Ben Paulsen (benpaulsen86) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - Andoria Regional 2011-04-09 - 11:30 AM Future Enterprise and Samuels go for broke! Introduction Minnesota Regionals 2011! Great time with some great people! Definitely worth the drive! Now looking forward to the Iowa regional in a little over two months! Our 2nd annual, should be a blast, anyways, read on for some of the news and results from the days events! Round 1 Mike Harrington FL (-60) Mike is a great player, top rated coming into the tournament. I knew this would be a true test. Mike got Spock out early followed by an Energize. His Energize was well protected by Grav's and Sisko mid game. After Kirking some dilemmas he played McCoy to take back two skill walls that were under my space mission, making it that much more difficult to complete. Took out Shran with a timely "The Caretakers Guets" sending him to Energize beginning of Mike's next turn. Completed my space mission, but Mike was already setup and played Sulu on last turn which allowed him to not have to face my WNOHGB which could have allowed me 1-2 extra turns. Good, fun game. Lost 40-100. Round 2 Jeremy Benedict FW (+70)View opponent's ReportView original Report Always fun to play against Jeremy. Jeremy decided to run the Tain/capture deck, the Tain part I am all to familiar with having run two iterations last year. Jeremy got stuck playing two Central Commands thanks to one being taken out with Lustful Distraction, and then hitting Jeremy with Captain's Holiday making it all for not. Jeremy took out Lorian with capture and then a D'Vela. Destroyed Labor Camp (sorry no bonus points my friend) :) Ending up winning 100-30 thanks to late game heroics from Mr. Tucker swapping dilemma requirements! Ben gets out the gate early with Samuels and non-humans. I get one of my Central Commands and Labor Camp blown up by Lustful Distraction and can't get around his dilemma play. I capture Lorian on his first mission attempt and grab a D'vela later, but two more are waiting for him to use and abuse. I didn't draw dilemmas very well which doesn't help my cause and Ben easily takes the full win. I played a similar deck last year but with the addition of the cards since regionals last year Ben has a much better contender on his hands and I knew he'd be tough to beat. Round 3 Keith Rupp FW (+65) Keith played a version of the Donatra Romulan build (a build I am all to familiar with after discussing with my roomate and fellow Iowan Mike O'Shogay who ended up playing his Romulan deck at todays tournament, which I have played against multiple times in casual/testing). Keith had a rough early draw with no energize or P'Tol. He played Energize turn 2, shuffled it back turn 3 with Lustful Distraction, and he ended up having few mission skills out by the time I had completed my space mission. After dual attempts at the planet ended up winning 100-35. Also had some lucky free additional draws thanks to his P&P! Round 4 Nat Kirton FW (+100) Nat and I faced off in a rematch from Iowa Regional 2010 (the Championship match that year). He decided to switch it up and try Samuels with Delphic Expanse). Nat had some rough draws early not drawing into Damaged Enterprise, Plays the Thing, or some key Non-Aligned. He attempted space early and got hit hard by losing Daniels locking him out of his space mission on multiple attempts. By the time Nat was looking to do his planet missions, he had fallen too many turns behind. Had some decent dilemma draws against Archer and the Delphic Expanse crew. Some mixups on my end thankfully didn't cost the game during attempting for my 2nd mission (1st planet mission). Full win 100-0. Some good discussions afterwards about the builds of each deck. Round 5 Michael O'Shogay FL (-60) I alluded to it earlier. At the end of Round 4, both Mike and I were 3-1 and I just knew we would face each other. And as Kris announced the fateful match, I knew the time had come to see who the better man was on this day. I drew Samuels in the opening hand (first time all day). Mike had a good early draw getting out 2 P'Tols for 2 each (3 duals on top :( ). He went to Aid Legendary Civilization first and blew through my early dilemmas thanks to not sending 2 Ptols who I tried to hit with He Wasn't Nice, a dilemma he did not know was coming but evidently planned against after seeing Coolant Leak. This hurt as I had to dump 12 cost of people under my deck a turn before I was about to attempt. This delayed my attempts for an additional 2 turns. I blew through my space mission but at this point it was too late. I caught Mike with WNOHGB but he was still able to win thanks to the early head start. Donatra with skill gaining/skill density works folks. What else can I say. Full loss 40-100.