Scott Baughman (Neelix) Tournament Report - 2E - Cardassia Regional 2015-03-29 - 01:00 PM Papa Archer's Starship Introduction We had a massive field for this event, big thanks to Skrain Dukat (Michael Shea) for running it and making our drive down to ATL well worth the trip! I intended to play something wacky for this event, but in the end decided to stick with my Starfleet deck that utilizes A Sight for Sore Eyes, At What Cost? and Henry Archer to get a boost from the get go. Round 1 David Camp FW (+70) David and I play each other frequently, so it was hilarious to drive four hours to play someone in our league, LOL! David had trouble early on getting enough people into play AND he struggled to find an answer to Damaged Archer who helped me out against Hard Time and Pinned Down. He finally got a Secret Identity but it was too little, too late. Round 2 Alex Pauley FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report Alex plays Ferengi in a different way than I do - focusing on Dr. Reyga and stacking cards under Ferenginar. Unfortunately for her, I got my At What Cost?/A Sight for Sore Eyes combo off early and made good use of my 10 bonus points from Starfleet Earth to play yet ANOTHER At What Cost? Also very unfortunate for her, she attempted a planet mission first and I was able to use Necessary Execution to kill Zek and her only command star leaving her ship unstaffed and stranded. Scott ripped me apart. At one point it looked like I might get a mission, but he denied my 'Rule of Acquisition #33' interrupt with a 'Grav Plating Trap' just before finishing the annihilation. It's a good deck! And I was proud of Scott for not giving me the mission. Round 3 Greg Hodgin FL (-20) Greg is a perennial nemesis for me and while this deck does have the tools needed to beat his tried and true Whispers/Tsiokolvsky/Prejudice and Politics/Getting Under Your Skin/Ultimatum/Tragic Turn deck - he made good use of Far-seeing eyes and Ultimatum to REMOVE those tools before I could get them into play. No Self-Replicating Road Blocks for me meant I was going to have a tough time this game. Still, if not for a timely random-select death of Dr. Phlox by Unbelievable Emergency I might have been able to pull this one out. Greg said he was sweating and I can see why with a final score of 80-100. So close! Round 4 Nathan Miracle FW (+65)View opponent's ReportView original Report Nathan and I have had this showdown a few times now, and I almost always end up with a key play to come out on top. Last time we met, it was a clutch Timescape. This time around I feel the key play was when Nathan had his motley crew of Remans and Klingons in Green Clothes hanging out at a space mission with a Scout Vessel damaged by Gomtuu. He needed to get back to Romulus/Remus and get some new crew before he could solve the mission, but with a damaged Scout Vessel that wasn't going to happen. He attempted to play a copy of Christening to go download a ship, but I threw a Trelium-D at it with a Grav-Plating Trap! Stalling him out for that one more turn led to me having enough time to get my final mission solved before he could complete his space mission. Whew! I suspected Scott would bring Papa Archer, but it did not make me any happier to face the deck. The Weak Will Perish managed to actually kill three personnel, including Phlox and Jeremy Lucas. Legacy stopped Scott three turns in a row. The rest of my dilemma pile sat and cried as D'Vela dismantled it. I made a boneheaded mistake late in the game, putting together the perfect crew to complete Provoke Interstellar Incident without having to face a dilemma, since I knew what was on top with Legacy. Except the crew had no Navigation. Oops. On the bright side, it only made a difference in differential, because I was too far behind to catch up at that point. Round 5 Michael Shea FW (+100) Dukat was playing some kind of TN ship destruction deck that focused on opportunistic engagements. Again, we've done this dance before and Malcolm Reed was my all-star crewman in this game. His ability to end engagements combined with Archer's all-around usefulness meant I had a fairly easy time of it this game. Mind you, I never got my A Sight for Sore Eyes/At What Cost? combo to go off, though. Ruling Council Dukat did a great job of constantly smashing my events. I was, however, able to use the ten bonus points from Starfleet Earth to get one copy of At What Cost to function. Combined with Papa Archer's card drawing I found the cards I needed when I needed them. Closing Thoughts Someday I'm going to find a reliable way to beat those Romulans...otherwise, a great event overall and I won the door prize random drawing for a cool Spock action figure!