Well, it was no Tustin tournament, but what the hey! :) Thanks goes out to Chris Bradshaw for running a fine tournament and utilizing the tournament software to the fullest. Everything was so smooth; you'd never have guessed it was his first.
Unfortunately, the turnout was a bit low. There were only 16 players
there, but that's not bad for the first Sunday afternoon tournament we've
had. I do suspect that the numbers will rise once we go back to Saturday
mornings again. My decks were a LS HB/Xwing Swarm (again) and a DS
ISB/Speed (again). Game 1. My DS vs. Edward's LS Misc. Mains on Tatooine deck
Result: Win by 41. 2 (+41)
Highlight: Shutting his deck down. Giving him some advice after the game.
Game 2. My LS vs. Todd's DS Tusken Raider/Tat. drain deck
Result: Win by 37. 4 (+78)
Highlight: Seeing TRs at a desert on Bothawui! :)
Game 3. DS vs. Alex's LS Bothan Ops with EPP deck
Result: Win by 20. 6 (+98)
Highlight: Breaking the cover of a lone Bothan and beating it down.
Getting 5D6 right when I needed it. Catching ICBW.
Game 4. My LS vs. Zach's DS Nal Hutta Ops. deck
Result: Win by 30. 8 (+128)
Highlights: Eventually shutting down every single one of his drains.
Ending the game with 3 cards in the lost pile.
I take first place by 30+ differential and get a choice between a Darth
Vader, Obi Wan, SOS, Leia Organa, or GMT. I take the Vader but I didn't
get a shirt because this was Chris' first tournament and he didn't have
Decipher's prize support. Ah, well. Hopefully next time.
If you made it this far, thanks for reading! If you have any comments,
questions, or suggestions, please feel free to let me know.
Master Yoda <(-_-)>
Well, after the last tournament I decided I wanted to change things around
and try to run Imperial Decree in conjunction with 6 Rebel base sites.
But, his starting location of Tatooine had me confused, so I just started
with ABC. I really should have used Imp. Decree as it would have been
much easier and less risky, but what's a game without risk, right?! :)
Anyway, he has no starting effect, so away we go. A first turn SCrew puts
Biggs where he belongs, and shows me his deck. Hmmm. Sabers, battle
interrupts, suprise assault (2), and lots of locations. Well, I'm safe to
deploy, so I drop an ISB agent to the Hoth:DP and draw one. His turn he
just activates and draws a few. I activate, SCrew (later EPP Obi!), and
FD despite the Suprise Assaults. He draws a 3 so I lose one, but that's
cool with me. I deploy more, spread, and draw. On his turn again he just
activates and draws, but leaves quite a few. I think he's hoping that I
forgot about the Suprise Assault or something. Again I activate, SCrew
Leia and Chewie (but he's got Boshek left), and sees he only has one more
Suprise Assault. Good. I drain again, and again he plays SA and draws a
3. I lose 1 for his one (the SA) and I'm happy. I drain away the rest of
the turn, deploy more and retrieve an agent. On his turn he deploys
Boshek, and battles, and I just forfeit a Probe Droid to cover it. After
that it was just me draining away and him trying to get guys out through
my SCrews. Nothing much to say, really.
Lowlight: Hmmm. Starting ABC when it was unecessary. Not much, I guess.
Well, let's just say that poor Todd had NO Hidden Base defense. It was a
very cool deck that relied on battling, but when the LS can shut it down
without battling, it shuts it down cold. I started Rendevous Point and
Rebel Fleet, and he had JP:AC and Den of Thieves. He got Taym and a TR to
the AC first turn, but his one drain was cancelled by Rebel Fleet. I
started real slow and it seemed to take forever to get setup, but when I
did there wasn't much Todd could do. He seemed to take just as long
to get set up, but he was nickel and diming me for drains. Luckily it
wasn't anything a few ICBW couldn't handle. I waited until he lost two
Bubos before I started to deploy my Undercover spies and that really hurt.
About the only way he had to damage a space deck was Ability, Ability,
Ability, but the turn after he deployed it I cancelled it with 3 free
xwings to the RP (because I was tracking the ICBW). Traffic Control made
an appearance and after an AWRI retrieved 10 or so, I deployed the
squadrons and recyled 6 xwings. He could have really hurt me with Gaffi
sticks at the Tusken Canyon, but he kept losing them to drains. Bummer.
:)
Lowlight: Putting a beating down on a friend; luckily Todd was a great
sport!
Well, he started Bothawui/Farm/Bargaining Table and I started
Coruscant/ABC. I had not faced a Bothan Ops. deck to date, so I was
anxious to see how my deck fared. He got kind of a sick look on his face
when he read the gt for ABC (I think he forgot to pack starships in his
deck when he made it), so I had a good feeling. My opening hand was nice
with 2 SCrews which took out *both* Leia and EPP Obi (whew!!!). I
deployed the Cantina and a Probe Droid and drew one. On his turn he
dropped an Undercover Bothan to the Cantina and deployed a few guys to
Bothawui. Great. Undercovers didn't worry me because I knew he'd run out
of them before I'd run out of sites. That was until I remembered that
once he flipped it'd be drain -1 for me. Doh! Suddenly my drains didn't
look so good; sure, draining for 4 isn't bad, but draining for 4 from 4
sites sucks when you rely on speed. :) Ah well. He flipped the
objective on his next turn, but that was fine with me because I had been
digging for 5D6-RA7. On my turn I deployed the droid to Bothawui and sent
all his drains even further south. Of course, I still wasn't draining for
much, but he was draining for zero! To make a long story short, I kept
SCrewing his hand and Ghhhked away any EPPs that made it through. All the
while I was drawing trying to get Lt. Pol Tredium to wreak a little havoc
in the Cantina. Finally I got him and deployed 4 fellow ISB agents to the
Cantina with him to make my total there 8. I ended my turn by retrieving
a Probe Droid (destiny 2) and recycling. Nothing spectacular happened on
his turn, so on my turn I drained, caught ICBW, broke the Bothan's cover,
and beat him down for 15 Force. That was pretty much game. The rest was
just tactical manuvering so that I'd get a larger differential. You know,
Abyssin Ornament on ORS for 4 (pathetic) and dumping my hand with Reactor
Terminal, that sort of thing.
Lowlights: None, really.
Before the tournament I decided to include Dagobah/TPTIFF just for this
very reason. Haha! Zach and Alex are brothers, and I think both of them
overlooked the potentially damaging effect of this card. Zach also
flipped on turn 2 using Skrillings, Rodians, and Ops. My little drains
were either getting taken care of by his Den of Thieves (his starting
effect) or getting retrieved. As the game progessed he jumped out to an
early lead, and he started gaining confidence. But just because the deck
is slow doesn't mean it isn't good. Our game went long with his -1 to my
drains really hurting everything but a Revolution on Bespin, Kessel,
Coruscant, and Kiffex. But I managed to keep the damage to a minimum by
playing and tracking 2 ICBW per turn. When I had most of my damage
control counters out, he was unable to drain, despite having all eight
generic sites out on Nal Hutta. Rebel Fleet, two for HB, 3 undercover
spies, two ICBW, and TPTIFF made it very easy to reduce a drain of 16 to a
drain of zero. I managed to catch some Abyssin Ornaments about halfway
through the game, but he still had another one to play the retrieval text
despite having 3 stacked on the grabber. :) Anyway, as the game gets
closer to the end I max out the differential as much as I can by Traffic
Controlling, AWRI, and deploying squadrons.
Lowlights: Beating up on Zach when all I really needed to do to win the
tournament was just win. Oh, well. I should have asked. My differential
would have been high enough. :(
lfmitche@uncg.edu