First Edition British National Championships winner Stefan de Walf
Title: Kami Kami Kami Kami Kamikazons
Deck Archetype: Interference (battle)
Play Engines: New Arrivals, The Kazon Collective , Home Away From Home, Going to the Top
Draw Engines: Ancestral Vision, Habit of Disappearing, New Arrivals, Temporal Investigations
Bonus Point Mechanics: Assign Mission Specialists
Victory Correctly Predicted By: Armus.

Mr. Rohr's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
I chose this deck because I hoped Alex wouldn't have time to make a new deck. I also wanted to play Kazon again after I saw the new Wormhole Terminus, so I constructed kazon1-kazon6.dek, with kazon5.dek being the eventual winner. I also had my Romulan deck with me as a backup, but was afraid this would be a matchup against Khan if Niall decided to bring it again (which he did).

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
Other delta quadrant and decks that don't like being interfered with. I did not want to face Mirror Quadrants decks, especially those that don't use Bajoran Wormhole. I was afraid that there would be some around so I added a lot more Dickstreams at the 11th hour to reach that universe, hopefully drawing into them soon without cluttering my deck too much.

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?
Played Kazon battle quite often, needed to test the new Wormhole Terminus. Worked quite well.

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?
Didn't use any unusual situational cards. There also were no real surprises in the usefulness of the cards. Karden pulled big time, shipshirting through 2 QIs, that was awesome.

What did you think of the new Barzan Wormhole persona (Preliminary Incursion) in this deck?
Love it. Finally a consistent way to get to alpha without relying on Wormholes or Dickstreams. Unforunately, you still need those against Mirror Quadrant opponents, which were two of my games this time. I'm not a big fan of the 1E quadrant mechanics. The Terminus also makes getting your solving crew to Alpha way easier after you cleaned up the spaceline. That saves you from seeding an additional Kazon Collective or downloading the Home Away to the Warship. All of that was possible with the old mission, of course. But that was stealable so fast while being annoying to do yourself (had to waste another seed for Telek and/or HQ: Defensive).

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
I'll give it to my boy Karden this time, good job!

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
Not really. Thanks Paddy for hosting a fine event and everybody for coming.

My Commentary:
Looks like Kazon Battle's back on the menu, boys!

Well, it's not exactly like it left, it's just that some tools got harder to use and we've received some other sexy new battle options in the meantime. Outgunned used to be a staple here, but it doesn't show up at all now - needing to battle to start it, not working on docked ships, and no longer being able to use it at Headquarters makes it not quite worth it anymore. In terms of newer options, KCA battle can seed its wormhole to the AQ too, and Drones just show up everywhere.

Now that Preliminary Incursion makes travel quite a bit easier for our Kazon friends, we can enjoy their battle advantages all over again. Being able to have a stacking-doll-style fleet solves a lot of travel problems (with some Make It So action to unstop Wormhole Navigation Schematic-style). And those warships that everything fit aboard are absolutely gigantic - when affected by Captain's Log, it is almost certain to be the biggest ship in any quadrant that lacks Borg (and that assimilation immunity the Kazon have isn't nothing).

I am excited to see Habit of Disappearing reappear in non-Terran Empire decks. It was popular for a while as a seedable draw engine pre-errata - the discards were often used to fuel Nanoprobes. After it was changed to remove the cards from the game, people cooled on it. It's still good though - many seedable draw engines require some set up - the only set up this one requires is duplicating all essential cards in your deck five times. And in a deck that really wants all the draw power it can get, that's not much of an ask.

I puzzled for a bit over why Karden was such a hero for the deck, but then I remembered that QI isn't all Alternate Universe-icons and Empathy. 2 Navigation and Physics is one of the two regular skill requirements (there's also Navigation and 2 Security - and this deck has 11 Security) and Karden's right there for you with that double Navigation and Physics. What a good boy indeed.