2007 World Championship interviews (transcript)

Transcripts of player and organizer interviews filmed at the 2007 World Championship.

The 2007 World Championship interviews are short camcorder interviews recorded during the 2007 World Championship with players and with Tournament Advocate Henry Dunn. They were filmed on day two, day three and at the consolation event. The Players Committee's Star Wars CCG YouTube channel uploaded them in 2026 as individual videos and as one 40-minute compilation. Participants: an unnamed interviewer; Henry Dunn, Jonny Chu, Brian Hunter, Brad Eier, Pat Johnson, James Booker, Angelo Consoli, Chris Menzel, Justin Carulli, J.W. Millet and Thomas Whaley.

Videos

The Players Committee's Star Wars CCG channel on YouTube published the interviews as these videos.

Date	Title
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 H Dunn Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 J Chu Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 B Eier Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 P Johnson Interview (a 40-minute compilation that also contains the Brian Hunter interview and several of the others)
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 J. Booker Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 A Consoli Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 C Menzel Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 J Carulli Interview
7 April 2026	Worlds 2007 Interview JD Millet
26 February 2026	Worlds 2007 T. Whaley Interview

The text below is from the videos' automatic captions, corrected for names and card titles; it has not yet been checked against the audio. Off-camera chatter, false starts and some interviewer questions are left out. Words that could not be made out are shown as "[unclear]". Timestamps refer to each section's own video.

Henry Dunn (Tournament Advocate)

From Worlds 2007 H Dunn Interview.

[00:06] Interviewer: Go ahead and state your name and tell us what you do for the Star Wars CCG community.

[00:10] Henry Dunn: My name is Henry Dunn, and I am the Tournaments Advocate for the Star Wars CCG PC. I just recently filled this position; I started in February of this year, 2007. The Tournament Advocate's position is a varied and complex one, really. I need to oversee the various tournament formats. We also have a couple of projects underway for online tournament registration and results entry. Also coming up with new tournament formats and seeing if any formats need modifications, and maintaining the official tournament document, which tells any tournament director the proper way to run a Star Wars tournament.

[01:20] Interviewer: How successful do you think the 2007 tournament season has been, including Worlds?

[01:25] Henry Dunn: I think this season's been very successful. More than half the States events were filled. The Regionals went well too. There was a lot of buzz about East and West Nationals at the beginning. East Nationals was very well received, I think, but West Nationals had a slightly more anemic turnout than what they were expecting. [unclear] And Worlds actually beat my expectations. I was expecting a low-to-mid-30s turnout for day two.

[02:45] Interviewer: Do you see any marked improvements that need to be made?

[02:50] Henry Dunn: There are a few things I'd like to look at in the coming season. The official tournament document definitely needs a few points of clarification and expansion of its rules. I'd also very much like to get a viable alternative format out there. That's one of the major things the playing community really doesn't have right now. We have the Classic and the Episode I formats, but no one really plays in those formats or builds decks for them. There are some challenges in trying to come up with a format that is engaging to players and doesn't eat up all of the PC's time trying to make sure it's balanced.

[03:50] Interviewer: The Match Play Championship was a brand-new format this year, and it was very well received by most. What's your input on that?

[04:00] Henry Dunn: We had the first Match Play earlier in the year, back in January. I think that event went really well, and there was a lot of positive feedback on the format. It's tough to gauge how it went over at Worlds right now, but I think everyone was pretty well pleased with the results of the Match Play for the final top eight. We're already planning the one for January again, and we'll see if the playing community wants us to continue with Match Play as the tournament format for the finals at Worlds.

[04:45] Interviewer: You got just enough players for the Match Play to happen. If you got more next year, how would you handle that?

[05:25] Henry Dunn: I designed the chart, so I know it has to be done in multiples. That would change things if the numbers were higher; things would get messy. I'm not sure exactly how to handle that right now.

[06:00] Interviewer: Are you an active player?

[06:10] Henry Dunn: That's actually one of the reasons I took the Tournament Advocate position. I'm not exactly a great player, and those that can't play at least can TD. I do have a good understanding of the rules, so I'm more than willing to bite the bullet and run events for my locals. In Atlanta, which is where I'm from, I do play occasionally, especially in local tournaments; we usually meet Tuesday evenings. I started with Premiere, and took a break, from Dagobah to Jabba's Palace. I got back in right at the beginning of the Reflections boom, and I've been playing ever since.

[07:20] Interviewer: When Decipher lost the license, how did you feel? Did you think it would ever be as big as it is right now?

[07:35] Henry Dunn: Honestly, I wasn't a very active member of the community when Decipher lost the license. I was playing and collecting, and I was very concerned that the game would not survive any amount of time after the loss of the license. I'm very pleased that the PC has actually kept it alive this long.

[08:15] Interviewer: If the license were ever picked back up, or a new game used basically the same construct, how do you think that would affect players?

[08:40] Henry Dunn: We've seen that Wars did not do as well as the Decipher CCG. I think it's really a combination of the solid rules that Decipher put together and the property of Star Wars itself; that's the winning combination of the Star Wars CCG. If anyone else were to pick it up and run Star Wars with those mechanics again, I'm not sure how the player base would take it. There could be a split, and if it was picked up by another party, most likely Decipher's cards wouldn't be usable in that format.

[09:51] Interviewer: Did you see any major difficulties at Worlds on day two and day three?

[09:55] Henry Dunn: One of the major difficulties was that I was the only one here for the PC. Nate was indispensable in helping keep me on track with all of the math for the round results, and David Kuhn helped out with rules; I bounced some rules off him. But that was the major thing: it was more or less a one-man show. I really couldn't keep track of any of the games as they were going on, and I barely had a chance to look at maybe 20 to 30 percent of the decks, because we didn't have time to do the deck checks.

[11:40] Henry Dunn: The Advanced Rulebook is definitely well written and well documented. There was only one thing I had to go to the official tournament guide to clarify, and that was re-sleeving of inserts, but it's covered there. The deck checks on the morning of day three went really well; it didn't take me more than about 40 minutes to check all the decks.

[14:25] Interviewer: For Worlds 2008, if you still have your position, is there anything you would want?

[14:50] Henry Dunn: Most definitely. If I'm still here, which I currently plan to be, I'd very much like at least one or two other members of the PC here to help out, and at the very least I would love to have tournament software. Doing everything by hand definitely took a lot longer than punching in a couple of numbers. All I can say to the players about the lag time is that I did everything as fast and as accurately as I could. We did have a problem right at the beginning of day two with the pairings; luckily we caught it while we were doing them. Other than that, I think everything ran as smoothly and as quickly as I could make it.

Jonny Chu

From Worlds 2007 P Johnson Interview (33:49), the fuller copy of the J Chu interview.

[33:49] Jonny Chu: Jonny Chu. I've been playing Star Wars since it came out, back in December '95. Right now I'm waiting to play the finals of 2007. It's been really fun. I haven't really been playing the last few years, since I won the last time in 2003, and I've been moving around a lot, and there haven't been people where I've been. Part of why I loved the game before is all the people I played with: Albany, definitely, and Nashville, Clint Hays, Steve [unclear], and then teaming with the Boston guys. Recently I haven't been playing that much, but this year I quit my job and had a lot of time to play, so I've been prepping a lot.

Brian Hunter

From Worlds 2007 P Johnson Interview (08:56).

[08:56] Brian Hunter: Brian Hunter, and probably about 11-ish years now. On Worlds day three I played Ralltiir Operations with AT-STs against Brian Fred's Watch Your Step Raiders deck, and then I played EBO against his Hunt Down. EBO was able to drain his Hunt Down out in only about three turns, but he had beaten the Ralltiir deck by more already than I won by.

[10:08] Brian Hunter: I didn't play perfect games all day, because I haven't really been on top of my game. I would say 1999 was probably when I was at my peak, and I haven't played at my highest level since 1999. I was 6–2, and my two losses were matchups I expected to lose as soon as the starting cards were turned up: against Joe Olson, light side lightsaber combat against his dark side lightsaber combat, which in my opinion favors the dark side pretty heavily, and against Jonny Chu, with a Set Your Course fear deck against his EBO X-wing swarm, which he said he built pretty much to beat fear.

[13:03] Brian Hunter: This was the sixth Worlds I've been to. I was probably at that level in '98 and '99, and possibly '97 as well, but I didn't go to Worlds for the first time until 2001, and I didn't really start traveling to major events at all until 2000, when I went to things like Continentals and the Phoenix mega-tournament and a Grand Slam in the same state. So most players who haven't played with me regularly have never seen my best work, because by the time I started playing major events I wasn't as good.

[14:07] Brian Hunter: I played a sealed deck tournament at the Nevada State Championship, which had one qualifying spot; I was undefeated in the Swiss but lost the final. Then I played West Nationals the next day and took first place, and that's how I qualified. When I began, did I think the game would still be going? Definitely. It wouldn't have surprised me if it were still going a lot stronger today than it is, and that probably would be the case if the license hadn't changed hands.

[15:08] Brian Hunter: On Worlds not being at a convention any more: I can see both sides. I can understand people who want to avoid badge fees, and I guess the Players Committee has had some poor experiences with some of the major cons, so I can understand the PC's reasons for not doing it anymore.

[15:55] Brian Hunter: The re-edit was mostly done to try to get cards to a certain amount of space on the card. I don't know if that change was really necessary; I didn't mind virtual cards that had a lot of text, and there are still exceptions, like the virtual It Is The Future You See, or There Is No Try and Oppressive Enforcement, which have as much text as four or five other virtual cards put together. The Redux was another issue: it dealt with power and balance, trying to tame some overpowered cards. Maybe four or five cards could still use more power reduction, and I saw them all at Worlds.

[17:50] Brian Hunter: Not every game will be this way, but there will be games now and then where the action has a very Star Warsy feel to it. If you had recently watched the movies, playing the game fits in with that; it feels like you're doing something related to Star Wars and not just moving cards around. If someone is a big Star Wars fan, I think they probably wouldn't be disappointed.

[19:40] Brian Hunter: I never played the Star Wars miniatures. When Wizards of the Coast first released their game, I played in two tournaments. I won the first, and the second was their first world championship, which I did not win. I wasn't really a big fan of the Wizards of the Coast version. I dabbled a little in Young Jedi, and I have no first-hand experience with Jedi Knights. With Wizards I had a lot of free product: they had flown six Decipher Star Wars players to Seattle to look at the game before it came out. I played those two tournaments and decided the original game was not completely dead and buried yet, so I'd rather play that one. After the 2004 World Championships I didn't compete in a Star Wars tournament for two years, and after last year's I didn't play a tournament for ten months, until West Nationals.

Brad Eier

From Worlds 2007 B Eier Interview.

[00:05] Brad Eier: My name is Brad Eier. I began playing Star Wars CCG when Endor came out. My first foray into CCGs was through the Young Jedi card game, and then I played Star Wars because it was a real game. Today was interesting. It's tough, because six games doesn't weed out everyone enough when there are nearly 50 people and you're only doing a top eight, but eight games is such a grind. The best do seem to rise to the top, though. If you look at the top tables, most of the people you expected to be there are there, and most of the decks you expected are there. The biggest thing about Worlds this year is the lack of a big story. There's no real shock: Jonny Chu, Brian Hunter, Justin, he's good at playing Senate, and the guys from Tennessee. Usually someone comes up with a brilliant surprise deck. This year there was maybe Brian Fred's combat, because it used racing, but that's the deck that got used at West Nationals. Then there's the hidden mains that Booker and I worked on with Reed for a while.

[02:30] Brad Eier: I played the MPC, Ohio States, East Nationals, Corellia Regionals, which I won, Indiana States, which I won, Coruscant Regionals, Pennsylvania States, Maryland States, and the first of two Tennessee States, probably ten events. My best was probably the MPC at the beginning of the year, against such tough competition. In the Sweet 16 I played Mike [unclear], who hadn't played in four years, and he gave me a hell of a game; then I played my own teammate Nate. The next day Mike Pistone got the better of me, but I made the top four and won some cash.

[04:15] Brad Eier: The next five years? Despite all the doom and gloom, a lot of it from me, the PC is working some things out and always trying to improve. Sometimes it takes a while, but things have improved a lot, and it's important to stop and realize that things are really good.

Pat Johnson

From Worlds 2007 P Johnson Interview.

[00:00] Pat Johnson: I am Pat Johnson, and I've been playing since Premiere, since I was eight years old. I'm from Pittsburgh, PA, and I've been playing in their local tournaments for a long time, and then I started going to big tournaments with Reed Smith. There are a lot of good players here. It's deep, like the SEC: even at the bottom tables you'll find good players. I was 1–4 and ended up playing Lee, and you should not be playing Lee at 1–4. I wish I'd played better today, but I'm going to wreck the consolation tournament tomorrow like I did last year.

[01:45] Pat Johnson: My best matchup was in my WAP deck. I kept getting beaten by tanks and Ralltiir Ops, which was depressing because I loved playing WAP; I'd played it for two years. So I put in random cards that destroy vehicles, and some space. My worst was two Light Side Senate decks against my IG deck; they got really good starts.

[03:19] Pat Johnson: I played Regionals and Maryland States, and pretty much if Reed's at a tournament, I'll be there. The only ones he went to this year that I didn't were PA States, because I was moving into my dorm room, and the Match Play Championship, because I had an exam that weekend. I came first in the Swiss at a Regional and got my buy there. I had a great time at Origins 2006: I won a Secret Squirrel tournament and got an uncut sheet of Death Star II.

[06:12] Pat Johnson: The Players Committee changed or cleaned up over a hundred cards in the last six to eight months. I think they did a good job; they went too far with some, but there were a lot of cards that needed to be done, like [unclear], Scum, [unclear], Lords in any form really. I have two virtual card designs, but I haven't used them. Instead of designing a card and waiting a year, I just used some of the new virtuals I had neglected, including Lieutenant Williams, who is a champ.

James Booker

From Worlds 2007 J. Booker Interview.

[00:53] James Booker: My name is James Booker, and I've played Star Wars CCG since around the time Cloud City was released, '97 or '98. I started in middle school and kept with it until almost the end of high school, stopped in college, and toward the end of college I started again. Playing day two is tough. It's all about matchups and whether you were prepared enough. In 2005 I went 4–2 and backed into day three. Day two this year was eight games, and that's real tough: you're mentally tired after six, tracking all day. I think only one 5–3 player made it in, so you have to win out.

[02:58] James Booker: The consolation tournament is always good. I don't know how consoling it is to pay a $20 fee for a fun tournament, but there are buys and there's cash. Fear isn't really broken; that card just needs to be addressed. It's not really broken cards, it's broken combinations. I wish we had more answers for cards. Light Side Senate, which Justin Desai and Jonny Chu are doing real well with, provides some tough matchups for good dark decks. A well-designed virtual set that answers some questionable decks would be real good to see.

[04:17] James Booker: I played maybe five or six qualifiers. I qualified back in January, during the MPC weekend, at a consolation event, and qualifying that early makes you lose your intensity. At the MPC I played you, Jeff, in the opening round, and then TJ Holman. There's something to be said for coming to events, meeting people you already know and new people, and seeing the core group of guys who still play.

Angelo Consoli

From Worlds 2007 A Consoli Interview.

[00:04] Angelo Consoli: My name is Angelo Consoli. I started when Endor came out. In Europe, or Germany, we play completely different decks. Here a lot of people play Hunt Down and combat; Hunt Down is played somewhat in Germany, but not so much as here. I like to play lots of interrupts and tricks, very sneaky, but a variety of decks are played there. The last time I was here was 2003, and I read the reports, but I didn't really know what to expect.

[02:06] Angelo Consoli: I played in [unclear], Bulgaria, and completely lost; I didn't sleep much. Then I played the Europeans, the European Continentals, about 27 people, and I got second, and that's where I got my buy. Nothing is really broken. I think the Hunt Down deck Justin is playing is very good, and Jonny Chu's dark side deck is very good. Dark side is on top at the moment; it's very hard to build a good light side deck. The toughest game was against [unclear], who played combat with podracing; he made me lose a lot of Force, and in the end I came back.

[03:43] Angelo Consoli: I would consider coming back, but the problem is the money: you have to pay a lot to come here by plane, plus the hotel. I played Worlds twice before, 2002 and 2003. 2002 was in Chesapeake, Virginia; that was the last Decipher one. Top eight was my minimum plan, so everything else is a bonus. The last three years I thought the game would go down, because I didn't play much. I'm really impressed that so many people are playing. I hope it will go on, because it's a really good game.

Chris Menzel

From Worlds 2007 C Menzel Interview.

[00:04] Chris Menzel: My name is Chris Menzel. I'm from Germany, and I've been playing Star Wars since the beginning, all over the world actually. I started out with European tournaments. This year I played about six qualifiers, all European regional tournaments, and I placed fifth at the Europeans; Angelo placed second, and we both qualified. I'm usually organizing these events in Europe. In the team event my buddy Dirk Friedrichs and I placed seventh.

[02:22] Chris Menzel: It was pretty big at the beginning, and like everybody else I didn't enjoy it when the license was lost, but that it's still going so strong is really an effort of the players, of everyone, and it's really nice. I played Wars. Some of its rule changes were good, like paying one cost for every move, but Star Wars is still the better game, and I believe the PC cards are better than the Wars mechanics. I enjoy most of the virtual cards; the broken stuff is mostly fixed. I'll be involved in the game, but I don't see myself playing too much anymore, because I'm doing all the organizing for the European events.

Justin Carulli

From Worlds 2007 J Carulli Interview.

[00:03] Justin Carulli: My name is Justin. I wasn't in the real tournament today, but it was really competitive, bigger than I think everyone expected. I won the other tournament, so I'll be back next year. We got here last night in time for the team tournament. This was my first event in probably over a year. Every time a virtual set comes out, I get excited again.

[02:07] Justin Carulli: I've seen all kinds of matches: a lot of IG-88, [unclear], Hunt Down. My worst was my combat deck against fear; I was pretty much shut down from turn two, when he flipped. I don't think I saw anything broken.

[03:50] Justin Carulli: I thought the best virtual expansion was actually the first one. It gave us Vader and Luke, which were very fun cards to play in space, and the matching-weapon effects. I think those were two of the best cards ever made; they changed the game a lot. How long will the game last? As long as people keep coming. When the last one of us here today dies, maybe it'll be over, but I don't think it will be before that.

J.W. Millet

From Worlds 2007 Interview JD Millet.

[00:03] J.W. Millet: I participated in three or four qualifiers. I made the final of the first one, but it was a bad matchup, so I conceded to Joseph. In the last one I was second after the Swiss, and the guy wasn't going to Worlds, so he conceded to me, because I was already going. Day two went 4–4, a lot better for me than last year. My bad matchup was Watch Your Step with no ships until the fourth turn, which is not a good sign. This is my third Worlds: day one in 2005, day two last year and day two this year. I did a lot more playtesting this year, with my buddy Bobby [unclear]. There's discussion about fear: some say it's broken, some say it just needs a nudge. No QMC aliens this year.

[03:35] J.W. Millet: The game is obviously not dead, and we're still going strong. It's so much more fun than any other game I've ever tried. It's so much more complex that some people get discouraged by it, but if you take your time and work at playing it, it's so much more rewarding.

Thomas Whaley

From Worlds 2007 T. Whaley Interview.

[00:00] Thomas Whaley: Everybody I played today was a quality player. No bad games. My worst matchup was Michael Richards, since I kind of helped him build his deck, so I kind of knew it was coming. The weirdest game: I was playing QMC against an Endor Operations deck that was draining me, and I played Rebel Leadership, took out one of her ships, and it came down to a drain game. I should have lost that game. I played Oklahoma States and Texas States.

[04:00] Thomas Whaley: I started from day one, the two-player game. Nobody knew the rules; people used to put weapons on a character, and everyone was fuzzy about battle destiny. I think the game is improving. Some of the rules are fuzzy, but they're trying to streamline it and make it more sensible, because before there were so many gray areas; you could interpret a card several different ways. So they streamlined all the virtual cards and tweaked them so they won't be too powerful. One of these days someone's going to play some throwback deck with old-school stuff that nobody's seen. That's the great thing about the game: so many matchups.

See also

• 2007 World Championship · Henry Dunn · Tournament Advocate · Players Committee