Matthew Harrison-Trainor Wins Second Career GEMP Match Play Championship

Batmouse’s 8^th Annual GEMPC, a.k.a. the GEMP Match Play Championship, has completed with Matthew Harrison-Trainor (“MHT”, GEMP: MatthewHT) winning the event. MHT also won the 2022 iteration of this event – the largest sanctioned online event in Star Wars CCG.

The GEMPC ran from early February until late April, culminating in a final confrontation between “New Allies” teammates MHT and Mike Kessling (GEMP: Troop1023) – a rematch of the GEMPC 6 final. For the ultimate match, MHT played Quiet Mining Colony in Game 1 and “Thrawn” in Game 2; Kessling played Shadow Collective and He Is The Chosen One. This marked another bittersweet run for Kessling, as he finished in second place for the third consecutive year. MHT was seeded 8th overall in the 128-player field, while Kessling was the 2nd overall seed. Nathan Russell (#100, bibfortuna) and Logan Pietig (#54, Admiral_Pi) finished third and fourth, respectively. The remaining quarter-finalists were Joe Olson, Brian Fred, Greg Shaw and Charlie Arlandson. The event was run primarily by Tournament Advocate Chris Schoenthal with support from the event namesake Anthony “batmouse” Howard and the Tournament Committee.

The entire GEMPC Bracket can be viewed here.  With 128 entrants, the GEMPC continues to be the largest PC-sanctioned tournament. It has trended 36-64-64-64-72-110-100-128 in its 8 years. As a free event, both tangible and digital prizes were given out, with the grand prize of a Reflections III Dark Side Premium Uncut Sheet; many of the prizes have already been shipped with the remaining being batched in coming months to remaining players.

Some of the earlier rounds of the event and all of the matches from the quarterfinals onward were covered by the SWCCG PC Stream Team – videos can be viewed on the PC’s YouTube channel.

If you’d like to try out the winning decks, or any of the decks from the Top 8 players, you can view the lists here or import them directly into GEMP after downloading them here. Note that players had to submit decks for the Top 8, Top 4 and Finals before any of the Top 8 matches started. Players could play different decks, but had to designate upon decklist submission which decks they were playing in which round.

In-person Star Wars CCG major play resumed with the 2024 European Championship in Copenhagen, Denmark, and will continue with the North American Continental Championship in August in New Brunswick, NJ, spanning August 9^th through the 11^th.  If you can’t attend “Continentals”, make sure you tune into the PC’s Twitch Channel for live coverage.  Also note that the 2024 Regional Championship Circuit is kicking up in the summer months – check out this forum for details. The 2024 Online Championship Series resumes from its off-month in May on June 1st, and will have qualifier events for June, July and August. Players may sign up for any/all months on a rolling basis.

Thanks to all involved in planning and executing the event, to all commentators for covering the key match-ups, and of course to all the participants!

Congratulations to Matthew and Mike!