The Train Station

“Can I talk my s–t again?
Even if I don’t hit again?
Dog are you f–king kidding?”

What you are about to read is an account of the most fun I’ve had playing cards since I went to RamapoCon 3 back

in the summer of 2001 which you can read about here:

http://www.decktech.net/starwarsccg/treports/treports.php?id=2450&view=2

THE KTOD RETURNS TO WORLDS!

STARRING:

Mike Gemme as Deck

Justin Desai as H2o

Johnny CHu as The Yellow Menace

with special guest appearances by:

Tom “Waltham” Hollingworth

Greg Shaw and his girlfriends cleavage

A skinny Kuperman

and many, many more.

[Preamble]

“Yeee.
And you say Chi city,
Chi city, Chi city”

(note: Prior to the trip to Chicago, I listened to the new Kanye West CD a lot, so the lyrics shown in this TR

reflect my feelings on what I write here with Chicago’s hottest star, kanyeezy.)

The return of the KToD to the SWCCG tournament scene has been previously documented in my MPC report, but I’ll

briefly go over it here for new readers.

When I returned from New Orleans last winter it was because of a pretty awful breakup. To help get over that, I

told Justin that I wanted to get back into Wars. He looked at me like I was crazy. “It’ll be fun, and that’s what

I need right now.” I said.

Our preparation for worlds spanned the entire summer. We made the trip out to East nationals, which Justin won,

qualifying for worlds. My qualification came on that trip as well.

I started out Ohio States 0-2 and won four in a row to get into the top 2. When I handed in my card to Reid Smith

at the end of the last round he said “What’d you lowball to get in?” I didn’t know what that meant but it only

took me a few seconds to figure it out. And those words stuck with me the rest of the summer.

I didn’t play particularly well the rest of the season, though I didn’t play two top teir decks at any event (and

you could argue I didn’t even play one top teir deck at any event). Tom Hollingworth pretty much ran the table at

three mass locals in Waltham, not losing once until the v14 sneak peak event that I ran. In any event, I was

resolved to not choke at worlds, I wanted to play well, and I wanted to hang with my teammates, Justin and Steve

Baroni, who were piling up glass while I was ordering battle droids online.

Serious testing kicked into gear prior to PA states when Johnny Chu made his first of two trips up to Boston to

visit and playtest. At this point, justin was resolved to play light senate and was just starting to think about

dark senate. Steve and I were pretty sure we were going to play endor tanks and we were both leaning towards

profit for light. On this trip is where I first saw Chu’s WYS Nightfall deck and really started to like it.

PA States came and went, and chu got qualified. By Chu’s second trip up, two weeks before worlds, I had my WYS

pretty much finalized and was still leaning towards Endor Tanks. Chu absolutely mopped the floor with his agents

and we were pretty sure that it was unbeatable (which it turned out to be). Justin was set on senate and senate.

At this point steve is sure he can’t make the trip.

Just days before the trip I decided to switch to dark senate, just never feeling comfortable with the level of

control the Endor tanks needed, though we put in some really good cards and thought it was a very solid deck.

[Friday]

“Good morning
On this day we become legendary”

Justin, Lee and I got up at like 4am on Friday to hit the airport for our 6am flight. Justin and Lee stayed up til

about 230 playing cards whereas I went to sleep at 11:30 to get some rest. The flight was pretty uneventful except

for the fact that there were two ridiculous BEASTS on the plane.

These two dudes were head to toe in camoflage and H2o and I felt pretty safe that no terrorists would be taking

over this plane. However, about halfway through the flight Justin realized that those two guys COULD be the

terrorists in which case we were dunzo. These guys were both about 6’4, 265lbs, shaved heads, one of them had a

handlebar mustache and their rock-solid chiseled arms were pushing out into the aisle of the plane.

Speaking of plane aisles, when we were booking the trip I had hte best idea ever: instead of sitting next to each

other, Justin and I booked seats in the same row, both on the aisle opposite each other. This created a natural

heterosexual buffer zone and also made conversation easy and fun!

This really kind of scraggly brunette chick in front of Justin was eavesdropping on our convos like craaaaaazy and

kept turning around and making comments to me! I had seen her kind of check me out earlier and made some decent

conversation early on, but then she turned on her ipod and played Nintendo DS almost the whole flight and that

chemistry kind of got squashed. She had a cuteness to her and I really like those wicked plain, pale girls who

arent that pretty because when I hook up with a girl like that I really get the sense I made her feel good about

her self, and that’s another level of woman pleasing that you can’t get with cunnilingus alone. Also on the

flight, a stewardess through a cup at me, and then poured water on me when I told her she threw it at me, and was

thusly a .

When we landed we had to wait about an hour for Chu to land and in the meantime we saw this older African couple

with CRAZY flourescent colored robes on just walking around the airport on a stroll.

We take a way too expensive taxi out to the hotel we’re staying at: Courtyard by Marriot, official sponsors of the

KTOD and the hotel we’ve stayed at for every card event we’ve ever gone to save Pro Circuit LA when Ryan French

hooked us up with Best Western Anaheim rooms. We were expecting to drop our stuff off at the hotel and hang out at

the store all day but fear not, the beautiful babies at the CbM front desk had a room for us at 11 am!

So we went to the room to chill, watch seinfeld, nap, play cards and finalize our team tournament decks. Justin

and I were set to team together, Chu was going to team with Fred and Lee was undecided on whether or not he was

going to play at this point. Eventually it’s afternoon time and we call to catch a cab to the store. But wait! The

front desk babes hook it up AGAIN and take us in the Marriot Van to the store for Freezy!!!

There was a long wait to get to the team tournament because they wanted to wait until Day 1 was over. In the

meantime I played some connect 4 with Hunter ON PAPER. Says Hunter: “It works. On paper… It works.” NOICE.

ALthough Hunter beat me when I went to a space I specifically told Hunter and the crowd watching the match, that I

could not go to, for if I did, I would lose. We played with colored sharpies on yellow paper and the dots from our

game seeped through onto the table and stayed there all weekend, very noticable, and Justin and I always commented

when we were around those parts.

TEAM TOURNAMENT TIME!

So justin and I are paired up for the team tournament, he’s playing dark: KTOD Huntdown with me playing light,

Lightsaber Combat with Uh-Oh, Figrin D’an and Joh Yowza for retreival tech in non interactive matches.

Game 1: My LSC Music vs. Joe “Max Beedo” Graham’s MKOS

I’d never met joe and I didn’t recognize him, but he was teamed with Thomas Whaley so I was expecting something a

little surprising but definitely not mainstream, when he revealed MKOS I wasn’t sure what to expect. I havent’

seen MKOS since returnign to the game, and I’ve heard Brian Fred say it was good, and I know it was like broken at

one point during my absence from the game. Knowing what aliens could do due to chu’s agents, I decided not to

start Uh-Oh V in case the mkos player came at me hard. Once I saw him really start to stack up, I drew up for Uh

Oh and my musicians. And stack up he did. I’m talking like 5/6 aliens at each site doing Galid Drains.

He left Jabba’s Palace open with jabba/galid/ephant crew at the AC and some other guys at another interior JP

site. He moved the sail barge with a merc pilot and some other aliens to the desert, so I dropped mace and v8 Obi

Wan (who thus forth shall be known as Juice Obi) to JP. He moved his beatsquad over in front of me on his turn

leaving the desert open. LUCKILY I had a flashback to my early years, moving into the desert and not being able to

move out and getting the tar knocked out of me, so instead of moving out, I moved into the palace in front of

jabba and crew figuring I could at least take out galid. He decided not to battle me, like, ever. And I moved to

the entrance cavern or whatever it’s called and he bulked up there, so I moved back in to the AC and battled

killing Galid. Eventually the Jedi both died and i didnt take much damage but with Galid gone I projectioned 2

sites. Couple with the fact I’d finally gotten my retreival going along with a steady drain at naboo i won pretty

handily. FW by X

Justin won his game against Whaley and we move on to face Chu and Lee.

Game 2: my LSC Music vs. Lee Edwards’ FWKTIL

Lee is playing Chu’s fear which is Lewis’ Fear. I know this is a tough matchup. We’ve talked about it being

winnable for light, but I never thought it was. WIthout any space, the retrieval just isnt enough. It is pretty

much a damage race with me retreiving just a little bit. I did some Okay damage but when he’s doing 8 fear damage

and draining for 6 what can retreiving for 3 really do? Nada.

Luckily justin beat down Chu for 22 overflow when Chu forgot to save a force to play panic when justin started

first strike and won by forty. So we move on to

Game 3: My LSC Music vs. PMJ’s Bespin Tanks

Unlike when I test against Chu’s Bespin tanks, PMJ actually got out the free executor turn one, which is scary. I

started Uh Oh knowing I’d have to start retreiving very early. It was an early drain race with him setting up and

then coming at me with Sidious and Arica. I was able to combat Sidious off and then I had a decision to make, do I

beat down arica, or do I take the fight to bespin and go kill some tanks. I decided to zap and kill some tanks.

This game I went 3/3 on swinging at tanks and hitting them, which is pretty bad ass. I ended up taking out his

ground forces pretty handily. At some point he made a slight noob move but it was in depseration as the game

continued to swing my way, but he put thrawn on naboo and didnt fight so i just fry sizzled him. Mainly it was me

swinging and killing tanks that really won the match, but equally important was finding Evacuation control so that

I could go to Bespin with little fear of getting my wookie handed to me.

Meanwhile justin beat his third straight watch your step, no easy task with huntdown and we think we’re supposed

to be playing hunter and reid, but since they had so many timed wins, we acutally ended up playing Angelo and his

girlfriend, which some people snickered at, but truth be told, they were that high up because they hadn’t lost a

match all day and I’m pretty sure they were both 3-0 at that point.

We broke down all the scenarios and we knew if we won one of our games, we would win. We were worried about having

to play Hunter/Reid because even though they had three timed wins between the two of them, if they beat us both it

meant that they would win beacuse 4 vPs would swing it just in their favor.

Game 4: My LSC Music vs. Angelo “Escusi!” Conselo’s Dbay HD

I started evac control but honestly never needed it. Angelo didn’t battle me at all. He did nothing but sit and

track destinies for the longest time so that when he finally came down and I combatted him, he won with two

sevens. I wen’t and initiated battle off planet so that I could get my bith Shuffle off of Evac Control V and

shuffled his decksizzle. So for whatever reason he never battled, I won a few combats, he won 2 all game. There

was some minor interaction off planet but once Justin beat Sybil (Sp?) I knew we had the tournament locked up and

didn’t really pay attention. It was a fun game though and I joked around with Angelo alot. He has one of the all

time greatest laughs and for whatever reason I just felt comfortable joking and having a fun time with him, maybe

it was because he was european, but either way, we had some fun games this weekend. I ended up winning this game

by about 9.

So Justin Desai and Mike Gemme the KTOD are the 2007 World Team Champions!!! We win 150 dollars total and two

trophies, which we knew were cups but we thought were just metal chalices. Turns out that when we showed up the

next day they were 23 oz Glazz Beer Mugs with the SWCCG Logo and 2007 World Team Champions on it! They are easily

the coolest trophies since Matt Sokol won the giant plate in ’99. Some people hate on the plate but Justin and I

have always had the utmost respect for it. A. Raph won one and B. you can serve sandwiches on it. Too good.

We also receive byes for day two of the 2008 World Championship tournament so we literally don’t have to play

another sanctioned game for exactly one year, which is awesome and a relief at the same time. Even more funny, is

that if justin or I were to win Worlds, the bye would be passed down to second place.

The tournament got out pretty late. We caught a cab back to the hotel and for the life of me I can’t think of what

we did for dinner that night. it’s possible that we went to the TGIFriday’s but for some reason I thought we went

there for lunch. Either way, with our decks already set, we were ready for bed.

BUT NO. Justin started feeling panicked about the dark senate, thinking it needed vote nows and/or more space. I

didn’t really want to think about it and said I’d go with whatever he decided anyway.

[SATURDAY]

“damn, here we go again.
people talk exhaust, but when exhaust hits the fan
everything I’m not, made me everything I am

and I’m back to tear it up
haters, start your engines
I hear ‘em gearin’ up”

I wake up to Chu talking on the phone, justin isn’t far behind me and he’s going through cards almost if not

immediately. I’ve talked about this on my Dark Senate blog, and when we go down to the breakfast buffet justin

wants to play Thrawn/Chimera/Imp Command in the senate. I am on board, like I said, but I’m thinking about it all

through breakfast and finally I decide that I can’t play that 13 cost monster in a senate deck that would require

two full turns of saving force to pull off and decide on Zuckuss/Mist Hunter V/V. I do a pretty good job of

convincing him to do the same and I think we made the right choice.

We get back to the shop and do our decklists, shoot the exhaust with people and wait for the pairings. Chu did his

decklists mad fast so as to not have his command card anywhere near ours. Justin submitted ours together which Chu

thought was wicked bad karma. With 40-something people there I wasn’t that worried.

So pairings get called and I’m one of the last people called and of course I get paired up with Hunter, my light

vs. his dark. I really didn’t want to face fear, but I was pretty sure I was going to have to.

A little history on Hunter and I: Back at Origins in ’03 Hunter and I played each other twice. In the first game,

I played Vergance of the Force on my own location and it pretty much won me the game, when he came over to tell me

about it afterwards he was pretty pissed and made it clear that he did not believe I did that inadvertantly. So we

played later on, my senate vs his speeders. At some point he flipped my objective back and when I went to go

battle him I had fulfilled the requirement on flipping my objective but had not physically flipped the objective

back. Hunter was bitter about my misplay, and when I drew a senator for destiny in a key battle, he refused to

forfeit for 6 and stuck with the 3 that was drawin in Edcel Bar Gane. I was pissed but there wasn’t much I could

do.

Let’s see how bitter I was when Hunter sat down and satisfied his starting interrupt with three on table effects,

none of which were endor shield…

Game 1: My Wys Spies vs. Hunter’s SYCFA w/ FWKTIL

So hunter sits down, we do our revealing, and hunter plays three effects. then i play three effects. we shuffle.

All of a sudden he’s like “Wait just a second” and goes through his deck like three times and looks panic

stricken. He gets up from the table and goes to the judges and gets his decklist. I go over to see what the deal i

s and apparently Hunter doesn’t have endor shield V in his fear deck, which i hear is a pretty key card in his

particular deckbuild. So hunter finally gets his exhaust straighetened out, but instead of the three janky effects

that were played with Prepared Defenses earlier, and Endor Shield V was there! In my head I was like OH C’MON,

but, and justin reiterated this later after the game when I relayed the story, that if I’m going to beat hunter,

that’s not the way I’m going to beat him. Instead, I made a sly underhanded comment about his ‘misplay’ during the

game.

I decided I had to go fast so I just dropped whatever I had to space to start draining. I got luke/cannon out asap

and started drawing for han and the falcon. I went to the cantina to satisfy early battle plan but Sidious came

down pretty much immediately. We trade small amounts of damage while we set up. Eventually he gets his fear going

and spreads out, I’m doing the kessel drain for 2 while i get some space together. In my hand I have dash,

outfider, mirax, pulsar skate and melas. He has two forces saved. To do everything I want I cannot grab barrier.

Dash goes down against an ISD and gets barriered. I so want to grab but I don’t. Here’s where i make my mistake, I

drop mirax to the SAME system. Barrier. I drop Melas on outrider.

Next turn Hunter goes lat damage, overwhelmed, good game. I’ve got fear blocked with the toolkit and am taking his

serious damage out of the game. But then, when his deck is sort of depleted and he can activate it all, he tracks

a 5 ,and after searching out his second control/sfs with bewill, set for stuns han. Sure enough he does this for

the next three turns, negating toolkit, thus winning him the game by 17.

Highs: Not being a goldenrod about endor shield V
Lows: making a classic bad decision on the first game of day 2.

Game 2: my DS KTOD Senate vs. LS Speeders vs. Raveling’s boy.

I don’t remember this dude’s name, but I tried talking to him the day before when I was having a conversation

about tee shirts with Mike Raveling. Raveling had a pokemon trainer tshirt that i have, only his is in PRISTINE

condition and mine is faded and looks less opaque than urine (it’s bright yellow, or was). I had on my favorite

tee, my avengers dissasembled tee shirt. Raveling’s boy was like ‘is that when scarlett witch killed everyone’ and

when I replied and started to try and talk comics with him, he basically ignored me. Raveling doesnt read comics

really, so it was like I was talking to myself. Then I’d stop talking and this dude would start talking comics

again, but he wouldn’t really look at me. So there was some social ineptitude there, and that’s all I had as an

impression of this guy, until he laid down speeders, at which point i was like “speeders is bad.”

Right off the bat this guy Leia V’s my lott dodd and next turn when I verify his deck and see x-wings am like Good

game. It takes me a while, and a little too much drawing (no lott dodd sucks) but I get passel argente out, and by

starting imperial decree V i really had him locked down. I set up drains at hoth and naboo and just drained while

he did 2-1 damage a turn. Passel meant that he really couldn’t come down to the system and fight me, all he could

really do was cancel drains with Rebel Fleet, and even that wasn’t enough as I won by 26 or so.

Highs: gettin a win with a dark I played about 4 games with this year, Diff
Lows: None.

Game 3: My DS KTOD Senate vs. Rippetoe’s old school Throne Room Start

When Rip goes Throne ROom, old school careful planning for Farm and Outpost I’m like okay guy. and don’t think

much of it. First turn he drops bacta tank and I really don’t even care so I’m like Lott dodd, toonbuck, go. On

his turn he’s like padme, battle, put her on the tank. I’m a little freaked but i take care of it, and reinforce

at the senate. My turn I drop a few senators and Ability Ability Ability and give it back to him.

Now. I have to tell you, this is the craziest sanctioned game I’ve ever played. We literally battled on every

single turn for the next 20 some odd turns. I could never go into so much detail about that many battles, but I

will give you some highlights: Oh wait, one more thing… re read that last sentence, and then read this one– I

for some reason started first strike.

the next time he came to the senate he had an epp qui gon, jar jar, padme, senator palpatine, and that republic

guy who is a built in houjix.

During the course of the game he killed every single one of my senators at least once (though Baskol was on a

political effect when he got killed [yes he started Scrambled transmission V and he used it 5 times]).

He killed Aks Moe three times. So in total he killed 13 senators, one of EACH UNIQUE SENATOR CHARACTER IN THE

GAME.

I’m pretty sure he altered my senate cam. He might’ve done it twice.

i set up a space drain pretty early to put the pressure on him. Plus considering he had a huge deck only starting

4 cards, I had to do a lot more damage to him, as Senate puts a lot on table. Late game he comes up to space with

some Han Chewie Falcons and kills me, and I keep going there. On the ground I have maul w/ saber and bliz 4 with

Leia RP moving in front of maul to block a drain, and me draining w/ bliz 4 and moving it in front of leia, and

maul to the other site. Thsi goes on for a little too long and I’m able to activate exactly enough to grab vader

with lott dodd, drop him for 8 (goo came out very early) battle, retreive, cut leia, overflow for 10 and pretty

much win the game right there.

It was a mentally gruelling game however, and I was shocked and glad to pull it out. Justin had watched some of it

and was shocked that I won. That would seem to be a running theme.

Highs: Beating a deck I felt was specifically built to beat my deck.
Lows: Starting first strike.

Game 4: My WYS Spies vs. Greg Shaw’s DS Combat.

Now all day at day 1, Justin and I were trying to convince Shaw to show us his girlfriends tittyballs. In this

attempt, I showed Greg numerous pictures of titty balls and cleevage and even a wicked hot chick naked, in just

body paint. Justin offered to play a video clip of himself moaning, which shaw declined. In round 2 of day 2,

everyone had to repair. Justin and Greg were paired and they were going to bet a picture of shaw’s girl’s

tittyballs to the winner, then the repair quashed that. So I made the dealio with greg that if I beat him, he had

to show me some cleevage. He took the deal and we laid it out.

Now my light has no autowins, but ds combat I felt was it’s best matchup. He went down turn 1 with maul and the

sideways saber. I got a lot of force so I went Luke to Tatooine and drew some. he drained me for 4. i didn’t want

that to happen so my turn 2 I sent another ship to kessel and dropped chewie’s atst and two smugglers to the

docking bay and played ultimatum. At that point he put down another jedi to resume the drain for four. I put mirax

in the cantina with lando w/ axe, but i didnt’ have any more characters so I left them alone.

Next turn I it could be worsed his drain of two, knowing that he had at least one omni box combo in his deck. I

had no characters to back up the cantina and hoped that he’d burn serious force on an it’s worse. Of course he

thought and thought and counted and counted and the whole time i’m flipping my hand pretending to pretend to act

cool when in fact I was cool as a cucumber with my it’s a hit in my hand. He used 11 and i cancelled it. he spent

his last 3 forces to drain some more.

So he’s got to do SOMETHING to win this game and he comes down to the docking bay with vader and someone. maybe

boba fett. Either way I had luke with I’m With you Too at tat holding it down and in the end I let him draw 10

battle destiny that took the guys off the walker but left the ATST itself. I cleared his site. Next turn I drop

two more smugglers in the atst and his drains of 4 aren’t competing with my drains of 8 plus 1 retreival. And I

win the game, and see some big titty cleavage pretty handily.

highs: Setting up ultimatum turn 2 with WYS which didnt’ happen once in playtesting.
lows: knowing i got lucky he did not go down to the cantina. And he almost did.

Game 5: My WYS Spies vs. Angelo “‘Scuzi!” Conselo’s BHBM

So I get paired up, once again, with Angelo and again I’m playing light against his dark. We didn’t test BHBM at

all, but I got a taste of Drew Scott’s at PA states, but not with WYS. Playing without luke wasn’t something I was

excited about. Even if he didnt’ play vader, I couldn’t very well deploy luke to tatooine and have him play vader

somewhere like endor and get screwed for 3 forces a turn. So I go to space with everyone else, and anywhere he

goes on the ground, I put an undercover spy. I think he frysizzled one spy, and I just redeployed a new one next

turn. I know at one point I miraxed at the start of my deploy thinking “as long as this isn’t boushhh I’m set” and

of course it was bousshhh who I was just about to deploy with Chewbacca Protector V’s game text. So I was limiting

damage to him and liek a good BHBM player he didn’t put vader out.

It got to the point where I was just doing more damage than him because of my space drains and undercover spies,

so he puts down vader. I do some space deploying and at the last second realize i have to give him luke, luckily i

have three forces saved and send luke to vader via the lost pile. And I also play an uncontrollable fury on his

epp vader.

On his turn he puts vader in the bliz 4 (which, can you even do with a captive?) then moves him to the dstar

docking bay, then into the throne room and duels. He draws a 7 and a 7. Luckily, I just happened to be tracking 2

sevens through my deck. Now they weren’t on top, but I knew where they were, and one of em was i’m with you too

V, which is perfect in this matcup. SO i activate to the IWYT and grab it with mirax, then activate to the other

7. do my draining and drop the effect on luke. Out of the 5 duels Angelo ran, i won three of them, which is pretty

badass. In the end it was the damage of uncontrollable fury that truly won me the game, and that will be a key

factor as the tournament unfolds.

Highs: Beating a former world champ at world champs
lows: miraxing for boushh!

So at this point Justin is 5-0, I’m 4-1. We’re in first and second. Which is pretty frimbazeling badass considering

that we won the team tournament the day before. We take a walk around the building and discuss options to getting

into the top 8. In the end we decide that it really doesn’t matter if I’m playing dark I have the advantage and

should be able to make it so that I’m 5-1 and he’s 5-1.

Game 6: My DS KTOD Senate vs. Justin Desai’s LS KTOD Senate

So we know this matchup and how it goes. For more details see my Blog on the players committee site. I get control

of the senate after 3 or 4 turns mostly because of toonbuck toora and baron and he draws up. He puts down the

threed palace generator core and 4-5 guys there cancelling my ability ability ability. I’ve got a solid space

drain set up, but am never able to back it up and he comes down and clears it twice with Han Chewie and the

falcon. I’m cancelling his drain mostly, and putting his hand back when he can, but It’s hard for me to cancel his

drain, set up space, add to my drain in space and manipluate his hand all at once. I also chase his remnant

senators down, who were chilling in the jedi council chamber. It was a pretty uneventful game but justin made it a

ton closer than it had been in testing. Going into that matchup, it seemed that whatever side won, won by about

20-25. I’m pretty sure I won this game by less than 10 because he was able to handle me in space so well with the

han chewie falcon.

Highs: Ending justin’s 30 game winning streak in the state of chicago
Lows: Beating my friend and teammate at worlds.

Game 7: My WYS Spies vs. Tom Hollingworth’s KTOD Huntdown

I’ve played against tom a lot this year. We’ve gotten some games online. He knew this deck. When I saw HD w/

Conduct Your Search, I was pretty sure I knew his deck too. Tom is also very good, as evidenced by what I’m sure

you all know was a top 4 finish at worlds this year. But Tom continually claeaned our clocks all year and I’ve

been playing against him since he was about 11 years old. We knew each other well and decided that no matter what

happened in the game, neither of us would blow the other out.

it started out like a normal game, I go down with luke to tatooine early and don’t drop kessel. I’ve got a hyper

escape in my hand. Luckily too because he comes down with maul, ship and grabs I have you now with crush the

rebellion. I hyper escape to the luckily drawn rendevous point (Note: When i draw rendevous point in my opening

hand with this deck, i don’t lose). I move luke into kessel, but stupidly because I can’t drain. So i get an xwing

cannon on luke and move him in front of maul and I save three force every turn from here on out.

Here’s where it gets pretty dicey. He’s got choke vader with palps and after zuckuss 4 lom came down and took out

my dash/outrider I had to burn my wokling, I couldn’t grab nightfall and couldnt block his drains. we had some big

battles and I had some classic old school moves, cancelling and redrawing with captain han when he only had

exactly enough cards in his reserve to draw what he deserved, meaning han was just straight up cancelling

destinies in space, I so wish I’d saved more forces!! I also have fury on vader and he isn’t doing anything about

it but losing 2 force a turn. He’s got a steady drain in space by moving maul away from luke, and at the cantina.

The onyl damage i’m doing to him is with fury, since he’s moving away from luke, who i can’t drain with. exhaust is

getting really tight now and time is running out. I’ve got an empty falcon floating around in space and I’ve got

to set up coward so i can retreive with an on the edge.

I had a sweet play all set up, I was going to drop chewie against vader and emperor, edge, battle (he had first

strike out) and lose chewie to cover all the damage. I thought I had some exhaust tracked but wasn’t sure, so when I

had one card in my reserve, I used rycar to check what it was, and it was han’s toolkit. And i’m like okay, i

retreive 3, and tom’s like uhhh you have to take that into hand. frimbazel. not only do i not do my play and retreive,

but now my life force is one less. that’s butt. So ihave to do it NEXT turn, and since my life force is less, I

can only retreive 3 (and not at all with first strike) though I had a 5 tracked. In any event the play was sick,

and I was able to find a melas right after to get him on the floating falcon and do some extra help to luke in

space.

In the end time gets called and if we let the game progress it will be a timed game by 10, but tom sees no

advantage to a timed loss and draws up on his turn to get me the full win.

Highs: Winning a game with 1 card, and a game everyone thought I was going to lose. 3-1 with light!!!
Lows: getting handled in space. I didn’t see that coming.

So I’m in first place now. Chu thought he was playing hunter for the tournament, but If i had won my last game I

would’ve won the tournament.

Of course I get paired with Tom Hollingworth again who just hooked me up.

Game 8: My DS KTOD Senate vs. Tom Hollingworth’s LS Senate

Now tom’s senate is a lot different than jutin’s. He plays the real falcon with captain or epp han, CC leia V, etc

to totally blow out dark space. I was only running 1 tie cannon but an added ship.

I told tom we were going to have a real battle for the senate, but two things were majorly different in this game.

1 I didn’t drop toonbuck and instead dropped the gemmeperor who did absolutely nothing and lost me the game.

Again, if you want more details into this matchup and that caustic play in general, read my blog on the PC site.

Dropping the gemmeperor effectively cost me the game. While I really wanted to hook up tom, I also really wanted

to win day 2 of worlds, which would’ve been huge for me. Unfortunately, with him controlling the senate there

wasn’t much I could do, especially against his super falcon. Eventually he went to the forest with qui gon and

that made it really tough. I went with one more surprise attack to the senate and the game was actually really

close. Tom Drew a few too many cards (about 5) late in the game, and only beat me by about five forces.

Highs: None really.
Lows: Coming in fourth instead of first =(

So that was it for day 2. Chu came in first, justin second, and me fourth, meaning we put three people in the top

half of the bracket, which is all too good for our reputation.

Now. Here comes the good stuff. When Justin and I won the team tourament and were told we were getting glasses, we

thought that they were metal chalices, which were okay, old school trophy, etc. But when we got to day 2 we found

that what we had actually won were 23 oz GIANT GLASS MUGS that say 2007 team tournament champions!!!

We went to TGIFriday’s across from the hotel we stayed at and saw hunter and raveling and a crew go in as well. We

sit not so near them and get this pretty cute waitress with really nice breasts. I ask her if she’s willing to

fill up my mug in the car. She’s REALLY standoffish at this point and even goes so far as to call me a fag when

I’m outside in the car getting the mug. Of course when I get back she COMPLETELY 180s when she sees that it’s a

starwars mug claiming to looooove starwars and harry potter WELL MEE TOOO LADY!!!

So she fills up the mug with sam oktoberfest and i continue to flirt a bit. We actually have a pretty fun dinner,

I bring my beer mug over to hunter and them and they aren’t impressed. We joke with the waitress and her insanely

hot 17 year old sister who is also a waitress. Justin orders pasta with maple syrup and it looks hella, hella

gross. Then the moneyexhaust happens. Her and her sister come over with a little hop step, arm in arm, and go, in

unison “How old are you?!” and I pretty much know, even though I’m 26 and old as exhaust, I got this. Of course the

downside is that I’m leaving sunday night and have to play cards all day sunday. I ask her to hang out tonight,

her friends, my friends, but she’s got plans with a girl from work and doesn’t wanna blow up her friend by

bringing a dude she met at fridays over on the very night she met him, which i completely understnad, but i hit

her with my number and when I’m back at the hotel she texts me to come over and hang with her in the parking lot

until her friend is all set. So I do and we have a pretty good talk just chilling until her friend calls and she

has to bounce. Which sucks but I’m already seeing a couple girls, both of which are hot and I’m not really

sweating it.

Everyone is sleeping when I get back at like 130. The only thing in my head about day 3 is i have no idea what to

play and i’ll figure it out in the morning. I had it stuck in my head that I was pissed i didn’t switch to light

combat on day 3 in 2003 when my light senate really exhaust the bed over day 1 and 2 even though I advanced on both

days (mainly due to the inception of KTOD Huntdown and it’s ensuing dominance). What I really should’ve been

thinking is that I had a solid light deck.

Either way, I think even moreso than Tom Hollingworth, who was everyone’s longshot when we all got on the planes

earlier in the week, I was the “I’m just happy to be here” guy, because I never really gave myself a shot at day

three, and I’d really not felt like a top level player all year. But I went to bed that night with a smile on my

face, and a half eaten quesadilla on my nightstand that I was saving for breakfast in the morning.

Day 3

“It ain’t happen yet
And that’s what the intuition is
When you hop back in the car
Drive back to the crib
Run back to their arms
The *smokescreens*
The chokes and the screams
You ever wonder what it all really means?”

So we get up and head down to the breakfast buffet to start eating. I pass on eating because I ate the leftover

quesadilla right when I woke up when we were deciding what to play. I’ve basically decided to play a solid

lightsaber combat for a number of reasons. A. If I got past tom, it’s the only deck that we think can stand up to

Chu’s Agents, and even that is a long shot. B. I really regret never switching to light combat on day 3 of 2003

and thought that it would be a good move to do it now. Also, I specifically didn’t play light combat all season

(after the MPil the Team Tournament because Justin and I are for some reason known as being Light Combat

players, and I wanted to shake that stigma for this very reason.

This ends up being a pretty substantial mistake for a number of reasons. One being that in 03 my light senate was

not doing very well, whereas my WYS really kicked some wookie yesterday, even against my day 3 opponent, and I

thought I could play better than I did on day 2 in that matchup. I didn’t know what Tom was going to play for

dark, but it was between the Huntdown, Watto and CCT. I thought he’d switch to CCT, but he didn’t. He stuck with

Huntdown.

Before the tournament justin and I went next door to the asian bakery to strategize. Now me and justin are avid

seinfeld fans, and try to watch 3-4 episodes a day on TBS and our local Fox affiliate. One of our favorite Mr.

Pitt moments is when Elaine names the old ragtime tune “Next stop pottersville” and earns mr. pitt a spot holding

the woody woodpecker float at the thanksgiving day parade. Mr. Pitt does this dance and sings “next stop

pottersville! next stop pottersville!!” well the bakery next door is called bakersville, so for the rest of the

weekend me and justin just went around singing “next stop bakersville!” and doing the mr pitt dance.

For Dark I decided to swtich to senate, but I wish I’d considered playing KTOD Huntdown, especially when I showed

up to the tournament and heard Tom asking the judge a question about jedi luke, and I was farily certain tom was

playing Combat.

With all our belongings at the shop (our flight was later that evening) we started the matches. I elected to play

dark first against Tom’s light, because you want to play what you consider the better matchup first, and I was

curious to see if Tom was really playing combat.

Game 1: my KTOD DS Senate vs. Tom’s Super-Luke Lightsaber Combat

A funny moment happened to start the game. Tom put down 2 effects and then was deciding between two other effects

to start as his third. They were unseen to me, but after about 2 minutes of deciding Tom decided to go with Civil

Disorder V. I said to him “Gonna hope to draw into that scrambled transmission huh?” and his jaw dropped as his

face when blank. I had a feeling tom would put that in his deck, and to be honest, I was hoping he’d play it. It

wouldve done another 6-8 more damage against him which couldve been a major difference in the game.

So Tom was playing combat, and my gameplan was to go to space and get that drain of four going early while he sets

up on the ground. So that’s basically what I did. He put down a super luke, with bionic hand, i’m with you too and

a saber down on like turn 1. I was draining in space and dropping his hand and he was draining on the ground. I

don’t have any notes from day 3, but I know eventually he dropped kessel and ships, but I don’t remember what. It

may have been super falcon, I’m not really sure.

Honestly nothing too eventful happened this game and he pretty much just generally beat me by the mid teens.

Game 2: my LS Combat vs Tom’s KTOD Huntdown

Now I knew I had to win, and this is a stupid tough matchup, so I decided that instead of playing crazy

conservative, I was just going to go for it and try to do fast damage and hope he got a exhaustty hand.

My hand had almost all guys so I felt pretty okay. I started evac control, quick draw and wokling, he started

ability ability abilty V which seems to be the most broken card ever in huntdown, especialyl in his matchup.

Apparently tom packed it because he thought i’d go to light senate on day three. So much for shaking that stigma.

So turn 1 I go down with Juice Obi wan and a stick and he comes down with maul, kills him. Second turn I go down

with another jedi, he kills him. Third turn I go down with Lando, he comes down and killsh im. I go down with

ANOTHER jedi, and he comes down and kills him. at this point, all i’ve done was spend forces tog et guys out, i

had no guys left in my hand, and I hadn’t drawn any cards. I’ve been taking steady visage damage, and he’s waxed

everything I’ve thrown out, it’s pretty much over. My plan failed and i’m out of day 3.

To be honest I’m pretty okay with this. I had a good showing, I got handed 150 bucks and some dope packs of

coruscant (though my pulls sucked). I also pulled a black border dark side disarmed, which i don’t even own a WB

of. And Eier pulled a BB Light Disarmed. He wanted to trade, and I said i’ll trade if you throw in a WB DIsarmed

for dark, so I got a 2-1 and he thinks he robbed me but who the hell plays dark side disarmed? not me.

So I’ve been trying to meet up with my friend chrstine for years, and she lives in chicago going to school there,

so i hightail it from the tournament to go to loyola and meet her. the mapquest said this is a 14 mile drive, it

turned into a 40 dollar cab ride. We spent an hour together getting dinner and hanging out (chicago deep dish ftw)

and it was an amazing hour but I had to rush to the airport in a cab with a cabby who refused to break 50 miles an

hour even though I told him I was in a rush, and it was also a 30 dollar ride. SO i basically went on a 115

dollar, 1 hour date during which I didn’t get any. Boner city man.

Now I meet chu and lee and justin at the airport and they eat the rest of my deepdish since we can’t get through

security. In the security line Chu sees one of his third cousins, this other violinist named Rachel who goes to

harvard and has no respect for chu’s music playing ability. We talked to her for a bit and then by the time we got

to the gate, they were boarding and it was time to go.

Me and justin had the dope hetero sexual buffer zone going again, but when we got to our aisle, the hottest

frimbazeling most beautiful girl i’ve ever seen on a plane was in justin’s row on the window, with a seat in between.

Her seat was 27F, the middle one was 27E and justin’s was 27D. First he offered me his seat so I could get to

macking, but I declined, as my airplane game is never very good. But justin, in one of hte funnier moves I’ve seen

him make, is he crossed out the D on his ticket, and wrote E in, so that he could sit in the middle seat. I dunno,

it made us laugh.

The pilot of this flight was a madman. You know when you’re taxing in an airplane and the plane takes that final

turn, then pauses a second before it guns it’s engines to go on the straightaway? Not our pilot. This guy gunned

the engine while taxiing, and we took that 90 degree turn at about 85 miles per hour AT LEAST, and everyone on the

plane was talking about how crazy that turn was and how drunk the pilot must be. Not to mention there were tons of

chicago marathoners on the plane, all fresh off of a marathon that killed like 902342 people from heat exhaustion.

So we get in pretty late, and then I have to drive Lee home and of course instead of writing down directions, he

claims he knows the way to the place he’s living, but gets us lost all the same when we try and head there. I am

pretty pissed because I’m pretty tired from a harrowing weekend. I get home around 2-230 and hit the sac, and

worlds is over.

Now, as a special bonus to those of you who actually read this whole thing, before the props and slops, which

people generally will skip down to, I’ll tell you the origins of taco bill. Because I asked taco bill, why the

hell do they call you taco bill? And he said, when he was little, he used to be able to eat a exhaustton of tacos for

some reason. not anything else, just mad tacos and that everyone in his grade school called him taco bill. And I

asked him if people still call him thatk or if they bumped into him on the street after all this time, would eople

call him taco bill? and he said no, they wouldn’t. bummer. Also it didnt occur to me (and i’ve known taco bill for

at least four years) that taco bill is like taco bell, except with the e changed to an i. wow. I feel really dumb

for not realizing that until right now.

Super Duper PROPS

Justin h20 desai: for being a good partner and player and being there through thick and thin

Johnny Chu: For splitting mucho dinero once again, hooking me up with a money making light deck and being a good

pal. Also for Chewie’s ATST, which I still have, and I’m sure I will get an email in 3 days asking for it back.

PROPS

Baroni for helping with playtesting and being a great player to learn from. I learn alot from our games and I wish

he could’ve made hte trip.

Lee for the shared times and borrowed cards.

Eh. I’m kind of sick of props and slops, let me just do shoutouts.

Hunter: you > me @ connect four
Shaw: Boobs. also, you blew me out with the max rebo card, which someone slipped into my bag before i left!
Taco Bill: You’re so emo
Angelo: “Scuzi!”
Angelo’s babe: You had no idea what I said all weekend but still laughed, and that cracked me up.
Tom: Waltham!
Fred: Don’t make fun of my Invasion deck unless you want the wrath brought down
CT: *WINK!*
Raveling: Pokechu!
Rippetoe: please send me bomb wookie wacky decks for the MPC
h2o: Next stop bakersville!
Chu: you are a fart machine
Henry: glad you got the yelling down
Mark: thanks for the wendys! and the rides!

Honestly, I could keep going for hours and hours but It’s taken me two weeks to write this TR, and I’m pretty sure

it dwarfs chu’s (even though he said his was fifteen pages, I doubt it’s longer than this) and I really just want
to post it for the love of god.