CL Training - August 8, 2017

Geonosis Arena

Oh doctor...here we are again!  The start of our FOURTH season of 12-Way Duels!!!  Can you believe it???  Over the first three years of Dueling we logged 40 Duels.  FORTY.  And that made this year's CL Training Duel our 41st.  Somewhere along the line this Dueling juggernaut became unstoppable, so thank you to ALL OF YOU who play the game, read the blog, and share an enthusiasm for all things epic.

Rob, hold your cards closer to the chest!

 This year's CL Training, our fifth Duel (we didn't count stats from the first year), featured three folks brand new to a 12-Way Duel!  Alex, Kayelee and Toby made their debuts, which was awesome, especially because they each had prior experience in playing the game.  And JD brought TWO trophies to the Duel!  One for the winner, and a Jar Jar trophy for the twelfth place finisher.  Even when you lose, you win!  Unless you hate being mocked with a Jar Jar trophy.  Then it's just like salt being rubbed into your open light saber wounds.

Jonathan drew chair number one and picked Geonosis Arena for the game board.  The characters were quickly selected and as a huge crowd gathered the game commenced!  As has been the tradition recently, it started as light side versus dark, with each side looking for the first defector.  Kayelee and Count Dooku, stuck with the tough starting position in the middle of the board, looked like she was changing first but Toby was the one who got the party officially started!  His Boba Fett chucked a Thermal Detonator into a gaggle of Sith and then Rocket Retreated behind the columns on the light side!

Toby - Inaugural Winner of the Golden Jar Jar

It was a bold move by Toby, and he was sure to win favor with his new alliance, right!?  WRONG!  In a shocking move Nathan/Anakin and Jonathan/Luke rewarded him with multiple attacks.  Stephen, playing as Vader on the opposite end of the board, but in the final shot as he Threw Debris in a final act of revenge, ending poor Toby's night in last place.  But Toby was really pumped to get the Jar Jar!

I'd like to say that the action only kept churning at that point, but I'm going to spoiler alert you and say it didn't.  In fact, this was the LONGEST Duel I think we've ever played.  Part of that grind was caused when Nathan/Anakin Wrathed to the dark side of the board while Jonathan/Luke Children of the Forced to the other end too!  All of a sudden it was six on five as Anakin, Luke, Emperor/Alex, Jango/Ian, Josh/Maul and Stephen/Vader looked like an unstoppable alliance.  The light side, which included JD/Mace, Rob/Obi, Joel/Yoda, Austin/Han, and welcomed defector Kayelee/Dooku dug their heals in for a long, protracted fight.

The light side group was dealt a serious blow when Anakin/Nathan successfully defended Chewie's Bowcaster.  Anakin later double-Wrathed the Wookie to kill him, making it a hard night for Han.  Before Chewbacca died, though, he did manage to Wookie Toss Padme to her death too.

So much evil plotting happening here...

Despite having the numbers advantage, the dark side wasn't being overly aggressive, giving the light side an opportunity to turn the tide.  That happened when Kayelee's Dooku moved into attack position against Alex's Emperor.  She Force Pushed him in a kill box consisting of Mace, Obi, and Yoda and then she Gave Orders to retreat back to the light side.  Joel/Yoda had recently Insighted the Emperor and knew his hands, so the light side gave him the opportunity to use some of his cards to attack his former alliance...or face certain death.  But Alex didn't realize his Let Go of Your Hatred cards counted, and so when he didn't play them the Jedi took him down in eleventh place.

Despite Kayelee's awesome move, the dark side retaliated by concentrating on her.  Josh, who has only played three Duels with all of them being at the CL retreat, moved his Darth Maul into position to attack.  Dooku survived the first onslaught but eventually fell in tenth place when Vader Wrathed her.

The light side reacted by creating another Jedi kill box.  This time Rob/Obi used his Jedi Control attack to suck in Nathan's Anakin.  Mace and Yoda delivered repeated blows, with Mace's Whirlwind putting the final nail in Nathan's coffin.  It was a shocking end for Nathan, whose defection had seemingly assured himself a top six finish.

ALL TOO EASY!!!

After the Force Control Josh's Maul was left in the open and exposed to long distance gun fire from Austin/Han's blaster.  After yet another Force Control that Rob/Obi played, Austin eliminated Maul in eighth with a Never Tell Me The Odds.

The dark side started to focus their attacks on Rob's Obi-Wan.  Obi was deflecting it pretty well but was getting desperately low carded.  Jonathan/Luke delivered a lot of it but Joel's Yoda took him out for a seventh place finish.  Rob didn't last much longer, despite avoiding certain death from two Darth Vader attacks, Ian's Zam Wessell punched his ticket from across the board.

That left a final five of Ian/Jango, Joel/Yoda, JD/Mace, Stephen/Vader, and Austin/Han.  Ian and Stephen were the last two from the dark side alliance, and they tried to tempt Austin to flip and join them against the two superior Jedis.   After a longgggggg deliberation Austin stuck to his alliance and they tried to eliminate Jango and Vader...but they weren't going down without a fight!  As Stephen began taking on excessive damage he was down to two health points and two cards.  He moved in against Han and attacked once.  Austin defended.  With his last card, he attacked again.  Han didn't defend this time.  The attack card?  ALL TOO EASY.  TWENTY POINTS OF DAMAGE!!!  Han/Austin were out in a shocking fifth place finish!!!

These two are going to need couple's counseling...

JD/Mace eliminated Stephen/Vader next, but Stephen was quite pleased with his fourth place finish.  As it turns out, he had been holding the All Too Easy in the first four cards of his hand!

What happened next was long and quite nuanced, but I'm running out of energy to adequately describe it.  So let me sum it up.  Ian/Jango repeatedly aligned and then betrayed JD/Mace in their attempt to leverage their own best odds at defeating Joel/Yoda, who was full-bar health and had yet to use any of his big three defense cards.  It was hilarious, as Ian's cat and mouse game continued to fluster JD and produced many memorable reactions and counter arguments.

In the end, as Mace was nearly dead and Ian was about to, once again, join JD in a fight against Yoda, Ian became suddenly worried that, rather than play to win, JD might try to attack his Jango just to improve his final finish.  Ian then decided to just kill Mace, and poor JD was done in third place.  We're going to need to help these two process their emotions and how they feel about each other...

Joel's first win!

The final act was, once again, long, but the writing was on the wall.  A half-damaged Jango was going against a fully healthy Yoda.  Ian did his best to hit and run, Rocket Retreat, etc., but Joel's Yoda was just too strong.  He just had to stay healthy and patient, which he did.  Jango finally fell and Joel won!!!  That's Joel's first career victory, and the second win in a row for Yoda.  That places Yoda in second place for career victories with five.

The final order of finish:

12.  Toby/Boba
11.  Alex/Emperor
10.  Kayelee/Dooku
9.  Nathan/Anakin
8.  Josh/Maul
7.  Jonathan/Luke
6.  Rob/Obi-Wan
5.  Austin/Han
4.  Stephen/Vader
3.  JD/Mace
2.  Ian/Jango
1.  Joel/Yoda

Thanks to everyone who played and watched...at least initially.  We ended at 1:30AM for crying out loud!  The next Duel is a DOUBLEHEADER!  That's right - two games in one night!  That will be August 26, more details coming soon!