Al Schaefer (ltkettch17) Tournament Report - 2E 2018-07-29 - 12:00 PM Dilemma Discard 2nd time Introduction I got to the tournament a little early and remembered that I had made some changes to the dilemma discard deck prior to the Regional and hadn't played it in an event yet. Instead of playing the deck I had planned to play, I changed my game plan and went with the TN Dilemma Discard. Both the draw deck and dilemma pile got a major cut down to much more manageable sizes. I felt the slimmed down versions were much more effective and reliable. Round 1 Brian Leonard FL (-60) Brian was playing a no-frills high-cost TNG Solver. He had no trouble getting out the usual suspects, Data, JLP, Lwaxana and others. I felt I got off to a good start with personnel, but took a little too long to get a ship. Brian was well into his first mission before I got off the ground. I was getting dilemmas out of play, but almost all were low costers with no skills. I did manage to pull off a Dreamer and the Dream against him, but on his next attempt he had only one card in hand and had discarded a copy of the Future Enterprise - so, I thought Gorgan would be a slam-dunk. Unfortunately, the one card he had in hand was another 7-cost Enterprise and he completed his mission. It was all I could do to try and catch up, and Brian's dilemmas were more than effective against my limited crew. I had to play Ruling Council three times at my first mission attempt just to complete, but it made no difference and I couldn't make up the lost time before Brian walked away with a win. Round 2 Maggie Geppert FW (+35)View opponent's ReportView original Report Maggie's Klingon engagement and dilemma stacking deck was an interesting game. Again, I did pretty well getting dilemmas out of play, but didn't take advantage with Untapped Influence until late in the game. All three Ruling Council's got played again but not all in the same turn. I thought I was going to run away with this game but Maggie scored back-to-back-to-back kills on my final mission attempt that I had no answer for. It took me an extra turn to get back key skills and higher attributes and I got the win just as time was called. Secret ID was good for me today. I took out Kira when Odo was already in play. I also managed to take out Lawnmower Dukat. A nice close game. If I didn't have to use two Quantum Drives early on (Al Our Deathed the first one), I probably would have gotten the win here. Round 3 Eric Bieche FW (+40) Eric was playing his DS9 Androids again and the first 5 dilemmas he placed out of play did not have skills. He had some difficult dilemma draws and wasn't able to do much at my first mission, but revealed that he was playing a Chula: The Game pile. At my first opportunity I played Overburdened, thinking that I would get at least 2 kills if not all 3. Unfortunately, it was a total whiff and Eric completed his mission. Another, near fatal, mistake was when I had the wrong order on a solid wall dilemma stack. I put Dreamer and the Dream after my 'wall' of Dignitaries and Witnesses, Eric had a full hand at the time and would have likely lost some key androids to power his skill gaining engine. We were neck and neck the whole game, but the play of the game came when after I had used Secret Identity to get rid of Lore, then used Weyoun to get rid of his Gav and de-staff his only ship. I finally drew into Ruling Council and Untapped Influence and was able to close out the game for the win. Closing Thoughts The slimmer form of this deck was definitely much more effective and reliable than the first time I had played it. It might be a little too slim as I found myself missing key mission skills (Navigation) in the game agains Brian, and nearly felt like I was going to be ship screwed in all three games. I definitely need to re-think my downloading strategy with Dukat and Weyoun. I might even have to add a Cardassian TN ship for Weyoun to download instead of Dukat. I like the consistency of the draw deck, but I had some issues where I really wished I had Untapped Influence, but it was nowhere to be found. Founder Leader is the card I'd love to hate in this deck. She's totally made to play in this deck, but she brings nothing to the table. Sure, she's got a couple of mission skills, but not anything I'm in dire need of. But strength 5 and lack of LEADERSHIP is really tough to like. I think I may need to change up the mission selection, the 34 strength on two of the missions is quite a bit different than 32. 3 Jemmies and any two 6-strength personnel can do every mission in the deck. Unfortunately, the low strength of Weyoun, Founder Leader, and Rayva make it really tough when you don't have Untapped Influence handy. I made a few mistakes today, but they did not result in any serious consequences - this time.