Matthew Zinno (commdecker) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event (Mission to Talos IV) 2012-09-03 - 12:00 AM When You Play Bajorans (... You Will Meet a Stranger) Introduction Continuing the Talos tour through not only card pools but also the various formats, we come here to Traditional/Revised (with a focus on 2E cards). At first I started building a Klingon battle deck, to take advantage of the 2E personnel who download battle cards. I won my first online tournament last year with such a deck. But then I thought I'd try another Vidiian deck, since Traditional equates to "before the DQ hate" -- but the 2E requirement made that just not come together very well. Then I noticed that while the Klingons have many 1EC people with "When you play" abilities, so do the Bajorans. Add in Clone Machine to replay them (they're why it's banned, I think) at their Infirmary, and I have something. Round 1 Bye BY (0) I started with a bye ... Round 2 Tim Davidson FW (+100) ... followed by a concession due to scheduling difficulties. Round 3 Rem Boon FW (+10) Rem had Hirogen, with 5 copies of Secure Station and Liberation (to seed the Equinox). I had Qol in my opening hand, and played him first turn, successfuly using his special skill on turns 2 and 3. I didn't have much else good to play, so I masaka'ed away my hand (including his two dilemmas) to get some Resistance, which got my BRC draw engine going in the next turns. Rem started attempting missions at this point, and started a habit of redshirting with 1 Hirogen and 2 NA. I responded with a habit of letting YGII kill the Hirogen to end the attempt. He found a station without a YGII, and passed a Chula Abyss, but lost Karr to Way Home, then solved with Decaren for 30 points. I played a Kira Taban, but the points were smartly nullified by his "Khan!" Then I battled and killed Karr in Quark's Bar, for 15 points from JLOT (played earlier via Parallax). I had a ship now from Hidden Fighter, but still no Science for scanning, or Morn/Sorad to solve Ferenginar. Rem continued playing several people each turn, and tried Liberation. After Authenticate Artifacts took the only Arch, he turned out to have 2 Geo to pass Captain's Holiday ... but then he lacked the mission skills. (Perhaps I should have put more S/P dilemas there; I couldn't double up my planet combos since they were identical, but I should have made his only planet harder.) I finally played a Science (Mardah, the one who happens to be downloadable) and scanned CNE. I then attempted in order to expose the Edo Probe that was there, and also downloaded Vedek Sorad. Rem went for another station; Way Home brought Sherlock Holmes to the Bar. before Ferengi Ingenuity landed on his two remaining CS (later sucked to hand with STP). Before ending his turn, he also finished Liberation. I wanted to kill Sherlock, but had no JLOT in play ... so I used DH to get 2E Lupaza, and she brought it. And in the battle, Sherlock killed the weak Aluura, triggering the Bar text that made Rem discard two. [Score 60-30] Rem used Rituals of the Hunt on Kira Nerys to pass Dejaren (whose victims kept beinv saved by War Council), and solved a second station [90-30]. At his next attempt, he failed an Abyss, bringing Penk, Tanis, and Hajur to the Bar. A downloaded Morn gave me the skills to solve Ferenginar [90-60], and free play of a Lupaza clone brought a 3rd JLOT [90-75], but my attempt of CNE hit DNA Clues (fail, no Exo) and Recurring Injury/Ornaran Threat (the same combo as at Ferenginar). Next turn I passed the Ornaran Threat but lacked some mission skills (also got 10 more points from Taban and Parallax, but temporarily lost many to Intermix Ratio). It took me a few turns to draw into Vina, then play her and then download Rom FTW. (Fortunately during these several turns, Rem couldn't get any more points because I had killed too many of his people.) Final Confrontation ... 9of24 ... FW(+100) I knew from Jeremy's missions that he was playing Borg, though he disguised his Stop First Contact deck (Earth+Wolf359) as a Particle deck (2DQ, one a nebula, and 3 homeworlds). But then this game ended very quickly. I won the coin toss, and we both got good draws. My first card play was Standard Orbit, at which point Jeremy conceded. All of his ships were in the Tent for downloading, and he now had no access to them. He realized mid-tourney that he was vulnerable to this eventuality, and hoped he wouldn't face it. My Bajorans mentioned this to some passing Klingons, who surprisingly turned it into a heroic epic. It was full of literary allusions -- the techological Borg were often referred to as "Death Stars"; maybe this is a reference to a different epic? It spoke of the noble Bajorans facing the dominant Borg, a near-unstoppable force who had but one known weakness. And of course our heroes were successful in finding and exploiting that weakness, which somehow involved that one critical action at the very beginning of the encounter. It's a bit nonlinear, almost as if the Orb of Time were somehow involved, though there was no evidence of that in what we recall actually happened. I suppose the story lost some in translation -- we're told it's better in the original Klingon. Closing Thoughts I'm happy for the win, though a little unsatisfied (and apologetic) in how it came about. I played one full game (and a tight one at that), but besides that I had a bye and a scheduling concession, and a game that ended on the first card play. As far as the format goes, things were certainly fun and interesting, and planning for it took some unusual thinking.