Battle for the Force

Greeting, followers of both sides of the Force. We bring you our second article this summer, the report of the "Battle for the Force European Championship". We hope you enjoy it!

Unfinished businesses…

The most of you perhaps remember that the first SW LCG European Championship was going to be celebrated in 2014, but in the end European tournaments were sadly cancelled. In Spain we were lucky to attend the "Sombras sobre Tatooine" ("Shadows over Tatooine"), an event organized by players from Madrid and Barcelona and a demonstration of the power of a community that was hungry for great events. However, 2014 left us a couple of unfinished businesses: First, the European Championship. 2015 was running and there was no notice of the tournament.  Second, it seemed that Barcelona had lost its status as a rendezvous point for the unofficial circuit. Until September.
"Battle for the Force" rose as the solution for this two matters.

Erebus ready to start the tournament

Following the Jedi Code

"Battle for the Force" was a great success in everything concerning me as a player: organization, participation and atmosphere. The tournament was announced with enough time to allow our presence there and after that the organizers gave us enough bits of information in order to keep our hype high. Prizes were cool, and the idea of the Bye Kits was great because it increased our desire to play and gave us an excuse to organize new tournaments. The event was fluid, the timetables were comfortable, and the information about scores, time, rounds and players positions was complete.

Information was complete from the hall to the last round

Attendance was about thirty players. We always want more, but we now that last minute  cancellations and forced absences are inevitable. Players came from UK, Poland, France. Latvia and Spain, so we had the chance of live a real international experience. Personally, I played with two Polish, one English and three Spanish players (one from Madrid and two from Barcelona) so my experience was perfect.

The atmosphere was great. We could breath the anxiety. That was the class of tournament that you want no play not only for the prizes. You want to do it well, and you are worry about how other players will play, how your decks will work and about all this aspects of a great event like this.

I want to remark the importance of living this tournament  with my partners from Madrid: the "Toxic Team" (Berith, Erebus, Soseth, Ikari, Noel, Kylar and Raxar). We shared breakfast time, registration, lunch, and even a ‘fratricide’ duel (I played with Noel at 4^th round) and a lot of fun.

All the players from Madrid

But my first nice surprise of the tournament came in the first round when I knew that I had to play with a Polish player, Boreas, who gave me a playset of the Force Lightning promo in Polish. Thank you Boreas, I had included them in my Sith deck as a treasured souvenir of this day. I want to thank Soseth the couple of Jawas promo that I gave Boreas in return, because I did not bring any card besides my decks.

                                  Dziękuję, Boreas!

I enjoyed playing a lot. Those who know me know that I was really annoyed with the actual meta (with an absolute domination of Navy decks) but Battle for the Force returned to me everything that I love about this game. There was great variety of decks and play styles. I enjoyed specially two matches, despite losing them: the first one with Noel (he with LS) that was decided in the last turn, in the last edge battle, and the second one with Fiore (if I remember it well) who destroyed me with his TIEs.

Some prizes. They are very cool

I wish to finish this giving thanks: Thanks to all the players who made this tournament the great event that was and thanks to the organizers who worked very hard to give us a weekend of fun. Also, I want to thank specially to three people who could not attend the tournament but they were with me all the time: Kvothe, who was supporting me all day through Whatsapp; Gylderon, who played with me all the Friday evening (and part of the night) and gave me two priceless counsels to improve my decks.; and Saibot, the 50% of this Valle, I missed him a lot and he is the person who had helped me more with the game in the last months.

We will have the National Championship in September. I hope to see you all.