[Alyssa] Finalist at Las Vegas Planetary Qualifier
Alyssa's Perspective: Las Vegas Planetary Qualifier Deck & Experience
tl;dr: Alyssa made Finalist, Jerry got eliminated in the first round of Top Cut. https://melee.gg/Tournament/View/167647
Jerry’s deck/experience perspective post can be found here:
![[Jerry] Top 8 at Las Vegas Planetary Qualifier](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!O8XW!,w_140,h_140,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep,g_auto/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F91f95ba4-db53-4780-8ac6-01d58536e46b_1600x1066.jpeg)
Las Vegas PQ experience feedback post of issues/weird rulings we’ve witnessed/heard:
Table of Contents
Some pics and prizing
(Our prizing haul: Legal Authority promos, some entry OP and regular packs, and store credit prizing not shown)
Knight & Day Games Drive pics folder - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1QE-nCT0NjOxFlL9N9XVHn1ZTmDf3jPpv (they had a photographer at the event)
Let’s talk about the deck
https://swudb.com/deck/yzGMTAfflGGUw
It’s a relatively standard list. The major deviance being -1 Red Three for +1 Disabling Fang Fighter in the main deck. Having some upgrade hate for Game1 can be nice sometimes, but mostly meant vs Bossk’s bounties and Sabine’s Darksabers.
The major difference from the prior list ran in Pasadena PQ is the +2 Bright Hope main deck. The reasoning is that it helps fend off the space aggro as we both were expecting more space aggro given the rise in Boba Red in recent PQs (eg two Top 8 Boba Red in Pasadena PQ).
[Hindsight comment: Based on a Discord post, there were only ~9 Boba Red decks at the Las Vegas PQ]
Sideboard thought process:
Vs heals: side in Wolffe
Vs upgrades: side in Disabling Fang Fighter
Vs aggro: maybe side in Daring Raid and maybe Bright Hope
Vs midrange: maybe side in U-Wing Reinforcement
Vs control: side in U-Wing Reinforcement and Krayt Dragon
Matchups
(Matchup notes from Alyssa’s perspective)
Bossk ECL 2-0
I don’t think this was a standard Bossk ECL deck because the opponent was playing cards I’ve never seen before. This could be because I’m generally not super familiar with most decks outside of Sabine. I was able to just aggro down the opponent quickly in both games.
Han1 Green 2-0
This player was one of the people who made Top Cut. Second game was very close, toward the end I had 6 health, and the opponent had a Set1 Millennium Falcon on board. I topdecked a Bright Hope, and was able to close out the game. In the post game analysis, the opponent said he drew very badly; he had put most or all of his 10 card sideboard in for the Sabine matchup, but didn’t see any of them.
Luke ECL 2-0
He said that he didn’t draw anything he needed, no sentinels. He didn’t see any of the ten cards he sided in against me in Game 2.
Sabine ECL 2-0
The mirror match is almost always a coinflip of whoever has initiative and/or who draws better. My opponent was a strong SoCal player who I’ve played against before, and from what I hear he was also a Sabine Yellow player during Set 1, like me. In one of the games, I promptly took initiative, floating five resources, because I had Rebel Assault in hand for lethal with 14 damage.
Despite what people think about Sabine mirror matches being very short, I tend to find that when I play the mirror, my matches can actually go longer than usual. I may be overthinking, but I spend a lot of time considering if I should base race or clear units, and doing the math of how much damage I or the opponent has if either of us has Rebel Assault.
Boba1 Tarkintown 2-0
He didn’t draw his ideal opening hand either game. He said that he just started SWU recently and was surprised he found a deck faster than his. I think him not being able to clear my turn 1 play on turn 1 was a huge disadvantage for him.
Qi’Ra ECL 2-1
Lots of spectators for this one since we were Table 1.
I forgot to deploy Sabine in Game 3. I meant to take initiative in order to clear his 7/1 Qi’Ra first action next turn, then deploy Sabine so she would survive for more than one attack. I ended up killing Qi’Ra, but forgot to flip Sabine afterwards, then just played the rest of the game assuming she had already died sometime prior.
In that same game, I played For a Cause and part of the reveals were a Krayt Dragon and a U-Wing Reinforcement. I heard a few gasps/mutterings from spectators when Krayt was revealed, but next turn, I U-Winged away my Krayt to the bottom of the deck. At that moment I thought, “Oops, there goes my Krayt,” because I miscalculated resourcing and the ordering of the cards from For a Cause. In hindsight there was no good way to keep my Krayt on top of my deck, and it would have either gone to the bottom of the deck or just not been played at all anyway.
Han2 ECL 0-2
I got wrecked by wide Han. Just too much board dump and I didn’t draw well. I was pretty chill this game since I was already guaranteed Top 8.
With my final 6-1 Swiss record, I was #1 in the Swiss standings and made Top Cut.
Top Cut
Boba1 Tarkintown 2-1 (vs Jerry)
Because of our Swiss standings (Alyssa #1, Jerry #8), we unfortunately got paired up for Top Cut.
Bossk ECL 2-0
I felt like he didn’t draw well, but I also hand ripped him with K-2SO and Poe in the first game. In the first game, he conceded when he had 16 damage with no hand, and I had 12 or 14 damage on my base. These games didn’t go very long.
[Jerry’s comment: I saw her side in Wolffes. After the round had concluded, I asked her if his deck had any heals (I didn’t see his deck list), she said “no.” SMH]
Sabine ECL 1-2
The other Sabine player always had Poe to ECL my Darksaber’d Sabine leader. I might’ve gone too hard with the Darksaber just for him to Poe it away. It could be hindsight bias, because I don’t know what would’ve happened if I had played K-2SO on Turn 3 instead of Darksaber. There was also a certain amount of risk I was willing to take, where I thought, “If my opponent doesn’t have a response to Darksaber, I win, if he does, I lose,” and in the both games I lost he had the Poe in hand to counter it.
Overall, I don’t feel too bad about losing to the mirror match, because, especially with Sabine ECL vs Sabine ECL, a huge part of it is just drawing better if both players are of equivalent skill level.
(Finals game)
Conclusion
I generally do pretty well in competitive SWU events, and my store showdown results back it up. However, I didn’t expect to get this far in a 98 person event, and I attribute a big part of it to luck, in addition to practice. I had a much worse result in Pasadena PQ, but I didn’t play any differently and made very minimal changes to my deck between the two events. There were a lot of strong players at this event that finished with mediocre results, so this just goes to show that no matter how strong a player you are, you’re at the mercy of the draw.
Overall, it was nice to see so many familiar faces from SoCal, and it was a great experience playing amongst a lot of passionate people.