The Road to Worlds 2011, Week 6

by James Hoskin, Director of Organized Play

5th May 2011

This is a weekly series that aims to preview upcoming Regional tournaments, review Regional tournaments that have just taken place, highlight winning decks, interview players, and more. Last week's article was The Road to Worlds 2011, Week 5.

How can you contribute to this series? First and foremost, I am relying on results and deck lists being promptly entered into this site. I can't write about them otherwise. Other ways you can help include taking photos, interviewing players, writing previews, and providing background information. Any other way to help the community be a part of your Regional tournament would be appreciated, too. Contact details are at the end of this article.

Week 5 Review

Saturday 30th April		Sunday 1st May
Second Edition (Standard) The Guardtower 3600 Trabue Road Columbus, OH 43204 United States [Results]	First Edition (Official) Round Table Pizza 2960 Treat Boulevard Concord, CA 94518 United States [Results]	Second Edition (Standard) COMSSA Common Room Building 314 Curtin University of Technology Kent Street Bentley, WA 6102 Australia [Results]	Tribbles (Standard) COMSSA Common Room Building 314 Curtin University of Technology Kent Street Bentley, WA 6102 Australia [Results]

The Guardtower: Ten players participated in this five round slugfest in the Qo'noS Region. While no one player remained undefeated, three players lost just one game each. Jared Hoffman (Mugato), playing a Klingon deck titled "The Big Red Machine", suffered his only loss to Brian Sykes (Armus) in the first round. Brian, playing a Romulan deck titled "My Take on the Donatra Deck", then lost his only game to John Corbett (KillerB) in round two. In the final round, John, playing a Terok Nor deck titled "Everyday I'm Bustlin'", then lost his only game to Jared. After the dust settled, Brian's modified win over Jared left him in third place. John's loss to Jared left him in second place, and Jared - my pick to win - was crowned the winner of this Regional for the third time in four years. Special mention goes to Joshua Sheets (prylardurden), for playing in his fourth Regional Championship tournament in four weeks. Of the ten decks being played, ten different headquarters were on display, and there was no Next Generation or Original Series deck to be seen anywhere. All ten deck lists and two tournament reports can be found on the tournament results page, and an interview with the winner, Jared Hoffman, is below.

Statistics from The Guardtower:

Total achievements awarded	21
Most achievements won	John Corbett (KillerB) and Joshua Sprung (Sprode), with 4 each
Average achievements per player	2.1
Biggest ratings gain	Brian Sykes (Armus), up 47 points to 1680
Average rating of all 10 players	1571

Round Table Pizza: The results for this Risa Regional have yet to be entered. When they are, a review of the tournament will be added to this article.

COMSSA Common Room (2E): Sunday's Deep Space Station K-7 Region double-header began with four players fighting it out for the title of Second Edition Regional Champion. Over three rounds, three players each suffered one loss to each other. Robert Dawson (TBT), playing a Original Series solver titled "Normally I post decklists with really inappropriate titles, ...", beat Matthyas Kiraly (stoovie) in the first round. Matthyas, playing a Klingon speed solver, then beat Matthew Townsend (thac0276) in round two. Matthew, also playing a Klingon solver, then beat Robert in round three to tie things up. My pick to win, Robert, won the battle of the tiebreakers and took this Regional title for the third time in four years. Robert also wins the unofficial achievement for longest Regional winning deck title so far (40 words / 223 characters), and the unofficial shoutout achievement for mentioning me in his deck title (not that I encourage or care about that sort of thing- honest!) One deck list can be found on the tournament results page.

Statistics from COMSSA Common Room (2E):

Total achievements awarded	5
Most achievements won	Robert Dawson (TBT), with 2
Average achievements per player	1.3
Biggest ratings gain	Matthew Townsend (thac0276), up 28 points to 1522
Average rating of all 4 players	1560

COMSSA Common Room (Tr): The second half of the Deep Space Station K-7 Region double-header saw the same four players vying to become the first Australian Tribbles Regional Champion. Matthyas Kiraly (stoovie) reports that the five rounds were over in half an hour and that he came out on top with 322,222 Tribbles to his name. Daniel Hyde (zephrem) took second place with 232,412 Tribbles; Matthew Townsend (thac0276) was third with 103,224 Tribbles; and my pick to win, Robert Dawson (TBT) came dead last with only 21,211 Tribbles. At the time of writing, no deck lists from this tournament have been posted in the Tribbles forum.

Statistics from COMSSA Common Room (Tr):

Total achievements awarded	1
Most achievements won	Matthyas Kiraly (stoovie), with 1
Average achievements per player	0.3
Total Tribbles Scored	679,069
Average Tribbles scored by all 4 players	169,767

Interview

This week, Jared Hoffman (Mugato); three times Qo'noS Regional Champion, and the ninth highest ranked Second Edition player in the world, takes centre stage.

James: Congratulations on your win, Jared. In preparation for the tournament, what decks were you considering?
Jared: I looked at the different decks I had played before, mostly solvers, and considered some new ideas with the later sets, but I wanted to try something I had not done before. I've only used Kruge (Instinctive Commander) as a splash in a Klingon solver deck and I'd never played a massive Tragic Turn kill pile. I've played against Ben & Neil's Kingon decks several times over the last few years and was not able to get a win, so I figured the next step in understanding how to beat it was to build it, test it and play it. I certainly didn't have anywhere close to their level of understanding or practice playing an interactive deck like this so I did some research on the different Kruge decks I could find and studied the deck designs of each. Then, I built a copy of one of Ben's builds about a week before the tournament and started practicing with it. I messed around with different selections for the deck and dilemma pile, but I knew the deck I played would largely be the same.

James: What decks did you expect to face?
Jared: My primary goal for this tournament was practice, not winning the tournament. I figured we'd have between six and eight people for this tournament and there would be a variety of decks. I was hoping that someone would play Assess Contamination & Donatra (Honorable Commander) or James T. Kirk (Original Thinker) so I could see the interaction. I was looking forward to seeing how different players adapted to Kruge & Tragic Turn in-game.

James: Did you have plans to deal with Tragic Turn, Legacy, Borg, Capture, Cadets & Klingon battle?
Jared: I test drew against different deck types so I'd have an idea what I would need download & how I would need to attempt my missions against different opponents.

James: How was the tournament for you?
Jared: It was a lot of fun from the start. I’m glad to be able to see everyone who made the trip and visit for a few hours. I didn’t have a lot of time though between rounds since most games took most of the hour.

James: Who was your toughest opponent?
Jared: My toughest opponents were Brian Sykes (Armus) & Joel Skon (RedAlucard). Brian was playing a Romulan deck with Donatra / Assess Contamination. I had to work really hard in that game to balance what I was downloading and playing with how the dilemmas went at Assess Contamination. It was tough to create effective dilemma combos at Assess Contamination. I knew I had to hold back a Grav-Plating Trap or two in case he played Favor the Bold to try and complete Assess Contamination a second time. I ended up with a hard-fought modified loss. It was a lot of fun.

In the third round I played Joel. He was also trying to get some experience with different decks and was playing Borg assimilation with Tragic Turn. We had practiced together some so we both knew the game would be tough. I was able to get an early The Dreamer and the Dream to hit and he lost both of his copies of the Queen's Borg Cube, plus I was able to get a Secret Identity + Shocking Betrayal combo to hit. He used Knowledge and Experience against my Secret Identity, and then I killed Kruge with Shocking Betrayal. He stayed in the game though & it went down to the wire; again, another fun game.

James: How many ships did you destroy, and how many did you take command of with Kruge?
Jared: I didn't destroy anything, but I did use Kruge in most of the games. Against Joel, I drew the ships that could hit the Cube but Kruge was stuck at the bottom of my deck. I killed enough people with dilemmas at his first mission and a follow-up engagement that I was able to destaff him and give me time to get rolling.

James: Your first round loss meant that John Corbett (KillerB) would have won the tournament if there had only been four rounds. Do you prefer tournaments with just enough rounds to determine a winner, or do you like the extra rounds so that one loss doesn't ruin the tournament for you?
Jared: I've always thought that more rounds provide more opportunity to play and that is more important than who ends up in first place. Also, when there are prizes like byes that are for first and second place, determining second place is just as important as first. When I lost in the first round to Brian, I figured I was out of the running to win the tournament. I was ok with that since I was learning more about the deck I was playing. When I learned I'd be playing John in round five and that it was for first place, I was surprised.

James: Now that the tournament is over, how would you improve your deck?
Jared: The best way for me to improve with this deck would be to practice more with and against it. It required a lot of focus to play so the more I can practice the less I'll have to decide in-game. There may be a few more dilemmas I'd switch around for meta and personal preference but those differences are probably minor.

James: Do you have anything else to add?
Jared: After playing the deck in a tournament, I have to recognize how much work Ben, Neil and any others put into designing and testing their Kruge/Tragic Turn decks. I'm thoroughly impressed by their deck-building and playing ability for this and other decks I've seen them play. I hope that my experience with this deck will help me build decks and play better.

Thanks for taking the time to answer these questions, Jared.

Byes

This week, two players won a Day One, Round One bye into the Second Edition Continental Championships:

• Jared Hoffman (Mugato), winner at The Guardtower
• Robert Dawson (TBT), winner at COMSSA Common Room (2E)

And, one player won a 100,000 Tribbles Headstart into the Tribbles Continental Championships:

• Matthyas Kiraly (stoovie), winner at COMSSA Common Room (Tr)

Congratulations to all players, and I wish better luck to anyone who didn't make it this time. These bye winners have been added to the list of current bye winners for the Continental Championships and the World Championships here.

Deck Statistics

with the results for the First Edition Regional yet to be entered, nothing has changed this week. The three top performing affiliations are still Non-Aligned, averaging 13.5 victory points per player; Cardassian, averaging 10.3 victory points per player; and Vidiian, averaging 9.5 victory points per player.

The most popular First Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Federation	Used by 5 (25%) players
1.	Multiple Affiliations	Used by 5 (25%) players	1 Regional win
3.	Borg	Used by 2 (10%) player
3.	Klingon	Used by 2 (10%) player
5.	Bajoran	Used by 1 (5%) player
5.	Cardassian	Used by 1 (5%) player	1 Regional win
5.	Non-Aligned	Used by 1 (5%) player	1 Regional win
5.	Romulan	Used by 1 (5%) player
5.	Terran Empire	Used by 1 (5%) player
5.	Unknown Affiliations	Used by 1 (5%) player

There were 14 Second Edition players this week, taking the total players at Second Edition Regional Championships to 136 - an average of 10.4 players per tournament. Klingon extends its lead as the most played affiliation, as it was played three times this week, while no other affiliation was played more than once. John Corbett (KillerB) had a strong showing with Terok Nor, and it has jumped to the top of the list of best-performing affiliations; averaging 14.1 victory points per player. Starfleet, averaging 13.1 victory points per player, is second; and Borg, averaging 12.9 victory points per player, is third. The three worst-performing affiliations - in terms of average victory points scored - are still Maquis, Dominion and Bajoran.

The most popular Second Edition affiliations are currently:
1.	Klingon	Used by 19 (14%) players	2 Regional wins
2.	Original Series	Used by 14 (10%) players	4 Regional wins
3.	Romulan	Used by 13 (10%) players	1 Regional win
4.	Next Generation	Used by 12 (9%) players	1 Regional win
5.	Multiple Affiliations	Used by 11 (8%) players
6.	Cardassian	Used by 9 (7%) players	1 Regional win
6.	Starfleet	Used by 9 (7%) players
8.	Borg	Used by 8 (6%) players	2 Regional wins
9.	Unknown Affiliations	Used by 7 (5%) players
10.	Deep Space 9	Used by 6 (4%) players	2 Regional wins
11.	Dominion	Used by 5 (4%) players
11.	Ferengi	Used by 5 (4%) players
13.	Terok Nor	Used by 4 (3%) players
13.	Voyager/Equinox	Used by 4 (3%) players
15.	Bajoran	Used by 3 (2%) player
15.	Earth (Home of Starfleet Command)	Used by 3 (2%) players
15.	Maquis	Used by 3 (2%) player
18.	Non-Aligned	Used by 1 (1%) player

There were four Tribbles players this week, taking the total players at Tribbles Regional Championships to 25 - an average of 8.3 players per tournament. A total of 7,897,725 Tribbles have been scored to date - an average of 315,909 Tribbles per player.

Week 6 Preview

The complete schedule can be found in the article Regional Championships Series 2011 Schedule. There are six Regional tournaments this week:

Saturday 7th May		Sunday 8th May
Second Edition (Standard) Restaurant "Peking" Brabantse Turfmarkt 78 2611 CP Delft The Netherlands [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) Arby's Restaurant 7110 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. San Diego, CA 92111 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]	First Edition (Sealed) Chermside Library Meeting Room 2B 375 Hamilton Road Chermside, QLD 4032 Australia [Discuss] [Pre-register]	First Edition (Official) OBS De Blijberg Gordelweg 216 3038 GA, Rotterdam The Netherlands [Discuss] [Pre-register]
Second Edition (Standard) Dragon's Den 5403 West 41st Street Sioux Falls, SD 57106 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]	Second Edition (Standard) University of Washington HUB at Condon Hall 1100 North East Campus Way Seattle, WA 98105 United States [Discuss] [Pre-register]

Restaurant "Peking": This is the second year that this New Bajor Second Edition Regional has taken place. Last year saw eight players in total, four of whom had travelled from Germany, and the top three places were all taken by those players. This year, two of those four players have pre-registered again. The favorites have to be Thomas Schneider (thsch) and Tyler Fultz (DJstormtrooper). In their last four tournaments, they have five wins and three second places between them, and have only suffered losses to each other. Even though Tyler has a slightly better record (won 20, lost 15) over Thomas, I'm going to choose Thomas as my pick to win this time. Participants are reminded that their entry fee includes three drinks.

Past Regional results at Restaurant "Peking":
2010, won by Tobias Rausmann (garetjax) playing Original Series.
2009, not played.
2008, not played.

Arby's Restaurant: This Second Edition Risa Regional has attracted eight players in each of the last three years. Johnny Holeva (jjh) won each of those events, but it has been getting progressively harder for him each year. He won all of his games in 2008, had a modified win and a true tie in 2009, and lost one game in 2010. There have been six different winners in the last seven tournaments at the venue in San Diego, so who is going to challenge Johnny for his title? Thomas Kamiura (Bosskamiura), and Rogue Shindler (SirRogue) have been the closest finishers to Johnny in recent times, and Thomas Kamiura has the best record (won 13, lost 20, tied 1) against him. That's not enough for me though. Johnny to retain his title.

Past Regional results at Arby's Restaurant:
2010, won by Johnny Holeva (jjh) playing Cardassian / Ferengi.
2009, won by Johnny Holeva (jjh) playing Borg.
2008, won by Johnny Holeva (jjh) playing Borg.

Dragon's Den: This Second Edition Andoria Regional is being held for the third year. Players thinking of attending this year should be warned that they will probably end up playing lots of games. Last year saw the seven players play round robin - that meant seven rounds! Tournament organizer, Kevin Jaeger (Hoss-Drone), was victorious in 2009, and finished in second place last year. He must be considered one of the favorites for this year's title. Also in contention is Jody Lamb (joedlaw), who has won six of the twelve tournaments he has played in this year. Other contenders will depend on the rumored invasion from New Jersey. If John Corbett (KillerB) makes the trip, he is sure to be in the running. On top of the usual pool of prizes, the winner will receive the T2E Entertainment Badlands Jacket. The runner-up and the winner of the "Hossyest Move of the Day Award" will receive acrylic on canvas Star Trek art by former World Champion Kevin Jaeger. Following the tournament, the 3rd annual Quad-B Championship will be held. A must for anyone who enjoys Beer, Billiards, BuckHunter and Bowling. My pick to win (Star Trek, not bowling) is Kevin.

Past Regional results at Dragon's Den:
2010, won by Mike Harrington (Ajnaran) playing Deep Space 9 / Ferengi.
2009, won by Kevin Jaeger (Hoss-Drone) playing Klingon.
2008, not played.

University of Washington: This is the second year this Second Edition Ferenginar Regional has been held. Last year saw eight players, seven different affiliations, and one triple-headquarters deck. Voyager won the day then, at the hands of Jason DeShaw (Jaybird). There are only three players pre-registered so far; but tournament organizer, J (The Mad Vulcan), is expecting at least ten players on the day. I don't know if he'll be attending, but my pick to win is John Kalmen (deathslittlebro). John has only played in two Continuing Committee sanctioned tournaments in the area, but he has won them both with his Borg deck.

Past Regional results at University of Washington:
2010, won by Jason DeShaw (Jaybird) playing Voyager.
2009, not played.
2008, not played.

Chermside Library: This is the first of two First Edition Regional Championships to be held on Sunday. This one, in the Briar Patch Region, is an OTSD sealed tournament. Each player will receive one OTSD, One Alternate Universe booster and two Q-Continuum boosters. Entry into the tournament is free, so there is no reason not to attend! The Brisbane playgroup only started running tournaments last December, and Greg Dillon (Latok) has won both of the First Edition tournaments held so far. They were, however, both constructed tournaments so we'll have to wait and see whether he has the skills required to win a sealed deck tournament against the six other pre-registers players. I think Greg can, and he is my pick to win.

There are no past Regionals results at Chermside Library.

OBS De Blijberg: This First Edition New Bajor Regional marks the continued expansion of the Rotterdam playgroup, which only started running tournaments in the city back in March of this year. Of the three constructed tournaments held in the area, Arjan Hoek (arjan242) won one of them, and Enrico Evink (enrico81) won the other two. With little else to base my decision on, my pick to win is Enrico.

There are no past Regionals results at OBS De Blijberg; but there were nearby Regionals in Delft:
2011, won by Enrico Evink (enrico81) playing Non-Aligned.
2010, won by Arjan Hoek (arjan242) playing Borg.

Predictions

With one result outstanding, I managed two out of three correct picks last week. My record is now 33% (6 out of 18) correct. How is your prediction record?

Next Week

A review of the six results from week six, another interview, and a preview of the five Regional Championships taking place in week seven.

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