Brian Sykes (Armus) Tournament Report - 2E 2022-05-21 - 12:00 PM TOS Assess Introduction After a long time away from in-person Standard Play, I figured if I was gonna actually play in Worlds this year, I should actually get back in game shape in a Standard meta. Round 1 Matt S FW (+50) Close game. Matt was playing Terok Nor with Kartakins. I thought it was combat but turns out it was just a two mission win setup. Lawnmower Dukat takes out my events so I have to pivot to solver mode and I'm able to solve my last mission the turn before Matt would've solved for the win. Round 2 braish FW (+100) My opponent got ship screwed, so this was a quick, uneventful game. We played a fun game afterwards where he started with a ship in his hand and it was more interesting. Round 3 Greg Hodgin MW (+25) Knock down drag out slugfest between me and Greg for the tournament championship. It was a back and forth affair that saw me solve 3 missions and score 105 points only to be stymied by the Phoenix. Fortunately I got a couple key stops on my end to hold off Greg long enough to squeak out the Mod Win Round 4 starprince2012 FW (+75) Allen likes to blow up ships. He gets some battle cards down early but no ships. I start working on Assess, and solve on the second attempt after he draws the worst Assess dilemma draw ever (2 space 4, duals each costing 4, none with a skill). I go to space, hoping to get the mission done before he gets his fleet up and running. He hits me with a Gomtuu, which despite having 9 unstopped people, I fail because I somehow only have one diplomacy?Diplomacy?! Seriously??!! Allen gets one so out and starts working on his space muission, where I stop him with a Chula Game/ Chandra combo. On my next turn, I play a second ship (USS Constitution) and a couple of people, fly the Enterprise home, put 6 people on the Constitution, fly back out, and attempt. Allen can only play one dilemma and he chooses violence: Prefix Codes lands and he concedes the mission to me in exchange for getting to blow me up, which he then proceeds to do on his turn. So I'm down to 6 people in play, but I still have a ship, and despite the setback, and Allen eventually solving his space mission with a series of double teams, I'm able to rebuild a bit solve my last mission for the win. Closing Thoughts Standard is about where I left it. Romulan cheese is still cheesy. I'm not sure my deck is any better, but it was a good first test to see if it could compete - it can. I'm gonna make a few tweaks to account for point denial and refine it a bit more - still feels a bit fat.