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J (The Mad Vulcan)
Tournament Report - 1E Sealed - Online Event
2011-02-19 - 12:00 PM
FederationKazonVidiian005
Introduction
My deck was built with a focus on getting past the Voyager Expansion dilemmas with the fewest number of people. Quality over quantity if you will. I chose strong and intelligent personnel with great skill selection in order to make my two card plays per turn really worth their cost as I was not going to be getting many free plays. I had drafted a Vidiian Sodality (but few Med Vidiians and I suspected that many decks would be better at overall speed)and a Kazon Collective (though my only Maje was leader of a non-existent group), but not Home Away from Home. I assumed that many people would either be running the weak Federation or very weak Vidiian affiliation personnel to take advantage of free plays and chose dilemmas that would obliterate those groups. I also ran two copies of The Phage in order to pick off key Vidiians. It didn't help my decision that a few players flat out told me that they were going to run the Sodality for quick Vidiians (though I didn't end up playing those opponents). Throughout the tournament, I considered adding the one Vidiian that could get me a free lower decks but was reluctant to taint my non-Vidiian deck and never did use him. I did run the dudes that got me a free Kazon BFG and a free Engineer Tricorder. The latter is incredibly useful against Voyager Dilemmas. I now consider there to be three cards that I will almost certainly put into my deck if they are drafted: Mutation, Nanoprobe Resuscitation, and Home Away from Home. The latter is by far the best free report engine in the set, though I didn't get one and it necessitates that the player also drafts a Voyager, Intrepid, or Equinox. The other two get the player any card back from their discard pile pre-regenerate(or post regenerate). Nanoprobe brings that card directly to hand for an instant re-report and Mutation basically does the same thing as by the time it is played the deck is so thin that those card shuffled back into it are almost certain to be redrawn immediately.
Round 1Steve DavidsonFW (+30)
This was actually my first game in the Warp Speed format, so I was surprised at how well it went. For the most part, things played out as I expected them to. Steve and I played it similarly with a planet mission in position 1 and space missions in positions 2 and 3. We also predictably attempted our missions in order of proximity to our respective Facilities. Bashir had a bit of a speed advantage on me as he seeded a copy of The Vidiian Sodality thereby allowing him to play 3 cards per turn to my 2. I did feel that my deck was more focused, though, and made good use of minimal personnel. Our dilemma combos at the planet mission were also almost identical and did little more than slow down the completion of the mission. Steve attempted the planet mission a turn before me and completed it a turn before me as well. He then sprinted to his nearest space mission but was stopped by a lack of Stellar Chartography. On my subsequent turn, I completed my planet mission and continued on to my closest space mission, where I was stopped hard by a Radioactive Garbage Scow. Luckily, I had the U.S.S. Equinox with range boost from resident Engineer Marla Gilmore and moved the Scow over to Steve's space mission. On his next turn, Steve reported a Stellar Chartography Vidiian and flew back to his space mission. This would have been enough to give him a win had the Scow not been in his way. As his ship had used a lot of range to get to the mission, the best he could do was to move the scow back to my mission. I had an interesting option which could decide the game. I could continue the 'move the scow back and forth' war and then continue on to the space mission that I had yet to attempt. Or I could move the scow to his 2nd space mission and return to the space mission that I had been attempting. I did not, however, have the range to redrop the scow on his mission and continue with my primary space mission. I decided to go with the space mission that I had been attempting as I had duplicates of all the required skills to complete it and was thereby less likely to be skill drained by a dilemma that picks someone off. I also felt secure in the skill set that I had in that I should be able to walk most available dilemmas. That proved to be true and I walked through the final two dilemmas for the win. Barely, as Steve had everything that he needed to win and was only put out by his own scow. Between my first and second games I swapped out two cards in my deck. The last two cards that I had cut during my deckbuild were two copies of The Phage. I had assumed that many players would take advantage of a Vidiian Sodality for a speed advantage or would at least be running a Vidiian, but I was concerned that the card would be dead weight in a game against an opponent without Vidiians (like my deck). After having played a game of Warp Speed, I realized that there really wasn't any dead weight as you draw and play easily. I also noted that a copy of the phage to kill off Bashir's Vidiian Stellar Chartography personnel would have certainly won me the game, as opposed to getting lucky on a Garbage Scow for the win. Also of note, my primary dilemma combo in Space relies on Stellar Charting while most personnel with that skill in this format are Vidiians.
Round 2Tim DavidsonML (-10)
Like his brother, Tim had a planet mission in position 1 and space missions in positions 2 and 3. It was apparent, though, that he was using a strategy that I had not considered. The mission that Tim had in Position 3 had a whopping span of 5, meaning that many of his opponent's would have a hard time getting out to their other missions. He was also running an obvious battle strategy. Obvious in that he spent the early turns playing, staffing, and flying ships out to his 3rd mission where they seemed to be holding a class reunion (in space!). I was rather curious about how this would go, but decided to do my normal 3 turn build up and attempt of my planet mission. My deck had done well in playtests at getting the necessary skills to bypass most planet dilemmas in that timeframe, I did not have the skills for the mission out on the third turn but decided not to wait and see what Tim was planning and went for the mission attempt in order to get dilemmas out of the way. The first dilemma was a Lack of Preparation, stopping my team and costing me 10 points. I hadn't really considered this dilemma to be an issue during my planning/deckbuilding of the tournament as points do not win games in this format. However, those ten points would decide this game. On my next turn, I played the missing skills to get by LoP, though the dilemma is also good in that it forced me to red Shirt personnel that I would not normally send on a suicidal Planet attempt; namely females who were picked off due to lack of strength. Since my deck is heavy in the physically strong Kazon rather than the ailing Vidiians, dilemmas like Flash Plasma Storm and Kazon Bomb have no effect on my standard planet dilemma clearing team. A good lead in like Lack of Preparation forces me to bring weaker personnel to be hit by these. I was still able to readily complete the mission. Next I made a rather unfortunate mistake. I decided to play into speed as an asset since Tim was wasting resources on ships. I played my copies of Nanoprobe Resuscitation and Mutation to return one of my three dead crewmen to hand (Marla) and put the other two back into my thin draw deck. This allowed me to regain all the lost skills on the fly, but in retrospect those card would have been much better served in regaining destroyed ships or even my outpost (which had a short life span as well). By this point, Tim had enough firepower to eliminate any ship that ventured away from my Outpost immediately. So I had two options; I could put everyone on my Intrepid and hope for enough skills to walk through all dilemmas for a one turn win (which is what my deck usually does at this point as it has a very solid skill selection) or I could send a very minimal crew out to red shirt the mission and then follow that up with the real crew once I had recycled my deck and regained the U.S.S. Equinox. I decided to split the difference and sent a hearty crew out while leaving enough personnel to complete the mission at home. Due to Tim's strategy, the absolute best dilemma to seed first at my 2nd position mission was certainly Radioactive Garbage Scow. The range required to get there would be limiting such that many ships would not be able to even make it in a single turn. My Marla enhanced Equinox or Stadi Enhanced Intrepid could make it, but the latter would not be able to move the scow on the same turn. Had Tim drafted a RaGS, there was little doubt that it would be my first dilemma encountered. I quickly confirmed that he had successfully drafted a scow and he lit up my Intrepid on the subsequent turn. My deck was spent, so I recycled my dilemma pile with two ships into the deck. Now it was a race to draw those cards as Tim dug into my Nekrit Depot. In two turns he had successfully eliminated my ability to report cards and I had only just drawn a ship. The final turns saw Tim attempt to get through the dilemmas that I had seeded. Since his deck was so focused on battle, he lacked many necessary skills and The Phage x 2 eliminated any other skills that he may have had. He completed his position 3 mission which only had a single (fake-out) dilemma under it. But he was shut down at both of the other missions. At position 2 because I used a copy of The Phage to eliminate his Stellar Chartography Vidiian and at the planet because I used a copy of the Phage to nick a Security Vidiian and allow my Kazon Bomb to clean house. The final then was each of us with a single completed 30 point mission. The score, though, was 30-25 as Lack of Preparation had knocked me down.
Round 3Andreas LimmerFL (-20)
Andreas had a real solid build which utilized The Kazon Collective to get an extra play every once in a while. He managed to draft two Majes, of which he seeded the Pommar one in order to increase the number of free plays. Since his deck was a strong Kazon one rather than a wimpy Vidiian one, he made quick work of my dilemmas all the while out speeding me. He didn't blink at Crisis, as he knew of its existence and planned his attempt accordingly, and was only stopped shortly for Matriarchal Society. This game would have been a complete blowout if not for my Navigational Hazards + The Phage. I held the game out a few turns, thereby giving me the brief hope of a win, while Andreas drew into his deck looking for a non-Vidiian charter. He had, of course, stocked one as he knew of this trick and once he drew it the game was over. This game was a bit odd on the draw. My deck is heavy in Security and has Engineering Tricorder to skate past Kazon Bomb. I like to set up 3X Security and the Tricorder (downloaded) before attempting any missions. Oddly, I drew only a single security in the first 4 turns. Since Andreas was running such a fast deck, I felt that I should do something and went to space first (again abnormal) forgetting that Kazon Bomb is dual. Andreas' copy of Kazon Bomb eliminated all of the Feds and NA on my Equinox leaving it destaffed and stranded. This was actually to my benefit as it forced me to build a real attempt before going back out. On my last turn, I had no missions complete yet. A single dilemma remaining under space and an untouched planet. I had a choice of playing the personnel with the skills needed to complete the planet mission or personnel with skills that would avoid any particularly nasty dilemmas in space. I chose the latter figuring that I could ensure getting by all dilemmas this turn and then lay out the requirements for the planet mission the following turn (which never came). This was the safer bet and I did run through all dilemmas leaving a completed space and a cleared planet.
Round 4VidiianMarkFW (+25)View opponent's Report
Oppositely to Andreas, Mark's deck was the type that I had specifically teched against. He was running Vidiians and The Vidiian Sodality for a few free bonus plays. He didn't happen to draft many Medical Vidiians , only a couple Med related equipment, and no Vidiian Outpost. So he stocked the Sodality in his deck instead of seeding it. Actually, Mark's deck was unique in that it seeded 9 dilemmas and only one non-dilemma (the outpost). This meant that he had 3 dilemmas under each mission and they were all good ones. What worked against Mark was that he did not draw the Sodality and was instead stuck with 2 card plays per turn like me. That and his plays were the weaker Vidiians (although Medical is a great skill to have in normal Trek, the Voyager dilemmas have little need for it). One play that mark had that was awesome in its genius was seeding Twisted first at my closest space mission. I only had a single personnel in a seven man away team who qualified as having >7 cunning and briefly considered moving on to the farther space mission. This was, of course, Mark's plan as he seeded his most powerful dilemmas at the farthest mission (counter-intuitively) and had successfully forced many opponent's out to their doom. Instead, I played a Lower Decks thereby pushing my three nobody Kazon over the threshold and reattempted the mission. The follow-up dilemma (a Hazardous Duty + Kazon Bomb I believe) only took out a couple of my weaker personnel (-5 points) and the remaining people still had the skills to complete the mission. Interestingly, it was Cavit who gave me that mission completion even though I had long considered him to be the weakest personnel in my deck. I only included him to give extra Anthropology against the Rare Voyager space dilemmas. One thing that I might regret in this game was not making it 60 to 0. Mark had been working his way through the planet dilemmas since about turn 4. He had walked through Crisis with a well planned first attempting crew but was really thinned by Kazon Bomb due to the Vidiian's low strength (even though he had 3X Security). Once he had collected up a new crew and attained the 2X females to slip past Matriarchal Society he was good to go for the mission completion but I had a single copy of The Phage in hand that I wanted to get rid of. He had just two Vidiians in play, both in the attempt. One had stellar Chartography and the other had Physics for the mission. Had I chosen the Physics, Mark would have been unable to complete the mission. But since I was uncertain how many other Physics he had in play, I decided to play it safe and eliminate his only Stellar Charter (I had been counting the Charters) to ensure that he didn't also get the space mission this turn. That move ensured that I would win on my next turn and was likely the right one, but the opposite would have worked better even if it was more risky. In order to complete my last planet mission, I needed another Computer Skill and a Non-aligned personnel (required to even attempt). Mark had killed my Marla Gilmore (with both requirements) on the previous turn thereby prematurely ending my mission attempt (no NA remaining). I had another Non-aligned personnel in my hand so I mutated two Computer Skill personnel back into my 4 card deck (Marla and Janeway). This move cause me to draw 2 Computer Skill personnel thereby giving me lots of choices for my final turn card plays.