Tournaments | trekcc

Matthew Zinno (commdecker)
Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event
2014-06-02 - 12:00 AM
The Gamma Glory
Introduction
For this month's online OTF, I brought out the Fed/Dom deck I'd been sitting on. It goes for a two-mission win using Off-Zel Vase and File Mission Report.

Round 1	Daniel Matteson	FW (+55)
Dan had a Bajoran Circle deck, which interfered with my mission placement. He expanded outward in both directions from my doorway-phase Wormhole, putting my nearest available Ultimatum RSD location several missions away. Interfering with his mission placement, and the rest of our game, was a Lackey bug where we couldn't drag cards, including off of the table. Imagine inserting missions to the spaceline, putting dilemmas under them, and later flying ships around ... it was painful, but we adapted. Anyway, he had no Ref protection, which sped me up: I downloaded two personnel on the first turn (Deyos and Yak'Talon) to build my RSD then. GTTT got me Kirk the next turn, and we headed back to Gamma to attempt my Artifact's planet. I saw the full combo on the first attempt: Hippo (stole Kirk and the Medkit), Murasaki, Harvesters (cured by V shape-shift for BashirF), Med Crisis. While I waited for the countdowns (and to draw into something to pass the Med Crisis), Dan attempted CNE, losing several to Forsaken/Ankari. I drew into my Enterprise right when Murasaki left, and I STP-dropped (incl. Rand) and V McCoy. Nullify, solve (AMS), VIL, FMR, 55 points. I flew to Alpha, but didn't have the range to get to a space mission yet. Dan then solved CNE for an Orb, and used Alliance to dl ROTB. Then he tried downloading a second person for the turn, triggering me to burn my QTR for General Quarters ... just after, I realized it would be much safer to keep it for ITZ. Safe from ITZ, he tried another mission, but lost his whole crew to Cytherians. I cleared my space mission in one turn: MFD, Cloud (McCoy), FLIRGS ... and solved it the next turn, 105-45.


Round 2	J	FL (-35)View opponent's Report View original Report
Attempting my Gamma planet, I hit two dilemmas which kill the 2-mission win idea for this deck: The Higher, The Fewer (losing 9 points, far too many given that I had passed the Founder Secret lead-in with a single Founder); followed by Dead End. (He had correctly intuited which was my most important mission.) So I went to the other Gamma planet, finding another THTF, putting me at -15. I solved on the next turn, getting 45 (with Rand's FMR) to put me at 30, but J's OS/CF ships-that-download deck had solved Qonos (with James T. Kirk) for 35. I flew to Alpha but held off on attempting the mission so as not to run into ITZ ... and J solved AgAss with the help of some OS downloads to pass the CS combo. I attempted on the next turn, hitting an Edo Probe (which I pushed through, since failing it would not change my endgame), then Personal Duty and Friendly Fire, which I passed by special downloading Kirk. This put us both at 65, and I moved to the Gamma Quadrant poised to solve that Dead-End mission ... next turn, due to ITZ. J knew he had just one turn left to solve a space mission ... and he did, with his multiple ships so that one could finish after the first left for Cytherians.
This was the toughest game of the whole tournament, and I think that - had I not knocked him out - Matt would have had a good shot at winning this even. He ended up with just one loss, this one. Matt's deck was very impressive, especially since I recently played a Federation/Dominion deck and had much less impressive results. Matt's deck used the Dominion attribute and skill beats + the TOS Fed cheaters to good effect. He also had the opportunity for a two mission win, which had it worked, would have meant that he would have won before I had left the spacedock. The big play for me was in choosing where to seed my Dead End. I chose Destroy Iconian Gateway and that is where he chose to put his Off-Zel Vase. This decision forced him to a third mission, though the game was still close. Matt attempted Destroy Iconian Gateway rather early and cleared down to the Dead End with minimal point loss from Higher The Fewer (let's say 5). he then went to his other Gamma planet mission. This one took him a bit longer as he wasn't willing to send a big attempting crew without the TOS peeps backing him up with skill cheats. But when he did drop the Starship Enterprise via STP, the two ships made two attempts and cleared the mission. This left me a bit in the hole compared to Matt, but I hoped that my space combos would hold up. Unfortunately not, as he went to the Space mission where I had put my Friendly Fire combo and used the Enterprise download to get CoC Kirk and solve it on the first attempt. This had him at over 50, and thus, he could simply move back to Destroy Iconian Gateway and solve for the FW on his next turn. I had two planet missions done and still needed to go to space. I made two crews, with one to clear and if not solve, the other to move in. Matt had a Cytherians seeded first, and that eliminated my big crew without much preamble. I don't remember what the the second dilemma was but do remember that the last was Emergency Conversion. I lucked out in that I had planned for the second crew to be able to bust the Cloud and/or Garbage Scow and they had the Astro and Transport Skill by accident since the people I had kept just happened to have those. My plan to use a Classic Communicator to cheat skills had been thwarted by the Cytherians moving my first ship away, so having the skills for the dilemmas in crew two was very lucky.

Round 3	Niall Matthew	FW (+75)
In mission phase, it looked like a mirror Dominion match. But Niall turned out to have a Borg scout deck (they didn't exactly swarm). Just after my ship returned to the Gamma Quadrant, he had his single scout (in the AQ, with 3/5 aboard) attempt, and hit Gomtuu for damage. I reported Weyoun's ship and flew back to AQ to destroy him for [5]. Then I attempted, pushing through an Edo Probe (because I can't afford the delay) to lose several people to Denevan/SurpriseAssault (and a later redshirt to Land Eel), and the 10 to Edo. He reported a new scout (AQ) with Weyoun of Borg, and enough drones to pass the Gomtuu, and completed that objective -- but then I came with two ships and destroyed that too. He played Regenerate at various times in the game, but it didn't get his ships back, as they were in my points pile and not his discard. I hit THTF/Dead End at my second mission, and Edo/FF at my third, bringing me down to 24 points with one mission solved. He reported two ships in the GQ, with me solely in Alpha, and tried things there. But before he made any major progress, I solved a space mission for 50 (with Off-Zel), and then the Dead End mission. Total mission points: 100; total bonus points: 10 for two of his ships 10 for FMR -20 from Edo Probes 15 for Off-Zel -11 from THTF ... total of +4 bonus points. Overall, he killed several of my points and several of my people. The former slowed me down a lot (by requiring a third mission), the latter slowed me a little.


Round 4	bunz	FW (+90)
Dan was playing a weird combination of 3 incompatible affiliations: Starfleet with their HQ, Ferengi with their HQ, and Feds with the Enterprise-E. He began by playing to his disparate free engines, but also stuck a Memory Wipe on my Warship, making me Non-Aligned. Fortunately that didn't really obstruct me from my planet mission, at the same location as my PSD. My first attempt was stopped by the first wall, Ferengi Infestation. On my next turn I tried again with a team of 7, who passed it and then ran into THTF and DNP, to be stopped by I Hate You. Fortunately, the people I held back could pass that and the mission ... once I also did my ASP for the turn to get Anthro. I solved and scored 55 (with AMS, VIL, and FMR), safe from ITZ thanks to the -7 ... that is, I started the turn with 0 and I ended it with 48. Looking ahead, that was trouble -- my second mission should get me 50, which would make only 98. I'd need something extra -- if not another mission, then maybe Ultimatum -- but his only ships were the Enterprise-E and Enterprise-NX, both beefed up by their crew. So next was tackling an AQ mission from the Enterprise (since everyone on my warship was always NA), and they hit Cytherians. (Ah, there's my extra points!) Fortunately I made it range 10 by beaming aboard Scotty and Chekov, but it took out my only ship that could attempt. I was stuck waiting for it to come back or else draw into Weyoun's Warship. After a few turns, I did draw into it, and they attempted soon after, to get blown up by V'Ger (no Dip had been played yet). I scored the Cyth, but then Dan's deck came together more: his Ent-E stopped Ocular-scanning, and got Memory Wiped instead. His two Enterprises ganged up on mine and destroyed it. I was left with just one ship, and it was NA. Still, I had another Ent in my hand. In two turns, I replayed it and a pilot, and solved that mission for 50. (Dan, late-game, played a Phoenix, to end with 10.)


Closing Thoughts
Three wins (almost four), but much less smooth than I expected it to go. Why did 3 of my opponents use THTF?!