Jason Drake (Wambundu) |
Tournament Report - 1E - Worlds Day Two |
2014-08-16 - 09:00 AM |
Cyberbiologists- Dont call us Borg |
Introduction |
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Round 1 | | Jeremy Huth | FW (+75) |
Cyberbiologists vs Borg I: Armus and the Blade
Jeremy Huth was playing a highly efficient Borg deck titled 010 is the loneliest number. His draw deck was actually smaller than mine (48 vs 65), which was very odd to say the least.
His mission selection screamed Borg, and I did what I could with limited dilemma options. Establish Station was at the spaceline end furthest from Eath, so I seeded the best planet combo (The Vengeance Factor + I'm Not Going to Fight You) there in anticipation of They Will Be Coming. His missions and mine were somewhat intermixed.
Thanks to a well-constructed deck, Jeremy had no trouble getting out a Borg Queen on his first turn and building Transwarp Hub, using Construct Starship and Strategic Base to pick up three card draws in the process. My Borg knowledge is so poor that I had to stop him and read the playing requirements on the Transwarp Hub ("Seeds or plays at any nebula") when he played it at the planet mission. I filed away that knowledge for future use.
Jeremy proceeded to put together a versatile suite of drones with deck manipulation and downloading powers, then began scouting Assimilate Planet at Establish Station. Against an opponent with walls, Dead End, and point-drain dilemmas (all very popular), I could see his deck smashing through to a quick victory. Fortunately for me, my dilemmas were Borg-ready. The Vengeance Factor downloaded MicroVirus for an immediate selected kill (if memory serves, I got his Topology Drone and stranded his landed ship). He then tried to red-shirt through The Gatherers, at which point I burned All-Consuming Evil to download Armus: Sticky Situation. Given his lean personnel pool, and already out two drones, Jeremy held off on sacrificing another to Armus and downloaded Adapt: Negate Obstruction to play on his next turn.
After successfully adapting, Jeremy crashed through two more kills (via I'm Not Going to Fight You) and then made the mistake of probing for Assimilate Planet instead of downloading Harness Particle 010.
Meanwhile, on the Federation side of the table, my draws and plays worked on schedule with an early Dr. Soong and a number of free reports. Jeremy had correctly identified Control Plague as one of my target missions and given it a full complement of 3 dilemmas. His combination of Crisis + Hazardous Duty + A Fast Ship Would Be Nice is very astute. Although it's not difficult to put together the necessary skills to eventually pass the wall dilemmas, very few players doing a planet mission will have the necessary arrangement the first time through, so most opponents-- especially a "God"-fearing Borg opponent-- will have to stumble through several "stops" before reaching the end. The final dilemma can kill a mission skill, a Borg counterpart, or, if one decides to enhance point drain, a non-Officer (triggering the last condition on Hazardous Duty).
I delayed attempting my first mission an extra turn to get out Shelby, fearing the dreaded Undetected Beam-In + Post Garrison combination. I got stopped on the first encounter with Crisis, but things picked up quickly after that. I passed Crisis on the following turn and immediately passed Hazardous Duty. Jeremy used A Fast Ship Would Be Nice to kill one of the girls, MEDICAL-android Hara, and the mission was clear. This may have been the most important play of the game, because I correctly guessed that I would only be facing attribute-intensive and point-loss dilemmas the rest of the way. Therefore, I used the Blade of Tkon to fetch the furthest planet mission for some easy score padding before going after Genesis Planet. I sent over enough personnel that I could meet mission requirements if I downloaded Lower Decks, but, silly me, I attempted before doing the download and got stopped by Lack of Preparation. The points didn't matter, but I wasted a turn.
Nonetheless, Jeremy had only 25 from Assimilating a Planet, he was going after a space mission near the middle of the space line for his next scouting attempt, and had to operate from his Cube thanks to the earlier kill which stranded his landed Scout Vessel. I don't recall which combo he hit (Emergent Life-form or Cytherians, probably), but they're all solid against Borg and so he was effectively stonewalled for a couple of more turns.
I passed Lack of Preparation on the next turn and, as I somewhat expected, encountered a pair of mis-seeded space dilemmas, picking up another 35 points. I paused to give allowance for In The Zone while building up even more personnel. Next turn I played Doctor Bricklayer on Beverly to provide redundant Geology (I only had one out at that point), then sent a Very Large Crew after Genesis planet. Higher the Fewer nicked us for another 11 points, but Kirk and the Mission Specialists turbo-boosted the haul from Genesis Planet bringing me up to 114 even without stopping a SCIENCE for Odo's Cousin. We then exploded Unstable Matrix for the win.
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Round 2 | | Bye | BY (0) |
Jason vs Nobody:
Lots of time to kill. I walked around Indianapolis, did some consulting for a construction project, wrote a novel, and taught myself sanskrit.
Or maybe I just went back to the hotel and watched music videos on my MP4 player. I can never remember which.
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Round 3 | | Johannes Klarhauser | FW (+65)View opponent's ReportView original Report |
Cyberbiologists vs Sona & Maquis: The Altonian Gambit
The weekend's all-around champion Johannes Klarhauser was playing a high-speed, high-volume Sona/Maquis/Bajoran deck (Das Dschungelbuch). If he could throw people at dilemmas early and had a two-mission strategy, I would be in serious trouble; my deck is reasonably fast, but lacks an edge on pure speed because of the added bulk of defensive cards.
The seed phase was critical. Johannes had just two space missions, so I focused my efforts on making sure either one would be an ordeal. Assist Damaged Vessel has easier requirements, so I covered that with Ankari Spirits + Cytherians and a sugary top layer of Kobayashi Maru Scenario. Characterize Neutrino Emissions has the more difficult requirements, so I covered it with Virus + Emergent Life-form, knowing that Armus: Energy Field would be an effective addition.
I'm not a big fan of Dead End, partly because it's weak against the Borg, but mostly because I consider it an overly-optimistic dilemma. By seeding it you assume that you can beat your opponent to 100 before they solve two other missions and return to clean up. Nonetheless, it's the best tool against things like Harness Metaphasic Particles which can provide your opponent a double-turn, and so I went the obvious route and seeded it under Insurrection (behind The Vengeance Factor).
Things got ugly early on. I let Johannes download multiple personnel, considering General Quarters a waste of my resources (he would be able to use up all of his Son'a Outpost downloads and Defend Homeworld within three turns anyways). However, when he started the Ru'afo-Collector-Harness chain, I decided to deplete his cards a bit by grabbing a Containment Field. Johannes gave up a card to pay for the special download, then wisely held off. I cashed in on my following turn by Q-ref cycling the Containment Field, reclaiming the card draw I'd paid and sending Johannes' marker card into his discard pile. A small victory, and phyrric.
Johannes then downloaded his own Containment Field to protect against such further shenanigans. On my turn, I placed a marker card there (for Going to the Top or Hidden Fighter, can't remember which) and went for an aggressive, early mission attempt. I encountered Altonian Brain Teaser and was suddenly faced with a dilemma, both literally and literally. Clever Nicole had reported as a SECURITY-classification android, giving her a CUNNING of 11 thanks to Strategic Base. By using special downloads to fetch a Federation PADD and Lower Decks, I could bring that number up to 15 and preserve my bonus points.
On the one hand, using both special downloads would mean surrendering a turn to the power of Containment Field. On the other hand, there were thirty bonus points at stake here, with 15 points worth of dilemmas, two mission specialists, and James T. Kirk. The gameplay value seemed pretty balanced either way. The issue was ultimately decided by the coolness factor: when would I ever get another chance to beat an Altonian Brain Teaser and voluntarily give up a turn? I used the downloads.
On the other side of the table, my dilemma strategy did its job. Johannes used the Science Lab on Deep Space Nine to scan the bottom card of Neutrino Emissions and thus knew that he was facing a Virus. After a delay to put together sufficient Computer Skill, he attempted the mission and I suspended play to download Armus: Energy Field, stopping a very large crew. To further complicate things, I downloaded Access Denied and placed it on the mission, meaning he would need all of the mission requirements and five Computer Skill after a random "stop" if he wanted to pass both dilemmas in one attempt. He further built up his crew to do just that, giving me time to recover from the lost turn and clear out Control Plague.
At this point neither of us had solved a mission, but I had 15 bonus points and would be solving a mission and earning the Blade of Tkon on my next turn. Johannes threw a massive crew at Characterize Neutrino Emissions, beating both the Armus: Energy Field and Virus dilemmas. But this put almost all of his in-play personnel into the merciless cyber-hands of an Emergent Life-form. Not only did his Son'a ship lack a Holodeck, he had enough range remaining to reach a neighboring planet mission which would have been Tkon'ed to the other side of the Alpha Quadrant. Knowing he had plenty of free report options and one mission already cleared, Johannes gambled and picked up the whole mess with a Space-Time Portal. I Scorched his Hand.
Having bought myself some margin for error, I decided to hold off on attempting Genesis Planet expecting that the large pile of dilemmas might drain points or eliminate Kirk or a Mission Specialist. So I used the Blade to fetch a planet mission from the far side of the Bajor Region and began working on it to buffer my score. I had no luck in drawing mis-seeded space dilemmas this time, but I did uncover Johannes's own Access Denied combo (Ferengi Ingenuity + Dejaren), which my androids were able to beat fairly quickly.
Meanwhile, Johannes didn't take long to recover, and managed to solve Characterize Neutrino Emissions to get on the board with 35 points. He then returned to Baku Planet (Insurrection) and sent a HUGE force against the two dilemma seeds in an attempt to earn a double-turn and catch up. They blew past The Gatherers even with doubling (INTEGRITY > 72), but I was saved by Dead End.
There were some pretty solid dilemmas at Genesis Planet, but by now I had enough personnel out with boosted attributes and planet-dilemma-busting abilities that I was able to endure some losses and clear it out fairly quickly. This put me well over 100, and once again Unstable Matrix blew up the planet to meet victory conditions.
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vs. TNG Federation |
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Round 4 | | Jeremy Huth | FW (+75) |
Cyberbiologists vs Borg II: Run Away! Run Away!
They Will Be Coming... back. I was facing Jeremy Huth again for the final. After a tough opening round loss, he further proved himself a tremendous player (and outstanding deck builder) by working his way back through a bracket of top-notch competition.
Nonetheless, I was confident that foreknowledge would give me an edge. Knowing that I had mobility options from the Blade, I isolated Establish Station (his planet-mission nebula) in the middle of the spaceline during the mission seed phase, and gave it the same solid combo of The Vengeance Factor and I'm Not Going to Fight You. I then bluff-seeded Earth with Kobayashi Maru Scenario, donated Odo's Cousin from my stock of point dilemmas (knowing that I'd need three missions anyways) and tacked on the remaining planet dilemma (The Vengeance Factor) so that the Earth dilemmas looked most daunting and were, in reality, at least decent. With the two planets accounted for, I seeded Salvage Starship with nothing but Cytherians, leaving me two surplus dilemmas. I then piled four dilemmas onto his space mission at the far end of the spaceline where he would be required to seed his Cube with They Will be Coming.
Jeremy adapted, too, of course. He must have correctly guessed my target missions, because (if memory serves) I did not uncover any mis-seeded space dilemmas. His deck also had the versatility to play attack Objectives, as we'll see shortly.
Thanks to a some timely photography from the CC, the actual spaceline can be seen here and we have a record of the precise layout of missions (type, span, and owner included):
1 Evade Borg Vessel [S] ~4~ (Huth)
2 Evaluate Terraforming [P] ~3~ (Drake)
3 Study Nebula [S] ~4~ (Huth)
4 Control Plague [P] ~2~ (Drake)
5 FGC-47 Research [S] ~6-Nav~ (Huth)
6 Aid Clone Colony [P] ~2~ (Drake)
7 Save Stranded Crew [P] ~3~ (Drake)
8 Establish Station [P] ~5~ (Huth)
9 Surgery Under Fire [P] ~3~ (Drake)
10 Secret Salvage [S] ~3~ (Huth)
11 Genesis Planet [P] ~4~ (Drake)
12 Espionage Mission [P] ~3~ (Huth)
With the seed phase over, we're off and running with personnel deployment. Both Jeremy and I stick to our guns: He targets the end mission (Evade Borg Vessel) with Establish Gateway, despite the four dilemmas, and I go after my best point-yield mission, Control Plague, where I self-seeded the point dilemmas and the Blade of Tkon.
Jeremy built up a pretty good crew and, to my surprise, blew through Forsaken and A Good Day to Lie at the cost of a single drone being placed on the bottom of his deck, thanks to skill-sharing, skill-doubling, and the Treachery skill on One. However, those extra dilemmas were at least effective in delaying his scouting a bit while he built up the crew; and, even better for me, they forced a larger contingent of personnel to be on board when he encountered Emergent Life-form.
The difference in the game, I think, came down to Jeremy's dilemmas versus the Federation. His best chance for a strong delay would have been to hit my Artifact mission with Dead End, but thanks to my six-planet gamble the odds were against him and it missed. His best remaining dilemmas would be Crisis and Female's Love Interest + Garbage Scow, both of which required a ship to pass. A few more had the potential for limited kills, which would hurt me very little. There were no walls requiring skill-box skills (like Diplomacy) and no "exotic" requirements (such as appear on Executive Authorization or In The Pale Moonlight).
Five of his walls required only classifications and/or attribute totals (Hanonian Land Eel, Hazardous Duty, Oh No!, Deliberate Tactical Error, and Ferengi Infestation). While these were definitely solid dilemma choices, the combination of Bluegills + Lower Decks + Androids were well-suited to passing them. Three space dilemmas would be nothing more than bluff seeds, and another five dilemmas aimed primarily at point loss. Having decided already that I would need three missions to win, I had a 50-point margin to play with, and could waltz through Edo Probe and The Higher the Fewer with nary a care.
Having completed scouting at his Evade Borg Vessel, Jeremy again probed for the existing Objective (Establish Gateway) rather than download Harness Particle 010. I believe it was deliberate this time, although I'm not exactly sure why. Either he didn't have the drone in play necessary to rig the probe, or he wanted to use A Change of Plans to acquire an Objective that would allow him to attack. His outpost and mine were not far apart (just beyond the range of a single turn's movement for his Cube), and Jeremy downloaded both Eliminate Starship and Oribtal Bombardment before I had completed my first mission.
Here, at last, my defensive strategy paid off. By running all planets and sticking close to my Outposts, I never presented a good target for Eliminate Starship. I solved my first mission just before he arrived to begin Orbital Bombardment of my Mission-debriefed away team. My original plan had been to fetch Genesis Planet and place it between Control Plague and Study Nebula, finishing off with Aid Clone Colony where my Klaestron Outpost was seeded. But instead I used the Blade of Tkon to run away, relocating my entire base to the opposite side between Genesis Planet and Secret Salvage. This would present a bigger challenge in solving my third mission (Surgery Under Fire, which had no Outpost and was 6 span away from my relocated base), but I could begin work on Genesis Planet immediately in temporary safety.
Jeremy turned his ship around and used the Transwarp Hub to jump to the other side of the spaceline nearer to my (new) base of operations. He targeted Wolf 359 (the space mission with a single dilemma) with Salvage Starship, knowing that he could hit me with Orbital Bombardment along the way. This succeeded in killing two personnel at Genesis Planet, but did not stop me from solving the mission.
I now had victory conditions of one space and one planet in hand, but a 6-span trip to a final mission (Surgery Under Fire) that would put me over 100 points (Edo Probe and Higher the Fewer had knocked me down a bit). The Runabout was just able to make the trip and land, clearing out the first few dilemmas. Things might've gotten difficult if Jeremy had parked his Cube nearby. But he he decided to go for his Salvage Starship Objective and encountered Cytherians, which forced his ship back towards the Transwarp Doorway (at Earth), thus allowing me to play the Stargazer and deliver a second crew without fear of being hit by Eliminate Starship (which was already on the table face down). A Garbage Scow ended my next mission attempt ("stopping" everyone with Mission Debriefing), and the Stargazer lacked range to immediately tow the scow. The Borg hurried back to deliver the pain, but it was too late. They were out of range. On my next turn, Data and Dr. Soong boarded the Stargazer for a ceremonial victory tow, allowing me to complete the third mission and claim victory.
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