First Edition Swedish National Championships winner Stefan de Walf ![]() |
Stefan's Commentary: Other decks included a take on dissident lockout (which really underperformed in testing, though) or some other form of Romulan deck. What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face? 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? 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? What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck? Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck? |
My Commentary: Smuggler's Rendezvous, on the other hand, is a card that I didn't give a second thought to after it was spoiled. It seems really good at first, what with all 22nd century personnel being native to it and all, and you also get a free outpost there (which gets UFP: One Small Step), and you get to seed a ship there. But then I got to the part where your personnel cannot report to other time locations, and I wrote it off. Turns out, I was wrong! The flexibility to use all those skill-dense 22nd century personnel is clearly worth the restriction, and a battle-based deck will always be happy to have a seeded ship - in addition to the Husnock Ship that we also see here. One thing I've noticed in the last few winning decks is the absence of AU dilemmas. The prevalence of Timepod Ring (thanks to Temporal Benefactor) has lead to a precipitous drop-off in AU dilemma use - only Jon Carter has used one in the past six weeks (Quantum Leap). Now, given how much we were seeing Quantum Leap before Temporal Benefactor came out, I'm not exactly heartbroken to see it fade away, but I'm also a bit concerned that all the other AU dilemmas are disappearing too. I'm seeing more prevention cards (typically Quinn and Kevin Uxbridge) showing up these days, and Stefan runs a couple Kevins here. After quite a few years of every important event sporting the "Immune to Kevin Uxbridge" tag, we've seen several powerful events without it. Everyone's favorite Romulan Minefield can get evaporated (not that this deck has much to fear from it), as can my nemesis from last week, Disrupted Continuum. Maybe it's time for me to run one or two Kevins. |
Second Edition Moscow Regional winner Nickolay Korotya |
Nickolay's Commentary: What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face? 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? 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? What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck? Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck? Follow up question: I don't often see Historical Research in Relativity decks. Who are typically your targets for the download? |
My Commentary: Now, of course, Charlie would remind me that the discards from Temporal Transporter's replicate cost shouldn't be counted strictly as one counter each, because there are more ways to get cards into your hand than by spending a counter to draw them. Well, there aren't many decks where that reminder is quite as true as it is for this deck. Nickolay is not just running Historical Monitor with a bunch of Temporal events (Relativity loves those for fueling Naomi's ability) - he also has a bunch of equipment and Fajo's Menagerie. They're both Order phase draw engines, which make them just a little awkward to use to fuel Temporal Transporters, but that's just a matter of developing experience with the flow of the deck. And with five years of playing the deck under his belt, that's certainly something Nickolay has in spades. Sometimes in a deck with a bunch of interrupts, you'll find yourself with a hand that's full of cards that you can't play, and Nickolay has an app for that situation too. He's running both of the 4-cost "discard and interrupt" kill dilemmas, which should help out with just that sort of situation, in addition to thinning out the opponent's personnel. Then, once those interrupts have been played, they'll be sitting in the discard pile, fueling Divide and Conquer. Even just three interrupts discarded will boost Divide's attribute requirements above the level of most mission requirements, but I suspect that in most games the total reaches much higher levels. |
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