Michael Van Breemen (The Ninja Scot) Tournament Report - 2E Virtual - American Nationals Side Event 2011-01-16 - 12:00 PM Cardassian virtual deck Introduction The virtual tournament was a tournament I wasn't expecting to actually play in since we were intending on going to the Shedd Aquarium instead. However, there was this minor issue of some football game involving bears and seahawks that was in the way so we came to the tournament instead. Amber had a deck already but I didn't. Thankfully, the hotel that we were staying in had a color printer and, after being up insanely early the day of (i.e. 1:15 am), I was able to make a dilemma pile and adapted one of my existing virtual decks for the tournament. The deck is a Cardassian virtual deck, taking advantage of enough virtual Cardassians that have either Officer or Treachery in order to have everyone safe from wall or big-stop dilemmas with The Central Command. Couple that with using Evek to capture someone, hopefully two people to get 10 bonus points for the three mission win. The dilemma system was decided as a scalpel, picking off specific people from the attempt so that you can't solve along with spending counters to replay those people again. Combine that with Clown: Go Away and others to make them go to other missions as well. Round 1 Mike Burke FW (+100) Mike was playing a TOS deck that was focusing on micro-team attempts. First one of his attempts had five people and he encountered Hard Time, Clown: Go Away and Watch Your Step for a mission stop without anything under. Next attempt, almost identical minus the Watch Your Step. Meanwhile, once I'm out and going, I was given one dilemma which I used Central Command to get around and solved. Next turn, did the same thing and did the same on the third mission. I had captured only one person whom had four skill dots which meant needing two Prison Compounds. However, he conceded at this point and that was it. Afterwards, I checked and would've won on the next turn since I had one Prison Compound in hand and one more was on the top of my deck. 100-0 Round 2 Neil Timmons FW (+65) Neil was playing what looked like much the same kind of deck from the last virtual tournament I played against in a year ago - Dominion with Jem'hedar Entrenchment, Dominion Defiant and Relentless Charge. Unfortunately, I was going to have to solve four missions this game - Neil played Friction the turn before I was going to play Evek. Combine that with Casual Recursion (which normally I have no problem with since I have points scored from events in the form of Prison Compound) and I'm going to need all 125 points that my missions can muster. I'm grinding him to a halt at his space missions, whether it's just random luck with a Hard Time/Clown: Go Away option but I'm keeping track of how many Engineer that he has in play which so far had only been one. At one point, I gave Neil a random selection to see which one would go on top of his deck - Dukat or Tozara'kesh. I don't know why except that I was having fun. He picked Tozara'kesh which went to the top of his deck which then was discarded by my Watch Your Step. This proved to be the turning point in the game since he had to get an Engineer into play to staff his Defiant. Meanwhile, I was using Central Command to make it through my missions, going through stuff like Tactical Disadvantage and so on which made it interesting at my last mission, Survey New World. Unfortunately, this deck has only two Security people in it - Korinas and Evek. With Korinas the only one in play, I decided to see if I could bluff past Neil like he had quasi-tried at Survey New World. First, I used Madred's text to increase his attributes by 3 but more importantly, gave me the opportunity to attempt Survey New World with 4. With the bluff attempt getting two under, I was able to solve the last mission with the use of my last Central Command for the win. 120-35 Round 3 Amber Van Breemen FW (+30) With Amber and I the only two people who have not lost at this point, we have no choice but to play against each other. Once again, she wasn't entirely thrilled about the prospect since she knew my deck but I made her laugh so it was going to be okay. Amber was playing an Equinox deck that was really a cannibalization of her normal Equinox deck but without the normal cards in it. Unfortunately, this lead to some missing instances of skills which would come back to haunt her. Evek managed to get Ransom (which I found incredibly funny since this means that I held Ransom for... ransom but that's just me) but more importantly, it took her away from being able to solve Inversion Mystery since she had no Diplomacy. Plus, a Watch Your Step had taken out a second Diplomacy in Maras as well. I'm also having a harder time getting people picked off since Equinox Doctor is doing his preventing the loss of command of her people so it's taking more cards to eventually stop her. Meanwhile, I'm slowly trying to grind through my missions since she's using multiple stops and her random selections are picking off the right people. However, I manage to eventually get through my three missions for the win. 100-70 Round 4 Eric R FW (+100) Now, we're at the problem for seeding the final round. Now matter how it was done, someone would have to play each other a second time. Al paired off me against Eric, whom I had never played before, Amber against Neil and Mike against him (which was the one whom had two people play each other again for) Eric was also playing an Equinox deck but he was going to have a very hard time with it after Evek managed to capture not only Ransom but also Maxwell Burke too. This is significant because these were the only two means that he had to use Leadership in the game, resulting in one mission being unsolvable. Thankfully, he would be able to solve one mission using alternate requirements and he would have to go to the AQ to solve Historical Research but it could be done so we kept playing. I was picking off either the Doctor and someone I wanted to be gone or non-Voyager people like Lore whom he couldn't protect, stalling him for the longest time. Meanwhile, I'm up against a Legacy pile which barring a miracle, I have no chance to get past. I'm trying to be judicious with my Central Commands but I'm also having a hard time trying to draw them as well. I make it through two missions but in doing so, I used two Central Commands, discarding the third in the process. I can't capture anyone else since he's running out of draw deck so I have to somehow get around Legacy without Central Command. So I'm attempting Survey New World and breaking up the 16 people I have in play into three groups, only one of which is able to solve the mission. I manage to eventually get one dual-icon dilemma underneath this mission which is all I needed. I used my hero Telle to swap a Legacy for a Pitching In, thereby getting two dilemmas underneath the mission. Since I need only five to solve the mission (Lore is in the discard pile), I attempt the mission without any Honor or Medical which resulted in me getting the win. 100-35.