Tournaments | trekcc

Jason Tang (PantsOfTheTalShiar)
Tournament Report - 1E
2013-03-10 - 12:00 PM
1E Learner Deck Series 1 - Cardassian
Introduction
This was my first constructed tournament since DS9. Matthew was kind enough to offer me a deck to play for this tournament. I had been working on a Cardassian deck of my own, but with an otherwise busy weekend, I wasn't confident I'd be able to put it together, and I was curious about Matthew's approach to the affiliation.

Round 1	Kevin	FL (-100)
Kevin was all DQ, I was all AQ, making my capture cards suboptimal. I found myself stuck needing ENGINEER to pass dilemmas. The deck did seem rather light on them, but it didn't help that I was completely neglecting my downloadable Dr. Telek R'Mor in my Tent. Oops. Kevin's USS Voyager deck was as redundant and relentless as the Borg, and it didn't seem too difficult for him to get >140 points to win.


Round 2	Matthew Hayes	MW (+11)
Ah, the Particle 010 deck. I preserved the planet combos for his two planets, and then distributed all others as best I could among the Space Missions, just so he wouldn't have any freebies. While Matthew was busy doing Borg stuff, I was stuck at my Headquarters without a ship. Eventually I try to Secure the Homeworld, and run into an Edo Probe. While the prudent action might have been to wait for another mission, I wasn't about to just wait around indefinitely. And, at least following through with the mission attempt would give me info on what was awaiting me. That happened to be The Higher The Fewer, followed by a Dead End, so I was off to a start of -19 points. When I do draw a ship, Matthew takes it over with Emergent Lifeform and Cytherians. Eventually, I drew more ships and solved a nearby 30-point space mission, bringing me to 11 points. I then had to begin the long trek across a span of Spaces to my other missions. Mathew whiffed on his probes, so had to start trying to assimilate planets. I had just started to work through some of my other missions when time was called.


Round 3	James Heaney	FL (-100)View opponent's Report View original Report
James pulls out a sheet of paper with his Master Plan, and has a whirlwind of a first turn. He quickly solved his outpost mission. Meanwhile, I was a bit slower to develop and had real trouble with James' dilemmas, i.e. Ferengi Ingenuity combo and (Un)Scientific Method combo. His Husnock Ship and D'Kora Marauder were also daunting in comparison to my Galor, so I didn't want to stray far from my Homeworld. James just kept plugging through for the full 100.
Jason was using one of Matt's extra decks, since putting something together over the weekend would have been a bit of a challenge. This was a Cardie capture deck with Forced Labor Camp over at Sarthong Plunder. I was surprised by the number of facilities it seeded (3!), but I suppose the idea was to make it easier to find and bring back my captured personnel. I had the first turn and attacked Runabout Search immediately, bypassing a now-fruitless Extradition and some Chula before hitting Friendly Fire, which stopped me dead for a couple turns. I sat on it, drew out some personnel, and completed immediately thereafter, grabbing Quark on the download and (oops!) activating The Nexus, which ended up at the far end of the spaceline, where neither Jason nor I were doing anything interesting. Fearing he'd try to make trouble for me, I put up a Subspace Warp Rift, a Q-Net, and nearly a Gaps in Normal Space on the one mission between his HQ and my outpost. He did not try to cross the line. For the rest of the game, Jason just worked to get out enough personnel to attempt missions (and overcome my combos -- he struck Ingenuity / Dejaren with Access Denied as well as the (Un)Scientific Method combo before the day was out. I was a bit hesitant to attempt Salvage Borg Ship for a while, since Jason had seeded an outpost there, and plus I'd put up all those nasty barrier cards in the way, but I got over it once I had 18 personnel and the Nexus was past me (in the middle of the spaceline) and started racing toward Jason (who was mostly working from one end of the spaceline). Two teams attempted it, and, between the two of them, we solved in two turns for the full win. The solvability from this group was just too fast.

Closing Thoughts
The tournament was a bit daunting at times, just because of my inexperience. But, I'm glad I went so that I could get some experience! I'm grateful to everyone who played, and in particular to Matthew for letting me use his deck. I've already started working on potential decks for next time.