Kris Sonsteby (LORE) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - American National 2011-01-15 - 10:00 AM The Epitaph Read Only One Word... Pals Introduction Here is the short version of what went down at Nationals: West 2010 in Chicago, Illinois. Please refer to my previously posted CC article for full details. Round 1 Nathan W FW (0)View opponent's ReportView original Report The Alabama Slamma took a thumb to the eye from yours truly on his first turn, and never seemed to regain his composure. Despite our nearly timed game, his Cadets were simply no match for mine, especially following my one-attempt solve at Investigate Massacre. FW 100-70. Before I start, I should put the disclaimer that all my decks are made on printed cards – including non-printable. When I have to travel for an event outside Alabama, I usually borrow cards from other players as I don’t own any real cards. In this case, my friend was missing 3 of the common cadets from Necessary Evil. Insert plug about how cards should be printable, or at least NE commons. So I decided I’d just keep the printed ones since I doubted anyone would care. Low and behold, first turn, first game I play printed Dorian Collins and Kris notes it’s non-printable and brings the TD over. I silently freak out. This is after my train out to Glen Elyn was delayed and I barely make it to the venue on time, I fill my decklist like a mad man while trying to be cordial to players I knew and those I’m meeting for the first time, and the TD is starting to read 1st round match-ups before I’ve given her my command card yet. Oh yeah! I also slept for 3 hours, hungover on air mattress in a friend’s cold apartment last night. Pretty much the perfect storm of Trek failure. The TD didn’t DQ me, but how the day went, I probably would have been better off. Anyways, the game sucked. I hesitated a few turns to play my printed Tim Watters despite Bridge Officer’s Test in hand, decided not to burn Unexpected Difficulties when Kris went planet first and dig for Necessary Execution – which he completed in 1 turn, and guessed wrong on which away team Kirk was in. Round 2 Brian Gondek MW (0) Bad News' early triple attempt in space via two copies of Ruling Council made for a very close matchup, especially considering his black and white print outs were reeking havoc on my memory. Forgetting to play and bring Rachel Garret to Investigate Massacre cost me the full win. MW 75-70. Round 3 Edward Pigman FW (0) Earthquake's Cardassian's couldn't draw a ship for what seemed like an eternity, but a few well-timed captures kept him from getting blown out. Several mental mistakes when he finally did get moving led me to believe I was going to give this one away. FW 100-65. Round 4 Al Schaefer FW (0) The Sandman's Bajorans were looking to rely heavily on his dicard pile, unfortuately, they forgot to ask Dukat for permission. I expected a much closer contest with TBG's Illinois protegee, but was happy to earn the quick "W" and a bit of a tournament reprieve. FW 100-0. Round 5 Neil Timmons FL (0)View opponent's ReportView original Report The Big Show's walking science fair projects were a formidable opponent, but my Cadets held their own and put on a good match nonetheless. In spite of some heated words and an added layer of gamesmanship, our first encounter primarily came down to good fortune and on this day he had it and I didn't. FL 100-60. Round 5: Kris Sonsteby More cadets. This game went very badly for me. The first thing that happened was quintessence milled 2 of my 3 grav plates off the top. Ugh. It also got the Assimilation Techniques. Double ugh. It also got 2 ships… triple ugh (only 6 ships in the deck). So early on I was forced (under threat of not getting locked out) to Quintessence for a ship (quad-ugh!!) and had no protection for any of my events. Kris meanwhile was having issues of his own finding cadets. He had a couple, but not a whole bunch. Eventually he attemped a planet mission first and I was able to toss (with aid) a Tragic Turn, Entanglement, Necessary Execuition, Dal’Rok, No Quite Domesticated Pets, leaving 6 dead and 1 on my team with only 6 dilemmas under the mission. When h e finally recovered from that and completed the mission, I did almost the same thing at his next planet mission. Kris then was able to get most of his deck back with Mirror (aahh!! Grav plates are gone!!) so he wasn’t totally locked out of the game, but his stuff was still buried in his deck. Running out of time, I was behind by 5 points, and I attempted my planet mission. If I solve, I am at 95 points with planet & space, and he has to solve his final mission for the win, or I get a turn to dig for One with the Borg. So I attempted with a whole big huge away team. He stopped some guys and killed some guys, but was not enough to stop the mission attempt, but the highlight was tossing Show Trial, and I fanned out 5 personnel for him to pick from. If he picks Locutus I score the 5 points I need to win (well 10 points) if not, I am stuck. Low & behold.. 1 in 5.. Locutus pops out, I score 10 points, go on to use his own Kirk to bust his last dilemma to win the game. I didn’t even need to use my Uninvited for his last mission attempt. FW 100-60 Round 6 Jared Hoffman FW (0) Hollywood's Cadets were put through the same wood chipper that Slamma's were, only in this game I drew particularly bad in both deck and dilemma pile. However, his lack of Geology at Geo Survey and a correct guess with Kirk ended my Nationals ride on a high note. FW 100-70.