Jason Tang (PantsOfTheTalShiar) Tournament Report - 1E - Trek Masters 2017-05-27 - 10:00 AM Cardassian Concealed-Carry SD Masters Introduction I brought four and a half decks to SD Master's, but didn't decide until that morning which to play. My Borg would have been fun to play on camera but I was too tired, and I decided that a friendly round of Tribbles was a better way to start the day than trying to finish assembling the half deck. Cardassians it was, yet again. This time I was packing a Battle Bridge, which was a welcome addition. I also had the advantage of winning every die roll. Round 1 Kris Sonsteby FL (-5)View opponent's ReportView original Report This was an epic game with Cardassia trying to fend off Romulan encroachment. Probably the most fun/exciting game I've ever played. Cardassia and a few other missions were clustered on the left-center side of the spaceline, and I mostly stayed in that cluster. Things got really interesting when Kris took a position at Kressari Rendezvous, which was on the right side of my cluster. I knew what was coming: I would attempt a space mission, get damaged, and then Kris would come over and finish my ship off. I decided that the best way to avoid this a pre-emptive strike, which would also deprive Kris of extra LSWOT draws. Q's Tent got my Ablative Armor, and I attacked. Kris brought in reinforcements, and we both lost a ship in the counter-attack. Such skirmishes continued throughout the match. In retrospect I was maybe a little too aggressive, and probably overestimated the threat of Kris crossing through Cardassian space to solve Investigate Sighting II, where I had put my weakest combo (Unscientific+Scientific). But, it made for some good experience and it was fun to throw Kris for a loop. Meanwhile we were both effective at solving, with Kris Covertly Installing a base for 50 points, and me Altering Records and Assisting a Damaged Vessel. Edo Probe/DNA Clues/Scientific Method at Cardassia made me lose 10 points but I was able to solve it on my next (and final) turn thanks to Oran and the right support personnel. This unfortunately leaves me at 95 points, and in overtime Kris vanquishes me by Vanquishing his Enemy. JTG was engineering Cardassian, and had me on the ropes as his Keldon Advanced ships were gunning for me just as much as I was gunning for him. With casualties on both sides becoming a recurring theme, I slipped through Vanquish Enemy a turn before he could pick up the 5 bonus points he needed to secure the upset. FW 100-95. Round 2 Robert Petersen ML (-20) Playing vs. Kris used all my energy so of course my worst game of the day is the one on camera. Hobie-wan Kenobi was TNG Ferengi with only two space missions, one of which was a duplicate Kressari Rendezvous. The game plan was simple: Lock him out of Kressari with dilemmas and battle, seed my hardest space combo + Koby at his other space mission (still within easy battle range), and get 100 points from my missions before Robert could get 140 from his. Unfortunately I lost focus on solving, and I think I just forgot ASP downloads a few turns. I also overestimated the threat of Symbalene Blood Burn and Transport Inhibitor and was way too cautious. I attempted Find Hidden Base, which was on the way to his trading post, but hit Rock People, one of the worst walls my deck could face. Robert then tries to Capture! someone, but finds he has neither more SECURITY nor more hand weapons than me. (Robert was running some Lonzak capture shenanigans, possibly inspired by my Romulan Lonzak deck.) I then got sidetracked and started battling aboard his trading post, because of some fantasy of taking out Telok, but I was maybe one hand weapon short of that attack being truly devastating. I start the long trek back over several 4-span missions. I start chipping away at Cardassia, while Robert solves a planet. With time running down, I realize that I can solve Cardassia with For Cardassia! bonus points to take the lead and force Robert to solve another mission to win, but Robert has only Spatial Rift left at another planet so he solves that on his last turn. Round 3 Preston Holida MW (+5) Without enough players for a 2E side event, Preston got recruited to play 1E for like the second time. He was given a spare Mirror Starfleet deck, with Vintaak Drydock Station, which personally would have been the last deck I would have given a newer player. Apparently Kevin teaches well and Preston learns well, because he did really well, all things considered. I wasn't playing close enough attention to make sure Preston used all the time travel mechanics correctly, because he had enough moving parts to deal with and I didn't want to interrupt the game with "well actually...". Worst case is he got a few free trips to and from the Drydock Station. I'm slow at attempting again for some reason, but I do manage to solve Bajor, overcoming a non-doubled Barclay's for 10 points. Preston overcomes my series of kill-walls at a planet over a few turns, scoring 10 points for having 10 WEAPONS, then comes to the AQ to try to solve his one mission there. Preston had given me Gold!, which puts me at 50 points to his 45. Time is called during the last turn, and I don't recall the exact situation (I think he had tripped Cytherians, and possibly hit a Gomtuu that followed with another ship), so as much as I would have liked to try for the full win, I decided to attack to ensure the mod win. Round 4 Keith Rupp FW (+100) Keith's deck set off all kinds of red flags for me. Six planets! Unstable Matrix! Insurrection! Reunite Legends! Seeded artifact, that must be The Genesis Device! Surely shenanigans are afoot! Sure enough, Jean-Luc and Admiral Kirk show up to set up NPR. There was only one way to respond: excessive force! I considered attacking Son'a Observatory on my 3rd turn, but decided instead to send two guys and three guns to take out the two Son'a there powering the Duck Blind. His next turn involves an unsuccessful attempt at his outpost planet, with Beverly getting Kobied. My turn, Bareil grabs a Plasmadyne Relay so I can cross all the way from Insurrection, through Cardassian space, and over to Keith's outpost, where I beam down and attack his Away Team. I have three disruptors, but he has Beverly's phaser, so while I do take out about half of his team, his stronger guys like Tuvok are only stunned. When we go to select the random casualty at the end of battle, Keith pauses, then concedes, saying that he can see how the game will go and would rather not play it all out after a long day of driving up from (was it Kansas City or St. Louis?) and playing Trek. Whoops, it would have been nice to see more of his deck. The artifact was actually Blade of T'Kon. Closing Thoughts A fun tournament that I'm glad I was able to make time for. Thanks to Kevin for hosting and Kris, Robert, and James for driving. As for my performance, some deck adjustments are in order, and I need to be a little less cautious with mission attempts. A digression about something annoying with Starfleet that I noticed during Preston's game and during a casual game with Heaney after the tournament: their ships lie. Their effective stats are virtually never their printed stats. Yes, their printed stats suck because of Trek sense, but instead of designing to complement low stats (low-span missions, regions, pseudo-regions, mobile reporting, etc.), Decipher and CC designs have undermined that Trek sense with assorted bonuses. The end result is that Starfleet ships are just as big if not bigger than average (see Heaney's report from this tournament: "Enterprise had more RANGE than [Kris's] warbirds,"), but it's just harder to figure out what exactly their stats are. Printed stats + number of CMD people aboard + One Small Step - damage markers.