4th Annual Singles Tournament - July 29, 2018

For the second year in a row, thirty-two pillars of the Epic Dueling community came together in a demonstration of civility and camaraderie to extol on the virtues of fellowship and sportsmanship oh who the heck am I kidding - they came TO DO BATTLE!!!

Thirty-two duelers, 128 entries...and only one winner!  So who achieved the impossible, who stood on the massive pile of crushed dreams and light sabers...?

BRANNON WON!!!  In a shocking evolution in the singles tournament, three of the final four spots were captured by dark side characters, including two places for Darth Maul, whom Brannon used to vanquish every foe in his path.  Congrats to Brannon!!!  Maul becomes the first dark side character to win the singles tournament.

It was a crazy and well-balanced Duel as there were eight unique Duelers in the elite eight, also a first in tournament history.  It was also the first time since the first singles tournament that the same character played against itself, happening three or four times on the day.

Congrats to the final four as well!  Joel, playing in his first tourney, took Count Dooku all the way through the Emperor's Throne Room to win that region before getting quickly destroyed by Brannon's Maul.  JD appeared in his third straight final four, also using Darth Maul to lock down the Kamino Platform region.  He faced Rob and Yoda out of the Geonosis Arena, but sadly, he was denied a spot in the final match for the third straight year when Yoda outlasted Maul the first time before falling to Brannon in a classic back and forth match.  Here are the results, as well as a whole batch of pictures from the day.  Enjoy!

Winners:  Best Dressed Duelers

Riley and JD taking Joel and Alex R to school

Two previous winners doing battle in the first round!?!

A bumper crop of Duelers.  So beautiful.

Oodles of Odles, two of which made the Elite 8!

Delacy and Grant, radiating intensity.

Good Sportsmanship Award:  Riley

The Committee to Convince Jasmine to Play Epic Duels,
led by Chairwoman Jocelyn

Marital Strife!  (Courtney won!)

It was a rough day for Alex, but we wish him
well on his adventures overseas and hope
to Duel with him again in the future...

No words necessary.

This one was over before it started - ouch!

...and then there were two!

The oldest and youngest duelers...proud father
of a fantastic padawan.

Preview: The 4th Annual Singles Tournament - July 29, 2018

It's late July so that can only mean one thing...the Singles Tournament!  Unlike our normal 12-way Duels, this is a simple, head to head battle until only one Dueler is left standing.  And did we mention there are THIRTY-TWO Duelers with four entries each, meaning 128 Dueler/character combinations will start the tournament, but only one will be declared the victor!?!  INTENSE!

THE DRAFT

Each of the 32 Duelers got to submit their list of preferred characters, knowing we cap the number of times each character can be picked.  Nobody wants to see 64 Obi-Wans do battle against 64 Yodas...though come to think of it, that could be cool too...  Anyhoo, I digress.  Each of the 32 Duelers knew they would get one entry for each region of the tournament bracket (regions=the four playing boards that come with the game), and would each get two light side characters and two dark.  Here's the order of popularity for the characters this year, based on how quickly their available slots were chosen:

1.  Yoda
2.  Obi-Wan Kenobi
3.  Count Dooku
4.  Anakin Skywalker
5.  Mace Windu
6.  Darth Vader
7.  Emperor Palpatine
8.  Darth Maul
9.  Luke Skywalker
10.  Boba Fett
11.  Jango Fett
12.  Han Solo

THE BRACKETS

The 128 characters available for drafting were pre-slotted into our brackets.  Once the snake draft was over the corresponding Duelers were placed into the brackets by a randomly generated list.  Here are the results!

KEY MATCH-UPS

Each region features multiple intriguing battles in the first round of action, but here are four that are of particular interest...one for each board!

Emperor's Throne Room - In what is easily the biggest clash of the first round, previous Singles Tournament champions Chris K. (2015) battles with top dark side character Count Dooku versus Jonathan (2017) and his favorite, Obi-Wan Kenobi.  Jonathan won last year with Yoda but, given the choice, drafted Obi-Wan first this year.  You'll want to grab a seat and watch this one!

Carbon Freezing Chamber - Co-workers, office mates, and good friends Curtis and Ryan do battle against each other in the Freezing Chamber, with Darth Maul and Obi-Wan respectively.  Water cooler bragging rights are on the line!

Kamino Platfrom - Everyone knows Darth Vader and Emperor Palpatine start next to each other in the cramped corner behind Jango's ship on this board.  Lo and behold, this bracket features a battle between the two Sith big-bads.  Ian's Emperor will desperately hope to avoid an early "All Too Easy" from Courtney's Darth Vader.  Can you imagine that in the first seconds of play!?!?

Geonosis Arena  - Everyone's heard of sibling rivalry, but this is ridiculous!  Two of Curtis's children, Miriam and Caleb, are playing this year...and they're pitted against each other in the Geonosis Arena!  Miriam will hope her Darth Vader can out maneuver Caleb's Boba Fett.  Family infighting between kids...this is what the Singles Tournament has devolved to!

FINAL THOUGHTS

Thirty-two Duelers...128 entries...and only one victor.  (Almost) nobody is getting out alive.  We'll see you at 1PM in the North Village Community Center!

Who Won the Toughest Duel...Ever?!?

Have you ever wondered what the "toughest Duel ever" was? 

Have you ever wondered who won it?

I have!  That's why I experimented with a formula to determine the Duel that, across four seasons of play, is unequivocally the hardest, nastiest, fiercest battle ever.  Theoretically, that should be a Championship match...right?  The best Duelers from each season of play? 

METHODOLOGY:

So how do we determine which Duel was the toughest?  The same 12 characters play each game, so the answer must lie with the Duelers involved.  And the best Duelers are those who have done some combination of win Duels and reach professional status.  The first thing I did was rank the professional and retired professionals who had won a Duel before, using their Dueler ranking after the May the 4th Duel (that's 56 total Duels - the Twin Suns Slam matches weren't included).  That resulted in fifteen Duelers with Rob ranked #1 (meaning every Duel he played in contributes one point to a specific Duel's total), Grant ranked #2 (meaning every Duel he played in contributes two points to a specific Duel's total), and so on, all the way to #15 (Ethan).  Next, I ranked the professionals and retired professionals who never won a Duel, starting with #16 Kristin all the way to #30 (Toby). 

At this point I had an outlier.  D. Coy won a Duel back in the first season of play but never reached professional status.  I decided to give him a numerical value of 15, the same as Ethan, the lowest ranked professional to win a Duel.  From there we needed to assign a point value to the amateurs.  I decided amateurs with an average below six would receive a point value of 35, and everyone else would get a 40.  This is somewhat arbitrary, but it is what it is.  So, a Duel with four amateurs above a career 6 average would result in 160 points being added to that Duel's total.  The Duel with the lowest point total becomes the toughest ever.

TOP FIVE TOUGHEST DUELS EVER:

I'll count down in reverse order to build the suspense!

#5 - Valentines Duel, 2017
133 total points - 11.08 avg Dueler
Winner - Ian and Darth Maul
Last Place - Joel and Obi-Wan Kenobi
Kamino Platform

This match featured only one amateur (Hailey) as Dalton stayed loyal to Ian to the very end, leaving Ryan in third place.

#4 - Birthday Surprise #2, 2017
131 total points - 10.92 avg Dueler
Winner - Kaleb and Boba Fett
Last Place - Rob and Emperor Palpatine
Carbon Freezing Chamber

This is the infamous second Duel of the night for surprised birthday boy Curtis.  He had a rough finish in the first game and was hoping to do better in game #2.  But Ryan ruthlessly threw him under the bus for an eleventh place finish...on his birthday!!!  Kaleb's Greedo slaughtered half the board for the win.  Luke C. was the only amateur at the game.

#3 - Duel of the Fates, 2016
130 total points - 10.83 avg Dueler
Winner - Alex R. and Count Dooku
Last Place - JD and Yoda
Carbon Freezing Chamber

The only amateur at this Duel, Blake, nearly won.  He placed second and nearly toppled Alex.  That's the best finish ever for an amateur Dueler.  This was the game where the light side was outnumbered but Grant did that really cool double-Whirlwind that wiped out most of the dark side minor characters.

#2 - 2017 Championship
114 total points - 9.5 avg Dueler
Winner - Austin and Obi-Wan Kenobi
Last Place - Jonathan and Luke Skywalker
Carbon Freezing Chamber

If you read the recap you'll be reminded of how bonkers this match was.  Austin didn't originally have a seat at the table but parlayed his opportunity into his first (and only) career victory.  He did it in back-breaking fashion, betraying almost everybody on the board at one point or another.  There were no amateurs in this game.

And now...the toughest Duel ever...

#1 - 2015 Championship
106 total points - 8.83 avg Dueler
Winner - Nathan and Count Dooku
Last Place - Alex R. and Han Solo
Carbon Freezing Chamber

The 2015 Championship featured a "who's who" of the legends of the game:  Alex R., Ian, Stephen, Chris, JD, Rob, Sakina, Daniel, Grant, Ryan, Curtis...and Nathan.  Of particular note:  this was Nathan's second straight victory, which is a crazy amount of pressure and attention to have to navigate in the ultimate Duel of the year.  But his alliance with Curtis and Darth Maul carried the day.  It was the toughest Duel ever played!

CONCLUSION:

It's interesting to note that the four toughest Duels were in the Carbon Freezing Chamber.  Seems fitting!  The 2016 Championship was ranked sixth, meaning three of our four Championships were in the top six.  That reinforces its reputation as the "best of the best."

What were the easiest Duels in league history?  The bottom three were all from 2014, when the league just started.  And it was the first Duel every, CL Training, that ranks the easiest, with a whopping 284 points and 23.67 average Dueler. 

Of course, these rankings have already changed, as the Twin Sun Slam introduced a new professional (Alex C.) and new #1 ranked Dueler (Grant).  I'll try and update this list again next summer after we have another season of play under our belts. 

Twin Sun Slam #2 - June 16, 2018

Geonosis Arena

Samuel had to peace-out for game two, but Elijah came to the rescue and Riley was still ten years old and still playing with us.  Also, those cupcakes were still hanging around, taunting Rob.

Chris had Jango, his second Fett of the night, and made an early flip to join the light side.  It looked like the light side would mop the floor but Jonathan, playing with the Emperor, began executing strategic suggestions and the dark side started clawing back.  Ben's Boba Fett chucked a Thermal Detonator and vaporized a bunch of clones.

Rob, playing with Luke, tried to take out one of Maul's (Courtney's) droids but he left himself exposed and, by God, like the cupcakes said, they killed Rob first.  Twice.  In the same night.  At his own house.  So...much...anger...

Kaleb, whose Count Dooku had also flipped to the light side, was also taking damage.  And right around this same time Stephen/Obi and Heidi/Mace decided to flip back to the dark side!  Heidi dropped a Battlemind on Kaleb to give him a career-worst eleventh place.

Just as it looked like the newly strong dark side was going to crush the light...half of them flipped again!  It was all very confusing.  Jonathan went from being the ring leader to dying in tenth at the hands of Courtney's Darth Maul.

That left Stephen/Obi and Riley/Vader as the last two standing on the dark side.  The light side focused their attacks on Obi, and even though he played a Force Balance, he couldn't withstand the onslaught.  Riley was gone after that - she kept trying to chase Elijah's Yoda but couldn't make it happen.

That meant there were seven Duelers left.  Grant's Chewbacca pulled a Bowcaster and used it to kill Heidi's Mace for another trophy.  The remaining crew then flipped on Courtney's Emperor Palpatine.  Even though she bowed out in sixth she now has a sub-5 average finish in her first three Duels!

Elijah's jovial approach to piloting Yoda around the board came to an end in fifth place.  Ben had ignored an earlier suggestion by Grant to go after him and paid the price when they converged on the Fett.  It was Chris' Jango Fett who delivered the kill shot.

That left a final three of Alex/Anakin, Grant/Han, and Chris/Jango.  These three Duelers all had top five finishes in game one and here they were again!  The shooters stuck together and dwindled Alex's health points until there were none.  It might have been to Chris' advantage to partner with Alex before he died because Han had the card and health advantage and, FOR THE THIRD TIME, won a Duel with Han Solo!  That pushes his career total to seven.  He's on quite a roll, winning two of the last three Duels.

The final order of finish:

12  Rob/Luke Skywalker
11.  Kaleb/Count Dooku
10.  Jonathan/Emperor Palpatine
9.  Stephen/Obi-Wan Kenobi
8.  Riley/Darth Vader
7.  Heidi/Mace Windu
6.  Courtney/Darth Maul
5.  Elijah/Yoda
4.  Ben/Boba Fett
3.  Alex/Anakin Skywalker
2.  Chris/Jango Fett
1.  Grant/Han Solo

Twin Sun Slam #1 - June 16, 2018

Carbon Freezing Chamber

For the first time in league history we held a cookout before a night of Dueling.  It was so nice!  Rob tended the grill, slinging burgers while everyone who attended brought supplies and food to further the festivities.  Some brought chips, others side dishes, a couple of folks brought two-liters of carbonated liquid energy.  It was all great!  All except the dessert a person who shall remain nameless (**cough cough HEIDI cough cough**) brought:

In his own home Rob had to deal with this!!!  I give this anonymous Dueler credit (she's not anonymous, it was definitely HEIDI), that was a record for the fastest somebody tried to turn the table against Rob.  Even his own kids were eating these tasty treats...

The big story of the night, besides the cupcakes, was the debut of a rookie Dueler...ten year old Riley!  We had a late cancellation and Riley, already wearing her Rey costume from The Last Jedi, was all too eager to join the fray.  After dinner the Duelers took their seats and picked the Carbon Freezing Chamber to do battle.

Samuel, playing his first Duel in over a year, took his Obi-Wan Kenobi over to the dark side of the board for an early flip.  Riley, navigating Mace Windu, threw the table into further confusion by attacking Ben's Anakin Skywalker immediately after!  Chaos ensued after that as Riley stalked Padme and other members of the light side also moved towards the dark.  That left Riley/Mace, Stephen/Yoda, and Rob/Han Solo all by their lonesome.  Chris threw a Thermal Detonator to destroy the last of Mace's Clones, who were also protecting Han.  A Kyber Dart and Desperate Shot later sent Mr. Cupcake, Rob, out in last.  Curse you, cupcakes!!!

Not the first, and certainly won't be
the last, Duels-inspired marriage
counseling session...

Ben had no choice after that but to attack Riley's Mace since she was hell-bent on chasing him.  Still, killing a kid in eleventh place does weird things to your psyche.  Stephen tried desperately to join Jonathan's Luke as they pursued Samuel and his back-stabbing Obi-Wan across the chamber.  But Alex's Zam Wessel saw an opportunity to eliminate Yoda from the game and did just that.  Stephen was stuck in tenth.

The Duel was flying by at this point, but with nine Duelers still in play, alliances and enemies weren't fully formed.  Bartering and strategery was fluid, and somehow Heidi found herself on the outs with her Darth Maul.  Kaleb's Darth Vader eliminated her in ninth. 

What happened next was one of the more amusing moments in recent Duel history.  Courtney, playing with Emperor Palpatine, decided to attack Ben's Mace.  If you don't know Courtney and Ben, they happen to be married.  Courtney was playing to win, and Ben was aghast at the move.  First he was attacked by a ten-year old, and then his own wife plunged a light saber into his heart. 

Jonathan had tried to align wit others for most of the game, specifically to put down Samuel's Obi-Wan, who was still alive and kicking.  But with Ben now dead his allies were running short and Kaleb once again took out the trash by putting Skywalker on the curb.  That made it six to go, at which point Kaleb turned his attention to Obi.  In a bit of an overkill, he used All Too Easy to eliminate Samuel in sixth. 

Chris had been maneuvering his wounded Boba Fett around the confined Chamber for quite some time, but it was his alliance partner, Grant, who stabbed him in the back with a vicious Taunting card from Count Dooku.  Grant and Dooku won the last Duel and it looked like that might happen again as now there were only four Duelers left.  But Courtney was still crushing it with Palpatine and, at the perfect moment, she hit him with the You Will Die!  Now card-less, the vultures started circling and Alex's Zam sniped him for the kill.

And then there were three!  It looked like the obvious play would be for Courtney/Emperor and Alex/Jango to team up against Kaleb's Vader, who was the healthiest character left on the board.  But Kaleb managed to talk Alex over to his side and their combined efforts stunned Courtney in a third place finish.  Still, that was an incredible effort in just her second Duel!

The final battle between Vader and Jango was...wait for it...EPIC!  They traded shots back and forth before Vader charged to make a point-blank final attack.  Alex barely survived, and had to make the hard choice between retreating or going for the kill.  He went aggressive...and it worked!  Vader's defense cards were maxed and Alex, playing his sixth career game to turn professional, won his first Duel!!!  A big shout out to to Kaleb, too, who showed again why he's so dangerous with Darth Vader.

The final order of finish:

12.  Rob/Han Solo
11.  Riley/Mace Windu
10.  Stephen/Yoda
9.  Heidi/Darth Maul
8.  Ben/Anakin Skywalker
7.  Jonathan/Luke Skywalker
6.  Samuel/Obi-Wan Kenobi
5.  Chris/Boba Fett
4.  Grant/Count Dooku
3.  Courtney/Emperor Palpatine
2.  Kaleb/Darth Vader
1.  Alex/Jango Fett

But that's not all - read the next post for game two!