"HAVING AN EFFECT ON PLAYERS WORLDWIDE"

Ian Vincent
2000-10-20: Young Jedi '00 World Champion

First off, I just want to sat congrats on making it to day 3 of the worlds and taking home the 1st place trophey. Also, thanks for taking the time to fill out this interview. So many questions, so little time, therfore they will be brief and to the point. Once again thanks for the pleasure of interviewing you.

Q. Since the first set of Menace all the way too Naboo you must have been a great deck builder, what keeps you coming up with such good decks, such as the ones you used for D-Con 2000.

A. My deckbuilding skills come from having been playing ST:CCG for about 2 1/2 years now. I was lucky to be introduced to the game by now three times regional winner Ian Taylor, he taught me well and I came 7th in last year's world championship. I don't think I've ever come up with a good Young Jedi deck, I've only improved on existing ones. The Anakin deck was based on one by Mark Ponting and Tank decks have been around for atleast a year.

Q. What was your making decision in the Tank deck, it's so unlike other Tank decks?

A. The biggest problem for tank decks had always been deploy cost. If you put out a tanks and a laser cannon every turn then you can never duck a fight when your opponent has more battle cards than you. With a few blaster rifles and wildcard tanks, the plan is to deploy two weapons, two tanks and a weak charactor within the first two turns on a planet. The 2 extra Mos Espa's (which also featured in Phillipe's tank deck) are for two reasons. I hate getting fighters stuck in my hand and I don't fancy fighting against Anakin at the podrace arena. They're destiny five too, which doesn't hurt. I think sites are the most under-used cards in the game. Site bonuses a cruicial and taking them away makes stealing your opponent's planet a lot easier.

Q. Who so far would you consider your toughest opponant and why?

A. There were three people who beat me at DecipherCon and they were all tough for different reasons:

Jeremy Baker: Was playing a very unconventional deck which my own decks were never designed to play against. I have a lot of respect for him both as a player and a person.

James Lafferty: I believe he came 4th in last year's Star Wars world championship and he certainly knows what he's doing. I found his playing style difficult at first because it's so different to what I've seen in Europe. He certainly would have made a worthy champion.

Philippe Parrise: His decks were very simular to mine and if one destiny draw had come out differently he'd be the world champion instead of me. A very tough competitor.

I don't think it would be fair to say any one was tougher than the others, it's like comparing chalk with cheese. I should also mention that there were some very good players at the European championship, from whom I learnt a great deal. Going into a tournament you have to fear everybody, I went into the weekend ranked 112th in the world and walked away as the winner. So, there's certainly going to be atleast 100 people in contention next year.

Q. What would you consider how to build a strong deck, and is it the same style for each deck you build?

A. I used to be quite systematic in building decks, but these days every deck gets put together in a different way. A few tips I'd give new players:
Try to keep the total deploy cost for the deck to about 90. Make sure you've alot of matching charactors for your powerful weapons (about twice as many as of the weapon). This will probably mean trading your other good rares to concentrate on one LS and one DS deck.

Q. Is their a certain shuffling tech you use, because I know that at the worlds all the decks were resorted by color.

A. Yes there is and no I'm not telling you how I shuffle my deck. I will say that the way I shuffle my opponent's deck is designed to beat anybody who has stacked their deck and the way I shuffle mine is designed to immune to this.

Q. Why did you decide to start playing Young Jedi?

A. It's fun! I take ST quite seriously, and it's nice to play something a little less serious and where a game doesn't take an hour. I'm a big fan of the Austin Powers game too!

Q. What are your thoughts of Duel of the Fates set?

A. Wow! This realy is going to make things interesting. After the wildcards came out there were very few different decks worth playing, I think Duel of Fates is going to change that.

Q. I have seen the decklists you used thanks to you submitting them to the site. Can you tell us how you came up with those decks?

A. I have to say the tank deck was only designed to be used on day 1 and day 2. I figured they'd be too many anti-tank decks for it to make the final confrontation. However, I was too buisy helping Ian Taylor with his ST deck to make a new one (we finished about 3am). The Anakin deck I figured was the best way to beat a deck designed to fight on two planets (which most are) as if they take the first planet then I can bring out my own site for their second planet and get better site bonuses than them. Then, they're forced to fight me on their weakest planet.

Q. Do you think they are the best decks for the Tournament Scene right now?

A. Tanks are very dependent on what people play in your area. If there are too many tank decks then people will start using Jar-Jar and blow you to pieces. Fortunately at the worlds, people were more concerned with how to beat the numerous Darth Maul decks. I think Anakin is the Light side's last best hope right now.

Q. Will you be using something similar for any future events coming up?

A. With Dual of Fates coming out before the next tournament I play in, I don't see me playing tanks for a while!

Q. How does it feel to be the World Champion?

A. Now that I'm over the shock, I feel realy proud to be the second person to bring a Decipher World Championship back to Britain in two years. There's so many more Americans than any other nationality at the world championships, that myself and Phillipe figured we'd both already won just by forcing them out of the final confrontation. (nothing personal against the people, I just don't want to see one country dominating any game)



Finishing up! Thanks for the interview and I hope other players can learn something off what you told me today.

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