Scott Baughman (Neelix) Tournament Report - 2E 2012-09-02 - 01:00 PM Ferengi V-starter v 1.4.2 Introduction A virtual starter deck tournament was a new concept for me. I decided this deck needed some more ships and some commodities, so I included those in my 11 card virtual booster. When it came time to buy booster packs at DragonCon I decided to purchase one WYLB pack and one Strange New Worlds to try and get some cool Ferengi stuff. Round 1 Steve Kinney FW (+80) Steve is returning to the game and decided to play a virtual TOS deck. Now, I know these virtual starters are supposed to make the game easy to print and play, but Steve's deck seemed a bit...complicated. He struggled to understand how some of the cards were supposed to be played and the combination of upgrade abilities with downgrade abilities (on the TMP versions of Kirk et al.) was not exactly optimal. In the end, Steve was able to attempt some missions but I was able to get more. Round 2 Ryan Sutton FL (-40) Ah Ryan, who constantly talks about how he's not that good at 2E. We had another great game, but this one wasn't nearly as close as our other matches throughout DragonCon. My Ferengi were doing quite well with a Oo-mox online and attempting a Feldomite Rush. But then, I encountered the card that would be my bane in this event - Insurrection! Ryan never gets to claim he's not good at 2E anymore, he made a super-great meta choice by including that dilemma in his virtual pack. I didn't include any dilemmas in my virtual pack and almost ran out of dilemmas against Ryan but he finally solved and got enough points to win. Round 3 USS Smiley FL (-40) Mike was back after a long absence from 2E tournament play and it was great to see him! He was in fine form, mini-teaming his attempts with a Scout Vessel and a Romulan Warbird which he hilariously called the "Romulan Party Ship" since it got such a great boost from Command Star Romulan Personnel. He, too, hammered me with Insurrection at Feldomite Rush, but after a couple turns of set up I got both an Oo-mox bonus and had Tulaberry Wine in his core giving my Acquisition personnel +2 cunning. We finally solved Feldomite but I was once again almost out of dilemmas so Mike cruised to the win. Closing Thoughts The Virtual Starter format was interesting, but I'm not sure it is very balanced. I would be amiable to trying it again, but I doubt I will pick Ferengi or any of the other affiliations who had no "original Decipher-produced starter deck" and only have the virtual starter.