so the full write up.
I took ePalp to the Montclair tournament today. I had two choices today, one in Burbank at 1:00pm, or Montclair at 11:30am. I had a hard stop in that I needed to be at a show I was performing in at 5:00pm (I ended up there at 5:10 so all was good). I figured the Montclair tournament would be done in time for me to make it. And I would've been right... I really like those guys at Gameology, but they did unfortunately run the tournament by hand, and did SoS tiebreakers by hand. the overall slowness of pairings, and tiebreakings, ended up being costly for me.
I've played ePalp exclusively for the last two weeks, after taking Poe/Maz to the Final Four in my first store champ of the season. (4-1 record).
Game 1- vs Jarred's eVentress / eKrennic
I'm pretty much a nightmare match-up for his deck and I felt bad. His goal is to Imperial Inspect, disrupt. As a Palp deck that either has 0 cost upgrades (Holocron or Force Speed) or expensive upgrades, I wasn't really effected. That said, I had a nightmare mulligan where I pulled up 2 Rise Agains and a Force Lightning with no holocron. Ruh-roh. I rolled 6 for the battlefield and took my Otoh Gunga which I think slowed his deck down a lot potentially with mixed damage.
Palp rolled super well this game, getting 4 RNG on turn one for 8 total damage, I had mitigation but he claimed and got the death trooper die for Turn 2. On turn two, Palp was showing 2 or 3 RNG on a die, and he had a Force Speed on special, with 2 Ventress melees. He made his only major misplay here, when used the Force Speed, and put now I am the master on Krennic and then resolved Ventress. He could've played it on Ventress and blanked me out there. I was pretty much in control, Ventress went down and Krennic quickly. I rolled really hot, but I was in pretty firm control.
Round 2 vs ?? ePoe / eMaz
Ah here we go. Poe/Maz. I think we had 8 or so in Montclair, which was a similar number in Burbank out of 35.
This game I made two mistakes, which fortunately didn't cost me. Firstly, I hard cast Force Throw, I realized after this was out of my gameplay, and super dumb, I drew a Rise Again right after it, so I could've discarded it, and gotten 5 health and Force Throw. Also, Maz runs Cunning Now, and he did drop a Cunning on me, and successfully threw a 2 discard back into Palp. Ouch. That said, the Force Throw was good for me too, he rolled his Fast Handed Poe into a double 3, so while he hit Palp for 3, another 3 hit Maz. I don't believe he ever got two
Given Cunning's new prevalence in the meta, I've switched my priority target against Poe/Maz to Maz. I pretty quickly dispatched Maz and then managed to take out Poe a few turns later. I was never in any real danger.
Game 3 vs Jim Lafferty Poe / Maz
I knew Jim's name when I sat down from 20 years ago and the SW:CCG. he was #1 in the world for quite a while, and super high up there the rest of the time. He was also a guy who almost counter navigated the operative meta at the first SWCCG Worlds. Kinda crazy to end up playing him in Destiny years later. He unrolls a Destiny Top 32 world championship mat and it's like, oh man.
Learning from my previous game, I went completely on the defensive here, I won the initiative roll and took his battlefield (Graveyard, which I think isn't the right battlefield) and took the two shields. I don't think I ever cast a force ability in the game besides Force Illusion, which I used two of, and then rose again, and put one back on Palp. I also resolved a Palp 2 shields. In the end, I think he had done 19 damage to Palp, yet my Palp still had 15 health.
He had a terrible draw tho, 2 Hit and Runs, nothing to throw, 1 defensive position, and 1 dug in. He used the Def Pos on a single die.
At one point in this game, his Poe was untouched, and his Maz had 7 damage, I had 2 3RNG showing on Palp. I was in good shape here, (maybe pre-rise again but knowing it was coming), and I debated this play a lot --- maybe it was greedy, but I put all 10 damage on Palp. The way I saw it was I could quickly finish off both with any Palp resolve, versus blowing 2 damage on Maz and leaving Poe at 5 which could survive on onslaught. This also let me claim fast, which I knew would shut off the major dug in, or defensive position that could keep him in the game
it ended up working out, he field medic-ed poe, but there was nothing that could stop me with Palp getting a 2 RNG + shields.
Round 4 vs Poe / Maz
Another day another dollar I guess. This guy basically gave up when he saw Palp and said he loses to it. And he was right. I rolled pretty hot and killed man with a no mercy on Turn 2. Poe went down in round 3. The game took 8 minutes. I think he also used Graveyard. This guy threw cunning down on Maz after I had dealt my first 3 damage to her, which I thought was a massive mistake and waste of resources.
Round 5 vs FN-2199 / Baby Vader (Bryan Russo)
I had seen Bryan beat an ePalp in his previous game when the ePalp rolled out and hit Blanks on both Palp dice, holocron, and force lightning, with a plus 1 on Lure of power. Bryan Feel your Angered on it and flipped the game in that one turn.
The only undefeated match-up, both of us were basically ensured of making the cut. Bryan is pretty well known on the SoCal boards from the San Diego area. I think I made a mistake in going after FN-2199 first here. This game was so hyper close. We both had good plays, I was rolling out fast and resolving to avoid Guard. I had a super strong open with holocron, force speed, and illusion out on turn 1. I got force push on in turn two and was whittling away but he was doing damage too. I killed FN-2199 and was getting towards range on Anakin. I rolled in on the next turn and hit two blanks and he reeled your anger and dropped both palp dice. Woof. I still had 2 RNG on Force push, and a no mercy. I made what I think was a misplay here, I sort of thought he couldn't use Baby Vader to kill me without causing a simultaneous death, but realized after Baby Vader wins. So I played the No mercy and dumped by hand to take him to 10 damage, and claimed to heal 1. I thought he could only do 7, but actually with a special (That would kill Palp before killing Baby Vader) he could get 8. He got it with the last re-roll.
I think if I slow play it a bit more, I probably get to roll in first and finish him off on the next turn... I also might've been able to find a rise again.
Still it didn't;'t matter, I came in 2nd after Swiss with the best SoS. Bryan was 1st, Jim Lafferty was 3rd, and Joe Hendrix, who was the Palp player Bryan beat before me, was in 4th.
Now this is where the time crunch killed me, I needed to be leaving the store, but there was a tie on SoS for 4th and 5th, and they had to go calculate Extended SoS by hand. Brutal. Plus then deck checks on a couple people.
Jim and I got going quickly
Final 4 vs Jim Lefferty's Poe Maz
Jim really wanted revenge and a second chance, unfortunately my deck ran really well. I got holocron and force speed out turn one, holocron got me a Force Lightning, which he had to defensive position just that away. On turn 2 the holocron got the second force lightning out. So Palp had 2 Force Lightnings on Turn 2. Those Force lightnings dealt 7 damage and killed Maz, and then splash damage took Poe into lethal territory. Jim fought valiantly, but Palp ramping into two Force Lightnings on Turn 2 will beat just about anything.
I was out of time, Joe Hendrix beat Russo with his ePalp, but I couldn't play the mirror so I conceded the final game and took the mat and card.
Real bummer to not get to play a best of 1 final mirror for the title / plaque / bye, but happy to improve my standing, go 4-0 vs Poe/Maz, and run my Store Championships record to 9-2 in the SoCal area.
And I made it to my show on time and had a good show, so solid solid day