Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser) |
Tournament Report - 2E Standard - Omarion Nebula Regional |
2011-04-23 - 10:30 AM |
Deck inspired by a Chris Zongleberry build from 1872 |
Introduction |
Slightly modified deck that went 4-1 (+365) the week before to win the Dessau Regional. Changes included a second copy of Shran, some interrupts, and minor changes to the dilemma pile (add Excalbian and Polywater, scratch Legacy). Credited appropriately now. |
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Round 1 | | Soren Ramme Nielsen | FW (+35)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
Having played DS9 Walk the Line myself for a while, I knew what to look out for. Unfortunately, it also meant that a lot of my dilemmas wouldn't be very effective as soon as Walk the Line, Odo and Primmin were in play.
I had a brain fart when I played Inequitable Exchange + Polywater on Soren's first attempt, capturing Primmin instead of a mission skill, so Soren walked right through thanks to the Centaur's bonus, so it was an uphill battle for the rest of the game. Soren stopped me a couple of times at Deliver Evidence, while he worked on Avert Danger. I shamelessly used In Development to stop an attempt when Soren forgot to name it with Benjamin Sisko (he had done so the turn before).
Still, he completed it eventually. However, I caught a lucky break when I dodged a Dreamer and walked right through Survey New World on my first attempt. At Assess Contamination, Soren played a combo putting six under that was guaranteed to stop me, even with Kirk. With Secret Identity he removed Sisko to get a chance of playing Bridge Officers' Test, but luckily I was able to hold him off with other dilemmas before he got a chance to play it.
Danish Fun Fact #34: This was the first time ever that a game between Soren and myself did not end in a Modified Win. |
Ok, though start. Johannes (J) is just a super cool guy. I really enjoy hanging out with him when we get the chance at Euros or whatever. He's a really good player and a good deck builder, so I knew that this wouldn't be easy. When J layed down his hq I knew what to expect. TOS Earth. J had won a Regional in Germany a couple of weeks earlier with a TOS deck so it had to be some version of that build that he'd brought. Kirk and Assess Contamination. Puh, just what I'd feared. J being the one playing it didn't exactly help.
I got off to a good start. Primmin, Bashir and Sisko out fast. Attempted Automated Repair Station and J playing Inequitable Exchange + Polywater. The exact details are a bit hazy, but I belive that he could actually have removed a mission skill (I think that I only had one Astrometrics in there), but he choose to get Primmin probably forgetting about the Centaur's attribute boost, so I walked right through on the first attempt. I also managed to keep J from completing Deliver Evidence for some time using Gomtuu twice and a lucky draw of Personal duty when I had 2 to spend and draw (no Kirk out yet). I had trouble getting through Avert Danger, though. Primmin was in the Brig and Odo wasn't out yet. It didn't help that I forgot to name In Development (w. Sisko's ability) on my third go at the mission (I had named it on my two previous attempts) and flipped the first dilemma just to see ID staring back at me. Futhermore, I was stopping Shran each time J attempted, so I wasn't getting a lot of dilemmas under. Meanwhile J was finally getting through DE and moving on to Survey New World. I caught a bad dilemma draw, but figured that In Development + Healing Hand would do the trick. I forgot, however, that Helen Noel, his only medical, is a cost 2 and was stopped by ID. So, Healing Hand did nothing and J had enough guys left to complete. Ugh. Now I was far behind and he only needed to solve AC. To make matters worse, he now had Kirk and Navaar out. I did quickly get back into the game, though, solving AD with help from Walk the Line. I also got to work on Survey New World. Twice J stopped me with a wall (Rogue Borg Ambush and Infinite Diversity naming Archaeology). In both cases I was looking at Bridge Officers Test in my hand (and Security Drills in my core for the second leadership), but knew that it'd get cancelled by J's Sisko. Damn! So close. I made a plan, though. I figured that stopping J more than once at AC would be hard with both Kirk and Navaar out. So when he attempted I choose to play Timescape, An Issue of Trust, Secret Identity and We’ll Never Know (and topped it off with a Center of Attention that I shouldn’t have played – but I figured that I only had the one chance of stopping him so one dilemma more probably made little difference). Ok, the rationale was this: Timescape was Kirk fodder. If he Kirked it: Great. If not, well then at least I hadn’t wasted any points on it. An Issue of Trust was in there because I knew that if he didn’t Kirk it, it would stop at least one of either Kirk or Navaar and that was crucial to my wall hitting. I was following this with SI because it would take out either Kirk or Navaar if any of them was still in the mission attempt. If both of them were stopped I planned to SI Sisko and thus enabling me to play BOT at what I figured to be my last chance at Survey New World on the following turn. We’ll Never Know requires 3 physics and I knew he had none. He would need Navaar and she was going to be out of the picture by then. (The final CoA was just a panic play in case he had BOT and Driven in hand to overcome WNK, but I think that he had plenty of security left anyway).
My plan worked! Kirked took out Timescape. Navaar got stopped by AIoT and Sisko had to reveal himself and turned out to be Evans instead. Ok, one more go at Survey New World. Now I had to figure out what to name with Sisko. I chose Infinite Diversity. The reasoning behind this decision might have been a bit convoluted. I was hoping that J didn’t realise my reason for using SI on Sisko and was going for another wall. He knew I had no way of gaining Archaeology and not naming Infinite Diversity might have led him on track. Unfortunately, he either realised what I was trying to set up or didn’t draw into any walls. He played Coolant Leak (I think) stopping just enough to make me unable to complete even with Walk the Line. So that was it. Stopped with 4 under and J walking right through AC on his next turn for the full win 100-65. Good game.
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Round 2 | | William Hoskin | MW (+45)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
Will dropped a Sabotaged Transporters early on, and used it to kill off my personnel like flies. Luckily, I drew into a lot of weenies early on, and happily sacrificed them to put some dilemmas under. I started at Assess Contamination, but with two personnel aboard my ship all the time to prevent being Kruged, it took a while until I had enough people who could actually do the mission.
Apart from discarding his high cost personnel, Will actually played a couple of personnel every now and then and worked through Amnesty Talks eventually.
I managed to complete Survey New World, but when it was time to go to space, I lost two ships and some quality personnel. I had a good number of dilemmas under, 8 personnel with good skill redudancy in play, another ship in hand, but no turn left to use them, which gave Will a shot at the win by doing planet-space. Of the 5 dilemmas I drew, two were useless Watch Your Steps, and I knew that Will had all the skills in play to walk past the three others: Unknown Microorganism, Sylvia, and Temptation. Luckily, Will had left all but one Security aboard his ship, and so couldn't get past the wall, which gave me an undeserved modified win.
Danish Fun Fact #42: Both Will's and my own deck were blatant rip-offs of decklists that we recently discovered in a diary of unknown (possibly Northern American) origin we bought off eBay Denmark. |
The matchup I was dreading, I have played Johannes plentry of times and its always close. Johannes was out and attempting Assess Contamination early with a lot of low cost TOSsers and some NA holograms with a sprinkling of higher cost people for good measure. I ended up giving him two dilemmas on the first attempt, well prepared defences which was overcome and then In developement which got me a choice kill (thanks to ST) and almost everyone else stopped. That was the best I could have hoped for and after that attempt I had to put around three dilemmas under each turn to slaughter enough people to stop from being overrun. Johannes was skill tracking and Infinite diversity stopped me on more than one occasion. slogging my way through I managed to get my space mission done and the started hitting the planet mission Johannes (mindful of Kruge/Klingon battle) was dropping people off at his planet missions and running away at the end of each turn with his ship. As soon as he had finished his second planet mission he went to space and Kruge came into play, two ships later and johannes was playing more bodies to go out and attempt and I was attempting my planet mission when time was called. Johannes had the point advantage but if i could manage to get the planet mission then victory would be mine. I decided to send done six people rather then the eight that I had in play in order to limit Johannes options, the five main honor / integrity Klingons with the mission skills and one extra past klingon to make up the numbers. I had a choice of two for the last slot on the misson attempt with Kruge being out of the running as his integrity would not help. After my bold mental coin flip I attempted and Johannes played three dilemmas telling me who had the skills to pass the first dilemma Unknown microorganism, unfortunately for me my brave mental coin flip had left Kang my second security on the ship and everyone was stopped and Johannes got the Mod Win. Another very close very enjoyable game. Next time your mine!! |
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Round 3 | | Peter H. Møller | FL (-25)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
Peter dropped the Bozeman, Leonard McCoy, four weenies and Lwaxana on his first two turns and started attempting right away. Inequitable Exchange captured Lwaxana and forced Peter to draw for another Telepathy, but he soon was back with support from Mot and even more weenies.
My dilemma pile worked quite well, putting as few dilemmas under as possible even when Peter started double teaming, but I soon had to resort to using TOS McCoy (+ Chekhov to bounce him and do it again) to keep the mission clean, since even with only two under, it was nearly impossible to stop two attempts each turn.
Unfortunately, spending resources on McCoy meant I didn't get too many personnel out myself, and drew into a ship only when Peter had already attempted four times. To make things worse, a Hard Time and Gomtuu on my own space mission meant I was unable to fly back and forth in one turn, and also that I had no Navigation left for Deliver Evidence. Unwilling to waste a turn to fly home and repair or get reinforcements, I resorted to playing personnel directly aboard my ship (Spock, Sisko, Dax) and went to work on my planet missions.
Miraculoulsy, I actually managed stay in the game for quite a long time even though Peter had the advantage of playing 3 At What Costs. I even completed both of my planets eventually, then flew right on back to Deliver Evidence again, still without having flown back to Earth to pick up the missing Navigation. I was gambling to coax Peter into playing a Secret Identity to get rid of Kirk (OT), so I could swap in the necessary skill. Peter actually did me the favor and I was able to bring in Number One, but I ended up short on attributes by about one personnel. With six under and the option to play Kirk again aboard the ship, I probably would have completed the mission despite an Uninvited, but alas, it wasn't to be, because the combined dilemma-busting and micro-teaming power of Kirk (LL), To Boldly Go and their TNG friends didn't give me another turn. Very well played, Peter!
Danish Fun Facts #67 + #68: Peter used to run Danish Fun Facts, to great success, before passing the torch to me. Also, this was the first time I ever lost to Peter in a sanctioned tournament. (About time, the pressure of keeping a streak alive was too much for me anyway ;) ). |
Having won two games, I now faced Joahnnes. This really scared me, and I thought my new winning streak would come to an end. Johannes played a TOS solver with OT Kirk and Asses Contaminant. Luckily I had been toying with the same idea a few days before (though with Donatra as well=, so I knew how the deck worked. It was gonna be a race for the money and we where both pretty fast out attempting missions. I mad a big mistake attempting my first mission with 4, while Joannes had Transport Crash Survivors. Johannes drew a lot, but decided not to play anything thinking it was a clever ploy to get even more cards under. It wasn't and I solved the mission. The rest of the game was neck to neck, but in the end I somehow ended up victories. Johannes would have won the next turn if I didn't. That was a real nail bitter. |
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Round 4 | | Loke Andersen | FW (+95) |
Loke was struggling to get his Romulan point engine going. With 50 of 74 cards in my deck being personnel, his P+P hardly ever worked and only gave me additional card draws, and GUYS was removed from the game by Scotty after the second successful probe.
With Tal on table from turn 1, Loke got some downloads thanks to the Driven I had in my starting. I got rid of the Driven soon: on my first mission attempt, Loke played The Caretaker's Guests while my discard pile was still empty. I used Driven to boost the attributes of one of my guys, discarding Kirk from hand to pay the cost, conveniently putting him into my discard pile only to have him join the mission attempt and nullify the next dilemma right away.
After my space mission was done, I moved to Assess Contamination, where 5 guys were killed by things like Whisper in the Dark and other nasty bits. Still, Loke couldn't draw into either an Energize or an At What Cost until late in the game, so I actually completed my third mission before he had left his headquarters.
Danish Fun Fact #103: Loke, my only opponent over the course of 8 round of Trek that day I hadn't played before, won the 3-round tournament that followed this Regional, earning 3 Full Wins with his Romulans. |
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Round 5 | | Peter van der Helm | MW (+10)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
I was very lucky that Peter had a less than perfect starting hand, and ended up having to draw and discard a lot of cards early on, among them two copies of Prison Comound and Labor Camp. He downloaded Silarin Prin on turn 1 to ward off my Kirk, which was a wise choice.
Peter surprised me by drawing and spending an extra three dilemmas on my first attempt, killing a lot more guys than I had expected. With the limited amount of capture cards I had seen, this caught me entirely off guard, and I lost several personnel that were hard to replace adequately.
Next turn, Peter Ensnared Willard Decker to keep the Ezri Tigan his Evek and already captured the turn before some company.
I was able to stall Peter for some time at his space mission, but I could only play around Tell for a couple of attempts before I ran out of tricks. Also, I have to apologize to Peter here: when he announced his second mission attempt, I was already planning my next turn in my mind and wasn't paying close attention, and so for some reason I thought he had said he would end his turn, when in fact he was waiting for me to give him dilemmas. I can only imagine how weird I must have looked for him, spending some time counting the Cunning on my own personnel instead of drawing dilemmas. Sorry, Peter!
And my next blunder came right next: I flew away from Deliver Evidence without actually completing it. I had ten dilemmas under, six personnel aboard the ship who could do the mission (barring any Uninvited or the like), but was already a step ahead in my mind, and flew to my homeworld, beamed up guys, and attempted Assess Contamination.
I was lucky that Assess Contamination screwed up Peter's TT dilemma combo, and I got away with four or five under and less kills than I had feared. In the meantime, Peter had played a Quite a conincidence and had also drawn a Corbin Entek, a combo that could have nette him ten points right away. Peter chose to draw more cards instead, digging for The Central Command to move past things like An Issue of Trust after I had taken out Tell with Secret Identity. I was able to stop him at Eliminate Harvesters again, though.
On my turn, I played Number One to rescure my personnel from the brig to dodge the Quite a Conincidence/Corbin Entek combo, then completed Assess Contamination, and even remembered to fly to Deliver Evidence and score those points.
With both players having planet and space done, I was in the lead, 70-60, but Peter got another turn to try and complete another mission. Luckily, Peter still had a Gomtuu on his ship and so couldn't fly home for reinforcements for his last mission. The only playable dilemmas I drew were Temptation, which would probably have failed to stop enough, and Dignitaries and Witnesses. Peter had already used Garak to great effect to overcome an Infinite Diversity despite my best skilltracking efforts, but this time he couldn't generate enough Leadership to beat the dilemma.
Another less than convincing win, and an embarrassing lack of concentration on my side.
Danish Fun Fact #255: Unlike Peter M., Peter v.d.H. isn't really a Dane at all, but he's just as much fun to hang out with!
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The Kaiser.. I never won a game against Johannes and still haven't.. But this game could have gone the other way. I guess we both made some stupid mistakes, but me forgetting in playing A Royal Hunt in front of a Tragic Turn combo at Assess Contamination made me lose IMO. I decided to get Silaran Prin with Historical Research to stop Kirk from doing his thing and removing a One Man can Summon the Future with GPT. Also using 5 point at his first attempt at his first mission to make the most of TT to get ahead. Not choosing to kill Ezri Tigan with Entek proved to be an error on my part. I decided to draw into more cards to get fuel for Telle instead of playing Entek and killing Ezri while Quite a Coincidence was on the table. Also the strangest thing happened; I declared a mission attempt and Johannes started counting the cunning on his personal.. He misunderstood and thought I just gave him the turn. No worries Johannes.. Probably the kareoke messing with our heads.. The game ended when I could make a final attempt at Eliminate Harvesters for a modified win. With just one Leadership in hand a Dignitaries and Wittnessess was to much for Garak to cheat around. |
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