Le souvenir (2)

Greeting, followers of both sides of the Force. Kylar visit us again and he brings the second part of his report of the French National Championship. Pleased to leave you with him.

After the great disappointment of the swiss rounds, I had to get over it as soon as possible and enjoy the side event, with a “highlander without restriction” format: you could play only one copy of each set, but there were no restricted list. I asked Noel and Raxar for advice, and I decided I would play with:

-         LS (Smuggler): Renegade Squadron Mobilization, Trust Me, Asteroid Sanctuary, The False Report, Against All Odds, Along the Gamor Run, Sowers of Dissension, Spark of Rebellion, The Gardener’s Secret, No Match for a Good Blaster

-         DS (Sith): Fall of the Jedi, Counsel of the Sith, The Emperor’s Web, Agent of theEmperor, The Reawakening, Dark Counsel, The Emperor’s Promise, Dark Lord of theSith, Encounter at Stygeon Prime, Hunters of the Jedi

Why these decks? Easy: for the LS, I had to choose between playing both Yodas or Dash-Freeholders, and as I played Jedi in the swiss rounds, I wanted to change affiliation; for the DS, I found it was a standard Sith deck, with a pseudo-triad and 4 decent sets, so it should be strong.

Without further ado, let’s talk about the tournament. We were 20 players and played 4 rounds.

FIRST ROUND: ADEPTUS

I start the first game playing DS, with Vader GA, Counsel and Web. He plays Jedi, starting with Survivors, Master’s Domains and Journey to Dagobah. On my first turn, Inquisitor + Arden Lynn with his action (I love this combo!). He only plays Yoda (MtF), two guardians and Red Five, and when dial ticks 5 I already have Vader and Inquisitor with their lightsabers, Mara and Arden on the table. It was too much for him, so 3 points for me.

He plays a DS deck similar to mine, although with Executor. I start with Spark, Gardener and Against All Odds. On my first turn, I play the Deneba Refueling Station, the two Gardener’s enhancements and a Saboteur, winning the Force to his Boc. On the second one, Falcon and Kanan with its action. On the third one, Falcon and Han. The fourth was my definitive turn, with a junk dealer, a shifty lookout (Dash’ weenie) and Freeholders against Vader, Mara, Boc and two Emperor’s guards. It was an amazing performance of the Spark, with 5 units of 8 tries… When it works like this, it’s unstoppable!

Result: 6-0. Total points: 6.

SECOND ROUND: DARKWATHER

On the first game, he plays a Jedi-Gamor deck. He has a strong start, destroying one objective and leaving another with three damages on it in two turns. On the fourth turn, I lose the game because of not count properly. Let me explain it to you: Vader, Arden and Mara defend the last objective with one damage on it against a twi’lek, a Cloud City operative, Luke and two Hired Hands. In my hand, I have a Telekinetic Strike. He attacks with the twi’lek and the operative to the other two objectives, so I defend with Vader and Arden. Before the last engagement, he plays an Unfinished Business and puts Leia into play, attacking with her, Luke and the Hired Hands to the damaged objectives. I defend with Mara to place the shield and play the event after the edge, but I count twice the unopposed damage and I place it on her (wrong! With the shield on the objective, I’d have won!). It wasn’t a fatal error, because he had only 3 blasts and 3 unit damages, so with the shield I avoid the unopposed. But after playing the event, I react with Vader (why, God, why?) and, oh, surprise, he has a Lightsaber Deflection in his hand that kills Mara…

The second game was too fast for me. He plays the troopers’ deck he used on Saturday, but without the 2x. As I foretold the day before, the deck was much better: he wins in just 3 turns.

Result: 0-6. Total points: 6.

THIRD ROUND: MICHAEL

I start playing LS against a Navy-Sith deck with IE’ Tarkin and Yularen. Little by little, I put a lot of units on the table and destroy one objective, but a Moment of Triumph leaves only Yularen (focused) and Kanan alive. On the next turn, and with the Echo Caverns on the table, I play Lobot and Hired Hands, with a Target of Opportunity in my hand. I miss one damage to win, with the dial on 5 and my objectives without damages (I destroyed my Trust me on turn 3), so I just have to wait one more turn to win.

The second game was a traditional Jedi vs Sith one: very long and slow. We almost finished because of the time, but having less than two minutes left, I stop his definitive attack with a Telekinetic Strike and I can tick the dial to 12 on the next turn.

Result: 6-0. Total points: 12.

FOURTH ROUND: MOUSSINE

The first game is similar to the one we played on Saturday: he plays a Scum-Sith deck and has a lot of resources available too soon. I can’t keep his rithm of two big units by turn, but I end up missing only one damage to destroy the third objective after two turns with Falcon+Main.

On the second game, we just play units and don’t attack: core Vader, Mara, Tuk’atas and several guards against Obi-Wan, Marauder and Wolfmen. I kill his weenies with Vader’s reaction, and with Promise’s one I destroy the mission and take control of his Marauder. On an epic last turn, with dial at 9 and two of his objectives destroyed, he has to destroy two of my objectives, with 3 and 4 damages on them. I focus Kyle Katarn with Force Choke + Vader’s reaction + Hunted. He attacks with Luke to the last objective and I stop him with a Telekinetic Strike (only one copy of the card and I played it in the four games. Unbelievable!).

Result: 3-3. Total points: 15.

I end up in 4^th place, so I was a little less worried about my bad performance in the swiss rounds.

And now, the most important section of this report:

THE EXPERIENCE

As I said at the beginning of the first article, if we went to France it was thanks to Maxliger. If we had to pay for accommodation, it would have been impossible. His kindness and hospitality was so great that he slept in a tent in the courtyard, while it was raining, to allow us (the three Spanish people and several French players from other regions) to sleep comfortable. I don’t have words to express my gratitude…

I’d also like to thanks Htrader for all that he did for us the days before and during the tournament. He was our driver and showed us part of Geneva on our way to the airport. He’s a big man!

Here you have several details of the weekend:

-          We started the two days with free brioches for everybody. Nice way to start on fire!

-          The atmosphere during the whole weekend was excellent: smiles, affection and closeness everywhere, and we met 90% of the people in the tournament!

-          On Saturday, we all had dinner together in a restaurant near the place of the tournament. Noel and I asked for a beer and ta-da! They served us a red one that was delicious (for the foreign people: the common beer in Spain is the yellow one haha ).

-          A lot of official and non-official promo cards were given at the end of both days.

-          The French National is organized completely by the community: Edge pays for the prizes to FFG and rents the place, nothing more.

-          They have sort of a commission of organizers responsible for deciding the dates for the tournaments. That way, they can prepare it in advance and do everything possible to attend to most of them.

-          Htrader showed us a play center they have in Ambilly, with SWLCG’s players in charge of it. The government finance it and you can go and play for only 20€ per year per family. They have a lot of games, pinballs, table football… I wish we had something like that in Spain!

Last but not least I’d like to tell you about the Sunday’s night. We stayed again in Maxliger’s house, with The Happy Grinch, Gwynbleidd, Htrader and him. We played some more games of SW, but Htrader and I tried the definitive game mode: the tokens were placed in other elements of the table (such as bottles, McDonald’s sauce containers or simply other cards), the enhancements were face down in your opponent’s play area and you had to choose the right one when you wanted to use it, and the Balance of the Force was represented by a negligible variation of the angle of a deckbox. We all laughed our heads off with the game!

After that, Happy Grinch shows us a R2-D2 Bop it! he had in his suitcase. If you don’t know it, it’s a similar game to “Simon says…” but with C-3PO’s voice and R2-D2’s noises. We started playing like crazy with it, trying to reach the final 100 order. We didn’t make it, but I did 83. On Monday, after playing another SWLCG game (traditional mode this time), I continued with R2. I couldn’t reach 100, but Happy Grinch gave it to me. I still don’t know what to say… It was one of the greatest moments of all the weekend. Thanks again, Darren.

The weekend ended and we had to return home. Would I come back? Yes, no doubt. “But you were out of the top again for one point…” Yes, I know. What’s the problem? All that I lived during those three days was worth it, even though my bad result in the main tournament. If you ever have the chance to travel to a tournament out of your country, listen to me: do it! We may be few players of SWLCG, but there is a union between us that makes the community amazing. I look forward to travel to France, England or Poland and meet again with these great players. Thanks to all the people that, one way or another, made this weekend a fantastic experience.

I hope you liked these two articles, and that you tell me your opinions in the comments section. Thanks for reading me, and may the Force be with you! See you soon!