Scott Baughman (Neelix) Tournament Report - 2E 2015-07-25 - 11:00 AM Comforting Women Introduction My goal this tournament was to use a few cards I hadn't played in many years. I did that, but didn't do too well in the "Win" department. Round 1 Will Hawkins FW (+35) Hawk was playing a Bajoran deck with nuBajor and so our match up was pretty epic from the get go. I was able to capture some people early on and was riding high on a decent lead. I also had him pretty down and out from his missions by capturing key people with two Apprehended-fueled Combat sessions (COMBAT?!?!) and cunning dilemma play. I thought I was sunk when late in the game he played a Rescue Prisoners (who plays that?) and took back all his good Bajorans. Thankfully, I had built up enough of a lead to go solve my last mission for the win. Round 2 Nathan Miracle FL (-75)View opponent's ReportView original Report Nathan's deck was a lightning-fast Delta Quadrant Klingons build that uses Baht'qul challenge to go for a two mission win! It was a thing of beauty and things went downhill for me almost from the die roll this game. His first mission attempt was at a DQ space mission with five people. I drew two copies of "Rapid Progress" with an empty discard pile, two planet dilemmas and Secret Identity. I ALMOST decided to play nothing, due to the futility of it all, but threw the SI just to get a decent kill. Hilariously, Nathan had BLUFFED and lacked the Transporters he needed to solve the mission. Thanks to my SI, he was able to fish out the Transporters and solve on his first attempt. Whelp, that was great -- NOT! Later, I played a copy of Ensnared to capture Worf and whilst milling my five cards from the top of my own deck saw ALL THREE of my copies of The Central Command go into the discard pile! Oh the HUMANITY! Things just kept getting worse for me until Nathan mercifully went for three Bah't Qul Challenges in one turn to finally win the game. Ugh... Staring across the table from two 40 point missions, I knew I would need Dukat's help to win the B'aht Qul Challenges. Fortunately fate smiled on me, as I completed System J-25 on my first attempt due entirely to an ill-advised Secret Identity. Scott captured Worf with Ensnared, but in doing so managed to discard all three copies of The Central Command. Greasy Dukat hung out at Qo'noS, but even so I had to tap dance around some of Scott's high-cost discards. Once I completed System J-25 and Kelsid II, I moved on to Seek Savior as a back-up plan, but ended up winning without completing it. Round 3 Kevin Reitzel FL (-70) Kevin was playing a modified version of my The Expendables deck and while it wasn't moving as fast as my version (he took out Rigel X and a few other cards that I used for speed boosts) he was able to get the win. As a good Cardassia region player (that is, one who sees Greg "Tomalak" Hodgins on a regular basis) Kevin knows not to build a deck without at least one copy of Rescue Captives. In our game, he used it to retrieve 3 captives I'd taken early in the game and then played the upgraded U.S.S. Constellation to take the event from his discard pile and put it back on top of his deck! Now THAT'S retrieval! The wide variety of skills that the Expendables deck-type actually has stymied the effectiveness of my skill denial dilemma pile. He kept having whatever he needed, by virtue of having almost one of every skill! I did stop him once by using Harsh Conditions (THERE's a blast from the past!) to name Science and then playing Counterinsurgency Program to name Science! It had been so long since Kevin had seen that combo he asked secondary TD Nathan for a ruling about not being able to use Science despite the dilemma requiring Science, LOL! Kevin got the win after a cool play to get around Gomtuu Shockwave using Security Drills to double up on Areel Shaw's Diplomacy skill! Well done, K-dawg! Closing Thoughts I came in third but I gave myself the honorary "Meta Master" award -- I was the reason that two people ran Rescue Captives AND Kevin was essentially playing a deck heavily inspired by one of my previous decks. The games were fun, but I'm going to put Cardassians back on the shelf for a while. But not Harsh Conditions, that card is still plenty of fun!