Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13) Tournament Report - 1E Modern - Andoria Regional 2011-06-25 - 01:00 PM Deadly Chains & Whips Excite Us (and annoy the silly hell out of our enemies!) Introduction Jank. Shenanigans. I tested four decks (Romulan/Sybok, Starfleet, Hirogen hunting party, and this one) prior to this event and ultimately chose to go with the one I felt would be the best/quickest of those. Alas, it wasn't to be. Primarily due to turn intensive actions that take too much set-up time to get the mechanics operational, but, oh well. Note: the Smooth as an Android's Bottom copies were in here solely to protect my Queen from APQ, so long as I had Youth from one of the First/Second/Third and Fourth/Fifth bunch and either the Interlink Drone or the Vinculum present, not for the dirty pool they've been used for its first function. Round 1 Bye BY (0) The first round Bye and I have a long history. Let's just say it's not a good one and leave it at that. (okay, I'll say it again, I hate byes, for any player, and not just myself). grrrr. Round 2 Dan Van Kampen FW (+70) Dan made it up here this year and I was glad he was able to do so. In pre-Regional discussion, he indicated that he would most likely be running Borg, so I knew it was going to be a fairly mirror match, at least, in some respects. We both seeded Expose Covert Supply (Qo'nos) and were going for our own style of harnessing the Omega Particle. When he didn't seed any dilemmas at any of my [Universal] Space missions, I knew I had the ultimate opportunity to run my targeted strategy of the first HP010 for its' 30 points, and follow in succession with a second HP010 for 60 more points (to put me at 90 pts.) and a third HP010 for 60 more points (for the FW at 150 pts.)without ever having to face a single dilemma (and what I had been counting on)...unfortunately, of my 9 Queens in the deck, she seemed to not want to come out and play until midgame. I finally got a copy of her into play, meanwhile Dan scored his first HP010 (at a mission in the DQ, iirc) and headed towards Qo'nos (with Gowron of Borg in play, naturally) to begin his scouting attempts at assimilating the Klingon Empire into the collective fold. With my deck only having three 'normal' missions, that of ECS, Deliver Message (Ferenginar) {and yes, I had Brunt of Borg in my deck, in addition to GoB}, and Salvage Operation, he had to realign his combos (of which, I'm fairly sure he wasn't aware of my strategy goals, which he could have hampered by placing dilemmas under my [univ] Space missions, even if thinned out), and in doing so, faced one of my combos under Qo'nos [for obstacles to him] and his combo [for obstacles to me], but, in his scouting attempts at the Klingon homeworld revealed three or four of his legitimate seeds, sadly (for him) the last seed was one of his own misseeds, that of a space dilemma I can't recall. Barred. Whoops. No Qo'nos for him, but, for me, an OPPORTUNITY! One my Bruntless of Borg (not being in play, that is) had to seize. I just had to draw into my lone copy of Gowron of Borg (in my 91 card deck) in order to subsume the Empire for the greater glory of my Collective, while I had already had an AH on table, face down, of course. I began to furiously dig for him and had to use both my ToQ in a chainlink of actions to download Obelisk to download Masaka and further use the Calibration Drone to repeat the process in order to call forth GoB himself. Successfully so, or luckily, I will admit, that very chain of events worked to get GoB to my Tactical Cube and nabbed me AH for 80 pts. (from HP010's subsequent doubling of the Borg objectives completed thereafter). My FW, 110-30. A definite GG, with some awesome back and forth actions and great conversation. Dan's a great guy and I look forward to facing him in 1E (and 2E) in the near future! Round 3 Jerad Berhow ML (-5)View opponent's ReportView original Report Jerad, my current local nemesis. Oh how we've been battling each other for some time in both editions of the game. So, I certainly expected to see him running Borg as well (that's why I included the copies of Alas, Poor Queen in my deck, in case my AFSWBN or my Exec Auth/Shocking Betrayal/A Bad End or Shocking Betrayal/Don't Let It End This Way combos gave me the opportunity to kill her and wipe out all pretenders in each of his hives in response if that ever occurred), so when the Great Hall hit the table, I knew it was going to be a different story. Oh well. Knowing his other 1E deck of late has been Klingon battle, I figured out it was going to be a completely different game and it was. He had seen me run the earlier version of this deck a few months ago, so he knew very well to thin out his combos and place dilemmas under each of my (Univ) Space missions, therefore no easy grabs for me. So, adapting to the scenario laid out before me, I knew I was going to have to work on HP010 at my Unicomplex location (SO). Further, he shocked the spaceline with 6 planets. I had to realign all my combos and dump my two space based ones involving two Cytherians and a few others at his furthest planet mission, that of my farthest left, his farthest right, figuring he'd not get to it and snag an easy mission. (it did work out that way, heh heh.) Anyhow, I proceeded on HP010 at SO as soon as I could make a run for it, meanwhile, he nabbed one of his planets for 35. So, when I probed for HP010 successfully on the last turn I could do so, as a failed probe happened the earlier turn, and I had not had either a Handshake nor the most recently converted from 2E drone whose name I forget, the one who can download BDT in place of the normal card play, on that turn, I nabbed him at the end of that turn, providing me the 'hail mary pass' of using BDT to rig on that final opportunity before my Unicomplex and Tac Cube and crew of 9 or more would have been sent to kingdom come when the Particle blew up. My BDT found two of the cards that would have given me a successful probe (a Queen and an Incident, I believe) out of the five and I put one of them on top, but, to muck with me, Jerad used his QtR download of Juggler to rearrange it, hoping for a fail. Fortunately, for me, while he sent those cards in a jumble, I ended up with an Objective being on top after the shuffle. So, keeping him from getting another mission, with a Scientific Method I do believe, the game finished with his MW, 35 to my 30. Grrr. Oh if only HP010 was instead a 35 or 40 point objective?! 35, and we'd've tied, most likely placing me at the top of the heap, 40 for sure, which would've been my MW. Oh well. In hindsight, naturally,...why oh why did I not include a Balancing Act in my seed slots, for me to encounter, then it would've been my 30 to his -15. ??? Dem's da breaks, as dey say. Lamentations are futile. GG. Congrats to Jerad on wresting the Regional Champion title from me, succeeding me in the role. I plan to regain it next year, assuredly. Now here is the round that always takes the cake. He views me as his nemesis which sits fine with me...I started out with a mediocre hand. I grabbed Q the Ref the first turn as it was to Matt. I made 2 free plays and discarded Q for my Obelisk and grabbed a new much nicer hand. I spent several turns building up enough forces so that if he wanted to play on my playground there would be blood. Took me several turns to fight through a mission but ended up only getting one. He tried to download 7 with a Calibration drone ability at one point but was thwarted by my Obelisk of Masaka. Couple turns later he was able to push thru a major download turn and go for his Harness Particle. He bullied 1 turn clear and next turn he failed the probe after trying to setup a handshake rig. next turn I knew he had it so I suspended for a Juggler and hoped it would change the probe to something nasty. He still got his objective on the probe and his 30 points. I still had 35 and time ended there so I tried for a push on my differential and failed as my whole away team bit it.