Matt Kirk (CaptMDKirk) |
Tournament Report - 2E - Trek Masters |
2015-01-02 - 12:00 PM |
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Introduction |
I had known Masters was looming at the end of the craziest month of the year for schedules, but I never really set aside the time to vet a deck that I thought could compete at the highest levels. So I dug back in the vault to a deck from 2013 Continentals that I had admired seeing in action: Nat Kirton's speed Ferengi. The "lay the track down in front of the speeding train" goal had appealed to me when I saw Nat in action, and it felt like the right time to give it a whirl. I beefed it up slightly with some more equipment and Fajo's Menageries, along with Lineage to cycle through the now-robust 60 cards. |
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Round 1 | | Dan Hamman | FW (+65) |
This was my shakedown game, where I played it live for the first time (and not just test drawing on Lackey). Despite a couple hiccups, the deck's combo gave me a couple 21- and 22-counter turns, and I barfed out people faster than Dan's dilemmas could handle. |
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Round 2 | | Thomas Kamiura | FL (-100) |
I'm glad to say that the only player that beat me went on to win the tournament, but I was once again on the wrong end of a 1-in-8 random selection at a high-level event. My team was aboard the Kurdon attempting Acquire Illicit Explosives, and he threw Insurrection/Hard Time/Dreamer. I scoffed at his underestimation of Ferengi cunning aboard their flagship, but when I saw he had plucked Jadzia out of the group and realized it was my only Astrometrics, I knew that was the turning point of the game. He had trouble finding a ship early on, and I had been picking off his P&P/GUYS with Brunt. But I lost my hand as a result and never really recovered. I really could have used an early AGDevice for a reselection. |
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Round 3 | | Justin Ford | TT (0) |
Relativity has always given me fits, because there's not a great way to hold them back, aside from interrupt-speed event destruction to kill Temporal Transporters and NA Dukat to deny them access. So I knew I would need to get the train rolling as fast as possible. I held him off in space with a few clutch dilemmas including Occupational Hazards and Bitter Medicine. He returned in kind, tagging me with An Issue of Trust before I found Smiley Zek. We went to time, and had Justin announced his bonus on Avert Danger when he completed it, he would have edged me out. As it stood, we both ended at 65 and I was not mathematically eliminated from winning the event. |
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Round 4 | | Rogue Shindler | MW (+30) |
Rogue grumbled about playing against Ferengi for the third time that day. I assured him that mine was not the run-of-the-mill Rules-heavy Reyga machine. I started off with easily my worst hand of the day, and never really achieved much speed in this slugfest. Again, key dilemma plays on my end kept him off his early missions: I found an Ingenious Jury-rig to stop his only Medical, Yelsar and later I tagged his two Edan'Atals with He Wasn't Nice. I probably needed another turn to stomp through my last planet, but time was called. |
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Round 5 | | Richard New | FW (+70) |
A familiar adversary, I had last seen Richard at Worlds where he stomped my face with the same deck that he had laid out in front of me for the last match. I was confident of the speed Ferengi's ability to zoom past the clunkier Reyga-build, and I knew what to expect on his end. This was my most successful speed chain of the day, pooping out two teams worth of personnel early on. He was the only player I saw using Transport Crash Survivor, which kept my 4- and 5-man teams in check. I tagged his Reyga with He Wasn't Nice, at the cost of letting him complete Falsify Distress Signal. However, I felt like not letting him use the extra turn before he had stocked Ferenginar was worth it. He had trouble regrouping after that, but kept my two teams busy with Issues of Trust. And again Smiley Zek was nowhere to be found. We also went to time, but my second team managed to close out the full win on Salvage Borg Ship. |
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Closing Thoughts |
3rd place for 3-1-1 was not unexpected, but still felt a little empty after having lost on a fluke selection to TK. I'm not sure how I would have done against Nate's Niners, but I feel like I could have handled it barring any other 12% misses. I had some other great plays in the event, including double Rule 33 on Mugato for 6 Acquisition (and actually having 6 Acquisition!) and finally getting to use Obrist out of my opening hand to mulligan, resulting in a far superior hand. Thanks to Charlie for TDing! |
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