Lucas Thompson (edgeofhearing) Tournament Report - 1E 2014-03-05 - 05:00 PM Ari There Yet? Introduction Well, I tried to convince Matt to add some other starters or altered starters or more boosters or something to this tournament, but failed. Thus, we had 4 very similar Cardassian decks, and Matt's DS9 deck. Still, was actually surprisingly fun - I'm not likely to see a 7 mission spaceline again for a long time. Round 1 Glenn B FW (+40) Unfortunately for Glenn, he'd picked an unreachable Delta Quadrant mission by mistake. I offered him the chance to replace it, but he opted to wait to adjust his deck between rounds. As a result, I had three unduplicated missions worth 105 points, while his (attainable) unduplicated missions were only worth 60 total. I opted to put my tougher combos under the shared missions (since he was seeding them too), figuring that forcing him into 4 missions would buy me the time I needed. It worked; neither of us solved a shared mission, but I got all the points I needed from mine. Round 2 April Pinnick FW (+70) April had a very, very similar deck. We duplicated 5 missions, but I'd pulled Characterize Neutrino Emissions and was using that instead of Protect the Escapees (despite having only 2 Astrophysics and Oran) just to avoid duplication. CNE had her Dead End though (and I Dead Ended her solo mission), but I managed a couple of steals from missions she'd partially cleared. She stole a mission from me in the same way later, but I wrapped up the game by faceplanting into a planet on the far end of the spaceline that she was too far away to sweep in and solve. Other notes: This is the second game that I held Amaros in my hand the whole time to avoid making Dukat a monster. Round 3 Matthew Zinno FW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Matt and I only duplicated two missions! We buried both of them with dilemmas, and never touched them again - they were right in the middle of the AQ, so neither of us was brave enough to take a first stab. I'd included Central Command in case of a DS9 player using Cardassia as an attemptable mission (it was a misseed bluff otherwise), and getting to use it here meant that I was able to make up for the flexibility that Matt pulling the Harvester Virus incident game him. While Matt opted for a more cautious red-shirting approach, I sent wave after wave of expendable cardassians into his meat-grinder dilemmas. Soon, I had 3 empty, unsolved mission (one I did not have the skills for anymore, one had Dead End, and one had Friendly Fire). Since I would eventually be able to solve those, I decided to wait it out rather than risk my personnel on my remaining missions. Since Matt was off to a slower start, my gambit paid off and I solved 3 missions in two turns to win. Lucas cleared several missions early -- Bajor was ready except for mission skills, and another mission was left with a Dead End. I send many redshirt attempts against Bajor, right next to my outpost -- and kept running short of OFFICERs (needed for a Punishment Box) and Bajorans (needed to attempt, and also to staff the ships until I got the Orinoco out). My Bajoran lack was even so bad at one point that I burned my ASP to get one for staffing -- just because I wanted to avoid leaving my ship at Cardassia, where Lucas had a Central Command and could in theory Call for Reinforcements and shoot me. I eventually solved it (during which Lucas pushed through at Chintoka and failed a Friendly Fire, even after getting at least 6 people past Chandra, then decided to wait it out). I next worked on Argolis (8 span from my OP), and with two ships to attempt, it fell in just a few turns. Lucas solved Chintoka, and announced that he could win next turn (through finally solving Bajor, at which point the Dead End became moot and he'd solve that mission). I had time to try one last mission -- but nothing would have worked. On one side was a shared mission which started with my New Essentialists I couldn't pass (Jaro had already succumbed to Lucas' Forsaken), and on the other was Eliminate Virus which (I had poked at it earlier) started with Back Room Dealings, only passable by stopping Sharat who had a required mission skill. So I couldn't win before Lucas did.