First Ever Outer Rim Regional Qualifying Tournament Held In Singapore
Well, the day started late for me, woke up at 9am (was building my decks last night :). I spoke to the Tournament Director (Kelvin) last night about picking up Matthew, who was flying down from KL this morning. Confirm arrival was 11am. Thinking I had plenty of time, I went to get his flight details from the PC. Realized that there were 2 different conflicting time of arrivals that he sent (10am or 11am) A quick check with the teletext confirmed his arrival at 10am aaaarrrrrrrrgggggg!!!!!!! After a quick shower and change of clothes (never been more thankful to national service before this) took my decks and spare cards (luckily I packed the night before --- but still forgot my camera :( and rushed to the airport. I was just in time as the flight landed about 5 minutes before I arrived. Greeted him and had some breakfast at Burger Kings before heading off to the Tournament Center.
We were one of the first few there and chatted for a while and managed to play 1 game where Matthew creamed my Yavin 4 Occupation deck with his Ewok deck. As there was a Magic Tournament going on as well on the upper floors, it was suggested that we start our games at the same time as the Magic players so as to minimise disruptions. The Tourney would start at 1pm. By then 11 players had shown up, including 3 who were stationed overseas.
I was playing a Hiddden Base Swarm w/EPP’s for my light side and an ISB Speed for my dark side. The deck list is below for your viewing pleasure with some strategy information.
Game 1: LS vs Hsi Chien’s Balanced DS Deck
He start’s Death Star and I get to go first. Yippeee! I Start dumping X-Wings at Rendevous Point and deploying systems. He starts deploying systems as well. By the 4th round we had practically every system from parsec 0 to 8 out. I start to move out from the RP to the systems and begin my drain. He deploys SD’s as well. I flip the objective and drain for 3 at Kessel he cancels it with Counter Assault, which I knew would happen as I was CA quite a few times from him before, I WYTTPOU it. (he never plays any more) He draws a couple of 7’s Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! Ouch! That would be 9 force I had to loose. This almost cost me my game. In it I lost my Traffic Control & an All Wings. For the remainder of the game it was battle and drains. For some reason he does not deploy to ground and he does not probe. I was battling and draining and drawing cards trying to get my second All Wings. Then he starts his mine game, said that he saw me loose both my All Wings. I drew until I had 1 force left, still no All Wings. (found out at the end it was the last card!) But I did managed to win the drain race. Win by 1.
Result : 2 (+1)
Highlight : Surviving with 1 force for the last 4 to 5 turns.
Lowlight : Not watching what I lost and getting sucked into believing
it.
I was paired with Matthew but just as we started after taking our starting hand the TD made a huge BANTHA POODU and the allocation was readjusted. Anyway we both seemed to have bad first hands :)
Game 2: DS vs Hsi Chien’s LS
Since we ended up in the middle, I had to play him again. Could not remember what really happen in this game but basically I drained at Coruscant locations while negating his drains with 5D6 and Probe Droids with restraining bolts. Win by 18.
Result : 4 (+19)
Highlight : Negating his drains.
Lowlight : Having to play the same person again.
Game 3: LS vs Matthew’s Y4 Occupation
Finally we meet. I’ve never played him before so it was a rather cautious game on my part. He gets Vader with an AT-ST down early. Once he move the AT-ST and Vader is alone I casually remark, ‘hhhmmm, good for a Lost In The Wilderness’, he doesn’t drain for a turn or 2. I setup and flip. He occupies LS Coruscant and deploys ships and stuff there cheaply some battles take place there he even had Blizzard 1 in a SD at Coruscant at one point. He can’t deploy Occupation as I was controlling Yavin 4. I drain him in space he drains me on the ground at 4 sites, 2 cancelled with HB text, cancel 1 with It Could Be Worse and cancel another with It’s a Hit. I deploy to ground with my EPP’s drain him out for 18.
Result : 6 (+37)
Highlight : Sucked him into thinking I got a LITW in hand.
Lowlight : His occupation of Coruscant space.
Game 4: DS vs Gerald’s DBO
This game would be tough as Gerald’s a very good player. I get my ISB’s down early and flip on Turn 2. He sets up at Dantooine and deploys Leia, Chewie and Ben at 3 different sites and flips. I deploy Probe Droid with Restraining Bolt, again negating his drains and stranding his main characters on Dantooine. Farmboy starts making an appearance on Coruscant but gets overpowered by power 5 imperials under nighttime conditions with 2X. He starts to control space with the squadrons. It was a close finish by being able to retrieve ISB agents during my draw phase I managed to out drain him. Win by 3. The 3 that I needed to use for my last 2 point drain on Coruscant as Battle Order was on table.
Result : 8 (+40)
Highlight : The look on his face when Probe Droid and Restraining Bolt
hit the table.
Lowlight : Loosing the air around Coruscant.
Game 5 : DS vs Daniel’s Ewoks Insertion
First turn I draw my cards, he deploys Ewoks and insert's NTMTO in my deck. Second turn Bubo hits the table and has Ewoks for Breakfast, Lunch & Dinner. I deploy Navy Trooper Vesden and 3 other ISB’s and flip the objective. NTMTO comes up and Vesden makes Daniel loose 6 (no further inserts from him). He Nar Shadda’s for ewoks until I TBHTP his Nar Shadda Wind Chimes. Bubo decides to go for a stroll on Endor, burping and farting until the ewoks stick it to him with a Spearman. The Probe Droid hits the table with Restraining Bolt and he looses some named ewoks to drains. He Surprise Assault’s my drain and draws some high destinies including a 7. I loose a few cards. I was still draining him while he was not doing much damage to me. He manages to purchase my Probe Droid with Wioslea I forgot that that was done during the control phase and loose some force. Next turn he SA my 2 force drain and with my 8 characters on Coruscant he could draw 8 destinies but has only 7 cards and with my power 5 imperials, he looses 7 force instead. Another Probe Droid hits the table again and it’s more or less all over. I win by 14. At this point I was the only undefeated player and was assured of a place in the finals.
Result : 10 (+ 54)
Highlight : Bubo strolling around Endor.
Lowlight : My droid getting purchased.
Game 6 : LS vs Daniel’s IS-Bay
Looks like I have to play him again. He starts with the Effect Imperial Arrest Order. He gets out all sorts of Docking Bays, there were generic bays, Coruscant, Yavin and Hoth ones as well. Imperial Decree kicked in fast as well and the ISB Objective flipped. I set up and flip my HB. I managed to get my EPP’s down and wiped out his ISB agents the objective flips back only to be re-flipped when he deployed 4 more agents. Started chasing his agents around with Docking Bay transits while draining him in space. I had kept some force each turn in case he probed and was successful. He deployed to Coruscant and probed (I thought he might have a probe droid) moved to Kiffex and it looked like he could not get to Bespin where my HB was and thinking he did not have any more Starships. Thinking it was safe I drew cards. Was I wrong. He deploys and probes at Bespin. Ouch! loose 9 force with Security Precautions and no force to use It Could Be Worse. I still had It’s a Hit and It Could Be Worse to negate some of his ground drains. Out drain him and win by 13. This makes me the only undefeated player going into the final round.
Result : 12 (+67)
Highlight : Flipping back his Objective.
Lowlight : Getting probed in the ass.(the only successful one) Ouch
that hurts.
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Well that was the end of the preliminary rounds and after 6 games and more than 6 hours of gruelling and exhausting continuous play the top 8 standings were :
1) Aldrin Long (yours truly)
2) Matthew Ting
3) Wai Bien
4) Gerald Chng
5) Beng Ti
6) Daniel Goh
7) Jesse Cheah
8) Marcus Lim
We took a short break and had some pictures taken and the prizes were given out. The Tournament Center guys gave some CC packs as extra prize support to everyone so at least no one went home empty handed. Thanks a lot guys, very much appreciated.
So now I had to play Matthew in the playoffs to determine who goes to World’s. We were both extremely exhausted and could not even think straight plus I had to send him to the airport to catch his flight back to KL and I had work tomorrow Monday. Hadn’t a bite to eat as well and my throat was getting dry. He had a bye in his last round so I figured he might be fresher but not so : ) Anyway I chose to start DS as he had not seen my DS deck yet.
Play Offs Game 1 : DS vs Matthew’s Fake HB
This game was filled with errors from the very start you can tell the concentration and strategic thinking from the other games were taking it’s toll. Firstly he started with Battle Plan but we both forgot to use 3 force to force drain until someone informed us. (that was like after 7 or 8 turns) Secondly, totally forgot to add to power under nighttime conditions on Coruscant.
I setup my ISB’s and flip. He gets down R-3PO on Coruscant where my spies are. A Restraining Bolt stops that. The only way he could get into coruscant was to fly in. And the only ship with enough hyperspeed capability to do that was the Falcon. So he loaded his Falcon and moved in to Coruscant, battled and we each took some damage. He landed the Falcon and I started to flee. He managed to evict me from Coruscant (everyone took a shuttle up to the resident SD orbiting Coruscant) but a Probe Droid with Restraining Bolt reduced his drains on Coruscant. I started to deploy and harassed him at the other planet systems. I deploy generic sites and went to ground to drain and block as well. I think the exhaustion was getting to him as nearing the end he did not draw his cards so as to reduce my differential but used 1 force to move his ship, this allowed me to dump my hand and drain him out on the next turn. Win of 14.
Result
Aldrin 2 (+14)
Matthew 0 (-14)
Highlight : Getting him to come to Coruscant.
Lowlight : Getting evicted from Coruscant.
Play Offs Game 2 : LS vs Matthew’s Y4 Occupation
We both played each other already with these decks in one of the preliminary rounds. So I could not really flip my HB as he knew where it was. My strategy had to change as I now had to really occupy Y4 before his Occupation sets in and I could not flip my Objective. So a huge fleet of X-Wings made their home on Y4. Again Occupation could not be deployed. Early stages he Alter my Rebel Fleet and S-Foils but I managed to get them back with All Wings. Damage was done with Do or Do Not. I think I did Noble Sacrifice Wedge to get more force back. But his drains on ground and at some space locations were starting to hurt. Lateral Damage was used rather effectively. I think I remembered he had a Monnok somewhere so I kept my hand size to 12 with Yarna on table. I had about 5 to 10 active force and 15 more in my force pile when he deployed Reactor Terminal and drew some cards. I asked for a count of his total life force. It amounted to 11. That was when I realized that I had to do the one thing in Star Wars which was not usually done, something that did not cross my mind until I saw his Force pile. It’s what everyone terms as the “Bastard Maneuver”. I activated all my Force and drew up all my cards effectively giving him the win of 11.
Highlight : Getting my Rebel Fleet and S-Foils back considering he lost
6 cards to get them off the table.
Lowlight : Doing the BM :(
Result :
Aldrin 2 (+3) {the guy who will now be best known for the BM : ) }
Matthew 2 (-3)
Enough to give me the title and a rather large piece of plastic. But seriously based on the game that was going on I think I would still have lost to Matthew but it would be close and I think I should be able to still loose by less than 14 cards. But being tired and we had a flight to catch as well as some dinner. I decided to call it a day and did the BM. After more picture taking I sent Matthew off to the Airport and went home tired (well more like exhausted) but happy.
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Personal Comments
*** Thanks to Decipher for letting us in the Outer Rim Region host a Qualifier. We hope to get a permanent spot and for more people to attend next year given that we only had 1 week to prepare for this tourney. Finally after 4 years we have been heard. The FORCE is strong and growing.
*** Thanks to the Tournament Director and Squadron Member – Kelvin, for hosting the tournament although he had to scoop up that rather large bantha-poodu on the second turn allocation. : ) or was it someone playing a Jedi Mind Trick as well as making some tight calls.
*** Thanks to the people at the Tournament Center for accommodating us and for providing the extra packs as prize support.
*** To all those who came given that they had to fly in or drive in or make a stopover before finishing their thesis or getting a break from ‘mugging’ for exams. If there was more time the tournament could be held away from the exam period. Thanks for the show of support to make this event happen.
*** My apologies to Matthew for doing the BM which I admitted to him even that it’s a F****** B****** thing to do, I don’t think anyone would like that happening to them. (I think I’ll just go sign off as The Big B from now on : ) On a side note, it’s a perfectly legal thing to do. Use it to your advantage. If you are up against it, depending on what you are playing, you can play smart and still use it to your advantage also and turn the tables.
*** Somehow in all my 8 games I only played with 4 guys, that’s like 5 other people who I did not get a chance to play with maybe someday fellows. (Gerald – 1, Hsi Chien & Daniel – 2 each, Matthew – 3)
*** Finally a big thanks to my wife, the love of my life, for the love
and support and for putting up with a grown-up kid. Hey Honey! Don’t vacuum
up those star wars cards just yet.
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Light Side Game Plan
My LS Deck centers on the basic HB game text, however it was generally suppose to drain minimally in space with the EPP mains going to ground for some battles before flipping the Objective. Of the 4 games I played, only in 1 game did it go as I anticipated. It was against Daniel’s IS-Bay deck. The rest I had to improvise as either too strong on the ground (with power stuff and reacts) or no ground locations to deploy to. Recycling/Retrieval was with All Wings, Noble Sac and Traffice Control. I was not playing with any SAC package.
LS_HBwEPPv2.deck
Locations (8) -- the sites were chosen for force activation except for
Kessel & Coruscant.
Bespin x2 (the hidden base of course as I notice most people
probe Kiffex first, so tried to put it far away)
Coruscant
Endor (might have used this as HB but for the Endor Objective)
Kessel
Kiffex
Rendezvous Point
Tatooine
Characters (8)
Han With Heavy Blaster Pistol
Kal'Falnl C'ndros
Leia With Blaster Rifle
Luke With Lightsaber x2
Obi-Wan With Lightsaber x2
Wedge Antilles (for anti-Drazin engines)
Starships (17)
Red Leader In Red 1
Spiral
Tantive IV
X-wing x14
Interrupts (17)
All Wings Report In x2 (retrieval)
Grimtaash
Houjix x2 (being a bit Kiasu)
It Could Be Worse x2 (for security precautions)
It's a Hit! x2
Noble Sacrifice (anti-Drazin and force retrieval)
Organized Attack x4
The Signal x2
Transmission Terminated (anti-Hunt Down)
Effects (9)
Battle Plan
Do, Or Do Not (SA protection)
Draw Their Fire
Mantellian Savrip (stupid most useless card should have used Bacta
Tank)
Rebel Fleet
S-Foils
Traffic Control (recirculation)
Ultimatum (anti-inserts)
Yarna d'al' Gargan (anti-Monnok)
Objective:
Hidden Base/Systems Will Slip Through Your Fingers
Dark Side Game Plan
My DS ISB Deck I went for speed and dropped some cards to get speed in. The Objective should flip by third turn max. You try to hold Coruscant (well I got evicted once) and prevent Rebles from coming down. There are a few anti-revo, nudj, civil disorder counters in there. I expected people to play those but saw none at the tourney. Probe Droids with Restraining Bolts to block drains. This deck can battle if needed, you could get deploy free, power 5 imperials which are immune to attrition less than 3.
DS_ISB_Speed.deck
Locations (8)
Coruscant (starting)
Coruscant: Imperial Square (useless bugger, should change to another
Coruscant site)
Spaceport City x2
Spaceport Docking Bay
Spaceport Prefect's Office x2
Spaceport Street
Characters (23)
2X-7KPR (Tooex) x4 (for power and anti-counter or surprise assaults)
5D6-RA-7 (Fivedesix)
Admiral Ozzel
Chall Bekan
Chyler
Colonel Wullf Yularen
Corporal Oberk
Corporal Vandolay
Fozec
Lt. Pol Treidun
Navy Trooper Vesden
Officer Evax
Outer Rim Scout x2
Probe Droid x3
Sergeant Tarl
Sergeant Torent
Tarkin
Creatures (1)
Bubo (the best pet around and anti-nudj)
Starships (4) (might need to add more)
Avenger
Devastator
Dreadnaught-Class Heavy Cruiser
Vader's Personal Shuttle
Interrupts (9)
Evader (anti-revo)
Ghhhk x3
Main Course (anit-frozen assert)
Oo-ta Goo-ta, Solo?
Twi'lek Advisor x3
Effects (11)
A Bright Center To The Universe (this did not work well)
Imperial Justice (anti-revo)
Presence Of The Force x2
Reactor Terminal
Security Precautions (anti-HB)
Sunsdown x3 (anti-revo card, yes it's anti-revo/civil disorder/nudj)
There Is No Try
There'll Be Hell To Pay
Devices (3)
Restraining Bolt x3
Objective:
ISB Operations/Empire's Sinister Agents