Nathan W (Naetor) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - North American Continentals Day Two 2011-07-17 - 09:00 AM A Pilgrim in an Unholy Land Introduction Thanks to Dan and the southern California crew for putting on a great weekend -- and working around Day 2 so I could get to my flight on time. The deck itself is based on a lengthy collaboration with myself and Mike O'Shogay where we were trying to find the "best" Romulan deck out there. That deck took lots of faces over it's construction. It originally started out as a non-event based deck such as the deck Mike played [url=http://www.trekcc.org/tournament/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=7573]here[/url]. While this was a good way to get Donatra easily, I don't think the build was top tier -- never really satisfied with the cost benefit of Alternate Identity and missing out on one of the Romulan's biggest solver cards: Power Shift. I took that same idea, and ran it in an entire different direction at the Birmingham regional [url=http://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=8198]here[/url]. I was very pleased with its performance, and knew it had potential -- I even saw some [url=http://www.trekcc.org/tournament/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=8388]similar builds[/url] pop up and perform relatively well. However, I didn't like Access Contamination. I thought the personnel you needed to play to complete it early weren't very good -- lots of 5 cunning guys. Around the same time, I began to notice how great Karina was at helping sneak through missions. I had already begun splashing some "stooges" from Necessary Evil for more unstop prevention when Kevin joined Mike and I after Mike's successful showing in the Minnesota regional. [url=http://www.trekcc.org/tournament/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=8272]This version[/url] rightly dropped Access Contamination and focused on using the stooges for stop prevention. Over the next few months I tweeked the deck here and there. I found Karina and the stooges gives the current meta of dilemmas fits, Power Shift forces opponents to overthrow dilemmas or risk conceding missions, and Donatra is the overseer against "janky" dilemmas. In the end I found the deck has incredible mid-game speed, and knew it was something no one else had seen or prepared for. Round 1 Michael Van Breemen FW (0)View opponent's ReportView original Report Michael sits down and reveals Ferenginar, Earth-TOS, and 3 20 point missions. My jaw dropped. I knew I was on a timer to win before any dilemmas I had became obsolete. An early P'tol revealed that he was playing a version of his infamous MVB pile. I downloaded Ruwon with Tal and went out with bare minimum attempts since neither of us were playing TCS. Ruwon saved Donatra once before being unable to save himself. Donatra then nuked a dilemma and I was able to get my first mission without much harm. By this time I had built up a crew that let me double attempt the last two missions and get the full win 100-0. Afterwards MVB showed me his madness where the following turn he'd be able to 3 attempt each mission and not let me draw any dilemmas. Glad I didn't face him again. This is the game where the Maquis deck and its hand denial would've been a better choice. His reaction to the missions was classic and I was expecting it to be an interesting game. My assumption going in was that he was playing something similiar with Mike's deck back in Iowa - high cost people made cheap with Alternate Identity with little event support. I was half-right but really wrong on the event side of things. My draw deck failed me, putting my last Carolyn Palamas on the bottom of my deck, taking me exactly one turn too long. Between Donatra and Ruwon, my dilemma pile of death and destruction doesn't do so well (also doesn't help when you don't seem to get your Secret Identity's out in play.) If I had one more turn, I would've won. Afterwards, Nate stated that he really hoped that he didn't have to play against me again for the rest of the day, stating that he really didn't have an answer for my deck. Personally, I think that he was doing fine with getting the people he needed in play to deal with my dilemma pile but whether or not he would have won had we played again, that's very debatable. Round 2 Bye BY (0) I took this time off, walked around a bit, thought a bit about a work project to clear my mind. I think it worked as I was pretty relaxed and focused for the next match. Round 3 Neil Timmons MW (0) Neil was playing Borg assimilation -- something similar if not identical to his deck the day before. Despite being able to download Tal (which I could use all game), my opening and subsequent draws were not that great. I ended up having Dukat myself away some personnel so he couldn't assimilate (resistance) me. I did, however, get Dukat working against him -- but he had the usual Borg event suspects working, a handful of assimilation interrupts and events, and there wasn't much to do about it. Many turns in, it became clear that Neil plays his Borg assimilator quite different than I play mine. I just hung out at my HQ, waiting for him to attempt so I could Dreamer, then Dukat his K&Es. However, Neil never went out and attempted missions. With two turns left he sent 6 to Historical Research. Calling his bluff I gave him 0 dilemmas. When he sent 7 to Restore Errant Moon with a more "real" attempt, I hit him with SI, Hard Time, and Whispers -- but didn't get my Dreamer. I just sat back again and played some personnel -- well prepared to triple attempt (and likely solve) any mission in case Neil couldn't. Neil re-attempted with Restore Errant Moon. Without a draw deck to interlink Cartography drone, and I was pretty certain he didn't have 3 Astrometrics, I only gave him Dreamer which hit when he couldn't solve and cleared his hand. On my turn I set off to Khitomer with 21 personnel. I formed 2 solvable groups that required him to stop at least 2 people to prevent the solve, and a third "super-crew" with Karina, Donatra, Ruwon, Relam, Data, and B'Etor. The first two attempts missed, but stacked some dilemmas. The last attempt let him spend and draw 6 thanks to some Endangered help. The first dilemma I was hit by was In Fighting in which he named Treachery. It hit and he pulled Karian. However, I saved her with Ruwon. Next was Unscientific Method which didn't hit as both B'Etor and Karina have Treachery. Finally, Crew Advancement was revealed and Neil named Cunning. Karina, however, prevented that stop and my crew got through unscathed for the modified win 35-5. Round 4 Johnny Holeva FW (0) Johnny was also playing a similar deck to his Day 1 build. Tal came out first turn, and freely downloaded the key components of my deck all game. Johnny had a lot of early event destruction, but the events in this deck really aren't that necessary. If you aren't playing them, you are just using them as Karina/stooges fodder. In the end, however, I did get GUYS pumping and Power Shift on table. Combined with some stop prevention I complete Iconia Investigation in one attempt, Khitomer in two, then would have gotten through Investigate Sighting had Johnny not plucked out my Exobiology during the attempt. Meanwhile my dilemma pile was slowing him down enough, but I needed to be careful after seeing the Bridge Officer's Test in his hand. I did however stop him from completing his second mission. With a P'tol in hand, and 4 dilemmas stacked under Investigate Sighting I revealed a 3 and 4 coster from the top. I made another "super crew" in case, but Johnny couldn't do anything and the dilemmas weren't playable. Full win 100-30. Afterwards I couldn't stay long. I had to hurry to the airport to catch my flight. With that I said some brief goodbyes (everyone else was busy playing the Tribbles event) and headed home.