The Road to Worlds, Week 7

by James Hoskin, Director of Organized Play

13th May 2010

Regular readers should know that this is 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 6.

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 6 Review

Saturday 8th May		Sunday 9th May
First Edition (Sealed) Chalmers Kårhus Sven Hultins Gata 4 412 58 Göteborg Sweden [Results]	Second Edition (Standard) The Guardtower 3600 Trabue Road Columbus, OH United States [Results]
Second Edition (Standard) Legion Comics 3248 Cahaba Heights Rd Birmingham, AL 35243 United States [Results]	Second Edition (Infinite Diversity Draft) Styx Östersund Brunnsgränd Östersund Sweden [Results]
Second Edition (Standard) Grimsby Wargames Society Sixhills Street Grimsby, DN32 9EG United Kingdom [Results]

Chalmers Kårhus: The results have yet to be entered for this First Edition Official Tournament Sealed Deck (OTSD) tournament. However, I have been informed that ten players took part over four rounds. Congratulations to whoever won!

The Guardtower: In last week's preview, I asked whether anyone would be able to stop 2008 winner and 2009 runner-up Jared Hoffman (Mugato) from winning this Regional again. The answer was "No." He was undefeated over four rounds and won the tournament with his Equinox deck titled "Equinox Q". Looking over his deck list, there are three cards that stand out: Ohhhh! Nothing Happened!, Keeping Track of You and Gem. With 18% (nine out of 50 cards) of his draw deck and the Inversion Mystery mission devoted to removing dilemmas from his opponent's pile, I just had to find out which dilemmas he was targeting. Here is the interview:

Editor's Note: The following interview questions and responses are unedited; they appear exactly as typed by the parties involved.

Q: Why couple the dilemma removal with Equinox?
A: I hear a lot of people saying that Equinox is hit hard by too many dilemmas. I figured the Ohh/Keeping/Gem package was a good fit for Equinox since you wanted to play events turn one.

Q: Did you know from the beginning which dilemmas you would name?
A: I went into the tournament not knowing what I would name for sure. I knew I'd name Tragic Turn, Overwhelmed, etc. based on what my opponent was playing, but I wasn't sure yet what I would call when I didn't know what else to call.

Q: Which dilemmas did you end up naming?
A: I did not want to name space dilemmas since I was only completing one space mission. Instead I focused on dual and planet dilemmas. If I didn't have any obvious choices like Tragic Turn or Outclassed, I often named Hard Time since it is printable and a heavily used dilemma. Agonizing Encounter was never a bad call, but it would get difficult to guess after a while. I tried naming dilemmas that knowing they were not there, would help me in picking away teams. For example, if I didn't draw Marla Gilmore (Conflicted Engineer), I might call An Issue of Trust. In one game, I faced Counterinsurgency Program at my first mission. I immediately took the next two out of the dilemma pile. Without that I would have lost for sure as Equinox has low numbers of a few skills.

Q: How did you use Inversion Mystery?
A: I realized that the best choice for Inversion Mystery in my deck was to name Timescape. I could then preload the planet missions with Voyager Treachery personnel for Rudulph Ransom (Devious Captain) and then multiple attempt without fear. Skeleton Crew never bothered me.

Thanks Jared!

Of the other five participants, Brian Sykes (Armus), playing an untitled Original Series deck; and Joel Skon (RedAlucard), playing a Romulan Wariness deck titled "Be aware of weary Romulans"; tied on victory points for second place. The tiebreakers placed Brian ahead of Joel and, as Jared already had a bye to the Continental Championships, the bye was passed down from Jared to Brian. Other participants included Joshua Sheets, (prylardurden) playing a Klingon deck titled "Bring Sword"; Blake Mandalis (Devoras) playing an untitled Earth (Home of Starfleet Command) deck; and Pat Bortz (bortz65) playing an untitled Bajoran deck.

Legion Comics: This tournament in Birmingham, Alabama attracted four players. The first and third place finishers at the 2008 Cardassia Regional showed that form is temporary but class is permanent by taking the top two places this year. Mike Gillespie (kingforaday), playing Deep Space 9, was victorious in all three of his games and won the tournament. Kyle Matusevic (CrimsonTide), playing Romulan, finished second. Matthew Scruggs, playing Klingon; and Dean Lyon, playing Starfleet; took third and fourth place, respectively. No deck lists have been entered yet, so we'll have to wait and see what deck choices the players made.

Styx Östersund: Six players participated in this Infinite Diversity draft, where the organiser used a slight variation on the format. The (previously prepared) virtual packs to draft were divided up along the virtual sets instead of being fully random; all the headquarters, except Unicomplex (Root of the Hive Mind) and Mouth of the Wormhole (Terok Nor), were used; and to compensate for the variety of headquarters missions, the rule to "splash" another affiliation was reinstated. After three rounds, Torbjörn Lindquist (Linkan), playing Ferengi / Original Series, was undefeated and won the tournament. This is now the second Regional tournament to be won by a player using the Ferengi / Original Series combination! Second place was taken by Tim Olofsson (Underdog), playing Earth (Home of Starfleet Command). Of the other four decks, two were Next Generation, one was Bajoran / Deep Space 9, and the last was Cardassian / Dominion.

Stuart vs. Sonny

Grimsby Wargames Society: I stated in last week's preview that "The presence or absence of a report in next week's Road to Worlds article will depend entirely on how well I perform." Well, the size of this paragraph should indicate that I performed very well indeed. After four undefeated rounds, where a total of only two missions were completed against me, I won my first Regional tournament in the Continuing Committee era. I was playing a Starfleet deck titled "Starfleet Surprise." The surprise in question was ship destruction, and I don't think any of my opponents saw it coming. My first round match against Stuart Motley (Damulak), playing Voyager and Equinox, was over after I destroyed Voyager mid-way through the game. By that point, Stuart had drawn and discarded the other ships in his deck, and was locked out. My second round match was against Andrew Mark Alcock (uglywithglasses), playing Cardassian Capture. While I was off attempting missions, Andrew struggled to find personnel. By the time he made his first mission attempt, I had two ships in play and two Damage events in my hand. Gomtuu Shock Wave was enough to stop the attempt, and allowed me to destroy Andrew's ship on the next turn. In the third round, I faced Jason Neilson (grimsbywargames), who was playing Klingon. This was the only game where I didn't manage to destroy any ships. Fortunately, the dilemma gods were favouring me. I managed to stop Jason's Klingons for four consecutive turns at the same mission while at the same time getting the luckiest random selections to overcome Jason's dilemmas. By the time Jason completed his first mission, I was one turn away from finishing my third. My final game was against Sonny Jensen (Sonny), and the dreaded Borg. Sonny stopped my first mission attempt with a Tactical Disadvantage, and several Cubes in his hand. I suspected he was using Gorgan as well, and didn't hold out much hope of completing any missions because I couldn't beat either of these two dilemmas. My only chance was The Dreamer and the Dream. I would have to find the one copy in my dilemma pile and hope I drew it along with some way to stop an attempt. When it came to the attempt, Sonny had Unyielding in his core to unstop stopped personnel. It turned out that he didn't have any Borg personnel in his hand to place on Unyielding, so I didn't need to worry. Not only did I play The Dreamer and the Dream, I stopped the attempt and I got a Prefix Codes placed on Sonny's only ship. Once I had destroyed it, Sonny only had one ship remaining in his deck, and I was able to complete the game before he drew into it.

Byes

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

• unknown player, winner at Chalmers Kårhus
• Brian Sykes (Armus), second place (bye handed down) at The Guardtower
• Mike Gillespie (kingforaday), winner at Legion Comics
• Tim Olofsson (Underdog), second place (bye handed down) at Styx Östersund
• James Hoskin (RedDwarf), winner at Grimsby Wargames Society

Congratulations to all players, especially that Hoskin chap, 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

As the results from the only First Edition Regional this week have yet to be entered, the affiliation statistics have not changed. We have now had a total of 35 players at five First Edition Regional tournaments, with an average of exactly seven players per tournament.

The most popular First Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Federation	Used by 6 (24%) players
2.	Hirogen	Used by 4 (16%) players
3.	Dominion	Used by 3 (12%) players	1 Regional win
3.	Klingon	Used by 3 (12%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Borg	Used by 2 (8%) players	1 Regional win
*excluding multiple headquarters decks

We have now had a total of 126 players at 19 Second Edition Regional tournaments, with an average of 6.6 players per tournament.
Terok Nor has still not been played, and Next Generation is still the most popular affiliation without a Regional tournament win. Two of the four winning decks this week, Deep Space 9 and Starfleet, were the first to win with that particular affiliation.

The most popular Second Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Klingon	Used by 16 (13%) players	3 Regional wins
2.	Next Generation	Used by 14 (11%) players
3.	Borg	Used by 10 (8%) players	3 Regional wins
3.	Starfleet	Used by 10 (8%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Cardassian	Used by 9 (7%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Original Series	Used by 9 (7%) players	1 Regional win
*excluding multiple headquarters decks

Week 7 Preview

The complete schedule can be found in this article: Regional Championships Series 2010 Schedule. There are just three Regional tournaments this week:

Saturday 15th May		Sunday 16th May
Second Edition (Standard) Arby's Restaurant 7110 Clairemont Mesa Blvd San Diego, CA 92111 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) Paradox Comics and Cards 26 Roberts St Fargo, ND 58103 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) Via Cesare Battisti, 9 10028 Trofarello Torino Italy

Arby's Restaurant: The 2008 Risa Regional attracted eight players, playing seven different affiliations (the only duplicate being Klingon.) After six rounds, the only player to win all of his games was Johnny Holeva (jjh) playing an 85-card Borg deck titled "Big Fat Borg Deck." Last year, the 2009 Risa Regional attracted eight players again, six of which played the previous year. Once again, only one deck affiliation was duplicated, although this time it was Borg. After five rounds, the only undefeated player was Johnny Holeva (jjh) playing a 91-card Borg deck titled "Big Fat Regional Borg Deck - May 2009." Based on these two results, and the pre-registrations, I am making ten predictions about this year's Risa Regional:

1. There will be eight players.
2. Six of the players will have played at last years Risa Regional.
3. There will be seven different decks being played and one duplicate.
4. The duplicate deck will be Next Generation.
5. Johnny will go undefeated to win the tournament.
6. Johnny will play Borg.
7. Johnny's draw deck will consist of 95 cards.
8. Johnny's dilemma pile will consist of 90 dilemmas.
9. The title of Johnny's deck will include the words "Big", "Fat" and "Deck" in some order.
10. Not one of these predictions will come true.

If you want to make your own predictions, the Risa Regional discussion thread is a good place to do so.

Kris Sonsteby (LORE) previews the Fargo Regional:
Paradox Comics and Cards: Following the seven-man, round robin blood bath that was the Sioux Falls, South Dakota Regional last month, the next stop on Regional Road for the greater Minnesota player base is Fargo, North Dakota (this coming Saturday). Under the guidance of Matt Hayes (karonofborg13), one of our area's most dedicated tournament directors, the Fargo contingent has thrived and even grown since long before The Continuing Committee was formed. Collectively, the group has been unable to fend off invaders in recent years, as Keith Morris (Foreman) of Winnipeg, Canada won the Fargo Regional in 2008 playing Voyager, and Barry Windschitl (JamesValEson) of Motley, Minnesota won it in 2009 playing Borg. Despite this fact, the odds and history are on their side as this year there are not many out-of-state players pre-registered and, if memory serves, nobody has ever been victorious in this particular event more than once. With the deck stacked heavily in their favor, will the Fargo residents successfully defend their home turf and keep the top spot in house, or will a road warrior crash the party and drive home with the title once again? Tune in this Saturday to find out!
Thanks for the preview, Kris!

Via Cesare Battisti: This is the first Continuing Committee-sanctioned Regional tournament to be held in Italy. As such, there are no previous results to look at. In fact, there does not appear to be any Italian players in the tournament system at all. Here is hoping that this Sunday's tournament has a huge turnout, and forms the beginnings of a new player base in Italy.

Next Week

A review of the results from Week 7, more statistics, maybe an interview, and a preview of the events in Week 8. On the weekend of May 22nd and 23rd, there are Regional tournaments in Florida, Minnesota, New York and Austria.

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

-djl-

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