Brian Sykes (Armus) Tournament Report - 1E - American National 2013-01-12 - 10:00 AM 1E Nationals West Silver Tin Draft Introduction This is seriously the most fun I've had playing 1E in over a decade. I had just wrapped up Fantasy Football before New Years and was eager for some similar draft action. I was also lucky in that I had a business trip to San Diego that lined up with this tournament (And Let's be honest: ANY trip to San Diego in January is awesome by default!). By the way, Mad Props to Rogue Schindler for letting me crash at his place for the weekend. I spent the days leading up to the tournament trying to figure out a draft strategy for each affiliation. This paid off, as once I got my starter and my Shades of Grey card, I had an idea of what I wanted to do. I ended up getting the Klingon Starter with Gowron and Legitimate Leader of the Empire, as well as the 'Cruelty' Shades of Grey card, which adds 2 Exobiology to the requirements of Zaldan, Shaka, When the Walls Fell, and a few other, less useful dilemmas. In my pre-draft analysis, I had Shaka pretty high up on the list already, as it's one of the few Dual Wall dilemmas in Premiere. Getting Cruelty made it my number one target. Also, with the Gowron crew, Investigate Disturbance was high on my list as well. We drew for spots and I ended up 5th overall out of 12 -- pretty close to the middle of a snake draft, which isnt a terrible place to be. Due to time constraints, we only had 20 seconds for each selection, and since I was trying to document the draft, I had very limited time on some of my selections. That said, I think I did reasonably ok. Here is a quick rundown of my draft: Round 1, 5th Overall Pick: Shaka was available, so this a very easy pick Round 2, 20th Overall Pick: I took Devinoni Ral. Klingons arent very Empathic or Treacherous, so I wanted to grab him early. Since non-Aligneds work with everyone, I figured they would be in high demand and made the move when I could. Round 3, 29th Overall Pick: I wanted to secure my outpost mission before anyone else grabbed it, so I took Investigate Disturbance. This may have been a reach at this point, as most players were still drafting mains and dilemmas. Round 4, 44th Overall Pick: All of the Dilemmas had a bonus random Virtual dilemma behind them, so I took Alien Abduction, since it works with Cruelty, and got a Bonus dilemma to boot (forgot what it was) Round 5, 53rd Overall Pick: I grabbed J'Dan, as I'm pretty sure I wasn't the only Cruelty player and Klingons dont have a ton of Exobiology. The treachery didn't hurt either. Round 6, 68th Overall Pick: This was the pick that shaped the direction of the rest of my draft: Kurlan Naiskos. With Horga'hn and Time Travel Pod banned, this actually struck me as a very powerful card, especially for Klingons. It was at this point that I decided I was going to go gunning for folks. Round 7, 77th Overall Pick: Divok. Plays for free and has Medical. Round 8, 92nd Overall Pick: Shockingly, Dr. Reyga was still available. I grabbed him up, as Science/Engineer is a great combo for both Kurlan and dilemmas. Round 9, 101st Overall Pick: I grabbed Dukath for his Science and the fact that he's a free-reporting mission specialist. Charlie, picking 2 spots behind me this round (and clearly playing Klingon) proceeded to cuss me out, so I think I got good value here ;) Round 10, 116th Overall Pick: I noticed I didnt have a lot of Civilians (read: none), so I grabbed Ba'el and made a note to grab more if possible. Round 11, 125th Overall Pick: The dilemmas were pretty thinned out at this point, but I grabbed Rebel Encounter, mainly for a shot at another random virtual dilemma. Round 12, 140th Overall Pick: I grabbed the Engineering PADD at this point. PADDs are good, and I still didnt have a ton of Engineers, but I had drafted a few SCIENCE-Classification personnel at this point, so it seemed like a decent fit. Round 13, 149th Overall Pick: I had some VIPs in the starter already, but I didnt have a ton of Anthropology, so I grabbed Vagh. Round 14, 164th Overall Pick: Investigate Alien Probe was available, so I took it in the hopes I could make it work. A bit of a speculative pick, but relatively low risk at this point in the draft. Round 15, 173rd Overall Pick: K'Vada. Navigation is not a skill you can have too much of with the damaging space dilemmas and Shades of Grey cards floating around. At this point in the draft, any personnel that can report is a pretty good personnel. Round 16, 188th Overall Pick: I noticed that the universal ships were all being drafted early (The Vor'Cha got picked up right after I drafted Kurlan), and not wanting to be short a ride, I picked up the Husnock Ship, only to then realize that Attention All Hands doesnt work with it... oh well.... Round 1 Dan Hamman FW (+60) Coming Soon Round 2 Thomas V FL (-30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Coming Soon Another Klingon vs. Klingon match. I picked away at Khitomer while I amassed mission specialists, finally solving it for a massive 60 points by using five different specialists. Meanwhile, I slowed Brian down some with a well-placed Atmospheric Ionization and Gaps in Normal Space, but he still was able to blow through two planet missions. The score was tied at 70 and we both needed a space mission. Trouble for me was that Brian had acquired his Kurlan Naiskos and was menacing me with his uber-Bortas. Seize Freighter was duplicated and I had seeded two at my own Warped Space to deter him - neither of us was eager to risk handing one of those missions to the other. I managed to get two ships in play before Brian blew up my Outpost. I sent one ship down the spaceline to try and clear Typhone Expanse, but they were stopped at the last dilemma (Maglock), and Brian popped right over and blew away that ship. I was left with Gowron hiding aboard a cloaked Vor'cha, frantically trying to draw into another Officer. With time running out, Brian decided to try for the Warped Space steal. He cleared two dilemmas but then hit his own Good Day to Lie. Next turn I lucked into Jean-Luc Picard. I decloaked, Picard and Gowron cleared the dilemma and I passed my self seeds to eke out the victory. Round 3 Chris Donati FW (+5) Coming Soon Round 4 Nathan W FL (-60)View opponent's ReportView original Report Coming Soon Brian had Legitimate Leader too. His trick was using Kurlan to wreck havoc. Fortunately I was fast and teched against the add 2 Exo SoG dilemma helper, so I was able to avoid anything like that. Round 5 Carlos Maya MW (+75) Coming Soon Closing Thoughts Coming Soon