Second Edition Austrian National Championships winner Peter Machovits
Title: DSP Deck
Headquarters: Mouth of the Wormhole, Deep Space 9
Deck Size: 50 cards
Deck Archetype: Speed Solver
Dilemma Pile Size: 48 cards
Dilemma Pile Type: Attrition
Victory Correctly Predicted By: KillerB and Bignuts

Peter's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
The reason why I choose that deck was that I saw the decklist from Matt Kirk and I thought I really should try that. I didn't use the dilemma pile and I changed the draw deck. In the end the deck had 50 cards.

A temporal deck was my first choice, but I've played that too often. I tried a Terok Nor Deck but I didn't like that either.

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
I hoped for TOS, TNG or Starfleet Decks, since my deck was a speed solver. I hoped that I didn´t have to play against battle decks or decks with a killer dilemma pile.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
I've played speed decks more than once. I didn't learn something new.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
I used a situational card: Surprise Amity, but it helped only one time. I expected that I would use that card in every game, considering that the deck is so small. There is no card I would change next time, but maybe I would add one more ship.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
I would nominate Holding Cell as the MVP card.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
I never expected to win that tournament. Steve, Julius, and Josef are much better players than I will always be. I'm happy about my win but normally you will find me on one of the last places in a tournament.

My Commentary:
I've looked at draw decks like this one often, and I liked seeing the LMH Program here. Deep Space Nine decks tend to run light on the Medical-related skills, and the LMH has plenty of those. Of course, even with him around, we're still only looking at two Biology and two Exobilogy personnel in the deck. Just a little something to keep in mind when you're naming Rapid Progress skills against a DS9 speed deck.

DS9 speed decks are becoming pretty refined these days, but players are also adapting to them. Cards like the aforementioned Rapid Progress are part of that, but so are basic anti-weenie cards like In Development and Slightly Overbooked. That's why I'm happy to see the increase in deck size here. Peter has largely opted to add stall cards like Uninvited and Surprise Amity, which can do a lot to help cancel out those lost turns you get when you slam into a wall you can't pass. It does sound like Surprise Amity didn't quite perform up to Peter's expectations, but that's (in a way) reassuring to me. Games where Surprise Amity doesn't do much are ones that you're winning anyways, and since he continued to win those games where it wasn't impactful, I'd say it sounds like the inclusion of a come-from-behind card at least wasn't harmful.

The dilemma pile has a facet which is pretty unique to Austrian decks (okay, I guess I've only seen it in Stefan Slaby's decks). Most people treat Chula: The Game and its related dilemmas as the focus of the entire dilemma pile. After all, if you're using mostly Chula dilemmas, you're more likely to draw The Game along with something that it affects. Here we're seeing it used as more of a module that can be added to an existing pile. In practice, The Game ends up as a dead draw more often, but the pile stays well-rounded. The Game can always be placed on a mission for use against future attempts without risk anyways.

First Edition Austrian National Championships winner Stefan Slaby
Title: Superior Complexity (Indiana Jones Edition)
Deck Archetype: Solver
Play Engines: Hirogen Hunt, Home Away From Home, Nanoprobe Resuscitation, Holodeck Door
Draw Engines: Ancestral Vision, Process Ore: Mining, Handshake, Temporal Investigations
Bonus Point Mechanics: Assign Mission Specialists, Process Ore: Mining
Victory Correctly Predicted By: Me, Armus, prylardurden, and scox

Stefan's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
Well, I was trying to build several experimental things (which I would rather keep to myself for now), but when they didn't work out, and the tournament came closer, I fell back on modifying my staple Hirogen deck.

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
Once more, I was hoping not to face any DQ opponents (who could have stolen 2 of my missions). Didn't care much, otherwise.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
Same old.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
Both Temporal Micro-Wormhole and Quark's Isolinear Rods are included as dual-use cards; I can use them to download key personnel, but also to prevent an opponents Space-Time Portal drop and Computer Crash. Against Julius' MACOs with one hidden agenda (strongly suspected to be Computer Crash) I was immediately planning to save both for their countering abilities - but then I drew an all-time low terrible starting hand, and ended up having to use both for their personnel downloads to get my draw/play engines started... of course, the hidden agenda really was a Computer Crash, which made my final turn completely useless. Only the dice saved me from losing this game.

The new Security/Archaeology Alpha Mellis looks good in theory, him and Hajur (downloaded by Penk) walk through Quantum Leap. Unfortunately, both require Defend Homeworld's Security download to get out reliably, which only worked out in one of my games. In the future I might include 2-3 copies of the more versatile Madam Guinan instead.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
Let's see... In the past I've named Nanoprobe Resuscitation and the mission Restore Victims for similar decks. But this time I was only saved by the dice, so I'll have to go with Quantum Incursions. (Keep rolling that three, guys!)

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
Q's Tent slots are always tight. I'm always running two copies of Marika (because she's a free play at Home Away From Home); but putting both the single copy of Lansor and the single copy of P'Chan into the draw deck is risky due to Handshake, it vastly increases the chance that you have to discard one of them before you find a window to report/download the trio. Usually I'd have one of them in the Q's Tent, which keeps the risk manageable... putting both into the draw deck is an optimization I made for the continentals, and it didn't hurt me then, but it certainly did this time: I had to discard them on two of my games.

My Commentary:
I've been seeing people seed Temporal Conduit, even in decks without Time Locations, just to have Temporal Investigations out on turn one. I'm not surprised - seedable draw engines like Process Ore: Mining and Ancestral Vision (which also appear in this deck) are very popular. There's a big difference though, as Mining and Vision both require set up, and Temporal Investigations (at first glance) appears unreliable. That's why, until now, I haven't included it in the draw engines list in the deck deck breakdowns each week.

Quantum Incursions (which appears twice in this deck) virtually guarantees most decks that don't use an AU-icon heavy faction (like TOS or Starfleet) will still include a decent number of AU-icon personnel. And, if not, they'll have a great deal of difficulty passing a third of Incursion's requirements. Of course, there are many popular decks that use Time Locations, and you'd think that Temporal Investigations wouldn't hit much against those decks. But reporting flexibility is very important, and most Time Location decks have some way to get their AU people out to a non-Time Location place - in practice, Investigations may be more likely to net you draws against Time Location decks. I definitely need to start running it myself and keep track of how many draws I average with it per game.

Before you run and put Temporal Conduit in all your deck to use as your AU reporting/seeding permission slip, consider what you might be replacing. A delta quadrant deck like this one can more easily afford to drop Space-Time Portal in order to use this doorway - the spaceline is shorter (and The Gift grants additional Cytherians protection), and you're less likely to be staring down an armada (not that this deck is defenseless in that scenario). It may still be worth seeding both, especially considering how popular both Quantum Leap and Time Locations are. You may find yourself in a situation where you can rescue all those stranded officers. That benefit is not insignificant when you consider that Quantum Leap is only getting more and more prevalent.