J (The Mad Vulcan) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event (Mission to Talos IV) 2013-03-04 - 12:00 AM Explore Alpha Quadrant Introduction I decided to play The Dominion in this tournament as it is the last affiliation fund in both 2E and 1E that I have yet to play for achievements. I had actually never played a full Dominion deck in a tournament yet (as my Dominion decks have always been shit.) I definitely teched against non-Borg decks as I felt that nobody was ballsy enough to play with only 4 Queens. We'll see how that works out. Round 1 Mark FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report My first round game was against Mark, who is always fun to play. He had a Fed/Klingon treaty deck as that is one of the few that he is missing for achievements. This meant that he had 2 HQs and I had to choose which to put my Homefront on. I chose the Klingon one, since I knew that if I were playing such a deck, I would use Klingon ships and hoped that slowing down that play engine would make it hard for him to get going. On the other hand, the Fed HQ is far less likely to come up with the obligatory 4 Security. The spaceline was a bit odd, almost perfectly split into a my side and a his side. This was because I drew mostly GQ missions while he was able to slot his AQ missions together. But Earth was on my side and no where near Kronos. Early in the game, my deck was absolutely flying. I had 2 Young Jemmies in my hand and Deyos for Defend Homeworld turned that into 3 draws per turn. I was in the AQ and building an outpost on Turn 3. While I was sitting there patting myself on the back for such a solid deck build, I realized why it worked so well. Inexplicably, I had stringently upheld the revised rules and card pool restrictions EXCEPT for Young Jem'hadar (which I had 10 of), Obedience Brings Victory (9), and Tactics; as though they were somehow immune to the rules. So I told Mark what was up and he kindly let us step back to the end of his turn 1 so that I could play with a legal deck. This time it worked completely the opposite. My deck was still huge (65 cards), but there were only 4 copies of Young Jemmie. As such, I was spending all resources on Masaka Transformations in order to cycle through my deck and find one. On real turn 1, I played a RRD to get Lower Decks but used my card play for a ship with Spacedoor in order to keep my hand big. I still grabbed Deyos with the DH, but used my seeded Q the Ref for the Obelisk and the first of the Masaka Transformations. That new hand got me another MT which bought me another new one and inevitably Deyos + Jemmies got me deep enough into the deck to find one. However, once I had set this up, my deck started sprinting again. I flew to the AQ with ship 1 and trucked it over to build a Remote Supply Depot (via Ultimatum) and snag a second Ket White in order to get Obedience Brings Victory going. Then I brought over a second staffed ship and trucked them both to my other Construct Depot, which had Establish DOminion Foothold on it. The dilemmas here were a breeze, my first attempt, I used the smaller ship with a few red shirts and they hit that one dilemma from DS9 which reduces range and can only be cured with a Science Lab. So I made a second attempt by beaming anyone or anything that I didn't want to risk (like Ket White and the Birthing Chamber) to the stopped ship and sent a big crew at the mission. I chose to redshirt Deyos here as I had done plenty of drawing at this point with my engines plus Mark's via Mirror Image. I was actually a bit more concerned with getting a Scorched Hand. So Mark chose Deyos to die with Strict Dress Code. I was a bit concerned about a Shaka, WHen the walls Fell, but the Jemmies walked through Maglock. The mission was cleared but not solved as it requires a Vorta; Deyos was dead, Gelnon was stopped in attempt one and a third Vorta was way out in the GQ. But I was able to solve the next turn easily, I split my ships and sent the one with the poor range trucking back to Remote Supply Depot. The solving team was stopped by my Mission Debriefing, but the mission was worth 30 + 10 for EDF and another 5 for a Victory is Life. I forgtot to download a second Remote SUpply Depot there, though. I had been intending to get two Outposts in the AQ in order to have access to battle wherever Mark was attempting. On the other hand, it would have been bad form to pull all of my equipment out of the deck. I retreated back to my outpost to reset the Kets and then decided to go for Betazed Invasion as it is worth an impressive 45 points while being hard to steal. This mission also had an easy combo. The Sheliak was a neat surprise, but it had to run the whole length of the AQ before hitting which would give me time to solve. The other dilemmas were strength walls, as I recall, and they just breezed by. Unfortunately, I only had one of the guns needed for the solve, so I needed to find another before the Sheliak showed up. Around now, Mark had finally built up enough of a fleet of Klingon ships to safely venture away from home. I could not have won a space battle, as I only had 2 ships to his 3, but I could possibly Invasive Beam in and Hand Battle and then Victory is Life for the necessary gun. However, that would leave my ship open up to being blown up and perhaps people stuck on his ship. Instead, I Masaka Transformationed and got the gun so I just set myself up for the solve on the next turn. Mark surprised me and kept flying past Earth and started shooting up my Remote Supply Depot. He had plenty of weapons to damage it, but his drawn Tactics didn't do much in the way of Hull Damage. I played my gun, flew to Betazed and solved it. Victory is Life made it 50 points in a turn and I intended to battle for the last 5 points on the subsequent turn. However, I had made a bit of a tactical error, which would have made the game far more interesting if Mark could exploit it. I had one ship in orbit or Betazed (as the other lacked the range to get there), if he blew it up, my people would be stuck on the solved planet when the Sheliak arrived. Then he could take his time eliminating the Remote Supply Depot and leave me with just people and ships in the GQ. However, all I would have had to do is wait for him to attempt on of his two space mission and some poor fool to be relocated to the planet with my outpost in orbit (Aid Fugitives) so that I could beam down a couple Jemmies while yelling Victory is Life FTW. But apparently he didn't have the range on ships to get there with enough fire power. So instead he shot at my outpost again and got it up to 75% hull damage. I then flew over to my outpost beamed a whole contingent of Jemmies onto one of Mark's ships by Invasive Beam-In and busted the place up. Victory is Certainly Life. Round 1 - vs The Mad Vulcan: J started with no Homeworld, which I didn't really notice at the time. If I'd payed a bit more attention there, things may have turned out slightly differently. Not a lot, probably, but maybe slightly. I started off all right. Played a QTR, War Room, and Kor, and pitched Defend Homeworld for Kang getting Blood Oath. The problem was I didn't get any draw engines for a while. J did have a Homefront on Qo'nos, though, which was most unhelpful. J tried to use Obedience Is Victory early on, but I realised you actually need 2 K-Whites to do that and he only had the one out. He did get more out and got the extra draws. I got Leyton out, but no Fed ships hit the table. My Traveler and a couple of Kivases were Mirrored It got to the point where I really needed the cards, though. I used his Mirror Image for one of his Masakas. J attempted first, hit a Subspace Seaweed with only 2 Navigation, crippling one ship. Strict Dress Code found no Diplomacy, but he'd sent Deyos so I killed him. He'd had 4 Jem'hadar Officers so even if I'd killed one, Maglock would have been no problem. This was at a Construct Depot with Establish Dominion Foothold on it, (+40), and a Victory Is Life was played on top of that (+5 =45). J made the next attempt at Betazed. The Sheliak started its long journey across the spaceline (it arrived one turn too late), New Essentialists was very easily passed. As was Primitive Culture. The attempt was just short a hand weapon. I got the Blood Oath ships to the other Construct Depot (it had been Ultimatumed for a RSD earlier) and started attacking the Remote Supply Depot. My choices weren't great: Target Weapons and Target Engines. Weapons made slightly more sense on a Facility, so I used that. My one flip from that was Target Shields. And believe me, I had shuffled the BBSD. After Masakaing himself, J got another hand weapon out, and got back over to Betazed and solved, with another Victory Is Life (+50 =95). I couldn't make it over to Betazed (I needed Defiant Dedication Plaque for that, and didn't have it). I attacked the Outpost again (after failing to get a Fed ship out). Pulse Phaser Cannons and Phaser Banks brought the Hull damage to 75%. J brought his attempting ship over, flipped Invasive Beam In and attacked Martok and Kor on the Ning'tao. Kor was stunned, Martok stunned his enemy, and the rest overwhelmed the small crew, and Kor died. Another Victory Is Life won J the game. It turned out that if I'd sent everyone at Earth and ploughed through the Edo Probe, I would have got the 40 points there. Always good to know how decisions could have played out differently. Good game. Final score: The Mad Vulcan scored 100 to my 0. Round 2 Matthew Zinno ML (-100)View opponent's ReportView original Report J was playing Dominion, with Jem'Hadar immune to White Deprivation (it's not in the pool) -- and Homefront on Earth to slow down my reporting. My first play was a Full Planet Scan, before he literally had a chance to flip QTR. If it were face up when I played it, he could have suspended play to get Scanner Interference to nullify it, so it was important that I play it as my first action of the game. It revealed Edo Probe / Dead End, so I triggered that Edo quickly. Then for several turns I built up forces at Earth and gave him Tribbles, while he built some in Alpha and came through to Gamma. He surprised me by flying past Earth to build his RSD. I got worried about either attacking or opposing me at Earth, so I took an opportunity and got Leyton with DH, then attacked and damaged his ship with two of mine. He responded by beaming aboard the Starship Enterprise, killing Kirk, and Commandeering the ship. (Later turns saw its designated pilot usually get stopped by 1 Tribble, since only he could staff the ship.) He then tried to beam aboard the Galaxy, when I suddenly remembered to Kevin the IBI. (I really should have done that before he beamed to Kirk.) He tried his EDF mission, but hit LOP at Construct Depot with no Vorta, so -10. I attempted Dyson after Geordi peeked at it, which let Inge alone pass Cardie Trap (fizzle for lack of target), but she triggered DNA Clues which boosted Hippo. He Toffed the IBI back and replayed it next turn (instead of a QTR, he later told me), and I Kevined it again. Now since he had no QTR in play, I was safe to steal his mission -- I went after Reignite Dead Star, passing LOP, my Borg Ship (T/Vortex), and GravDist (Engineers), to solve with Leah, Bateson, and Dax. That put me at 40, and at the end of the turn I got an equipment probe and downloaded McCoy. Soon thereafter life intruded, and we were near time. We both could see that I would soon get to 100, with McCoy clearing the Hippo at Dyson and then the Edo/Dead End combo falling, so rather than play a few more minutes later, we just stipulated that that's what would happen, and reported it 100-(-10). The next morning we both realized that I had also downloaded Q's Planet along with McCoy, and hadn't solved it (because J put two seeds under it, which I had hoped against). So even with 100, we agreed it was after all a MW. Round 3 Christopher Coyle FW (+100)