One of the most interesting challenges of writing about tabletop games, for me at least, is the constant imposter syndrome.

To be sure, I’ve gotten so much encouraging feedback for my content over the years, especially for the stuff that’s aimed at helping newer players engage with games, and I get so much joy from that. But man, I’m just not a heavy hitter when it comes to competing, and I probably never will be. Sometimes that makes me wonder why folks would bother listening to me!

Luckily, this insecurity doesn’t keep me from tournaments…most of the time. Despite my mixed track record, there is little in gaming that I find more engaging than a really good game of SWU. And so, in search of a few of those, as well as additional street cred and some quality time with my GarbageRollers brothers, I drove up from Houston into the great wild North to the Dallas Planetary Qualifier, hosted magnificently by Common Ground Games.

Look, you’re probably going to have the chance to read lots of write-ups and tournament reports from Season 0 and beyond of these Planetary Qualifiers. Most of those will be from players far, far better than me. I worry, sometimes, that this correlation might lead players who are, similarly, not world-beating competitive folk to think that a fun day at their PQ or other big tournament is out of their reach, or worse, not even worth pursuing.

This write-up is my humble attempt to alleviate that. Behold- if you were ever wondering what it was like for a relative scrub to do their darnedest at a PQ, here it is. Enjoy the ride.

The List, And Why I Brought It

I’m sure I’ve lost some of you off the jump. Yes, I am among the legions who brought some variation of this list out. That said, I do want to touch briefly on how I got here.

Up until about three weeks ago, I intended to bring Boba Green, one of my favorite lists (and one which at the time might have even been considered underrated), to the PQ. I became unsure about this as a meta-call, despite having put substantial time into testing and tweaking that list for myself. Conversations with Justin and Tyler and observations on the Texas tournaments in the run up to the event led me to believe that we might end up seeing a lot of control decks, and I wasn’t terrifically comfortable with how my list was performing into decks like Qi’ra and Palp.

I also love playing Sabine, but my hesitation to switch over mostly had to do with a sort of bad juju surrounding aggro mirrors. This would end up being mildly hilarious, as you’ll see, but I ended up deciding to push myself, tweaking the list to my tastes, and started working on my lines for the mirror.

Here’s how it went.

Round 1 – vs. His Dudeness’s Sabine Yellow

Ah great, an aggro mirror to start. The Sabine Yellow is a tough matchup for Sabine Green on a good day, and one that I happened to have almost no practice with. I actually had just been talking with Lawton and Justin before the tournament started about how much I was hoping not to pull this, but here we are. “Don’t get Bamboozle’d” they said. An ill omen.

In the first game, Jason had a strong start in space, per his plan, and I’d been forced to start Rebel Pathfinder after a tough mulligan. I took a moment to do the math, staring down three space units. My only path was to race with Darksaber, as I hadn’t yet seen Bright Hope and it would likely not be enough even if I did, so I felt forced to play my Darksaber and make him have the Bamboozle.

He had the Bamboozle. GG.

Second game, I mulled away the first hand as it again had no R1 play…and then drew into no R1 play again. 2% chance of that, so I guess I was glad it happened on a matchup that was pretty hosed anyway? A Bright Hope stopped the bleeding, but then I didn’t draw the Poe I needed to answer a Heroic Resolve/Wing Leader’d Sabine. 8 minute round total.

Jason is a friend, and he ended up going to Top 8. I’m immensely proud of his performance on the day, and this was, clearly, a rough draw for my first round. Time to bounce back and beat up on control.

Result: L, 0-2
Record: 0-1

Round 2 – vs. Calvin’s Sabine Green

…Alternatively, let’s face down Sabine again.

Oy vey. As mentioned, I nearly didn’t bring Sabine because I have a weirdly hard time with mirror. This ended up being the round that I regretted most as the day went on, though my opponent Calvin was a really nice guy that I was glad to meet.

I hard mulligan’d for Battlefield Marine in all three games, and never found one, which made the early game tough to navigate. In fact, I never found any 2 for 1 ECL targets, and ended up using ECL pretty poorly in both losses in an ill-advised attempt to pivot and control the board. In short, my plan got disrupted and I stopped thinking smart.

In both losses, an opposing ECL Poe presented me with math I couldn’t over come. The final round came down to one action, as I was able to Heroic Sacrifice my Cassian, the last unit on my board, and claim. To win, I needed to hit For A Cause for the last two damage on either the Heroic Sac draw or the regroup phase. It didn’t happen. 

Result: L, 1-2
Record: 0-2

Round 3 – vs. Brian’s Palp Green

Well at this point, I was positive that my breakers were going to make top cut impossible. I decided the correct mental approach was to take that reduced pressure as a blessing and try to finish the day with a winning record and have some fun. I had come into the tournament pretty behind on sleep from a demanding end of the week schedule, and just didn’t feel like I was at my best. My abysmal play in the last round proved that. Luckily for me, I got a favorable matchup to help me bounce back mentally.

Brian played things pretty well, but Palp can only have so many things go wrong before the Sabine matchup gets pretty tough. In both of these games, I was able to land solid ECL Poes. In the second game, Brian had a really solid start with Yularen/Royal Guard, but I got a cheeky initiative claim after a bad pass that led into a second Rebel Assault. Just too fast, and both games were over by 5 resources.

Result: W, 2-0
Record: 1-2

4 vs. J.R.’s Kylo Tarkintown

Anddddd we’re right back to another aggro mirror, which may or may not have put me on tilt. What is going on?

Kylo Red is crazy fast, and Sabine is firmly the control in the matchup until the board is locked down and it’s time to put the gas on. Those things, and the huge potential threat of Fallen Lightsaber, were really all I knew about this matchup, and once again, my lack of reps in a less-played aggro mirror would prove too much to overcome.

My Game 2 win was very decisive, but Sabine vs. Kylo really comes down to having the right cards at the right time. Both my losses were centered on two things- not drawing into counters, and getting lane dodged. In Game 1, the card I missed was Wrecker or Poe, who would have enabled me to kill two units in the ground lane and take control back for good. In Game 3, it was Confiscate, and an unanswerable Fallen Lightsaber on Kylo blew me out.

Result: L, 1-2
Record: 1-3

Round 5 vs. James’ Sabine ECL 2-0

ANOTHER AGGRO MIRROR PLEASE MAKE THEM STOP.

Despite this cosmic injustice, this round ended up shaking me loose of my strange funk. I had worked so hard to learn this matchup, and so far it hadn’t paid off at all. Further, I didn’t win the roll for initiative here, which sometimes by itself can be a death sentence.

But lo! I was able to get the Battlefield Marine vs. Sabine opening in both games, ECL’ing in to get a desperately needed 2 for 1 that denied Fleet Lieutenant or Wing Leader in R2. This start was enough to take a close race in the first game, with both me and James firing off Rebel Assaults but mine getting me there an action sooner after a less than stellar deploy turn.

In the second game, I was able to withhold resources long enough to get a Confiscate, fresh off the sideboard, off on the opposing Darksaber. Like the Battlefield Marine vs. Not Battlefield Marine start, this is rarely possible to overcome. A tough break for James, but as for me, it feels like I’ve killed the boogeyman. Now, SURELY, I have conquered my demons and am done with this ridiculous aggro arithmetic.

Result: W, 2-0
Record: 2-3

Round 5.1 – vs. My Own Incompetency

So there I am shopping for boardgames when all of a sudden they loudly call my name on the intercom across the entire store, telling me to go to the judge table. We love that.

Turns out I filled out the slip from the previous round incorrectly, in an apparent attempt to revise history and declare James the 2-0 winner. A Freudian slip, perhaps? A subconscious desire to end my suffering? Whatever it was, it didn’t work.

Round 5.2 – vs. Mike’s Sabine ECL

WHAT THE HELL I think as I sit down across from yet another Sabine. I came here to dunk on control decks.

I can feel myself begin to slip into oblivion about the time they announce over the intercom that there’s been a reporting error, and they need to issue new-pairings. Thank goodness. I surely couldn’t have done another one of those.

Round 6 vs. Oz’ Sabine ECL

…please. help me.

In all seriousness, the one-two psychological punch of drawing another Sabine, and then the false security of the whole round getting re-paired, only to sit across from Sabine yet again was, understandably, so completely absurd that at this point I could only laugh about it. And laughing about it helped.

Oz was my favorite opponent of the day, a real sweet dude who was having a wonderful time at the tournament. And really, so was I. Sadly, there actually isn’t much to say about the games themselves. Oz played really well, but I had literally perfect draws, with Battlefield Marine up top, safe Darksabers, and bone-crushing Rebel Assaults for exact lethal in both games. The coin flips finally went my way, and I played them clean, and that’s how it has to get done.

Result: W, 2-0
Record: 3-3

Round 7 vs. James’ Qi’ra Green

My final round, my second James of the day, though this time blissfully playing a deck I knew the matchup well for. Qi’ra can win almost any game if she high-rolls, but you can also say that about Sabine, and so my goal here was to clutch things out and finish the day strong.

I’m proud of how I played, but transparently, I was also able to capitalize on a couple of critical misreads that James made into me. Both gained me a lot of ground.

In Game 1, I sequenced things pretty tightly and worked to make Qi’ra’s flip less enticing than it can often be. This led to James delaying the flip, almost like you would in a control mirror, waiting for a solid moment. But I just kept playing low to the ground and hammering past the sentinels, despite him sticking a Hylobon all game and getting a solid Overwhelming Barrage off with him. By the time Vader hit the board, it wasn’t really enough to overcome the math. Qi’ra never did end up deploying, a misplay James instantly lamented.

Game 2 was over even sooner. James made a pass that I was able to claim into, and it was a bad one, letting me head straight into an 8 damage Rebel Assault at the top of the next round. Once again, the damage just came too fast for him to stabilize.

Result: W, 2-0
Record: 4-3

Final Record: 4-3, finishing 43rd

Swiss was over. I had been so tired all day, from the aforementioned lack of sleep in the run-up to the event. I hoped to hang out with everyone after the tournament, but that didn’t feel like it was in the cards for me with how fatigued I had been.

But then something happened- as soon as Swiss was over, I felt a surge of energy. I think that the mental pressure to do well had been genuinely dampening my energy, and paradoxically here at the end of the day I suddenly felt like a new person. Plus, the cut had turned out pretty exciting! 4 folks in the Top 8 were friends of mine, including Justin, and now it was time to close the store down and watch them duke it out.

As we tuned in to the top cut, I got a chance to try out Twin Suns for the first time with fellow GarbageRollers Tyler and Jim, as well as Corey Scott from FFG! Corey had flown down to observe the PQ, and had been a delightful presence all day as he played casual games with folks and watched the proceedings. By the way- Twin Suns is a blast, playing out almost like a political boardgame. Corey won the first game with his ridiculous Han 1 + Han 2 deck, and Jim narrowly beat Tyler in the second with a cool (and very illegal) Luke + Vader anarchy format deck that he had borrowed from the Bucketheads’ stream team. What a cheater.

After that, Tyler and I got a chance to try out the excellent Duel For Middle Earth, which I’d picked up as a bit of retail therapy. It was awesome. And then, with the store empty save us and the poor employees, we all cheered on our buddy Lawton, who had made the finals despite being jetlagged from Italy and fresh off a customs issue that had nearly stopped him from making the tournament at all. After things wrapped up and Aneil’s Boba Green took the win, we joined Corey and several others at a local barcade, playing some hilarious rounds of Killer Queen with the somehow still conscious Lawton. It was tough to say goodbye as folks started peeling off, but the good news is we’ll have lots of chances to do it again soon.

Here’s what I learned from the whole thing.

The Lessons

1. Go To The Tournament. Go. Don’t talk yourself out of it. Go to have fun. Go to get better. And most of all, go because this game at its peak is rarely matched in tabletop games, and it’s worth experiencing
2. But Don’t Go Alone. I can’t imagine the day without having buddies to hang out with before, after, and in between rounds. These are such wonderful communal experiences and I’d encourage anyone to bring a friend, or better yet, form a team to test with.
3. It’s Worth It To Not Give Up. I bounced back from a really tough start and not hitting the field I expected to hit, but frankly, I’d have been fine if I hadn’t. I was also surprised how little impact my final record had on my evaluation of whether the trip had been worth it- more on that in a bit.
4. Take Your List Seriously, Get Reps, And Customize It. That said, I am glad I brought a deck that had a real chance into the field. I’m glad that I put in lots of prep work and settled on my deck at least a couple of weeks out. I’m also glad that I ran my version of the list, which may look similar to others, but is tweaked to shore up for the matchups I struggled with most and the lines I feel most comfortable with. Even when running a meta deck, there is a lot of room for expression, and that’s a real feature of SWU that I think is underrated.
5. I Will Likely Never Compete At The Level Others Do – And That’s Okay. I put in about as much time and energy into this PQ as I would ever feel comfortable doing. There’s a lot of life to live and time to spend with my family and my other endeavors, and I was pretty much right up on the line of how seriously I can take an event like this. The result? 4-3. Not bad, but not great. Time is a major gatekeeper to succeeding at things like this, and I don’t have as much of it as I’d like. But man, it’s a fallacy to assume that not being able to get the results others do means the whole shebang isn’t worth pursuing. It very much is. There is so much depth of experience at a thing like this, so much joy, and it’s radical how much of it has nothing at all to do with winning.

Until Next Time

So there you have it. If like me, you’re just a middle-class SWU player, and you were wondering what to expect from a PQ, it just might end up looking something like…well, that ^^^

I hope you go. And when you do, may the force be with you.