MATT SOKOL, 2000 STAR WARS CCG WORLD CHAMPION! Jean-Luc Simard After close to a thousand games played, the Star Wars CCG World Championship is finally over, and we have a new World Champion: Matt Sokol from Albany, who just beat Yannick Lapointe (from Quebec, Canada) for the title. The 12-man Final tournament was a competition of the highest caliber, and all players where ready for it with incredible decks. In the end, the results were as follows: 1. Yannick Lapointe: 8 (+47) 2. Matt Sokol: 6 (+23) 3. Kyle Craft: 6 (+2) 4. Kevin Shannon: 5 (+29) 5. Dominic Gaudreault: 4 (+28) 6. Martin Falke: 4 (+10) 7. Raphael Asselin: 4 (+4) 8. Clint Hays: 4 (-17) 9. Brian Rippetoe: 2 (-19) 10. Gary Carman: 2 (-38) 11. Paul Feldman: 2 (-39) 12. Steve Brentson: 0 (-32) All the powerful decks you could expect were there, from Hidden Base to Bring Him Before Me, and of course Echo Base Operations and You Will Either Profit By This. The final showdown was played in a room where only Lapointe, Sokol and the judges were admitted. The audience could watch the game on a huge screen in an adjacent room, with comments provided by Joe Alread, Kyle Heuer and Kendrick Summers. There was a lot of ambiance in that room, with people shouting advice at the screen, cheering or booing when a memorable move occurred. The first game pitted Sokol's Light Side "Hidden Base Ð X-wings Ð Numbers" deck against Lapointe's Dark Side "Bring Him Before Me" deck. Because of a slight oversight in deck adjustment in the wee hours of the morning, Sokol's deck was missing Luke, which proved to be the deciding factor in the gameÕs outcome. Sokol succeeded in deploying three droids to a docking bay and inserted a "Never Tell Me The Odds" in Lapointe's deck, but Yannick was lucky enough not to activate the Insert on the next turn, even if he activated 16 Force! He then proceeded to play Force Lightning on a droid and Sorry About the Mess on another, thus putting Sokol in a bad situation. Sokol deployed Order To Engage to force Boba Fett and IG-88 at the commands of a dreadnought to fight his fleet of 6 X-wings and the Falcon, but Lapointe made a really clever play: he initiated a battle, then cancelled it with Projective Telepathy, thus avoiding the loss of three Force! A couple of turns later it was all over, with Lapointe winning by 20 cards. Matt Sokol had a tall order in front of him: he needed to win by a least 21 cards to take the Championship. For the second game, he played his "ISB Ð Walkers Ð Sandwhirl" deck against Lapointe's "Super Falcon" deck. For a long time, the situation looked bad for Sokol, as Lapointe was able to continually retrieve 6-8 Force a turn with an On The Edge-Off The Edge combo, and Battle Order prevented Sokol from draining at will. Out of Commission was also slowly taking care of SokolÕs Lost Pile. Nevertheless he held on, with his Life Force hovering in the 20 Force range, and finally was in position to drain Lapointe heavily for a couple of turns while his opponent was unable to pull off the retrieving combo. Lapointe, with his opponent down to exactly 20 cards in his Life Force, could have drawn up the rest of his cards to win the whole thing, but decided instead to play the game to the end, a true demonstration of sportsmanship. But an Abyssin Ornament later and the audience was exploding: Matt Sokol had 25 cards in his Life Force, and there was nothing Yannick Lapointe could do about it. One turn later, Lapointe drew his last card, and Sokol became the new World Champion! The final score was: Matt Sokol: 2 (+5) Yannick Lapointe: 2 (-5) Once again, congratulations are in order for Matt Sokol, and all finalists of the 2000 Star Wars World Championship. They were the best of the best, but in the end, there can be only one. Congratulations are also in order to everyone responsible for running the event, as they did an incredible job all weekend long to make sure the experience was as enjoyable as possible for all. Jean-Luc Simard DecipherCon 2000 Guest Writer