CL Training - August 7, 2018

The Emperor's Throne Room

Well, here we are.

The FIFTH season of our 12-Way Duels League.

They said it wouldn't last.  That it was just a fad.  A flash in the pan.  No potential for staying power.

They were wrong.  So very, very wrong!  This is year five, baby!  And that means it's no holds barred!  Anything goes!  Chaos reigns!  There ain't no stoppin' us now, we're on the move!  Why do I keep using so many exclamation points!?!

Your combatants for the 6th Annual CL Training Duel

As fate would have it, Rob drew the #1 chair, so he let Brianna, a rookie Dueler sitting in the second chair, pick the board.  The Emperor's Throne Room was the venue selected.  If I'm not mistaken, we haven't played on Kamino since this past January.  The drought continues.

Brianna was also kind enough to give Rob Yoda, though in the Throne Room, that's not always good.  All the other characters were distributed and we were off and running, though not before Ben nearly had a panic attack as he had a 50/50 shot at being stuck with Han Solo again.

The dark and light sides stayed clustered for the first couple of cycles around the table, but Joel/Luke Skywalker decided the dark side was more promising and began his evacuation procedures.  Didn't he see Return of the Jedi???  That's not what he's supposed to do on this board!  That also left poor Brianna, piloting Obi-Wan, alone on the front lines, fighting multiple dark side characters all by herself.  Through no fault of her own she was slowly whittled down into last place.

JD and Kaleb, plotting and scheming.

That turn of events was all Luke R./Anakin needed to also high-tail it over to the dark side.  He popped Kat's Han Solo on his way out the door.  From there JD/Emperor and Kaleb/Vader (yes, you read that right, Kaleb got hired over the summer so the Hall of Famer is back in the league!) started using their distance attacks on Rob's Yoda.  It looked bleak for the remaining light side.

Rob tried a Hail Mary maneuver when he Force Lifted and then Force Pushed Ben's unsuspecting Mace Windu into the middle of a dark side viper pit.  It was a brutal betrayal and Ben died in eleventh.  The distraction proved fruitless for Rob, though, because after a Thermal Detonator Kaleb's Storm Trooper shot him off the board in tenth.

Hi Luke!

Kat's Han Solo was still bleeding out on a corner of the board when the dark side in-fighting began.  Ian/Maul and Joel/Luke weren't too excited by Katie's fully healthy Count Dooku on the board.  The rookie Dueler was playing well but she was caught on the wrong end of the first inner-alliance fight.  That made it ninth place for her, which isn't bad for one's first 12-Way Duel!

It looked like the board was going to converge on Han before continuing their weeding process when Mason, also playing in his first Duel, made the aggressive decision to pop off a couple of shots on Ian's Darth Maul.  Mason didn't have the support from his fellow fighters and soon found himself on the wrong end of multiple attacks.  Chris W.'s Jango Fett landed the final blow and Mason was sent to the rails.  After that, Kat, who at one point looked like she might be first out, finally succumbed to her wounds.  It was one of the coolest seventh place finishes I've seen in a long time.

Joel will not fight JD.

With six to go all the remaining light sabers and blasters started pointing at Luke R's Anakin.  He was loyal to his alliance but it was that point in the game that hard decisions had to be made.  His sixth place finish matched his current average.  #math

At this point it appeared JD/Emperor, Kaleb/Vader, and Chris/Jango were solid while Ian/Maul and Joel/Luke were loyal to each other.  In a mildly shocking move, though, all four Duelers not named Chris decided the Fett's services were no longer needed.  Chris didn't have a chance after that, but he deserves a big congrats for doing so well in his first 12-Way!

Things got awkward with the final four.  JD and Kaleb were together, and Ian and Joel were together.  But Ian and JD didn't want to fight each other, which meant JD and Kaleb wanted to take out Joel's Luke while Ian and Joel wanted to eliminate Kaleb's Vader.  If you were confused by that sentence imagine being there live and watching it play out!  There was a lot of nuanced play I can't recall well at this point, but I know Joel started playing "I Will Not Fight You" cards and that Ian's Darth Maul nearly killed Kaleb's Vader.  Joel and Ian were particularly scared of the fabled "wombo-combo," when Emperor plays "You Will Die" and Vader follows up with "All Too Easy."  Eventually Kaleb couldn't protect himself and he retired in fourth place.

With three Duelers left JD's Emperor was clearly the healthiest.  He still had the You Will Die card as well as both of his Royal Guards.  Those observing the Duel assumed Joel/Luke and Ian/Maul would start to work together, but there was an undercurrent of respect between Ian and JD that muddled the situation.

And that's when one of the weirdest moments in league history occurred.

As JD tried to talk Ian into attacking Joel's Luke Skywalker, Joel pointed out that if Ian attacked him it would leave JD free to play the You Will Die on Maul, essentially guaranteeing victory for JD.  Ian could see Joel's point.  That's when JD promised to play the You Will Die card on Joel instead.  Except...when JD's turn came up Joel didn't have any cards in his hand!  He used both to attack Ian!  But JD had promised to play the card...and he did!  He played the card that dumps a player's entire hand on a player who did't have a hand to dump.  Nobody would have blamed Ian for betraying JD and immediately attacking him, but he honored their deal and finally finished off Joel in third.  With two to go JD was in perfect position to take down Maul in second, which he did.  Congrats to JD!  That was his first win after a long streak of unhappy finishes.  He's also just the third Dueler to ever win with the Emperor.  Here's the final order of finish:

12.  Brianna/Obi-Wan
11.  Ben/Mace Windu
10.  Rob/Yoda
9.  Katie/Count Dooku
8.  Mason/Boba Fett
7.  Kat/Han Solo
6.  Luke/Anakin Skywalker
5.  Chris W./Jango Fett
4.  Kaleb/Darth Vader
3.  Joel/Luke Skywalker
2.  Ian/Darth Maul
1.  JD/Emperor Palpatine

This was an exciting start to season #5!  Our next Duel is actually our next TWO Duels - that's right, the annual DOUBLEHEADER will be on Friday, August 31st.  Stay tuned for the official invite!