Weekly 1E Roundup - 15 JULY 2020

by Charlie Plaine, Director of First Edition

15th July 2020

Welcome to the Weekly 1E Roundup, a weekly column looking back at the past week in the world of First Edition as well as a preview of the week ahead. If you have questions, comments, or suggestions for content, you can contact me at cplaine@gmail.com or on the forums via PM to MidnightLich. I'm happy to write about your tournaments, get togethers, or other 1E-related goings-on. But for now, let's get into the column and see what's been going on in the world of First Edition!

This Day in Trek

Actor Terry O'Quinn, famous in Star Trek circles for his role on The Next Generation as Admiral Eric Pressman, turns sixty-eight (68) years old today. O'Quinn played Pressman, a less-than-honorable former commander of William Riker, in the seventh season episode "The Pegasus." Though the character would never officially recur on Star Trek, he inspired a lot of speculative fiction in books and comics that his character was part of the covert Section 31 agency. Outside of The Next Generation, Mr. O'Quinn has most famously appeared on LOST, playing the character of Locke. However, he's worked on numerous shows over the past four (4) decades, including JAG, Alias, and Hawaii Five-0. Happy birthday, Mr. O'Quinn!

Tournament Reports

Last week featured just one event - the inaugural session of Tuesday Night Tribbles as part of the Subspace Championship Series. Hosted by Maggie Geppert (jadziadax8), seven (7) players got together to breed some fuzzy balls. After the carnage was over, Michael Van Breemen (The Ninja Scot) emerged victorious with 750,000 Tribbles, piloting a deck he called "Meerkat Llama Porcupine." Most players seemed to be experimenting with the new cards in May's A Tribble of a Different Color, but Michael exclusively did so; however, in his own words, "...but I never got to use Magic at any time to go out."

Jon Carter (pfti) took 2nd place with 612,101 Tribbles, playing his "Pony Power" deck. As he said, "Got lots of bonuses. If I had doubled any of them I would have won. Sykes is right. Bonus does pair nice with this stuff." Brian Sykes (Armus) took 3rd with 450,000 with an unknown deck. John Paul Veasey (elveez) bred 413,222 tribbles with "return to fuzz," and Dan Hamman (SirDan) came in 5th - you can read his tournament report, though his deck isn't public at the time this column was written.

Finally, Maggie herself took 6th with 386,025 Tribbles playing an unknown deck, while Kris Sonsteby (LORE) came in 7th with "Sixty Percent of the Time... it Works Every Time ver 6.0." Kris' deck is a Discard-based deck featuring no 100, 1,000, 10,000 or 100,000 Tribbles, focusing just on playing 1-10. It didn't work out too well for him in this tournament, but I know it has in the past. Congrats to everyone, and I hope you had fun playing with all the new cards.

In older news, the TNG-Only card pool tournament that started in June is now over. This was the first in what I hope will be a series of public playtesting tournaments, where new card pools, rules changes, or other circumstances can be tested. Twelve (12) players threw down in the event, which was won by our very own Rules Manager James Heaney (BCSWowbagger), who played a deck to great success. The Borg were represented twice in the Top 4, with Joe Kallstrom (Commander Joe) also piloting them to a 3rd place finish. Paddy Tye (KazonPADD) claimed 2nd place with a Klingon deck (Mistress Vekma Version 2) while Brian S. (JeBuS) took 4th with a Federation deck (TNG For All - Rd. 4). Do those results surprise you?

Looking at the rest of the field, we see that Romulans and Ferengi were also represented, covering five (5) of the "Big 6" affiliations in the format - all except . Of course, there are still two decks unlisted as of the writing of this column, so it's possible one of them were . Overall, I'm happy with the results and I'm eager to see further discussion and the results of the post-tournament surveys that went out to the pariticpatns.

If you're playing, getting together, I want to hear about it! Did you play online? Tell me about it! Play with family? Send me pictures! I'm happy to cover tournaments and casual games in this column - you just have to let me know. You can find my contact information at the bottom of every column, and you're welcome to email me, PM me, or just post on the forums. So if you're out there, playing First Edition or Tribbles in any way, shape, or form, tell us about it!

Tournament Previews

It's going to be a Tribbles-tastic column, with three (3) events taking place between this week's edition and next week's. First up, is the American Nationals Tribbles championship, taking place this Friday, July 17th. The event currently sports eight (8) pre-registered players, running the gambit from those with nine-figure lifetime totals to the brand new Tribble-breeders. Michael Van Breemen and Kris Sonsteby are the men to beat, sporting over three-hundred million Tribbles scored between them. But count anyone out, as Kevin Jaeger (Hoss-Drone), Maggie Geppert, Jon Carter, and Eric R (rycar60) sport eight-figure lifetime totals themselves. And, historically, new players do very well at GenCon-related events, so Austin Chandler (DarkSabre) and newcomer BionicMan05 aren't to be taken lightly.

The next day, on Saturday, July 18th, Campus Cards & Games will host a Tribbles event after their Second Edition tournament. Three (3) players are currently pre-registered: Sean O'Reilly (Jono) with a lifetime total of 65,617,116 Tribbles; Rick Kinney (T-Ricks) hot on his heels with 54,220,901; and Martin Drake (Warrior50) in the eight-digit club as well with 16,513,055. It'll be exciting to see if any others join them and what kind of decks they bring to play.

Finally, Tuesday Night Tribbles continues with a game schedule for the 21st of July. Right now, it's just Kris, Michael, and Maggie pre-registered - but I'm confident more players will turn out to get in on the fun.

Meanwhile, if you are in a part of the world where gatherings are allow, and if you have upcoming events, virtual get togethers, or anything else scheduled that's 1E related, let me know. I'd love to feature you and your friends in this column. I typically only see them if they're scheduled in our tournament software, so if you're not using that, please let me know!

Short Treks (In Other News)

• Which Tribbles powers would you cut from the Base Set if you had to cut half? Speaking of Tribbles - again - I started a poll to discussing cutting half the cards in each expansion. It's entirely a thought experiment, but I'm curious what powers - in hindsight - people would cut if they had to cut half from each expansion. We'll start with the base set this week, and work our way through all of the expansions in future weeks.


• The first TNG-only card pool tournament is in the books - which cards made waves? Now that the first TNG-only card pool tournament is in the books, it's time to talk about the cards and see what shook loose. I'm curious to hear what people think about the cards they played that worked, that didn't, or that were problems. I invite both tournament participants and observers to participate in the discussion.


• Which themed packs would you add to a TNG Cube draft? Last week's Friday question was provided by Maggie Geppert, who wants to know which themed packs should be added to a Cube draft? It sounds like the Cube draft will feature in future Chicago play - including, possibly, Worlds 20201 - so this is a good chance to sound off about what cool themes you might like to see in the future.


• You still have the chance to name a Klingon. Working with our Creative Team, the Friday question from two weeks ago gives you a chance to submit names for a background [OS] Klingon that will appear in the upcoming Project Londo. All you have to do is go to the thread I've linked and submit your ideas - up to three of them, in fact - and yours might just get picked. The Creative team will pick out several they like, and pick one to be used. And if yours is picked, you'll get a copy of the release promo for Project Londo - once it's ready.

That's all for this week's roundup of First Edition news and events. For more news, you can follow The Continuing Committee on Facebook, Twitter, or bookmark our front page. News about upcoming First Edition projects can be found in the most recent Project Status Update from June 2020. If you've got an event coming up and you'd like to be featured in this column, or if you have comments about this column's content, feel free to contact me at cplaine@gmail.com or on the forums via PM to MidnightLich. Until next week, may you expand your power in the universe and live long and prosper.

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