[TCG] WA State Regional Qualifier-Mini Tourney Report

When Joey Leake (aka Kryptos) won the SWTCG Gen Con Championships last year his playtest teammate, David Hsu, said: "Krypt0s, Taisen, and I went to the SW Championships today. To any doubters as to whether this game is all luck based, doubt no more.

The three of us got together last week and formed a team (Team Bus), putting our heads together and created a deck we felt would be good against the field.

The results? Krypt0s is world champion, I top 4, and Taisen comes in 9th (a travesty of unimagined proportions)."

I started with that quote from last year because I have always believed the dice were not such a big factor, but until last night I have never actually seen this fact in action. To detractors of this game saying dice are too random, that is just not true. In fact, it is probably the least contributing factor.

Last night, Michael Mikaelian (managing editor for Star Wars Insider), myself, and a few other guys (whose names I did not know) were talking about this outside the store between matches of the Tacoma, WA Qualifier. After seeing the many strategy options used, we were prioritizing importance of 3 game elements. Some said that most important went in this order; the player, then the deck, then the dice. Others said No, it was the deck, then the player, then the dice. Whatever the case, no one disagreed that the randomness of dice came in last as a determining factor. Player skill and a good deck overcame all.

At our Qualifier, 26 people showed up. Everyone there, including the TD, was extremely surprised so many were there. Everyone thought that maybe 12 or so would come because around here, getting organized play started has been kinda tough. (A regular group of 8-10 players play at Amazing Discoveries in Portland, but the Seattle area has been struggling to get a good turnout every week. After last night we realized it is mostly because we just haven't been organizing our player pool well enough.)

John Miller (#2 last year, losing to Kryptos at Gen Con and I believe top ranked in his area on DCI rankings) was at our qualifier and won the event with a sweep, winning all of his matchs. That alone says enough about the non-randomness of this game. If it were so random, then why would the #2 player in the world last year totally wipe the board and clean up? Obviously he has some crafty strategy and great skills to boot.

We played six 1 hour matches and it ended at about 1:30 AM or so (started at 6pm). I did not do so badly. I won 3 of 6 matches, placing #16 overall out of 26. #15 was my friend that came with me. Numbers 13-16 all won 3 of their 6 matches, but the first tiebreaker when players win the same amount of matches is a number based on your opponents ratings that you won against. So like in the case of my friend and I, before the very last match, I was #17 and he was #18. We both won our last match (I won it in 2 of 2 games, he won 2 of 3 games) and his opponent was ranked higher than mine (for the night) so he ended up placing above me, even though overall I won 2 more games total throughout the night than he did. I guess the second tiebreaker is the number of game wins total, including in matches that you lose, since you can still win one game in a match (or not). In all three of the matches I lost, I won at least one of the three games.

In 2 of the 3 matches I lost, I was within a hairs breadth of winning them and some very minor effect in the game swung the pendelum the other way. All 3 of them I had the potential of winning in some manner. What I mean by this is the games I lost were not slaughters against me. They were those close nailbiter games that can go either way. Like they say, almost winning doesn't count though. However I still am a bit bummed about 2 bad decisions in particular that were my downfall (but don't we all have those?).

One of these was a game where we were both very weak in ground arena (no space for me, I think he had a small starship) and I had Jango E, Aurra Sing, and Tyranus B in character. I

 

That sounds like it was fun. Too bad you won't reveal that combo, I really want to hear it!

 

I may just yet. I am thinking about it. I thought it was pretty cool but it has to be played just right too (meaning have to draw the right cards).

 

One of the combos I was talking about was brought up already on the Rebelbaser boards. It goes like this:

Here is a Darkside combo to control the Ground arena with only a few minor cards and shutdown Ion Cannon strategies. Then just choose another arena to concentrate everything else in (ideally Space). Win the game in 4 turns.

You need 3 cards to pull this off, but packing 4 copies of each one will make it easy and it should not be a problem. You could also pack other fish or draw cards if you want, to be on the safe side.

First, The Cards:

Tyranus's Geonosian Speeder Ground DS Rare Unit
Build 6, Speed 40, Power 2, Health 1
Tap-->Search your deck. You may take a Battle card from your deck. Show it to your opponent and put it in your hand. Then shuffle your deck. Play only during your build step.

Use this to pull......

Peace on Naboo Battle Card-Nuetral
Prevent all damage done by Ground units this turn. Play only before any unit in the Ground arena attacks.

So both you and your opponent can attack all you want, but all damage is prevented.... right?

But wait! You also have 1 to 4:
Stormtrooper Assault Team in the arena. Ground DS Common Unit.
Build 2, Speed 30, Power 2, Health 2.
Damage from this unit's attack can't be prevented

Then use any number of Battle cards to enhance the power of the Team, and even better, have a Squad Leader or two in the Character arena adding Accuracy 1 each. Clean up in the ground arena while your opponent sits helpless to use any Ion Cannon or regular Ground damage.

From the ANH rulebook on the three basic rules:

#2) If a card directly contradicts the rules of the game, the card wins. (But the card overides only the rule that applies to the particular situation).
#3) If one card says something can happen, and another says it can't, the "can't" wins. This applies only to contradictions between cards, not between cards and rules.

So it is perfectly legal and relatively cheap and pretty easy to pull off with the right deck (unless they eratta this).

A glaring weakness is that you must do it just right, and win the game in 4 turns, or you just wasted all that energy and strategy because you run out of PON and your opponent could then turn the tables quickly. Also look out for Bombarding. Maybe it is not really broken, but overall, this is a really good combo.

DesertWalkerAnakin

And I am going to go ahead and spill the other one which basically goes like this:

Picture this:
LS has one tiny Space unit, DS has none.
LS and DS are pretty even in Ground.
In Character LS has a stacked Leia and Jocasta Nu and DS has a stacked Tyranus, Darth Maul, Darth Vader, and Jango Fett, all virtually unhurt.
Then time is called and the Darkside has no more Force, nor any cards to get some.
It is impossible for the DS to win.