Mathew McCalpin (Professor Scott) Tournament Report - 1E - The Neutral Zone Regional 2020-04-03 - 12:00 AM This Is The Way Introduction I brought my latest iteration of Latok's UACC Fed Cadet/Group Therapy deck. Round 1 Bye BY (0) This game regrettably did not take place. Round 2 Jon Carter FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report All Hail, the Romulan Star Empire. I simply could not keep up with his report engines and I was out-classed, and out-gassed in short order. I just spewed out guys and solved really fast. That made it more or less a run away Round 3 Brian S MW (+35)View opponent's ReportView original Report A brutal game against the battle ready Klingons. Despite some tremendous loses and a couple of report with crew drops, I was able to complete a mission for a MW. Matthew played Feds with Group Therapy and Cadets. My deck was drawing all the wrong cards. Hardly any universals. Couldn’t get the time travel mechanism out. He went to attempt a mission on the far end with the Valiant. Dilemmas stopped and damaged the ship, which emptied it of all personnel. On my turn, I T’Ong dropped to it and blew it up. He then brought out the Defiant and quickly solved that mission. I left the T’Ong there to keep him distracted. Eventually STP dropped another ship with a numerous crew of Klingons to attack his folks down on that planet. Forced him to abandon the planet and Duck Blind. I went to attempt with a piddly crew on my end, but got stopped cold. Last turn, he tried another mission, but got stopped. Final score was 35-0(-2) ML. Round 4 Pope FL (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report Amoebas and Ambushes and Romulans, oh my! I was ill prepared for the Threats from both above and below the missions. Mathew was running Feds with Group Counseling and a seeded Valiant for shuttlepod drops. He, as always, was to be able to draw heaps of cards. Unfortunately for him, the end of the spaceline with his dual-mission and Starbase 247 had one mission between where his seeded valiant was... and it was Explore Typhon Expanse II. So I felt that the Romulans should not permit Valiant to make it to base and sent a warbird to tussle with him on T1, and prevented it from ever reaching the (relative) safety of the outpost. This wasn't a great matchup for his deck, as I was able to draw a bunch of ships, to the point that mid-game I blew up his Enterprise-D whilst docked (in a direct hit) to keep him from leaving his outpost, and had sufficient weapons to damage the outpost itself, and though he slapped ablative armor on it after I'd done so, I was able to muster enough weapons to take it out -- though by that point I opted to just focus on missions, as his ship reports of shuttles to the outpost were gobbled up upon undocking by ambushes by the 2 warbirds I'd parked there to remind him that the spaceline belongs to the Romulan Star Empire -- yes, even Earth. Anyway, I thought Access Archives would draw the dead end, but he cunningly put it on covert installation, much to my annoyance. Happily, I'd been able to score a fair # of points from blowing up various space monsters -- even venturing down to his Diplomatic conference to trip my own sheliak to blow it up for some points. So I feigned having run out of ambushes and didn't prevent him from attempting his mission where his outpost was, since I knew space amoeba was first up and he'd not pass the armus: energy field thereafter. That way I could take out the amoeba, and with that and a 2nd one as well as Sheliak and a spaceborne entity I was over the 50 needed to pass his dead end, and solve Covert Installation for 50 (Chess game + specialists). Anyway, after that it was just massing a crew to solve any space mission to get the 2nd mission for the win. Closing Thoughts Despite some great drawing mechanics, it still seems to play to slow for the current meta, but that may be due more to PEBKAC than anything else. *(Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair)