Rogue Shindler (SirRogue) Tournament Report - 2E Standard 2011-02-05 - 03:00 PM TOS Klingon Onslaught Introduction Small event, but nice, we got to have a round robin and play everyone all with fast, competitive decks for all very close games. After our trip up to Santa Barbara, I heard that Carlos had a slim, fast Klingon deck of the likes that I've been wanting to try. I pieced a shell together based on stories from his opponents, then managed to get him to post his deck list so I could compare. I'd gotten it about 60% right, but I liked some of my changes, so in the end, this is about 70% his deck, and 30% mine. 1-2 record doesn't really reflect how well it plays. User error lost what should have been a rare win against TK, and my game vs. Dan came right down to the wire. Round 1 Thomas Kamiura FL (-5) TK was playing fast TNG with Ferenginar for Brunt (which I promptly Instigated some Dissension on). Usually a first round game against TK means I get to relax and learn my deck while I lose. This time, I turned the tables on him and attempted before him on turn three. I went with 4 on a planet to avoid Execution, but could actually solve so he had to throw a dilemma. He then came over and dropped NE Deanna on the surface with me to start discarding card from my hand: supremely annoying. I knew I had three Born for Conquests to take her out, and perhaps spend an inordinate amount of counters digging for it when I should have been playing personnel. He managed to continue to throw single dilemmas to stop me while I build up enough for two teams of four with three under. Unfortunately, I mismanaged my teams, and despite attempting with each time and getting no dilemmas played either time, each team was missing a different skill. This error cost me a turn in getting through that mission, and would ultimately cost me the game. Next turn I solved, left a guy behind to beat up Deanna (finally), played the Sword, and started bashing away at my Space mission while digging for my Challenges to turn the corner. TK finished his double shipped attempting in space then took a dozen guys to ground. A crap draw and lack of dilemma manip meant I had to drop a boatload to stop him. I solved and managed to get another 10 to put me at 90, but while I had the Born for Conquest in hand, I didn't have enough to play it until next turn. TK played Guinan to give him enough to win with his tiny missions, then solved. Final, 95-100. Round 2 Johnny Holeva FW (+75) Johnny brought in cadets playing from DS9-E, also with a Ferenginar for Brunt, which he does fairly regularly. In fact, he is the reason I added the second Instigate Dissension to my regular pile. I started fast again, attempting with four on turn two. Single dilemma stop, and an attempt with five stopped, then the cadets came out attempting on turn four. Though I only ever intend to do two of my missions, I stacked the other two as doable 40 pointers so I could play the 40 point dilemmas. Several of them are anti-weenie, and the cadets did not hold up well against them. I continued small teaming my planet, but could not draw into another ship, and after solving was forced to spend a turn just heading home to pick up my Sword. After some serious topdecking luck to stop his two ships (first attempt gave me 2/2, and I drew Timescape/Moral Choice), the cadets finally stacked up enough under to practice their maneuvers the next turn, and by that time, Johnny has stacked up 16+ personnel and was dividing them into two massive teams to hit up his planet. Meanwhile I drew into two of my Challenges and sent my team out to start eliminating spheres. A few basic attempt and fail turns later, time was winding down as I finished my mission and awaited the draw of my final Challenge from the 8 cards left in my deck. Johnny powered through his first planet but in reviewing his remaining personnel, did not have the skills left to make a run at either of his unattempted missions, and thus conceded the game. Final, 100-70. Round 3 Dan Hamman FL (-10)View opponent's ReportView original Report Dan was playing a heavily equipped Cardassian deck with some non-traditional mission choices. Unlike my earlier games, I had significant trouble drawing into a ship, and Dan had a crew of 5 on his ship off an attempting before me. It was not until I saw that he was attempting Investigate Alien Probe and scoffed has Cardassians' integrity that I replayed this personnel reports in my head and realized he actually had a decent shot at completing this with Maritza, Kira, Odo, Legate Damar, and Goran. I (prematurely) applauded him for playing something interesting and unexpected like a Cardassian integrity deck. He accepted the praise in silence because he knew, as I discovered, that it was just happenstance that he'd drawn into all of his integritous folks early. Alas. Now I have a new deck idea, though. Not trusting my odds on racial tension, I dropped two dilemmas to stop him, but only made it easier for him to solve later. Dan geared his folks with more and more equipment, dropping ETUs, Vascular Pads, and I even saw a hypospray, fetching anything and everthing with Fajo's Menagerie and drawing more and more cards from it. This in turn made me more and more cautious with my dilemma calculations, adding more dilemmas to compensate for his shenanigans. While I was trying to brute force my way with sheer numbers, Dan was avoiding stops and escaping kills. He solved two before me, and what heading two his last mission as time wound down. I had my space mission poised to solve, but was still awaiting my third Challenge to turn the corner. I went first, so I HAD to stop him to get my additional turn to win, so I dropped a boatload of dilemmas. Even with everything I through at him, he would have managed to solve, if not for the Psycho-kinetic Kiss preventing him from bumping his stats. I got my extra turn to try and solve, but the draw was not with me to get my 10 corner-turning points. My last Challenge was not in my top 7 cards, and I drew my Born for Conquest with my 5th counter, with not enough remaining to play it. I had no way of stopping Dan's solve, so that was basically the game. Final, 90-100. After round two, all of is had finished 1-1, so since Dan defeated TK in head to head, he won the tourney at 2-1. Round Three vs Rogue’s Klingons Looking at my record after this tournament was over, I see that Rouge and I are 20-20-1. Talk about evenly matched. I think I had the advantage this game because I played against this deck at the last tournament in Santa Barbaba - I was very close to Carlos’ OS / B'aht Qul Challenge deck. That card is amazing for 10 points. Since I didn’t have any 40-point missions, I figured I needed to do one thing: Cancel them when played. I had three Grav Plate Traps in the deck, and drew into all of them by the last turn. I cancelled one, and later he cancelled my grav-plate trap. Going into the last three minutes, I attempted a mission to give me the game. The first dilemma he played was Psychokinetic Control, which meant my two Comfort Women in hand would be useless. I did manage to get past the remaining pile of dilemmas without losing anyone, but couldn’t solve. With about 3 seconds left, I declared it was his turn. Since he went first, that meant I had to either keep him from solving his last mission or keep him from playing his last challenge. Turns out there was another option: the cut of death. He spent all seven of his counters digging for his challenge, and it didn’t turn up. Even if he could solve, he would only be at 90 points. My dilemmas wouldn't have helped me anyway it turned out. He conceded that I could solve with six dilemmas under the mission. Full Win 100-90. And a nail-biter! TK had beat Rogue, and TK beat Johnny. So TK and I had the same number of Victory Points, but I had the head-to-head tiebreaker. And with that, I won the tournament. It was a stressfull but fulfilling end to the day, and TK would have his revenge on me by destroying my score in the Tribbles match. Achievement Unlocked! *Turns out this didn’t happen. No one else played Legacy, or an overly-skill heavy dilemma pile. **Not so much with this. Way to go on reading the meta, Dan. ***I didn’t realize until later that you actually have to win to get the achievement, a much more daunting task.