Ryan Sutton (rsutton41) Tournament Report - 1E 2013-05-06 - 07:00 PM Virtual Klingons Introduction I was excited to see Scott post this tournament. I had never played in a 1E Virtual only format event. Being on a Monday night was going to mean a really long night for me. Jeremy and I left Tennessee around Noon and headed to South Carolina. We got there a little early so we decided to play a game in the Blacksburg Dairy Queen. - Neither one of us had had much testing - especially when it came to dilemma combos so we were both checking to see if what we had would work. - The game was close - I knew I would probably see Jeremy's deck later that night so I tried to take in as much as I could. Round 1 Will Hawkins FW (+100) Will was playing Borg (Hmm didn't even think about someone playing Borg) - I always get a little bit tense when a player begins to play Borg - because I used to get stomped in the ground when First Contact was released. Since then I have always gotten worried. Unfortunately, Will's deck was not fast enough - it unfortunately could not keep up with Klingon CM. I solved 2 mission for the win before Will could solve any missions. Round 2 Scott Baughman FW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Well, Scott has now named me his 1E nemesis - I really don't want to think of him as my nemesis more of like he is NEELIX and I am Tuvok. - LoL ! Scott is a great player - he has some great ideas and approaches the game very differently than I do - I really enjoy seeing / talking to him to hear his perspective of gameplay and strategy. We always have a great competitive game. Once we started the outpost seed phase of our game I saw he was playing the NEW Rogue Borg faction. Cool - I am glad to get to see it. If you read Scott's report it has a turn by turn description of Gameplay - Way better than I could write. Anyway - what I believe was when I stole his 40pt mission. It then crippled his ability to when because his other space mission was at the other end of the spaceline. - Scott rolled through my planet combos ! However, he was not able to get to his other space before I scored 100 points. - Great game Scott you had me sweating ! Ryan has quickly become my new personal nemesis in 1E - and that's great! In this game, I saw him running an amazingly fast Klingon deck with Gowron. On my first turn I was able to blast his Mercenary Ship as we had both seeded one at Raid Ancient Burial site but I had a Repurposed Outpost there as well so got mine staffed sooner. On his first turn, he debated for a while about having an IKS Vor'Cha (downloaded via Attention All Hands) come over and blast my merc ship back. But Ryan isn't running a Battle Bridge Side deck tonight and so I have the upperhand in almost any ship battle you can think of. He decides against it and focuses on attempting missions instead. Meanwhile, my deck stalls out because I keep drawing events and interrupts instead of free play guys that will net me card draws with CM. Also, the few personnel I do find - while they play for free - don't net me card draws because they have too many skills or they have special downloads. The One and Data (Loyal Brother) are cool peeps, but they don't draw cards with CM. Ouch. Ryan heads to Hunt for DNA Program and hits my Muraski Effect, followed by Denevean Neural Parasites. Six personnel are selected to die to the flying pancakes and he decides to use an Emergency Transport Unit to save Gowron (since he's relying on Legitimate Leader of the Empire.) I say okay, and after Gowron beams up BOOM! he dies to the Murasaki Effect! Ryan grimaces and pontificates that he might have only had the one copy of Gowron in his deck. However, on a later turn he is able to find another copy of Gowron in his Q's Tent. On my turn I finally get The Assimilator online and it plus the Merc Ship head over to Hunt For DNA Clues to score a direct hit on the Vor'Cha stranding Ryan's Klingons on the planet. He is able to get the IKS Pagh out and form up a rescue crew, but lacks the range to get there on his turn. I still can't find the people I need to solve missions - and I am essentially locked out of Foster New Collective thanks to a Medical Crsis. That dilemma is a beast without a nurse! On my turn I decide to abandon mission attempts and instead send The One, Data and some Rogue Borg (enhanced by Lower Decks which I downloaded earlier with a Ready Room Door) to attack the Klingons stuck on the planet! We win the Away Team battle (sweet, both types of battle in a 1E game!) and randomly kill one of Ryan's Archaelogy guys. On his next turn he gets the Pagh and the rescue crew there (including a replacement Gowron) and was able to play another Archaelogy type. He solves but I use Q-the Ref to download a copy of In The Zone meaning all his mission specialists points are not counted. On my turn I decide to finally go attempt another mission and after a particularly brutal combo involving Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease (which, thankfully didn't kill my android Brothers of Destruction) I am stopped at Host Metaphasic Shielding Test. Note, though, that I emptied out all the dilemmas and the mission is worth 40 points. Ryan swoops in and steals it, putting him at 90 points! That turned out to be the game clenching move for him. I was able to solve two missions after laughing at Ryan's dilemma combo of Distracted by Thoughts of Home, The Clown Bitter Medicine and then Clan People. Androids STILL have super-high cunning and Lower Decks really helped with the Universal Rogue Borg. But I just don't have enough time to get back into the game. Ryan does offer me one glimmer of hope when he accidentally attempts Raid Ancient Burial Site with no Non-aligned personnel in the attempt. He had forgotten I killed all of his NA guys. But we didn't realize it until after he had passed the two dilemmas there. I asked for the NA check when he was checking mission requirements. It turned out, he had no NA guys in play at that point. I tried my best to get back over to the the mission before he found an NA guy, but could not make it in time. Ryan found a NA personnel and attempted the mission to solve for the win. The lesson here is, spending all that time battling actually slowed me down. That, and that Rogue Borg crew plus Mercenary Crew might mean a lot of free plays, but it doesn't mean a lot of card draw from CM. Still, it was a great game as always against Ryan! Round 3 Jeremy Norris FW (+100) A rematch from earlier that day - Jeremy came out super fast with his Mercenaries, AAH, and FMO free plays. The Ferengi came out quickly - I was a little worried he would begin mission attempts 1 turn before I would be able to - Which in Block (Virtual) is key. Jeremy went for the mission I thought he would and he hit a detrimental combo there he had not seen. His entire crew was killed by my Barclay's Proto Disease. After that he never was able to recover. I was able to steal his 40pt mission where I killed his entire crew. That put me at 90 pts so I had to go after another mission. Jeremy was still stalled - I went on to solve another mission for the win. Closing Thoughts Virtual is a GREAT format - It is like Block on steroids and is a great intermediate step between Block and Full on OTF. -