First Edition World Championships winner Michael Van Breemen

Day One:
Title: BajRom
Deck Archetype: Interference
Play Engines: Chamber of Ministers, Continuing Committee, Office of the Proconsul, Bajoran Resistance Cell, Quark's Bar
Draw Engines: Bajoran Resistance Cell, Temporal Almanac, War Council, Temporal Investigations, Remote Interference
Bonus Point Mechanics: Dabo, Holographic Camouflage

Day Two:
Title: CarDom
Deck Archetype: Planet Lock-Out
Play Engines: The Great Link, Reward from the Founders, Internment Camp 371, Central Command
Draw Engines: Handshake, Reward from the Founders, Temporal Investigations, Deyos
Bonus Point Mechanics: Training Ring, Combined Strike, Establish Dominion Foothold, For Cardassia!

Victory Correctly Predicted By:Me, Marquetry, KazonPADD, prylardurden, jadziadax8, DarkSabre, Armus, monty42, The Ninja Scot, bosskamiura, BCSWowbagger, and Resistance-is-futile.

MVB's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
Because they were both achievement decks that I thought would have a chance at winning. Honestly, these were the only decks that I was considering to use as they were both very solid in terms of gameplay but at the same time achieved my goal of getting more achievements which, if I had done the math properly before I left, would also have ensured that I would pass Ken on the total achievements rankings (which it did.)

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
Day 1 - Most anything that didn't have an answer to being harassed by Raptor 1 and 2. I didn't hope to face against Romulans (didn't put HQ: Defensive Measures in the deck) or Dominion personnel battle.

Day 2 - Most anything that didn't have an answer to being stopped by Enemies of the State. I didn't hope to face against Borg, Sniper Decks or Vulcans with Temper Advancement.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
Day 1 - I had tried out the Raptors the day before in the warm-up tournament, using the Raptors to steal missions and other harassment with Distant Control (for another achievement) but many people were using the same decks from that tournament for Day 1 so people were naturally wary of the Raptors, especially since I stole missions from my opponents. So, I'd imagine that they attempted more slowly and, in at least one game, put self-seeds under stealable missions which undoubtedly would slow them down. Couple this with a *lot* of card drawing (Temporal Almanac, War Council, Resistance Cell, Dabo w/Quark, Raptors, Renewal Scroll) and it wasn't difficult to draw into whatever I would eventually need while still harassing my opponents.

Day 2 - Since it was the same physical day and thought I might see some of the same decks, I thought changing it up might work in my favor, especially since I was hoping that most of my opponents didn't know how this worked. I knew Greg did but, if he was playing the same deck as he had played for Day 1, I don't know if he would have the means to deal with it. Combine this with the potential for a two mission win and I thought the stall would work long enough to get the win.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
Not particularly with either deck.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
Day 1 - All the cards related to the Raptors: Card draws, blowing up ships without any of the personnel commitment.

Day 2 - Enemies of the State to enable the lockout and a special mention to Oran who provided both Empathy and the AU icon that I needed to pass the second Quantum Incursions for the win.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
Thanks to everyone for making it a wonderful Worlds weekend across all three games.

My Commentary:
Michael's Day One deck makes use of those Raptors everyone is talking about. As long as you don't need to stick to a certain property logo, and can fit Romulus in your deck, you don't have to play a 22nd century faction to use them too. Reshape the Quadrant makes an appearance here, but just to get Call For Reinforcements - the Romulus Time Location will break it even before the seed phase is over. I like the use of Scout Encounters as a way to soften up the attempting ships, stop them, and leave them vulnerable to the drones. The Battle Bridge side deck full of Breen Disruptor Bursts ensures that enemy ships will explode with only three damage markers.

The Day Two deck may be chasing a different treaty achievement from MVB's US Nationals deck, but the goal is the same: lock-out planet missions using Enemies of the State. Enemies with Tadims and Aris who are boosted with Lower Decks is reeeeeally difficult to pass. I looked at adding a Kukalaka to a TNG Fed deck to help them with it, and even that isn't a guarantee. Kevin recommends Genesis Effect in the Sidney Day Two Thread which is probably the way to go for most decks, assuming you can see it coming.

The last part of this competitive season's trifecta, Temporal Benefactor, shows up in both decks. Interestingly, it has a slightly different use in each deck. Day One's deck just uses it to make Valdore a Temporal Agent in order to use Temporal Almanac as a draw engine. Day Two uses it to download Disrupted Continuum (essential for covering a third mission with Enemies of the State) and Timepod Ring. In order to activate the effect, Michael has seeded Quark's Isolinear Rods, downloading Soval (who is conveniently downloaded to hand).

It's a nice bookend to this season to have all three of these elements present across these two decks. The First Edition sets in the last year have certainly succeeded at introducing cards that shake up the meta. I'm looking forward to the next wave of sets; I'm hoping to see some stuff that will be able to compete at the same level.

Second Edition World Championships winner Greg Dillon
Title: Romulan Assassins/Discard Lockout Day 1, Romulan Assassins/Discard Lockout Day 2
Headquarters: Romulus, Patient Stronghold
Deck Size: 68 Cards
Deck Archetype: Control - Interference
Dilemma Pile Size: 28 Cards/30 Cards
Dilemma Pile Type: Kill/Lockout
Victory Correctly Predicted By: Honest,  jadziadax8, Latok, pfti, LORE, Armus, bosskamiura, chompers, and Fritzinger.

Greg's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
Whenever I'm super serious about winning I always favour heavy interference/lockout type decks because I suppose I'm just not a fan of the RNG of a draw deck AND a dilemma pile to win games, plus I'm not that great at skill tracking/playing dilemmas. Having said that my top picks were my Masters of the Universe Relativity, Starfleet (basically Ambers Day 2 deck because I copied the one Ken played at a Masters earlier this year), the Romulan Assassins I used and a similar deck that was more focused on discards and getting a lockout with Sela/Sirol + Dangerous Liaisons/Secret Conspiracy.

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
I wanted to face speed solvers, because really no matter how fast a deck can go all I need is an Imperial Entanglements and a card in hand to be able to annihilate an attempt. I didn't want to face heavy kill prevention but I don't think that's really in atm, the most 'meta' kill prevention deck would be a Ferengi deck like the one KillerB won 2017 Worlds with and I think I could beat that 7/10 times any way.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
Not a lot, I played the first version of the discard focused deck in an online tournament a couple months ago, which MvB recalled the unpleasant experience of playing against when I sat down across from him on Day 1 and very little practice with anything like it since then. I learnt plenty about the deck, I played it on Day 1 to get the extra experience with it and it paid off, in particular Back to Basics is probably the hardest counter to the deck but a Self-Replicating Roadblock or two fixes that right up.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
My favourite situational card/s was The Tides of Fortune + Soul Searching combo, it's rare because you have to be properly set up while the opponent is still trying to complete a space mission and have the spare counters to spend but when it works 15 points + your own dilemma under a mission of your choice is so cool.

Blind Spot/Romulus combo exceeded my expectations, it is so good at making sure you're there when the opponent begins the attempt to get the two discards from the ship and it saves two counters by not having to play Harried and Harassed if you don't play Imperial Entanglements.

From Day 1 to Day 2 I took out Hidden Strings and The Tides of Fortune/Soul Searching. I added Prejudice and Politics as a way to counter Back to Basics but only because I remembered a rule incorrectly, I would definitely swap that or GUYS for Self-Replicating Roadblock and probably take at the 3x At An Impasse, possibly add A Few Minor Difficulties. I added Shadow Operation for Day 2 but I'd take it out, I can't really decide if it's good or not.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
For Day 1 it'd be Imperial Entanglements or Unsound Logic. For Day 2 it's definitely TR-116 Rifle.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
I could probably talk about the deck all day but I'll just direct you to the Worlds Day 4 thread where I've already responded to a lot of questions/comments.

My Commentary:
I think the moral of the story here is: don't sleep on kill piles. In my recent coverage of Cardassian decks, I've focused pretty heavily on stopping them with interrupt prevention. However, they're also not very good at dealing with kill-based piles - their only natural kill prevention is Crell Moset, who is expensive and doesn't even work against The Clown: Guillotine.

Of course, this isn't an ordinary kill pile - Guillotine and All-Consuming Evil aren't here. No, what's here is much nastier. Unsound Logic's choice killing is very powerful, especially when supported by the TR-116 and the various Romulan-available Assassins. That brings me to the deck that supports the kill pile - it is also relatively new to the scene. Historically, when an interference deck with a kill pile takes down a major event like this one, it has been a Maquis deck or Neil's Romulan Discard deck or even just a deck that interferes passively using Aid Legendary Civilization. This deck is something different, which is nice.

We've taken a look at Richard New's version a couple times this year (most recently due to Gen Con Masters). One of the more remarkable things about this deck compared to prior interference victors is the interplay between the deck and the dilemma pile. It's not just Unsound Logic, it's the whole dilemma package - the Once More Unto the Breach and Chameloid Chicanery with the Harried and Harrasseds to get the Assassins and Cloaking Devices and Infiltrators to the mission. It's the Parallel Course to pull dilemmas back if you try to run away from all of those things. It's even the Simulated Prey/Taste of Armageddon to rack up the kills using the interrupts in your hand.

This is definitely a deck to keep an eye on, and perhaps one to try out if Cardassians (or any other anti-attrition heroes) are giving you trouble. I'm looking forward to seeing how players adapt to this new power on the scene - maybe it's through kill prevention, maybe you just thank them for delivering the assimilation victims to your mission? I'll personally need some more experience playing it and decks like it to find out for sure.