Johannes Klarhauser (Kaiser) Tournament Report - 1E - Vandros IV Regional 2013-04-27 - 11:00 AM Going for the Triple Crown! Introduction With a grand total of ten 1E games (games, not tournaments) played before this Regional, I fully expected to receive a good old spanking, especially when two of the other four players made up the final table at the world championship a while ago. I don't own too many 1E cards, so I made do with mostly printable stuff and went with Ferengi. As always, I tried to squeeze in some achievements, and hoped to get to play Sebastian and Thomas to add them to my PvP tally. Round 1 Andreas Rheinländer FW (+100) The 2010 champ world champion (and author of the popular Dominion article series ) played an Enterprise-E/Son'a deck and immdiately began scouting my missions with Geordi/Ocular Implants. I began attempting on turn one, with 5 people and the Kurdon. I ran into V'ger head on, but I Kurdon-downloaded Quark to beat it and score five points. I lost one person to a filter, but had enough Medical left to beat the Love Interest/Plague and score another five. Couldn't do the mission, though. Andreas reported more personnel, scouted at different mission, but apparently didn't like what he saw. Eventually, he decided to let his ship be damaged by The Cloud to get it out of the way (I was too far away to take advantage of his damaged ship). I mirrored Andreas' Kivas Fajo - Collector to draw lots of cards, completed my space mission, then sent a team down a planet, where they were stopped by Hanonian Land Eel. I didn't have the skills to beat it in my remaining people, so I sent them to a different planet - where they, too, ran into a Land Eel. Andreas recovered from The Cloud, and triggered the Personal Duty/Friendly Fire behind it, so he was two turns away from scoring points (he also had the +10/-10 points rule out). I played more people, ferried them all to the same planet, beat the Land Eel, but lost six people to Caretaker's Guests/Artillery Attack (I found out later I could have used The Juggler to make the probe random, and not six-skilled Gozar the Gozarian). Still, despite the heavy casualties, the other team walked in to complete, then went on to my third planet. I ran into Kelvan Show of Force followed by A Fast Ship Would Be Nice. I remembered that I could give Andreas a ship to prevent the loss of the personnel, and it turned out to be the right decision, because I could pass the Linguistic Legerdemain and completed the mission. FW, 100-0. Round 2 Thomas Weidemann FW (+95) Thomas played TNG Klingons with Officer Exchange Program and Legitimate Leader. He spent several play actions on downloading stuff to pump the stats on his ship, so I had more personnel out early and attempted wildly. I ran into things like Garbage Scow, but on the whole I made good progress. Then Thomas flew over with a Pagh on steroids and battled me, resulting in several casualties and 5 points for him thanks to Phaser Array Power Cell. On a later turn, he destroyed one of my ships with his K'vort, but his mission attempts (three-man red-shirting on the planet, bigger crew in space) were stopped by my walls. In the end, I decided to fly away from his fleet so as not to lose to many mission skills to random deaths, and completed the missions on the far side of the spaceline for the win. FW, 100-5. Round 3 Sebastian Kirstein ML (-45) Sebastian, a former continental champion, worlds runner-up, master deck-builder in both editions, and all-around great guy, played Borg. We had three duplicated missions, and as a relatively new player I haven't got the foggiest idea of how to deal with that. I also don't know Borg cards very well, so I had no idea what kind of objectives there are or what missions they can target. I figured I could try to download and play as many ships as possible and assemble a fleet to maybe battle his Cube, but again, I don't know what kinds of Drones there are to pump the ship stats. Also, I couldn't draw into a second Mercenary for my life, so I couldn't actually move the Merc ship to outpost. In the end, I just started attempting, and while I made it through a couple of dilemmas (Mission Fatigue, Energy Field), I suffered too many casualties along the way when Sebastian started Elminating Starships. I had lost 15 points to Higher...Fewer and Edo Probe, but with four people left in play, I actually managed to move a Garbage Scow out of the way and complete Resupply Marauder II to get into positive points. Yay, go me! Of course, Sebastian then stole my Raid Ancient Burial Site (I didn't know Borg could more or less ignore the Dead End he had seeded there), and assimilted Gozar as a counterpart to get another 30 points. I spent the rest of the game drawing into personnel and ships to attack Sebastian whenever possible in order to keep him from probing and getting a Full Win, but Sebastian admitted himself that his deck is not really good at getting FWs. It's a shame he had to leave after this round, watching his game against Andreas would probably have been both entertaining and enlightening for the rest of us. ML, 10-55. Round 4 Oliver Thust FW (+20) Oliver played Hirogen with non-aligneds with four missions in the delta quadrant. This meant my damage dilemma combos to set up a ship kill were much less effective. He got his Ancestral Vision download going with a TMW on Tasha Yar, and also played The Traveller: Transcendence to draw three cards from turn 1. Myself, I remembered to mirror the Traveler, and reported guys left and right to start attempting immediately. I got stopped by Ferengi Infestation, but beat it on my second turn only to run into Devastating Communique + Aphasia Device. I had enough MED and Bio personnel in hand to get rid of it and complete the mission the next turn, but was stopped by Cardassian Processing and lost Dr. Borts. Oliver then started attempting, and immediately walked through The Cloud thanks to skill sharing from One. He was stopped by PDuty/Friendly Fire, though, but the clock was ticking. On my turn, I finally had my Merc Ship staffed and used it to ferry around my people, and used Defend Homeworld to dl Anya > Salia to help me get through Cardassian Processing, but couldn't get through the filter + Scientific Method. Oliver flew one of his ships to the Alpha Quadrant, and stole my Raid Ancient Burial Site by passing his three dilemmas there in one go, and also completed his delta mission once the FF had counted down. He was on 80 points now, while I was on 65 once I had brought in Tallera and Vekor to help with the SM (I had scored 10 from mission specialists and lost 10 to Edo Probe). Oliver was stopped in the delta quadrant by my MEDICAL combo ending with Medical Crisis. With about 16 people and two ships in play, I moved to Revenge Plot. I don't remember the first dilemma, but The Trois laughed at Talosian Cage and Matriarchal Society. Oliver could have walked through his last mission on his next turn. FW, 100-80. Closing Thoughts With three wins out of four games, I exceeded all my expectations. I've won a Regional for 1E, 2E, and Tribbles now this season, and should I lose out from here on, I'll still call it a good year. Thanks very much to Oliver for running a smooth tournament, and of course to everyone else for the great games!