Australian Continentals 2011: An Ensign's Perspective

by Craig Giblett, Staff Writer

27th June 2011

Ah yes, it’s the middle of the year and the big events are in full swing around the world of Star Trek CCG. I love the big events, the excitement, the passion, they always bring out the best in the Sydney and Australian player group. Last year was my first experience of Australian Continentals and I had a great time. Being new to the game, a collection of about 1,200 cards, having only played about 30 matches and going into the event with only one competitive deck, it was definitely a learning experience.

I played TOS last year, foregoing my Klingon Battle deck, due to my limited knowledge and experience with the game. The TOS deck was designed for easy play so I could concentrate on what my opponent was doing, spend more brain power trying to track skills and remember what their personnel’s abilities were. The TOS deck had more quality cards as well, Benjamin Sisko (Command Staffer), Driven, James T. Kirk (Original Thinker) and Shran (In Archers Debt) to name a few.

Just before the event, I had purchased copies of quality rare Dilemmas to boost my deck, feeling that if I increased the quality of my Dilemma pile, the draw deck will take care of itself, being quite a speedy little machine with some good tricks. I finished 12th in the same points bracket with six other players, two of which made the final eight for day two. I count that as a great result and was upbeat given my limitations.

Fast forward a year and here I am again, in the midst of preparing my next attempt at Star Trek CCG Glory. This time, however, things have changed. I have been doing some big recruiting over the course of the year, and invested a fair amount of money in building up the arsenal available to me. My collection has tripled in size and I now have nine decks to choose from. Despite this, if I were to play the Continentals tomorrow, I consider only three of them actually ready.

After witnessing Tragic Turn Dilemma Piles in action last year, I reasoned that if I wanted to give myself a better shot at making day two, I had better get myself a play set of them for 2011. Buying myself three copies of the card, I created a Tragic Turn Dilemma Pile and played it in some of our regular tournaments for practice. Planning on playing it in the lead up to the Continentals for more practice and fine tuning, the recent errata changed that, so I think I will have to try it at a later date.

With the expansion of my card collection I now have a play set of most of the top dilemmas in the game today, as I continued to concentrate on acquiring these given the fundamental importance of a quality Dilemma Pile. My overall deck building skills could do with improvement, no doubt, but my weakness is creating Dilemma Piles. I tend to fall back on the same thing and although it has worked reasonably well, there is definite room for improvement.

I began considering my deck options for Continentals before Regionals. With about five or six decks I wanted to get match practice with, a long lead up and planning ahead was required. Damaged Starfleet has been a favourite of mine since the release of Peak Performance and I have faired fairly well it, having finished second three times with an overall match record of 14 wins to 9 losses. I feel comfortable playing Starfleet and being a big fan of the Enterprise television series, I naturally gravitated toward it. After having played 27 matches with the affiliation, I feel I have a good list that would be competitive.

The list differs from some other Damaged Starfleet decks as it plays a few Neutral Aligned personnel, such as Tobias Rausmann’s Worlds winning list and Michael Albrecht’s second placed Regionals deck last month. However, I am not claiming originality here, as Thomas Kamuira plays quite a few Neutral Aligned personnel in his list , as did Kieren Otton in his Starfleet deck on the 13th June, which I have no list for. I love the A Sight for Sore Eyes and At What Cost? combo, but, at my last tournament playing Damaged Starfleet they were dropped because I felt that by doing so the deck may be less bulky and get more consistent draws. As a result, I finished that particular tournament with one win, two losses and a bye, which, may prove their exclusion as a mistake.

After playing Starfleet three times in the last six months I wanted to use the remaining tournaments to try out some decks I have rarely or not played at all. Having piloted TOS at regionals and not a particularly flash build at that, the Cardassians were next in line. I had a go with them earlier in the year to a two win and two loss record, it was their turn again to get some more match time. In my mind, Cardassian Capture is a deck that I absolutely need game time with to be able to iron out any inconsistencies and focus the list. I would not take a Cardassian Capture deck into Continentals blind and my result on the 29th May is testimony to that. A result that reflected bad play more than anything.

Not only did I name the wrong personnel to capture with Ensnared once or twice, I also failed to appreciate the game state at times, leading me to make bad play decisions. A lack of concentration did not help either, it was just a bad day at the office and the wake up jolt I probably needed. Despite this, the Draw Deck looks good, the card drawing ability of Enabran Tain (“Retired” Spymaster) is quite powerful, as he remains one of my favourite personnel. Throw in the point scoring potential of Prison Compound and Labour Camp and the Cardassians are an affiliation I will revisit.

 

One positive from that disastrous showing was a realisation that I should go back to the basics, that is, back to trying to complete missions as quickly as possible. Put my opponent under pressure, give him an ultimatum: beat me before I beat you. Playing fast mission completion decks is one of my strengths and by choosing to play the Cardassians, I was probably stretching my arm a little too much at this point. To accomplish this I turned to Jean-Luc Picard: Vintner and his Next Generation friends.

The foundation of my TNG deck is nothing original, inspired by TNG decks posted by players over the last 18 months. I was immediately impressed with the power of Jean-Luc Picard (Vintner); one personnel, who costs two to play and downloads three The Next Generation federation personnel, incredible! Despite the drawback of needing each non-headquarters mission to require biology, I still had to build a deck with him. I had originally built the deck in late 2010 and didn’t play it except for an online tournament, so I had to give the deck a go to see if is a Continentals option.

To say the least, I was pleasantly surprised. You can see the tournament results here. My first round opponent was the ever crafty Kieren Otton playing Damaged Starfleet. My deck started off smartly, I got a Jean-Luc Picard (Vintner) into play early, downloading, who I consider, the “Big Three”; William T. Riker (First Officer), Beverly Crusher (Chief Physician) and good old, dependable Mot (The Barber). We ended up trying to race each other throughout the course of the game, which is what one would expect between these two decks as there is little interaction. One of my Unexpected Difficulties was shuffled into my draw deck by a Lustful Distraction and Kieren couldn’t get a Jonathan Archer (Damaged Captain) into play early enough, which made my dilemma selection easier. Time was called and, going second, I narrowly managed to void losing in Kieren’s last turn to have a shot at the win for myself. I believe we were tied on points and so I had to score points somehow to win. Guinan (Listener) refused to be drawn and I had Mot (The Barber), Vic Fontaine (Vegas Crooner) plus an odd assortment of personnel that could make up a Mot “Super team” for the last mission. I played out two To Boldy Go, which I had been holding in hand for just such an occasion, and went for the win, taking the game as Kieren failed to stop any of my personnel.

So far so good! My next opponent was Stephen Hartmann playing a well tuned Bajoran deck (Steve would disagree with me on that, but I think he’s being too hard on himself.), which he has been playing on and off for the last few months. In this game he didn’t see key personnel and I got lucky on a few dilemma selections, stopping or killing critical personnel. I had a Dukat (Pah Wraith Puppet) in play and tried to use his order ability to interfere with Steve’s discard pile tricks, but gave up as my removing two cards a turn was not going to be effective. The pace of my deck proved too much for Steve this time around and I was able to get the win before time.

Two wins in a row to start a tournament! This doesn’t happen often! Game three saw me paired against Mike of House Nugent. Mike is a fierce and honourable warrior who was playing a fast, low-end Klingon deck. He has already won two tournaments with this deck as it is well tuned and constructed. He uses B’aht Qul Challenge to great effect, often winning games without having to make a third mission attempt. I feared this deck, I played it once before with Damaged Starfleet and losing, even after denying Mike a B’aht Qul Challenge with a Grav Plating Trap.

The game started off a bit faster for me than Mike, thankfully and I began to pile up the dilemmas under my missions. Mike soon swung into the game and began putting pressure on me. Dukat (Pah Wraith Puppet) made an encore appearance and I began removing cards from his discard pile that had the highest costs, including a ship. Having one 40 point mission, I knew if I could keep the cards in his discard pile to zero or low cost, I could force him to play a chancy or bad B’aht Qul Challenge. I began removing my copies of Mutual Advantage and These Are the Voyages from my discard pile with Dukat as well. Since I had discarded a pair of U.S.S. Sovereign with two Mutual Advantage, B’aht Qul Challenge was not looking flash for Mike and I may yet force him to need the third mission. However, Kahless was smiling down upon Mike and he went for the B’aht Qul Challenge regardless. I hit a These Are the Voyages with the first one and he, about four cost worth, taking him to 95 points. Not finished, Mike then played A Second Chance at Life! I had five cards in my discard pile, two ships and three events, Mike had an assortment of low cost cards and if he could just hit two low cost personnel and that Unexpected Difficulties, I would be safe, at least, for now. I hit my ship, worth six points, but Mike also got six points and took the game.

My final match was against Pete Santamaria, a newer player who is improving with every tournament he plays, even winning one about a month ago, so I knew I was in for a tough time. Pete was playing a Bajoran deck as well. He had changed his missions to include at least two worth 40 points as a way to deal with Mike Nugent’s B’aht Qul Challenge. Pete and Mike share quite a large collection and I knew this Bajoran deck was quality. As it turned out, I started slow drawing all my Mutual Advantage early, so I played them drawing like a mad man to set up some sort of viable mission team to begin attempting missions with.

One of the dilemmas I wanted to test today was Where No One Has Gone Before, hastily building a Dilemma Pile to help service it in the half hour before the event. I knew it wasn’t going to be optimal, but gave it a shot regardless. I had played Where No One Has Gone Before twice already in the tournament with no success, until I played it against Pete. Not only did the dilemma delay Pete for a turn, but it brought me right back into the game, giving me the time I needed to get ahead in points. That one time I managed to get it to work made it worthwhile playing all day. Time was called again, and going second I had the lead, so all I had to do was spend my counters and end my turn, taking a modified win. Instead, I went for the full win and got there, again with Mot (The Barber)’s assistance.

What a good first outing for The Next Generation. Three wins and a loss gave me second place and a viable option for the first days play at the Australian Continentals. I have two more events to prepare for, however, so there are two more decks to tune and play. Part two will be written after the Continentals itself, so watch this space in about two weeks time, where I shall write about the lead up to the Second Edition Continentals, including the Beirmeister, Australian Nationals and, for the first time ever, I will be playing First Edition, with my first event being the First Edition Continentals no less!

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