, choke, aaaagh...) and I came in second, but I received the DLotS shirt since he already had one! We each received four Unlimited Premier Packs and Rob gave out Japanese a New Hope singles during all the game as side prizes for Fastest game, each kill made, etc. Minion ended up with the Japanese Chewie and out of the 32 packs opened we got Obi-Wan, Luke, Darth Vader, and Tarkin. After trading I ended up with a much needed Revolution and Minion ended up with Luke, Tarkin, Jap Chewie, and more!
As a side note, the reason we went at all was it was Chris' B-Day Thursday (he's old, huh, huh, huh) and he wanted to goto Busch Gardens on Satuday. We all had fun at the tourney and went home at 2AM exhausted, and yes we made it to Busch Gardens the next day.
I just wanted to say thanks to Rob and The Brandon Comic Shoppe, and if you want to reach Rob Silmser (Gold 44) you can e-mail him at HISSTKA@TAMPABAY.RR.COM.
wraith7