Casey Wickum (MrCub21) Tournament Report - 2E - Deep Space 9 Regional 2018-04-15 - 10:00 AM Shranblue Fantasy Introduction Round 1 Eric Bieche FW (+65) Eric showed up packing Romulus as his HQ, though he started dropping Non Aligned and Androids. Androids have the ability to absolutely crush some of my dilemmas with their skill gaining ability, so I had to dig for Co-ordinated counterattack to give myself some protection. Eric though didn't seem to really get any meaty androids out til late in the game and I was able to get a pretty healty crew set and able to push through for the win. All in all my deck played about where I would like it too. Round 2 Maggie Geppert MW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Maggies dominion deck was one of the few I spent a bit extra time preparing for before the tournament as I have no extra points built into my mission selection, I could not afford to lose a single one. I knew that I had some lee way with skill selection on my dilemmas and could pretty much hold off a mission attempt for 6 or 7 turns comfortably (even more with Shran). So I followed the strategy I set up beforehand to put as many dilemmas underneath a mission or two without trying to solve, while hopefully Maggie gets through the first and I suffer no point loss and then start my engine. It worked out pretty well, except for the Mod Win part, some really nasty dilemma luck like an Over Burdened triple kill really slowed me down. Maggie has been holding me to mod-wins left and right with 6 out out the last 8 games being Mod Wins. Guess I'll have to figure out a new strategy. Casey was the match-up I was most worried about for this tourney. I figured he would be playing his TOS "Rapid Progress"/Infinite Diversity skill tracking monster deck and I was not disappointed. I was hoping to get out Friction early to impair his upgrades, but instead I got all 6 ships in my hand within the first 3 turns. *sigh* When I got some people out, I proceeded to wade through his 3X "Rapid Progress" and 3X Infinite Diversity. I knew that was coming, so *shrug*. Luckily I hit him with dilemmas as hard as he hit me (I think I remember a triple kill with Overburdened). I got some lucky stops when he attempted Investigate Destruction, taking a few turns to make that happen. I think he took 4 or 5 attempts to get Ba'ku, again due to lucky selections on my part. In that time I managed to complete Stakoron Strait. I also, unluckily, stopped Shran twice and he bounced back 2X "Rapid PRogress from under Stakoron II. I held him to the Mod win, which is pretty good in my book. Round 3 Al Schaefer FW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report I saw that 4 of the players that pre-reged for the tournament had been running NA focused decks, about an hour before I was to leave I decided that I would include two copies of The Seen and Unseen in for shits and giggles, but I couldn't find where I put the ones I had already printed out so I decided I would just pass on it. Anyway, Al drops Khan turn one, but starts really chugging out people at a somewhat slow pace. I knew that Silik would be the big key to this game, though I couldn't get rid of him at all. Plus I couldn't draw a CC which would have made this a breeze. I took advantage of the mission skill shortage Al was dealing with and made my best attempts to start chugging through my own missions. A space seed hit, though Thankfully the peeps chosen weren't seriously hurtful as it was a 2 cost Kirk and a Nagata I believe. With the planet out of the away I felt reasonably confident that my space would go well. I had 3 dilemmas underneath and could solve with just about any 4 personnel I had out. Knowing this I overthrew hard on his Genesis Planet putting it all on the line to finish on my turn. By throwing a Intimidation + Rapid Progress + Infinite Diversity as Silik can only cheat once a turn. But Intimidation pretty much got everyone as it was and that was that. I solve Protect the Escapees and finish the game. I went first against Casey but still managed to get Kahn out first turn. I had a tough time getting a second Medical in play. I just kept drawing more copies of Udar and Arik Soong and didn't pull a Vendetta or These Are The Voyages or Waken Superior Sleeper to help cycle the deck more quickly. Unfortunately, Casey also attempted two space missions which only gave me one opportunity to play Space Seed which got me a Kirk and a Nagata. I didn't have a Self Replicating RoadBlock for Genesis Planet and Casey was able to stop me easily before going on to double attempt and complete his final mission. Round 4 Steve Nelson FL (-30)View opponent's ReportView original Report I was hoping to see Maquis from Steve as I think that's generally a free matchup for the brand of ToS that I run. But he dropped Bajoran Resistance guys. He gets off to a rather slow start dropping Dukat and a bunch of events. A key point to this game came at the Baku Planet. With 6 of the 7 attempting able to get through his Arena thanks to either having high attributes or being able to boost them through driven, but it hit on Shran.. the low attribute non ToS person, So he got whisked away sadly and had shared in some old times with the Bajoran Resistance for a grand total of 45 points. Still at this point I was feeling pretty good as I had two missions completed, and he had a grand total of 1 dilemma underneath his. This is where things got a bit dicey though. It starts with a misplay on a Rapid Progress, giving him his first mission. I tend to cascade mistakes once I miss one of these. And this was no different. I start trying to dual microteam Protect the Escapees, and start eating damage counter after damage counter. I forgot to pick up my left behind personnel at Baku Planet for a turn. I really shouldn't have used an IL strategy against an out of state player and just sent 10 down on turn one and then started to micro it out. For some of the bad luck Steve's had in our past matchups, it was on his side today as several times his random selections hit perfectly. The game went to time and Steve had a chance for either a FW or a ML going to his last attempt. I get 6 counters to spend, with CC blown up after 3 turns of drawing for event destruction my ID that I drew would be worthless. It was either Issue + Gomtuu or Intimidation, I don't like to gamble on random selections so I felt confident in my Issue of Trust + Gomtuu combo, but 3 Interrupts and a Resistance Rifle later and that was that. It was a well played game from Steve and he avoided any major mistakes. The main reason I played Bajoran Resistance instead of Maquis was because of Casey. Mainly because of his wall dilemmas Rapid Progress/Infinite Diversity. My opening hand though was not real good. I get mostly hand weapons and JLOT but draw and play 2 Heler's later to get more cards. Casey has 1 mission completed and then hits an Arena in his next mission. Later Casey said if I picked any other peep, he could use Driven to prevent. It wouldn't have worked because I had Paenol out with Te'nari/hand weapon combo. After scoring 45 points with JLOT, I draw about 20 cards within 3 turns to draw event destruction to remove Coordinated Attack. While this is going on, Casey is double attempting his last mission, but I stop both attempts. I do this twice in two turns putting only one dilemma under the mission. I do manage to complete 1 mission and need one more win when time gets called. After 5 minutes of contemplating my away team, I attempt hit An Issue Of Trust and Gomtuu. It takes a prevented Stricken Dumb (Sisko), Bajoran Earrings, Resistance Rifle, Natural Instincts and Covenant to get past the dilemmas and get the requirements for the win. Closing Thoughts My deck played as well as I could have planned for the most part, I think I played well overall, I couldn't finish the game fast enough against Maggie which would have given me the VPs to make the final round moot, and I got overconfident and fizzled against Steve. My track record at the College of Dupage is bloody terrible. Today's 3-1 pushed me to 21-19 overall... so I'm over .500 here... but considering all the events here have been Regionals or Nationals, its not acceptable. I'm glad that the Continentals are somewhere else so I can get away from the Curse of CoD.