The Road to Worlds, Week 5

by James Hoskin, Director of Organized Play

29th April 2010

This article is the fifth in a weekly series that aims to preview upcoming Regional tournaments, review Regional tournaments that have just taken place, highlight winning decks, interview players, and more. Last week's article was The Road to Worlds, Week 4.

How can you contribute to this series? First and foremost, I am relying on results and deck lists being promptly entered into this site. I can't write about them otherwise. Other ways you can help include: taking photos, interviewing players, writing previews, and providing background information. Any other way to help the community be a part of your Regional tournament would be appreciated. Contact details are at the end of this article.

Week 4 Review

Saturday 24th April		Sunday 25th April
Second Edition (Standard) The Commerce Center 2701 Emerywood Parkway Richmond, VA 23294 United States [Results]	Second Edition (Standard) Round Table Pizza 2960 Treat Blvd Concord, CA 94518 United States [Results]	Second Edition (Virtual) Conference Room Avalon Riverview building 201 50th Avenue Long Island City, NY 11109 United States [Results]
Second Edition (Virtual) Galaxy Comics and Collectibles 1109 Henderson Highway Winnipeg, MB Canada [Results]	Second Edition (Standard) Olivers Sickbay Kurt-Weill-Str. 41 D-06844 Dessau Germany [Results]
Second Edition (Standard) Restaurant "Peking" Brabantse Turfmarkt 78 2611 CP Delft The Netherlands [Results]

The Commerce Center: In the last two years, this Regional has been won by Klingon decks. Ben Hosp (bhosp) won with them in 2008, and Neil Timmons (ntimmons) won with them in 2009. With neither Ben nor Neil playing this year, it was left up to Charlie Beam (Gooch) to continue the tradition they started. Charlie's 80 card deck, titled "Point Blank Bah!", looks to be more focused on battle than his predecessors' decks. Unsurprisingly, Kruge (Instinctive Commander) plays an important role, and is backed up by no less than ten Maneuver events. Just in case the opponent manages to avoid the battling, a Tragic Turn kill dilemma pile awaits them when they begin mission attempts. Perhaps a more suitable deck title would be "Blood Bath" or maybe "Your ship... give it to me, now"? Charlie was undefeated after four rounds. George Meadows (theECH) took second place, only losing to Charlie, with his Maquis shenanigans deck titled "W O L V E R I N E S". Decks played by the other six players included Next Generation, Starfleet, Dominion, Deep Space 9 / Non-Aligned, Deep Space 9 / Ferengi, and Klingon / Next Generation / Maquis. This final deck, played by Charles Barhite (charlie), only had a 50% winning record, but I am intrigued to find out how the three affiliations/factions worked together.

Round Table Pizza: Six players attended this Regional tournament in Northern California. Rich Joakimson (Outsider), playing Cardassian, lost his 100% winning record to the eventual champion, Stephen Lee (grendelX), in the first round. Stephen went on undefeated, playing Borg, and won the title of Risa Regional Champion. Three players -- Dan (danleahy), Jax-On of Krypton and Lawrence Desoto (scifimuscle) -- all get a special mention for making this Regional their first Continuing Committee-sanctioned tournament. I hope you all had fun, and are looking forward to competing in the 2011 Northern California Risa Regional.

Galaxy Comics and Collectibles: The six players at this Regional were participating in the first Virtual Format Regional tournament. Eventual winner, Mark Morris (BaronMorrath), managed three wins in four rounds with his 41-card Romulan deck. The deck was comprised of 14 virtual promos, eleven virtual cards, five cards with errata and eleven non-unique personnel/ships. While At An Impasse slowed the opponent, Getting Under Your Skin and At What Cost? provided the speed to take Mark to victory. Other Virtual Format decks being played include Next Generation / Deep Space 9, Dominion, Starfleet and Klingon.

Olivers Sickbay: Deep Space 9 must be popular in this area of Germany, because three of the five decks played at this tournament featured the faction. Two players used Earth (Home of Starfleet Command) as their headquarters mission, while the third used Mouth of the Wormhole (Deep Space 9). In this round robin event, Deep Space 9 didn't fare very well against the other affiliations. Both Oliver Thust (bashircommander), playing Cardassian; and Christian Zipper (zippercommander), playing Borg beat the Deep Space 9 decks every time they faced them. In the end, it came down to the final round pairing between Oliver and Christian to decide the winner. Christian took a modified win over Oliver to take the title of Vandros IV Regional Champion.

Restaurant "Peking": It looks like the 175-mile (280-kilometre) journey undertaken by the group from Germany had little effect on their performance, with the top three places being taken by them. It took a final round pairing of Tobias Rausmann (garetjax) and Tyler Fultz (DJstormtrooper42) to determine who would win. Tobias, playing his Original Series deck titled "Kirk on the bridge", emerged victorious over Tyler's Cardassian deck. Thomas Schneider (thsch) rounded out the top three playing a 35-card Starfleet speed deck titled "E-squared". Other affiliations being played included Klingon, Ferengi (deck list: "Ferengi Enterprise Heist"), Next Generation, Bajoran and Romulan (deck list: "Rem Rom 2").

Conference Room / Avalon Riverview building: Sunday's tournament was the second Virtual Format Regional tournament of the weekend. Michael Keller (Keller) saw off three other players with his Equinox deck titled "Virtual Ransom" to win his second Regional tournament sanctioned by The Continuing Committee. Anyone interested in conspiracy theories will be disappointed to note that it doesn't appear that any cards recently receiving errata were used by Michael. We can all rest assured that the errata must have been for the good of the game, and not so that Michael could use them to win this tournament. Other decks being played include Dominion, Next Generation and Starfleet.

Byes

This week, six players won a Day One Round One bye into the Continental Championships:

• George Meadows (theECH), 2nd place (bye handed down) at The Commerce Center
• Stephen Lee (grendelX), winner at Round Table Pizza
• Mark Morris (BaronMorrath), winner at Galaxy Comics and Collectibles
• Christian Zipper (zippercommander), winner at Olivers Sickbay
• Tobias Rausmann (garetjax), winner at Restaurant "Peking"
• Michael Keller (Keller), winner at Conference Room / Avalon Riverview building

Congratulations to everyone listed, and I wish better luck to anyone who didn't make it. These bye winners have been added to the list of current bye winners for the Continental Championships and the World Championships here.

Deck Statistics

We have now had a total of 96 players at twelve Second Edition Regional tournaments. Terok Nor is now the only affiliation yet to be represented. With two victories this week, Borg now ties with Klingon as the affiliation with the most wins.

The most popular Second Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Klingon	Used by 13 (13%) players	3 Regional wins
2.	Next Generation	Used by 10 (10%) players
3.	Borg	Used by 9 (9%) players	3 Regional wins
4.	Original Series	Used by 8 (8%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Cardassian	Used by 7 (7%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Starfleet	Used by 7 (7%) players

While still waiting for more First Edition results to be entered for full analysis, four affiliations are currently tying for most popular. They are Dominion, Federation, Hirogen and Klingon; each being played by two players.

Week 5 Preview

The complete schedule can be found in this article: Regional Championships Series 2010 Schedule. Things ease up a little this week, with just three Regional tournaments being held:

Saturday 1st May		Sunday 2nd May
First Edition (Revised) Hauptstrasse 35 63864 Glattbach Germany [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) Husky Union Building University of Washington HUB 204L, Box 352230 4001 Stevens Way NE Seattle, WA 98195 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]
Second Edition (Standard) Games-N-Stuff Diezerpoortenplas 38 8011 VX Zwolle The Netherlands [Cancelled]

Hauptstrasse 35: The fifth First Edition Regional tournament, and the third to be held in Europe, takes place in Glattbach, Germany. Much like the First Edition Regional tournament in Berlin a few weeks ago, this is another location holding its first Continuing Committee-sanctioned tournament. Eight players turned up in Berlin, so let's hope that despite only one player being pre-registered at the time of writing, it draws a similar crowd. Don't forget that this tournament is being played using the Revised Format.

Husky Union Building: Last year, the 2009 Ferenginar Regional attracted six players. Despite the popular affiliations of Klingon, Next Generation and Bajoran being represented; it was a Ferengi deck titled "A boring Reyga deck", in the hands of Jason DeShaw (Jaybird), that won. So far, three players have pre-registered, including Michael van Breemen (The Ninja Scot). As the new expansion Infinite Diversity will be legal for this tournament, how will Michael cope with having to face dilemmas? What with all of the micro-team dilemma avoiding decks he has been playing for the last few years, will he remember what to do when attempting a mission? Or, will he just hope that no one bothers to play Transport Crash Survivor? If you are planning to attend this tournament, make sure you check out the discussion page for maps and directions for the University of Washington campus.

UPDATE (April 30th): This tournament has been cancelled.
Games-N-Stuff: Zwolle, the Netherlands is another location new to holding a Continuing Committee-sanctioned Regional tournament. Only two players have pre-registered so far. One of them, Tobias Rausmann (garetjax) from Germany, is fresh from his victory in Delft, The Netherlands last weekend. Tobias attended three Regional tournaments last year, and he has already competed in two this year. I can't help wondering whether Tobias is on a mission to set a record for the number of Regional appearances.

Other News

If you are playing in a Regional tournament this weekend, don't forget that Infinite Diversity becomes legal for tournament play tomorrow, April 30th.

Next Week

A review of the results from Week 5, more statistics, and a preview of the events in Week 6. After the relative peace of just three Regional tournaments this weekend, things crank back up with five tournaments taking place on May 8th.

Have an opinion about this article? Post it here, or contact the author!

-djl-

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