What's New Dashboard Articles Forums Achievements Tournaments Player Map Trademanager The Promenade Volunteers About Us Site Index
Tournament Page
Login / Create Account
Matthew Zinno (commdecker)
Tournament Report - 1E Modern - Online Event
2012-01-30 - 12:00 AM
CardassianDominionDominion War Efforts
Introduction
I've been doing poorly with mission solver decks recently, so I decided to go back to a battle deck that almost won back in September. My Dominion beam-in deck lost only to Dan's Borg deck (played by Rogue), so I dusted it off and updated it with some 2E cards (the September tourney forbid them). And since I already have the Dominion achievement, I also added a treaty with the Cardassians.
Round 1Diane HainMW (+76)
Diane was playing Bajoran Resistance Cell, and her large Bajoran region ended up separating my Dominion missions from the Cardassia region. However, she could not get good cards, apparently getting lots of Bajoran Freighters in the opening hand and nothing else. My Jem'Hadar beamed onto her ships and facilities to score TWHE points, and kill personnel (including Morn at Quark's Bar), and Culluh came out early to commandeer a Bajoran Interceptor. After I united with my Cardies, they commandeered DS9 and rechristened it Terok Nor. Diane's HQ was no help, since she didn't have QTR or Tribunal, so couldn't get DH or Strategema out to prevent me from attacking her at her homeworld. After I had about 40 points, and she had no personnel that lasted more than a few turns, we both realized that I would need to solve some missions. I tried redshirting at Athos IV at one spaceline end; it knocked me back with a Lack of Prep. I tried Kressari at the other end, and the first ship got hit by EmergentLifeform, then reattempted and got Cytherians. After a few turns of that, I got sick of the lack of progress and STP'd it to hand for replaying. I tried with a different ship, and that one got damaged by the Cloud, and later reattempted and was damaged again (i.e. destroyed) by Gomtuu. Time ran out on my next turn, and that mission was now clear and I could solve it with my cards on table, if only they could reach it from the other spaceline end where they had been doing for some late-game killing. I thought I had it, with a Wormhole in hand. Ocett V Dig, and I planned to retrieve the STP so I culd Wormhole to Kressari and solve. (Yeah, I now remember that I would be stopped after that. We both forgot this during the game.) But the STP wasn't there! I had Mutated it back to the deck, oh no! So I tried Masaka instead, and that worked -- I got the STP and another Wormhole, and got all my cards to Kressari where they (forgot that they were stopped and) solved, discarding my 4 weapons. Diane got a final turn, and lamented that she hadn't gotten Leeta earlier so she could Dabo this turn after being stopped by my Friction. I pointed out that being stopped wouldn't stop her from getting or using Dabo, so she went ahead and Dabo'd for 6.
Round 2BajoranCardassianMeinhard S. RohrFW (+70)
Mogh also had Bajoran Resistance Cell, treatied with Cardassians. This meant that from my perspective, a lot of the game felt similar to my last match -- with the added wrinkle that my Cardassians couldn't join the battles. Plus, he had seeded Tribunal, so he was able to turtle at both homeworlds and avoid battle. I was low on ships this game, after losing the Karemma vessel to V'Ger while attempting Kressari. That leads to a tough decision in a battle deck against a turtling opponent: if I leave my forces at his location, then I'm not out also getting mission points, and we might run out of time for me to do so. But if I leave to try missions, then he can fly in the other direction for a turn, and he might get his own mission attempt going, and get back, before I can get to him. And indeed, that happened: while I was trying Athos at one spaceline end (which I cleared except for a Friendly Fire countdown), he popped over to Search for Survivors at the other end. His small team of 3 cleared Vengeance/Yuta/Gatherers, and his reserve team barely got the Strength to pass Founder Secret. (I should have used Microvirus instead of Yuta, he would have failed it and been stopped for another turn.) He solved, and returned to the homeworlds before I could fly back to attach him. I left people at Athos to solve it later, and went for the last dilemmas at Kressari. (Of course, mixed in to all this was TWHE points, and small battles of his personnel stopped or relocaed by dilemmas, and at this point a Culluh commandeer.) Meanwhile, he took all his remaining personnel and went for CNE ... losing one to Displaced, another to Hippo, and fatally coming up one Astrophysics short for The Cloud. If he had passed it, he would have solved it, then returned to the mission under which I had only put Dead End and solved that too (of course, I would then have prevented the win with ITZ). With him stopped, I finished Kressari for 35, then reattempted Athos IV ... and found I had left the wrong set of people, one of the Jems I had left was an OFFICER instead of SECURITY. So I daisy-chained my way over and solved it the next turn instead. Final score 120-30.
Round 3DominionNon-AlignedJordan LeungMW (+6)
A very tense game. So many of our moves were carefully considered and planned. Though the first two decks I faced were somewhat similar to each other, this one was somewhat similar to mine -- we each seeded two wormhole missions (one dup, in the DQ), also duped Chin'toka, and used Deyos and Jem'Hadar downloads. Jordan had wormholes because his was also an interactive deck, but not for Dominion battle -- it was a Khan/CetiEel deck, using Dominion for Invasive Transporters (and Deyos and DWE) and also Son'a. Because of a recent thread on the message board, I had gotten some general advice for facing Khan decks: HIDE! So instead of my regular strategy of attacking in the AQ and using Hanok for draws, I got my Ultimatum download and headed to the DQ to attempt the duplicated Aftermath II. (It was easier for me to solve than the GQ mission, plus it only had one seed under from each of us.) I found a RGS there, and after we checked the glossary and determined that I could tow it through wormholes, I did so, bringing it to the GQ. Jordan still hadn't gotten his Khan out; it seemed he had drawing problems, which weren't helped by my twice deciding to react to his first-function-Handshake plays by discarding my own cards. (Got rid of my Bajoran Wormhole, which he had downloaded before me, and some Guls that I didn't really want to report to the AQ to become Ceti Eel fodder.) So he sent his Dominion Battleship through his wormhole missions to the DQ, and hit my Vengeance Factor. I could have come back to solve the mission, but he had brought his Transport Inhibitor to the planet, locking me out. So he stayed for a few turns and solved for 30, then realized he was stuck -- he had counted on using his STP as a wormhole, but the glossary says it can only be used as a second wormhole interrupt, and can't combine with a wormhole mission. After a few turns, he STP'd it to hand to re-report everything. Meanwhile, I ventured into the AQ (still no Khan) and attempted some AQ missions. At the Maquis base, a team of 4 armed with 3 weapons was enough to pass Founder Secret and DNP, losing only 4 points to Higher the Fewer, and then got stopped by Dead End. It was around now that I started drawing my Walls Have Ears, and started scoring those once per turn, by beaming to his (Ultimatum'd) RSD which was right next to mine.

Eventually Khan came out, and a few turns later he came to the Son'a planet and its Duck Blind, ending the turn on board the Son'a Battleship. I saw an opportunity for a comeback. The quick description of my plan would be that I that I would fly my Warship there, beam aboard, kill everyone, and commandeer with Culluh. The full description takes many more steps: first, I took the unusual step of Kevining my own Friction (played the previous turn), before playing Culluh with a TMW, plus a Gul for free and an ASP of another Cardie officer. I flew there and beamed a small force aboard -- knowing that they were vulnerable to Ceti Eel. Following my action of beaming, Jordan got an action, and he used Ceti Eel. That let him see who I had beamed aboard -- and I had carefully brought no Dominion personnel, as Ceti Eel on them would prevent my Jems from battling. No, I had sent my 2 NA AMS, and a weak Cardassian in case of Intruder Alert. He took the Cardassian. My action, I played TWHE -- I wasn't ready to battle, and although I could have gotten off the ship, I would actually rather have him do his second Ceti Eel for the turn, for then I could beam my Jems aboard with impunity. He didn't take the bait. I beamed cards off and on a few times, and still no 2nd Ceti Eel. Eventually I attacked with the 2 NAs and Culluh, against his 3 NAs and my Mavek. I won the battle, killing Khan(!) and everyone but Grebnedlog. So then my Jem'Hadar beamed aboard, safe from Ceti Eel, and killed Greb -- then I commandeered for 20 points.

Khan re-reported next turn, and I headed the other direction to attempt Kressari. Arsenal was easy with my universal support personnel, then PD/FF put a block on the mission for two turns. My next turn, I got off a final TWHE bringing me to 36 points (with him still at 30 from Aftermath II), and was arranging my people in preparation to solve Kressari as well as the Maquis base on the following turn ... but instead I noticed we were over time.
Round 4BajoranDominionHirogenStuart MarshML (-41)View opponent's Report
Stuart presented with a strange combination of cards, which made it hard to predict and assess.  Three MQ missions, a gamma planet, and space in the AQ and DQ... What was he playing?  Ds9, Halkan Council, Neutral and Hirogen outposts, and holo door/ NMR on my HQ.  Oh yeah, and only six dilemmas.  And tribbles.

From the mission selection, I knew this would be an AQ game, but the Hirogen OP told me to be ready for battle.  So I got my Karemma vessel first, and sent it through the wormhole with a lone pilot (stopped).  Next turn, my plan went, I would build the RSD, but also get and staff the Battleship (Wodekidan, Deyos, and AMS).  Instead, Stuart quickly got a Jemhadar ship, Lam, Penk, and Hajur, and beamed aboard to kill me for Relics points.  

My turn, with three weapons in my hand that I could play for free if only I could get that RSD built.  Trying for the RSD would mean stopping at the AQ end of the wormhole again, and probably losing a few people to a battle again.  But between the RRD for Hanok, and ASP (plus one of my people being a hologram so less vulnerable to killing), I held out hope that I would be able to recover from that.  So that's what I did.  But Stuart was not done with his tricks.  Hanok came out and was immediately stopped by the tribble, no flying next door for the RSD.  On his turn, he played ceti eel (uh oh).  He beamed Hajur first to the big ship to capture Deyos with Rituals (totally my fault for forgetting that was put on him last turn), then to Hanok to battle and capture him with Rituals.  He flipped a Prisoner Exchange to trade Hanok for a download of Khan, then another to trade Deyos for a dl of Culluh.  Ceti eels took Hogan and Hanok, battle took Deyos and Farek and deactivated wodekidan.  I lost everyone. Culluh tried to commandeer, but I said the hologram is still a personnel on my ship, albeit disabled, and so the ship is not empty.  A turn or two later, he got dr.noah there (which took some doing, since I had then managed to Kevin his IBI) with a MHE to capture him, and commandeer.  

 I got a few more people out in the GQ, but more setbacks followed and I lost them too.  He got White Deprivation to kill my jems, and also used it to sacrifice his own to Hajur for cheesy Relics points.  He found a science personnel and flew his Tantalus field into the GQ, as well as Khan and the rest, and shut me down at my outpost.  I thought I had a chance at something when I used my own IBI to get my Culluh and others onto his ISS Enterprise ... Bt Anastasia downloaded Smoke Bomb to prevent me from battling.  I did get 5 from TWHE, and when I realized that Culluh was not going to survive until my next turn, I used Boarding Party to steal a gun for 10 points.  (He tried to use my Hogan with AOD the next turn, but he had out thanks to that.).  I played a cardie ASP to the GQ and attempted the mission, to find Dead End.  Stuart started attempting missions at that point, but time ran out before either of us accomplished anything else.  

Remember back on turn two, when I foolishly flew to the AQ?   Later in the game, I noticed what might have been a better alternative: flying to the DQ like last game, to try the mission there. After the game, I checked the dilemma there and it was Shaka, which I need a gul to pass.  So this idea would have kept me alive, but still locked out.