Fritz Meissner (Fritzinger) Tournament Report - 2E - Online Event 2013-12-09 - 12:00 AM School of Hard Equiknocks Introduction For a couple months I had been messing around with a Naetor Equinox build in Lackey, but not actually played it. When Unnatural Selection came out, I added the new Equinox interrupt and one or two other cards. I think there was one personnel I had to replace for virtual. From what I could see it had good skill redundancy and cheating but anti-ship dilemmas and anything that targets Treachery are mean against Equinox. Fortunately it has B'Elanna and Exocomp for repairs, and my plan was to name An Issue of Trust after solving Inversion Mystery. Round 1 Andrew FW (+100) I think I played personnel slightly faster thanks to reduced costs, but I didn't have big star to move, so we we probably started attempting about the same time. I got good dilemma draws though. Well Prepared Defenses is great when you have 5 missions with points! I took a gamble on a big attempt (8ish personnel) of his by giving Clown Go Away as dilemma three (after Oracle's Punishment + First Duty) instead of another stop. Fortunately the targeted stops from Oracle were enough to take out the mission skills, and the Clown hit. This was crucial on the next turn when next turn. I was able to stop 9 personnel with just 5 dilemma counters to work with: the Clown returning one + Hard Time + Healing Hand. Healing Hand went back to my dilemmas, so that was a big stop with zero extra dilemmas under. Meanwhile I was making big attempts and managing dilemma effects with nucleogenic slaughter. A bit of luck (e.g. only Ransom had leadership or officer when I faced Personal Duty on mission one) gave me two solves from few attempts (maybe three). On the last mission (Aid Maritime Sovereignty) I had 12 personnel in play and I had to decide whether to double team or not. I'd drawn into Equinox Doctor on that turn, and my cheaters were working well so I decided to send 9 down, with 3+ copies of every skill needed. He miscalculated how many 2 cost personnel I had (I'd left some low cost guys out of the attempt) so gave me an unintentionally full costed Pitching In, which stopped Tassoni and Thompson (I used Navaar to give the latter programming). This still left me with 2+ of every skill. Overburdened selected another copy of Tassoni and Equinox doctor, and the evil doctor found some redemption by selflessly saving Tassoni before he copped it. Hard time was auto-overcome because it went over the limit of counters (thank you Pitching In), so I just needed to check attributes. Printed attributes left me slightly under, but Outlaw Sisko push me over for the win. W00t! Round 2 Andrey Gusev FL (-30) He goes first - he's using the 'discard events to prevent stops' Romulans plus GUYS. Turn one I had no ship. I should have played Tacking into the Wind to fetch one rather than caretaker's array. I ended up drawing more with the counters I "saved" and had to discard more than I should; I guess at least I got to see more of my deck and I would get 1 nucleogenic back that I discarded when I played Angelo Tassoni next turn. I manage to kill GUYS using Jones before he got too many points from it, so three missions will be necessary for him. I solve Inversion Mystery pretty easily except for the initial attempt when he picked up that I didn't have the skills and gave me zero. Smart play. Still, I'm doing ok and make it into a 70-45 lead, but my dilemmas are not very effective once he gets going. It's a tense last few turns. At his second mission I put a hard time in front of Outclassed hoping he would use Donatra on HT and then get everyone stopped, which turned out to work. On the next turn he should be able to solve at least one more, but will he be able to solve 2? With 9 personnel + nucleogenic I have a decent chance of solving my last mission in one attempt so I'm hopeful. I get 5 to spend on his second attempt at mission 2. It's obvious that I can't stop mission solve #2 but choosing to stop karina with Well-Prepared Defenses meant that she couldn't prevent any stops on the next mission this turn. This also worked out for me, when he moves to mission #3 I managed to stop the solve with Oracle's Punishment on people whom he can't save. However it's do or die as it took 3 under to make this happen. My turn I draw as much as possible to get nucleogenic and more mission skills. The mistake I made here was choosing not to play Marla Gilmore and Maras, instead electing to draw into more nucleogenic and extra mission skills (I only had one of each at the start of the turn, but of course I had Navaar for skills backup). On my attempt, With the help of Slightly Awkward and Vacation from the Continuum he has 14 to draw, 10 to spend (o0). Attributes-wise I can only afford to lose 2 people, or 3 if I use Rudolph Ransom correctly. Unfortunately he uses Caretaker's Guests to get rid of one (not a single Fed in the discard pile to use as a replacement :/) and then He Wasn't Nice to kill Angelo Tassoni x2. FSDFSDFDCKCNSDFG if I'd only played that Maras she could've saved them. Then he reveals Dreamer and I lose my carefully crafted hand (Maxwell Burke's ability had fetched just about every nucleogenic card in the deck). Somewhere during his turn the time ticks over the limit but he started first so I'll get to finish my turn. Scores are tied, it's a true tie if it does get to my turn and I don't score any points. His turn he AWC, draws a bunch, plays a horgahn plus at an Impasse so I'm not getting any extra cards next turn if he doesn't solve now. That means no points for me since I don't have the personnel in play (and an empty hand thanks to Dreamer) to solve my last mission. True tie is the best I can hope for. I have a brief ray of hope for the tie with Greater Needs, the skills needed for it do not match up with his mission so I may be able to filter out enough with my lone Secret Identity (he won't necessarily be thinking of Transporter Skill when he chooses a replacement). Of course I realise as I'm choosing that he has Navaar to gain whatever skills he loses anyway, and plenty of strength. So no problem solving the mission for him, and the tense last few turns end with a full win for him. Round 3 Tjark Ott ML (-15) He hits with gomtuu my first attempt, I've already discarded exocomp (first turn no ship = forced to draw and discard cards lots) but I solve Inversion Mystery next attempt. Meanwhile he is chipping away at Automated Repair Station with large crews. When he solves he gets 10 extra from Enterprise-B, but I've placed causal recursion in his core - hope he doesn't have points from events! Although actually Enterprise-B means he is scoring plenty points anyway. He has cheats (Security Drills, Navaar) so I have to use lots of dilemmas to reduce his attributes. At his second mission I manage to stop with 3 under. Great choices stop me on my second attempt at locate fuel source, exactly 38 cunning left when I need > 38. Second attempt I solve but Surprise Amity stops me after I solve. Still, I should only need 1 solve to his 2 (he will do at least 1 next turn). He plays Gioto to auto-overcome a no-skill dilemma, so I throw out Oracle's Punishment first to get the kill and minor revolt takes care of the rest. I hadn't been keeping track of just how many guys are low cost, the third dilemma after that was unnecessary. My turn I attempt with 9 but there are 5 guys left... should I have done 8 and 6? I don't manage to solve. On his turn last turn as time ends he's ahead but can't get to the full win thanks to In Development. Round 4 Oliver Thust FL (-100) Very bad play by me... I forgot to use the Finding Our Way order to fetch equinox on turn 1, so that's turn 2 wasted as well. And then I forgot to spend 8 counters on surprise party once I finally got the ship on turn 3... then declared an attempt and realised I hadn't declared Outlaw Sisko's ability. Fortunately Oliver was willing to let me declare the order. It didn't get better from there: An Issue of Trust into WNOHGB :(. The Equinox's text doesn't allow me to play personnel while my ship is gone, making me a sad panda. Then he solves ALC to make me a depressed panda. Until I get hit by a second WNOHGB, at which stage I became a near-suicidal panda. Round 5 Amber Van Breemen FL (-70) I'd never played against Relativity (or TNG or DS9) so I don't know her personnel. 2x An issue of trust hold me up forever. Inifinite Diversity for honor stops me with 1 and that's like attempt #5 at mission #1. AVB might be skill tracking or maybe honor is just an easy guess against the unscrupulous equinox types. No Navaar around to help me gain the skill and the wrong nucleogenci cards in hand :(. I try to be clever initially with spending on events so I don't go over nine people in space but eventually just give up and attempt with 12. Turns out clever was the right approach, I kept giving her more to spend, AND if I had rather spent counters to draw I could have used Maxwell's ability to get skill-gaining nucleogenics which would've saved me at least two turns. Relativity definitely wins the battle of the headquarters-less decks, although to be fair AVB knows her deck much better than I know mine. Closing Thoughts I really liked this deck when I first started playing it, but now I see my expectations about power level were way too low. With Maras and Equinox Doctor and not having to be worried about being de-staffed it really does well against kill piles, but not too many of those to be seen in virtual. I've also yet to make good use of forcing their way. I did make some baaad mistakes though, so can't put too much on the deck.