Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13) Tournament Report - 2E Standard 2011-02-12 - 04:00 PM Would You Drive My Getaway Car? Introduction Well, my second TNG deck in the same week. But, an entirely different (relatively speaking, that is) decktype. With Extreme Measures now legal, while I have something like 5-7 new decks based around the just released cards, I chose to run the Diplomatic Envoy newest version of the Enterprise-D. Only right, as I've long been a proponent of the need for a virtual D to join the promo Genial Picard in the format, only fair. Round 1 Bye BY (0) Bye. Yeah, I'll say it again, I hate byes. Not just for myself, but, for any of my players. Byes suck. Sitting around, twiddling thumbs for an hour sucks. Never fun. We come to play. Not to sit. But, what can you do? Oh well. Plus, as we carried out a conversation re: byes and tourney participation, I really truly think the VP totals DO need to be realigned. I've expressed it on the gameplay boards before, and have seen others agree, that something along the lines of: Full Win & BYE = 5 pts. Modified Win = 4 pts. True Tie = 3 pts. Modified Loss = 2 pts. Full Loss = 1 pt. Now, our conversation steered additionally to the status of a player playing all 3 (or 4, or 5 rounds, what-have-you) and winning each of his or her games, while a BYE player having had to sit out a round, and while he or she wins 2 (or 3, or 4) of his or her games, it's not fair to the one who slugged it out and should be the clear victor, while said BYE player did sit out a game. Now, don't get me wrong, I agree that there should NOT be a penalty imposed on the BYE player regarding the win of the tournament...so, what, I proposed/ came up with, is much like the 'Final Confrontation' some of our fellow playgroups like to utilize from time to time, what if, in this scenario, where such 2 players have a specific tournament record/result, that you have those two face off in a Final Showdown, and whoever gets the first mission (as mission solving is still the bread and butter of the game, the rules make that clear to this day) is the clear cut Tournament Winner? (this would keep the relatively one-sidedness of a deck that can score 5 Kotra points, or 5 ASFSE points, or 5 P&P/GUYS points, a Guinan/Khan! combo etc. etc.) from just doing that type of trick and beating the opponent lopsidedly? Just a few thoughts/discussions we had. Round 2 Mike Rudolph MW (0) So, onto Equinox (again). SIGH. Well, not as bad as last Tuesday, as I popped in one The Clown: Bitter Medicine (not my recent three, what with Legacy rampant), and two copies of Swashbuckler at Heart with the intent to (at least twice in the game) send the Nucleo cards back to top of deck and slow down the skill cheating/attribute pumping. Worked pretty much like a charm. While this was a very close game, as we hit time, Mike had what was the Modified Win, at his 80 - to my 50. I kept him from scoring the full win at his Locate Full Source by like a 5 or 6 card combo, ending after the stops with my lone use of what Chris calls 'cough syrup' aka Bitter Medicine. Mike's away team's cunning plateau was 34 or 35, iirc, when he needed 39. So, on my turn, as i was second turn going player (this game and the following one, I went 2nd both times, so I did get to use Historical Research to grab Genial Picard, so that first turn I d/l'ed the neuEnt-D.), I got to grab my Track Survivors, which was like third attempt, putting me at 90, and I bopped on over to Historical Research with 8 peeps who were held up by his combo. My 90 - Mike's 80. Round 3 Jerad Berhow FL (0) Here comes those 'walking science fair projects' yet again. Grrr. Knowing what his deck does, after the last tourney, I just sat at Earth building up some major resources and had to alter my strategy, not going for Host Metaphasic Shielding Test like in the last game, to instead working on Mediate Peace Treaty, so no Will of the Collective action at my space for Jerad. Unfortunately, while I did get the mission to his choice of Legacy, and my dp having only the 3 non-skillers, to 26 skiller dilemmas, nabbing it on first attempt. It was my only success of the game, just as previous. His subsequent turn, he bopped on over to MPT, used the Invasive Drone to beam 2 Security cheapies aboard, along with another Invasive and 2 Harvest Drones (he never paid for, as the swapper Queen brought them in during his Assault on Species 8472 attempts!) he used Abduction to grab Navaar (my only Treachery), the two Harvest Drones snagged two of my command peeps, and then two more successive Relentings (after beaming one of his newly assimilated Borg-type peeps aboard his ship, in two actions) stole two more command peeps, leaving my originally 9 person crewed ship, that Lwaxana Troi had been the only non-staffing crewmember on, with 4 people. One command, two staff, and Lwaxy. NOT...ENOUGH...to fly home for respite. Dangit. My other two copies of the neuD had been cluttering up my hand from nearly the get go, and while I had Disadvantage Into Advantage and VIP Welcome fully operational, I couldn't, for the life of me, draw into either copy of the E (one of the Premiere version and one of the Captain's Log version each were in my deck). So, Jerad bopped through Battle Reconnaissance, conducted a One with the Borg for 25 points, and followed it up by getting one of his planets for the win, all the while me sitting watching the game in progress. I, of course, drew into one of the E's on my last turn...just a little too late to even try to catch up. Bummer. FL, 50-100.