Adam Bargar (abargar7510) Tournament Report - 2E - Online Event 2024-08-05 - 12:00 AM Think Tank Assistance (Phage Release Event version) Introduction I’m thinking that the two-mission win build could be strong for Vidiian, as it limits the impact of their late-game slowdown. I decide to combine it with Think Tank personnel since they are good at 50-point missions to offset the slowdown, and the alliance with Vidiian is nice and thematic. I decide to go with the Borg 50-point missions since they have a good skill fit with these personnel, and are in the Delta Quadrant. Even though this is primarily a solver, I put in all the Vidiian interference stuff to slow down my opponent in case I run into trouble at my second mission and have a second ship available, and to fuel event-driven dilemmas. I put in a third 50-point mission in to get me past any Causal Recursion shenanigans, and Argratha in case anyone is running the new Vidiian easy missions. Round 1 Ted Reebel FW (+70) I get a good opening hand, though a little short on personnel. Ted isn’t in a hurry though, and gets a good number of people out before he goes to his first mission, which is Bypass Disputed Region. I have several events out, and two Think Tank Ships in my hand. Do I go with the sure-thing stop with Gorgan, or swing for the fences with The Killing Game? I swing for the fences, thinking that I may want the Gorgan later, but he passes pretty easily after cheating through a stop or two with Telari. He gets the mission on the first try which seems to throw him off a little bit, as it’s pretty apparent now that his strategy was to bounce between missions to get dilemmas under before solving. My dilemma whiff having inadvertently probably worked out better for me, he passes over to me, I play one of the Think Tank Ships, and I go over to Destroy Transwarp Hub. I pass his doubler dilemmas pretty easily between Sullen and Honatta, which lets me get the second Intelligence I need to get past Stolen Computer Core. Playing from behind, he spends a turn getting an additional crew ready so he can double team Develop Cure. He goes over to Develop Cure and attempts with his first crew. I don’t draw a Timescape, but I’m able to Vault of Tomorrow for it. Somewhat surprisingly, he’s a little short of the skills needed for the next dilemma, which is Sylvia, and he has to use Kes to abort the attempt to avoid two captures. Over at Harness Omega Particle, he stops my first attempt with a Chula: The Chandra/Intimidation combo, but on my second attempt, he gets a bad draw and I easily pass the doubled Bread and Circuses for the two-mission win. Ted and I have a conversation about strengths/weaknesses of Vidiians and he heads off to redesign his deck for his upcoming Regionals. Round 2 Brian Sykes FL (-100) I get a bad opening hand, without a Think Tank Ship, so I can’t play Seven of Nine who’s a skill monster in this deck, nor do I get any of the key cheaters like Telari. Brian gets off to a fast start with a 12-counter first turn, including a Molly O’Brien, who nullifies my Reprimand when I try to take out his Predicament. To add insult to injury, I get really unfavorable dilemma draws all through this game and he one-shots his first and third missions. I’m forced to use my second ship, in hand, at his second mission to stop him cold with a Gorgan, but he solves next turn after another bad dilemma draw. I’m attempting with 7 (which is probably 2 too few) because of his fast start (I have Ent-J and a bunch of high cunning people out), and he puts down Chula:The Game, and the Chandra twice after using Predicament. Without my cheaters and no way to bring in reinforcements, stopping two keeps me from solving for several turns. I lose 100-0. If more luck had gone my way, I probably would’ve gotten the first mission, but not the second. We spend a lot of time afterwards discussing KCA, as it's one of the few affiliations I have left to run to get the Adventurer achievement. Round 3 Tjark Ott FL (-50) Another non-Vidiian, Chula-pile deck, which I know from my game with Armus isn’t a good matchup. I blow through my first mission when he tries to one-stop me with Chula:The Dice, which I’m boosted past. It takes him awhile to solve his first mission, but I get bogged down at my second mission: he’s got double Chula:The Game’s on it, and one-stops me twice with Nothing to Lose since I don’t have Delanh in my deck. He plays a Pivotal Destiny, so the crew that I was going to devote to taking captives now has to try and solve a mission instead, which might have lost me the game. To add insult to injury, even with the extra points that I’m going to score, I don’t have the personnel out that will let me lose points to cheat past dilemmas. He blows through his second mission when I give him Nothing to Lose, forgetting that he has Ronald Tracey in play. At his third mission, I kill and take captive a bunch of people he needs to solve. He plays Rescue Captives, which I try to Reprimand, but he plays a Stella and gets the people with the mission skills he needs back. He retrieves those people from his HQ and I can’t quite get the stops that I need. I lose 100-50 with 7 dilemmas under my second mission since I couldn’t get Enterprise-J out, which would’ve boosted my stats to let me attempt with less people. Frustrating outcome after getting the fast start. Closing Thoughts This deck needs some refinement. It needs a third Telari to better guarantee the cheating at the first mission, and probably more of the “lose 5 points” people in general. Delanh needs to be added for Nothing to Lose. It was optimized against Vidiians, so it’s probably not a surprise it didn’t do as well against the non-Vidiian decks. Chula is also a bad matchup against this deck, as it’s easy to bog down the Vidiians using Chula hate when they don’t have access to their cheaters.