Matthew Zinno (commdecker) Tournament Report - 1E Modern - Online Event 2011-10-31 - 12:00 AM The Last Vidiian Treaty Introduction My decks lately had been getting large, slow, and stomped on. So I decided to make something sleeker this time, in the hopes that it could win, and more quickly. Thus, a Delta speed solver. Vidiian with a few free Hirogen for OFF/Lead/Dip support (and downloadable ships). The Sodality got errata after round 1 to disallow this "treaty", but the tourney continued with the original version and rules. Round 1 Ben Hosp FW (+1) Hosp was playing Hirogen, with 6 copies of Secure Station. This, of course, threw off my seeding strategy. Fortunately, I had few enough planet-only dilemmas that I was still able to end up with 6 reasonable combos, though some were only two cards, with the planet dils as mis-seeds. I briefly thought about trying to steal one of them, but later remembered that I can't solve if I reveal my own mis-seed. We both built up some forces and went for missions ... and my early jumpstart crew, including Sulan, Telek, and One, got wiped out by the popular Arsenal/V'Ger combo. After their loss, I was able to play Sickbay for a few turns to save my later solvers. Ankari hit me at my second space mission, but I saved 3 of the 4 people it killed using Sickbay and Nanoprobes. (I later cured it -- how often does that happen?) I overprepared for the final dilemmas there, expecting the Arsenal to be followed by another V'Ger, but it turned out to be a Cloud that was easily passed by 2 Thadens. Meanwhile, Hosp was working his way through my dilemmas, and also using Cyrus for "the item" -- I gave him points twice over the course of the game, but kept the rest to card plays, partly since I realized that without enough bonus points, he needed to solve five missions to get 140 points since he had no planet missions. He did get through four (with two in one turn, losing 10 of the points to ITZ), and along the way cured the Ankari Spirits on his ship (wow, twice in one game!), after it had "killed" only holograms for several turns. before I solved my third mission to win. Final score, I had 100 (Seal Rift, Study Proto, Critical Care), and he had 128 (Secure Station x4, -10 from ITZ, +10 from the item, and +8 from reaping Danara Pel). FW for me, despite having fewer points. Round 2 Danny Nuttall MW (+15) Danny was playing a Fed/Sona deck that he was planning to also bring to UK nationals. I seeded Homefront on his Earth (which totally blocked him, as I found out later), and he seeded Kobayashi Maru on both of my space missions. I never got a draw engine going in this game, and hovered around 2-3 cards in hand the whole game. It was so bad that I decided not to Kevin his FFR, because I wanted him to draw enough cards that I could play my Handshake. Then when I did, he chose to discard so I still couldn't draw. So with limited drawing power, I got no Hirogen out, and no Vidiian ships, and I was limited to downloading the Olarra. Still, I proceeded with mission attempts, and got two planet missions solved. Danny also solved two: Insurrection with the Sona objective (I crashed his download, but he pointed out that didn't exhaust the resource), and one copy of Analyze Radiation. Score, 75-60. Eventually I got some drawing cards: Starting Over helped me get a Kivas, and that got me more, including Thine Own Self that I played on Gallatin, who had been left at the duck blind on the *solved* Insurrecion to protect him from dilemmas. That turned out to be an important play, as it removed him from the game, locking Danny out of his remaining missions. His Armus mission and my Emergency Conversion dilemma needed Transporter Skill, and my Forsaken needed either Gallatin's Honor, or Worf or Ru'afo back from the discard pile -- and his Isomagnetic Disintegrator had been sacrificed to that Handshake. I didn't know this, so I continued trying to get to 100. I plugged away at the nearby space mission, with increasingly obstructionist cards piled upon it -- the Kobayashi was joined by a Bitter Medicine, which after picking Nav for the Subspace Shock Wave, then switched to Anth to prevent Telari and two Alphas, even with Lower Decks and Equipment, from being able to pass Chula the Dice. I never did get past that, and time elapsed still at 75-60. Round 3 J FL (-25)View opponent's ReportView original Report J was playing Bajoran, with Chamber of Ministers (hello Homefront) and DS9. And he put 5 dilemmas under each of my two space missions. J redhirted a bit to poke at my dilemma combos, and then worked on amassing the dilemma busters. I delayed him for a turn by crashing the Ops download of Holem (needed for Maglock) and using Thine Own Self to strand a Gantt (relocated by HippO and now needed for Med Crisis). Meanwhile, I similarly discovered Founder Secret at Assist Cooperative, and Medical Crisis (wait, I'm Vidiian! Agh!) at Critical Care. Using Rituals to borrow Biology from Bareil, I was able to clear the dilemmas at Critical Care, but decided not to bring the people I needed to solve it yet. Instead, I went back to Assist Cooperative to bust through the Founder Secret there, to find (as expected) Denevan Parasites awaiting my team of 8. I saved 3 people from that (with two Harvesters and the fortunately un-selected One). The team passed all the dilemmas, and although I hadn't planned for them to be able to, they also solved. I hadn't brought Narik, the mission specialist who could help there, but I did have One so I scored 40. After checking that J didn't have a QTR in play, I returned to Critical Care to solve for 35 on the same turn (no ITZ) -- and rescue my people from the discard pile (this is why I wanted that to be after the DNP). To expedite the game, I just brought everyone on that trip, rather than carefully figure out who was actually necessary. And I flew back to the location of my outpost to prepare for a space mission on my next turn. But I carelessly left all my personnel on one ship. On his next turn, he solved Relocate Settlers, earned a Time Travel Pod, and played it on that ship. This is what I should have saved my Amanda for, instead of using it on a Hidden Fighter earlier. In my next turns, I tried to build up a few forces again, and did manage an space mission attempt, but only found the anti-redshirt Arsenal before J solved enough for the win. I’m still a bit surprised that I won this one, but let’s see what happened. We both began by seeding missions in our own separate quadrants such that I had the AQ in the order of my ideal and he the DQ. Matt was running four planet missions and only two space, so some of my combos were broken up resulting in 3X per planet and 5X per space, with his highest point planet getting a 4th (Duonetic Generators without set up) as an intended incentive not to go there. Matt seeded a Homefront on the Chamber of Ministers just to dick with me, and it worked my early turns were spent trying to acquire Security. As they did not stay there, that free play point was almost useless. With a bit of luck, I drew a First Minister Shakaar in my opening hand, thereby giving me three free play points with the Bar and Resistance Cell. I played a Ro Laren for free as a Civilian to get my first security on that turn as well as a Gannt as a free Resistance personnel. Then I converted my draw into a ref card, pulling Q the Ref to get it out of my deck. But Matt actually had the first turn, and he spent it downloading a lot of cards (standard DQ deck) and used them to attempt the mission with his outpost at it (Assist Coop). Luckily, a Founder Secret shut out that nonsense as he did not have 70+ strength on the first turn. His second turn was just spent building. On my second turn, I tossed a Handshake to get a new hand and then lucked into a Kira who became my free Resistance personnel and the second Security. In my orders phase, I downloaded Defend Homeworld for Odo to get my 3rd and 4th Security to turn off the Homefront gametext for the time being. I was also at two Resistance Bajorans in play to get the Espionage card draw engine up and going and that helped fuel future turn’s plays. On this turn, I also attempted to get a ship via Hidden Fighter, but Matt Amanda’d it. This decision cost him later. On his 3rd turn, Matt played a Penk to get a ship and flew out to the next closest planet mission (a 2E one) with the three personnel in play having the reddest shirts. This worked in has favour as thinning my dilemmas left this mission without a starting wall. As such, The Clown: Bitter Medicine + Flash Plasma storms killed nobody (he had a Lower Decks in play for the extra strength boost.) Luckily, the Medical Crisis did work, and managed to kill the only Red Shirt that had Medical, and he also had Biology. These would be the two missions that Matt inevitably solved, but for the time being the dilemmas made him stay far away. By my 3rd, I had a Freighter to toss for free at DS9 and decided I needed a crew to get it home and pick up everyone else. I dropped Surmak Ren at the Science Lab for free as Resistance and Bariel also at the Lab as a card play. The latter flew the ship while Surmak to a peak at the first dilemma at Characterize Neutrino Emissions. It was a personal fav, and I congradulated Matt for using it; Forsaken. Luckily, I had played a Jaro Essa as my first free card to the HQ, so I assigned him a special task. Since Bariel could make it home, I picked up a few people from Bajor and sent them to Jerrado to clear dilemmas. Gannt was caught by a Hippocratic Oath and sent back right to Bajor. Recurring Injury stopped Bariel and then Matt’s Medical Crisis shut me out of that dilemma for a few turns. At that point, I had two Medical and two Bio in play, but with Gannt busy I still needed to come up with two more Medics to get by that dilemma. Matt flew over to Study Protonebula just to collect a One and continued on to the next closest planet mission. He seemed wary of attempting Space. The Red Shirt team, however, could not get by The Arsenal: Separated and he ended his turn. Tossing another Handshake, I drew a new hand. This time I had a free Rom, a free freighter, and another Gannt to play. The latter put me up to 2 bio and 3 Med in play, though is brother was still on vacation. I, then, decided that it was time to red shirt Characterize Neutino Emissions. I set aside my biologists and Medics (on the station) and sent just Ro Laren, Kassidy, and Jaro for the Forsaken. Once Jaro was under the deck, Ro and Kassidy died via Ankari Spirits leaving an empty ship. Matt got a solid idea and sent 4 non-unique dudes enhanced by Lower Decks at the Arsenal. This worked as none were stopped and they had the necessary Cunning to walk through. However, they lacked the Exobiology for Linguistic Legerdemain. Though I hadn’t planned on it, LD worked great on this mission which had 5 affiliation icons. Matt had two of those present, so the countdown was 4. Renewal Scroll got me more draws and I played Tabor, another Freighter, and Vedek Dax. This just so happened to give me the Engineer and Exobiology requirements to clear the Ankari Spirits so I liberated my ship. I then sent a fresh team of junior officers at CNE only to find a Maglock -> the Bajoran’s worst nightmare. But I had it all figured out, I could play a second Officer from hand as Resistance to Ops, Ops download for the 3rd Officer and complete the mission. Then I could use my ships to collect Gannt from his vacation and clear Jerrado. Matt spent his next turn building again, so I was at the plan. However, Matt had my number. With Gannt completing his Oath, Matt Thine Own Selfed him under the mission, and then revealed Computer Crash to prevent the Ops download. So no missions solved for me! I decided not to red shirt anyone else until those were complete and ended my turn. At this point, Matt has managed the right build to get through my Medical Crisis dilemma but made sure to fail the mission (note: it’s gametext allows a player to put personnel back under the deck from the graveyard, so Matt wanted to get more dead before completing). He then wisely chose to send a stack of people at Founder Secret to clear it with brute strength. He rightly predicted that Flapjacks would follow and managed to save 3 of the 4 personnel selected to die with a pair of Vidiian Harvesters and One, so only one death. Although he didn’t have the Engineers to shut down the Duonetic Field Generators, this was poorly seeded at his Outpost, and he was able to supply a 3rd Engineer from the non-attempting personnel after the mission was complete. That was locked by Youth on One and Anthro on Karr to get through my I Hate You, this made Matt the first to complete a mission. He then noted that I did not have a Q the Ref in core and returned to his 2E mission to solve that too and get the only three dudes in his graveyard back into the deck. He was at 75. Matt returned home but could go no further as he had exhausted the range on both ships. My turn, and I was finally able to get an Ops download. I made the game winning play here by taking advantage of Matt not beaming his people off the Vidiian ship, though I was not aware that EVERYONE was on that ship. I chose Teero Anaydis to download to the Bajoran shrine to give me my much needed 3rd medic and then trucked over to Jerrado to clear and solve. Medical Crisis chose Gannt to be stopped (luck again, as a 1 in 3 choice of Surmak Ren would have stopped me for another turn) leaving 2 Bio and 2 Med to clear the dilemma and Kira for the solo solve. This won me a Time Travel Pod and I immediately through it at Matts ship to make it disappear. Two minor errors on Matt’s part won me the game then, wasting Amanda on blocking the acquisition of a ship and leaving everyone on the same ship. Still the same turn, and no longer needing the Jerado crew to complete CNE, I sent them to red shirt Refuse Immigration. Implication was a walk thanks to Odo’s presence (luck), A Fast Ship Would Be Nice picked off Teero and that wise choice caused me to fail In the Pale Moonlight. Matt was left with little to do but build for a while, and I Ops downloaded again for the much needed Officer. At this point, the lack of draws as punishment for the downloads prevented me from getting anything else to play in hand, but I was getting exactly what I wanted. Lenaris, Li, and Kira unclicked the Maglocks while Bariel returned to help Dax and Rom solve Characterize Neutrino Emissions. At this point, I had the range and extra ships to return to Refuse Immigration but noboy in play had low enough Integrity. So I sent most everyone home, but left one ship and crew at DS9 for transportation. Only 2 turns after the TTP touched down, Matt had enough guys to red shirt a mission. He decided that it was time for space but I was not too worried about him getting through. As it turns out, he got no farther than to look at the first dilemma; The Arsenal: Divided. That was sufficient to shut him out. Final turn, Ops downloaded for Winn Adami and then used her special download to get Diplomatic Contact (just because). Ferrying personnel allowed her to clear the whole Moonlighting issue and Bariel found enough friends to solve putting me on 100. Round 4 Jon Carter FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report My deck was firing on all cylinders this time. Jon, who was playing Ferengi with DS9 and Son'a, had such a bad initial draw that he wanted to Masaka on my turn. I had a great draw, though, with a Hirogen, a Vidiian or two, a triplet, and Bricklayer which I used for Sorum so that I could DH for Penk -- also getting me a ship, which let me get Telek and One. 12 people in play for my first turn. I attempted one mission and halted at an Edo Probe, then attempted another (Interment): Lack of Prep (passed by accident, I hadn't planned for it); Fast Ship (sac Sorum the bodyguard); Unscientific Method (Telari, boosted by Lower Decks, stepped in front of One); Scientific Method (stopped). Turn 2, I passed that to solve for 40, and went back to the Edo Probe mission (Study Proto), to find Personal Duty (stopped the only one, Decaren)/FF (killed One, and went on mission). Meanwhile, my defensive cards were doing their jobs quite well. Homefront shut down his play engine, and he poked at but failed to pass any of the initial wall dilemmas. Aggressive Behavior even killed Morn (one of his draw engines), stranding Quark on an unstaffed Xep. On turn 3, I attempted a third mission (Seal Rift), to find Arsenal Divided (my 3 uniques got split so the larger group could pass the likely followup of V'Ger, and fortunately that's who was chosen to continue) and Ankari (which I failed). Turn 4, I cured Ankari with the help of Rituals on Jon's Ru'afo, then triggered my own Cytherians back at Study Proto, now that Friendly Fire had counted down. A second ship solved, again with Ru'afo's skills (Ankari had killed my Biology). Turn 5, I scored my Cytherians points (only three missions to travel, on a 6-mission spaceline), and on turn 6, I tried Seal Rift again, clearing Jon's Cytherians with my first ship and solving with my second. FW 120-0. Last videan treat His jumpstart works like a charm Meanwhile he shuts down my ferenginar with a homefront I move way to slow as he plows through his missions