Stuart Marsh (SAM2000) Tournament Report - 1E Modern - Omarion Nebula Regional 2011-06-19 - 10:30 AM The Romulan Ambush Introduction I can certainly say this was a great tournament – but for me it was also one with a critical problem time! I had come with a truly European style 135 card draw deck, and a complex interaction strategy which was set to use Raptor One, Target Shields, Romulan Ambush, Outgunned and the Goraxus to take control of the game! I had also designed the deck to mission steel. Knowing that Historical Research and Espionage Mission were both common missions I set everything I needed to mission steel in turn 2. The deck actually worked well and in most games I did achieve a tactical air power superiority – but at the cost of time. Every game I played went to time – and every game could have turned out differently had there been 1-2 turns more, and in one case 10 seconds more..... It’s always a problem in ST:CCG 1E tournament play – are interactive decks at a disadvantage because of their complexity over mission solvers in the timed environment... but all that said my deck did what it did and I enjoyed the day! Round 1 Thomas Olley MW (+52) Tom was playing a solid Federation/Non-Aligned deck with cybernetics and androids but unfortunately he was playing Wormhole Negotiations [45 Points] and Universal Mission and Cultural Observation [40 points]. This gave me some very tempting targets for mission stealing. I had seeded a dead end under his universal mission – so when I encountered that I used a Dropping in to nullify it. I then moved on to steel wormhole negotiations at which I has seeded a dilemma I could overcome and a scout encounter (which as he didn’t have any scout ships in his deck was discarded). Thom had also got going and scored 30 points from a planet mission but he then hit a damage dilemma and I flipped 2 target shields onto his Future Enterprise. He moved the Future Enterprise back to his outpost but I moved my Raptor 1 and continues to attack the docked Future Enterprise with target shields so that effectively it couldn’t repair. At this point I bought the Goraxus over to his facility and he then made the mistake of undocking at which point I [DL] Romulan Ambush destroying his ship. I now went back to mission solving and completed one of my planet missions but at a cost of -20 points due to an Edo-probe/Lack of Prep combo while I was sending teams of three down to redshirt. I moved over to steel his Cultural Obseravtion but was stopped by a lack of Anthropology then time was called. MW 87-30 Round 2 Danny Nuttall ML (-20)View opponent's ReportView original Report This was an epic Romulan v’s Romulan power struggle. My 135 card deck v’s Danny’s 60 card deck! It was a strange seed phase with both of us seeding Romulus, both HQ’s and the Drone Control Room, but it turned out Romulus was the only mission we doubled up on. Danny had seeded Historical research with The Guardian of Forever which was his primary draw engine – but I had designed by deck to specifically target that mission. I used Defend Homeworld for Daniels and go Vash (Life from Lifelessness) from my Q’s Tent and along with my mission specialist I had the skills and the ship to steal the mission in turn 2. I had seeded Lack of Preparation and Duenetic Field generator there. I would have preferred to use dead end but I was concerned that he would steel my Quash Conspiracy as it was a 40 point mission. I moved my ship over to Historical Research in turn 2, beamed down three people completed the mission then used the Guardian of Forever to travel to the Drone control room. I have 45 points 40 + 5 mission specialist points and I though I was in a good place – but I had undermined my key deck strategy by leaving the Goraxus in space. By the time I had retrieved it Danny had completed 2 missions. I had HQ: Defensive Measures in my Q’s Tent but I wasn’t able to get the Goraxus into position to attack him before he completed his missions and then time was called... ML 65-45 Stuart is someone I respect immensely as a player. He's got an outstanding knowledge of the cards, builds intricate, interactive and thoughful decks, and he also plays at a far higher standard than myself overall. We've met once before in a tournament, where I was soundly beaten 100-0. Before the tournament began, Stuart was both my and RedDwarf's favourite to take the regional title. After a couple of turns, it didn't seem likely that I would even things up by beating Stu. His deck was focussed on the metagame and built around the 'theft' of 40 point missions. In this match, he was able to seed weak dilemmas under my Historical Research' and breeze through them on his second turn. From then on, the rest of the match was very strange. Stuart's turns were taking a long time as he completed one convoluted and complex play after another. Comparatively, I felt somewhat inadequate throwing down my free personnel and throwing some expendable crew members at Stuart's Dilemmas. However, the sheer number of seed cards in my opponents deck meant that I was often only facing 2 Dilemma cards under each mission. I stuttered to 65 points and time was called, in Stuart's turn to give me a modified win. Had the game lasted longer, I'm not confident I'd have won, but you never really know. It did justify my deck choice more and more though. 75 minute rounds make it necessary for some fast play in 1e. I went with a deck that was capable of solving an early mission or two and put points on the board, but also a deck I was very familiar with and could play as quickly as possible. Typically, I am a notoriously slow player - methodical and systematic about every little thing. I don't know if Stuart would agree, but with hindsight the intriocacy of his deck may have been a hinderance rather than an advantage, considering the tight time schedule of a live tournament. Expect him to destroy all in the next LackeyCCG OTF! Modified win; 65-40 Round 3 Marcus Smith ML (-15)View opponent's ReportView original Report Marcus was playing the classic Borg Scout ship deck (or as we used to call it the “Borg Shopping Trolley Deck”). He had alpha, gamma, and delta missions. He started off reporting a scout ship to the gamma quadrant and scouted a space mission and straight away hit one of my damage dilemmas. Two target shields took his scout ships shields to 0! I reported Raptor One to his location and used an Outgunned... It must be the only time a weapons 3 ship would ever manage to outgun another ship. Over the course of the next few turns more Scout ships dropped in and he would then use adapt negate obstructions to move to the next dilemma. During this time I managed to outgun a total of 3 Scout Ships and when he moved into the alpha quadrant I hit one ship with a Romulan Ambush. But he was still managing to score points. While my Raptor One was battling Scout Ships I had managed to complete two missions to score 60 points. Marcus was on 50 Points. He played a Resistance is Futile to get to 60 points then moved to complete an assimilate planet. He completed scouting. In the next turn I threw everything I had at Quash Conspiracy by the end there were no dilemmas under it and I had Sela on board a ship but stopped – so next turn I would win! Marcus took his next turn and just before he went to probe for his last mission time was called!!!! He scored 25 Points from assimilate planet and the game finished 85-60. It was seriously a case that if time had been called 10 seconds later I would have won...... bugger! This was by far my most difficult and most enjoyable match of the day! Our decks were fundamentally mis-matched: the nature of my deck (no stealable missions, masses of ships) meant that Stu wasn't able to drop many of the nasty surprises he had planned. But the nature of his deck in turn was very disruptive to my Borg scout strategy. This made for a very interactive, very fun game! :) Stu was running Remote Interference for draws; this typically meant that he'd report Raptor One adjacent to my scout ship, move there for the draws, and then attack. It didn't matter which quadrant I tried to hide in - he could return the drone ship to hand an redeploy it at will. The constant attacks hampered my scouting and probing, and at one stage meant I had to wait a turn after scouting was complete before playing another ship to probe with to make sure my forces weren't there to be attacked (precluding the probe). Stu's Tactics consisted almost entirely of Target Shields, which was both a blessing and a curse: it meant that he was effectively unable to *destroy* any of my ships for their points… but it also meant that he was able to very quickly reduce their shields to zero, and then play Outgunned to capture them and their crews. This happened three times! :/ More often than not my turns were very short, as I was frequently unable to do anything, or play anything without it being rendered immediately useless. Fortunately I did have *masses* of ships in my deck, and by judiciously using Transwarp Network Gateways and Space-Time Portals to remove them from harm's way at key moments, I was able to complete two very slow, very painful Objectives. Stu's turns by contrast were long and convoluted affairs with lots of downloads and a boggling array of ship and personnel movement shenanigans to enact his plans-within-plans strategy. It was hard to keep track of what was going on - and a couple of times it even seemed to get too much for Stuart! - but it resulted in a series of successful and strategic gambits for him. It's no wonder our game went to time though! In a desperate attempt to scrape together whatever points I could manage, I played a Resistance Is Futile on one of my completed Establish Gateways for +10, and completed scouting on an Assimilate Planet. Despite at one point losing an entire crew to a Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease, Stu had completed two missions and was in the lead, avoiding dilemmas by sending people back to the Drone Control Room mid-mission with Daniel's Out Of Time SD. Despite further losses of crew he's also managed to clear out Quash Conspiracy ready for a win next turn. At this point time was called! Stu had gone first and so my turn was the last one: I probed successfully for the Assimilate Planet, leaving me on 85 for the win, and Stu never got to finish Quash Conspiracy. :( If time had been called a few seconds later, it would all have been over for me! Stu was very sporting about it, and I really felt a bit outclassed against his deck. But it was a fun game, and I look forward to playing him again in future. Round 4 Niall Matthew ML (-10)View opponent's ReportView original Report Last game was against my favourite deck, KHAN! Now it this game I made two epic mistakes. First of all Niall played a universal mission. I set myself up to steel it with a Lack of Preparation and Dead End under the mission. Niall attempted it in the first turn and hit the lack of preparation and lost 10 points. I Q’s tented for Dropping In and because I didn’t have Geology to steel the mission I played a Reflection Therapy (one of my favourite cards) and changed one of my mission specialists to....computer skill.... this is the point where I had lost my mind. I moved over to the mission, attempted it and informed Niall that I got past Lack of Preparation because I had the skills, hit dead end and nullified it with Dropping In went to complete the mission and realised my mistake!!! I didn’t have Geology and couldn’t do the mission. Next turn Niall moved over and completed the mission getting a Starry Night and using that to get a Mona Lisa and The Genesis Device. Now if you’ve been reading carefully you’ll realise our mistake – I didn’t have the mission skills so should not have passed the Lack of Preparation in the first place... but hindsight is always 20 x 20! Niell went back to his Reliant to start scoring points so I gathered three ships and each one fired at the Reliant causing it to be hit by 3 target shields. Niell then made the mistake of undocking and I played outgunned to capture the Reliant, Khan and the Genesis device – but the damage had been done. Niell was on 40 points and I was on 0. I started to mission attempt and moved through the first mission well clearing all dilemmas then realised I was missing a skill. I moved onto a space mission and used my large number of ships to attempt with one person on each ship. I cleared away 3 dilemmas leaving only one! I then made the fatal mistake of under estimating one dilemma and attempted with my entire crew only to hit Cosmic String Fragment DOUBLED by Shades of Gray: Anguish! It destroyed my ship and crew. We both now had no people. He was on 40 points I was on 0. We both rushed to play people. I managed to get people to my two mission which had been cleared and scored 60 points – but Niell managed to complete Defend Home world scoring 30 and the TIME was called. ML 70-60. This was the most interesting game of them all. I heard Stuart was the favourate to win. So I was wondering how quick the game would be. Stuarts complex turns were suprisingly giving me time to aquire Genesis; and for the first time in the tournament, I managed to score 30 points using revenge. however on that same turn, stuart Outgunned the reliant with a Raptor and D'deredix with Khan and Genesis on board. I tried to carry on, knowing that my klingons get discarded at the end of every turn. I thought of destroying the Reliant to get it back in my deck but I remembered I had Mona Lisa on it so I didn't attack, not wanting to risk -25 points. I eventually got Azetbur to get past executive auth and complete my second mission. At this point It was Stuarts turn to feel the wrath of SoG. Eventually time ran out and was releived that I got at least one win, barely.