Casey Wickum (MrCub21) Tournament Report - 2E - American National 2014-01-18 - 03:30 PM ToS Nationals ver. Cosmoflips Introduction I had two decks that I seriously considered playing, As usual I wish I would have played the other. but hey I can't complain with second, and only one person, Greg, Managed to solve a mission and win, so Kudos to Greg. Round 1 Jason Beyer FW (+95) Jason was running a Maquis delay style deck, but it seemed he delayed himself right out of the game with too many stall tactics that seemed to be rather ineffective against a bunch of cheepo people and the free draws from Earth. He did manage to hit Helen Noel who I boosted though which really hurt. Round 2 Scott Baughman FW (+95)View opponent's ReportView original Report The first of the Romulan trifecta I faced, Scott was running a Telepatchin Deception lockout deck, which would have been alot more effective if he could get out FSE to nix some of my Exobiology which is one of my weaker skills. Though, my deck was off to the races quick, and it helped nix alot of his Rommie shenanagains that otherwise could have made this more difficult. Casey is playing TOS Kirk and friends! He, too, has a lot of Telepathy and Exobiology thanks to Ilia and McCoy and Bashir. My dilemma pile really plays poorly this game and I am unable to get very many people into play as my cost reduction Romulans can't seem to get much cost reduction. An early Surprise Party helps some but it takes me until my fifth turn to even attempt a mission. By then Casey has solved Investigate Maquis Activity and Investigate Disturbance. I try to get something going with an attempt at Intercept Renegade but I eat some of my own medicine with Caretaker's Guests and no one in the discard pile to replace Data. Also I take a Hard Time that removes Picard from the attempt, ouch. To add insult to injury, Casey plays McCoy on his next turn and takes the two dilemmas I did overcome and puts them back in his dilemma pile! I lose, my first loss of the day. Round 3 Nathan Miracle FW (+100) Nathan had a rather interesting Romulan deck brought to the table, as he played a lot of guys I hadn't seen in a long time. I think he might have had more Klingons and Random NA guys than Romulans in the deck. It seemed to be a poor dilemma match up however as my guys have a lot of leadership and security drills helped get through any Dignitaries and Witnesses that were thrown at me. Round 4 Greg Hodgin FL (-35) The final round for the tournament was VERY close and a rock solid game from Greg gave him the edge. I got off the a fairly good start, getting through a couple of missions rather quickly. But my dilemma pile was ill equipped to handle a lot of unstopping which is what Greg featured heavily against me. I may have played too cautiously when I saw he had ALC on the table, as I would almost always keep 3, 4 cost TMP Personnel aboard my ship for staffing and to pitch if he solved it. I also give props to Commandering the Phoenix, as that threw me a bit off kilter. Though, I also realized something that could help drastically in future tournaments. All in all, Greg played rock solid and deserved the win. Closing Thoughts I decided to go with TOS, to feature my favorite dilemma Infinite Diversity and bouncing it a lot. Which when effective lead me to three relatively easy shutout victories. And when I couldn't draw it when I needed it most vs Greg, I seemed to fizzle to unstopping. Maybe, I should try a 20 card dilemma pile with 3 Infinite Diversity, 3 Counter Insurgencey, and just about every dilemma bouncing card imaginable.