Nathan W (Naetor) Tournament Report - 2E - North American Continentals Day Two 2014-07-12 - 06:00 PM Wedding Crasher Introduction I accidentally hit 'Backspace' and lost the first 3 reports. I'll re-write them when I get a chance. Round 1 Nat Kirton FW (+30) Round 2 Kenneth Tufts FW (+95) Round 3 Mike Harrington FW (+95) Round 4 Neil Timmons FL (-40)View opponent's ReportView original Report This game is going to haunt me for awhile. My draw deck had nearly every tool to annihilate this deck. My plan was simple: get out the Sao Paulo, Holding Cell Keras if I can, and if not always keep a healthy hand full of cards. There was one other option I strongly considered over the course of the game: have us lose 5 from Torga and force Historical solves for both of us. This was super risky since I didn't know if he had any score 5 mechanics, and any game going to time would leave him in the lead 95-90. The game dictated a "normal" game from me, but that option was certainly compelling. The game went something like this. Turn 1 Sisko downloads the Rio (Sao Paulo in opening hand). Neil stripped some good cards (A Few Minor, Quark) on his first turn with Ultamatum and Tauethn while downloading Keras with Historical. On his second turn Gal Gath'thong came into play and I needed to be mindful of my hand. Meanwhile I begin digging for command stars to fly my ship but am not having much luck. However, I did pull a Holding Cell and didn't need to worry about discards the rest of the game. So if you are reading thus far, you probably figure I go on to win this game in wipe out fashion. Well, notice above I'm omitting what Neil is playing? That's because when Keras was gone and he abandoned his strategy for straight solving, my mind went blank. Who the f has he played? There's that Nanclus guy he's doing weird stuff with every turn. Did he play Karina? No that was Ken's game. Neral doesn't make sense with strength missions, but why am I looking at this Issue of Trust and not trusting it? Mental breakdown or 10 games over 13 hours? Thoughts below. Anyways, I handed him space on his second attempt completely missing a chance to hammer him with Gomtuus -- don't worry I drew those a lot at his planets. Meanwhile, I was having a hell of a time finding a 3rd command star. When I finally found one, Neil made his second good plays of the game (the first being choosing to race me after Keras was MIA): a Hull Breach randomed someone and Mistor Kor randomed Li Nalas. Next turn Neil Sent Back Sisko. So while the rest of my crew remained safe and I easily solved, the Sao Paulo sat there with 6 personnel but 2 stars from being functional -- very annoying. My next turn I played the Rio Grande and drew for stars while Neil went to planet and my dilemma pile continued to sputter quickly giving him his 2nd mission. Having drawn into Lela I resurrected Sisko, flew to one of my space, auto-solved, and buried enough dilemmas on the 2nd mission (no one died or went to a weird place) to give me at least a chance going down the wire. On his subsequent turn, by some dumb luck I must've nabbed Ptol with a Hard Time along the way leaving him a Geology short at the mines. On my turn I auto-solved my 2nd mission and went to planet for the win. I forget all the details of this attempt, but I think I went with 7. Neil SI'd out the Odo I played that turn, but I was able to bring in the Li Nalas he sent to the bottom on my first mission. There was a Renegade Ambush that killed Hoya. Then a Nec Ex killed Li, but setting me up pretty well the next turn. On his turn Neil played Ptol and spied The Oracle's Punishment sitting at the top of my deck. He made his third good/scumbag play by sending down a single personnel attempt to Historical and sent down 9 to the mines for draw 8, spend 8. My draws were: SI, Moral Choice, Shocking Betrayal, Outclassed, Timescape, Rogue Borg, Captain's Holiday, and Optical Delusion. Rogue Borg wouldn't work since he had that Intelligence guy that makes you discard and Captain's Holiday wouldn't work since it is mission skills. That left me my only choice: SI, Moral, Shocking, Optical. Long story short and not to my surprise, he walked through and solved for the win. FL: 60-100. Tough game, dumb game. When he solved his first mission I (pun intended) spaced out the Unexpected in my core and knowledge that I have two Gomtuus sitting not far below that he would have no answer for. Had I done that, I think it would have carried me the rest of the game. Now his D'deridex also gets hit by Outclassed! He got a fortunate selection on my first attempt which lost me a turn, but that's just part of the game. I think I did the same to him with a Hard Time. Here we are. the final game. and Nathan rolls out exactly what I don't want to see. I did however bring as much as I could against it, but this is the proverbial bad matchup. But, Nathan is also exhausted and I think I have the physical advantage over him as I am awake and alert. I went second so I was able to download Keras, so that was a very small silver lining. The rest of my opening hand was a whole bunch of verbs. I got the Gal Ga'thong going, so that was good, but Keras got snatched by Holding cell, and I had to come up with a different plan. Ok. here we go. you have no guys. you have 1 ship. your opponent will blow through your dilemma pile like it was snacks in front of a fat guy. aaaand.. GO! So here's the plan. do missions. go solve stuff. So I did that. I managed to find an all star during the game, his name was Mareth. I solved 2 different missions against Nate when he tossed just enough dilemmas to stop me, except I was able to prevent Mareth from being stopped. So after Keras got jacked, I used the Gal Gathong to attempt a space mission. I knew he had Outclassed, so I knew I was just attempting to overcome a dilemma, but it's a dilemma. The next turn Nate threw pitching in, which ended up not being cheap, and Morath made it only stop 1 personnel, and I ended up getting the second half of his dilemmas mis-seeded and walked thorugh the mission. the good thing about having a hand full of nonsense, is when you need to pitch an event, you can do it. I spent 2 turns on my planet mission, but when Nate tossed Issue of Trust, and it stopped 1 personnel, I was optimistic, however the second dilemma he tossed was hard time, and stopped the attempt. boo!! Nate made a critical mistake that I believe was because he was tired, and threw two more dilemmas that were mis-seeded, so my mission had 5 dilemmas underneath and the next turn I walked through without anybody being stopped. Nate had cut right through my dilemma pile like a hot knife through butter, and despite me trying to strip him of his command stars with Sent back, and getting lucky with The Charismatic Mr Kor, he was still able to just toss my dilemmas aside without anything but a stop. I was able to kill one with Hull Breach, but that was it. so here we are. I have 2 dilemmas under Supervise Diltihium Mines. baring a miracle, Nate wins next turn (LOL I can't stop him..) I play Ptol. I scan his dilemma pile and what do I see on top? an Oracle! UGH! So I take 2 guys on the Gal Gathong and fly over to Historical Research and attempt with 1 personnel to clear that off of the top of his dilemma pile, then I make my real attempt at the Reman mines with 9 personnel with 2 under. Then I get super lucky and Nate uses Unexpected Difficulty for the worst dilemma draw. I did not realize how super lucky I was, but I found out in short order. the last mission attempt was Secret ID, which he used to filter out a skill (unsuccessfully no one remembers the skills Romulans have) and it brought in Donatra. then Shocking Betrayal, which was ignored by Mareth, then Moral choice, which actually stopped a personnel, and on to the last dilemma Optical Delusion, which I just had the Programming 2 Security and Transporters to solve. He thought he had me with the transporters, but turns out Mareth has Transporters. I showed the copy of Secret Agenda that I had in my hand so filtering out transporters was not going to work, but I didn't need it. I am totally convinced that I lose this matchup 9 times out of 10. and if Nate wasn't so tired from playing constantly since 10:30am, he would not have made the mis-seeding mistakes or the Pitching In mistake that he did. In the scope of things a few years ago Nate & I both flew into San Diego, and he beat me to go on and win the title, now I have beat him to win a title.. by my count we are 1 and 1... STAY TUNED FOR THE TIE BREAKER IN THE YEARS TO COME!!! In all seriousness, Nate is an excellent player and I count myself very lucky to have won that game, but when the glass trophy is on the line, it's better to be lucky then good. Closing Thoughts I'm not a fan of the 10-games-in-a-day event. Arguably the last few games were some of the sloppiest I have ever played or played against. The idea of fatigue being a legitimate factor in determining championships is not something I am a fan of. By the time I got back to my hotel it was past 12:30, and while having to catch a 6:30 am flight to make it there didn't help, it was just a brutally long, draining day. I didn't eat dinner and when I looked in the mirror back at the hotel, my eyes were bloodshot (no, it wasn't from my crying). I understand there are lots of players with unique time, financial, and desire to play considerations, but the all in one day format is not something I would choose to repeat. I had sworn off GenCon this year and really in general since I would only attend to play 2E, but it'll be hard to resist knowing lots of friends and quality opponents are attending. I guess we'll see. Nat had asked me what I put the odds on me attending were. I told him 1-10%.