A Weekend in Kassel

by Fritz Meissner, Traveller

7th July 2015

This past weekend I made a ninja surprise visit to the German National Championships. You can skip to the games if you like, but first some background on why it was such a surprise. You see, I’m not from around here.

I live in a place called Cape Town in South Africa (it’s beautiful, ask Google Images!), but at the moment I’m travelling in Europe. In the middle of May 2015, I embarked on a world tour that started in the UK and will end in New Zealand at the end of October. One of the first stops I scheduled for my six months on the road was the World Championships in Australia in September. However, I needed practice because I am not very experienced. 

I do have a local group, but I organize the tournaments, and most people play with net decks that I print for them. My tournament record will show that they more often than not beat me with them too :). Crucially, there are many medium to very complicated decks that I have not given anyone because they’re not very fun if you don’t know how to use them. I’ve played a few online tournaments (and lost horribly), but there are many gaps in my knowledge. The only way to avoid embarrassment at Worlds would be to play some real tournaments against good players before then. Fortunately, the Europeans have delivered.

I adjusted my schedule to be in Munich for the European Championships, and I was always going to visit London so I PMed Nick Yankovec who organized one of their trademark two tournament Sundays. Then I spotted the Kassel regional and German National Championships at the end of June and made arrangements for a surprise invasion of one. I flew in under the radar (well, actually, I took the train from Amsterdam) the night before and pre-registered after midnight for the regional on Saturday.

In the morning, I arrived exactly at 11, but this was later than planned because I had some sleeving to do. I’d sent an email to the TD, Thomas Schneider, asking him to bring some cards and sleeves, because I was travelling light (just carry-on luggage, even my small box of real cards was left behind in Marseille with my bigger bag). While I sleeved I listened to the conversation which was pointless because, despite my name, I speak no German. All I caught was “50 shades of Star Trek”. I didn’t ask.

My deck for the regional was new Dominion. Since my regional (held the day after Strange Bedfellows became legal), I had tried various new Dominion builds. My own was not great, and I couldn’t get the hang of the one or two other variants I had tried, until I ran across Andrey Gusev’s version that uses three copies of Keevan for drawing and Crom to get him very early. A couple of useful conversations in the TrekCC chat and some practice games (thanks Alexey and others!) online left me feeling good about the deck so I printed it, with some minor additions to the dilemma pile. With the Dominion and Gamma Quadrant Romulans I expected to see, Rogue Borg Ambush isn’t so useful, and Tactical Disadvantage fits with the number of ships in the deck. 

One out-of-towner who had pre-registered was late; once I was done sleeving they decided to stop waiting for him and began the regional. 

 

 

Game One versus Tobias Raussman with Klingons 

This game was the first to end in the round. He won with three solves from three mistakes I made with my dilemmas. A Zero Hour whiffed because I thought it was based on the events in my core; of course I was wrong and he had no events for it to use. An Issue of Trust that was supposed to stop most of his team was dodged by Klag; and a set of targeted stops was enough to reduce his attributes for a wall, but my Secret Identity allowed him to bring in Kang. This was simply my limited experience showing: I just didn’t know about the existence of Klag and Kang, wasn’t reading his cards properly, and I should definitely have known my own dilemmas better.

Result: FL, 100-35

 

Game Two vs Markus Eberlein with dilemma milling and changelings

I had a fair number of dilemmas, so I wasn’t too worried about the milling in terms of the effectiveness of my pile. He didn’t start solving until after he had removed his ten dilemmas for Undermined Defenses, leaving me to go two missions into the lead. When he started dodging random selections, I was able to stop him with Rapid Progress and targeted stops; and (my memory is hazy on this) I think he ran out of cards in his deck, preventing him from using UD. I was able to swap ships around (I think I had three in play eventually) to dodge his changelings. We ran out of time with me having two missions to his one.

Result: MW, 70-30

 

Game Three vs Matthias Weller DS9 + Species 8472

Intuitively I thought S8 was dead when Terok Nor dilemma milling became popular. Matthias had a big pile which would be good against milling but not great for drawing S8 dilemmas. I delayed his first solve at least 3 times, and solved two missions to his one with only three S8 dilemmas in my core, placed there by Combined Attack.

I should have had the full win after time, but I messed up my double teams. I had thirteen personnel and four under my third mission. I split my crew into the minimum solving crew of five and a bigger team of chumps. I attempted with the latter first, expecting it would put at least one under, and hoping that Timescape did not appear. It went one better, and I confidently attempted my final mission with five personnel expecting to face nothing because of the six under already. Of course the S8472 pile needs the opponent to attempt with decent size crews, so he was running Transport Crash Survivors. The extra six dilemmas that he drew were enough to stop my crew and leave me with just the modified win.

Result: MW, 70-35

 

Game Four vs Sandra Wanek with Thieves (!!) at MotW

Kudos to Sandra for playing a fun thief deck. She kept pace with me for the most part, I must be a slow player because again I found myself playing after time was called. The coolest Trek moment of the day - perhaps of the entire weekend - was her second solve. I had filtered out all Biology and Science to set up a Rapid Progress which should have stopped her. She played Bank Heist and from the top of MY deck revealed a personnel with Biology and Science to make it through and solve! This tied the scores at the end of her last turn after time; my only true tie for the weekend.

Result: TT

 

Game Five vs Benjamin Liebich with Starfleet

Game five turned out the way game one did. His cards were new to me and I didn’t know what not to do against the displaced descendants who can be removed from the game when stopped to do awesome things with the remaining personnel. He started fast, going into a two mission lead and getting his HQ bonus. I might have been able to delay him enough to solve a second and force a fourth solve with the Dominion HQ subtracting points, but he got his last solve before that because I picked the wrong dilemma with Vault of Tomorrow. I decided against Excalbian Drama because he had attribute gaining and I couldn’t remember under exactly what conditions it would or wouldn’t trigger. Instead I chose Picking Up the Pieces, and he had only one Geology or Programming, allowing him through for the solve and the full win. Afterwards Ben told me that Excalbian would have worked. I guess I have to play this deck (and the Klingons) to be able to make these choices better in future.

Result: FL, 100-35

I ended the day in seventh place at 2-1-2, but I could point to some good lessons learned, and it was a fun day. Plus, Thomas had some Reflections packs as prizes! I’ve never even seen a 2E Reflections pack before. I pulled a foil Gomtuu which didn’t hurt.

 

Evening Day One

It struck me in the evening how much the Germans were catering to the one guy in the room who couldn’t speak German. Most of Thomas’s TD announcements were in English (including Sascha’s victory), and a lot of the conversation at dinner too.

We went to an Italian restaurant that was literally around the corner from the venue. I needed Ben’s help to translate my order for the waitress. I was sick of nerd food (which is unavoidable while travelling, although thankfully Subway is cheaper than McDonalds) so instead of pizza I had a Salmon pasta, which turned out to be pretty mediocre but still healthy-ish. Sascha and I discussed how his new Dominion build beat Tobias but mine didn’t, and he kindly refrained from pointing out that the player might have had something to do with it :). He also offered to show me a tourist sight after nationals the next evening, and Ben offered his spare room for the next time I was in town for cards. Everyone was very kind and showing a lot of interest in my travels, including Thorsten who didn’t play, but whose name I recognized from various tournament reports over the years. The German players really are fantastic hosts.

During the conversation Tobias told me that, for nationals, he was playing something older and possibly less competitive than his Klingons. I tried to talk up something useless (“Vulcans, Androids and the Enterprise-C crew! There’s gotta be something there!”), but he said he already had the relevant achievements ;-). I didn’t realize how ominous older and “less" competitive could be, but you’ll have to wait for the last game of this report for that.

 

Day Two - German National Championships

I didn’t like any of the decks I brought from home to Europe. Instead, in London I printed out a small Cardassian solver by Kris Sonsteby which got me a second and first place, admittedly against some experimental / achievement decks. I felt I knew it pretty well after that and its size was great for travelling light. For this tournament, I removed the super small Chula pile because I thought I might see Terok Nor dilemma mill decks and instead used my dilemma pile from the previous day, with one modification: I took out the Tactical Disadvantages that I had added. I would be wanting to play my ships and/or discard them with Damar, not keep them in hand. With the change in pile, I also removed the Uninviteds, which were not as important without Chula.

Twelve players were present, including two whom I hadn’t met the previous day. Jens Beilstein introduced himself before the tournament. I also asked Sascha to help me with a printer later in the day because some transport companies still want paper tickets even if you book online. More travel small talk ensued.

 

Game One vs Thomas Schneider 

My first pairing was against the TD. Thomas sits down, announces the start of the round, and then someone else arrived. Rather than creating a bye situation Thomas elected to sub out for the new player.

 

Game One attempt two vs. Thomas Weidemann with old Founder’s Homeworld 

He lays out some standard Dominion missions, but the old Dominion HQ. I had been musing about how much the new HQ gains one versus having non-aligned personnel playable at your HQ. Had my opponent cracked the secret formula for new school Dominion with the old-school HQ? 

It seems not. He played all the pre-Strange Bedfellows tricks, but no Mobilization Points, Crippling Strike, or Stakoron missions. I was attempting from turn two and solved one mission before he got started. At his first attempt, I went for a risky Dreamer-Intimidation-Hard Time combo - risky because his team had at least two Breen plus Martok Founder with his Jem’Hadar - but fortunately even though I only removed three from his team of nine it was enough to stop him and force at least 5 discards. My Cardassian swarm hammered away at my missions, two teams at a time, while throwing a few good one- or two-under stops from the usual dilemmas that cause Dominion pain (Personal Duty, Artificial Ability, An Issue of Trust). He held me up a bit at my second with a Chula: The Game, but he wasn’t running a dedicated Chula Pile and I only saw two Chula dilemmas after that. He was at one mission with four or five under the incomplete second when I finished my third. 

Result: FW, 100-35

 

Game Two vs Johannes Mette with two missions plus B’aht Qul Challenge

I saw Kruge and wasn’t sure if I should fear battle. But I don’t know how a Kruge deck works, so it was pointless trying to play around something I didn’t understand. Instead I just stuck to the plan, solving missions quickly. I also remembered my lesson from the day before and did not expect An Issue of Trust to stop everyone. With that knowledge, it wasn’t too hard to stop him. His only skill gaining was Riker, so I could name anything for Rapid Progress that he didn’t have already. Inequitable Exchange, Oracle’s Punishment, and Necessary Execution all allowed me to see his personnel to decide what to name. Intimidation still worked for attrition, as did Artificial Ability. My speed solving worked perfectly and I was able to take the lead and stay in the lead all game for a full win.

Result: FW, 100-35

At this point, I was in the lead! During lunch I went to McDonalds for wifi and took a screenshot of the TrekCC tournament page on my phone. I wanted to preserve the record that there was a time when I was in the lead in a major tournament with really good players :).

 

 

Game Three Matthias Weller with Bigger Cardies

We shared some missions and personnel but his draw deck was much bigger. This game was the first that I was playing from behind thanks to his Telle. Although I couldn’t stop the solve, I was able to get rid of Telle, who really does make dilemma planning difficult. Fortunately I was able to slow him down with another risky Dreamer and the Dream combo. He played 2x Swagger to dump his hand since it was going away anyway, as Dreamer only hits at the end of the turn. The only events I had for him to destroy were Surprise Party and Alvera Tree Ritual, the latter being a legacy from the previous version which was paired with a Chula Pile. I doubt he would have given up those cards were there other options. 

I went into the lead with two missions when I had everything to pass a four skill Rapid Progress. He was trying to guess what I had based on what he had, but obviously there were some differences. Personally, I couldn’t keep track of my Cardassians versus his, so this was never a factor in deciding my dilemmas. He eventually solves his second to tie the scores and passes the turn 10 seconds before time was called. I went first so he would get another turn after me if I didn’t solve my third mission that turn. 

I made two attempts with enough to solve in both but all the tricks in crew two. Telle won the game for me when I used him to swap an unpassable Chula: The Dice for Secret Identity. I had one card in my deck which I was pretty sure wasn’t a personnel, but I did the maths: 3 or 4 of each skill and 45 strength when I needed 34; my highest strength was 6 so no one person being removed could prevent the solve. This game really came down to me having the first turn, as he would have had 9 personnel and a hand full of cheaters to get past anything I threw at him on the next turn.

Result: FW, 100-65

The scoreboard still showed me in the lead. I was overjoyed but exhausted because this was the last game to finish in the round and the ending had required complex decision making.

 

Game 4 Jens Beilstein playing GQ Cardassians with The Die is Cast

There was a very quick turnaround from my last game. Despite what I thought was a decent shuffle my opening hand had 2 Central Commands and 2 Enabran Tains. The Central Command is awesome, but not when you have no personnel to use it on. Tain is awesome, but not when your hand is full of Central Commands that you can’t play and don’t want to discard. I had achieved the impossible: a hand clogged in a deck with only five verbs. 

I would have normally expect to be attempting faster than a bigger deck like Jens', but the lower than usual throughput meant that I didn’t draw any ships for a few turns and Jens started attempting one turn ahead of me. I should have had the first solve but for a misplay: I had a choice of stops and I kept Tolian Soran instead of a Treachery Cardassian who could have been unstopped with The Central Command. Of course the next dilemma stopped a whole bunch of people, but by that stage using TCC would not prevent enough stops to solve. When I realized what I’d done, I chose not to play it, and he took the lead with two solves shortly thereafter. I did draw my third copy of TCC which lead to an awesome solve involving all three. Jen prevented the first two copies of TCC with Mila, Trusted Confidant and a Grav-Plating Trap. The destruction wrought on my already slim deck when I played the third was worth it for the look of incredulity on his face (the solve alone may not have been, the jury is out on that one). 

By this stage, however, his larger solver had all its tricks in place and with my speed solver not having delivered its usual early lead it was smooth sailing for him to the full win. 

Result: FL, 35-100

 

Game 5 Tobias Raussman with Dissident Milling from Hell

There was still a mathematical chance of me winning, although it required a Full Win from me in the last round and a lot of really good players losing. There was a True Tie and a few Modified Wins in the other results that - given my Full Wins so far - gave me a glimmer of hope. Until I saw Tobias’s deck in the first turn, that is. 

Tobias was using Romulus and Terok Nor with (seemingly) every non-Borg dissident in the game. He went second and fetched Jake Sisko, Reporter Behind the Lines and played many dissidents, with alarming results for my 38 card pile and not much harm to his much bigger pile. Ship after ship went into the discard pile before I could draw it. He was also picking off leadership personnel with Tal’Aura on my HQ. I was ready to concede when I saw my second Tacking Into the Wind discarded, four cards left in the deck and still no ships. Instead, I decided that maybe there was a chance that his 1 billion dissidents would be bad at solving and I could prevent a full win. Fortunately my second to last card was a ship, and I had thirteen personnel in play. I was just hoping he wasn’t running a kill pile.

Of course, he was running a kill pile. An attempt with everyone was enough to solve Intercept Renegade, but half of them died. A subsequent attempt put several dilemmas under Eliminate Harvesters but killed all my Intelligence. I was left with just three personnel for staffing, two that I played at my HQ that turn and no mission skills. If I had accepted that anyone whom Tobias wanted would die in that attempt, I could have kept some of the Intelligence people out of the attempt. He would put lots of dilemmas under and I might have a chance of solving it with the people I kept back. 

Having made the mistake, I went for a pointless bluff attempt at Kreetassa with five (I had nothing else to do on my turn!), and Transporter Crash Survivors gave him the extra dilemma count to kill everyone left. It also left my ship out in the open for him to play The New Resistance, which hastened the bleeding. 

With nothing to do on my turns, it was a case of, “I play nothing, I discard one to Reman Subterfuge, your turn”. A few turns of that and my hand was gone. I could now only delay the inevitable with my dilemmas. This worked surprisingly well. He went Planet first, and Necessary Execution took out some heavy hitters. Vault of Tomorrow fetched Zero Hour with good effect because of all of his core events. Timescape stopped a double team. Just before time was called I used Oracle’s Punishment and I painstakingly counted up the unique skills on all his personnel to see if I could take out enough that he wouldn’t have sixteen for Transport Crash Survivors. I couldn’t, but fortunately I did enough for Rapid Progress to stop his last attempt. He decked himself out to get a full win on the following turn, but having taken it to time left me pleased with the effectiveness of my dilemma play.

Result: FL 35-65

 

Aftermath

Despite having gone from first to fifth place in two rounds, I took some satisfaction from being the only player to have beaten the eventual winner. My round two opponent, Johannes Mette, won the tournament with four full wins including 100-0 against the diabolical dissidents of Tobias. Remarkably, he has only been playing for four months, but he was well drilled with his Klingons by his coaches Sascha and Benjamin. The German Nationals trophy is a thing of beauty but I consoled myself that there wouldn’t have been space in my bag for it anyway :P. There was further solace in the form of a foil Klingon Riker from the Reflections pack that I opened.

In the evening, Sascha and Benjamin took me sightseeing briefly to a giant statue and water feature (water feature really underplays the grandeur of the thing, it’s not just a garden fountain) above the city of Kassel, before Sascha helped me with printing and travel stuff. If he hadn’t asked about my plans I would have gone to the wrong bus stop in the morning and in all likelihood wasted 100 euros worth of tickets. We also discussed the German scene and the possibility of a fun late summer multi-group tournament sometime after Euros. Germany: hit me up with that invite!

Thanks to all the great hospitality I am definitely churning over in my mind how to make a return trip to Europe and possibly German Nationals in coming years.

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