Unjustly Banned (RedDwarf) Tournament Report - 1E - Omarion Nebula Regional 2013-06-30 - 11:00 AM [OTF] My First TNG Federation Introduction I'm not the best First Edition deck builder, so I scheduled the London Regional for the final weekend of the season knowing that I could look at every other deck played at a 2013 Regional for inspiration. My aim was to build a deck that was capable of winning games and would earn me a pile of achievements in the process. Roxanne Barbour played a deck abusing her opponents with Temporal Shifting, and I liked that idea. I also liked the idea of the Hologram Ruse storyline achievement, so I looked for a deck that had already done that to steal from. Matthew Hayes' deck fit the bill nicely. It was also eligible to earn a number of other achievements that I had planned to attempt too, so I took it and customized it to fit my needs. While I don't think it could keep up with a fully optimised speed deck, it held its own on the day. Round 1 TF_Loki FW (+67) Paul was playing a TNG Federation deck that looked similar to mine. The difference was that he had quite a few cards to boost the attributes of his ship. Once he had an Enterprise with crew out, he then started heading down the spaceline towards my outpost. I was 75% confident that his Federation ship couldn't attack me, but the voice in the back of my head was telling me that I wasn't familiar with every card in the game and that he might have a way. As Paul's ship moved closer and closer to my outpost, that 75% confidence dropped significantly. Fortunately, Paul was just moving to one of his missions to do something (download a personnel?), and after he'd done that he began moving back towards his end of the spaceline. At one of Pauls attempts, his crew of 8 ran into a Q-Flash. Mandarin Bailiff saw him transfer 2 points to me, and then he lost 5 points to nullify the next dilemma with Pla-Net. He eventually solved the mission for 40 points. That wasn't enough though, as I was on my third mission by that point. I'd lost Beverly Crusher to a Male Love Interest, but that was about the only setback I encountered on my way to the win. FW: 107-33 Round 2 Niall Matthew FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report Niall was playing an Illegitimate Leader of the Empire TNG Klingon two-mission win deck. It was superb. He was out attempting on turn one and never looked back. Sadly for me, he blew through my dilemma combos. Even Barash doubling Hologram Ruse didn't help. Me giving Niall points with Parallax Arguers + two missions + mission specialists + some other card giving Niall points meant that the game was over in four turns. I did manage one attempt, and Beverly Crusher ran off with a Male Love Interest. Again. Parallel Romance then stopped another female before Matriarchal Society stopped me for good. If I had gotten another turn, Guinan was going to help me overcome Matriarchal Society and complete my first mission. Sadly, she never got the chance. FL: 0-130 Can't remember the last game we played but James is always a good laugh to play against. He was TNG Feds. I decided to go straight for my first mission, encountering the first Dilemma and anticipating the combo. I spent turn 2-3 completing it while James was trying to control a rather randy Bev on his planet. Unfortunatly James' first planet attempt resulted in sheer sexual depravity as an orgy began to cover the planet. On Turn 4 I went for the money shot and completed Veridian III with ease. Soren can't get enough of those Klingon boobies. Round 3 JurgenP MW (+30) Jurgen (who had travelled over from Belgium, how cool was that?), was also playing a TNG Federation solver. He was very patient with me as I misplayed several cards, due to my growing confusion over which card gave me cards draws and which gave me free plays. At his first mission attempt he ran headlong into a Q-Flash with at least 10 personnel. He chose to let me keep the captive with Mandarin Bailiff, and then lost 5 points to His Honor, The High Sheriff of Nottingham because I had a captive (yay - the combo worked!). Then he faced Quandary, and I managed to pick the personnel he brought into the attempt so he didn't lose any points. He did lose 5 more points to Pla-Net though. Fortunately, by the time he hit Aldebaran Serpent, he only had a couple of personnel remaining and was stopped after the Q-Flash ended. With more of Jurgen's attempts stopped by Hologram Ruse and Friendly Fire, I was able to take the lead. Once again, I ran into Male Love Interest. Beverly Crusher didn't get picked this time. It was Beverly Picard instead. I make no judgements on Beverly's character! When time was called, I had completed two missions, and Jurgen was still sitting at -10 points. He had cleared out two missions though, and completed both on the final turn. My In the Zone saved the day. MW: 70-40 Round 4 Christopher Dryer FW (+65) Christopher (on vacation from the United States, how cool was that?) was rocking TNG Ferengi. We both had pretty good starts, dropping Surprise Party on consecutive turns. I feel we were pretty evenly matched up until Christopher made his first mission attempt. He took his only ship with all eight of his personnel and ran headlong into my "blow your ship up combo". First, the Spaceborne Entity was unleashed. Then, he overcame Orion Syndicate Bomb, but not The Cloud - so his ship was damaged. Then, at the end of his turn, the Spaceborne Entity finished him off. I was both immensely proud that the combo had worked, and immensely sad that I'd blown Christopher's ship up. He never really recovered, although he did managed to complete one mission. I'd managed to get Geordi and his Occular Implants into play and was using them to check the bottom dilemmas of the missions I planned to attempt. Sadly, I couldn't overcome Dignitaries and Witnesses at one mission, and my lack of Exobiology meant that Garak Has Some Issues was giving me concern at another mission. I eventually went to a third mission where I had the skills to overcome the first wall. I then ran into a Ferengi Ambush, and was fortunate to only lose one personnel. Given how many weak (~4 Strength) personnel I had on the planet, I'm amazed the casualties were so few. On the following turn, I toyed with the idea of beaming the weak personnel up and fighting Christopher's personnel to wipe them out. Then, I realized that I could use Geordi to look at the final dilemma and potentially complete the mission instead. I did just that, and flew away leaving two Ferengi sitting on a planet as far away from Christopher's ships as possible. A turn later, I managed to play an Admiral and took on my second mission. I lost a couple of personnel, but they weren't vital and I completed the mission anyway. I finally had 2 Exobiology personnel and Security Drills (to double up a skill if I needed) in play so I went to my third mission next. Guinan was selected to go on the rampage, but I cured her. Everyone was then stopped by Astral Eddy. On the following turn, I played a second ship and flew over with Geordi (who could overcome Astral Eddy by himself) and a minimal crew to get rid of it before the team were stopped by the final dilemma. I had the skills to overcome it in my main crew so they did to take the game. FW: 105-35 Closing Thoughts The (equal) largest First Edition Regional this year, and I went 3-1. That was much better than I expected. The deck was more than a little susceptible to bad opening hands, but once it got going, it wasn't too bad. The dilemma combos also seemed to work better than I expected (except against Niall). At the end of the day, I wasn't crying over my performance. That's always a good sign.