| Kris Sonsteby (LORE) |
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| Tournament Report - 1E |
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| 2013-09-28 - 10:00 AM |
 How Long I Have Wanted... This Dream to Come True |
| Introduction |
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| Official T2E league play returned to the cozy confines of the R.H. Stafford Library's atrium in the form of 1E Block, and for this gig I decided to run an affiliation I have basically never played in either edition. Armed with an ear full of advice from The Toast of the Coast, the Commerce Guild acquired a 4-0 record on the day. |
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| Round 1 | | Justin Kaufman | FW (+25) |
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| Crimson was also playing Ferengi, but was comparatively slow out of the gate due to a lack of free reports and bonus draws. Duplicating missions made attempts on both sides tricky, though I eventually nailed down the doubled up Resupply Marauder II to take this mirror match against our unofficial ambassador. FW 100-75. |
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| Round 2 |  | Kevin | FW (+65) |
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| Kid Kash was tying out Rogue Borg, and won a pair of fights before Data and Koral went on the war path. While my gold guys ran interference, the orange ones churned through Steal Technology and The Last Outpost en route to victory in my first of hopefully many games against members of 1E's new blood. FW 100-35. |
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| Round 3 |   | James Heaney | FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
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| Heavy Metal was working Starfleet, but was initially dealt a rough spaceline and never recovered. With Gozar & Co. taking care of business on the ground, a late arriving Kurdon bypassed a trio of Quantum Torpedoes collected in the air to steal one from MN Land's resident 'trek guru. FW 100-0. |
| My Starfleet deck was designed to answer one question: can a finely tuned Starfleet deck compete with finely-tuned TNG-Ferengi in TNG-Block?
Not this time. Not even if the Starfleeters are being somewhat protected by diluting the deck with 22nd-Century Ferengi. Kris and I seeded outposts near each other, which didn't quite threaten me for most of the game, because his ships needed so many repairs, but did make it tricky to venture over to that side of the spaceline. My dilemma strategy -- deal repeated damage with Quantum Torpedo to prevent my opponent from doing space missions -- worked beautifully here, but Kris simply had a ton of ships in his slim deck (4 or 5) and they all managed to see play, so the lockout strategy became merely a brief inconvenience. Seeing this, I raced to solve, and the deck performed very well, delivering a good mix of key personnel when I needed them. But against Team Gozar, it just wasn't quite enough. |
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| Round 4 |  | Matthew Hayes | FW (+35) |
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| The Animal was administering Klingon, and had me on the ropes from the opening bell. Despite taking heavy casualties from "God" and Subspace Shock Wave, locking him out of planet via Friendly Fire and Linguistic Legerdemain in crunch time allowed me to limp through a Dead End at Raid Ancient Burial Site for the win. FW 100-65. |
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| Closing Thoughts |
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| From a returning player's perspective, doing well in Block only requires 3 things: tons of free plays, a big draw engine, and the ability to battle when necessary. In all of my bouts I was ahead in nearly every category from start to finish, and I was thus able to parlay that advantage into success in spite of the knowledge gap. |
