It was mentioned in the Preview post that it was hard to secure 12 Duelers for this match. That's so depressing! Hopefully that's just an anomaly and not an indication that the league is succumbing to the Dark Side...
...but we did have 12! And they came to kick butt and chew bubblegum...and they were all out of bubblegum. It was an interesting mixture of veterans (5 professional Duelers) and amateurs (seven Duelers who had fewer than three Duels under their belts). It just about guaranteed a volatile outcome.
Rob, always serving the role of host before a game starts, was embarrassed to pull the #1 chair. It makes his job of facilitating the board and character distribution all the more difficult. And he couldn't turn to chair #2 to make the picks for him because that seat was occupied by his daughter, Riley! So Rob fanned the envelopes to chair #12, Brandon, who picked the Carbon Freezing Chamber. This would be the first time in Carbon since the Twin Sun Slam doubleheader back in June.
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| The "I'm with Riley" fan club. |
The first major action of the game, though, came courtesy of Jonathan B.'s Darth Vader. He wasn't about to start stuff with Katie's Luke Skywalker in the middle of the board. So he flipped towards the light side. Katie did the same, leaving Leia up front while Luke hung back. Things only got worse for the dark side when Rob jokingly told Owen to use his Thermal Detonator and Rocket Retreat right out of the gate. Sure enough...he did!!! Joel/Maul, Coleman/Emperor, and Matthew/Dooku all got stung with four points of damage.
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| Joel's last stand. |
Things only got worse for the dark side. Matthew B., playing in his very first Duel, began battling Maul and Emperor! He felt liberated by his CL's death and decided to go crazy. He Force Pushed Coleman's Emperor into a light side kill box. Once again, Riley the Executioner was ready, Force Lifting and then killing poor Coleman in eleventh.
From there it was a desperate, bloody battle for ninth place between Joel's Maul and Matt's Count Dooku. Joel was enraged and determined to take out the saboteur as he ignored the gentle heckling from his nemesis, Riley. He did indeed take down Dooku, ending Matt's first ever Duel in tenth place. Sadly for Joel, as he looked across the board, all he saw were eight characters staring back at him, chomping at the bit. Grant's Padme finally put him out of his misery. Rarely are ninth place finishes so valiantly fought for...
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| Jonathan's Vader chooses a new path... |
But that wasn't going to stop him from rallying a new alliance against his own daughter.
He used Force Quickness to give himself some distance as Riley's minions began to probe ways to attack Obi-Wan. On Rob's next turn he tried to make amends with his old comrades by creating a kill box around Brandon's Jango. Strangely, nobody really attacked him. It wasn't looking good for Rob, so he fired up a stump speech to point out how strong Riley's alliance was and how we needed to work against her now or fall to her later. Jonathan/Vader saw the logic in it, and committed to the alternative alliance. Katie's Luke Skywalker was suddenly down with it too and she eliminated Kaleb in eighth place.
Riley didn't quite realize it at first, but she was the next target. The look of shock on her face when JD's Mace, her most trusted partner, went in for the kill...I don't know how JD can look at himself in the mirror. Riley the rabble-rouser bowed out in seventh.
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| So...much...pleading... |
The final five were Rob/Obi, Grant/Anakin, JD/Mace, Katie/Luke, and Brandon/Jango. Mace and Luke were clearly in league with each other, so Grant finally agreed to work with Rob and both assumed Brandon was down for the cause too. But he decided to attack both sides on his next turn and the table collectively agreed it was time for the rookie to go night-night. Still, that was a great debut for Brandon!
The final four took a lot of twists and turns but Katie's Luke and Rob's Obi-Wan were both damaged and weak carded. That was partially because of the I Will Not Fight You Katie dropped on Obi. Grant was most fearful of JD, who was vehemently arguing to kill Obi-Wan next. Grant feared Katie and JD would stay united, though, and eventually eliminated Katie in fourth. You can't say enough about her night, though. It's clear the league has a new hot-shot Dueler who will use her knowledge of psychological development to her advantage.
JD accepted the temporary reprieve but didn't trust Rob in the least. Rob told JD to use his two Whirlwinds on Grant or he was going to use the Force Balance card to dump them anyway. JD got one of them off on Rob before having to discard his full hand.
On the redraw Rob's luck finally ran out as JD convinced Grant to finish him off. But having to use two attacks on Obi proved to be fatal for Grant. JD was reshuffling his draw pile and got a fortuitous sequence of cards and, despite being more damaged than Grant's Anakin, he quickly turned the tide and finished Grant off for the win! It really seemed to come out of nowhere as all of the spectators assumed Grant would carry the day. Congrats JD, who becomes the second Dueler in league history to complete his GECK (wins on Geonosis, Emperor's Throne Room, Carbon, and Kamino). He also moved into a tie with Grant on the all-time win list (seven).
The final order of finish:
12. Owen/Boba Fett
11. Coleman/Emperor Palpatine
10. Matthew B./Count Dooku
9. Joel/Darth Maul
8. Kaleb/Han Solo
7. Riley/Yoda
6. Jonathan B./Darth Vader
5. Brandon/Jango Fett
4. Katie/Luke Skywalker
3. Rob/Obi-Wan Kenobi
2. Grant/Anakin Skywalker
1. JD/Mace Windu
It was a humorous and tense night - let's do it again next month! Stay tuned for details on the fifth annual THANKSDUELING match in November!
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