Beginning our 14th straight month of winter this February, we packed up the car and set out across the frozen tundra that is Minnesota and Wisconsin. On the way there I call the hotel to check our reservation. “Sir, it looks like you had 1 room reserved for 8 adults last night.” Uh what? I wasn’t even aware that you could rent 1 single hotel room for 8 adults. We squared that situation and got some Micky D’s and finally arrived.
At the hotel room we had adjoining room and decided to rearrange some all of the furniture to get in some last minute testing. Brian and I still weren’t 100% sure what we were going to play the next day. Andrew was pretty much locked in on playing Poe Hondo, but with his own spicy tech as usual. Luke had been set on Boba Phasma for at least a week and had some secrets of his own with Swiftness/We Have Them Now. As for me, after just a few more games with the hero mill deck that Brian had brewed and I had tweaked, I was positive I was playing it. My other options were Poe Hondo and Rainbow Fly (Hero Vehicles), but neither felt as solid as mill. Brian was less decisive at first, picking between Thrawlzin and hero mill. But after beating the devil out of the other guys a few games he was a lock for mill too.
That night and the next morning we were still undecided on a few cards in the deck. The number of Scouts, All Quiet on the Front, Fall Back, Sound the Alarm, and Flank were all under scrutiny. Brian convinced me that Fall Back was nuts and he was definitely right. I put Overconfidence in the deck as yet another 2-die control card and it paid dividends for me all day long.
I think everybody got a horrible night’s sleep and had a lackluster breakfast. We stumbled to the car, hoping to brighten our day by painting some happy little W’s on our match slips.
(check out our finalized list here, look also for a deck tech video that should arrive soon on our youtube channel)
Round 1
Brian’s got the bye from a store champ. I had already used mine in Minnesota so I had to try my luck against the crowd. I got paired against a newer player with 4 character vehicles. Other than a scary Tie Fighter the match went pretty smoothly. I was really glad I had cut flanks when I sat down and saw this across the table.
(Brian 1-0) (Will 1-0)
Round 2
Brian: I got paired against Dr Aphra, Cienna, Guavian this round. His game plan was to drop a bunch of droids and vehicles, focusing his dice for max damage and reactivating with Cienna. Unfortunately the slow support decks don’t stand much of a chance against mill and, having played mill before, he knew it was going to be difficult.
Will: This round was a scary one, sitting across from Phasma Jango. Any deck that can burst is going to be tenuous, but I was able to mill 2 Tactical Mastery and 1 Quick Draw so his only cheat was Jango and a late Quick draw that wasn’t able to do enough damage.
(Brian 2-0) (Will 2-0)
Round 3
Brian: This round I played against the Obi Maz player who ended up 1st overall after round 8, a deck we hadn’t tested much against. We figured it was going to be a good matchup because of the low early damage potential. A well timed Fall Back pretty much sealed this game for me and my control was good enough to clean up the rest of the game.
Will: I also played Obi Maz this round and my shields were just too much for him to deal with. I played Entrenched twice and a Fall Back to keep the damage potential low. Obi Maz really needs to ramp upgrades into play early to overwhelm you, but our game plan is built perfectly to counter that strategy.
(Brian 3-0) (Will 3-0)
Round 4
Brian: Nick Obee was running Hero Vehicles which, unfortunately for him, is one of our best matchups. Hyperspace Jump is MVP here. By the time the indirect damage builds up, we have the ability to control or Jump out of the turn. Plus the slow nature of the deck allows us to discard their cards early and sweep up with control later. All the resources we ramp helps pay for Y-Wing too. I was also lucky to mill a lot of his vehicles off the top early in the game, which made it a little easier.
Will: I played against eKylo Tarkin this game. On paper, this looks like a great game for me, with only 3 dice to control and a Kylo that shouldn’t be hitting very often. We started on his Weapons Factory Alpha and he dropped a first turn Kylo’s Starfighter. I was able to mill a few cards and, later that first round, he took resources and played a Maul’s Saber. Second round he played 2 Force Speeds followed by Leadership and I went on tilt. I made a few misplays in this game and even with all that I almost was able to run him out of cards. Moral of the story: Don’t go on tilt because you can probably still win.
(Brian 4-0) (Will 3-1)
Round 5
Brian: This round Tarkin 7th Sister had me worried. Tarkin can turn bad rolls into good rolls with his ability and the multitude of upgrades in this deck makes it hard to control, even with Fall Back. It kept me in the game long enough to mill all the cards from his hand and deck, but he was able to do enough damage that turn to finish off Yoda for the win.
Will: Another Obi Maz, another happy little W. Fall back was a beast, removing 4 upgrades.
(Brian 4-1) (Will 4-1)
Round 6
Brian: Kylo Talzin shouldn’t be too scary because of the 4-color near even split of our deck. I got shields to start the game and on his first action he Frightened me. Then he hit with Kylo’s ability and then was able to kill Partisan on round 2, before I could activate him. Kylo missed for most of the rest of the game and my shields took over. Rieekan with Scout kept the pressure on and my control cards kept his Talzin ability in check. He made a ballsy play of Spell of Removal on my deck, hitting an Easy Pickings. There are 21 odd cards in the deck though, so probably a good choice. But in the end I was able to discard enough with C3PO and Chance Cube.
Will: Nick Obee had a rough day against Hero Mill. This game was a lot closer than Brian’s with Nick dropping Y-Wing and Resistance Bomber first round. He kept spamming out the vehicles, but on the last turn I was able to roll out Chance Cube and C3PO to discard his last 3 cards and play Hyperspace Jump. Barring some bad rolls, he probably would’ve had enough damage to finish me off had the turn played out.
(Brian 5-1) (Will 5-1)
Round 7
Brian: This was a tougher Obi Maz, with him able to kill off Yoda round 3 with an Obi’s Saber special for 3 unblockable. Fall Back saved the day again, getting rid of an Ancient Saber and a Shoto… Then it saved the day again, the second Fall Back getting rid of Heirloom and another Ancient, leaving him with just Obi’s Saber in play. He wasn’t able to kill the Partisan and I got the win.
Will: Another Obi Maz deck. If I remember correctly, he made the right choice of going for Partisan in this game and took him out fairly early, but a Fall Back for 4 upgrades made it difficult to keep up the pressure.
(Brian 6-1) (Will 6-1)
Round 8
Brian: Well Well Well, look who it is.
Will: Yep, it was me. Despite playing an All Quiet on the Front for 9 freaking cards, Brian had 2 Chance Cubes at the end of the game against my 1 Chance Cube and was able to always be 1 action ahead.
Brian ended up scooping to me because he was in 2nd place going into the last round with the best tiebreakers of the 6-1’s. My tiebreakers were miserable and I was at the bottom of the 6-1’s in 6th place…
Top 8
…but, because of how the other top matches went, it put me and Brian in 4th and 5th place, respectively and Andrew snuck in at 8th place. Our other car-member Luke wasn’t so lucky on tiebreakers and came in 11th.
Great. Another 2-3 games of mill mirror.
Brian: These 2 games were won with pure skill and wit, playing first round C3PO, Chance Cube, and Scout game 1. Game 2 I had first round Scout and Chance Cube.
Will: I mulliganed all 5 of my cards both games and didn’t see anything good. Pro plays Brian.
Brian: Easy 2-0, scrub.
Top 4
Brian: Unfortunately we all ended up on the same side of the bracket and I had to play Andrew this round. Game 1 was one of the tightest games I’ve played in a while. We had all tested this matchup a lot, so Andrew knew exactly what he was doing. He was able to play 2 Running Interference and was able to action cheat some really strong rolls. At the end of the game he was 1 action short and 1 hit point away thanks to a clutch Hunker Down from my hand to keep Partisan at 7 rather than the 6 he had with X-8 Sniper and 2 Hondo Specials (I had 1 resource left to pay).
Game 2 didn’t go so well for Andrew, rolling cold and making it easy to clean up with dice removal.
Finals
Brian: This was a rematch of round 4 with Nick Obee who was not too pleased to face the mill deck for a 3rd time today. Game 1 went much better for him than our earlier match. He was able to put down an early Y-Wing and HWK cutting chunks of shields and health. 2nd round he played a second Y-Wing and managed to discard a Hyperspace Jump from my hand. I didn’t see my second Hyperspace Jump until much later, opening the door for him to deal tons of damage with his supports. He managed to take out Rieekan before I milled his deck, but once I got the second Hyperspace I was able to jump out of a turn and then finish out the game with C3PO.
Game 2 was dirty. I managed to play C3PO and Chance Cube in round 1, hitting for 2 discards turn 1… both of his HWKs. That, combined with milling Resistance Bomber and Y-Wing put him way behind. He was able to control my C3PO die for 3 rounds in a row, keeping him in the game. I was able to play Hyperspace Jump twice in this game, the second time, Jumping for the W.
The End
I think we all had a great trip. There were some ups and downs, we laughed and we cried, but in the end, we all learned something from our journey: Burger King has Cinnamon Toast Crunch milkshakes.
Props:
- All 4 of us managing to make top 16.
- I’m Board! Games and Family Fun for hosting a well-run tournament.
- Garrett for bringing us those key extra Fall Backs.
- AmericInn for sheltering us from the Blizzard of 2018.
- All the dank memes and inside jokes that get created on these trips.
Slops:
- Weird prize support. 3 raffles ticket winners got a full sealed box, yet 0 packs for anybody in top 8.
- Wyndham hotels for messing up the reservation, charging extra, and causing a hassle.
- Wisconsin Dot for not plowing roads.
SEE YOU NEXT SEASON OOOOEEEEE…
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