Ben Daeuber (phaserihardlyknowher) Tournament Report - 1E - North American Continental 2024-07-26 - 02:00 PM The Mot Timeline Introduction When you bring a deck you've literally never played or ever really even done a draw test on to a tournament, this is what you get. I don't think the deck gimmick was actually that bad, but the selection of personnel and lack of draw really got it. Round 1 Mark Muston ML (-40) I was lucky early to get a few ships, Velal, Cretak and a Ready Room Door so I could get Captains Log on the table. Velal had his matching ship, boosts Captain's Log and Cretak boosts weapons, but I was still only able to get 26 weapons to bear on Mark's 13 shields. However, I did pin the Organ Bank down. I then proceeded to hit two Deadly Donations, loosing some key personnel. It was a bit of a slog, which is the point against Vidiian's, I guess. My lack of draw also hurt Mark, but not enough, obviously. This was also the only deck that using Barbering against was actually effective. That was never really the goal of the deck, but some early luck allowed me get rid of some of Mark's options. Barber Pole Points: 10, I think. Round 2 Drew Schleve ML (-5) I was able to hamstring Mark early by hitting one of the Anthro personnel with Barclay's Transporterphobia so he couldn't get his Duck Blind working. Ending up at the end of the spaceline meant I couldn't bother him as much as I would have liked, however. Beyond that, draw was the issue (a theme) since I couldn't finish that third mission. I would have had a tie if I hadn't pushed through Edo Probe. Barber Pole Points: 15, but lost 10 to Edo probe. Round 3 Brian S ML (-60) I had the chance to go after his bonus points, but passed. He then got his bonus points and came after me anyway. He successfully pinned me down and I didn't have the third ship I needed to get out. Barber Pole Points: I forget. Not enough, obviously. Round 4 Remo G MW (+55) My only win, this is the game where most things went right. This time I was able to destroy the Organ Bank and that made everything a bit easier. Getting at least two reasonable ships to the table is the way to deal with the Vidiians. You will likely loose one, but twice in this tournament I was able to pin down my Vidiian opponent pretty easily and go about my business elsewhere. Barber Pole Points: 15, I think? I don't recall the final score of this game. Round 5 James Heaney ML (-35) I can only describe this game as "madcap". James was assimilating starships and personnel fast, but I was reporting personnel fast as well. First he assimilated starship, but I made run for my other outpost. Then he'd try to assimilate species and I'd report several more people the next turn to continue a mission attempt, knowing I'd loose them the next turn. Somewhere in this Star Trek timeline there's some borg looking mighty dapper because James assimilated my barber and it more or less culminated in a pile of captive drones as I completed HQ: Secure Homeworld as time was running down. James more or less gifted me a final mission that was cleared but that I was just waiting for a personnel to complete, so this likely should have been a worse loss than it was on paper. Barber Pole Points: Only 5. I was getting lots of personnel this game, which was great because I was loosing them fast as well. James was the first to give me the affirmation I desired when I finally put a barber pole on the table and he said "that's the dumbest thing I've ever seen". That's all I really wanted. Closing Thoughts The side event the next day had two highlights: me airlocking a drone when Brian was trying to assimilate my Assimilator and me playing Secondary Market on James's damaged ship, only to have him report it the next turn undamaged, meaning he basically hired a mechanic. Stupid gimmick aside, this deck would play better with some better draw, but probably needs to be reconfigured to be Original Series only if I wanted to continue with barbering theme. Then I could get some real draw engines going and actually have what I need to complete missions.