Fight Night - October 7, 2017

Emperor's Throne Room

If you are newer to the league and/or blog, I thought I should take a moment and explain how we do our Dueler rankings.  Essentially, we just average out your order of finish, but with a twist.  If you finish in first place, we subtract one point from your finish.  For instance if you have a fourth place finish in your first Duel and a first place finish in your second Duel, your dueler average would be "2" (4+1-1/2) instead of "2.5" (4+1/2).  We have that rule in place to incentivize winning the game instead of playing for ranking.  Over the course of the league folks can forget what the ultimate goal is - to be the last Dueler standing!

You can tell a lot about a Dueler
by their pre-game picture pose...

The other factor we bring into play is a handicap bonus for operating with a bottom ranked character.  The theory is that you are at a disadvantage if your character stinks.  So after every Duel we recalculate the character rankings, and if you have ever played with a character who is in the bottom three, we subtract one point for each instance.  So using the example above, if you finished fourth and first, and one of those characters was in the bottom three, we would add five, subtract one for winning and another for the handicap, and divide by the two Duels played.  That would be a "1.5" average. 

I bring all of this up because, after yesterday's Fight Night, the tenth and ninth place characters (Darth Maul and Count Dooku) tied for the last spot in handicap points.  It's a major pain to recalculate a change in character handicap points, especially knowing they won't be tied again after the next Duel.  So I kept Maul in the bottom three and didn't award handicap points to Dooku.  You may commence carrying pitchforks and torches on behalf of Dooku now.

Nobody puts Obi in the corner

Anyway, enough boring ranking talk.  Let's get to the Duel!  Ben H., playing in his second Duel, got the number one chair and picked the Emperor's Throne Room for the battle.  Unfortunately, he also picked Han Solo.  Woof.  Everyone else grabbed their character and we were off to the races.

Nathan's Obi-Wan Kenobi became an early target of the dark side and he lost both of his Clone Troopers very early.  That's when Ian's Count Dooku moved in.  He Force Pushed Obi into a dark side kill box at the back of the board!  But Nathan wasn't going down without a fight.  He used his Force Control attack and created a path for his escape while also boxing out the big-bads on the dark side.  He then used Force Quickness to get the heck out of Dodge.

While this completely ruined Dooku's plan it did leave Ben's Chewbacca exposed to attacks.  Despite holding his Bowcaster he couldn't use it because they killed the Wookie before he had the chance.  I'm going to fast forward through the painstaking "dark side by committee" play to the part where Andrew's Jango killed Ben's Han.  Ben didn't play poorly, he just got unlucky with character and placement.

Despite his boss escape, Nathan's Obi-Wan continued to receive damage and he misplayed his last turn by not using two of his big attack cards.  The dark side didn't miss a beat and Ian's Dooku finally tasted misery by eliminating Obi in eleventh.  What had been a stand up, knock down fight between the six dark and six light side characters was now a 6 on 4 route.

That's Chris' evil Darth Maul smile

Kat, playing with Mace Windu, decided to flip the script.  She attacked Austin's Yoda!  The light side alliance was now officially kaput.  They traded blows and Force Lifts but Austin was really unlucky in his Yoda cards, lacking several of his big defenses and the Force Pushes.  He was out in tenth.

Rob, playing with Luke Skywalker, and Chris, playing with Darth Maul, were seated next to each other and constantly trying to convince the other to switch sides.  Now was there chance to work together!  Sensing he was at the bottom of the dark side alliance, or perhaps just beaten down by Rob's incessant talking, he pulled a big move when he attacked JD's Boba!  Rob followed suite by Children of the Forcing over to the Fett to kill JD in ninth.  But instead of staying near Luke, Maul used his Athletic Surge movement to stand by Dooku, Joel's Vader, and Jonathan's Emperor.  They were not happy to lose Boba and began attacking Maul.  But Ian's Dooku was already damaged and Chris used a couple of desperation attacks to set up a kill for Curtis' Anakin, who was stuck hiding in the corner for most of the game. 

hehehe...look at Ian and JD venting in the background...

The kids who play over in the HRC are fond of calling the Emperor "You Will Die" followed by the Vader "All Too Easy" a "wombo combo."  I don't know how I feel about that corny name, but it doesn't help that I WAS KILLED WITH IT.  That's right, Rob's Luke, who only had one point of damage, got purged by Jonathan and Joel for seventh place.  It was a shocking turn of events and cemented Vader and Emperor as the pair to beat. 

Chris tried to start talking with the other Duelers to alert them to the danger of not attacking this dangerous duo but Andrew's Jango Fett was eager for a trophy, so Maul went out in sixth.  That was kind of ironic because Rob kept mentioning the best Chris could do if he didn't flip was finish sixth.  All roads led to sixth place for Chris.

The final five were Andrew/Jango, Kat/Mace, Curtis/Anakin, Joel/Vader, and Jonathan/Emperor.  The smart play would have been for Anakin, Mace, and Jango to form an alliance to oust Vader and Emperor, but they couldn't mobilize that before Vader and Emperor shocked Andrew's Jango by going after the last remaining shooter.  Andrew finished fifth but that was a career best for him - way to go Andrew!

Jonathan and Joel used their evil persuasion skills to turn Kat's Mace against Curtis' Anakin.  Despite Anakin's pleas to work together, Kat stuck with the dark lords of the Sith.  Kat was a tough negotiator, though, forcing Joel to move in on Anakin with her.  Despite a brief Wrath escape, Vader Wrathed his younger self, sending Curtis out in fourth.

A fitting final two, considering the board...

With three to go Joel and Kat made an agreement to go against Jonathan's Emperor.  Both he and Vader were full health.  Their combined attacks deeply damaged the wrinkled old goon, but not before he dropped a Force Lightning on Mace to end Kat's night in third.  That's her best finish, though, and now she's tied for first in the amateur rankings!  If we had a rookie of the year award Kat would be the leading candidate.  (Note to self, consider implementing a Rookie of the Year...)

...and then there were two!  Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine!  In the Emperor's Throne Room!  It was Return of the Jedi recreated!!!  Joel had positioned himself well for the take down.  He and Mace already roughed up Jonathan, and despite a Meditation, Joel moved in for the kill.  That's Joel's second win of the year, and his second in the last three games he's played.  EN FUEGO!  It also means, at seven victories, Darth Vader has regained sole possession of the lead for character wins.  And a big congrats to Jonathan, too.  He tied a career best second place finish.

Remember, no nails in your residence
hall room!

The final order of finish:

12.  Ben H./Han Solo
11.  Nathan/Obi-Wan Kenobi
10.  Austin/Yoda
9.  JD/Boba Fett
8.  Ian/Count Dooku
7.  Rob/Luke Skywalker
6.  Chris/Darth Maul
5.  Andrew/Jango Fett
4.  Curtis/Anakin Skywalker
3.  Kat/Mace Windu
2.  Jonathan/Emperor Palpatine
1.  Joel/Darth Vader

Thanks to all for a great Duel!  Stay tuned for details and dates for next month's Thanksdueling! match.  It's a cornucopia of death and destruction.

AND ONE MORE THING!  Tune into Monday Night Football tomorrow because the NEW TRAILER FOR THE LAST JEDI WILL DEBUT!!!!!  You KNOW we're going to do a movie premiere Duel.  Oh yes, we will...