Suden Käpälä (SudenKapala) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event 2021-04-06 - 12:00 AM No Captives For Danar While Dukat Takes Aldara Out For A Spin And Cuts Down On Coffee (3v12) Introduction I, too, had originally wanted to run a Maquis deck, to try them out; my first idea when reading about this event was that it would be great to go Ach-hunting for that faction's Player Achievement. But after digging up the deck lists for the base decks in this event (see my associated deck notes), I found out that the 'Maquis Player' Ach requires a number of cards that are not in the deck (nor in the possible draft pool)! In all probability, they didn't exist yet when this part of the block was made? So next, (during the two draft efforts for the original Emissary event, 11730) I resolved to earn the Dominion Player achv with this gig -- see the future notes for 56d ("deck 56"), and/or the accompanying After Action Report (for the 11744 DoW Release Event). Yet my eventual card pool for the turned-sealed gig (11740, this one) proved much more feasible for CAR than for DOM; My deck (which retained number "53d") got to have a Nor and 3 sites -- and the Nor rules had just changed before the event, to allow for beaming! (My 'preliminary research' into a DOM Emissary deck, I subsequently tranfered -- as the above-mentioned, re-purposed "56d" -- to the DoW RE, 11744). Glad I didn't get to play MAQ, in the end. Enough of that going around, as it was! LOL. Round 1 Maggie Geppert FL (-60) g246 (210409): Jadzia 'Maggie8' Dax. A thematic match-up -- which only later, I found to be very logical. (Duh! It's not a block event for nothing, of course!) Anyway, it was fun -- my spoonheads against her Maquis. She actually drew They Call Themselves Thusly! Something which I had been hoping for (for the Achvs), myself (see above/"56d"/11744 notes). So it was nice seeing it from across the 'line. (Twice, even, as we're about to see. LOL!) If I could've remembered more, naturally(!?) I'd have written a much longer AAR. But alas, I don't always have the freedom to immediately jot down a jumble of notes, after a game... Meh. Round 2 Tim Gerrard FW (+30) g252 (21.04.19): Tim played MAQ, and brought out a CAR/ROM Enabran Tain with TuWH (Temporal Micro Wormhole). (I realised only during the games, that this was actually part of the reason that that card was in the starter decks!) And I realise only now, that I could've added a nice 'off-colour' personnel to my deck between rounds, because this is not a constructed event! Aarrgghh! Anyway. Nice game! And an even nicer chat afterwards, we both seemed to have enough time to really get a conversation going about our card collections, experiences with OP and 2E (for Tim) and 1E, and random other stuff. That was great. Also: I won! That was a while ago, really. And it seemed to come fairly easy. I think I just was lucky on the personnel I drew, and the other in which that happened. Also, I didn't make any grand mistakes. I think Grandar also didn't play badly, but (to me?) his personnel just seemed a bit more mediocre -- and since I assume these decks are designed as to be well-balanced, this means that he just got out (or drew) the wrong personnel for the dilemmas he happened to trigger. I mean, he did get out Tom Riker (whom I was able to send a Common Thief to assassinate) and Jadzia. Those are great. But only 2 other officers thus far, and I was able to have the Thief kill Tom to twart Tim's attempt with Maglock. Otherwise, he might have won...? He analysed that, but I kind of forgot during the whole friendly chat that followed the game. Round 3 Paddy Tye FL (-100) g253 (21.04.20): Lost this game even before the spaceline was finished. I made a bad choice not inserting Legend Journey near my own missions; but in my defense, it wasn't so far away at that point. However, I should've seen the other high-span Badlands missions coming (i.e., coming in-between). Also, I chose my self-seed again to be Arms Deal. It had helped me when I self-encountered it against Tim, but naturally it was a very bad call against Maquis. Now if i hadn't blown up my own game before turn 1, I might've had more fun salvaging what I could. Still, I hope I kept the cheer in for Padd (who played MAQ also). At one point, e.g., I felt the most satisfying thing I could do was play Ari for free (he's a nice, honourable guy), buy him a Raktajino with my NCP, and let him just sit at my Outpost and enjoy that cuppa coffee for the rest of the turn. (Being able to write that in my AAR makes me feel better about it.) So the whole game was essentially looking at Paddy reap the fruits of his early strategical insight (on his turn) and staring blankly at the 'line, wondering which way to go (on my turn). The guy had already tied the game while laying the spaceline, then won by seeding dilemmas asymmetrically. Didn't stop there, though. Adding insult to injury, he blew up a 10-crew ship to boot. As I wrote in the event thread: It took me a while before I realized that this match left me feel... not exactly nailed, but Nialled. LOL! Well played, sir! (But you're a bad man. A bad man, Kazon.) Round 4 Daniel Matteson ML (-25) g256 (21.05.02): No duplicated missions! At all! Really! And, I think for the first time ever, I seeded Deep Space 9 (no -- rather, Terok Nor!) at the BWH (Bajoran Wormhole)! (And again, didn't really use it. And Daniel seeded 2 add'l sites there (Why not? They're free"), which was the first time I saw that happen -- both players having sites at one Nor. Had never yet seen Hoya (I think) nor Paulson, whom got played by the Coyote. A very nice game, relaxed. Enough traction / speed on both sides to be fun, and close enough -- i.e., little enough distance -- between our respective performances (at least from where I was sitting), that it was still fun. I like these kinds of games the most; where part of me can sit back, look around, and enjoy the RPG aspect. Perhaps I did it too much? Because against these Bajorans, too, I lost the race. But I don't think so -- I think I played well enough. I could've gotten out a 10-cunning personnel with the Nor, perhaps -- if I even had one of those? -- for Clan People. (Nope, I didn't have one.) Instead, I wanted to solve it by having Dukat boosted by a Maquis personnel; but I had just sent Reide to hand in an attempt to slow down the Gunslinger's onslaught; and -- alas! -- Sakonna had been sent to hand before that -- which I'd forgotten, or I might've considered leaving Reide on the table. In the event forum topic, Jadzia wrote: "Apparently everyone and their cat wanted to play MAQ this time." I answered, "I know for a fact that the Gunslinger and one of his cats played exactly 2 MAQ personnel. I -- literally -- could hear devious feline purring while they refused to play more Maquis to prevent my Dukat from beefing his attributes. (See my AAR for more info.)" So, I had Dukat gobble up some of the coffee that I originally had Danar cut down on (in a previous iteration of the deck title). Having that much caffeine in his system, Coyote pointed out that Dukat saw Maquis everywhere, thus getting an adrenaline boost and having the cuning it took to outsmart the Clans(wo)men with his team. A lone Julian killed (or scared off?) a Common Thief (but Jules got killed right thereafter by backroom-dealing Duras sisters. In the end, I had Verified some Evidence; and Daniel ridge-noses Surveyed a Star System & Reopened some Trade Discussions. I had fun. Closing Thoughts This was a great thing. I loved the pool, the environment, how my deck turned out to play, and -- most importantly -- the games themselves. I don't think these decks are quite as awesome for me as the Coming Of Age ones -- but that's just a matter of taste/preference; and even so, they come very close anyway! I might want to run a beginners' gig with the fixed, basic decks, one day...? The only unfortunate thing was the mirror matches -- and resulting mission duplication -- that we saw in the tourney. (I was safe, myself -- except for Verify Evidence, which Padd and I both seeded.) In the future, perhaps have the same house rule as I had for my Coming Of Age party: no duplication (and, optionally, no stealing) allowed? Thanks for hosting this, Gunny. Awesome experience.