Conveyex Train
Sometimes in this league, things are so serendipitous it makes you believe in a higher power...like THE FORCE! Sacrilege and pending lightning strikes aside, what if I were to tell you the last two characters standing in The Imperial March were also the two big characters from the scene in the movie that the playing board was based on??? Read on for the details!
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| All aboard the choo-choo train! |
Eric (Chirrut & Baze) became the early target with his double-minor combo of Rogue One rebels, and that included Elliot using his tow cable to jump back onto their speeder to commence attacks. But Eric was one with the Force and the Force was with him, so the attention, almost out of nowhere, shifted to Jonah's The Stranger on the other end of the board. Riley B/Jyn Erso, Riley E/Han Solo, and CJ/Darth Maul managed to avoid a huge infight and direct their collective ire against poor Jonah. The Stranger was the top ranked character heading into the Duel, and folks were clearly uninterested in keeping him around. Even Jonah's Teal bestie Alex/Reva was forced to join in. It would be CJ's Maul who got the glory of eliminating The Stranger, and Jonah got the glory of holding the Golden Jar Jar. Brutal!
By this point a lot of folks were fully carded on a crowded board. Despite some early mistrust Josiah/Captain Phasma and Rob/Mace Windu had stood next to each other peacefully. But Josiah was in an unintentional kill box and the Duelers sitting after Rob and before Josiah's turn started to give Mace the "let's destroy Phasma" vibes. Poor Josiah couldn't defend that many enemies. Jordann/ General Grievous landed the eleventh place blow with Make Them Suffer. Why is Grievous so mean???
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| That's the "why did I get Han?" face. |
With Phasma gone Chirrut and Baze became the next target. Chirrut died first and Baze was surrounded with nowhere to run and plenty of people gunning for him. But Eric was insistent that Elliot's Obi-Wan Kenobi make the final kill shot, and Elliot was happy to oblige. Eric was gone in tenth.
Elliot ended up using a Force Control, and ended up surrounding Cate's Bo-Katan Kryze, who had made threats of attack to nearly everyone on the board, and everyone on the board basically agreed she should go next. Cate's blood lust is famous at this point, as her "never have ten cards in your hand" philosophy keeps the game moving. But the Conveyex was moving too and needed to offboard more characters. Two attacks from Rob/Mace Windu's Clone Trooper finished the job in ninth.
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| The Maul-CJ partnership is as terrifying as it is hilarious. |
One of the key moments of the game kicked in after Bo-Katan was eliminated. Jordann/Grievous and Alex/Reva locked horns in a fated battle in the middle of the board. Nobody but those two knew it was a foregone conclusion they would tangle, and that's just what happened. The unintentional consequence was that it tipped the scales in the favor of the shooting characters. CJ was actually next to go, after using two Blinding Surges on defense made her week. Reva offed her in eighth with Grand Ambition.
Alex's penchant for being wishy-washy on his alliances left him no dancing partners after that move, and it would be Jordann who would secure the upper hand as her MagnaGuard pushed Reva to her demise. Rob was kicking himself for not interjecting earlier, because with Maul and Reva gone the blades were sledding up hill on a shooter's board with plenty of shooters left.
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| Fit check - does your shirt match your light saber? |
Rob desperately tried to get Jordann and Elliot to stay loyal with each other, but Jordann wouldn't look Rob in the eye and Elliot was experiencing Jedi mind tricks from Riley E/Han and Riley B/Jyn. Just as Rob was going to but severe damage on an exposed Han Solo, Riley B. used Jyn's Kyber Krystal luck to dump Mace's Wisdoms and a Whirlwind! Rob was stunned by his sudden turn of fortunes, and was gone soon after charging in against Jyn in a final attempt to try and get even. It was nutty!
Riley B., who was doing us a big-time solid by subbing for a sick Dueler, was playing a fantastic game as Jyn and Cassian. But the other Duelers began to fear him and were having a hard time setting up a firm final three. So Riley B. became the odd Dueler out. It took quite a bit of work to whittle him down, but Elliot's Obi nailed the final nail in the coffin and Jyn was gone in fifth.
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| Obi-Gone Kenobi. |
The game slowed down quite a bit at this point, which was a bummer because we played pretty quickly at this Duel. After a lot of haggling, hemming, and hawing, Elliot/Obi became the target. Curtis flew about as low under the radar as a shooter can this game. He used a It's Been A Ride Babe! with his Val, which actually didn't kill her but did hurt Obi something fierce. Elliot would finally go down with a subsequent attack from Val for fourth place.
The biggest move of the game went down next. Curtis/Beckett and Riley E/Han realized they needed to work together to take oust Jordann's General Grievous. Riley had already used her Bowcaster earlier in the game (to little effect when Mace blocked all but two points of damage), but had secretly got it again on her reshuffle. She attacked Jordann twice...but Jordann didn't defend on the second attack...WHICH WAS THE BOWCASTER!!! ELEVEN POINTS OF DAMAGE! Jordann was stunned and used a couple of Spare Parts to try and recover, but there was no digging out of that hole. Curtis used Trust No One to send Jordann out in third. Her desperate hope to win a Duel before graduating is in jeopardy, but her absolutely stellar finishes this year have actually moved her into the top spot in the Dueler rankings! Congrats Jordann!
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| Boom goes the Bowcaster! |
And then there were two!!! And who were the two??? Tobias Beckett and Han Solo...on the Conveyex Train from the Solo movie!!! How cool was that?!
Curtis definitely had the stronger major, but Riley's Chewbacca was still alive and kicking. But unfortunately for Riley, so was Val! And for maybe the first time in league history, Val used It's Been A Ride, Babe! twice in the same game!!! That was five points of auto-damage to Han, which is too much on an already weak-health character. Riley managed a final Wookie toss, but Curtis had one last Trust No One that offed Riley in second! Curtis won with Beckett!!! On the train! This broke a three and a half year winless streak for Curtis, to bring his career total to eleven wins. This was also Beckett's third win.
Final order of finish:
12. Jonah/The Stranger
11. Josiah/Captain Phasma
10. Eric/Chirrut & Baze
9. Cate/Bo-Katan
8. CJ/Darth Maul
7. Alex G./Reva
6. Rob/Mace Windu
5. Riley B/Jyn Erso
4. Elliot/Obi-Wan
3. Jordann/General Grievous
2. Riley E/Han Solo
1. Curtis/Tobias Beckett
That was a great, and relatively quick, night of Dueling! Next month is DUEL OF THE FATES, our annual April Duel where we listen to "Duel of the Fates" on repeat the entire night. Pure audio torture. It's the best. We're looking at Friday, April 4, for that, but more details are coming.
Until then...congrats again, Curtis! PEW PEW!
