It turns out that Matt was running a variation on my Fourth or Fifth Doctor Ferengi deck. As such, we shared 4 missions. This included all three planets and the Outpost mission. I put my best missions near to Host Meta Shield Testing so I could attempt to steal.
I have to give it to Matt, he took the big risks and they paid off, he deserved the win. For most of the game it looked like it would go to time because we were pretty reticent to attempt the missions. Matt went all in on Meta Shield testing and bust the first Dilemma (Trilithium Raid) which exists to make sure he is bringing a real crew and then hit Cytherians. Since this was the middle of the spaceline, he did not have too far to travel, but would still waste two turns range getting tom the end of the sapacline (at which point I was sure he would have more ships set up to make the commute back easy).
I decided that I would rob him of the 15 points from Cytherians by setting off my The Nexus. but first I attempted Host Meta Shield Testing to make him trigger his Defensive Measures and get it counting down. This was a great move In My Own Opinion of Myself, since even if he said I could go into it, I could have bailed on the Edo Probe (next seed) and not been stopped by any Mission Debriefings (which were not in play). As such, I attempted the shared outpost mission and set it off successfully. I hit his Ferengi Ingenuity (picking off two of my guys for 3 turns) and Dejaren were the latter was a wall for the time being.
Matt still lost one turn to Cytherians before his ship found The Nexus. On my next turn, I started setting up Computer Skill to bust the shared mission and waited to see if Host would open up. Matt reattempted and found Edo Probe and opted to go on, a game winning decision. he hit the Whale Probe and lost the 10 points. He had lost a second turn setting up a new ship and commuting people over so he had one more of my turn of me not being able to attempt Host and therefore one more shot for himself. The Nexus ate his ships again, so he had to STP one (just before) and replay it the next turn to be able to solve.
Unfortunately, the Nexus was at host on my turn instead of his (but Defensive Measures had another counter on it anyway) it would be at the shared outpost on his next turn. So I could clear it and have a second turn to solve it. The Nexus would eat my ship at the end of the turn, but that was good as I had Soren in play. I had a ton of CS in play at this point (6), even without the two still stopped by Ingenuity, and I blew through his Dejaren and my Virus boosted by his Access Denied and my the Cloud to solve it. After Soren's assention, I was at 45.
Matt solved Host Metaphasic Shield testing +5 for a mission specialist and +10 for Romulan Spock as a Scientist in the discard pile and I In The Zone'd him to put him on 40. Matt chose the planet mission he wanted and squated there with a Transport Inhibitor to protect it. I wasn't too concerned as it had the Dead End. I had to play a ship and relocate my people to attempt a new mission (an unshared space) but was a bit limited due to locations of The Nexus and The Whale Probe. This mission had great dilemmas against me, The first was Altonian brain teaser which stopped a Soong Type Android and made no bonus points possible. The second was an Anakari Spirits which easily killed two of my guys and stopped everyone. I STP'd the ship rather than let more die,a s there weren't too many and they could just be replayed and the ship could fly back out and reattempt the next turn.
Matt attempted his planet and overcame the Hanonian Land Eel and sadly only lost 6 or 8 to Higher The Fewer before finding the Dead End. I just had to solve my Space and bring it over to steal that by having 50+ before him.
I thought for sure that the last dilemma at my space mission was a Cytherians. The proceeding Dilemma was an Ankari Spirits and that made it a good set up to get Ankari on a ship trying to traverse the spaceline. Also, this was the last mission on the spaceline end. I thought it too much of a risk to go all in and have most of my people distracted for a useless 15 points (and I'd already used the STP). So I sent a minimal crew to see what it was and what it was was an Emergency Conversion, which I had certainly not brought the skills for. Now I Either needed to fly home and back out or play a new ship to move back and to the mission to solve it.
He then attempted his neighboring space mission (unshared) and cleared out my Friendly Fire combo where the last of course hit. this would give me 3 turns to win or Matt would automatically win.
It was a bit tricky as I needed to solve my space mission, which was one way down the spaceline, and then move to the shared planet on the way other end. One option I had seen was to just get 5 bonus points from Ferengi Military Ops to put me on 50 and steal the planet and then bother with the space. I had been setting up for this (by getting a Soong Type Android to Hand to make an officer so that my team of Non-aligned to board his Ferengi Trading Post and battle the few personnel there, but he moved them away at just the right time. As such, I had to split my crews and send them in different directions. I did solve the space and had been using all my resources to try to draw into a hidden fighter to land a ship on the planet and subvert the Transport Inhibitors when I realized that I could just use attentional hands as a previously played Hidden Fighter had already given me the Estanblish landing Protocols. So I dialed for a Ferengi Shuttle and landed on the planet and attempt with everyone to try and bust that last dilemma.
It turned out to be In the Pale Moonlight. Gozar had been in the Space Solving crew as he was my only Navigation in play, I had opted to get a Soong Type from discard multiple times of Lore since they net draws (and I was digging for Hidden Fighter) so he was not in play, and Suna had an Integrity boost (as did a lot of mook ferengi) from Lower Decks. So The Ferengi could not find someone slimy enough to cheat the system and as such, Matt was able to solve and win.
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