Birmingham, Alabama Regional Winner - 58 person tournament 1.0

• Versiones

First things first - Card Addicts in Birmingham did a great job running this tournament, as did the Judge, Matt from Outer Rim, so huge shout out to them for a smooth event and excellent prize support! I'm thrilled I won but I also would have had a great time either way, so I just wanted to make sure that credit was given where credit was due for a great event.

I've finished top 8 in a couple of regionals before, but this is the first one I've won. I top8'd last year in Birmingham with Emo kids v2 and I finished in the top 8 earlier this year in Atlanta with Thrawn/Snoke. But as Kylo says, you have to let the past die and even kill it if you have to - and with the nerf to Snoke I felt it was definitely time to move on.Though I love both Snoke and Thrawn, it felt good to return to a blue villain beatdown deck - my first loves in this game were ePalp, eVader2/Kylo2, and eVader1/Royal Guard - and I enjoyed the aforementioned eKylo2/Vader2 - so sleeving up a big Sith Lord was definitely up my alley. That said, onto the tournament...

Swiss

Round 1 (vs. eThrawn/eSnoke/BR) [W] - As tends to happen, at any big event you're going to get paired up against a friend in Round 1. My opponent was Kroozin of the Sons of Mandalore, who I've played with and befriended over a few Destiny events over the past year or so. This was one of the closest match ups of the day and I wound up winning with just one health left on Vader and a Greedo that was long gone. This was an interesting game as we both dropped a Vader's First Round 1 but the game still went until Round 4 or 5 between his mitigation package and a crucial Rise Again for me. I left this match jittery that it was so close but also feeling good about how I played, and I think it set the tone for my play the rest of the day in terms of being able to slow it down and make the calls I needed to make.

Round 2 (vs. eHan3/ePoe2) [W] - The next round was also against a guy I know. He's not exactly local but he is a fellow Georgian and I've played with and talked to him a few times. Unfortunately for him, I was able to slice through Poe quicker than he was able to deal with, and Han was simply unable to stand up to Vader and Greedo on his own.

Round 3 (vs. eBeckett/eTalzin/PC) [W] - This is a match up I was expecting to encounter but honestly had not had that much practice against, so I wasn't sure how it was going to go. I had a pretty good idea of my game plan and was able to execute however. I actually started by putting pressure on Beckett but ultimately was forced to swap to Talzin once she had a force jump on her. To be honest, beyond that I don't recall too many other details of this match up but it was well-played and a close match - I came out of it thinking I'd probably see my opponent in the top cut. Unfortunately for him he didn't make it, but he definitely could have had the pieces fallen into place for him.

Round 4 (vs. eYoda/eLeia2) This is the first game I played on stream for the day (the VOD for the tournament as a whole can be seen at twitch.tv/cardaddicts). Mill is a match up that prior to a couple of days before the tournament I was very concerned about. I think Mill is very powerful in this game, and after its strong showing at regionals the week before I expected to have to be able to deal with it. I had slotted in two at odds and two meditation chambers to give me the edge over mill, and I think it was probably the single greatest thing I did in terms of deck building/tech choices (Credit to the guys at Arrow Brook Gaming, as I got the idea from their podcast). Like many people, I was sleeping on the Meditation Chamber, and even after listening the ABG cast I was doubtful, but my testing the couple of days before convinced me that it was so good vs. mill and good enough vs the rest that it was worth slotting in two to make sure I got one vs. mill - I'm glad I did. Between the recursion the meditation chamber gave that extended my deck vs mill and the recursion of at odds to control discard sides, I was able to take this one down against a very effective and game mill player.

Round 5 (vs. eAayla/eKit) [W] - Aayla/Kit (better known as Fish Sticks) is a deck that can give Vader problems, but unfortunately for my opponent he was not able to get much traction in this one. I was able to put a handful of early damage points in Aayla that caused my opponent to give her a Force Illusion, and from there I used No Good to Me Dead to heal her up to leverage for resources that let me play a Vader's Fist and swapped hard to Kit, putting him on the defensive. Between the illusion being committed to Aayla and Kit being on the back foot having to block rather than be able to maximize his damage, my opponent just couldn't get going. He still made top 8 though, and the game could very well have gone differently, but the early line the game took placed him at a severe disadvantage.

Round 6 (vs. eHan3/eQ'ira) [W]. This game was also on stream, against Headless Jango from Jackalmen Games who made the trip all the way from Tampa. At this point he and I were the only two undefeateds, and I had never actually played this match up at all, and while I could go through a mental checklist of what I needed to play around in terms of yellow events, I was still concerned going in based on lack of experience and facing who was clearly a skilled opponent to be the only other 5-0 at that point. However, this is the game for the day that I simply God-rolled him straight off the table, and there was nothing he could do. He did make a ballsy hail mary play of a bait and switch into a discard to rebel an indifferent to remove one of my Vader dice showing a 4-for-1. Unfortunately for him, nothing would go right in this game for him and the Vader Power Action rolled the 4-for-1 right back in. We did talk about it after the game and he would likely have been better off removing the +3 from my Vader's saber that accompanied the Vader die, but that's hindsight. This was my first time meeting him and he was a pleasure to play against and chat with following the match.

Round 7 (vs. eLuke3/eHan3) [L] - Things came full circle for Swiss as I was now playing against Jimmydehand, also a friend and also of the Sons of Mandalore. I never got any traction and he wiped the floor with me, offing Vader pretty quickly and leaving Greedo alone, naked and afraid, which drew a concession from me. I remember making a poor decision with a Vader's fist 4 indirect by resolving it instead of leveraging it for a Friends in High Places, but I was so far behind this whole game I don't know that it would have ultimately made a difference.

Top Cut

Top 8 (vs. eThrawn/eSnoke/BR) [W 2-1] - This was the final match I'd play today vs. someone I knew - it was Lake of YOUR Destiny, who I also do testing with and he helped me tweak and make suggestions for the deck I was running at the tourney. The games can be seen on VOD, but I got a pretty good run of him the first game, he slaughtered me the second game, and game 3 was a nail biter that I ultimately took with a CQA mill out.

Top 4 (vs. eVader2/Greedo) [W 2-1) I knew going into this match that while it would likely be anyone's match to win, it would not be the long, drawn out nail biter the last round one simply because both of our decks were simply looking to roll out big numbers and end the game. I felt fairly good before the round began going into this match as I had done a lot of prep vs. the mirror. The first game I got an early start with an upgrade and got a POF out and was able to take him out before he could do much. The second game went much differently, and he wiped me off the table before I could do much. Game 3 was much more back and forth. I don't recall too many specifics, but I know there was a time when his Vader rolled two double resource sides and I had 7 hp left on Vader. I felt pretty safe as I anticipated one bait and switch but not necessarily two, but to play it safe I played a Force Illusion out - and its a good thing i did as he did have the double bait and switch. Either way, great game to my opponent Joseph and as most mirrors go, it very easily could have been him advancing and not me.

Finals (vs. eVader2/Bazine) [W 2-0] I had seen Ryan, my opponent, playing this char combo earlier in the day and had had the opportunity to have quick discussion with him about his choice of Bazine vs. Greedo. He told me he liked her sides better, particularly the discard and the resource. I could see his POV but was not convinced, but in playing him I saw why the resource side in particular was so important for his particular build - in addition to the heavy cards most Vader's run like Rise Again, Vader's Fist, Darth Vader's Lightsaber, etc he was also running Dark Ritual so that if Vader went down, Bazine could bring him back and he'd still be in the game. It's not my playstyle but it was clearly working for him, and he had a slot of interesting tech in the deck that was unqiue and not what I was expecting. Game 1 just didn't go his way though -I started with Theed and got an extra resource, and he then truce'd me right into a Darksaber. I was pretty much swimming in money that game for one reason or another the rest of the game as well, and eventually it just became too much for him to overcome. Game 2 was way closer though, but ultimately I was able to pull out the win and celebrate my first big event victory!

P.S. I did do a deck profile with Jackalman games after the tournament, so check out their channel for it. I'll also do my best to respond to any questions here.