I spent a few days trying to make large revisions to my Regionals build, but ran out of time and reverted most of them. Just as well. I just hoped I wouldn't face Charlie Plaine, at least not early on, since I knew this deck specifically presses every one of his buttons about 1E: it's Borg, it ignores the ordinary rules of play, and it completely locks you out.

Charlie didn't recognize the deck until the facility phase, although he'd glanced at it a few days before while working on the regional article. I recognized Lucas's deck right away, though, and managed to target my dilemmas pretty well.

Charlie never got much of a chance to find out. Racing to stay ahead of the Borg, he got ground down fast by Borg Servo and Defrosted Menace. I swooped in and Assimilated Species on his entire away team. Anyone not human was killed. I then moved to his outpost, where Jean-Luc Picard had just entered play. Once I beamed over to assimilate him and his two or three defenders, Charlie conceded rather than try to drag me out to the Mod Win.

This was a really good game. Jon had Khan, which was nbd for me. I figured I'd wait in the Delta Quadrant until I was good and ready to strike. What was Jon gonna do? SOLVE MISSIONS? I did fly over to the Transwarp Hub at the end of the Delta spaceline to maximize my RANGE when I would eventually go through... but Jon made use of this to Quantum Slipstream Drive his Dominion Battleship to me. He boarded my Cube and very smartly prioritized Eeling my guy with the Implants, including my only access to Cranial Transceiver Implant. I tried to fight back with First, but Jon Smoke Bombed out. We left to the Alpha Quadrant, which at least stranded his Dominion Battleship in the Delta (he had not left staffing aboard). I tried fighting again, but again, Smoke Bomb (I can't wait to find out exactly how lucky it was that he had two of those in hand in a row). At least this one killed my drone with the implants on, so my Cranial Transceiver Implants were now in the discard pile. I started cycling for them using Transtator Drone while Jon tried to do missions, but, as he closed in on an Executive Authorization I feared he would pass (thus taking the lead and likely the Mod Win), I Establish Tractor Lock'd on his main ship instead. This slowed him, so instead he Subspace Transported back over to my ship and took a couple more Eel victims... including my Transtator Drone, JUST before we would have got that Implant back!

So I never got an objective out. Drew one on the last turn, but too late to do anything with, and by then Jon was too far ahead for me to catch anyone (not without another hour of play and some VERY aggressive assimilations). At least the death of my stolen queen meant he couldn't pass Exec Auth for the FW.

Smart guy, Jon. Like the real Khan, he knew exactly where to hit us. We could not escape on auxiliary power. :)

Bruce figured out quick what he was up against, but he had something Charlie didn't: multiple ships and cloaking devices. (Also, he didn't have any personnel I wanted to target as counterparts.)

But when he, trying to outrace me, ran smack into a Borg Ship / Contingency Plan / Dead End combo, it made the outcome inevitable. I Retasked the Borg Ship. (I probably actually should have waited a turn to do this, because it meant I couldn't convert a draw to download my Transceiver Implants to get my Assimilate Starship objective.) Then I Assimilated Starship on his bird of prey and everybody fled. Bruce tried again to solve a mission before too late, but fell prey to the same Defrosted Menace as Charlie. I had just assimilated the starship and now zoomed over to Assimilate Species on his entire 8-10 person away team. (Quark Son of Keldar lived, only to then end up the casualty from the battle.) After that, it was a mop-up. Cube A worked on missions while Cube B chased Bruce into the Gamma Quadrant, decloaked one of the two ships he brought there, assimilated a counterpart, and then assimilated the rest. I had now played all but two of my drones and had most of Bruce's cards in play on my side as well. Bruce conceded just as I was about to complete my first mission-based objective, with nine minutes left on the clock. (I had already cleared a dilemma at my other mission and had a good guess on the rest of the combo, so this was likely just as well.)

This deck, at 248 cards, is one of the biggest ever to appear in the Tournament Reports. It's very, very good. Like many decks that depend on beaming through opponent's SHIELDS and fighting on their ships and facilities, there just aren't very many answers to it. But, still, the deck has lost twice (to a couple of the best players in the world), so it's not invulnerable. Just a very tough nut to crack.