The Top 10 Things Overheard At The Star Wars CCG World Championship
From - Tom Braunlich

10

"Hey Frenchboy, I'm on your ass!"
After three rounds of play on Saturday, it became clear that Raphael Asselin of Quebec, who was undefeated at that point, was the man to beat. Just before round four, game seven, a player who was gaining on Asselin after some early losses yelled out the above challenge. Perhaps by coincidence, Asselin lost both games of that round! He rebounded convincingly on Sunday to play into the final round of two, and then to take he 1996 championship.

09

"Hey look, Tatooine is in Tunisia!"
Among the prizes for the winner was a trip to Tunisia and a guided tour of the actual filming sites of the desert scenes in A New Hope. (Some of the actual sets are said to still exist.) Decipher had displayed some travel brochures for the players to look over, one of which featured a map of Tunisia. In the Sahara desert area of the country, the map showed a region named "Tataouine." My first thought was that this region's name was simply used by George Lucas as the name for the desert planet; whereas some other players pointed out the area itself may have been named after Lucas' planet! Hmmmmm. I'm sure a sharp SW trivia buff out there can solve this little mystery.

08

"Arconas Rule!"
Blurted out by Greg Hefner, after his favorite card helped win him yet another game.

07

"I never got a card out!"
From the lips of the loser of the tournament's shortest game, clocking in at only 9 minutes, and very one-sided. The winner finally got his buzzsaw deck to work.

06

"Somebody took our Stormtrooper!"
Red Leader rescued a captured Stormtrooper in this tournament! Jonathan Quesenberry (a.k.a. Decipher's "Red Leader") had to chase some spectators on foot down the snowy streets of Vail to save a "captured" cardboard standup Stormtrooper. The trooper was "stationed" in the playing hall as decoration, and some spectators tried to run off with him.

05

"That should be a bold-faced cumulative."
Decipher had a chart on the wall, which listed the participants' current scores, round by round. The score written in each round for each player was their total score (i.e. if the player won the first three rounds he would have a "2" written in the first column, a "4" in the second column, and a "6" in the third, showing his total score each time). To indicate this, Carol Wisely indicated on the chart that the scores shown are "cumulative," to which the above retort was made.

04

"It's a good thing you already have the job."
Tom Lischke of St. Louis, a top-ranked player and World Championship qualifier, recently landed a job at Decipher. He'll become the new "Rebel Base Leader" when Sandy Wible moves on to product development in January. To be blunt, Tom had a bad tournament. At one point he had lost 4 of his first 5 games; and wasn't impressing any of the Decipher people present, some of whom were just meeting him for the first time. That is when Matt Mariani cracked the above joke. It was a big laugh,...and it should be noted that Tom won all his remaining games!

03

"Mosep won the game for me."
Most of the players relied on main characters to do most of the work, but it is surprising how some minor characters played key roles. Bjorn Sorgjerd, the second-place finisher (from Norway), made the above statement after winning his first game of the final 2-game match with Asselin.

02

"Yes, but then I would have finished in 26th place."
Sorgjerd was noted for his extremely flexible deck designs, which he combined with a good tactical sense to counter whatever kind of setup the opponent took. One player asked him why he didn't prefer a more aggressive type of approach, such as using themes like the Sandcrawler sites combined with the Suction Tube. After all, "Wouldn't that be more fun?" This was his response.

01

"The two best players were in the finals."
Kendrick Summers, (a.k.a."Gold Leader" at Decipher) was one of the tournament judges and so kept a close eye on the players. He thought the final match was the tournament's best one, even though the two finalists didn't have the highest ratings of all the players present. It must be noted, however, that Joe Alread (of Illinois), could easily have been in the finals instead. He had the highest score after Saturday's four elimination rounds. Unfortunately, when play began anew on Sunday, with all twelve finalists having an equal opportunity to be one of the two finalists, he lost a game by a large margin, leaving him in third place, just behind Asselin in (Force) differential. Thus, he didn't advance to the final match, though he was the only player to defeat Asselin in the preliminaries.