Matthew Zinno (commdecker) Tournament Report - 1E 2013-04-08 - 05:00 PM Agyer's Metaphasic Test Introduction I ran a Block sealed tourney; everyone got a few packs (from the Virtual Pack Creator) of TNG-block and of Enhanced-PAQ, and then chose which TNG starter to augment them with. During play, we unofficially all used OTF batch seeding, even though we weren't actually doing OTF. I was playing Romulan with three play engines, pretty lucky for sealed: AAH, Chess Game, and Scientific Diplomacy. Round 1 BeamupSTC FL (-10)View opponent's ReportView original Report Scott also had pulled a usable play engine in his packs: FMO. We discussed that this determined his choice of the Ferengi starter deck, just as my Chess Game determined my choice of Romulan. We had one duplicated mission, in the middle separating my missions from his. I went after Host first, and went through the dilemmas quickly: CM decks have a lot of universal people who pass Arsenal, and even with the uniques split I was able to pass War Games, but Gomtuu hit on the first try. Next turn, with Spock plus a second D'Lors, I passed it and solved for 50; soon after I went for Tranquil Colony, passing his Dangerous Climb combo but getting stopped by the last dil, Wind Dancer. Neral was in hand then, and I played him next turn to pass it, and solve for another 40. About then Scott solved his first mission. I went for Investigate Desctuction, but held back my team to 9 in case of Fractured Time. Topo-47 trapped the only ENGINEER I had sent, leading to Garbage Scow. I figured out how I could get past that next turn, with a report of either Tallera (to cure Tacil) or Kell (to join my second Tacil) ... but Scott solved two more 35-point missions on his turn for a surprise win. I started out this game somewhat intimidated by the fact that Matt had landed two free play engines to my one - Chess Game AND Scientific Diplomacy (plus AAH which we both had). I don't think he managed to use all three free plays every turn, but he did so often enough to have a pronounced edge in numbers. Partially due to that, he was able to blow through my dilemmas under Metaphasic Shield Test VERY fast, solving with AMS points for 50. Then a second mission got him up to 90, and if I remember the sequence right it was the following turn I finally managed to get my first 35 (Last Outpost, I think). Felt very behind at that point. But it turned around - he hit my Garbage Scow without the requisite Engineers until the Topological Anomaly finished its countdown, then tried another mission and was stopped by Wind Dancer. That gave me enough time to pull out two missions on the last turn (Observe Stellar Rebirth followed by Revenge Plot) for the win. I wasn't sure I could, but Ferengi are good dilemma-busters - Gozar FTW! Just in time too, as I'm pretty sure he was going to be able to pass one of the two on his next turn. I actually should have won a turn earlier, since on my penultimate turn I was stopped by the last dilemma under Observe Stellar Rebirth. It was A Good Day to Lie, and me with only 2 each of Diplomacy and Treachery. But I was attempting with the Kurdon, and hadn't yet used its download. If I'd been on the ball, I would have grabbed another Treachery out of the ether, and solved a turn earlier. Fortunately that wasn't quite the difference in the game (though it could well have been). Overall a very interesting game - right up to seeing the last dilemma, I really thought Matt had me beat. Round 2 Ares FW (+65) I started with a planet mission this time; Host was duped and his combo started with a Maglock. Hit Diplo Intervention, and he downloaded Troi and Mendoza. Next turn I attacked them, with Tallera boosted with Get It Done so she'd be strong enough to mortally wound Troi -- but she paired against Mendoza, so only the one kill. Then DI counted down, and I solved. Interestingly, with the second diplomat still alive, Harlan played Cowboy Diplomacy later in the game. Harlan busied himself with Botanical Research at the spaceline end. When he tripped Friendly Fire, I got dreams of stealing it, since I knew which one dilemma came next and I was betting he'd have trouble passing it. So I abandoned the assault on my second mission to fly down his way with a theft team. But halfway there, I realized it couldn't work: I needed Dr Christopher to attempt it, and I had left him behind because he can't work with Tallera; meanwhile, she was one of the Leadership I needed to pass the dilemma there. Harlan ended up solving it anyway, and I solved two more missions just before time. Round 3 arader FW (+100) I duped two missions with Andrew; he put only 1 dilemma under each of those, 5 at most of my missions, and 7 at Host due to its high points. I put one there too, because he sometimes surprises me with his tactics and I thought (before I saw his pile of 7) that he might try to steal it. I started on one of my other missions, and solved it after a little while. Andrew built up at the outpost for a long time before playing a ship and trying one of the shared missions. He got to Undercover Agent, and told me he thought he might not have any Biology in the deck at all. So he then went after another mission. I finished up the combo at Conceal Unlikely Society with a deliberate non-solve: the combo ended with Triage, and rather than stop Khev who had Youth, I instead used Spock's download for Kharic and stopped her for it, but with her stopped I lacked the solving skills. That was so I could solve it next turn with more Youth personnel present. Specifically, I solved it the next turn and discarded Khev and Mareth for +10, then played Tag to turn Dr Christopher into that Khev again, and flew him over to that shared mission Andrew had been working on so that he could pass my Undercover Agent, and I poached that mission to win. Closing Thoughts I'm not a big fan of Block, but this was pretty good fun. At least there's less likely to be lots of battle in sealed. Congratualations to Scott for his first tournament win, and welcome to Harlan for his first tournament!