Brian Sykes (Armus) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event 2021-06-04 - 10:00 AM TNG_Only_Playtest_June2021_3.txt Introduction When Charlie announced that he was running a TNG Playtest event, the one thing I wanted to do was to test the hypothesis of whether or not a Battle deck was a viable option. My mind immediately went to Klingons, and I reached deep into the memory hole to my experience at the Silver Border Tin Draft Nationals event from 2013. In that event I drafted a Kurlan Naiskos and personnel of different affiliations to power it. It worked pretty well overall, as I finished with a winning record in that event, but I thought that TNG-only (with its lack of Dead End) was a good place to try a constructed version of it. The premise was simple: Run 3 easy planet missions, get the Kurlan early, go terrorize the opponent. Throw in Officer Exchange Program, which can dial up a lot of the needed classifications, and getting things up and running shouldn't be TOO hard. The deck is fairly straightforward. Mainly personnel and ships, with Kivas for draws and a few bonus point interrupts to enable a 2 mission win or cover down on point loss dilemmas. For space, I ran both Klingon Outpost Mission IIs and Intercept Dignitary, which is right in line with the easy 35 point Klingon missions. I also ran a Klingon Outpost in my seed deck, giving me 3 staging areas to work with on the space line. Finally, I threw in my "steal a mission" combo in case anyone decided to get cute and run Scientific Diplomacy. Round 1 Niall Matthew FW (+65) Niall seeded 4 Universal Space, so I immediately started thinking Black Hole. I was right. I seed my Mission IIs on opposite sides of the space line to give myself maximum options for avoiding the Black Hole nonsense and seed my Kurlan and Outpost at Reported Activity, in hopes of getting a quick solve. Niall gets the first mission and acquires his artifact the turn before I can solve Reported Activity. I'm super afraid that he's going to Blade of Tkon me to the Black Hole, but to my surprise he drops Persistence of Memory instead. Then the fun really begins! I get my Kurlan on my next turn and start the IKS Vor'Cha heading down the line toward Niall, then on my next turn I play the Kurlan on the IKS Chang, move the Vor'cha to my Outpost II, then fly the Chang all 30 Range down to his outpost and take a shot. I draw one of the two maximum firepowers in my deck so that gives me an attack total of 33 and 3 flips, and I proceed to flip Pulse Disruptor, Pulse Disruptor, and... Crimson Forcefield! BOOM goes Niall's Outpost! He still has a crew of people on a cloaked ship, but he stays hidden since he can't escape my giant Kurlan'd out Chang of DOOM and I spend the next few turns working my way through Intercept Dignitary, taking me to 85 points when I finally solve it. I end the game in true style: Gowron and Alexander Rozhenko beam down to the nearest planet and Gowron murders Alexander for 10 points with Arbiter of Succession, taking me to 95. I then fly a ship full of honor people over to Niall's Gaps in Normal Space, where Korris "volunteers" to fall through the floor to his death and his comrades yell to warn the dead, taking me to 100 for the Full Win 100-35. After it's over, Niall and I both discuss what changes would be good for our respective decks heading into round 2. Strategic Base is on the top of his list... ;-) Round 2 Maggie Geppert FW (+20) Changes Made from Round 1: Drop: Qelyn, Metaphasic Shields, Sarjenka. Add: William T. Riker, Masaka Transformations, Obelisk of Masaka. Maggie was playing Story Mode Illegit Klingons with Amargosa Observatory + Tolian Soran + Nexus shenanigans. Again, only one outpost. I spread things out again, interweaving my missions with hers for the most part. Investigate Disturbance lands right next to Amargosa so that's where I decide to put my outpost and set up shop, despite Maggie tempting me by putting 3 card combos on my distant missions while putting 4 card combos under my missions around her stuff - smart play by her. In the end though, I decide the location advantage of having a battle fleet in her face is worth the tradeoff of having to face 4-card combos. We both spend the first few turns building up, me with the Pagh and Vorcha downloads along with random free people, here with all kinds of treachery goodness, but no ship for a minute. Once I have leaders and staffing for both of my ships, I fly next door to take a shot at the observatory... and promptly miss. I needed to draw a Max Firepower and even with the Pagh's bonus tactic, I didn't get it. I get it on my next turn though, and damage the station, finishing it off on my next turn. Meanwhile, Maggie goes after her first mission and sends half her crew down to face Unscientific Method... with no Science. The good news is she wipes out to Barclay's, the bad news is she has two science in play that escaped unharmed and all I have left is a Scientific Method. The turn after I nuke her observatory, Vekor shows up and she solves Cargo Rendezvous for 40 points with the Integrity side (!) - Not bad for treachery Klingons! Meanwhile, while my space fleet has been dispatching the Observatory, I've been working through my first planet mission with Randos: Experience Bij sets me back a turn, then the Pagh ship-shirts into an Armus: Energy Field. I leave K'mtar on my outpost because I finally drew the Fek'lhr... and promptly run into an Implication with 2 Dip and no law. Next turn, I play the Fek'lhr and K'ChiQ and take both of my big ships over to take out Maggie's empty IKS Vorn, leaving her shipless for the moment. This buys me some time to work my way past the implication, only to lose that away team to Yuta + Barclay's, which screws me because despite having Med/Sci/Sec, I flipped my SoG: Brutality unnecessarily when Maggie attempted her mission, and I can't pass the doubled requirements. Bad move by me! Silver lining: I use my end of turn draw to grab Vekma with Officer Exchange Program and solve on my next turn for 40 and get the Kurlan. Next turn I play the Kurlan on the Fek'lhr, Staff it up, and fly it and the Pagh over to Maggie's Outpost and start shooting. No Maximum Firepower, but I still manage to hit the Outpost and kill Tolian Soran. On Maggie's next turn she plays the Cha'Joh and a dude to fly it, picks up her people from Cargo Rendezvous, cloaks, and books it down the spaceline as far away from my fleet as she can get. On my turn I finish off her outpost and send the Vor'Cha and a real crew to attempt Intercept Dignitary, getting stopped by Armus again due to a lack of unstopped Security. I also finish off her outpost. Fortunately for Maggie, she has Lursa in play, so she free plays Kitrik aboard her ship and keeps flying to her last space mission on the line, where she decloaks and attempts. Another smart move by her, as that's the mission where I put my "Steal combo" which doesn't do particularly much to stop her, and she solves with a mission specialist, taking her to 80 and putting her back in the lead. On my turn I send the Pagh home and the Fek'lhr all the way down the line to take out her last ship, establishing a pretty strong lockout condition, but since I'm still behind, I have to still work my way through Intercept Dignitaries. On my second attempt I'm able to overcome the dilemma but get stopped by Virus. Sensing a Cytherians combo, I move the Fek'lhr a whole 28 range, picking up some more Security and Computer skill from my outpost along the way. This allows me to cure the Virus, and then I ship shirt from the Fek'lhr, keeping my main crew on the Vor'Cha. I make the right read, as the next two cards are Birth of "Junior"/Cytherians. Classic combo, but since my Fek'lhr still has range left, I move one mission back the other way. With Intercept Dignitaries now clear, I solve with 2 mission specialists, taking me to 85. On My next turn, the super-Fek'lhr cashes the Cytherians points for the 2 mission win, 100-80. Round 3 Michael Van Breemen FL (-5) Changes made from Round 2: Drop: William T. Riker Add: Q'Elyn... because I'm a fucking idiot who can't read my own deck list. MVB was playing a Romulan solver with some crazy Q tech. Turns out the crazy Q tech didn't work as planned (though it was still funny), but the Romulan solver part worked just fine. I made a good fight of it, but MVB clipped me 100-95 with his Dip/Exo-laden Romulan solver squad. Round 4 Brian S FW (+65) Changes made from Round 3: None. Brian was playing Fortress America-style Feds with Starbase 347 AND a Federation Outpost with Strategic Base... battle probably wasn't gonna happen this game. On the bright side, he was also playing Scientific Diplomacy, so I got to use my steal combo! I grabbed Klag on turn 1, Dukath and a ship on turn 2, and was up 50-0 before he started his third turn. If I had gone first this may have gotten out of hand real quick, but Brian's first-mover advantage meant he was locked and loaded fairly quickly himself even if it meant solving 3 missions. He went to space at Repair Mission and walked into Shuttle Crash + Cytherians. Since he was only 6 range away from my outpost I switched my card play from a KFC to the Pagh, at which point he scooped his ship with STP. Fortunately, I hadn't moved yet, so I went back into solving mode and started working on Investigate Disturbance, getting stopped by a Shuttle Crash due to lack of non-Officer Navigation, a problem that was quickly remedied by K'ChiQ on my next turn. I work my way through a The Higher... The Fewer, losing 9 points, then hit The Arsenal: Separated, but I only have 3 unique people there. Brian chooses to stop the group of 2 (Riker + K'Tal) and allows K'mtar through. Last dilemma is A Bad End, which for K'Tal, it is. On his next turn, Brian, who has been rebuilding from the scoop, has enough randos out to go attempt in space again, an laughs off my Gomtuu, scoring 35 in the process. On my turn I play B'Somgh from hand, and download his brother B'Somgh for my 2 Biology. I also switch K'ChiQ's skill to Security, since Gorath is the only one I have in play. I move the Pagh and the Vor'cha each to Brian's mission in between my outpost and Investigate Disturbance, and I put B'Somgh x2, K'mtar, Gowron, and Gorath on the Vor'Cha and solve for 40, taking me to 81. I then take my second crew on the Pagh and attempt my outpost mission (Intercept Dignitary) since the Pagh is out of range. I hit the Alien Parasites combo dilemma, which I pass, then Spaceborne Entity, which looks really mean, then Unscientific Method, which kills Qup'Ta, then Scientific Method, which I can't pass. I have one Science (Dukath), one Medical (Vol'Jin), and K'Chiq. I have another Vol'Jin in my hand and with my planet crew coming home next turn, it's academic, as I will have 3 Science + Med + Mission Skills. On Brian's last turn, he plays Keiko O'Brien for free at his fed outpost, Beverly for free at Starbase 247 with Scientific Diplomacy, and draws 4 with Let's See What's Out There. No universal, so he has to go with what he has, and Picard and Jellico manage to negotiate their way through the Implication. Next is Zaldan, which I add 2 Exo to with SoG: Cruelty, and because he couldn't go get Beverly and make it back, he's an Exo short and loses Picard and Jellico (though he still has 2 Diplomacy left). Next turn he would have cleared both his planet missions for the comeback win, but as it was I hang on for a closer-than-the-scoreboard indcates 100-35 Full Win. Closing Thoughts TNG-only is reasonably fun, but it's still a solver format. If that's what we're going for then it's in a reasonably good place, but I would expect experienced players to tire of it rather quickly. For good or for ill, it's a game of drop-and-go with not enough big speedbumps to slow down the overall pace of the game, despite some creative efforts by some good players to do just that. As for my battle deck, it *can* work, but there's enough answers in this card pool that you'd have to catch the meta right in order to do any real damage. My one regret is not having a chance to face off against a TNG Borg deck, so the answer to that matchup is still a ?