The summer league games have now finished and to my great surprise, I sneaked into the top 16 as the 14th seed. A few days ago I was able to play my games for the top 16 tournament. Here is the breakdown of how it went:
Round of 16:
I was to face the number 3 seed and one of the top 16 from the San Diego Regionals. In all honesty I was pretty certain I would loss this game. However, the day of the match I had a revelation in my list building. Instead of using some of the list I had built in the past, I thought to build a hard counter. My prediction was my opponent would stick with one of his two ship Rebel builds. So I created this monster:
Hard Counter (99)
Contracted Scout — JumpMaster 5000 25
Deadeye 1
Proton Torpedoes 4
Extra Munitions 2
Boba Fett 1
R4 Agromech 2
Inertial Dampeners 1
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 36
Kavil — Y-Wing 24
Predator 3
Twin Laser Turret 6
Plasma Torpedoes 3
Extra Munitions 2
Unhinged Astromech 1
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 39
N’Dru Suhlak — Z-95 Headhunter 17
Veteran Instincts 1
Cluster Missiles 4
Glitterstim 2
Guidance Chips 0
Ship Total: 24
The list that my opponent brought was:
Han Poe (100)
Han Solo — YT-1300 46
Veteran Instincts 1
C-3PO 3
Luke Skywalker 7
Engine Upgrade 4
Millennium Falcon 1
Ship Total: 62
Poe Dameron — T-70 X-Wing 31
Veteran Instincts 1
R2-D2 4
Autothrusters 2
Ship Total: 38
This was one of the options I was expecting. Throughout the day I played the game in my mind and checked in with another star player in order to ready myself. In all fairness, this kind of prep allowed me to have a big advantage because this would be the first time we played against each other.
Game Breakdown:
In set up, the rocks were fairly spread apart. I started on my left, leaving enough room to S-Loop with the Scout. My opponent placed his ships on my right, the furthest corner. My ships opened with hard turns right, to move down the board. His ships moved slowly forward.
Looking at the positions, I guess that he’d move into the asteroid field with a slow bank. I decided to drive quickly into the asteroids to catch him. However, Han just narrowly landed himself on a rock, missing combat. During combat, I focused 100% on Poe as suggested and hit him pretty hard (my full hits to his many blanks). A critical hit stressed Poe out.
The next movement, my Scout narrowly missed an S-Loop but ended up blocking the Falcon, forcing him to sit on the rock again. Kavil banked to try and block Poe’s slower green maneuvers. N’Dru moved up to get a target lock and arc on Poe. Limping, Poe 3 greened into Range 1 of N’Dru. Shooting first, Poe only landed 1 hit on N’Dru (who famously gets one shot all too often). N’Dru was able to take out the T-70 with his first shot from cluster missiles (again too many blanks for Poe).
The next round, the Scout made his white S-Loop this time. Kavil moved away from Han with a 3 left turn. N’Dru turned toward Han. And Solo went 3 forward, staying just outside Range 1 of Kavil. More shots fired and back to dials.
Kavil’s next move landed him on a rock and Han’s boost just fit next to Kavil (only a few atoms separating the two). My Scout fired a Proton Torpedo and Boba Fetted Luke off the Falcon, even though Luke would most likely play no roll in the match.
The JumpMaster would be taken out the next round. However, Kavil and N’Dru were able to finish off the Falcon. Thus I would move on to the Top 8.
Final Thoughts:
- The preparation for the game gave me a hand up
- Poe could not get kills or roll evades to save himself
- Also the majority of the shots on him did not allow for Autothrusters to help
- Han also rolled very poorly on his offensive strikes
- 3 of my moves did not end as planned
- Missed the first S-Loop, hit a rock with Kavil, my final move with the Scout left him too open for a shot from Han
Follow the bracket here.
Elite 8 here and League Recap here.
Header Image Courtesy of: Kylo Glen
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