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Matthew Hayes (karonofborg13)
Tournament Report - 1E Revised - Andoria Regional
2012-06-23 - 12:00 PM
Non-AlignedWhere in the heck have Phil Schiffly and 'The Fist of Goodness' gotten themselves off to...?
Introduction
For our First Edition Revised Format 2012 Regional, I ran a Non-Aligned TNG build in order to see if the achievements team had gotten proactive in placing a couple of hidden achievements into the system (the other being a Romulan TNG build achieve, which was the reason in John T.'s deck I'd been requested to supply), alas that wasn't so apparently, however, in addition to seeing if I could garner a win on the 1E side for the Non-aligneds and in that, I was successful. So, one out of two ain't bad. Even though I was expecting in the realm of 2-4 more players, the day proved excellent, thanks to Justin Kaufman and Ben Johnson driving up from the Twin Cities. They both crashed at my place Friday night when they got into Fargo and stayed over Saturday night, making it a blast of a weekend, more on that later. My deck was core built around Mercenary Raiders and War Council, along with the expected CM and AAH to give me three free plays and my regular play usually each turn, along with two 'during turn' draws' and two eot draws (if SP in play). I figured four cards played and four cards drawn each turn would give me the greatest advantage and it worked quite well over the course of the day.
Round 1KlingonJustin KaufmanFW (+70)View opponent's Report
I met Justin just a number of months ago when he played in the Tribbles side gig for Nationals - West 2011, fellow Ambassador Jeremy Benedict held at Gabe's Bar & Grill in the Cities back in January. Encountered him again, playing in his first 2E tourney at the largest Regional of the 2012 season TM (that of 18 players) in Roseville, MN back at the beginning of May (one I did quite well at, I might add, wink wink.) While I didn't get to play him at that gig, I was able to share some strategy discussion on 2E's finer points, and discovered he was an old school 1E player. So, I put out the invite for him to join us and he answered the call. Not knowing his play style in either Edition, I knew he'd be the wild card at our gig no matter how many players showed up, and looked upon that as an interesting challenge and a welcome addition. He chose TNG-fueled Klingons and they are quite impressive. In fact, I'd go so far as to say that they seem to be the strongest of the three TNG boosted decktypes, as they have both Legitimate Leader of the Empire and Officer Exchange Program, putting them at four card strategies (counting the generic Continuing Mission and Attention All Hands) to the Feds' three (with Finest Crew) and the Ferengi's three (FMO)...and of course, any of these can be boosted further by including either (or both) Scientific Diplomacy (which Justin did) and/or Mercenary Raiders. Anyhow, we each got off to a start, mine seeming to roll better than his, so I nabbed Qualor II Rendezvous, Steal Technology, and Study Cometary Cloud in fairly quick succession, with only Dr. Farek providing me with 10 bonus points (at QIIR and ST) before he solved anything beyond his first mission, one of his planets, iirc. My FW, 100-30.
Round 2RomulanJohn TomaszewskiMW (+34)
As one of my backup deck options, I had built a Romulan TNG decktype about a month ago, and when John stated he could make the event, he requested a deck. He'd asked for Romulan, recently, so I let him use my own build, one I'm intrigued with, even though the Rommies don't yet have their own WC mechanic. I knew it could do well, as the dilemmas I have in it pack a pretty decent punch. Believe me, I wasn't looking forward to being on the receiving end. As my deck only has two space missions (and four planets), I knew my chances of hitting the Cytherians combo at my primary space mission which was on the fairly far right of the spaceline (my side of the table), I couldn't exactly allow it to send my non-Traveler companioned crew on a journey that would delay me for too long, so I used The Genesis Effect at said mission, and having forgotten that Lack of Prep was the first card in the combo, I foolishly sent my bluff team at the attempt first. -10 points to start, oh great! Well, they plodded through the next two (?) dilemmas and the solving team came hot on their heels to mop up the mission on same turn. Sure enough, the Cytherians were there and got nuked by TGE. heh heh. I aggressively went for QIIR and my other space, putting me at 90 (as I had gotten one use of Farek's greed at one of the two appropriate missions). At this point, John had solved Study Lonka Pulsar for 40 points and was furiously working on two of his other missions. Time was crunching down. My dilemmas held him up and the next nearest mission I could conceivably snag for the fw was Raid Ancient Burial Site. I journeyed there, and gave it my all. Got through the dilemmas (second one being The Higher...The Fewer that dropped me from 90 points to 74 as I had 16 people bullying the attempt for the fw without a realization of lacking something, would've solved...yes, would've, as the team had everything... but, not a single Archaeology in play!!! My deck contained at least six different peeps with Arch, however, examining the remaining draw deck when time was over, showed that the four of my peeps who played for free (either to MR or WC) were all clumped together and the two who weren't free plays were close to them. Oh well. My MW, 74-40.
Round 3FederationBen JohnsonTT (0)
Ben and I go back and forth in both Editions, and this was no different. We used our mechanics, bouncing between missions. For the first time ever, I used Grebnedlog's nice (or is that mean?) little ability and captured Dr. Leah Brahms before she could power him to some bonus points at his Engineering missions. BAZINGA! [It wasn't until the game was over, that I realized I could've similarly used the Jovis to nab his Data, which would've been further insult to injury. Ah well, next time, perhaps?] Most notably, I got delayed by two RGS's that needed to be moved, and by end of game both ended up at my lone completed mission, Steal Tech. 35+Farek's Greed, for 40. Ben had also nabbed either his Repair Mission or Explore Dyson Sphere, for the same value of points. We tied out at 40-40. TT. ------------------- After the competition was over, John had other plans, but, Ben, Justin and I returned to my place, to join my wife and daughters (and we invited Mike Rudolph, Griffeyfanatic, over) for some grilling of burgers and hot dogs. That was followed by two rounds of Tribbles. My daughter, Kalli, joined us for the first of them, running my Bonus deck, and then she had to go to bed. Hilarity ensued in the second Tribbles event as the table talk degenerated into polite trash talk and other loopy discussions. We finished that at 9:40, Mike went home, and Justin, Ben, and I discovered we had just enough time to hit Men In Black III at 9:55, in 3D, so we did. (much like when we hit The Avengers after the Tribbles Regional in Roseville back in its opening weekend, together.) Got back to the house at around Midnight thirty and proceeded to watch some tv (on my dvr), shoot some 1E and 2E strategy discussion, before crashing for the night at around 3 AM. Weekends off rock! (happens usually every other for me.) We got up at around 10 AM and Justin, with his Programming knowledge/expertise, helped be a hero to my daughters in getting their Easter gifts from Grandma, that of MP3 players, loaded with some songs from my Itunes library. Thank you very much (you can see how 'tech savvy' I am...not much, admittedly)!!! The guys left at around 11:30 and made the weekend one of pure awesomeness. I look forward to having them back again next year, and also am eager to see them in the Twin Cities in September, during Worlds weekend at the big gig in Roseville...