Thomas V (Exon) Tournament Report - 1E - American National 2013-01-12 - 10:00 AM Legitimate Leader - Silver Tin Draft Introduction Thanks to Dan for running another fantastic Silver Tin draft just two weeks after the first one! Things went very smoothly, every deck I saw was competitive and nearly every game was extremely close. These two events have been among the most fun I've ever had at a Trek tournament. I learned from last tournament the power of mission specialists. My goal was to get to a two-mission win if I possibly could, so I drafted lots of different mission specialists and other bonus point cards. Surprisingly, the centerpiece of my missions was a late draft - I hadn't even considered Khitomer Research as the silver version shows only Romulan. I finally remembered the errata and grabbed it. Round 1 Chris Donati FW (+70) I got very lucky with the spaceline here. My Khitomer ended up next to Chris' Wormhole Negotiations on one end, while he was way down on the other side, lots of duplicated missions in between. I scored Khitomer first, and Chris was still too far away to stop me from stealing Wormhole for the win. Round 2 Brian Sykes FW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report 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. Coming Soon Round 3 Nathan W FW (+1)View opponent's ReportView original Report Once again, I was Nate's 1E nemesis this tournament. Last time it was the Subspace Interference turning near-certain defeat into unexpected victory. This time it was the one measly point he couldn't get as a result of my The Higher... The Fewer hitting his mega-team. We mostly stayed on opposite sides of the spaceline this game. He got off to a fast start with an early 45-point Investigate Raid, while I finished Khitomer with a bunch of bonus points. But he hit that Higher... at Qo'Nos, forcing him to try for four missions and buying me enough time to finish a space mission for the win. TV was playing Legitimate Leader. The play of the game was when he hit me with a high enough The Higher... to make me need to solve a fourth mission. I was close, but I could only get some dilemmas cleared before he got the 2 mission win. FL: 100-99! Round 4 Rogue Shindler FW (+20) Rogue's Romulan Underground suffered from something of a shortage of free reports compared to Chess Game, yet he still managed to play quite a competitive game. It was a bad spaceline for both of us, with Romulus and Khitomer in the middle, my Warped Space at one end, his Quash Conspiracy at the other. I figured I'd need to do three missions this time, as Warped Space was just too far away. We both had Higher...the Fewers. They did relatively minor damage, but my 6-point loss was enough to ensure that I'd need a third mission. With ships almost evenly matched, there was little opportunity to fight even though we had heavy overlap. It was another close call, but with time up on the last turn I managed to get down to my final planet mission and solve for the win. Round 5 Johnny Holeva FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report I'd had plenty of good luck this tournament, and here it finally ran out. The spaceline was not favorable, with Warped Space and Khitomer once again too far apart to easily bounce between. Meanwhile, Johnny had a good three-mission cluster on his side. He was drawing and playing easily, while I had two Gowrons and no other Continuing Mission-draw personnel in my opening hand. With Johnny Kevin Uxbridge-ing my Surprise Party, my drawing and playing ground to a crawl. Still, with heavy concentrations of Engineers, he had trouble with a few of my Diplomacy dilemmas, and I finally managed to get a decent number of personnel out and start picking away at Warped Space. Another big Higher... the Fewer bought me a little breathing room, and I started to feel that I was in the game. I couldn't find more than one ship, the K'Vort, and it was still infested with a Virus. But with a Plasmadyne aboard and only a couple of dilemmas left, I wasn't too worried - I had enough people to pass most of the dilemmas that I could think of. I sent my whole crew at Warped Space again - big mistake. The Crystalline Entity was there, and I had only 6 shields and no Music. So long, everybody! Ouch!! It was pretty much over after that. Props to Johnny for that totally unexpected dilemma play. Thomas Vineberg is the best 1E player in Southern California. I don't care about ratings or records. TV is the BEST. He came into our fifth round game 4 - 0, and I hoped if I won I'd have a chance at the tournament victory. I kept my outpost a comfortable distance from his clump of missions, trying to guard against ship battle. I also seeded my highest risk/highest reward space combo under a very tempting mission. Virus then Crystalline Entity and pray for no Music in the crew. Eventually a shipful of TV's Klingons got eaten by the Entity and that was the lucky break I needed to win. Still not enough for the tournament win, but the hard-earned 1E victory against TV was a highlight of the weekend for me. Closing Thoughts Thanks to all my opponents for the great games!