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Strategy Articles
Trek World Tour Finale: 2nd Edition World Championships
by Fritz Meissner, Staff Writer
17th November 2015
What started in London in May 2015 is finished almost six months later in Sydney. This is the conclusion to the conclusion of my Trek World Tour. Like all modern multi-part epics, this conclusion is split into thr... just kidding. This is it, one article. One long article, covering all of the 2015 Second Edition World Championships, in excruciating detail.
The Real Deal
I arrived to see a whole bunch of people that looked like Trek players waiting outside the venue. Apparently some logistical issue was keeping all but the organisers out. When we get inside, there are a few people I didn’t recognise, and we’re on the upper end of what I expected to see based on attendance in the previous few days.
While waiting for people to register I get chatting with Scott Hunstad, who is head honcho at Good Games. Scott is one of a few of the Australian Trek players whose names I remembered from Vs System days (also Scott Ward, Paul van der Werk, Kieren and apologies to any others). VS once had a Pro Circuit with bigger prizes than Magic, and these guys were responsible for creating one of the mainstays of the circuit, a deck called X-Faces. After the event where the Aussies dominated, they made a long forum thread public: it contained all their discussion during the development of the deck. I printed it out at the time and I probably still have it somewhere. Very cool to make that sort of contact after all these years.
When we’re finally ready to go, the room is far fuller than I expected; a lot more crowded than before. I’m paired at table two, against Kieren. Go time!
For those who didn’t catch the previous articles, I was playing 5 space Voyager with Chakotay cheese and a kill pile including 8-costers, with dilemma support in the form of Endangered and Conflict. The list is at the bottom.
ROUND ONE vs. Kieren Otton - Gamma Quadrant DS9
I remember thinking that there wasn’t going to be much DS9 at worlds, so I didn’t need to worry too much about the almost auto-win that the Sao Paolo and Ezri give DS9 against a kill pile. So thanks Steve, for that awesome round one pairing. Don’t panic, and remember that the Sao Paolo doesn’t work on planets, I told myself. To my relief, he plays Repurposed Warship Defiant and looking at his decklist I see Ezri isn’t even included. However, he is playing the space Stakoron mission, which really makes Tragic Turn a tough call at 4 counters. He got the solve there when Overburdened whiffed, and I figured he must have mostly skill dilemmas. I made a note to avoid that one again.
At Pacify Warring Factions, his personnel go to hand instead of dying. I decide to just go all out with the kill regardless to make him at least have to pay for them again. It’s the right decision as he ends one turn with about 13 cards in hand and has to discard.
I was in the lead most of the game, but for the millionth time with this deck I forget to move my ship after I solve my Space Catapult third mission. Put that one down to first game jitters. Fortunately, he doesn’t manage to win on the last turn after time and I went second. I solve my fourth on the last turn for the FW.
Result: Full Win (Cumulative 1-0)
ROUND TWO vs. Harshana Randeni - Stakoron Dominion
I’d been keeping an eye on relative newcomer Harshana’s progress in Trek this year for two reasons. First, attempting to scout my Australian opposition, and Hash has been near the top since shortly after he started playing. Second, he’d been playing a deck that I’m pretty sure was netdecked from me. I knew this from the title: "Alpha Solver + Mobilisation Points" with an S because that’s how you spell the word, dammit! (Editor's Note: this appears to be a false statement). In fact, I was really only responsible for the addition of that one card to a Nickyank build that I gave to fellow South African, Daymon Watt. Of course, he beat me with it at our regional, and that’s how it got into the public eye.
But back to this game. For Worlds, Hash had an upgrade: point loss Dominion including Torga IV. There was going to be all sorts of maths, what with Stakoron missions increasing the cost my mostly dual dilemma pile and having to remember how many points I could afford to spend on Endangered while still being able to reach 100.
I have solves early, and he’s missing the Stakoron skills. Eventually, he heads to Torga IV because he still doesn’t have what he needs. Secret Identity takes out the anti-kill Amat’igan, but again I see an Overburdened whiff and I’m left to wonder if I should have been scouting the Aussie dilemma piles more thoroughly. Do they lean more heavily on skill dilemmas than other metas? In any case, that gives him the solve and reduces my points by 10. At his second mission, I hold on for two attempts after Conflict and Entangled allow me to play enough dilemmas to kill all but two of his personnel. He has people left at his HQ, but he doesn’t have staffing or range to get home and back.
I need to solve two missions to win with some dilemmas under the first already. Time is called and he will get another turn, unless I can win. I solve one and I still have all the skills left for Caretaker’s Array. Hash had already impressed me with his skill tracking, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that he only needed one dilemma (Inequitable Exchange) is to take out my only Diplomacy and with it my chance at the full win.
With the full win out of the window, I had to shut him out at space Stakoron for my comfortable lead on points (80-30) to count for anything. The dilemmas were already piled high and he draws and plays a new ship, allowing him to come back with all his personnel from the HQ. I think I burned more points on either Endangered or Conflict, but didn’t draw anything I could use, so he solves. At the end of his turn it’s the nightmare 5 space scenario: ahead on points but behind on victory conditions.
Result: Modified Loss (Cumulative 1-1)
ROUND THREE vs. Steve Hartmann - Klingon battle
Without an HQ you’d imagine any sort of battle is a bad matchup. As far back as Euros, I had B’Elanna Torres, Straightforward Engineer and the Emergency Command Hologram, and then I didn’t face any battle. When I finally did get the proper testing in (see the Kassel road trip section here), I realised that the thing to do is just to keep going. I have a big, fast deck that can handle a reset and still keep going to win against a deck that isn’t putting much effort into solving.
Of course, I didn’t know what sort of Klingons Steve was playing when he sat down. He said something about having made a bad choice of deck. My first clue was that he chose B’Elanna for Secret Identity on my first attempt, when she wasn’t one of the mission skills. I bring in Original Thinker Kirk to overcome the next dilemma and solve. The next turn, he plays a battle card, flies over, and places a damage marker. On my next turn, I get the miracle draw of the second B’Elanna in the 83 card deck.
He’s not giving up though, and brings a second ship over while I continue solving. Emergency Command Hologram removes two markers after I bounce him with Cluttering Irrelevancies and play him again. This was a handy side effect that I hadn’t thought about when including the card. However, Steve is persistent. I Caretaker’s download another copy of Voyager on the turn that it is obvious that the one in play is going to blow up. On Steve’s turn, he sends about eight people to their space graves.
It takes me two turns to rebuild, in which time Steve’s Klingons go through the Tragic Turn cardboard shredding machine. He solves one and places a lot under the second, but IIRC he was lacking one of the skills after all that killing. Fortunately, I already had three solves by the time Steve destroyed Voyager and on the last turn at time (mine) the replacements solve the fourth.
Result: Full Win (Cumulative 2-1)
ROUND FOUR vs. Coogee - Moar Klingon battle
Coogee is a recent returnee to the game, having retired somewhere around Necessary Evil. I knew he was playing his signature deck, mostly with engagements of the personnel killing kind, so damage marker removal wasn’t gong to help. When we played at the warmup the weekend before, I won because my Cardassian deck had an infinite supply of weenies to sacrifice and replay after Tacking into the Wind. My Voyager personnel cost a lot more, but when I played against a similar build by Benjamin Liebich the same lesson applied: just keep going, Voyager is fast.
In the beginning, I luckily draw into an ETU, but a few turns later he has me down to three personnel and I’ve not drawn enough Astrometrics to keep up with the slaughter. Astrometrics is usually something I have in spades, but I had to abandon Inversion Mystery, which already had two under it, and move to Caretaker’s Array. Fortunately, Caretaker’s also doesn’t require a lot of people, so I was able to keep attempting while rebuilding. While Coogee tries his luck against Tragic Turn, I solve Caretaker’s, then having drawn my Astrometrics it’s back to my other missions. I win about about two minutes before time.
From conversation at the warmup and after this game it’s clear that my deck changes some of the conditions Coogee is used to operating under. It’s European-style big, so there’s no chance of a deckout, which apparently happened frequently against other opponents. As a result of always having personnel to play and attempt with, I used up more time than opponents with an empty board, and that’s before Homeward Bound and all the decision-making "while facing a dilemma" from Telfer, Chakotay, Janeway etc. Unfortunately 2e loses a bit of variety due to time constraints. I’d like to see that change, but at the same time I’m dead set against increasing the time limit when back home I have to promote the game amongst Magic and Pokemon players, who can’t even handle a sixty minute game. If anything, I say increase the ability of the interaction teams to score points, and shorten the game to 50 minutes so that the big control solvers can’t squeak home. In any case, kudos to Coogee for playing something different and ultimately qualifying for Day 2, in ninth place.
Result: Full Win (Cumulative 3-1)
ROUND FIVE vs. Steve Mason - Damplaced Starfleet
Steve was one of a group of people who came to Worlds after doing a midnight Magic pre-release. I discovered later that there was a Sydney Grand Prix a few weeks later and this was one of few opportunities to try the new set before that. Nonetheless, Steve was showing huge commitment to still be going in round five, and doing pretty well at that.
As soon as I see his missions, I know that Phlox and Archer are bad news for my pile. I go for Caretaker’s first because I draw the skills (I’m normally low on Diplomacy early) and an easy first solve will stop the Starfleet HQ bonus. On his side, I stop him with two under and he forgets to use Phlox. On the next attempt, I Secret Identity Archer and get a lucky pick on Phlox as the first of three Tsiolkovsky Infection kills. He plays another Archer but I draw my second Secret Identity. Of course another Phlox replaces Archer and Steve starts returning people to hand, but they’re still gone from the attempt and he doesn’t have enough to solve.
Having won the Archer battle and solving Caretaker’s to prevent the HQ bonus, I’m feeling confident. Conflict and Endangered give me enough dilemmas to kill every single one of his personnel (I can’t remember what I did about the second Phlox) and although he rebuilds to solve his first, he can’t solve a second. Time is called on my last turn and as I went second, so that’s it. One Homeward Bound is prevented with Grav-Plating Trap, but I have another in hand. That’s enough to get me to three missions, but not four, so it’s a rare five space mod win.
My preparation served me well in this game: Steve said something about Archer causing problems for his opponents all day, but I was ready thanks to all the people who played Starfleet against me online, Benjamin at German Nationals, and local youngster Brandon Oosthuizen, whose favourite affiliation is Starfleet despite being born after the show ended.
Result: Mod Win (Cumulative 4-1)
If you’re keeping track, that’s basically all my games gone to time and it’s starting to take a toll. A trek and nerd-sweat induced migraine is setting in, but it’s onwards to game six. At least whatever happens I will have earned it :).
ROUND SIX vs. Greg Dillon - Stakoron Relativity
Going into the event Greg must have been the Australian favourite, especially after their continentals. In preparation, I had tested both his day 2 Maquis and day 1 Relativity. I learned that I didn’t like Maquis, but I beat his Relativity with my Voyager, at least when I was playing both sides of the table. However, today’s deck was a different build, using Stakoron missions. Not an obvious combination, but amongst the Relativity superstars there is plenty of cunning, enough to get Cunning > 36 with the right five people.
I attempt first because Greg is missing staffing early and I solve Caretaker’s. When he finally gets to Stakoron, he has seven people. With what I drew I’m pretty much limited to one dilemma due to the increased cost of my duals. I know that he has the skills for the Tsiolkovsky Infection I drew because he has Revised Doctor and future Bashir. I also had He Wasn’t Nice and I know he has two copies of Marris, but I didn’t know if he could squeak by with five people. What I’m left with is Simulated Prey, which would kill two, including at least one mission skill. Seems like a decent option, and if it works that’s a stop with only one under. Unfortunately, he prevents one kill with Revised Chakotay (so killing both copies of Marris definitely wouldn’t have been enough) and he solves, easily. At planet Stakoron, it’s another solve with only one under. Ouch.
We’re tied at two missions after a Secret Identity allows me to OT Kirk at Inversion Mystery. At space catapult, I have a difficult choice between Biology and Medical for Put to the Screws. I have four of each, but through migraine induced haze I realise I can still do the stats if I pick right and use a Chakotay unstop. I take ages to make the decision and then realise that I don’t have Physics for the catapult anyway. At least I was able to cheat one extra medical to keep a Healing Hand from returning to his pile.
Before his third he uses Quinn to take out my events, but I have Conflict to make up the lost discount on an 8-coster. My kill pile takes out all of a skill (I can’t remember which), but he rebuilds on the following turn because Temporal Transporters. It’s an easy solve and that’s my quickest game all weekend. At least I have time to go eat.
Result:Full loss (Cumulative 4-2)
ROUND SEVEN vs. Richard Plunkett - TNG unkillable, unstoppable superstars
The air outside our trek basement was a good chance to recover but the moment I stepped back into the dungeon the round seven migraine - and now nausea - returned. Apologies to Richard, but he looked like I felt. He asked me to shuffle his deck because RSI made this difficult for him. I sympathise, having gone through a period of way too much computer gaming where real life activities like shuffling cards became physically painful. I don’t do real time computer games anymore as a result, and fortunately card games are no longer a problem.
Having not heard Richard’s name mentioned in relation to recent tournaments (or met him in the week preceding) I was arrogant about this game. I felt like I had a good handle on who the Australian threats were. In fact, Richard had finished one place ahead of me in the previous weekend’s warmup, and of course I should have thought about the fact that he was at a similar place in the standings. Even more so had I seen who he beat in the previous rounds. There was a reason I hadn’t faced more of the people I was worried about.
In my arrogance, I didn’t think much about Richard’s TNG when I saw his missions. There’s an unimaginable number of deck possibilities in this game, and in my brief career I’ve just barely kept a handle on things by focusing on the most competitive decks. TNG hasn’t made a big showing: one masters win and one regional win, if I’m counting right. I wasn’t prepared, and spent the whole game with an overwhelming sense of disbelief at how cards I’d never even seen before dismantled my dilemma pile. Pulaski, Alyssa Ogawa, and Beverly Crusher prevent kills, and Tasha Yar sacrifices herself because she thinks she can do better than Star Trek. But the real destroyer-in-chief was battleship Worf. I name a personnel for He Wasn’t Nice, he swaps them out and suddenly there’s no-one present with that title. I name a skill for The Clown: Guillotine, he swaps the skills out and then brings them back in the next dilemma. Completely defanged.
At the end of the game, he’s done two planet missions and has more points than I, while I have two space and can’t get a third to get ahead. I’m not even sure I could have done anything differently, his deck was a solid metagame choice and my own was particularly reliant on just never facing this sort of redundant kill prevention plus tricks.
Result: Mod Loss (Cumulative 4-3)
ROUND EIGHT vs. Matthew Ting - Oh look, more Stakoron
Ting’s was very much a name I did know. Top in day one of Oz continentals, second on day two. And of course, I’d chatted to him all week at the venue. Looking at my results against Stakoron so far, I wasn’t pleased with my chances, so I gave Leg Warehouse a call. The conversation went something like this:
LEG SALES GUY: Leg Warehouse, this is Jeff speaking
ME: Hi there, I keep losing to decks using the new Stakoron missions, and I’m about to face another. That’s pretty BS, right?
LEG SALES GUY: Hold on sir, let me see if I can help you
ME: No problem
LEG SALES GUY: Sir, I checked our records and it seems you’re using Homeward Bound, old Chakotay and Original Thinker Kirk in the same deck.
ME: That’s right, I’m playing five space V...
LEG SALES GUY: (interrupting) I’m afraid our BS department has advised me that your deck has too high a BS level for us to help you out.
ME: There’s nothing you can do?
LEG SALES GUY: Sorry sir, you have nothing to stand on
So it was win and go through on 5-3 or lose and possibly go out on 4-4 which would be hugely disappointing given my 4-1 a few rounds before. And I had to do it against a solid player using something that had given me problems the whole day.
At Orlitus Cluster, I get pinged with Causal Recursion. Great, another 10 points to worry about. I get stuck on the exact attributes twice, and finally get through after Secret Identity allows me to Kirk. Ting asks me, "how were you going to play him normally?" :0. Then my Secret Identity takes out a medical and he has to bring in two different skills to pass Tsiolkovsky Infection. His answer is to bring in Odo who has both and allows him to play Dominion Hierarchy to solve space Stakoron with two under. So he’s on 35, I’m on 30 and I need an extra 10. If I want to use Conflict and Endangered, I have to solve my 30+ point missions and forget about Caretaker’s Array.
At Inversion Mystery, I get an easy solve because he misses the Diplomacy that T’Pol gains when she’s hangin’ with the hew-mons. Lots of Cluttering, Chakotay, and Janeway shenanigans get me a third. Meanwhile, I killed all of his Engineer at planet Stakoron with the help of Conflict and Endangered. At time, he gets another turn after me and apparently drew the engineers to solve a stacked Stakoron mission. Fortunately for me, I get a game-ending fourth solve before that can happen.
Result:Full Win (Cumulative 5-3)
So I finished in eighth place! It’s a decently early start the next day (for me, anyway), so I headed home to think about what I have in mind for day two. Coming at me on the bracket was Ken Tufts in game one. I had heard rumours of some crazy lockout deck that Ken and MVB had worked on and I knew there was no way to prepare for that. If I lost, I would still get another chance against the winner between Kieren and Richard Plunkett, whose TNG had destroyed my dilemma pile in the swiss. Richard was the higher placed player, so my attention was mostly focused on what I could do differently against him. I wanted to back up my eight placed finish and not be knocked down to a lower position (even though coming in all I wanted was a top sixteen spot).
There was some serious stress at this point. Should I switch to my Cardassians and try to outspeed the TNG? They didn’t really have the tricks to match. Or build a new Dominion deck? I wasn’t going to try something new the night before day two of worlds. Finally, I recalled the voice of reason from Sascha Kiefer a few weeks earlier: "play what you know". There was nothing I could play as well as Voyager, the die was cast.
Instead, I thought about Richard’s deck. It was all about high attribute TNG star power attempting low attribute missions, except for Aid Lost Colony where he attempted first with attributes booster McCoy. Two silver bullets in the metagame keep the low attribute microteaming from becoming a popular strategy: Insurrection and Transporter Crash Survivors. I had neither, so I was vulnerable. However, the stars I had to worry about were obvious: take out Worf and the kill prevention gang. How to do that? Add Secret Identity up to my max of three, and another Necessary Execution, since he went planet first in order to get the McCoy bonus at his highest attribute mission. Although I felt helpless in my game against him the first time, it wasn’t a blowout. I just had to hope that this was enough to put me ahead.
Last job of the evening was another deck check and update the list on TrekCC. Then sleep!
Day Two
So sixteen of us show up in the morning of day two and it’s all official-like. Each deck goes in a box which is taken away from us between rounds, and Steve makes sure everyone has a printed list (I got away without by offering my tablet and a TrekCC ID for deck checking when my turn came round). Also, the camera is on and I’m on nerd TV with Ken in round one. Yikes. Time to see whatever diabolical invention awaits.
Round of 16 vs. Ken Tufts - TOS
Once the camera is rolling and I see his missions, I breathe a sigh of relief. It’s the same deck he played in day one. I didn’t see it in action but I was pretty sure it was a straightforward solver. He says, "I couldn’t argue with the results from yesterday" - fair enough, having gone 8-0. But it’s a solver, and I can beat solvers, right?
There’s a video which has a much more complete record of the game than I can give here. Normally, I’m pretty carefree with the minor details in these reports. If my memory and notes are hazy, so are my opponent’s, so I just assume correctness. Of course there’s now an authoritative record so I’ll just say that these things happened without being certain of the order:
- Ken looked at my dilemma pile and decided it was too big to be a consume pile. Consequently, he went with more people on his first attempt than he could have and got slaughtered by Necessary Execution (planet first!) and other nasty stuff. I killed mission skills AND took out Staffer Sisko. Wewt!
- Ken blew up lots of my events, I just played more. They didn’t have much of an impact on the game unfortunately.
- Dead Ringer plus Dukat is unbelievably good. Like better than Stakoron and Homeward Bound good. Anyone can use them, and it’s a skill dilemma, which really is BS. Paired with Ken’s virtually 100% skill tracking and I felt like I was suddenly playing a deck with no tricks. In fact, I did have a trick that I didn’t think about: Telfer could discard people while facing the dilemma in order to have someone in the discard pile as a replacement. Ken helpfully mentioned this after the game :).
- I had a boneheaded moment where I attempted a mission without the skills because I forgot Inequitable Exchange took someone out on the previous turn. Ken realised it before I did, but he didn’t know what I might have that could cheat skills during the attempt. There was a long staredown but Ken eventually called my "bluff" and gave me zero dilemmas. There wasn’t much else I could have done but wait anyway.
After the initial slaughter, Ken was very deliberate with assembling his crew and had all the bonus points (Enterprise and Tallera) in place for his two mission win. It felt like a steam roller was coming up behind me while I was banging my head repeatedly against Dead Ringer. I could be wrong, but I think Ken blanked me, making this the only game all weekend (and possibly the whole week?) where I didn’t get any points.
Round of 12 vs. Richard Plunkett - TNG
So having lost that game, I’ve got the matchup I prepared for against Richard. The plan works out perfectly, with Necessary Execution fuelling a first attempt de-staffing. He still has three personnel but the U.S.S. Pasteur needs four stars. This left him just drawing for more stars and ships for at least one turn.
On my side of the table, I’m left flustered by a miscommunication during one of my attempts. I’m at Inversion Mystery and staring down a moral choice, contemplating what unstopping to do. There’s one dilemma and four counters left. Thinking about Where No One Has Gone Before (the only dilemma that really bothers me), I realise that I don’t have Physics and I couldn’t do the Integrity route so I mumble, "well, I can’t pass that..." (meaning WNOHGB) and start thinking about the mission. Richard hears me and says, "well then this doesn’t matter", flips Polywater Intoxication and takes it back. I’m confused in the moment and acknowledge the end of the attempt, but I actually would have solved the mission had we played it out (with or without polywater and I had Chakotay cheese). Frustrating, but at this point it’s too late.
Once he’s going again, Richard heads to space rather than facing more Necessary Execution. I target Biology with The Clown: Guillotine because that’s what most of his missions need and I want maximum kills. Unfortunately with Pulaski in play and shuffling people into his deck, this lets him play Vintner Picard more than once for downloads. All the kill prevention also prevents Tragic Turn from firing. It didn’t help when he revealed the last dilemma in a stack and it’s an ACE. I’ve made many stupid mistakes this year, but placing an ACE where it can’t be consumed is a new low. Under these conditions, he manages to solve space and planet missions. It’s enough for a modified win unless I can get four missions.
At time, I have the last word because I went second. I’m at a solved mission with range, I have to get to Repair Null Space Catapult which already has dilemmas under it (I must have been missing skills since I see Richard’s deck didn’t have The Clown: Go Away), and then solve a fourth. I had drawn one Homeward Bound and pre-emptively fetched another with Telfer, and I had eleven personnel. The catapult would take care of the range if I solved it.
The catapult was done in one with some people stopped, but they could come along for the ride to be unstopped later. With two Homeward Bounds, I’d get three attempts at the last mission. The first attempt with a smaller crew was stopped with two under. Homeward Bound and eleven personnel are ready to go again, but despite burning my last Chakotay fuel, he has enough filters for Breaking the Ice, so it’s down to the last Homeward Bound. Eleven personnel, five under, six to draw but Richard’s 31 card pile is running very low. He shuffles for the second time this turn...
...and doesn’t get enough to take out my mission skills. Victory at the death!
At this point, I’ve achieved everything I ever wanted in my Trek career. Go to worlds: check. Qualify from day one: check. Don’t embarrass myself on day two: check. The show doesn’t stop there though.
Quarterfinals vs. Ben Dillon - Romulans + Tragic Turn
Looking to the right and left of me - It’s four Aussies and four travellers in the quarterfinals, Oz vs. International in every game - I comment that I can only go up from here, since I qualified eighth. I’m expecting something day two-ish from 2014 continental winner Ben, and the spaceline doesn’t disappoint: Romulans, probably (I thought) with Tragic Turn, or so Aid Legendary Civilisation would have me believe. Assess Contamination to overcome my dilemmas, Commandeer Prototype for the Phoenix, Transport Crash Survivors to stop small teams. If it was discard Romulans, that might be difficult (if only because of my lack of practice), but the PnP/GUYS/AWC solver is more common in this meta and I felt like I had the goods to beat it. Cautious optimism then.
Donatra shows up early, so that’s double trouble at Assess Contamination. My first dilemma draw includes The Clown: Guillotine and Simulated Prey, both "skill" dilemmas. Later on I throw TT first knowing that AC will overcome it, then Secret Identity Donatra and kill some more people. That may have been a mistake because it gave Ben a chance to fetch The Viceroy. On the other hand, I’d stopped two mission attempts and removed the skills he needed for that mission.
Meanwhile, the crew of the U.S.S. Voyager was making steady progress: attempt with six, get two killed, play two more, solve. The deck is so huge with so much redundancy that there’s basically no chance of running out of skills. Ben’s Far Seeing Eyes took out some Diplomacy people after the last one in play was killed, but I drew Janeway the next turn. With about ten minutes to go, I was two missions and dilemmas under the third ahead. Ben says something about needing to win in one turn. That’s when the At What Cost machine started and the Romulans spewed forth. He solves Aid Legendary Civilisation and sets off the bomb, then back to Assess Contamination. I was finally slowed to the point of not being able to make useful attempts. A turn later, I have enough people to avoid Transport Crash Survivors, but not the skills for the mission I’ve started. I move to a fresh mission and fail.
It’s two missions each and we’re tied on points at time (2 space plays 2 planets, so no modified win). He gets the last turn and I mention that as things are he’ll go through on seeding. I’m even closer to conceding when he scores points from Getting Under Your Skin, but he spends the points for At What Cost, drawing and playing Power Shifts. There’s ship shuffling (half of his people were at the solved Assess Contamination), then he heads to his third mission. In his shoes, I would have wanted to end my turn there with the seeding advantage, but been too insecure about the possibility of my opponent having some bizarre last gasp 5 point play.
In any case, there are zero dilemmas under Commandeer Prototype so I have every chance to kill his people, but no way of making him lose points. Between all the AWCs he has enough people for a double attempt. I stop the first and kill some of the second, picking Treachery with The Clown because I don’t really know what all he has, but he’s keeping the body count up with exclusions and kill prevention. At the last dilemma, he confidently Power Shifts twice to get the attributes, then starts checking mission requirements. Cunning 34. Intelligence. Officer. Treach... no Treachery.
... And 10 points down.
Somehow, I’m through to the last four in the worst victory ever. Later on, Ben tells me that he wanted to play for a win and didn’t feel like going through on seeding was worth it. Kudos to him, in the end I really didn’t have what it took to beat him.
Semifinals vs. Ken Tufts - TOS Dead Ringer Two Mission Win
Before the game Justin gives me an underdog pep talk - "we can do it!" - before sitting down across from MVB. The Aussies are out and now it’s Africa vs. North America :).
Unfortunately, I really didn’t have any new answers for Ken’s deck. His advice about using Telfer to discard people to pass Dead Ringer was no good because I didn’t draw Telfer (three out of 83, the lucky draws had to end somewhere). We both had one dead dilemma draw that gave away a mission attempt, but his deck only needed two successful attempts, whereas mine needs four. Ken’s cool finishing move was inventing a skill with Driven until the end of a dilemma, then using John Harriman to copy it until the end of the attempt. Not the worst way to finally be knocked out.
Aftermath
I was fine with ending my run there. Justin also lost and we took the chance to find some food outside and not talk Trek (I’m kidding, of course we talked Trek, I just can’t remember what). There was a super awkward event in the park next door, sponsored by some or other brand of whisky where a touring band was playing to an audience of three. They were pretty good, too bad about the audience.
After Ken beat MVB by one game and one true tie in the 2e final, I borrowed a Tribbles deck from Steve H and sat down for my pod having never played a game of Tribbles before in my life. Ben, Amber, and Danny P taught me the rules while we played, and then I somehow pulled a miracle move to win the table. This lead to the awkward position of being on camera at the final table still not knowing the rules. My illegal and dumbwitted moves are documented somewhere forever, but fortunately I escaped after going out early in at least one round. MVB improved his 2e finish by one to take the title.
An awesome prize giving ended the long weekend. I tried to think of luggage space, but I still found myself loaded with, amongst other things, the two JJ-Trek movies on Bluray, a million Tribbles promos, a set of Commons from Necessary Evil and an orange hat (thanks Kris!), plus my fourth place binder and Worlds playmat. Ting also gave me a continentals playmat that he had spare. So incredible to see the organisers - Steve, Kieren, Mathyas - still giving after a week of intense organising and months of preparation before that.
After... Aftermath?
It’s been a long road and I’ve seen some amazing spots, but now that I’m back home I’d like to say some things about my last stops. Bear with me, but we’re pretty arrogant about the beauty of Cape Town - we have beaches with white sand (honestly, I didn’t know that any other kind existed until I left), the 25-year island "home" of a certain Nelson Mandela, a unique mountain next to the sea, winelands, forests, plus a winter that is warmer than your winter and a summer that’s cooler than your summer. Unless you live in Seattle or London, in which case it’s just warmer.
With that in mind, I thought I was going to Australia to play cards, but Sydney took me by surprise. It’s a global city with real diversity and energy, but with light and warmth and incredible sights to see. The city centre is skyscrapers coming out of water, and even though many cities I visited (e.g. London, Berlin, Prague, Amsterdam) have plenty of water and big buildings, there was something new and startling about this. Plus, any day you like you can take a ferry instead of a train. The closest stop was a few hundred metres from the Worlds venue. Imagine arriving for a week of cards by boat: that’d be a baller move, if I’d only thought of it. But even if you don’t want to play cards, go visit. While you’re there, you’ll meet some of the nicest Trekkies on earth.
Then, I also visited a pair of islands called New Zealand. If you survive the lengthy flight to Australia and feel like you need more of a challenge, do yourself a favour and visit this place. It’s as far South as you can go without living in Antarctica, and it has ancient natural beauty with unique character. I can sell it with just one phrase: "Milford Sound". That’s all you need to ask Google Images. Someone needs to do us all a favour and start a thirty person New Zealand playgroup so we can have worlds there one day.
That’s it from me. Thank you all for bearing with my nostalgia about places and events made a reality after decades of dreaming. Have fun with Trek wherever you are, and maybe I’ll see you in London!
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Tournament Record:
- Constructed (2015-08-22): 3rd place
- Constructed (2015-08-23): 1st place
- Constructed - Worlds Day One (2015-09-26): 8th place
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