Scott Baughman (Neelix) Tournament Report - 1E 2015-03-21 - 04:00 PM Dominion for block Introduction Our final event for the 2014-2015 league season. And whew! What a tough season it was with regard to logistics and getting all of our games played. I can't say I'm sad to see this season end. But this was the first tournament for one of our new players - Richard Crandall! A big welcome to "golden flamingo" and I hope to see him at many more events! Round 1 Mikey Camp JR FW (+65) Mikey was playing a Romulan deck borrowed from his brother so he wasn't super familiar with the play engine. My newly minted Dominion deck, though, worked like a champ. Although, I noticed that the span on my missions was pretty danged high while the range on my ships wasn't so great. I think I'll add something to this deck later to try and overcome that. Mike made a critical error in the seed phase when he assumed I wouldn't be able to attempt Stage Bombardment (The Founder Homeworld) and decided to seed no dilemmas underneath it. Thanks to my own seeding of HQ: Secure Homeworld I was able to solve it really quick. Round 2 Mike Camp Sr FW (+25) Mike's Klingon build hasn't changed much recently and my dilemma combos proved too much for Duras and company. He failed Dignitaries and Witnesses a at two different missions and that was enough of a stall for me to get past his combos at other missions. Round 3 Nathan Miracle FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report Nathan's Cardassian deck was good about being able to download personnel needed to clear my dilemmas, he just had some range/ship related problems. Also, I knew to seed Dead End at his homeworld and he spent several turns chewing through dilemmas there only to be stopped by Dead End. Seeding a Radioactive Garbage Scow at a space mission near his HQ also hurt him a bit. For my part, I ran into a few situations where I was unable to gather all of my free plays efficiently after my Dosi Trading Post got seeded two missions away from The Great Link. I found myself struggling to staff ships at one point and the high span of my missions didn't help. The game was won by Dominion Hierarchy, though. Getting a needed skill added to one of my Vorta without having to go back to a facility to pick up personnel is great. The +2 attributes from DH helped this game, too, as I faced a Chula The Dice and was able to pass it the next turn thanks to a DH. I used the same copy of DH to give Kilana Leadership allowing me to solve the mission with The Dice, fly to another mission where I had previously failed a copy of Dignitaries and Witnesses and pass it thanks to Kilana's 3rd (temporary) Leadership. Not only did Scott and I duplicate no missions, we had no missions in the same quadrant. My Cardassians were able to Process Ore in peace and I had reporting locations at all three of the missions I intended to complete, with all three missions adjacent to each other. Scott's dilemmas seemed more effective than either of my previous opponent's dilemmas, and it took me a few turns to dig down to the Dead End on Cardassia. The spoonheads moved over to Bajor, and everything looked pretty good when one of my dilemmas captured the Dominion's Odo. Dominion Hierarchy blew the game wide open, though, as Scott was able to boost one personnel's attributes to get past Chula: The Dice AND give that personnel Leadership to get past Dignitaries and Witnesses, resulting in two completed missions in one turn. Despite Scott's prediction that he would never be able to complete a space mission, he tore through the next set of dilemmas like they were wet tissue paper, shutting me out the turn before I would be able to complete my first mission. Closing Thoughts The Dominion is no joke in block, and a solid contender thanks to the play phase card draw granted by Reward from the Founders. I just wish I had one more Vorta to incorporate, but perhaps more will come later. Dominion Hierarchy is a force to be reckoned with and setting one up on a Founder to let future copies of DH play for free seems like a solid play. Here's to a great league in 205-2016!