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Rogue Shindler (SirRogue)
Tournament Report - 2E Standard
2011-02-12 - 02:00 PM
CardassianNon-AlignedDROID
Introduction
Heading into the first week of Extreme Measures legality and week two of events where people were aware that Achievements were online and being recorded, we took another full car from San Diego up to Santa Barbara for a 2E tournament/pizza fest. I was torn between sporting an EM deck right away, and fearing to bring a new deck with everyone else that everyone will have teched against. When the achievements were posted, we had a lot of fun poking through them, and seeing what was possible, what had been claimed, and what was yet to be achieved. Seeing that Ferengi and Non-Aligned were yet to be achieved, I decided to shoot for a gold achievement and play N-A. For some reason, the deck builder had lost my hologram deck, and after several test tries, I really wasn't feeling the thief deck. After Dan pointing me in the right direction of some deck lists, I went for a NA deck I have never played before: Androids. After reviewing several affiliation framing ideas, I decided to borrow Dan's Cardassian Tain frame up, but added a few ideas from other decks I reviewed, and ended up with something enough of my own that I didn't feel like I just plucked a deck from online and played that. Though my inexperience with them would cause me a steep learning curve. After Chris showed off the first place prize of a custom play mat with the Terran Empire logo, though, I was highly motivated to win.
Round 1Carlos MayaTT (0)
Carlos and I had the benefit of getting to learn to play our decks against each other in the first round. As mentioned, I've never played androids, and Carlos had swapped deck for Ryan's Borg deck so they could each try something new. I spent a lot (too much, actually) of time deciding when to play cards, or when to wait for Engerize or One Man Can Summon the Future to rig coming cards and Energize decays. It required MUCH more turn planning than I am used to, and I made several judgment errors. And with all the assimilation cards floating around, I was very hesitant to go out and start attempting without being completely prepared for a one mission solve and then run back to my HQ. In the meantime, Carlos was spending 21 points with the Annexation/AWC/You've Always Been My Favorite shuffle, and bouncing Fourth with Locutus' Borg Cube to keep playing him for more event downloads. There were only 15 minutes in the round by the time one of us got out and started mission attempting and Carlos beat me to the punch. He attempted Assimilate Resistance with a minimal crew and several Strength drones, but it afforded me the luxury of a couple of one dilemma stops while I got myself going. Rather than heading to my primary space mission Intercept Renegade, I headed to Eliminate Harvesters, hoping my androids would have enough strength to stave off a Combat-assimilation. Some poor choices on when to use Graves, Rayna, and Lal ended with two failed attempts, but three under. Carlos had no visible dilemma manip, so I was feeling hopeful about a solve next turn. Carlos attempted again, and after a filter I just managed to hit him with Where No One Has Gone Before, finally giving me the freedom to get some missions done without the threat of assimilation for a few turns. Sadly time what called while Carlos was checking all of his Borg tricks to see if he could get past WNOHGB. On the upside, this justified my decision to not have him face his own Dip dilemma when I Repressed Messaged him (lest he use Locutus to get 10 points), but I sadly did not get my Borg-free turns to at least wrap up a mission. In the end, we had a stalemate of deck learning, which would hopefully benefit us both in future rounds. Final, 0-0. True tie.
Round 2Jake GriffithFW (0)
Jake is a dedicated Fed player who is admirably making efforts to branch out to other affiliations. This week he tried out his own variation on the TN Ruling Council deck. His cheap personnel got off the mark faster than me, and a well-placed Davin made me discard my first Soong that I'd rigged to be my first card draw next turn. He made his way out to the GQ with six folks on an Attack Ship, and I took my opportunity to kill Damar with a He Wasn't Nice, and a Racial Tension to diffuse the attempt. Jake headed home to pick up more personnel (including a new Damar), but his inexperience unfortunately cost him a turn, not realizing that Terok Nor does not ignore quadrant span the way DS9 does. He headed back out for another attempt to get a few under before I was able to get underway myself, and despite several considerations, he did not Ruling Council to unstop, instead holding it for the solve. I finally headed out to Intercept Renegade with a full crew to attempt and Jake dropped a four card combo on me. This attempt started my theme for the day of success by failure. First was a Mag Field Disruptions and I had no Astro or Nav. Soong-type reveal gives me Astro and I stop. Next is a Wavefront, 2 Astro or 2 Nav, etc. I don't really like where this Astro denial is going, fearing a WNOHGB, which I can't afford at the speed his deck is operating. Opting to invest in the future, I declined to give anyone skills, and let the dilemma hit and bounce, stopping everyone. The upside was that the next two went under for free, and now I had three under. It turned out to be a clever Quantum Filament combo rather than WNOHGB, but I was still glad to avoid it. Jake solved his GQ mission with a RC for 45 points, but his range only allowed him to head home. Discarding some range boosting events (I was using the Kumari) I was able to drop of most of my crew at Eliminate Harvesters, then head back to Intercept Renegade with Data, Lore, b-4, and Tain. Jake did not top deck a 1 coster, so I was able to solve my space mission and still attempt my planet with six, including all my cheaters (Graves, Rayna, Lal). Soong, Rayna, and Lal were selected by Temptation, but all three got through with the three cheaters above. Another filter stopped one, but I was still able to solve my second mission of the turn. Jake had been building up folks while traversing quadrants and was now able to head to his planet with two micro teams. I was able to luck into stopping the first 5 man team with a Polywater, and the second with a filter and D&W, stopping both teams with only one under. Despite my drawing, I was still unable to get any equipment to fuel the GravPlates that had been in my hand for most of the game waiting to cancel his RC, so I soldiered on, hoping to push through Political Intrigue before he could micro team out. I Ruk, Lal, and Soong-type managed to cheat through a multi-Geo dilemma combo, and I was luckily able to solve the first attempt. Final, 100-45.
Round 3BajoranThomas KamiuraFW (0)
As usual, my game against TK was the toughest. His Bajoran Resistance deck also reminded me why playing decks from the new sets is tactically advantageous. Despite everyone knowing their general strategy after it being hyped in recent articles for the new release, it's also really hard to remember all of the new abilities, and even harder to track all the skills of unfamiliar personnel. It also made me sad that I took out the A Few Minor Difficulties originally in my deck for all the Bajoran Resistance decks I was expecting to see. Alas. As usual, TK got out the game before me, working on his space mission with a team of six or so. He managed two attempts before I could get underway, but I was forced to put five under to really stop him. I headed out and got a simple attempt in, putting a few under. Fortunately, either the kills/secret id took out some of TK's needed personnel (or he never had them to begin with; CHEATER! ;) ) but rather than solve with five next turn, he took his bunches of built-up personnel and headed to the new BR planet mission and dropped in with 13. Macroteam! He'd done this in the last few tournaments, so I'd added an Expose Power Relay to my deck (should have gone with my instincts and added two). Despite spending two Unexpected Diffulties, I could not draw into either my EPR nor my Necessary Execution. I did pull sufficient dilemmas to stop him once, but I feared a solve on the next attempt. With the dilemmas under my space mission, I managed to repeat my double team from the previous game, playing an extra droid, dropping six at the planet, and boosting range to take four and micro-team the space mission and solve both thanks to unstops on the planet. TK attacked his planet again, and I got some random stops in along with a He Wasn't Nice targeting Shakaar, hoping to take his attributes down enough to fail, but didn't count on Orta supplementing the missing +1. He solved the planet, flew home to shuffle folks, and then brought the small team out to wrap up the previous space mission. At some point he used the new Rifle's text for something really clever to get by a dilemma, but I don't remember what. Coming down to the last mission each, I picked up my peeps and boosted my range to make it out to Political Intrigue. I don't remember the next attempts clearly, aside from him putting three under my mission, me stopping his next attempt, and then me attempting on the planet with four. TK managed to topdeck a 1 coster, one of those 'stop this skill or random kill' dilemmas. Luckily for me, I did not have those skills, and once again succeeded by failing. 3/4 odds were good to me, he didn't select Graves to die, it was instead one of my three androids, and I was able to use Graves to prevent it, allowing me to solve that turn. Final 100-70.
Round 4VoyagerJoel BrayMW (0)View opponent's Report
My final game was against the Delta Quadrant. Joel was using the 40 nucleogenetic retrieval mission, so I was expecting Equinox and started gearing my mindset for them. Imagine my surprise (and drop in respect) when Joel dropped a VOYAGER on the second turn. How disappointing. He was using a mix of Voyager and Equinox personnel, just enough to throw me off, which luckily caused me to pay a little more attention. Instead of writing off Caretaker's being solved, I did the math and realized only one stop with Polywater was going to let him stop Ransom, and then have exactly enough integrity to solve, so I threw in another dilemma at the last minute. I continued to have success fending him off at Caretakers with little or no dilemmas under, thanks to D&W, and give myself some time to build up and catch up. Joel did a lot to slow me down by Secret IDing Graves on my first attempt. Even with the free Lore, it was not enough to bash through. The addition of Kes and Tuvok and another ship (the Equinox, finally) eventually made it impossible to fend him off of his 20 pointer, and choosing dilemmas got interesting once Ransom had fuel for his abilities. He headed for his big 40 point planet while I continued slugging away at my space mission and finally managed to solve. Unfortunately Graves is not an android, and I didn't have enough range-boosting fuel (on the Reliant this time) to pick him up and still have androids in hand. I opted to push forward without Graves, as time was winding down and I needed to get going. I managed to soong-type passed one dilemma and use Rayna to prevent a Goran stop, but was then short on androids in hand to get past The Launching (had plenty of physics, but no Astro, and couldn't draw my equipment). Meanwhile I had to drop a truckload of dilemmas in a specific order for fear of Ransom unstopping people, and I only barely noticed in time to add an extra dilemma that he'd had an Ent-J in play the whole game, and it only now became relevant. I forget the combination of cards, but it managed to just be enough to stop him. I added Lal back into my team and drew a bunch of cards to get back above three or more androids in hand, then attempted again. Time was winding down to about five minutes or so, and I was getting worried about my ability to stop him if he got another attempt at his mission (he went first). Fortunately for me, he was equally worried about me getting another mission before him (if we both scored, it would have been 65-60 in my favor), so he took a great deal of care in his selection, even burning an Unexpected to try a new set. In the end, it both helped and hurt, in that he pulled the right combo of filters to stop Lal and again stop me with The Launching, but didn't do it quickly enough to beat the clock. Time expired while I was facing his dilemmas, and that ended the game. Final 35-20. My modified win ended up tying me with TK for Victory Points, but thanks to my head-to-head victory, I won the day, and more importantly, the Terran Empire playmat! Thanks to everyone who game out and played, Chris for hosting a fun day, and TK for driving. Until next month...!