Nathan Miracle (GooeyChewie) Tournament Report - 2E - American National 2016-10-22 - 05:00 PM Oo-De-Lally Introduction Nationals! Bring your best deck, right? Nope! Instead I threw together a Terok Nor Dissident deck the day before the event, cut it out in the wee hours of the morning and hoped for the best. I figured the mill factor would disrupt a lot of opponents, especially thin DS9 speed decks and Cardassians who already run through their decks quickly. Round 1 Ross Fertel FW (+5) Ross' Klingons jumped out to an early lead, completing System J-25 quickly, followed by Hunt Alien and Investigate Unknown Element. Fortunately, he miscalculated points and ended up at 95. Necessary Execution killed Jean-Luc Picard at Investigate Unknown Element, depriving Ross of the Law needed for Seek Savior. While he was ahead with 95 points, my Dissidents had also locked him out! I played Tacking Into the Wind to shuffle personnel and ships back into my own deck to extend the game and give my Dissident time to complete Kelvas V, Survey New World and Rigel X for the win. Round 2 Phil Schrader FW (+10) I expected to see at least one DS9 Common speed deck, and Phil met that expectation. Jake and Morn discarded Phil's Xhosa early, forcing him to play Tacking Into the Wind to cycle it back into the deck. Even after the Tacking, Phil's deck emptied quickly. I had a completed Kelvas V and he had a completed Investigate Destruction when I counted six cards left in my draw deck. We both knew Phil had to complete a mission on his turn or lose the game to a double deck-out. He played Kira Nerys, whom I killed with Flaw in the Plan, and attempted Protect the Escapees twice. On the second attempt I drew Pest Control with 2 to spend, stopping him long enough for me to draw out my own deck and get a full win 40-30. Round 3 John Corbett FW (+45) John brought a relatively large deck and already planned to kill a lot of his own personnel at Wolf 359. He started his first mission attempt on turn 2, but with only six personnel aboard the U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Personal Flagship, including Guinan, I knew staffing could prove a problem. The Weak Will Perish hit a staff icon, causing the destaff, which slowed John down a good bit. After rebuilding, he attempted Sha Ka Ree with 10 personnel. Mark of Gideon + The Dreamer and the Dream + Necessary Execution put a damper on his day. The following turn, John stopped me with a massive Back to Basics, eliminating any hope of me decking him but also removing all his ships from the discard pile. Pest Control discarded Reginald Barclay from the top of John's deck, also depriving him of a way to put a ship in his discard pile. He declined to attempt Sha Ka Ree that turn, opting to overdraw and discard a ship. The wasted turn gave me an opening to complete my three missions for a full win. Round 4 Michael Shea FW (+65) I actually considered copying a version of Michael's Cardassians for this tournament, which included a potent capture strategy. Fortunately Michael chose to focus more on card draws and extra counters and Jake and Morn avoided the brig. Even better, Tain and Seska did a decent bit of work for me in terms of thinning out Michael's deck. He also failed two Pest Controls and a Mugato, so combined with Morn he lost four cards a turn even before Jake's discards. In short order he did not even have enough cards to play The Central Command. Had I not completed my missions quickly, I could probably have forced the double deck-out with relative ease. Round 5 Maggie Geppert FW (+40) For the first time in five rounds, I did not get Jake on turn 1, and that's a good thing. Maggie's Bajorans actually preferred having cards in the discard pile, so I avoided a good bit of my discard shenanigans this game. I even saved Kelvas V for last so its text would not help out Maggie. Two key dilemma misses helped me outrace the Bajorans. First, at Rigel X, Dead Weight failed to stop a single personnel in a nine-personnel attempt. (I checked later, and only Davin, Rom and would get stopped there by Dead Weight, and only Davin at Kelvas V.) Then, in my final attempt at Kelvas V Maggie used Ardent Predator unaware that I held Common Enemy in my hand, allowing T'Pau and Tora Ziyal (already boosted by Leeta) to bypass the dilemma and complete the mission for a full win. Round 6 Scott Baughman FL (-100) By the final round, we had already calculated that I would win the tournament, but I never want to give up a game. Despite having 60 cards in his draw deck, a combination of Jake and Morn and Scott's own downloading cut his deck in half in the first few turns. The Dissidents even discarded a couple copies of Revised Chakotay, so I figured my dilemmas would function properly. I thought for a moment I might actually pull out off a double deck-out, but Scott hit me with a gigantic Back to Basics. In hindsight, I should have known he had that dilemma in his deck because he was discarding a lot of Holograms. Scott then downloaded Revised Chakotay with Holodeck Arch. Between the Chuckles Brothers preventing stops and kills and Lore taking out Mugato and Pest Control almost single-handed, my dilemmas could not hold off Scott long enough for my Dissidents to complete my missions. Closing Thoughts I knew I could catch people by surprise with Terok Nor Dissidents, and I figured I would have some good match-ups. But I have to admit I never expected to win five straight rounds. Most of my wins were close calls, in which my opponents made key mistakes or could have won on the next turn. Still, I'm glad I could claim victory with something unusual.