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Matthew Zinno (commdecker)
Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event
2013-08-26 - 12:00 AM
BorgYour biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.
Introduction
I needed to play X-list for the "Spice of Life" achievement. And I already had a Borg deck I had built for not-OTF, because they get to ignore Fair Play and steal the opponent's missions. I had played it in Revised and was tweaking it for Open; Standard was not far off.
Round 1KazonMarkFW (+30)View opponent's Report
Mark laid out an all-Delta spaceline, so I put They Will Be Coming in the Delta Quadrant with him. He was playing Kazon though, so assimlation wasn't going to be happening. But thanks to a very fortunate opening draw, with ActSub, 2 Awakens, and Gowron, I was able to staff and fly my cube first turn. But after that I had little else without a queen to get drones on command. Still, I did what I could to prepare, and hung out where I could reach both space missions, so I could destroy him when he went there and set up my Salvage Starship. But he hung around his outpost seeded at Liberation, and solved it for 30. I decided to start assimilating planets, and flew to the far end of the spaceline for Stop Bombardment. Mark took advantage of my remoteness and used his Spacedoor to get a Miradorn Raider, and it tried to Collect Omicron Particles (newly converted, but Lackey lagged in showing us) at the opposite end. The plan was surely to solve before I could fly back there -- except that he failed the dilemmas including The Cloud, which stopped him there for long enough for me to reach him. With my Queen finally in play, I Eliminate Starship (using the Borg Cutting Beam to assimilate Neelix in the process), and then Salvage Starship at the location to get to 55 points. I next went to assimilate Prevent Annihilation, near his op. While I was waiting to probe, Mark got a Kazon Shuttle and it made a run for his Salvage Operation; I used Gowron of Borg (played on the first turn, and Mark had forgotten about him) to blow it up without interfering with my current objective. His reporting-engine Kazon Voyager had been staying docked and safe, but it now ventured out -- and quickly back -- first to remove the Scow from COP, then to solve it. With Annilihation assimilated, I brought out Salvage Starship at the location of the Kazon Shuttle, and completed that FTW.
Round 2HirogenJeremy HuthFW (+10)
The last time I played "this" deck (Borg not in OTF, so they can ignore Fair Play), I was beaten by Jeremy doing the same thing. So he surprised me this time by playing something else: Hirogen (mainly Alphas and holograms). He used Hirogen Hunt to get multiple ships out quickly, and came hunting while I was on my first mission. He damaged my cube, but he forgot I had a multiplexor out, so he lost two ships and I damaged one more in the battle. I counter-attacked on the next turn, though it delayed my probe, eliminating another ship and assimilating Netek with the tactic. I finished assimilating the planet, and then went for Assimilate Counterpart (targeting Orum), to press my personnel-numbers advantage and also to work on destaffing him further (since he was still playing ships). With no more targets in the DQ, I decided to head for the AQ, with the added benefit that my damaged cube would avoid his growing armada. This meant downloading the Transwarp Drone, and two TNGs, one to play on the spaceline and one to use to travel. I got to my Secret Salvage and attempted (facing Jeremy's dilemmas!). They damaged my sphere, and I saw Gomtuu coming next. But when Jeremy ventured out to his space mission (Secure Station), I saw my chance for an endgame without attempting a second one of his missions. I zipped back to the DQ and blew up his ship at Secure Station, followed up by a Salvage Starship there. The plan then was to return to AQ and finish at Secret Salvage (scouting had not been completed, so I could restart it). Unfortunately, he then blew up my sphere with a few important drones on it, and my cube had to wait in the DQ until I could recover my TNG from the discard pile -- there aren't many in this deck. I finally cycled through my discard to get the first TNG back into the deck, but my Transwarp Drone had been on the destroyed spere, so I had to either draw into the TNG or cycle the drone back. So I cycled two cards per turn, and was otherwise trying to draw like crazy. He then blew up my Cube for 50 points, though I was able to save everyone with Launch Portal for another sphere. (Very glad he didn't pull out Strategema.) We were close to our time limit here, too. Finally I draw the TNG and escape to the AQ, and reattempt SS@SS. Queen is set to Diplomacy, and I say I pass Gomtuu ... "And you have skill sharing, right?" Drat! The vinculum was blown up too! No, I fail. On his next turn, Jeremy solves a mission, looking like he'd get a MW 90-80 ... but on my turn I set the Queen to Empathy like she should have been the turn before, and pass all the dilemmas ... and then flip Service the Collective, point to my Romulan mission and Orum the counterpart, and probe on the same turn FOR THE WIN! Whew.
Round 3FerengiJML (-5)
Finally an AQ opponent: Ferengi (and War Council). I had three possible targets for the planet combos I wanted to steal: Revenge Plot at the end of the spaceline, Ferenginar next to it, and AR-558 much farther down. I went for the first two, counting during seed phase on being able to get a Ferengi counterpart. (I don't have Brunt in this deck, which goes for the Weyoun casting achievement instead.)

J played Lore early, which was such a tempting target, I started with Assimilating him as a Counterpart. (J actually played no other valid targets for that until many turns later.) I abducted him fairly easily, but my initial assault team was then stuck on J's outpost with his forces and a Transport Inhibitor (courtesy of FCO next door). He kept whittling down my team with personnel battle, which also kept me from probing for the Counterpart assimilation until I played enough new cards onto the cube to re-staff it and fly elsewhere. Unfortunately, the first random kill was the Bio-Med drone; but fortunately, Seven survived the random kill each turn. On one of these turns I counterattacked against his ship, destroying it and setting up Salvage Starship. Later, J decided he'd built up enough forces to leave, and start attempting missions. I then took advantage of my away team on his OP to get arounda Borg restriction: see, my plan for passing my own space combo involves not sending everybody -- but so far I only had the one ship. And I'm not allowed to form an away team without a card. But I already had an away team, so I beamed more people to it (still using a through-the-shields drone). I attempted with my desired crew and cleared, probing and completing next turn [65-0].

At this point my plans stalled a bit. I had a good combo at another of his space missions, but I had to destroy his ship there for me to attempt. The two planets with combos I set up for myself were Ferenginar and Revenge Plot; J cleared them quickly, but couldn't solve -- Lore had a lot of the skills that were missing, and I hoped he wouldn't find replacements soon enough. But I couldn't get Ferenginar since my Assimilate Counterpart card was busy giving me 35 points from Lore. That left Revenge Plot, and while I flew toward there J played the Kurdon, dl'd Captain Picard, and used his Leadership to solve Ferenginar [65-30]. I got to Revenge Plot and targeted it -- but J craftily put his Transport Inhibitor there, so I couldn't beam down. That left me to either fly far down the spaceline to my missions, or stay and hope to draw into a scout vessel, so I could land it with the new TNG-block drone. (Maybe a Maturation Chamber would have been good in this deck; the twins could have downloaded it to the planet.) I flew away from that useless mission, ending with my cube at Ferenginar alongside his Kurdon. Now there wasn't enough time for me to have two more turns, which is the least I would need to score any more points. I just needed to hope he wouldn't score more, which would give me a MW. I should have done more to ensure that, by flipping to Eliminate Starship and destroying his ship. I was skittish of that because it was at the HW -- but I should have relied on the fact that he didn't have a QTR showing, only a single HA. (It turned out to be HQDM) For his final turn (time ran out), J played a second ship (STP'd when I dl'd the face-down Elim-ship) at Steal Technology -- this is the original outpost that saw those battles at the game's beginning, and where I then did my Salvage Starship. He flew his people on the Kurdon from Ferenginar to there, used the new D'Kora to move the Scow I had left, and used the Kurdon to solve -- with Dr. Farek for +5, that gave him a 5-point lead. As I said, I could score no points in a single turn, so that was the end. I lost by Dr. Farek's Greed, 65-70.
Closing Thoughts
Good show! I almost had the victory; congrats to J. Mission stealing is strong for the Borg here, but when you do it you're hampered by not being able to use Service the Collective. Sometimes the tradeoff works, but not always.