CL Training Duel - August 10, 2026

Carbon Freezing Chamber (Dagobah)

Here we go Dueling fans - season THIRTEEN is underway!!!  The 12-way league calendar always starts with the CL Training retreat, and this year was no different.  13!?!

You can see Rob off the reflection of the glass!

We had a good mix of new and returning Duelers to start the evening - that's crucial at the CL Training Duel!  And folks didn't take too long to start mixing it up either.  After Alex/Saw Gerrera subtly moved from the light side to the dark, and Mason/K-2SO played Switzerland, the remaining light side started taking damage.  Yoyo/Krennic was the first to let the lasers start flying.  Shang, not a newbie to Dueling but playing his first 12-way, became the early target.  Emmanuel's Ponda Baba got the kill shot and Shang and Sol were out first!

The light side was in complete disarray.  Mark, playing with Chirut and Baze, tried to flip to the other side too.  But Rob had ten cards and a Knight of Ren ready to start swinging.  The dark side followed suit and Junior went into self-preservation mode by knocking out his own alliance partner!  On the plus side, Mark hasn't snapped a hamstring yet.

A drowning Dueler will climb over his alliance to survive!

Alex used an 8 point attack on David's Chewbacca...who was out of defense cards!  The wookie was eliminated and that left his Han Solo exposed.  Junior/Kit Fisto kept clawing his way up the death order by attacking and eliminating his second alliance partner!  David was out in tenth, but this did serve as his sixth Duel, meaning he's turned professional.  Congrats, David!

Time finally ran out for Junior.  Mason was keeping a low profile but Kit Fisto was there for an easy elimination.  One 4-point K-2SO shot later and Junior was retired in ninth.

Tealthica

Rob/Kylo Ren could sense early in the game that the four members from Teal would likely work together deep into the match.  Sure enough, Nayshaun/Grand Moff Tarkin initiated an attack against Kylo!  But the sequels-Sith was ready and returned fire with a Force Choke.  That left Tarkin weak on health, and Mason used a Sarcastic Kick to "boot" Nayshaun from the game!

Meanwhile, on another area of the board, Kaizer/Reva and Yoyo/Krennic started to tussle.  Yoyo was aggressive with her cards earlier in the game and was left a bit short on options, especially as Kaizer was using all of Reva's big attacks.  He finally eliminated Yoyo in seventh, but there was no question Yoyo made a big impression in the game!

The doctor writing prescriptions...

The pace of play was great all night (we finished before 12AM!) and before we knew it we were down to six Duelers.  Folks were worried about K-2SO and maneuvered to vacate him next.  Kaizer's Reva once again dropped a 5-point attack to eject Mason from the game.  Kaizer's graveyard for the game was scary!

Rob/Kylo and Eric/Migs & Q9-O could sense the Teal alliance was definitely still a thing, so Kylo swooped in and started swinging at Reva.  She got down to three points of health, but her minors were still on the board so she couldn't heal.  One turn later Kylo used Force Choke and Kaizer's reign of terror was finally over.  What a debut for the rookie, though!

Lies?  Deception?

Rob wasn't keen on the two shooters left on the board (Eric and Emmanuel's Dr. Evazan) as the only blade still standing, so he tried to form an alliance with Alex/Saw.  Alex was initially receptive to that, but then used a Boom! to damage Kylo and his last Knight of Ren.  Rob used a Force Leap to move in and attack Saw!!  Alex made a great last stand but was unable to defend against Kylo and the remaining shooters.  Rob's Force Dyad parked Alex in fourth.  Alex has played well in 2026!

Rob hoped Emmanuel's insane run with Dr. Evazan might include a partnership against Eric, who still had both Migs and Q9-O on the board, but you can't trust anyone with a doctorate in this game (wait a minute...) so Rob dropped the Mos Eisley bully with his 12-point attack!  Emmanuel was gobsmacked by the point value, just as the rest of the table was with his amazing rookie debut!  Congrats to Emmanuel on third place!

Goodluck handshakes at final two!

Smoking Dr. Evazan looked cool, but Rob/Kylo were in real trouble.  Both of Eric's double-minor characters were at full health, standing on either end of a flat map and able to shoot with ease.  Rob did his best to isolate his attacks on Migs, but both shooters kept bobbing and weaving.  Eric was flawless and Rob was drawing nothing but minor cards after the shuffle.  Migs put the final laser into Kylo for the win!!!  Congrats to Eric, this was his first career victory in a 12-way!!!  This also marked the first career win for Migs and Q9-O!!!

Final order of finish:

12.  Shang/Sol

11.  Mark/Baze

10.  David M./Han

9.  Junior/Kit Fisto

8.  Nayshaun (CLMentoress)/Tarkin

7.  Yoyo/Krennic

6.  Mason B/K-2SO

5.  Kaizer/Reva

4.  Alex/Saw

3.  Emmanuel/Dr. Evazan

2.  Rob/Kylo

1.  Eric/Migs and Q9-O

That was a fantastic kickoff to the new year of Dueling!!!  Congrats again to Eric - what a great win.  Our next Duel is actually TWO Duels - THE DOUBLEHEADER!  We'll play twice in one day.  We have a *tentative* date of Saturday, August 29, set for that, but Rob will circle back with more details soon.

Until then...PEW PEW!

  

The Singles Tournament - July 26, 2026

 

Sorry for the delayed post!  But back a couple of Sundays ago we threw down for the annual summer Singles Tournament!  And for the first time ever - we expanded the character options to 64, meaning each character could only be chosen twice for the entire tournament.

It was an unpredictable day!  Only two of the original 12 characters even made it to the sweet 16 (Anakin and Mace), and by the time we got to the final four JD/Jabba, Riley/Rey, Curtis/Ahsoka, and Duncan/Princess Leia were the last four standing

But at the end of the night it was Riley and Rey who emerged victorious!  Riley is about to depart for Iowa, so what a way to wrap up his Dueling career...especially after he lost his first three matches of the day!!!  Click below for more pictures and the final brackets!

Twin Sun Slam - June 28, 2026

Death Star

After a family medical emergency forced the original Twin Sun Slam to be postponed until later in June, the rescheduled doubleheader shrank down to a single game...but it was glorious!  We had a hall of famer come back to battle, three new padawans debut, and a first time winner!  On to the recap!!!

They're smiling because they see the Yoda Soda behind the camera.

The Death Star map was chosen for the Twin Sun Slam, and that's a tricky one because it's a different layout each time we play.  Curtis was convinced Mace Windu had the worst starting spot, so naturally that's who he randomly picked to play with.  He tried to defect to the dark side alleyway immediately, but Rob/Saw Gerrera and Sam/Indara weren't having it.  They started picking off his Clone Troopers and dealing him damage for the betrayal.  Hall of Famer Kaleb (maybe playing his last ever 12-way Duel???) used his Fennec I Don't Miss to off Curtis in last...and Curtis was grumpy.

That didn't help the light side too much because they were still down in numbers to the dark.  Sam's Indara is a naturally defensive character, but he had a weird starting hand and lost Torbin almost immediately.  That made him the focal point of the dark side offensive, and Riley/Vader used a Throw Debris to bump him off in eleventh.  He drove down from Dallas for that!

Who has two thumbs and a Wookie minor character?  That guy!

One of the exciting aspects of this game was having Michele join us.  Not only did she bring delicious wookie cookies, she's also the first faculty in residence to Duel!  She did a great job with Han and Chewie, but as folks who've played know, they aren't the best combo to have in the middle of the board when one of your alliance partners flipped.  She fought valiantly but fellow newbie Jeremy/Aurra Sing used an 8-point Czerka Rifle Shot to freeze her in tenth!

Things were pretty desperate at that point for the light side, and not just because Rob was playing Saw Gerrera with his daughter's asthma mask on.  HOFer Kaleb was doing all he could to reek havoc, but his Fennec could only play so many Body Mods to survive.  In an absolutely cruel way to die, Ian/Grand Inquisitor played Interrogation, which requires you to discard two cards or subtract two health points.  Kaleb only had one card...so he had to subtract two health points and died!  Kaleb is moving to Virginia soon, which is going to make it much harder for him to sub in from time to time.  We love you Kaleb!!

Oh, it's beautiful!

The remaining light side was just about obliterated when the inevitable dark side infighting started!  Jeremy/Aurra and James/Krennic had been stuck in a side alley all game.  So Jeremy, in his first Duel, decided to go big and start shooting Caleb's Emperor!  It looked like James was going to join him, but Caleb retaliated by playing You Will Die on Jeremy!  That definitely changed James' mind, and he used Hero of the Empire to off a defenseless Jeremy.  It was a bold move, Jeremy, we loved the intention!

It looked like James was in good position to go very deep, but when he turned his attacks on Zach's Aayla Secura, she used a defense card to flip across open terrain and land next to Krennic!  She used a few Form IIIs (do not count as an action) and a ten-point attack to knock James from full health to near death!  Riley/Vader didn't waste any time and played the mop-up man, eliminating James in seventh.  It was a stunning turn of events for sure.

Lies!  Deception!!!

Did we mention Rob kept quoting Saw Gerrera all game and fake-huffing Rhydo with his daughter's mask?  Because he definitely did.  He and Zach were the last two light side standing, and the dark side was a bit agitated they hadn't stopped Rob's wheezing yet.  But the dark side reunited and concentrated their attacks on Zach's Aayla first.  He fought valiantly, but there was no stopping them, especially when Miles' Darth Maul ran in.  Zach finished sixth in his first Duel.  Well done, Zach!

Meanwhile, Ian's Grand Inquisitor moved to the back row to confront Rob/Saw Gerrera.  Saw was banged up, just like the character, and desperately pled his case to Ian that he and Riley/Vader needed him to take down brothers Caleb/Emperor and Miles/Maul.  Ian just wasn't having it, though, and spent a LOT of cards trying to take down Saw.  It eventually worked, and the table was relieved that the Saw impersonation was finally dead.

These two are always teaming up...

Just as Rob had tried to warn Ian, the brothers joined together and got to work on Riley's Vader.  It didn't take long before Miles' Darth Maul whittled her down and out in fourth.  The last time Riley played with Vader she won the 2025 Championship, and then she finished fourth.  She does well with her favorite character!

Ian tried to convince Miles/Maul that he needed his Grand Inquisitor to help take down big brother Caleb's Emperor Palpatine.  But Miles stayed loyal to Caleb and that went in on the Grand Inquisitor.  Miles used an Athletic Surge and Ian, playing his first Duel since becoming a father, was out in third.  Way to go, baby-daddy!  (That was weird...)

Cain vs. Abel

With Caleb and Miles in the final two, their father Curtis was suddenly in a much better mood!  This also meant the league would see its 45th unique Dueler win a game.  It looked like Caleb/Emperor had the early advantage, but Miles fought tough, even after enduring a You Will Die.  He had nerves of steel as he refused to runaway on his last points of health.  He drew an Athletic Surge...that Caleb couldn't defend!!!  Miles won with Maul!!!!  What a dramatic finish!  Caleb gave his little brother a big hug and Curtis said he would be happy to finish 12th each time if one of his sons won.  (I may have made that last part up).  The soon-to-be high school sophomore won in just his fourth career Duel, and it also marked the third family in league history to have a parent-child combo winners.  

We should also point out Darth Maul moves back into a tie with Darth Vader for most career character victories at 18 apiece.  That's quite a number!  

Congrats, Miles!

That's the last 12-way Duel until we kick off season 13 at CL Training in August.  BUT - we still have the singles tournament on July 26 coming up!  We'll need 32 Duelers to make that happen and, in a league first, we're using all the new league characters alongside the original 12!!!  Pay attention to your email and the insta page for that sign-up, it's coming soon!

Thanks everyone for 12 great years of Dueling - and here's to 12 more!!  PEW PEW!

Final order of finish:

12.  Curtis/Mace

11.  Sam/Indara

10.  Michele/Han

9.  Kaleb/Fennec

8.  Jeremy/Aurra

7.  James/Krennic

6.  Zach/Aayla

5.  Rob/Saw

4.  Riley/Vader

3.  Ian/Inquisitor

2.  Caleb/Emperor

1.  Miles/Maul

May the 4th Be With You - May 1, 2026

Ewok Village

It is official.  We've now logged TWELVES years of play for our TWELVE-WAY Duel League.  What an incredible journey!!!  202 unique Duelers have sat at the round table over the years, and 182 games have been played.  It's absolutely bonkers.  To all who have contributed to the madness over the last dozen trips around the sun...THANK YOU!  PEW PEW!!!

May the 4th Be With You!

This Duel was all kinds of kooky.  Riley was playing her last Duel as a minor - she turns 18 next week! But she managed to log 72 Duels before reaching legal voting age.  David C. joined us for the first time in...over ten years!!!  His last match was the Valentines Duel back in 2016!  

But the craziest character at the table was newbie Chris, a senior from Brooks who had played in the BRC games but never a 12-way.  He had Migs and Q9-0 in the back corner of the dark side of Ewok village...and started shooting Riley/Beckett!  All kinds of chaos erupted after that, and Chris was running his mouth and cracking jokes the whole time.  Meanwhile, David C./K-2SO defected from the light side and high-tailed it across the big bridge.  It was a lot to process!

Mark serving Sic 'Ems to everybody at the table.

Chris' shenanigans couldn't be tolerated, so the dark side enveloped him and Jonah's KX Security Droid cruelly ended his night in last place by playing Hang.  Ouch!  But Jonah found himself in trouble when the light side concentrated shots across the bridge to his spot near the Ewok hut, including some pestering attacks from Rob's/Obi's maniacal Clone Trooper (bloody clankers!).  It would be Junior, though, playing his first game as a professional who would do the most damage to poor Jonah.  His Luthen emptied his own hand with Sacrifice Everything and Kleya made the eventual kill shot.  Jonah was out in eleventh, but shout out to him for being our super-sub this semester, we're calling him back up to the active roster in the fall!

The main bridge saw a big standoff between the Jedi of the light side (Curtis/Yoda, Rob/Obi, Kat/Ki-Adi) and the rest of the dark side alliance.  David M., playing the Clone Commandos, couldn't find his footing or choose a side.  When he declined to detonate his well-placed Magnetic Thermal Detonator, the Jedi had enough and David M. was out in tenth, with the last Clone falling to Obi-Wan's Jedi Attack.

A CL class padawan's first Dueling action...

Hans, playing Darth Vader, was also making his debut at May the 4th.  He'll be a CL next year, but he was bent on taking down his CL class instructor, Rob!  He did manage to Choke one of the Clones, but Obi's Force Control moved Hans into his first kill box.  Is there anything quite as cute as a Dueler stuck in their first kill box??  Give Hans credit, he wrecked some shop during the game, but Curtis' Yoda struck him down in ninth.  Play with us again in the fall, Hans!

The Jedi somehow managed to hold the bridge, but the dark side finally got wise and concentrated all of their attacks on a specific character.  Unfortunately for Curtis, they chose his Yoda.  His own son Miles, playing Reva, managed to knock his old man down to his last couple of health points.  David C. used the card effects of K-2SO's Clear A Path to auto-damage Curtis into the night.  It was eighth place for Yoda.

David using his "readers".

Things were still very much up in the air with multiple characters carrying damage.  But Mark/Dryden decided to flip sides and join Luthen and the Jedi!  That was back-breaking for the dark side alliance, none more so than Miles.  Miles passed on the chance to flip a round or two earlier, and despite a couple of expert uses of In The Gutter, Rob's Obi-Wan used a 5 point attack to finally eliminate the Third Sister.  Congrats to Miles, though, who has been promoted to the amateur rankings!

With six Duelers to go, it looked like Riley/Beckett and David C./K-2SO would be the next two to go, but those two were still feeling sour about Mark's flip, and Rob and Kat thought they saw Mark trying to organize the shooters against Obi-Wan and Ki-Adi-Mundi, so Dryden became the new target!  There were too many corners to defend so Mark was out.  Sic 'Em Sixth Place.

The Tiny Titan all growns-up.

It was deep into the night at this point, and that's never a good sign for sleepy Riley.  Give her credit, she was the first person attacked in the game, and here she was still in the top five.  But she and David parted ways, and the light side alliance used that rift to isolate her.  Junior's Kleya got another kill shot and Riley was done in fifth.  Give it up for Rob's first born - 70+ Duels, 3 wins (including the 2025 Championship!), and all before she turned 18.  Next year she'll be a college student Dueler...where did the time go?!?!?!

Speaking of the passage of time...David C., with ten years of rust to shake off, was still in the game!!!  He was the first defector and had a heck of a night, even if he spent too much time at the Pizza Hut.  But the octave-raising Kat used her Binary Brain to strike down the program director in fourth.  The early word on the street is that David won't wait ten years again to play his next Duel!

Just Jedi doing Jedi things.

And then there were three!  Junior/Luthen, Kat/Ki-Adi, and Rob/Obi.  Poor Junior's Luthn had been stuck on his final two health points for hours, thanks in large part to Riley's Double Blasters.  And he was bummed to discover the Jedi were going to stick together against the slippery founder of the rebel alliance.  But Junior indirectly determined the outcome of the game when he focused most of his final shots on Rob's Obi-Wan.  Rob got a little revenge by knocking him out with a Force Control.  But Junior turned pro and had his strongest performance to date in the league.  Well done, sir!

Rob knew he had his work cut out from him, because Junior/Luthen had roughed him up and Kat had wisely healed up over the past hour (and had Griffin make an In 'n' Out run).  It took a few rounds, but Kat navigated multiple Force Balances throughout the night and emerged victorious against Rob - congrats Kat!!!  She becomes the first female Dueler to win four games in the league - and did so after taking a year off from her last Duel!!!  This also marks Ki-Adi-Mundi's first career win!  He's quickly proving to be a formidable presence on the Dueling board.

New office decor!

The final order of finish:

12.  Chris/Migs & Q9-0

11.  Jonah/KX Security Droid

10.  David M./Clone Commandos

9.  Hans/Darth Vader

8.  Curtis/Yoda

7.  Miles/Reva

6.  Mark/Dryden

5.  Riley/Beckett

4.  David C./K-2SO

3.  Junior/Luthen

2.  Rob/Obi-Wan

1.  Kat/Ki-Adi-Mundi

In all seriousness, for those members of the league graduating and/or moving on from the department, please know how much you are loved and appreciated and that you made such a positive impact in our little Dueling universe.  May the Force be with you.  Always!

And stay tuned - Rob will try and organize a movie Duel for the new Mando & Grogu movie.  It looks like Dueling the afternoon of May 23rd and then headed to the movies for an evening showing could be the plan.  He'll email more info on that soon!

Preview: May the 4th Be With You - May 1, 2026

Alas...here we are at the end of our TWELFTH season of the 12-way Duel League.  TWELVE YEARS!!!  I've got to be honest, I'm getting emotional about this one!  Some of us playing at this year's May the 4th Be With You Duel played at the first one...in 2015!  And some of you were 8 years old when that happened.  We've come a long way.  It's been a lot of parsecs on the ol' navicomputer, man.

Enough of the mushy stuff, though!  We've got a Duel to preview!

HISTORY OF THE MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU DUEL:

2025 - Grant won with Bo-Katan Kryze in the Rancor Dungeon

2024 - Ian won with Orson Krennic on Arvala-7

2023 - JD M. won with Orson Krennic in the Narkina 5 Imperial Prison

2022 - Rob won with Kylo Ren on the Conveyex Train

2021 - Kaleb won with Jango Fett in the Trash Compactor

2020 - Ryan won with Han Solo on the Kamino Platform

2019 - Riley won with Emperor Palpatine in the Emperor's Throne Room

2018 - Rob won with Mace Windu in the Emperor's Throne Room

2017 - JD N. won with Yoda in the Emperor's Throne Room

2016 - Chris K . won with Jango Fett in the Emperor's Throne Room

2015 - Rob won with Jango Fett in the Carbon Freezing Chamber

MEET THE DULERS:

CJ - you know Rob picked a bad date for a Duel (sorry Teal formal folks) when he has to bribe his third born with a Boba Fett Tea to be the 12th Dueler.

Curtis - after missing the first two Duels of 2026, Curtis has finished in first and fourth place these past two months.  Not bad!

David M. - after the May the 4th Duel, David will be one Duel away from turning professional!  Could he add the second trophy of the year to Brooks?

Grant - Grant had a rough go of it in the trash compactor last month, finishing in seventh with the Droidekas.  But he is defending his trophy at May the 4th!

Hans - new Dueler alert!!!  Incoming CL Hans still has a week to go in the CL class, but he's getting his Dueling career started early.  Welcome to the show, Hans!

Jonah - our super-sub has done well in the 25-26 season, but his sixth place finish last month felt a little flat.  HA!  Get it?!?!  Because he got crushed by the trash compactor walls!!!

Junior - new professional alert!!!  May the 4th marks Junior's sixth Duel - he's going pro!  He hopes to do better than his tenth place finish at the Imperial March.

Kat - while the mice are about to move away, the Kat will play!  Longtime veteran Kat is back in action for the first time since last year's May the 4th!

Mark - nobody enjoyed Duel of the Fates last month more than Mark, he won his first career Duel!  Even more exciting, he did it with Cassian Andor!!!

Miles - Curtis' fourth born will be the second youngest at the table but eager to improve upon his 8th place finish with K-2SO last month.

Rob - the scoundrel Rob has won May the 4th three times over the years...could he make it win number four this weekend?  Or will he be too busy crying...

Riley - ...because this Duel marks Riley's last game as a minor!!!  May the 4th will move her into sixth place on the all-time games played list (72), all before turning 18 (which she does next week).  The tiny titan of terror, who won her first career Duel at May the 4th back in 2019, was just ten years and 364 days old at the time!  I'M NOT CRYING YOU'RE CRYING!

MEET THE CHARACTERS:

These are the 12 decks being used in Ewok Village on Friday!

We're throwing down at 7PM in the North Village Fine Arts Studio on Friday!  PEW PEW!