Matthew Zinno (commdecker) |
Tournament Report - 2E - Online Event |
2013-08-05 - 12:00 AM |
Academically Outnumbered |
Introduction |
I finished up the July Talos tournament before planning what to play next ... and this Academy tournament was starting soon, thought I'd give it a try.
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Round 1 | | Michael Moskop | FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
I had a good opening hand, with Kira, Sisko, Odo, Under Siege, and Muniz. Once I had several people and a ship in play, I went for the Gamma mission ... and the first dilemma was Insurrection. I made a bad decision to stick with that mission anyway, and beat against it for most of the game. Eventually I played Ibboko and Laavros and sent everyone (in two waves) to Aid Lost Colony, but even the minimal second team hit two dilemmas. The first one thankfully didn't stop anyone -- Dark Page tried to kill Sisko, but he had ben "named" by George Primmin in the first attempt -- but the second, Guess/Dinner, stopped one and then I didn't have the stats. Michael struggled for a while, not getting his power cards (Karen Archer, Samuels, and Noble Intentions) until late. But he took advantage of a dilemma stopping Karen Archer (and she goes out of play and boosts everyone for the turn) during his first solve to get another solve on the same turn (Coolant Leak stopped a few, but the rest still solved). He was onto his third mission while I still struggled with Peaceful Contact, and I was also stuggling to find dilemmas that wouldn't result in him being able to choose to stop (a new copy of) Karen. With 5 under, I finally switched to a planet mission, and got 4 under, but then Michael solved his third FTW.
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Matthew was playing Under Siege DS9 if I remember correctly. (Note to self: Take some notes on the first games since it will be a while before you write the tournament report.) He worried me with Holding Cell, but I was able to stall out mission attempts with some skill targeting and get the win. |
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Round 2 | | Matt Kirk | FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
All of my missions need Leadership, and that's what Matt's deck was designed to target. He played Terok Nor, and used Weyoun to get rid of my Leadership personnel, plus Jem'Hadar Entrenchment to make me need even more. I had some early Leadership in Sisko (why doesn't this Kira have it?), but he was taken by Weyoun. Later I got some in Dax, and she was captured by a dilemma. I had a draw-7 turn where I finally dug down to Watley, then spent a Product Placement to play him without his power just for the leadership -- and he hit Necessary Execution. (I even left a person on the ship during that planet attempt, hoping Matt would agonize over whether I was protecting Watley with a bluff attempt, but he didn't even notice.) Meanwhile Mardah was doing her best to rescue people. Sisko returned and survived an attempt, but then the game ended. The other side of the story starts over in my core, where I got out Holding Cell and trapped his Dukat (which made me glad I hadn't managed to get Weyoun, as Dukat would just have nullified it), making Matt change his Tenak'Talar plans to a different Gul, and also preventing his Ruling Council interrupts. Eventually he played the interrupts just to Decay the Holding Cell, but once Dukat came back out, I played it and trapped him again. The loss of his point loss engine made him send Odo on a one-man attempt at Survey New World, so that he could replay him for a round-the-corner five points, which made his second mission (first was Kressari with lots of bonus) get him to 100.
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Ah DS9. With my recent regional spate of Niners, I felt like I knew what Matt was working towards. He had the appropriate Integrity missions out, and I knew he didn't have a whole lot of Leadership in the deck. Luckily, I started off with a couple Jemmies and 2 JH Entrenchments, so I started digging for my third Jemmie. Matt went to space early on, I got a quick stop, then dropped the Entrenchment aboard. Weyoun had kindly taken out Benjamin Sisko and Kira had died on a Psycho-Kinetic Attack (sleeper dilemma FTW). He made a go at his planet mission, but again, I was able to weed out Non-Aligned Jadzia with Inequitable Exchange, and he was out of Leadership for the mission. I dropped another JH Entrenchment aboard, while Matt dropped Holding Cell to snag my Dukat. I had to play carefully around HCell, dropping two meaningless Holding Cells just to play Dukat again and get Kressari down. He played a second Cell before I got Survey New World down, and again, I used my sneaky SNW to get a second Odo out for the win. |
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Round 3 | | Daniel Matteson | ML (-50) |
Another Starfleet deck with the Future Enterprise crew. This time Nathan Samuels came out early and made his plays really cheap (a day before he got errated). I had out Muniz early, and Summon the Future (which interestingly triggers before things like Sisko's download, making the peek pretty useless). I got some people together and tried the Gamma Quadrant, getting a few dils under, then moved over to an Alpha planet when I came back to the HQ for reinforcements. Then back to Gamma until Insurrection got put there, then back to Alpha. I solved it, by attempting with 5 and 5 under ... and time ran out. |
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Round 4 | | Jonathan | FW (+65)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
I played Under Siege early, and had a Holding Cell in hand waiting for a good target. (It waited all game; though Triumph eventually got out a few interesting personnel, none were the Weyoun or Dukat that my previous TN opponent had used.) I started attempts at Angel One and solved on the first attempt, facing only Coolant Leak. Then off to Intercept Renegade, where I lost Laavros and Boqta to Ardent Predator. After another attempt, there were 5 under. Triumph finally played a ship and went to a planet mission, finding a Mugato. At this point, his core was amusingly mine -- Mugato and Under Siege, with an earlier Unexpected Difficulties already burned. I played Watley, using his ability for the first time, to get Galen (Sulu had gotten into hand and thence gone to the discard pile already). Attempting with 6, I faced nothing and solved, to now have 65. Triumph solved his mission on the next turn, but I got my 3rd one soon thereafter. |
It's possible that I forgot anything I knew about dilemma play over the summer. The evidence certainly supports this conclusion. I let Matt solve on his first attempt with a bad play. Oh, he was running a DS9 solver. I had an incredibly slow start, not sure what was wrong (probably my playing...) but I was way behind Matt's Niners. I managed to stop him twice at Intercept Renegade, and finally made my first attempt - where I got stopped and an evil white unicorn-gorilla started eating my deck. Misplayed dilemmas again when Matt made his first attempt at Aid Lost Colony, miscounting his low-cost peeps, which made Pitching In full cost and in turn overcosted Greater Needs; I also wasted counters on Healing Hand even though he had no Medical out. If I hadn't played HH, GN would have hit and I would have had 1 less under plus the inconvenience of GN. He solved for the FW on his next turn (and again, I played totally useless dilemmas...). |
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Closing Thoughts |
Holding Cell, good. Insurrection, bad. |
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