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All Categories • Continuing Committee • Organized Play • Rules Committee • Deck Designs • Virtual Expansions
Card Extras • Special Events • Tournament Reports • Everything Else • Spotlight Series • Contests
Strategy Articles
Nuremberg Regional Report
by Johannes Klarhauser, Staff Writer
18th May 2008
The first ever Regional tournament in Germany took place in Nuremberg. After a couple of last-minute drop-outs due to work commitments, we had a total of six participants, thanks to visiting player Thomas Schneider. As the tournament was scheduled to be five rounds anyway, we ended up playing round robin. I had originally intended to play a Bajoran deck, but I didn't get all the cards I needed to make it work in time, so I resorted to a reworked version of the Borg deck I had played a couple of weeks before. (A big thanks to Markus Eberlein for letting me borrow a mission card!)Round One
My first opponent was Sebastian Neidhardt. He played a dual-headquarters deck, combining Earth (Cradle of the Federation) with Romulus, and dropped Luther Sloan (Man of Secrets) on his first turn. Luckily, I had two copies of Quintessence in my opening hand and played them both, so at least one of them would be around for the next turn in order to get my download engine going. Sebastian decided not to waste his events and counters on Sloan, and let me do my thing, while he played lots of command stars. He had already played a battle card and Call to Arms, and when he discarded a Prometheus and a Valiant at the end of his turn, his strategy was obvious. Once I had a crew of eight, including the Borg Queen (Guardian of the Hive), and a ship out, I attempted Assimilate Resistance. Sebastian stopped me, then played the Prometheus next turn, flew over and battled me for ten points, leaving two damage markers on my sphere. On my turn, I downloaded another ship with Quintessence, changed ships, completed my space mission (assimilating Jadzia Dax (Defiant Captain) along the way) and went on to the first planet, where I was stopped again. Sebastian went after my ships with a vengeance, but once my space mission was done, and with six ships and more than forty personnel in deck, I wasn't too worried about his battle cards. He scored another ten points and put two damage cards on my second ship, but in the end he couldn't stop me from completing my three missions. FW, 110-20 Thomas Schneider FW : FL Markus Richter 115-0 Dejan Vuletic FW : FL Markus Eberlein 100-75
Round Two
Markus Eberlein played a Dominion deck that was trying to use Founder Architects, Jem'hadar and the U.S.S. Enterprise-J to complete two 40-points missions, then battle for extra points to go round the corner. I didn't see too much of this deck, as I had a very good start and was out and attempting with a fully staffed crew and several events in my core by turn four. I completed my space mission on the first attempt, then flew on to Salvage Borg Ship and was stopped. On my next turn, I completed Salvage Borg ship and breezed through all the dilemmas at my third mission. As in the previous game, I didn't touch my dilemma pile, so I still had no idea whether the pile would work or not. But this would change in the next games. FW, 105-0 Dejan Vuletic MW : ML Markus Richter 70-60 Thomas Schneider FW : FL Sebastian Neidhardt 100-20
Round Three
Next, the Borg had to face Markus Richter's big Ferengi deck. It did what the Ferengi do best, that is, manipulate their own deck and Set Up their hand. Markus used copies of just about any Rule, and kept destroying my key events with Worth the Price. I responded by using Two of Nine again and again to keep the number of his events down. Missions were being attempted, too, and I was off to the better start. I was halfway through my second mission when Markus first attempted. I was able to stop him, but on his next turn, he had arranged his core, hand, and cards beneath Ferenginar so that he was able to attempt Acquire Illicit Explosives with only three personnel. I couldn't play any dilemmas; however, Markus had misread one of his interrupts and wasn't able to pump his attributes enough to complete the mission, because he wasn't facing any dilemma. I completed my second mission (after a Blended had stopped me earlier), then went to Fissure Research. There, Markus stopped me for four turns in a row with only one dilemma used each turn, the last three time being three consecutive Distress Calls…where's Adapt when you need it? This gave Markus enough time to complete Acquire Illicit Explosives and Qualor II Rendezvous, and I was beginning to get worried. Still, when I drew into a Data on my turn, I was able to form a crew of five, and with only one dilemma to draw, Markus couldn't stop me anymore. FW, 105-60 Thomas Schneider FW : FL Dejan Vuletic 115-0 Sebastian Neidhardt MW : ML Markus Eberlein 95-80
Round Four
Dejan Vuletic surprised me with a slim 35-card Romulan deck that went out and attempted Investigate Destruction on his second turn! I was able to filter out one of his mission skills with The Caretaker's “Guests”, but he was soon back with reinforcements as well as event support in the form of Dissolving the Senate and We Are Back. I had trouble stopping him, and after he destroyed two of my events with Gangster's Welcome, I was worried that I might not be able to stop him long enough. I got lucky when I stopped his second Leadership at Patrol Neutral Zone, then on my turn I was finally able to destroy his We are Back by playing an event to my core. This meant that he was no longer able to do his missions with only four guys, and he needed additional personnel. In the end, I got the win surprisingly fast when Dejan didn't pay attention to the second set of requirements on Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered!, which I overcame easily with two Computation Drones. I went on to my second planet mission, where he tried to stop me with Captain's Holiday, a dilemma that had stopped me cold earlier. However, this time I had brought the two Geology personnel along in order to overcome the dilemma and completed for the win. FW, 115-30. Markus Richter MW : ML Sebastian Neidhardt 60-80 Thomas Schneider FW : FL Markus Eberlein 115-20
Round Five
In the end it came to a final confrontation between Thomas Schneider and me. We had both won all of our games so far, but I think Thomas won his games in a more convincing fashion than I did. I had three missions completed against myself, whereas Thomas still had a clean sheet and had only allowed his opponents to score some points from battle. Thomas won find-the-headquarters and went first. He started playing his MACOs and other Starfleet personnel; I had an unlucky opening hand and didn't find any of the cards that would kickstart my download engine. However, I drew into Two of Nine soon enough, so I was at least able to prevent the dreaded A Sight for Sore Eyes/At What Cost combo. I was still busy assembling a decent crew when Thomas went out and attempted Investigate Alien Probe. I stopped him with a Tactical Disadvantage, and an Outclassed did the job on the next turn. Meanwhile, I had finally drawn into a Borg Queen and Quintessence, and was ready to attempt myself. However, I was hit by a nice dilemma combo that ended in Where No One Has Gone Before – things were starting to look ugly. To add Insult to injury, Thomas used a Grav-Plating Trap on his Emergency Transport Unit to destroy the Quintessence I had just played, so my download engine still wasn't going anywhere. I then managed to stop Thomas for one more turn in space, but he completed the mission before my ship was back, which put him on forty points, thanks to his headquarters. He then went on to a planet mission where I stopped him with Hard Time and Chula: The Chandra. On my turn, I went to Assimilate Resistance again. With the additional personnel and events I had played during the absence of my sphere, I attempted again. Thanks to Locutus and an Unyielding, I earned twenty points from Personal Duty and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, but the third dilemma stopped me. Thomas then played Malcolm Reed (Weapons Expert) and used his ability, but I was lucky this time and had Back to Basics on top of my dilemma pile. With still only one dilemma under, Thomas attempted again and was stopped by a lone Rogue Borg Ambush. On my turn, I finally played Fourth, downloaded events and spent my points of At What Costs and other events, then completed Assimilate Resistance. (Unfortunately, by this time Thomas still didn't have a personnel in his discard pile, because his MACOs did a great job at keeping his personnel alive.) I went on to Salvage Borg Ship and was stopped with one under. For the next two turns, I stopped Thomas with Gorgan, though for the second time, I had to use Vault of Tomorrow to search for my last copy. After I had discarded my last high-cost card from hand, Thomas used his Tox Uthat to return the dilemma and attempt again; I managed to stop him again for one last time, though. However, Thomas's dilemma plays were equally effective, and I still had not completed my first planet mission when Thomas went on to his second (Survey New World). I had to ditch almost all of hand cards to stop him with an Excalbian Drama. On my turn, I played a Machinations and was confident that this would buy me at least one more turn, because I still had Back to Basics left in my dilemma pile and about 20 personnel in my discard pile. I auto-completed Salvage Borg Ship, used an Observation Drone to shuffle some Drones into my discard pile and Events and Interrupts into my deck, then fly over to Find Lifeless World. I split my crew into two teams. Thomas stopped the first with only one dilemma, but he had a bad draw for my second crew of six: of the five dilemmas he had drawn, the ones he could use were Picking Up the Pieces and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner. Since I had Locutus in play, Thomas chose not to play the latter (I was on 90 points), and only gave me Picking Up the Pieces. With the Borg Queen, I swapped a Computation Drone out and fetched an Opposition Drone, which meant I only had one Programming and no Geology, so no personnel was stopped. After an Interlink of Exobiology via Evaluation Drone, I completed the last mission and won the game about five minutes before time-out. This was an incredibly close match and, from my perspective, about as good as Second Edition can get. In the end, this time my dilemma pile won the game for me. Props to Thomas for a great game! FW, 125-65 Dejan Vuletic ML : MW Sebastian Neidhardt 30-90 Markus Eberlein FW : FL Markus Richter 115-95 With five full wins, I won the tournament and got my Regional Badge; Thomas Schneider and Markus Richter received the shiny Tragic Turn foils, we split a box of What You Leave Behind, and everyone got a complete play set of Parek foils. Thanks to all players for the fun games and making the trip!
Tournament Record:
- Constructed - Regional (2008-04-05): 1st place
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
- Borg Player
- They Make Virtual Cards Now?!
- Unbroken I
- How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
- Good Casting: Armstrong (Two of Nine)
- Good Casting: Spiner (Data of Borg)
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