First, I have to say that I did not go in planning, or even wanting to win. With the past few months, I've been getting a bit burnt out on competitive X-wing. I prefer more casual games, where both players do their best, but also aim to make sure it's a fun game for everyone. My 7 year old son disagrees and cannot get enough of X-wing, so I've gone to this store championship so he could play his highest level tournament yet. PTL people, feel free to weigh in as to whether the PTL Open was "higher level", it certainly was bigger
Second, I know what you're thinking, "what, just one? Aren't dual Firesprays the new OP ships?" See, the thing is, I was trying Boba and Kath against my son, but I chickened out and brought a different friend for Kath, the awesome Ketsu! While I'd flown Asajj before, I'd never tried Ketsu, and I did have that cool alt art.
First, because I know that's what you came for, a Firespray actually sitting next to a store champ plaque:
This store's awesome TO, who is retiring from the game and trying to get me to take over, has a very nice approach to prize support, which is reflected in this "meager" loot for 2 players. Rather than make it top heavy, he goes from the top down and everyone (to a point) picks something from his pile of loot. This time around, the top 4 loot was excluded and the top 8 got the range ruler, which they could trade for anything on the table. I traded mine for Rey. Then, he rolls a dice and whoever was in that position, gets to pick something from the table, my son took back my range ruler this way. Then, he does the straight up participation prizes. While not as loot heavy as other stores, I much prefer this approach to spread out the wealth while giving first pick to top finishers.
The 2014 store champ ruler I traded my top 4 split ruler for, as I refuse to use something other than my 2016 SOS rulers and my son has his PTL Open ones. Besides, yellow is my middle son's favorite color, so we may get him in the game sooner this way
The best recap: my son's
As I said, I was there so he'd get to play against someone other than me. He was rocking his triple crackshot Glaives the same that he ran at his first kit tournament last summer, getting a 2nd place out of them. He ended up 11th out of 18 this time, with two narrow losses. He flew like a champ, and, thanks to the Montreal folks making the trip to Gatineau/Ottawa, he got to play all four of his matches in French, I didn't need to translate for him!
He lost to a Ketsu/Asajj list, with an almost dead Ketsu. He narrowly lost to a Fenn/Palob/Asajj paratanni list, by being drawn into the Palob hate instead of finishing Asajj (we've all been there). Then he won against a Miranda/Chewie list and finished the day against Boba/Kath. Lets just say he had a few games worth of practice against me for that one, but it came down to the wire, in a 1h Boba vs 2h Glaive deathmatch.
His red dice were on fire every time I looked over, like this:
And to all of you who want to GIT GUD, here's what he was doing whenever there were no games going on:
Yup, he'd just grab my list, complaining that I should just play against him instead of relaxing, and run matches over and over again until the next match-up was called. I don't know how he does it, but he lives and breathes X-wing.
My recap
My first match was against the same Chewie/Miranda my son faced. It was ran by a very nice teenager who is getting started with X-wing. It wasn't designed to withstand all the red dice I was bringing to the table though, so it ended quickly.
I was then overjoyed to face a Ketsu/Bossk list just before the lunch break. I stupidly thought "well, whichever way this goes, I'm betting a long break to watch my son play!" It took 70 minutes for Ketsu to finally finish Bossk... It started off with a bang, Kath and his Ketsu bought the farm really quickly. Bossk really put the hurt on Ketsu by splitting his crits too, which he got many of. I managed to start plinking back because Ketsu's arc can move. I finally got my big break when I landed a PS0 crit on Bossk, then went the long way around to get to a R1 final attack from which he couldn't fire back. Brutal!
Up next was a Poe/Braylen/IonHog. I got really lucky that I found a way to orbit a rock with hard 3s with a very injured Ketsu early on. Completely boring to fly, but that was her best move every turn... I parked Braylen on a rock on the second turn of fighting, and finished him with combined attacks the next round. The stresshog had a console fire that he rolled hot for, and my dice all magically evaded his ions, which was a lucky break. I finished the game with Poe facing the rock Ketsu was orbiting and I ran Kath through the rock while Ketsu kept turning. Poe had not expect Kath to go through, so he bumped her while parked on the rock. A range 1 from Ketsu's side arc had him ioned, barrel-rolled him off the rock and Kath had a R1 rear arc shot that came up hit-hit-hit-hit-crit, so yeah, Poe went BOOM!
My final game was against Expertise Vess, PtL Ryad and Omega Leader. I completely messed up my initial approach and Ketsu got lit up while my dice further punished me so that Vessery only lost his shields. I managed to make the situation not as bad by engineering a R1 back arc from Ketsu on Ryad that barrel-rolled her where she couldn't shoot Ketsu to finish her anymore. Vessery, now on 2 hulls, ran away, while Ketsu was doing the same the other way. Ryad died. Vessery and Ketsu made it back on the same turn, but Omega Leader finished Ketsu before she could shoot. Thankfully, Kath's back arc was enough to wipe out Vessery. Omega Leader proceeded to troll Kath, barrel rolling out of arc and shooting unmodified pot shots. Pretty soon, both Kath and OL were down to 2 hulls. I had a choice to make, take the safe move, but potentially die right there, or take the crazy move and hope it pays off. I went with crazy:
So I 1 banked to the corner and took a futile evade. My opponent, sure I was going to do the hard 2, rushed forward. He then had the horrible decision to make. Take a focus, take an evade, or barrel-roll and try to finish me with a R1 shot before I unloaded 5 on him. He went with the focus. I rolled hit-hit-crit-blank, couldn't Dengar or Expertise, so I was hoping. He rolled 2 focuses, used his token and let through a single crit. It was a direct it!
It was a beautiful end to an amazing game!
Prizes were given out and the top 4 was consulted as to "what now?" Two of them made the 2 hour drive to get here and I'm going on a business trip this week and won't get to see my sons or wife so we voted to just split the loot and forego the top 4 elimination. Seeing as I was the only undefeated, we at least had a clear winner already. I took the plaque, and the other 3 guys decided who got a Kallus and who got the bye. As burnt out as I feel right now, I doubt I'd go to another regional. The 9 rounds run I had in February really were the biggest factor in how I feel and I'm still not over it, so I'm not regretting that choice!
It was a fun day with great people. The only downside is confirming that Dany is leaving the game and that was his last hurrah, he will be missed!
