[JaglomShrek]

GRAND PRIX 2008 Convention is coming ...!

InterCityHotel Celle
Nordwall 22
29221 Celle
http://www.celle.intercityhotel.com

Schedule preview:

Friday, November 2st

15:00 Mercenary Sealed
21:00 TeamCup Multiplayer

Saturday, November 22nd

11:00 GRAND PRIX
20:00 Orbital Shift / 1E Open Constructed
24:00 Midnight Draft

Sunday, November 23rd

12:00 Masters of the Universe
18:00 Awards & Prizes Ceremony

More information, detailed format description and special room offers available soon at openCards!

[JaglomShrek]

Accommodation:

Rooms availabe at special rates if you book directly at the hotel using the registration code Grand Prix: claudia.groebe@celle.intercityhotel.de

Single room: 70 EUR per night including breakfast
Twin room: 85 EUR per night including breakfast

This special offers only lasts till 07 November!

[JaglomShrek]

Day 1 / November 21st

Time: 15:00

Tournament: Mercenary Draft

Format: Draft (starter & booster)

Rounds: 4 à 1h

Entry fee: 5 EUR

Description:

The compete rules will be announced soon. Each player brings 4 boosters (2E) of their choice and receives a random starter deck. Boosters may also be bought separately.


Time: 21:00

Tournament: TeamCup

Format: Multiplayer Standard Constructed

Rounds: 3 à 1.5h

Entry fee: 10 EUR

Description:

Two teams of two players compete against each other in a multiplayer game. This tournament is not valid for TrekCC rating. In addition to normal game rules the following spezial rules apply:

members of the same team don’s count of opponents for a card’ gametext
unique cards are unique per team
victory conditions are changed to 150 points and at least one completed planet & one completed space mission team and at least one completed mission per team member

Day 2 / November 22nd

Time: 11:00

Tournament: Grand Prix

Format: Standard Constructed with decklist

Rounds: 6 à 1h plus final confrontations

Entry fee: 15 EUR

Description:

Pure standard constructed, decklist needed. Players are grouped in three categories (amateur, experienced, professional) based on their TrekCC Constructed rating (groups of equal size, in case of odd numbers a player is placed in the lower group). Top two of each group plus two best other players (wildcard) advance into final confrontation.


Time: 20:00

Tournament: Grand Prix Finals

Format: Standard Constructed with decklist

Rounds: 2 à 1h plus 1 without limit

Entry fee: free, only for Grand Prix finalists

Description:

Finalists may play with different decks than in main tournament, deklist needed. The players compete in the following fina confrontation rounds:

quarters finals (1h): players of same category (or wildcard) against each other
semi-finals (1h): winner professional against winner amateur & winner experienced against winner wildcard
final game without time limit: winners of semi-finals against each other
The winner receives an original Necessary Evil foil uncut sheet!


Time: 20:00

Tournament: Orbital Shift

Format: Standard Constructed

Rounds: 3 à 1h

Entry fee: 5 EUR

Description:

Players use their normal decks but after a certain period of the tournament director announces a shift. Players then move one seat to the left (clockwise) and immediately continue to play with the deck at their new seat. Players and decks score points separately and players are finally ranked based on combined scores. This tournament is not valid for TrekCC rating.


Time: 20:00

Tournament: First Edition Open

Format: 1E Open Constructed

Rounds: 3 à 1h

Entry fee: 5 EUR

Description:

Purest original 1E gameplay without restrictions. Backwards-compatible cards are allowed.


Time: 24:00

Tournament: Favor the Bold Draft

Format: Draft (Dangerous Missions & Favor the Bold)

Rounds: 3 à 0.75h

Entry fee: 10 EUR

Description:

Find out how STCCG’s newest expansion Favor the Bold feels like in a draft environment! Each player brings a Dangerous Missions foil pack and receives 4 draft boosters plus a third of a set of Favor the Bold (distributed randomly, FtB has to be returned to the TD). All material (except foil pack) is drafted in the order of set release.

Day 3 / November 23rd

Time: 12:00

Tournament: Masters of the Universe

Format: Random Affiliation Standard Constructed with decklist

Rounds: 5 à 1h

Entry fee: 15 EUR

Description:

For playing in this tournament you have to register in advance, decklist is needed. Each participants may use only one headquarters mission (or Caretaker’s Array) in his or her deck which is distributed at random. Players will get informed about their HQ mission at November 7th (or shortly after registration if doing so at a later time). Each HQ is distributed twice and players are ranked based on their affiliation’s performance. Players with same affiliation may not play against each other. The winning affiliation receives a Masters of the Universe trophy.

[JaglomShrek]

Register now on openCards for discounted entry fee!

[Kaiser]

Any news from Celle? How many players showed up? Who won the main event? How did the 2on2 Teamplay go? Inquiring minds want to know...

[Borgified Tribble]

Any news from Celle? How many players showed up? Who won the main event? How did the 2on2 Teamplay go? Inquiring minds want to know...

What follows is not official.

For the main event there were about 16 people (may have been 18). Tyler Fultz, James Hoskin, Sebastian Kirstein, Thomas Schneider, Kathleen Fultz, Oliver Thust, Christian Zipper and someone I forgot made it into the finals. Sebastian won against Tyler (with 5 to zero points), then against Christian (where he said "Christian is the champion of hearts" because of some mix-up) and then against James.

Sebastian thus won his third Grand prix with a variation of his EC Bajoran deck. Tyler had a very innovative deck with Auwerd Bijkers Vacation from the Q-Continuum trick done with "Subliminal message" or something (3-cost-dilemmas for free) and a anti-event-destruction card I won't spoil here. Many (including Sebastian, the only one who won against him in the first six rounds) thought he would win. I really would like to read a report about that 5-point win...

By the way I had a clean record of 6 victory points in six rounds. At two points it actually looked as if I would win a game, I solved one or two missions all day, got to about 100 bonus points in all games (65 bonus points in the first match) and one and a half of my opponents (and the TD) actually got a vague idea of what I was trying to do with my deck. Paolo, I'm coming to the bottom of the ranking list sooner than you would have thought...

[Kaiser]

Thanks for the info, and big congratulations to Sebastian!

[Caretaker's Guest]

Thank you!
But it weren't my overwhelming abilities or my invincible deck that got me winning although I am quite proud of the deck . It was pure and simple luck. Should have participated in the lottery that weekend . Tyler had found out a really nasty combo that could stall and/or kill entire away teams and/or crews. A combo I would've never found, cause I'd never thought that the designers would create a card like Subliminal Signal as a permanent effect (plays in your core) that could be used continuously (no limit), I never read that card correctly. I won the first game because Tyler could not find a Q-Event for some turns. They only showed up when they were placed on Energize . The second game on one handside I could stall his Klingons with quite good dilemma management and The Undiscovered Country, which is a great card by the way (Thanks to it I won the game against Tobias Reyga-abuse-deck pretty easily). On the other handside it was luck again when I managed to stop Tyler's only Astrometrics personnel he needed for his mission with Temptation not only once but twice... I scored five points with Accepting the Past and was out of the game with an empty draw deck and no possibility to play Back to Basics when time was called.

Tyler's deck was really great. We could only find two deck types that could really hurt his deck: Bajoran Putsch and Maquis with Stalling for Time plus Straffing Fire. Both are very seldomly played.

Subliminal Signal should receive an Errata: You may do this only once each mission attempt. I can only advise the designers to be carefull when designing defensive events since there are ways to protect them and review possible interaction with existing cards. From my point of view the American meta underestimates the power of events or defensive decks. Even fast and straight solver decks can run themselves dead when facing a properly designed defensive deck, but that's just my personal oppinion, I may be wrong.

Just one other thing: The Virtual Alternate Image Cards are really great!
They are a form of price support I'm really seeking.

[Kaiser]

Sounds like Tyler came up with some nifty combo. I'm not entirely sure I have completely figured out what he was doing, but I just had a look through the 3-cost dilemmas, and yes, there are some mean things you can do with Subliminal Signal.

As far as event protection goes, my first thought was that I'd run this with Mirror Trip + any card that allows unlimited discards (e.g., Optimism, Mirror Archer).

Btw, would the Enterprise-E with 4 or 5 Diplomats aboard would have helped to get rid of the Subliminal Signal/Vacation/other Q event, or was his core simply too big to touch the key cards with the Enterprise?

[Caretaker's Guest]

Yes, you're right. Enterprise-E is a possibility too. But as you stated it is not as secure as Putsch or Maquis since he was running LOTS of events.

Hard Time, worst dilemma ever!

Temptation, best dilemma ever!

[jjh]

Deck Lists???

[garetjax]

Sounds like Tyler came up with some nifty combo. I'm not entirely sure I have completely figured out what he was doing, but I just had a look through the 3-cost dilemmas, and yes, there are some mean things you can do with Subliminal Signal.

Think about a situation where over 10 dilemmas are under a mission and on each mission attempt you are still facing 3 or more dilemmas.

As far as event protection goes, my first thought was that I'd run this with Mirror Trip + any card that allows unlimited discards (e.g., Optimism, Mirror Archer).

Yes, Mirror Trip and Optimism is the best combo for Event protection.

Btw, would the Enterprise-E with 4 or 5 Diplomats aboard would have helped to get rid of the Subliminal Signal/Vacation/other Q event, or was his core simply too big to touch the key cards with the Enterprise?

Against Tyler you need more than 4 or 5 Diplomats to get rid of his events.

[Hoss-Drone]

A small group of us in MN have been running with Vacation+Q Events+loads of killing for the last couple months already. Zach Magnuson took 4th at US Nationals West with a Romulan FSE+nog/jadzia/equipment variation of it.

Yes, it is nasty but not unstoppable by any stretch. Enterprise E can force the opponent to bounce an event to hand, beating Trip, then using sloan to pick off Vacation or Subliminal. Three times for the shutdown of the trick with no sweat unless player can get his vacation or subliminal back. Then there are the non card ways of beating - slow playing the game and getting ahead then timing yourself out.

Not trying to one up you guys or make you feel like you didnt do something special but just putting this out there. Lord knows you guys didnt know we've been doing it already so as far as you guys knew it was an original idea. So kudos. I'm interested to see a deck list also to see how it compares with what we've built over here.

[garetjax]

Yes, it is nasty but not unstoppable by any stretch. Enterprise E can force the opponent to bounce an event to hand, beating Trip, then using sloan to pick off Vacation or Subliminal.

Yes this is a third way to beat this deck. A fourth way would be to use Premiere Sela+Event destruction.

Another interesting thing at the Grand Prix was, that i don´t make the same experience with my Ferengi decks as you at the Nationals.

1. I used Reyga in nearly all games more than once.

2. Personal Duty and WNOHG are never a problem. The real problems for me are currently An Issue of Trust, Gomtuu and Excalbian Drama.

3. 100 Points from three missions is not difficult for Ferengi. Restore Errant moon+30 point planet+ 30 point space works fine. And planet first is the best way to go. You have more time to prepare a good team for the space mission.

[Borgified Tribble]

Lord knows you guys didnt know we've been doing it already so as far as you guys knew it was an original idea. So kudos.

As I see it you didn't do it with Sublimal Signal (or Mirror Trip involved), so it was original - not only to us hinterland Europeans.