ISB: 1999 World Champion 1.0

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1st place - 1999 World Championship dark side deck.

Player: Gary Carman, UK

The following summary of the 1999 World Finals was taken from 'History of the World Finals', originally posted on Trandosite.

There were some significant changes to the structure of these Finals, and the build-up to the championships would be a most significant part of the event. Decipher decided to make the event a more "exclusive" affair than previously; a slightly odd decision that attracted great criticism from the vast majority of players who are, by definition, not part of the playing elite. Although some players believed the regional structure was better, enough criticism was given so that the system was not only abolished but almost inverted for the 2000 Championships. By having to qualify to get to a regional final, this meant that a lot of players failed to make the highlight event of the year for them and meant that many regional finals turned into rather pathetic events with pitiful turnouts (some regions were bailed out through a late abolition of the rule). Poor choices of location for many American regional finals only confounded the problem. Unfortunately, the situation leading up to the 1999 World Finals was only worsened by much "trash talk" between players of differing countries and regions - perhaps most significantly at the Yavin IV and Coruscant regionals. All of this, luckily, was not to detract from DecipherCon itself once it was underway.

The other addition to the World Finals of 1999 was the "Wild Card" tournament; which was such a popular introduction that it has been expanded hugely this year. An open tournament, where the top two players could enter into the World Finals the next day. The event attracted over 100 players, and was eventually won by John Arendt and James Lafferty, the latter of which would play an impressive number of games (20) over the weekend playing in all three days of the finals. Elsewhere at the Worlds, it is notable that Joe Alread won the Ironman tournament - it was the first time Mr. Alread failed to qualify for the main event however.

The first day of the World Championship Finals and 32 players in all competed, one from each region and the rest being made up from the Open/Wild Card/Invitational championships. Two players immediately shone out, and would remain at the top of the leader board for the whole day; Clint Hays and Bastian Winkelhaus. The games between these two were extremely close, both being timed results.

The day finished - after eight games - with Winkelhaus at the top, followed by Clint Hays. Despite a fairly mediocre start, Gary Carman (UK entrant) had a very strong finish and came in third behind them. That evening, Mr. Carman lost his decks however which put him a pretty tricky situation for Day Two. He rapidly built two new decks, borrowing and adjusting Markus Wuests' light side; for the next day. The exact story behind this remains a mystery even today.

The second day consisted of four games to find the Top 2. Yannick Lapointe of Canada was the early leader, with Clint Hays and Bastian Winkelhaus suffering an early loss. With only four games, players had to be extremely careful; a big loss could take you out of contention. Steven Lewis of the Yavin IV region was the only undefeated player, and he went on to face Gary Carman of the Naboo region (despite his unusual deck situation) in the Final. This was a USvsUK final as last year, and the Atlantic battle on the BBS was also very similar.

In the first game, Carman was using his ISB Outer Rim Scout deck against Lewis' Clak'dor VII Operative Speeder deck. The game was a pretty close affair at the start, with both players treading carefully. Carman got the lead during battle, when he managed to incur some significant battle damage on Lewis. This set him up for a large win, by 22. The second game was to be "without question...the most exciting match I have ever watched. It was truly masterful playing on both men's parts." according to Decipher rep Mark Tuttle. Carman was using a Hidden Base insert deck, against Lewis' Hunt Down. The confrontation had taken place earlier and Lewis had won by 4. This game would be just as close.

As before, the game at the start was tight. Carman tried to get a NTMO into Lewis' reserve deck but each time a Torture stopped any damage. Both players flipped their objectives around the same time, but that gave Lewis the chance to probe and he did find the HB (with Security Precautions out leading to some major damage). Carman struck by; he used Oola to scan the opponents hand, and then Grimtaashed him to get rid of his Torture. When the NTMO came up, it inflicted 8 damage. The game was coming to an exciting close, and it looked like time may run out, but Lewis used a well timed Lateral Damage to gain victory by 3 Force. This meant that Gary Carman was the new champion, going 2 (+19) to Steven Lewis' 2 (-19) in the World Final. Carman was the first British champion of the event, despite Michael Riboulet having been in two previous World Finals. Initial reaction to Carman's victory was harsh and often unfair; Clint Hays claiming his decks were "junky" and several players put the win down to luck. However, since then reaction has been very different - "The man is brilliant and is an extremely good player." said Clint Hays to Trandosite recently.