Chris Lobban (Maelwys) Tournament Report - 1E Sealed - Online Event 2011-06-15 - 01:00 AM Introduction My second attempt at an online 1E tournament, again Sealed Deck (because that's always been my favourite format, and I figure it's easier online with fewer cards to keep track of). Round 1 Austin Chandler FW (+45) The game started off on the right foot at least, drawing my Traveler in my opening hand gave me a lot of options on what cards to play every turn. Now I only wish I'd had a Red Alert to take advantage of it... instead I ended up at the end of the game with 20 cards in my hand! Unfortunately I made couple big mistakes early on which almost cost me that advantage. Firstly, I seeded my outpost at a mission requiring 3 Honor when I only had 2 Honor in the deck (requiring Vina or Reflection Therapy to get the third one), which I'd forgotten in the week since I'd actually built the deck. Secondly, I completely forgot about SoG Anguish. Actually, I forgot about it twice. The first time, when Austin was attempting a space mission and hit a couple of those dilemmas. Luckily this one didn't really matter, because he'd failed each of them anyway. But then more importantly, I forgot about it when I used my Scan on a space mission, saw that I easily had all the skills, and attempted... only to have him flip the Anguish on me and make completing the mission (or even passing the dilemmas for that matter) a LOT more difficult all of a sudden. The other fun moment (for me, at least) was when my Austin played his second Mask of Korgano... I was thinking that I know you get a lot of crap in these packs, but you don't need to put it all in your decks! Especially not when it's going to cost you a card play each time. Then I realized that a few turns earlier he'd finished clearing out his space mission, but still hadn't actually completed it yet. And the space mission happened to require three [AU] personnel to complete... and the pieces started to fall together. And then I remembered the KU: Convergence in my hand... I don't think Austin was very happy with the results of that, I'm sad to say, as both his Masks vanished in a flash before he could complete his mission! The game ended pretty close, with me almost assured to win on the next turn (having just played my Vina the previous turn, so I could give her Honor x2 at the start of my next turn), Austin loaded everybody on his Galaxy, flew to an easy space mission for one last attempt in hopes of scoring more points (or even pulling out a win) ... when the unexpected arrival of the Borg put a quick end to that hope (and his ship, and its crew...). And on the following turn, I flew home and completed my home mission for the win. FW 100-55 Round 2 Matthew King FW (+100) Unfortunately, we didn't actually get a chance to play this game. We had it scheduled for one night early in the week, and the Lackey servers were down that night. We tried several times to reschedule it, but both times my opponent ended up missing the appointment, since he had other things coming up in life. Obviously the problem with online events, is that life happens. Round 3 J FL (-90) This game didn't go well for me, right from the start. Again it stuck with the theme of "ships go boom", but this time it was MY ships! He was playing a heavy battle deck, and the game started on a bad foot when I misread his outpost placement, and ended up closer to it than I wanted (and with my dilemmas in slightly wrong places as a result). When he tried to blow up my first ship of people, I luckily managed to Near Warp Transport away my crew back to my outpost planet to save them. But then he soon gathered enough of a fleet to take on my outpost, which was not good. I used my last personnel and ship to try to limp over to where I'd seeded the Borg Ship, just so I could self-trigger it and hope to wipe out his guys, but was shot down before I made it there. I did manage to draw my Traveler about the same time that my outpost vanished, and noticed that he'd almost drawn out his deck by then, so I was hoping that I had a chance for a tie by deck-out. Unfortunately, my Traveler had come a couple turns too late, because after he finished cleaning up my guys he managed to grab three missions in his last two turns before I exhausted my deck (he'd exhausted his a couple turns earlier), so he still managed the win 90-0. Round 4 Greg Dillon FL (-30) It wasn't a mirror match by a long shot, but it felt like one at times. He used Ajur on a planet, I used Boratus on a planet the next turn. I RBM'd his ship, he RBM'd my ship the next turn. I Scanned my mission, he scanned his mission the next turn. My scan revealed a Borg Ship dilemma, his scan... revealed a Borg Ship dilemma. I played Geordi, he played Scotty... okay, that isn't quite the same, but close enough. Both good characters to have in this format, considering all the souped-up space dilemmas from SoG. We alternated missions, with me eventually taking a 70-60 lead. But then I went after my space mission to win, used my super-crew to blow past all of the damage dilemmas there (and it was a big pile), and ... failed Conundrum. By 1 freakin' Integrity. Luckily (?) I was stuck in a Menthar Booby Trap at the time, so I didn't run straight into the oncoming Borg Ship (he'd triggered mine), instead I had to wait and time my cure properly (by giving Vina the 4th Engineer at the appropriate time) to let me fly past it. Unfortunately, by the time that happened, he'd managed to complete his 3rd and 4th missions (since the 3rd only got him to 90-70) and win the game. Definitely a good close game though, I'm fairly proud of my performance considering I was playing against the recently crowned Australian National & Continental 1E Champ!