Austrian Nationals 2023 Draft Results

by Ross Fertel, Ribbon

2nd November 2023

Austrian Nationals were held on October 21, 2023. We ran a draft to see if anyone could pick the affiliations played, so let's see how it worked out and look at the decks.

We'll start with the deck titled Staging Ground by Florian. It is flagged as Bajoran in the deck builder due to the facilities but make no mistake, this deck has Klingons and Romulans in it as well. There is no Federation affiliated card to speak of, but Florian more than makes up for them by including New Arrivals, combining nicely with the titular Staging Ground, Study Divergent History and Holoprogram: Café des Artistes help with additional card draws. This deck is not interested in the paperwork of filing mission reports, they want to go fighting Planet Killers. The tactics are all Pulse Disruptors, so when they are done getting a few points, they can set their sights on your ships.

There might be someone at your door as Johannes Klarhauser gives a gentle Knock, Knock. This deck has a backbone with The Original Series Federation but crosses over into Free Report Salad territory with Admirals Kirk and Janeway, and a few ready-made couples to draw at the Café. There is a pair of androids and Bynars in as well. For some fun, the deck forgoes Preserver Obelisk points for the simpler Assign Mission Specialists allowing a bit more flexibility when solving and scoring points. The Tournament Report goes into more detail, including how the deck was reworked from Worlds with a key substitution.

Jan S brought the first of two Vulcan decks with Derf'ltnix, a deck that takes the daring step of not including any IDIC cards. Rather, aside from using the newest affiliation, this deck has some good tricks such as the good old Captain's Log and a bunch of newer Vulcan equipment. The Vulcan Database will help with skills and draws, but this deck has none of the drawbacks you would normally have with IDIC, allowing it to go in multiple directions.

Julius Melhardt would take us into a different era with Forz Contact. The title will invite cards from a recent set, Nemesis and the twenty-first century Vulcans having some fun with the Phoenix. This deck would use IDIC: Power of High Command to form the base. You'll see more traditional Vulcan hardware with They're Not Ready, Neuropressure Massage and a card from the latest set, Ships of the Line, with Vulcan Observation finding ways to make missions harder.

The day would ultimately go to Stefan Slaby with his TNG Borg deck, User Error. This deck caused quite an uproar in realizing that The Ultimate User can ignore Computer Crash, including the instructions to discard, while the opponent does not have that option and must contend with limited downloading. There is more in the Tournament Report, but the deck goes the Consume route using Eight of Twenty to ensure Redirected Effort gets out. A couple counterparts help maximize the devastation that can be caused. For more on how flexible the deck is, check out the Tournament Report.

In terms of the draft, the range of correct guesses was two or three. No one picked a perfect slate so we will see what happens in December with British Nationals.

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