Suden Käpälä (SudenKapala) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event 2021-04-17 - 10:00 AM Unimatrix 333 Populates Hive 9-Giga-Lobes To Virtually Stop Building First Interplex. (8v17) Introduction I was sort-of dreading this tourney, and the deck building for it, but I wanted in because I wanted to have played an Open gig before my 'early retirement'. And after thinking long and hard on which deck to use, I chose (weeks ago) to convert / append my Traditional Open mainstay, "deck 14" (14d) for the occasion -- which turned it into "54d". That was easier decided than implemented, though -- naturally. The easiest were the dilemmas! (As mentioned elsewhere.) I lined up some achv to go a-hunting for, and to my surprise, I could easily get 'Only I Can Do This' out of it! I was happy to share this gem of knowledge with my fellow participants. It was a good idea to practice with the old, regular (non-TNG) Borg again, for a bit. I had 'forgotten' a lot, it seemed. Good to have my memory refreshed. This was a record gig for me, in that today, I actually had 4 concurrent events running. (Prev., I think I'd only had 2 or 3 simultaneously running events.) It's clear I'm not yet experienced enough, certainly not in from-scratch deck conjuring, to pull off this kind of feat; but all 4 events (also Emissary and Warp Speed Sealed, and DoW Release Event) were things I didn't want to miss out on... and thus, another race to prep myself is ongoing. Round 1 Jon Carter FL (-95)View opponent's ReportView original Report g249 (21.04.17): I got the deck legal (I wouldn't say 'ready') in the nick of time. Just the 3 of us, so a 'round robin'. Started off with Carter. He played a VUL/STA deck with ROM (for mine fields and remote drone ops, getting more draws). More Orions, slave girls -- and Cutler, too! My all-in Borg deck was aimed at Stop First Contact -- never done that before! I couldn't get it done in time, but I was surprised at how far I could get. (With some of Jon's help, of course -- why did I have to love playing Borg?) And after Jon got his first 40 (plus another 40...) points, I got to -- also for the first time -- use Add Distinct to, har har har, open a FC booster! I made screenshots a-plenty for the occasion, but suffice to say that landed me my 5 points with assimilated FED personnel; and -- yes! -- a Borg Queen that I was still gearing up towards to play, so that helped. But in the end, I made the wrong choice protecting Locutus from Denevan Parasites; if I had saved P'Chan with my Queen's Defense Subcommand Icon, I'd have had the MED to actually get through a DNA-Clued Scientific Method. We were at time then, so Jon got the MW against my meagre 5 points from the assi'd FEDs. But supposedly (with 'a little' help), I might actually have won!? That would've been surprising. Ah, and the Squire also did some surprising stuff. Once or twice, 'he' picked the right person to be stopped before a dilemma; but also, once, he took 1 random bloke (I think it was Koss, who got targeted a lot for some cosmic and/or karmic reason) off the team which helped the attempt by straying back in within the limits of that Clown dilemma (My Festival?) where the team must be of moderate -- and attribute-like -- size. That was fun, in all. I do still like the Squire, so far. (I guess my opponents do, too.) My deck wasn't on tourney level, of course, but at least I got in some practice playing Borg (and Q The Ref cards). Suden has borgs. So i cannot pew pew as easy. So i get to solving. He comes within a turn of stopping first contact which could have cleared a lot of my dudes on the spaceline. But then i solve he gets points from assimilating dudes when he opened the virtual first contact pack Round 2 Bye BY (0) This was a BYE for me, because of the only 3 participants. Carter and Ninja slugging it out, which is what this event was -- of course -- all about*, LOL! (*: Edit; that actually felt far less to be the case than I had anticipated -- which I elaborated upon elsewhere.) Round 3 Michael Van Breemen FL (-98) g250: The ninja, with a Vidiian Kirk Who Sees Enterpise-A For Ancestral Visions. Just a random shred of memory, before I forget: Tassoni got possessed by Komar, and Telari zapped him with his tazer to harvest his organs. Glad that I didn't get Boardy-Clawed by Michael's Vid Cruiser (to at least do what I could about that, I chose to flood it with Theta Radiation when I had the chance). Another fun fact: MvB and I both went for the DS9 Probs and the Bitter Medicine (clowny) Achvs! Coincidence? When Michael was at 55 points, I found out I hadn't stocked 'In The Zone' to whack him around the head with those 5 excess points; but I could bring out You Are Monumental, so that it took a bit longer for him to win. That got me some time to break out another First Contact booster! And assimilate Tom McClure. (For 2 points! I'll have you know.) It was a good investment that I had practiced with that, and I actually found out how to share my screen in time to show 'the pulling' to Ninja. In the mean time, he steadily hacked his way through my 'clownish' dilemmas. I realized too late (rather, MvB told me) that Temporal Vortex has an AU icon; and while I had tried to prep my turns as best as I could (try that while using my brain) -- and I even had a Data Keep Dealing on hand to rig my probe -- I had played Lobes Of Borg (i.e., Brunt) because I thought I could... however, I needed to travel into the past in order to destroy any chance of the Phoenix ever achieving orbit. And while I could actually DL Temp Vortex (with the appropriate Temporal drone, 12/96), it is an AU card, as mentioned; and I had played my single AU card for that turn (Brunt) with STP. So that whole scheme of mine was delayed for yet one turn (I think I previously delayed it because I still had to break out a Vinculum or something else silly?) -- in which MvB won his 140 points. But on the bright side: Data Of Borg got to be on table this time (and although He Made An Excellent Drone to make room for some Greed skill, he did help with setting up Assi Homeworld!); and I drew into -- and fielded -- the Big Black E'prise-E; I got to at least get the whole Stop Contact rig rolling for a bit; and while I neglected to snarl, "Borg! F! C! A!", Combs got to make an appearance to earn his keep in they day's Ach-hunting. The only sad thing was, I never got to flip 9-Giga-All-Swedish-Population. Closing Thoughts I thought this would be a hack-and-slash fest between two titans, with me in the middle. (I think I mentioned 'feeling sandwiched' in the event chat, LOL.) So, thinking Carter and Van Breemen would bring their worst OP broken Open concoctions, I didn't expect the games to be as much fun as they turned out to be... For either they 'played nice' when they saw I brought a sluggish Borg juggernaught to bear (and my own characteristic clumsiness to go with it, har har har!); and/or, they took out nice, fun decks? I'm not sure what happened, but at least I had 2 very nice (and somewhat* educational) games! (*: At times, for me, it's hard to actually learn while also trying to plan my turns and just trying to keep up with hat's going on.) As for my personal goals, I achieved a bit less of them than dreamed or hoped for; but a lot more of them than I had actually feared. So that was a moderate -- and rather unexpected -- success. In the end, I'm glad I stuck with my principles and didn't pull out of this gig. I thought of it many times during the frantic deck building episodes leading up to this weekend of six (6)(!) games, but I didn't want to leave the other two participants dangling, and also (as said), I did very much want to experience an Open tourney -- if only once. It was a good choice and there were laughs, booster opening, and limited (auto-)assimilation involved. So. Good call! Thanks for playing, and for not using 'Open' as an excuse (that it actually is!? LOL!) for bringing terrible NPE decks. A good investment, and a nice Saturday spent on the 'line. Oh, and also, it got me 'WNOHGB' (sort-of my third, actually); and only rightly so, of course -- because 'Only I Could Do That'.