Neil Timmons (ntimmons) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - Worlds Day Two 2009-08-15 - 10:00 AM Neil Timmons 2009 Day 2 Deck Introduction I never posted this, so I am going to write it. Round 1 Nick Fancher FW (0) the first game of day 2 is always scary. I always get the jitters. I have to slow down, focus and play well. Nick is a great guy and a formidable opponent, he was however not really prepared for my onslaught. He was playing Maquis, and affiliation that I happen to know very well. He started his tricks, but the Klingons are actually really good at dealing with maquis tricks. Cascade virus really only hits a few people like Kamis and Krudge, but the K brothers all end up costing 2, but cannot be virus'ed. in game 1 he ran headlong into my dilemma pile and got a lot of people killed. Then he went back with 5 personnel to attempt and complete the mission. I played Uninvited to grab Secret ID knowing what he was doing. I specifically selected an NA Maquis personnel after seeing that he only had 4 badges (I believe it was 3 Maquis personnel, Finley and Yates) I selected yates who was replaced by Bashir and he was able to complete the mission, but was not able to get his bonus 10 points. This rattled him as he all of a sudden saw the rest of the game, where he had to complete all of his missions through a bad dilemma pile and battling Klingons. On the other side of the board I was just completing Commandeer Prototype and when I pulled out the Defiant to start shuffling dilemmas over to Brute Force I was able to get through the rest of my missions to win. FW 100-30 The second game was similar, but it seemed that he didn't get a very good start so compared to the first game I was a turn ahead of him and was able to win a turn early. FW 2-0 Round 2 William Hoskin FW (0) Will is playing nonsense Romulans. Ugh. score 5 points here and there, use points to fuel at what cost, and all sorts of stuff. The first game went as planned where he ran head long into my dilemma pile. I was able to setup my dilemma shuffle and was able to win before he was able to complete all of his missions. The second game however was a much tighter race. The culmination of the entire game came when he made his second attempt at his space mission. 2 turns previous I had played "A Few Minor Difficulties" and broke his Bird of Prey. He was unsuccessful at using Prejudice and Politics to score 5 points, so he had to lose 5 of his mission points to destroy the event to allow his ship to have the range to move home. This was something he had to do, with a Gomtuu on his ship, lest the ship blew up. Over the course of the rest of the game, Will was able to complete his remaining 2 missions 1 turn before I was able to complete my final mission, but due to the points loss he was at 95 points. By this time he had both Prejudice and Politics and Getting Under Your Skin, so he was poised to win the next turn, but fell 5 points short. FW 100-95 FW 2-0 Round 3 Mike Harrington FW (0) This was one of the most hard fought series I have ever played. Mike was playing a hybrid Klingon/DS9 deck and I was a bit scared. He had all sorts of death prevention and had an idea of what I was up to. Game 1 had Mike building and building and building. I had one of the worst draws I have ever had, so I was also just drawing and building. with his personnel, Mike went out and attempted with 12 space. I played Tragic Turn, Entanglement, He wasn't nice (naming Maras), Causalities, Don't let it end this way, then either Dal'Rok or something, Toe to Toe. so the death and destruction went something like He Wasn't nice kills 3x Maras (grav trap the Escape) TT triggers (8 people left) Casualities stops 1, then kills 1 (5 people left) Don't let it end this way kills the stopped personnel (kills 1 more 4 people left) Dal'Rok kills 2, TT triggers (1 personnel left), Toe to toe kills last person (TPK) then Krudge took the ship. He was unable to recover from that much, and I was able to win before he was able to put a crew together. FW 100-0 Game 2. Game 2 took a different twist. Since I won, I had to go second, but even a historical Research download could not save the really crappy opening draw. *sigh* twice in a row, except now he knows exactly what is coming. I struggled to find personnel to staff the ships, all I could find were the cards that I was able to download. ggrr... I attempted my space mission and took a long trip Where No One had Gone Before. Mike scraped through my dilemmas making it look easy. by the time I had returned and attempted again, Mike was well into his 3rd mission and was able to complete right before I would have solved my first mission. FL 100-0. Game 3 DUN DUN DUN!! I have to go first so I do not get my Historical Research download. *sheesh* what are the odds of 3 really crappy opening hand draws?? well, it wasn't bad... not great, but I will take it.. This ended up being the weirdest game I had ever played. I was forced to discard Defiant and Phoenix and could barely find a ship. Mike had problems of his own as my dilemmas were firing on all cylinders at his first mission. I made my second attempt at my space mission, and ran into some filters and Where NO One has gone before, but I had both Koloth and Kang with 3 other Klingons. Koloth has the Exobiology and Medical, Kang has leadership and makes everybody Int +2 so I was able to bust the trip and leave 4 dilemmas under the mission. I was not able to complete the mission, but Mike knew exactly what had happened, I had dodged his trip, and put myself in a very strong position to win. My next turn would have been a bit compliated as I was going to have to play Nu'Daq, get Defiant from my discard pile, discard the Krudge in my hand to download These Are the Voyages to put Defiant back into the deck, then fly out with my second ship so I could attempt the mission with 5 personnel then started the "2 turns until I win" countdown. But that's not what happened. The fire drill went off. that's what happened. Yes, we had to evac the convention floor. The starbucks had caught fire or something, so someone pulled the alarm. Charlie tried to leave the game intact to finish, but they wouldn't let him. So he was forced to pick up the game and bring our cards outside. We spent a good while outside chatting and hanging out. Mike finally had enough. He spoke with Charlie and said that he had been beaten the day before by my Klingon deck, he had lost the first game, and had we finished the current game out, due to the state of the game (WNOHGB busted etc) He decided not to restart the game but to just concede. With the unknown length of time we were going to be out of the convention hall, I can't blame him however it is not the way I wanted to win. of course what I would have "Wanted" to do, would be to finish the game we started in the exact orientation that it was in however due to the fire drill that was not a possibility. I am just really really glad that it was not an angry Magic player who pulled the fire drill out of spite. *FW 2-1 * = not a traditional match Round 4 Ben Hosp FW (0) And here we go. Up against BenHosp in the final game. I had beaten Ben every time our Klingons had clashed in the last few tournaments, but this was the matchup I was the most scared of. I had been working out a plan to catch him off guard. How do you beat this monster you have created? I mean I had lost games with the Klingons, but rarely lost 2 games in a row which is what bracket style is. I had puzzled over this for weeks, because I knew I would run into him sooner or later. So I had a plan. Planet first. that's right.. I said it.. planet first. To be clear, Ben and I had not built our decks together. We had never compared deck lists, the fact that our two deck lists are barely 10 cards different says that we both just made similar choices. (we both had 5 equipment, 8 interrupts, I had 20 events, he had 21 etc) I happen to believe my Tragic Turn dilemma pile was a bit stronger.. but that is a personal opinion. So I got 7 dudes and a ship in play as fast as I could. I ran over beamed 4 of them down to Rescue Prisoners and attempted. 1 died, but I was able to get 2 dilemmas. Next turn I played a replacement and attempted with 4 and completed to catch 30 quick points. Then came the frustrating waiting game of "who would go attempt a space mission first" I knew this was going to be a rough battle. Both of us had good dilemma piles, and both of us had Krudge. When Defiant comes into play it comes into play stopped, and both of us could take it. So I knew the first person to complete Commandeer Prototype would not have Defiant as it would be stolen. I also knew that both of us knew how important Birthright was, so neither of us would be allowed to keep birthright on this mission *sigh* in for a long one. I did the next move I knew was a good idea. I flew a full crew of personnel out to Commandeer prototype and left them there until next turn. Then next turn I flew a second ship out, and attempted aboard the ship with range with a crew on my second ship. When they failed (and most of them were dead) I beamed my crew over and flew home. This allowed me to keep my ship and give Ben the decision to waste his turn capturing an empty ship or attempt on his own. The following turn I was able to complete my space mission pulling out Defiant. I was then able to fly home and prepare to attack Brute Force. Ben stole Defiant, I stole it back the following turn, but I was up 2 missions. He was able to complete his space mission, but i was able to force dilemmas under Brute force and double team the mission and win. This was a really hard fought battle that felt more like a chess match with each move carefully planned out lest everybody dies and the plan goes horribly wrong. FW 100-30 Game 2. Here we are. 1 game away from victory, 2 games away from defeat. I still had the planet trick up my sleeve, but I opted to do something different to throw him off. mostly because I did not have the personnel coming out as fast as I did the first game. This game was extremely boring for 20 minutes as we did the same thing build up and build up and build up until someone did something. I tried the same thing again, fly out, leave a ship at the space mission, then attempt the next turn. It worked just as well here and in 2 turns I was able to complete my space mission. Ben was not so careful and just went and attempted his space mission. a very similar thing happened where I lost a bunch of people but flew home, he lost a bunch of people, but I was unable to krudge his ship. I was able to complete the next turn and pull out Defiant but Ben stole it the following turn. However I jumped on my second ship and flew to rescue prisoners and attempted. I failed the mission, but stacked a bunch of dilemmas. The following turn I completed the mission and sent my 2 ships in opposite directions. the first ship with all the good personnel went home. the second ship with 5 total scrubs went to Brute force and attempted. They all died. Ben had been working on his planet mission and was able to complete it, so here we stood 2 missions to 2 missions. I had 5 dilemmas under my final mission, he had Defiant in play and running. he said "I fly the D7, then beam people to Defiant and shuffle 2 dilemmas" then tried to fly the D7 away after attempting and completing his space mission. I reminded him that the D7 had flown and was out of range. It didn't really matter, if he would have attempted with 2 dilemmas under I probably would have stopped him and/or killed some personnel as it is a very difficult mission, and the next turn he would have been able to shuffle 2 more dilemmas under, and with 4 dilemmas under he can attempt with 5 and it becomes much more difficult thing to stop. So I have 1 turn. Here we go. first things first, play an ETU. second things, play a personnel with 8 strength, discard Krudge to download Grav Trap. play another 8 strength personnel. Fly to Brute Force and attempt with 5. he gets to draw 1/ spend 1. He tries to play Uninvited which I cancel with my freshly downloaded Grav trap, by my count that is all 6 grav traps, so I just have to hope he only has 1 uninvited. he does. He draws 1 but it is unplayable so I am able to complete and win. This series of 2 games was one of the most hard fought games I have ever played, and it was for the biggest honor. FW 100-65 FW 2-0