Grab your popcorn and drinks and settle down, because this is going to be a long one. Origins (for the three of you who don't know by now) is one of the largest gaming conventions in the US. Gamers come from all over the US and Canada for a chance to play in some of the biggest tournaments for their respective games. This year's SWCCG Open Qualifier was no exception. 147 people were registered for the largest SWCCG tourney ever. Before I get into the games, let me backtrack to the night before.
I went to Origins with Greg Anderson (Dwarf on the listserv), Pat Sullivan and Jeff Kehan. The night before the open, we struggled to come up with decks. I was planning on playing an HBO deck, Hidden Base Odds, and a Dark Dealing Troopers Numbers deck. As I was building the dark deck, I just couldn't find room for everything, so I scraped the concept. I went searching for the HBO deck, only to realize that I had left it at home! Doh! The only deck that was mostly together was a Harvest deck that gets chewed up back at the Game Parlor. I made a couple of modifications to the deck, then went back to working on the DS deck. I had been playing a Ralltiir Ops deck lately. Since I was confortable with it, I decided to go that route, but to take a different strategy, I took out all of the star destroyers in place of Dreadnaughts, and replaced all of the characters with Imperial Trooper Guards and Stormtrooper Cadets. Run this with Raithal and Numbers. The final piece was some unique troopers, Dr. E's gun and Blasted Droid. This combo was in there to protect against undercover spies which had plagued me last year at Origins. With the decks that I had, I would be happy going 3-3. Here's the deck lists:
"Lars Family Christmas"
Starting:
Mind What You Have Learned/Save You It Can
Dagobah
The Signal
Goo Nee Tay or Draw Their Fire
Locations:
Dagobah: Yoda's Hut
2x Tatooine: Lars' Moisture Farm
Tatooine: Obi-Wan's Hut
Tatooine: Cantina
Forest
Characters:
3x Owen Lars
3x Beru Lars
3x Ben Kenobi
2x Luke With Lightsaber
2x Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol
2x Leia With Blaster Pistol
Jeroen Webb - spy
Wedge Antilles
Effects:
Revolution
Wise Advice
Traffic Control
What're You Trying To Push On Us
4x Frozen Assets
Interrupts:
7x Harvest
6x Out of Commission - draw out the early Push card
4x Nabrun Leids
2x Don't Forget the Droids
Slight Weapons Malfunction
Grimtaash
Quite A Mercenary
Surprise Assualt
Sorry About The Mess
Troopers On Parade
Starting:
Ralltiir Operations/In the Hands of the Empire
Ralltiir
Twi'lek Advisor
Bad Feeling Have I
Locations:
Raithal - increase destiny of troopers
Corulag - force generation, Trooper Guards may move
Spaceport Prefect's Office
Forest
Swamp
Jungle
Characters:
Trooper Davin Felth
Sergeant Narthax
Sergeant Major Brusk
Sergeant Torent
6x Stormtrooper Cadet
10x Imperial Trooper Guard
Lobel
Starships:
Bossk In Hounds Tooth
5x Dreadnaught
2x Obsidian Squadron TIE
Weapons:
2x Dr. Evazan's Sawed-off Blaster
Effects:
Strategic Reserves
Well Guarded
Imperial Decree
Oppressive Enforcement
There'll Be Hell To Pay
Ability, Ability, Ability
4x 3,720 to 1
Interrupts:
Twi'lek Advisor (second one)
Ghhhk
Abyssin Ornament (go for Lobel or retreival)
3x Trooper Assault
2x Blasted Droid
The Open was supposed to start at 11am, but did not get off the ground until close to noon. Jeff and Greg were paired against each other (reminds me of DragonCon last year). Eventually my name was called and off we were.
Game 1: My LS versus Arthur Wright's (of NJ) HDADTJ deck
Arthur and I were a little nervous. The Harvest deck normally does well against Jedi Hunting decks, but lately I've lost to some of our talented juniors who are running this, so I wasn't sure what to expect. My opening hand had Jereon Webb and Wedge in it. He did not deploy anyone first turn. I deployed Webb and Wedge to cancel Visage. We came down with a Vader and a saber. Wedge was hacked, and he drew well on destiny, while I drew a site. I lost 6 cards. As the game progressed, Art had the upper hand. The early destiny draws were not going my way at all. I put out Ben and the Lars, and saved a little Force. He Elised over Vader and Tarkin, and I played Quite a Mercenary. I knew I was in trouble with this didn't even phase him. We battled back and forth but he still has a massive advantage. Once he had HDADTJ flipped, he canceled everything I put out. Even with MWYHL adding 4 to the draws, he had a ton of 1's in the deck. I knew that I would be able to use this to my advantage, if I was not killed off by drains first. Eventually, I manage to get a strike team of Ben Kenobi, EPP Leia and Han in the Cantina. No other characters were on the table. We puts down DV, DLOTS and Tarkin and starts a battle. His first action is to initiate a duel against Ben. I draw my first destiny, a 5 which he cancels with Tarkin's gametext. My next destiny is a 6! That brings my total to 14 (6+6+2, the 2 for Ben's text). He does not have the destiny adder and draws two 1's, to give him a total of 8. Vader is now out of play and he loses 6 Force. The battle continues with Tarkin against Ben, Han and Leia. Han shoots the Grand Moff, and the two destiny are a 5 and a 4. I won the battle 21 to 4. He lost 17 from the battle and 6 from the duel, and Vader ain't coming back. After a couple more drains, he picks up. I win by 17. We talked for a while, and I watched his cards while he ran to find something to hold his decks in (there was a deck check station for in between games). He was very surprised when I told him he needed the dueling destiny adder (he wasn't aware there was one). After joking a little while more, we reported the scores and I went to see how the rest of the gang was doing.
Cumulative: 2 (+17)
Game 2: My DS versus Jim Sells (of TN) Bothuwai Ops/Speeders deck.
This game took a while to get going. There was about 30-40 minutes of down time in between the games. Decipher was NOT using the tourney software to help them. Someone had dropped already, and this messed up the pairing below me. I had met Jim last year at the Yavin 4 regional. Jim had the distinction of having to play 10 games that day (a tie-breaker round for second place before the final confrontation). We joked back and forth for a little while. Meanwhile, two of the game's top players were supposed to pair off. They were not happy about in. In fact they made a scene for about 20 minutes about how unfair it was that they were paired up. What had happened was that there were several people sitting at Jim's record. They were upset because the pairings were not done by alphabetical order within same records. They called Juz over twice to bicker about it, but in the end Juz said that first round pairing were random within the same victory points/differential. These two players showed little class on the day, and made me glad that I was playing against Jim (a great player that's cool to talk to).
Eventually, we got started. He flipped on the second turn, and I flipped a turn later. I worried that he would come after me, but instead he set up Operatives, Ithorians and speeders on 7 sites. I lost my Imperial Decree early to a Force drain, and could only drain for 1 at the Bothuwai system. I came after him once, but he came down the following turn, played an ambush, and sent my cards to the used pile. The game did not last long after that, and I lost by 20. We sat and talked for a couple of minutes, I wished him luck on the day and I went to wonder around the exhibition hall to regroup mentally. In between games, I wrote to my girlfriend (who's in Canada) about the day. It helped gear me up for me next game.
Cumulative: 2 (-3)
Game 3: My LS versus Pete Flamini's (of NY) HDADTJ deck.
I wasn't too sure about my first impression about Pete. The first thing he said was to tell me my rating at the end of the game. I didn't know exactly how to take that. We started talking about how we got into the game and how long it took to get here. I wasn't thrilled to play another HDADTJ deck, but after my opening hand I saw Webb again with Ben, Beru and a Nabrun Leids. His first turn he puts down 2 locations and draws up. I save Force. He draws up some of his Force and draws the rest. I play Ben to one of the Tatooine sites, then Nabrun him to the Holotheather, then deploy Webb there for forfeit fodder. He threw down DLOTS against the pair, failed to choke Webb. He drew a 4 and I drew a 3. Not enough for either of us to lose a character (I brought Webb back). He moved Vader off to the side. I got some of the EPPs on Tatooine. He gets Vader and Tarkin to Tatooine, U-3P0 to block the drain on the Executor and we had a several battles back in forth. I was impressed with the destinies in the deck. This was not a dueling deck, but instead Mains and Toys with a good Sense/Alter package. In the first Battle with Vader/Tarkin against Owen and EPP Leia, Leia shot Tarkin. My other destiny was canceled. He ended up clearing the site, buit Tarkin was lost. In my hand were 2 Out of Commissions, and his lost pile had 3 cards in them, including Tarkin. I managed to pull Tarkin out of play and one other card. This was a fairly interactive game, and I slowly whittled away his characters and won by 19. We talked for a while afterwards, and he commented that he was playing HDADTJ because he thought it was the DS version of Hidden Base (easy to assemble, little thought needed to play, relaxing deck). I let him look through the LS deck since he was thinking of using a similar one. This was the second game where I did virtually no retrieving with the Harvests.
Cumulative: 4 (+16)
Game 4: My DS version Steve Brentson's (of CT) MWYHL deck.
It was impossible to get Steve into a conversation. This had me worried from the get go. He didn't joke or laugh, or even smile. He kept his answers to my typical questions short (the usual "how long did it take you to get here", "did you play in the YJCCG tourney yesterday", "how do you like Endor so far", etc). This was the third game in a row that play was help up for 15 minutes due to mispairings and people dropping out. They were taking 45 minutes to set up the next set of pairings. By this time it was 5 pm, and I'd been there for over 6 hours only to play 3 games. A lot of people were frustrated with Decipher, and there were a lot of comments about Decipher not showing enough trust in the software to run the tourney that way. I can see Decipher taking a lot of flak for how the tourney was handled. Anyway, back to the game. This was a painful game. He threw an early Surprise Assault at me which he drew a total of 5 against 3 characters. I lost my Ability^3 in that loss. I knew I could not drain on the ground, so I stuck to a couple drains in space. I caused some damage in battled, but eventually we whittled away my fleet. It took forever for me to flip, and it took him 3 turns to pass test #3. With no way for me to do damage, and with him retreiving the little damage I got him for, this was over before it began, loss by 32. Later I found out that Steve was ranked #9 in the world, so I don't feel bad about losing to a person when I had a deck that should had been scraped from the beginning.
Cumulative: 4 (-32)
Game 5: My LS deck versus Chris Libey's (of Va) Mains and Toys deck
Chris is a squadron member in my home region. We had talked throughout the day on how we were doing, and this looked like it would be a fun game. Chris started out with Tat:JP and Bad Feeling Have I. He activated 5 Force and searched for a JP site. None. He swore and handed me the deck. I was scared that he might be playing a Skrilling or Abyssin swarm deck, but instead it was lots of DS mains and Sense/Alter. On my turn, I picked up. He got up Vader and Tarkin and Vader's saber at Obi's Hut, and set up Jabba and Boelo with Mosep next door at the Farm. I revolved Obi's Hut, and went after Jabba et al, after the battle. Along the way Ben was killed off by sniper (Vader had moved over), and it looked like I might have to start over from scratch. He set up Bane alone in the Cantina. I hit him hard there with Ben, Webb and Beru, meanwhile Luke and Leia were clear out Jabba's Palace. Eventually, I cleared the table of characters and drained him out. We had a lot of great battles. I won by 17 (very consistent deck). I found it strange that the deck that got housed at Game Parlor went undefeated here. Chris said he was tired and would probably drop out. The north Yavin 4 group assembled. We were not having a great day. Greg and Jeff looked like they might go 3-3 with a win in the final game. Pat, Chris and Greg Poquis were dropping out to go get food (after all, we had not eaten since 10am). I was happy that I was guaranteed to go 3-3 on the day, and thought I might be able to salvage a win with the DS deck.
Cumulative: 6 (+1)
Game 6: My DS vs Jeff Podolak's (of NJ) Mains and Toys deck.
Jeff had won both of his games with his LS by large amounts. This had me worried, but I was happy with my last win and decided that I would play this game a little more reckless. He started with Obi's Hut, which meant for the first time since Special Edition had been released, I played 2 consecutive decks that did not contain objectives! My opening hand had a site, two stormtrooper cadets and Ability^3. If I was going to play recklessly, I might as well start from the beginning. I searched for the swamp, deployed the jungle from hand and both cadets to the swamp, deployed Ability^3 and finished the turn. He looked surprised, trying to figure out what I was doing. He was curious why all of us from Virginia were playing R.O., as he had not seen the deck played much up in Coruscant. He deployed Oola from hand to the Hut and picked up. I started to get more cards in hand. He put down Obi and Obi's saber next turn, and Luke Skywalker with Anakin's saber the next, all to the hut which was revolved. I got my objective flipped and deployed Wise Advice and Stragic Reserves, and got Lobel to the middle Ralltiir site. I canceled his drains at the Hut, while I set up the numbers portion of the deck. I threw out Raithal and handed him an insert. It came up shortly thereafter and then he realized the true damage of the deck. My total was 10 with the +1 from Raithal, while he had 3. I stung him twice more with inserts during the game. He put Gold Leader in Gold 1 at Raithal and moved to where my lowly Dreadnaught was at Raithal. Next turn I put out Bossk in the Bus and battled. I drew two destiny, a 3 and a 5, and added 1 for the objective. He drew a three, so I lost the Dreadnaught, but he lost GL in G1 and bunch more which triggered my last insert. Near the end I deployed the Imperial Trooper Guards that were in the Strategic Reserves, and retrieved for 6 (actually 5, since that's all there was). Jeff was impressed with the deck. He told me that this was the first DS deck to beat his deck, and I told him that this was the first LS deck that I had beaten. He admitted that he shouldn't have deployed so quickly to the Hut, but by the time I had flipped, I had Lobel out and he had deployed most of him mains. I won by 25.
Cumulative: 8 (+26)
It was after 9:30 before they started awards. Out of the 147 people that started, 94 finished. That sounds like a lot to drop out, but realize that this is a different situation. At Origins, there's always something else to do, and if you're not having fun, it's very tempting to go elsewhere. Decipher should take a lot of heat for taking 11 hours to run a 3 round event. Rulings were very fair, but the 45 minutes in between games was entirely too long. There were several suggestions made to the tourney software. Mine was that when the pairings button is pressed in the software to begin a new game, the program should save the previous final results as a temp file. You would then have a "backspace" button for going back to modify pairings. I do not see this as a huge programming obstacle. But then again, that just my own POV.
All in all, the Open reminded me of Special Edition as a whole. There were high points and low points. Some of my games were the most interactive and the most fun I've have in a long time. Other games were very non-interactive where one player just completely shut down another player. Now Endor is here, and I'm waiting to see how Decipher handles the first infinite loop that's in the set (a four card combo using 2 cards from Endor, one for Special Edition and one from Dagobah). Guess what it is and get the gold star for the day.
Statman