The Road to Worlds 2011, Week 8

by James Hoskin, Director of Organized Play

19th May 2011

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 2011, Week 7.

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, too. Contact details are at the end of this article.

Week 7 Review

Saturday 14th May		Sunday 15th May
Second Edition (Standard) Game Knight 726 Osborne Street Winnipeg, MB R3L 2C2 Canada [Results]	First Edition (Revised) Astral Games 737 Main Street Klamath Falls, OR 97601 United States [Results]	First Edition (Official) Kaiserpalast Pressather Straße 113 92637 Weiden Germany [Results]
First Edition (Revised/Sealed) Ultuna Studentkår (ULS) Duhrevägen 6 756 51 Uppsala Sweden [Results]	Tribbles (Standard) Ultuna Studentkår (ULS) Duhrevägen 6 756 51 Uppsala Sweden [Results]

Game Knight: Five players participated in this Second Edition "Battle at the Border!" Going into the third and final round, two players were undefeated. Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13), playing a Borg deck titled "Dee-Naah-Mee-Tay, Must be Italian!", narrowly defeated my pick to win Keith Morris (Foreman), playing Romulan, by 40-35 thanks to an Annexation Drone played using his last remaining counters on his final turn. This gave Matthew his first-ever Second Edition Regional Championships win, and three more achievements - European Style, Size Matters Not and Thrusters Only - for his trouble. Other decks played on the day were Klingon, Equinox, and a second Borg deck. Three deck lists and one tournament report can be found on the tournament results page, and an interview with the winner, Matthew Hayes, is below.

Statistics from Game Knight:

Total achievements awarded	10
Most achievements won	Kyle Schewe (caravanhymn), with 4
Average achievements per player	2.0
Biggest ratings gain	Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13), up 41 points to 1698
Average rating of all 5 players	1581

Astral Games: This inaugural First Edition Regional Championship held in the Ferenginar Region attracted ten players. Tim Meng, playing a Bajoran deck, only faced Federation and [Hir] Hirogen decks all day, and won all four of his games to take the title. This was the first Regional Championship title Tim has won in the Continuing Committee era. Jeremy Commandeur (Commandeur), playing a Federation deck, took second place losing only to Tim. My pick to win, Manuel Diaz (manny1978d), won two of his four games and finished in fifth place. Special mentions go to Charles Bedolla, Christian Vargas, and Eric Arias; all played in their first Continuing Committee sanctioned tournament. Welcome! Unfortunately, the tournament results page does not contain any deck lists or tournament reports yet.

Statistics from Astral Games:

Total achievements awarded	12
Most achievements won	Manuel Diaz (manny1978d) and elitestrmtrpr (elitestrmtrpr), with 3 each
Average achievements per player	1.2
Biggest ratings gain	Tim Meng, up 82 points to 1525
Average rating of all 10 players	1513

Ultuna Studentkår (1E): The results for this Omarion Nebula Regional have yet to be entered. However, a post in the forums indicates that there were nine players and my pick to win, Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley), was undefeated over four rounds to win the title. This will be Cristoffer's first Regional Championships title. When the results are entered, a more complete review of the tournament will be added to this article.

Ultuna Studentkår (Tr): The results for this Omarion Nebula Regional have yet to be entered. However, a post in the forums indicates that Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley) won this tournament too. Congratulations Cristoffer! There is no indication of where my pick to win, Torbjörn Lindquist (Linkan), finished. When the results are entered, a more complete review of the tournament will be added to this article.

Kaiserpalast: The only First Edition Regional in the Vandros IV Region attracted four players. Despite there being rumors of a secret agreement to let Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser) win, he couldn't quite manage it. The third round top table pairing of Johannes and Andreas Limmer (Nava) ended 100-35 in Andreas' favor. Johannes claims he would have completed two more missions to win the game on his next turn, but Andreas says that he would have used In the Zone to prevent that. Maybe Johannes wasn't quite as close to winning as he thinks he was? Anyway, Andreas won the tournament with an Original Series / Cardassian deck titled "Regional Fed Deck 2011", having vowed not to play a Delta Quadrant deck in a tournament this year. This was only Andreas' second in-person tournament (he has participated in several online) during the Continuing Committee era, so congratulations on your win, Andreas! The other decks played were Borg, Cardassian, and Vidiian. Three deck lists and three tournament reports can be found on the tournament results page.

Statistics from Kaiserpalast:

Total achievements awarded	8
Most achievements won	Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser), with 3
Average achievements per player	2.0
Biggest ratings gain	Andreas Limmer (Nava), up 38 points to 1627
Average rating of all 4 players	1533

Interview

Despite intending to interview a First Edition Regional Championship winner this week, a lack of results entered at the time of writing dictated it couldn't happen. Fortunately, Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13), the player at the top of the achievements earned leaderboard and winner of this week's Rura Penthe Regional, was nice enough to step in and answer my questions.

James: Congratulations on your win, Matthew. In preparation for the tournament, what decks were you considering?
Matthew: I had a Dominion deck, an Original Series deck (with a few tricks up my sleeve that I hadn't used at the Coon Rapids Regional), a Deep Space 9 deck, and a Terok Nor deck. But I didn't go with any of them.

James: What decks did you expect to face?
Matthew: Mike Rudolph (Griffeyfanatic) and I presumed Keith would be running the latest version of his crazy Ferengi mega-counters deck, which turned out not to be the case. As to the others, I had no idea.

James: Why did you play Borg?
Matthew: In First Edition, Borg and [Hir] Hirogen are my favorite affiliations. In Second Edition, that falls to Borg and Starfleet. Ultimately, it's all the mechanics the Borg have in their arsenal/repertoire. Two of Nine, Quintessence, Six of Ten, Borg Queen (Guardian of the Hive), Three of Nine, Fourth, Unyielding, Expand the Collective, Unimatrix Zero, Annexation Drone, Reconnaissance Drone, interlinking, etc., etc.

James: Did you have any tricks in the deck and/or dilemma pile?
Matthew: In the draw deck, see the list of cards given for the previous question. As to the dilemma pile, two copies of Legacy and approximately 80% skill dilemmas.

James: What were your plans to deal with Tragic Turn, Legacy, Borg, Capture, Cadets, & Klingon battle?
Matthew: That's an interesting multipart question. I'm not sure if I even considered all of those "usual suspects" as I felt I could adapt in-game to most of them, if/when necessary. As it turns out, the only one I would have probably fallen to, had I had to face Kyle, was Kruge. I probably would've had to utter the phrase, "Kruge-sistance IS futile!" at some point in said hypothetical game.

James: How was the tournament for you?
Matthew: Awesome. Keith and his guys are a really fun and friendly bunch, and I look forward to meeting up with them again to throw down more games of Trek!

James: Who was your toughest opponent?
Matthew: Without a doubt, Keith. He's a fine player, a tough opponent, and I regard him as a good friend in the almost four years I've known him.

James: As I predicted that another player would win this regional, can I take all the credit for motivating you to win?
Matthew: As I've taken a friendly jab at you in my tournament report, let me just say... NO! However, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't a contributing factor. So, in some part, thank you.

James: Now that the tournament is over, how would you improve your deck?
Matthew: As I was chasing the European Style achievement (and finally earned it) in something like the fifth or sixth attempt - I'm nothing, if not persistent - I would certainly cut it down to around 52-65 cards, just to make it faster.

James: If you had to face your deck in a tournament, how would you play to beat it?
Matthew: Play fast. Speed can certainly outrace the deck, as it requires a number of pieces to be in place in order to acquire the primary goal of a two-mission win.

James: You have won almost one third of all achievements currently available. Which achievements are you going to attempt to win next?
Matthew: Heh heh, that's for me to figure out and for the rest of you to keep guessing!

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, Matthew.

Byes

This week, three players won a Day One, Round One bye into the First Edition Continental Championships:

• Tim Meng, winner at Astral Games
• Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley), winner at Ultuna Studentkår
• Andreas Limmer (Nava), winner at Kaiserpalast

One player won a Day One, Round One bye into the Second Edition Continental Championships:

• Kyle Schewe (caravanhymn), third place (bye handed down) at Game Knight

And one player won a 100,000 Tribbles Headstart into the Tribbles Continental Championships:

• Cristoffer Wiker (Smiley), winner at Ultuna Studentkår

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

Deck Statistics

With one set of results still to be entered, there were 14 First Edition players at two tournaments this week, taking the total players at First Edition Regional Championships to 34 - an average of 6.9 players per tournament. Two-fifths (40%) of all decks played this week involved Federation cards. Also this week, the combination of Cardassian / Federation wins a Regional Championships for the second time, and Vidiian was played by itself for the first time. Bajoran jumps to the top of the best-performing affiliation leaderboard following Tim Meng's performance at the Ferenginar Regional. Non-Aligned is now second, and Cardassian is third.

The most popular First Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Federation	Used by 13 (27%) players	1 Regional win
2.	Multiple Affiliations	Used by 11 (23%) players	3 Regional wins
3.	Klingon	Used by 4 (8%) player
4.	Borg	Used by 3 (6%) player
4.	Non-Aligned	Used by 3 (6%) player	1 Regional win
4.	Romulan	Used by 3 (6%) player
4.	Unknown Affiliations	Used by 3 (6%) player
8.	Bajoran	Used by 2 (4%) player	1 Regional win
8.	Cardassian	Used by 2 (4%) player	1 Regional win
8.	Hirogen	Used by 2 (4%) player
11.	Terran Empire	Used by 1 (2%) player
11.	Vidiian	Used by 1 (2%) player

There were just five Second Edition players at one tournament this week, taking the total players at Second Edition Regional Championships to 174 - an average of 9.7 players per tournament. Borg was the most popular affiliation played this week. Having won the tournament, Borg is the affiliation that has won the most Regional Championships this year. Starfleet now tops the best-performing affiliation leaderboard, averaging 12.8 victory points per player. Original Series is second, averaging 12.4 victory points per player; and Terok Nor is third, averaging 12.2 victory points per player. The worst-performing affiliations are still Maquis, Dominion and Bajoran.

The most popular Second Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Klingon	Used by 25 (14%) players	3 Regional wins
2.	Original Series	Used by 17 (10%) players	4 Regional wins
3.	Romulan	Used by 16 (9%) players	1 Regional win
3.	Next Generation	Used by 15 (9%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Borg	Used by 14 (8%) players	5 Regional wins
6.	Starfleet	Used by 13 (7%) players
6.	Multiple Affiliations	Used by 13 (7%) players
8.	Cardassian	Used by 11 (6%) players	1 Regional win
9.	Voyager/Equinox	Used by 8 (5%) players	1 Regional win
10.	Deep Space 9	Used by 7 (4%) players	2 Regional wins
10.	Dominion	Used by 7 (4%) players
10.	Unknown Affiliations	Used by 7 (4%) players
13.	Ferengi	Used by 5 (3%) players
13.	Terok Nor	Used by 5 (3%) players
15.	Earth (Home of Starfleet Command)	Used by 4 (2%) players
16.	Bajoran	Used by 3 (2%) player
16.	Maquis	Used by 3 (2%) player
18.	Non-Aligned	Used by 1 (1%) player

The results from this week's Tribbles Regional Championships have yet to be entered, so the statistics have not changed. The total players at Tribbles Regional Championships is 25 - an average of 8.3 players per tournament. A total of 7,897,725 Tribbles have been scored to date - an average of 315,909 Tribbles per player.

Week 8 Preview

The complete schedule can be found in the article Regional Championships Series 2011 Schedule. There are four Regional tournaments this week:

Saturday 21st May		Sunday 22nd May
First Edition (Sealed) Red Planet Games and Hobbies 118 East Main Street Forest City, NC 28043 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]		Second Edition (Draft) Good Games Brisbane 74 Little Edward Street Spring Hill, QLD 4000 Australia [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) Jazzland Franz-Josefs-Kai 29 A-1010 Vienna Austria [Discuss] [Pre-register]
		Second Edition (Standard) Between Books 2703 Philadelphia Pike Claymont, DE 19703 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]

Red Planet Games and Hobbies: This is the inaugural First Edition Regional Championship to be held in the Sector 001 Region. At the time of writing, only one player has pre-registered. Previous tournaments at the venue this year have seen between four and nine players participate, so sanctioning looks likely. Picking a winner is difficult as this will be a sealed tournament, and every other tournament at the venue has been held using the Official format. Local tournament organizers Nathan Miracle (GooeyChewie) and Scott Baughman (Darik) seem to perform well though, so I'll pick Scott to win.

There are no past Regionals results at Red Planet Games and Hobbies.

Good Games Brisbane: Australia's east coast is the setting for this Second Edition Regional. The local playgroup only starting running tournaments six months ago and they have sanctioned two Second Edition tournaments since then. Eight players participated in the First Edition regional held two weeks ago, and a similar number can be expected on Sunday. This tournament will be an Infinite Diversity Draft, so picking a winner based on past results is nigh impossible. However, two names do seem to pop out: Greg Dillon (Latok) and Ben Dillon (Broshak). I picked Greg to win the first Edition Regional and Ben won it, so this time I'm going to pick Ben to win.

There are no past Regionals results at Good Games Brisbane.

Jazzland: This Second Edition regional is being held for the fourth year in the "Borg Region" Region. It is also the venue for this year's European Championships. Past tournaments at the venue have attracted between six and twelve players, and although no players have pre-registered at this time, there is every reason to assume the tournament will be sanctioned for the fourth consecutive year. Stefan Slaby (Winner of Borg) must be considered the favorite. He has won four of the seven tournaments played at the venue this year and has won this Regional twice in the last three years. He has won the Unimatrix 001 WCT league for the second year in succession, and he is the highest rated player (by over 150 ratings points) living in Austria. I can't see anyone beating Stefan to the title on Sunday.

Past Regional results at Jazzland:
2010 (sealed), won by Stefan Slaby (Winner of Borg) playing Ferengi.
2009 (sealed), won by Peter Machovits (Pille1701) playing Deep Space 9.
2008, won by Stefan Slaby (Winner of Borg) playing Borg.

Between Books: This Second Edition Romulus Regional is likely to be contested by some of the great players of the game: Neil Timmons (ntimmons) - 2009 World Champion, Ben Hosp (bhosp) - 2010 North American Continental Champion, and John Corbett (KillerB) - 2008 North American Continental Champion. All three players are ranked in the top 20 players in the world. How to choose between them? I'm going to go with form. Ben has won three of the last five tournaments held at this venue, and is my pick to win.

Past Regional results at Between Books:
2010, won by Neil Timmons (ntimmons) playing Romulan.
2009, won by Michael van Breemen (The Ninja Scot) playing Deep Space 9.
2008, won by Neil Timmons (ntimmons) playing Klingon.

Predictions

I picked two out of five winners correctly last week. My record stays at 38% (11 out of 29) correct, just like last week. Good luck to Scott, Stefan, and the two Bens. Only you can improve my record!

Next Week

A review of the four results from week eight, another interview, and a preview of the five Regional Championships taking place in week nine.

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