Unjustly Banned (RedDwarf) Tournament Report - 2E 2013-12-08 - 10:30 AM [Traditional] Classic Tactical Dominion Introduction On the hunt for achievements - as usual - I decided to play a Traditional deck in this tournament. For inspiration, I used the Dominion deck that took me to the semi-final of the 2008 World Championships. To make it fully Traditional, I removed one virtual dilemma (Instigate Dissension). I also made a few changes for the current meta. Out went Aftereffects and Preventative Repercussions (as I wasn't expecting to face any weenie decks), and a second copy of An Issue of Trust (as it isn't as effective nowadays). In came a third copy of Excalbian Drama, and one copy of Odo, The Great Link's Savior - who has been my downfall several times when facing a Dominion deck. Round 1 William Hoskin MW (+5) Will was playing a Ferengi deck, designed to get three copies of Alien Gambling Device into play via Martus Mazur and then pump Hugh's attributes up so high that he can complete a mission with Hugh and one other personnel. I'm sure it is something MVB would consider playing. Fortunately, this was the first time Will had played his deck and he was still getting to grips with it. He got Martus Mazur out and downloaded three copies of the Alien Gambling Device with Muk. He didn't see Hugh until the penultimate turn though, and it was too late to make a difference by that point. Especially, as I had Friction in my core and that stopped Hugh on the turn he was played. Still, Will was putting the three copies of Alien Gambling Device to good use, and was re-selecting almost every random selection I made. I was just lucky that my dilemma pile contained quite a few walls that he couldn't use his shenanigans to get around. I was also lucky that Will played Gorgan against me before I could play one against him. He used the 9-cost Rule #141 for a guaranteed stop, whereas my mere 7 cost ships would surely have given up the mission. When it came down to it, we had both completed two missions before time was called. The deciding factor being my completed 40 point mission versus Will's completed 35 point mission. Phew! MW: 70-65 Round 2 Mr Slade MW (+1) Matt was playing a Promenade School deck based at Earth. In a fantastic start, he got his Promenade School points on turn three and then used Jaresh-Inyo to download three additional personnel. I feared for the worst at that point, as I was struggling to draw into any ships - which I needed to fuel Tactical Disadvantage - and I knew my Gorgan's may not work as Matt's deck could potentially be running 7 cost ships. As it was, my fears were unfounded. Matt went planet first, and didn't appear to have any 7 cost ships in his deck. While I never saw my copies of Necessary Execution, I managed to use a couple of copies of Excalbian Drama to slow him down. I also gambled at one point and used a Gorgan - the only dilemma that might work against Matt's crew. As it was, it did work; but it required me to discard the only ship in my hand. I hadn't played a ship by that point and that decision left me stuck at my headquarters for another turn while I tried to draw into another. On the next turn, I drew into three ships. That let me use another Gorgan to stop Matt, and still have one remaining to actually play as it was intended! My mission attempts then went fairly quickly. Having spent a couple of extra turns playing personnel while I waited to draw a ship, I was left with a choice of who to attempt with, and could afford to leave some of the low-strength Vorta behind. Matt did stop one attempt with Intimidation (picking my only Vorta last), but on my other two mission attempts he couldn't stop enough Jem'Hadar to stop me from completing the mission. On the final turn, we both had two missions completed. I had a space and a planet, Matt had two planets. Matt only had enough ships to make one attempt at his space mission, and went with a large crew. I had four ships in my hand by that point (total weapons 39), and was convinced that Tactical Disadvantage would work. Just to be safe, I coupled it with Memory Invasion and planned to follow it with Distress Call. I had one copy of Our Death is Glory to the Founders in my hand and knew that Matt would need three copies of Bridge Officer's Test to get through my combo. He didn't and I took the modified win. MW: 70-75 (planet/space vs. planet/planet) Round 3 Nicholas Yankovec FW (+100) Nick was playing his Genetically Enhanced deck. Having been locked out of his last tournament (by Biogenic Weapon) because he forgot to include any event destruction that didn't require points, he was much more confident in this tournament. He had some very bad luck in this game though. I made a point of checking the skills on his personnel as he played them and knew that he didn't have any Biology to complete his first mission. Knowing me pretty well, he doubted my skill-tracking ability and made a bluff attempt after a few turns anyway. I played Hard Time, followed by Dreamer to force him to discard his hand. One of the discarded cards was a ship. It turns out that Nick only had two ships in his deck, and he'd already discarded the other on the first turn. Normally, that wouldn't be an issue in our meta (where non-aligned Dukat rarely sees play), but the turn after I Dreamer'ed Nick, I played Dukat and proceeded to remove both ships from Nick's discard pile. Nick then conceded as he had no way to get a ship into play. Will pointed out that I might be stupid enough to discard a ship myself - and I agreed that that sounded like something I would do, especially as I was planning to discard then for Gorgan - but Nick stood by his concession. FW: 100-0 Closing Thoughts It turns out that old school Dominion are still good. I may have to try some of my other old decks to see how they stand up to the current meta. It sure beats having to build new decks... Also, for the fans of statistics, this turned out to be my 100th Second Edition tournament and my 25th tournament win in the achievement-era. I'm also down to needing tournament wins with just four other affiliations to have won one with each affiliation. I wonder how long that will take?