Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser) Tournament Report - 2E - European Continentals Day One 2012-07-21 - 10:00 AM Don't Hate on Lorian Introduction After missing the playtesting session of this year's third incarnation of the MP, nicknamed The Manhattan Project III: Tsar Bomba, I only built one of the five or so decks that emerged as our favourites - Future Starfleet, closely modeled after the build that Soren Ramme Nielsen made famous. I had given the deck a spin in a local a while ago, and while not overwhelmed when I first played it myself, I figured it might have potential once I got to know it better and learn how to pilot it against different matchups. The fact that Chris Clarke, for whose decks and insights on the message board I have a ton of respect, won big time with it in Australia confirmed by suspicion that it might truly be a force to be reckoned with. Round 1 Earned Bye EB (+100) I had hosted very dear friends at our place the night before Euros, so I didn't catch much sleep. I finished packing at 2 AM, and got up again at 4:30 AM to make the 500km drive to Bonn. Thankfully the traffic wasn't too bad, and I arrived around 9:30, payed, handed in my decklist, and said hello to the players. Even though I only had a room with breakfast for one night, I figured with the breakfast buffet price as high as it was, I might as well eat on Saturday, too, and so I joined Peter Moller in the restaurant and tried not to fall asleep. Round 2 Andrey Larin FL (-70) It's always good to see a new face, and Andrey was a great guy with a good eye for dilemma plays. I pretty much gave away the game on his first attempt in space, when I miscalculated on the lone Issue of Trust that I played - I had seen four Honor/Treachery personnel, and knew that three stops would just be enough to stop the crew. However, one of the Treachery guys I had seen had not entered play yet, but had only been downloaded to hand. That gave Andrey a giant head start, and as this was the only game in which I didn't get Samuels in play by turn three at the latest (I think it was turn 6), I wasn't able to catch up with Andrey's dead solid play. Round 3 Štěpán Vyskočil FW (+100) Stepan played a Past Klingon speed solver, and built a crew of heavy hitters early on. On my first turn, I attempted a Disruptive Presence to get Samuels, but Stepan 1-in-8 picked him to be randomly discarded - ouch. Luckily, I drew into another copy on my next turn, and so I was out before Stepan had a ship. I was stopped in space with two under. Stepan played the Qel-poh and went to Protect the Escapees with 9. I played Agonizing - Insurrection - Where No One, sending him on a trip with one under the mission and Insurrection on it. On my next turn, I spammed non-humans and managed to complete all three missions in one turn after Stepan missed Daniel's Intelligence when he played a combo ending in Rogue Borg Ambush. Round 4 William Hoskin FW (+25)View opponent's ReportView original Report Mirror match. Will also had a Starfleet build, though he went with Deliver Ancient Artifact as his second planet mission, which meant he was running some Macos for the skills, which probably slowed him down a bit in comparison to my build. It was a very close game for the entire duration, and when time was called and it was my last turn, we were on a true tie. I managed to get my third mission done in overtime for the full win. I sat down against Johannes and knew I was in trouble my dilemma pile is poor, the only hope I had was to out speed my opponents and Johannes was going to be just as fast if not faster. I was right my dilemmas failed me in the end and Johannes gets the full win. Round 5 Peter H. Møller FW (+60) Peter's speedy TNG deck is tried and trusted, but I didn't see any event destruction that he could use to slow down my Sight/AWC or Noble Intentions. My dilemmas worked fairly well and held Peter for several turns at this first mission, while his dilemma engine (Legacy pile with The Manheim Effect/The Trial Never Ended) stopped me twice before a Legacy fizzled with two revealed skill dilemmas each. I used my interrupts to get rid of the dilemma retrieval stuff and from then on it was smooth sailing through the remaining skill dilemmas. As always, great fun to play Peter H. (I'm sure the "H" is actually for "Hat") Moller. Round 6 Tobias Rausmann FW (+65) Another mirror match, which saw me ahead for most of the game, before Tobias started catching up. The game could have gone either way, it were the little things that decided over who had the speed/personnel advantage (e.g., me selecting a non-human with Hard Time that could be replayed for nothing, him selecting Damaged Archer with it, which cost me half a turn to bring him back, etc.). The play that won me the game was when Tobias brought 15 people to his first planet mission. He formed two crews, and sent the first. Knowing the skill spread of the deck, I removed Archer with Secret ID, then used Accelerated Aging to nail the mission shut for the turn, so all Tobias could do with his second crew was move to the third mission, where I stopped him with a lot under. He didn't get another turn, and I escaped with the win. Round 7 Vladimir Vrbata MW (+25) My record against the big man is abysmal, with 0 wins against him in the CC era. I think I only ever beat Vladimir once in a side event at Essen SPIEL in 2005. Although we had some close games in the past, Vlad always emerged victorious, mainly because he makes sure he does not make mistakes (at least, I can't remember him ever making a bad play against me). This time, I was lucky in that time was called at a point when I was ahead. Vlad had completed Instruct Advanced Drone with this Voyager deck, while I had completed a planet mission first and Eliminate Sphere Network after I had replayed the required skills. I moved on to my third mission and attempted with 11 or more people, I don't remember exactly. If I complete the mission, I win, so Vlad takes his time to make sure he can stop the attempt. His filters work, and a crew of four runs into Excalbian Drama, which I know I can't pass with the people left in the attempt. (Time is running up, and as Vlad had started the game, he needed me to finish my turn so he could get another turn.) However, I had Shran among the four people stopped by Excalbian Drama, so I used his ability to discard and take back a dilemma, then, before ending my turn, I played a Grav-Plating Trap to destroy Vlad's Enterprise-J. While doing this, time was called, and so I narrowly dodged that bullet. Vlad would almost certainly have completed his second mission and been ahead in points again had he had another turn. It certainly didn't feel like a well-deserved win, but I don't feel guilty about the way I won either. (We both were in Day 2 already, so a different result would probably only have resulted in me getting a slightly lower seed.)