Matthew Zinno (commdecker) Tournament Report - 1E - Local Event (Mission to Talos IV) 2012-11-26 - 05:00 PM Telepathic Alien Kidnappers (Local OTSD) Introduction I gave my playgroup a few choices for what to play as a tournament this month. Several people voted for sealed, so I ran a mirror Talos tournament, which this month is essentially OTSD. Since it was Open, and I've seen mission stealing be a great temptation in our meta, my worry was that someone would run away with it thanks to a treaty that would let them avoid using the triple treaty (which disallows you from stealing). Fortunatly, everyone did end up running the triple treaty, and mission stealing was quashed. In my deck, I used all the dilemmas I got, including a self-seeded Sarjenka under Excavation. I used every personnel I got (I think) except the hologram and the duplicate unique (D'Tan; he and a ship became mis-seeds). Round 1 Matt Ludvino MW (+10) He played a Red Alert first turn, and I flipped my Spacedoor to duplicate it. I dropped Ajur early, but Matt had not put more than 3 dilemmas anywhere. My Targ was taken by a Male's Love Interest. My Frame of Mind hit his Taitt, which locked him out of two missions (SSC and Mineral Survey) for a while. My K'Vort failed Conundrum, and when it reached his hip to attack it, I made sure my Darmok was also there, so they damaged it (14 vs 7). I cleared two of my missions, but couldn't get together the skills to solve. Shortly before time ran out, I attempted InvInc at the spaceline end with two people on the Darmok; they got damaged by a dilemma and then next turn hit AbShip there (but lost no-one), and it was clear. Then Matt solved 2 25-point missions, and we hit time. He had gone first, so I took my last turn, which was a doozy. First, I STP-up'd my K'Vort which was subject to a second Conundrum, replayed it all with the Spacedoor/RedAlert (at the Husnock OP @ Establish Relations, which my people in play could now solve but I couldn't arrange to get them all here), and flew to the spaceline end via daisy-chain, picking up everyone along the way. I sent solvers to InvInc for 30, then sent everyone else at Excavation next door. They survived the dilemmas there to stop for Sarjenka, then I solved with Galathon who'd been held back for this. MW 60-50 after the buzzer. Round 2 epinnick TT (0) I played TAK on the first turn, and TravTrans later. For the rest of game I whittled down his hand, almost always saying personnel just to deny him those. I think I only hit about 4 times throughout the game -- but about 8 times I picked his Red Alert (which he didn't dare play, since it would more greatly advantage me). Ajur was out early again and showed me one dilemma, Eric chose the first one of the 4-card combo. I think it was a MalfDoor. The TravTrans hindered me when I hit Thought Fire ... is it a wall? We had to check the DRG, which confirmed that it would discard if no targets. So on the first hit, it killed the Targ, then next turn I reattempted with the same crew, and there was no one for it to kill again. Eric had GenRep in play early, but took a long time getting a second MEDICAL (Vekor, joining Takket). My FOM hit his Taurik, unremarkable except that he was the only Fed for staffing the ship, so Eric had to switch. Eric waited a while and finally drew into K'mtar, who made it into play past the TAK, and I think helped solve InvInc -- and then was targeted by Armus-Sticky, ironic since he was the only one who could save others from being killed by it. In the end I solved two missions for 50, and he did for 55 ... but he had lost 5 to a Punishment Zone early on. TT 50-50. Round 3 April Pinnick FL (-72) I went second; stole Red Alert again, and solved Excavation (+Sarjenka) early on, but then stalled. I cleared Test Propulsion Systems and waited for a Physics, not having realized how little is in my deck: only one printed (Mendon), so I needed him or RefTh or Suna ... or a solve of Establish Relations, so I worked on that too, losing several redshirts before I got shy and wanted to save my Integrity for the solve. Eventually I found that the last wall there was MalfDoor, really hard to pass since I had failed IPC earlier. April was stuck on dilemmas (MalfDoor and ??) for a while, but eventually started solving, first Impose Order for 35, then something else reaching 60. In my hand I was holding onto a last-ditch move that I was saving for my last turn after time got called. I was hoping that we were heading for a timed win, and I was going to play Transwarp Conduit on my Vor'Cha, fly around the spaceline end with WNOHGB (played early on), and steal the Impose Order points for a 70-point swing. But April solved two missions on her last turn, reaching 100 before I could make that play. (It wouldn't have made me win anyway, as she won by more than 70.) FL 100-28 (thanks to THTF for -2). Closing Thoughts The tournament was won by Andrew, who had only started playing recently and was playing here in his first tournament. It was widely agreed that the biggest factor in his victory was the fact that he pulled (and played in each game) a Q-Net, which his opponents could not pass with the limited pool. Everyone had fun, but maybe we won't do sealed next time, and give people more control over what they play.