Matthew Zinno (commdecker) Tournament Report - 2E - Romulus Regional 2016-05-21 - 02:00 PM Captives of the Children of Light II Introduction My first regional! I found a little time in my family schedule to fit a few hours of Trek, and I made my way to Burlington for Lucas' 2E Regional. I decided to bring a deck that was focused on being good enough, rather than achievements. I've never won a 2E tournament, but one of the times I came rather close was with my hologram deck a few years ago, so I updated that with some modern cards like the new Headquarters. Round 1 Nathan H ML (-5) Nathan had a Starfleet deck that Lucas had built for him, where the main shenanigan seemed to be that he should solve Pluto first, which would then such dils from my pile, and later solve the mission that gives boosts for dilemmas that are under his missions. He did indeed get Pluto first, and soon afterwards I solved my space mission that downloads people (choosing to get only 2 instead of 4, due to hand size). But our game took a long time, as we were both rather inexperienced at 2E and needed to read a lot of the cards (though also involved was also some chatting about our mutual inexperience). In the end, time was called with us both having just that one mission each. Mine was worth 5 more points, but his 10 point HQ bonus put him above me. Round 2 Chris O'Connell ML (-20) Chris had TNG, with an interesting repeatable trick. It started with Historical Research downloading Spock downloading Lwaxana downloading Disavantage into Advantage. Later on, with a few more resources, he would play DiA x2, then play someone discounted with them, then stop those two Diplomacy aboard his Enterprise-E to return the events to hand, so that I couldn't benefit from them. On my side, I messed up by putting my opening-hand Olarra onto my holoprogram, thinking it was a duplicate. I mostly lost a turn drawing into another one. On one of my attempts, Weiss unfortunately got Hard Timed at the beginning, and then lots of kill dilemmas plus Dreamer took out lots of my people and cards. Fortunately, Iden and the Doctor remained in play, and I could draw without counters and play several from on my holoprograms. After one mission solve he had 55 points (40 for the mission, and some bonus points), and he went for his 50-point mission next, Shakaree. He brought two ships and sent down a small team, and I foolishly gave them a lot of dilemmas even though I was pretty sure the first one would take care of things. I forgot about him sending the rest of the people afterwards. Fortunately, I was very right about that one dilemma -- Accelerated Aging, taking out all of his Anthro which the mission required. And it lasted for the whole turn, which due to time being called was the last turn. If I had had one more turn (i.e. that turn I wasted looking for the second Olarra), I think I could have micro-teamed my second mission for a MW. Round 3 Lucas Thompson FL (-65)View opponent's ReportView original Report Lucas had Dominion, and with so many JemHadar and Founders, I really thought that Issue of Trust would hit -- turns out he teched against it, and nobody had Honor or Treachery. He even had to use a "gain a skill" trick to get Treachery to pass Matter of Honor. And a rules matter -- he knows I understand rules and he knows I read the cards, and we hit Personal Duty vs Remata'Klan which we both agreed should mean that I select 2 of 2 ... but he said it's been repeatedly ruled that I pick 1 of 2. Rules guys, that's wrong, please fix it. Anyway, he solved 2 missions before I had any points (including one attempt where after dilemmas I was just one cunning point short), so I didn't lose any from his HQ text ... and I held him off from his third mission for a while, but not forever (and again, I didn't lose points, because the game ended). I didn't get any equipment or Fajos early, so I had to do my little planet first. I finally drew the equipment back to back, and played the Astro one first along with some relevant personnel. I've only got one copy of each because hey, who runs equipment destruction, right? Well, turns out Dreamer destroys equipment pretty effectively, so I had to go to my second space mission. Fortunately, it has pretty easy skills, so I wasn't as screwed as I'd feared. Round 4 Cayenne Geis FL (-100) Cayenne had DS9 Earth. I got two attempts in, and hit an interesting dilemma combo of "different people must meet all skill requirements" and "people who meet skill requirements get stopped". Even with a dilemma that required 2 Anth and 2 Prog, I was able to muster the skills to solve my Anth mission ... but came up short on the cunning. She also got two attempts, the last of which saw the Breen actually capture three people (Soran and two 2s). But then I needed to leave, to go to another commitment. Closing Thoughts No wins, but the games felt like I was certainly in them and had a chance of winning. I never had the feeling I was locked out, not totally outmatched. Even the time I lost my hand and most of my personnel, I still recovered well within the next turn. Sorry I had to leave early. Thanks for all the games, and thanks to Lucas for hosting!