Kevin Jaeger (Hoss-Drone) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - Andoria Regional 2011-04-09 - 11:30 AM HO.S.S-D.R.O.N.E Introduction When I have even a half decent draw i win. When i dont see a Hollow pleasantries or an eris til turn 6 and my opponents play well...I lose. Such is life. Round 1 Jason Svee FW (+100) I dropped dominion defiant, i dropped 12 people over the next three turns, I attempted SNW, I got 4 dilemmas under. next two turns i solved and moved dilemmas over to Clash at Chintoka. I then solved CaC with 5 and 30 bonus points for the win. Jason had 2 missions attempts and no solves. Round 2 Josh Grace ML (-30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Josh was attempting turn three. I had a hand of dominion defiant and 6 personnel none of which were eris and i didnt find hollow pleasantries till turn 5. I finally got out to attempt SNW on turn 6 with 9 people. Not exactly by the book for this deck. I hold him off at first two missions until turn 8. In the meantime, Josh 1 out of 8 dark shots Deyos to prevent a solve turn 7, he then 1 in 7 dark shots an engineer (on the mission txt). I choose to risk the back up team and he top decks Caretaker's guests and removes my last engineer. I solve but cannot move dilemmas and cannot staff the defiant. :( So it was a wrong decision. Time gets called, I hold off a double attempt at his space, i drop my back up ship and roll out and attempt my space mission with 12. He stops me and I didnt have three TN peeps to use Ruling council which were of course, the same people who were dark shot'd earlier. Mod win for Josh. Great play by josh but the decider was his unreal string of luck. Kevin ran a Dominion / Terak Nor deck, so I expected: 1) The Defiant, and 2) Ruling Council for a 2-mission win. I had two copies of Grav-Plating Trap in my deck and considered digging for both to kill Ruling Councils, but I was concerned that he might just kill them with Our Death, anyway. I love Our Death is Glory to the Founders. It's one of the reasons I wanted to play Dominion in the first place, but it sucks to face it. Meanwhile, Kevin drew his hand and immediately declared it the worst opening hand he'd ever seen in the history of the deck. I was happy for every bit of luck I could get as I was sure I'd need it, but as this thread of conversation continued throughout the match, I was more and more discouraged that my eventual MW was credited only to my "dumb luck." Sometimes, y'know, you can have bad luck and still win if your opponent's a total jobber. I mean, for example (without remotely implying that Kevin's a jobber), my first hand had NOTHING I could play, so I drew 6 and dropped Finding Our Way. First turn Energize? Nope. Couple of events for Chakotay to Slam Past Stops? Nope. First turn Voyager? Hardly. So... y'know, it wasn't as bad as Kevin's draw, but it wasn't the Gold Medal of draws for my deck, either. As for the GPT, that was burned for At What Cost?, but Kevin killed my GPT with an Our Death. I teased that it cost me only 1-counter for my equipment versus 2-counters for his Jem'Hadar. He kept drawing for stuff and started playing Vortas with some effect that made them cheaper. I was surprised to see the Mass Vorta Effect, but not so surprised to see Deyos make them all suck a lot less. My deck got off to fairly quick mission attempts, but Kevin stopped me well for several turns, as I'd expect. The surprise, really, was how long I was able to hold him back at Survey New World. Having dropped a GPT against At What Cost?, and given that he had to have 2 more Our Death in his deck, I put the odds really low that my 2nd GPT would kill any of his Ruling Councils, so the money was all on stalling him at Survey New World as long as possible, to keep him from swapping dilemmas, going over to the 2nd mission and getting the win. Among other things, this meant I was dropping as few dilemmas as I could, hoping for a bit of luck to stop him during his mission attempts with minimal dilemmas consumed. Meanwhile, I tracked his Engineer (Defiant deck, right?), and he only had 2 copies of Engineering on his Jem'Hadar. For his first mission attempt (maybe for 2), he kept a second team aboard the Defiant, which I knew meant he had 1 of his Engineer aboard. But after I was lucky enough to remove one with either Hard Time or the Survey New World text (2 out of 7 shots), he sent the second team, and I used Caretaker's Guests to pluck away the Engineer. That left his ship stranded. Even though I got through 2 missions, he was doing well enough with his dilemma play, that I'd been unable to complete all three, leaving him with a window of opportunity on his last turn to fly his 2nd ship over to Survey New World, grab all his personnel and mass attempt his space mission. I've got a million filters in the dilemma pile and half a million walls, so the big team made it relatively easy to stop them all. And the coup de grace was that because I'd randomly plucked away some Terak Nor personnel, he didn't have enough to play Ruling Council to unstop his team. In the end, I believe this was 70-35 in my favor, but it certainly could have gone either way. Round 3 Ben Johnson FW (+100) See Game 1. Exact same situation. Deck again chooses to play properly. Round 4 Nate Lindgren FW (+50) See game 1 except Nate steals his space mission out when I have to wait a turn intentionally to move the 5th and 6th dilemmas over to Clash at Chintoka. Round 5 Mike Harrington FL (-65) Mike and I both have absolutely god awful draws. He energize's away anti-defiant tech and a ship and a kirk. He has no kirk in hand so my dilemma pile holds him off from turns 4-7. Normally, I would have won by this time but of course I have the worst opening hand of this decks entire existence against my toughest opponent. I had to d7 and pitch seven two straight turns because all three hollow pleasantries and all three eris' are stuck in the middle of the deck. However, even after he gets two missions up, his 2nd legacy at SNW whiffs, I solve and I move dils over to Clash. I attempt Clash and put more under. He drops mccoy and gets them back, I hold him off at space but if he drops a ship he can fly home and go back for the micro-team win. I do get a shot for the win at Clash when he d1/s1 - he uninvited's. Do I have an Our death in hand? Of course not, it was an awful draw. So he stops me. Then he top decks his 3 cost ship on counter number 4. gg. A win by the skin of teeth. Exactly the kind of game you would expect from 2 world champs.