J (The Mad Vulcan) Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event 2013-09-09 - 12:00 AM Deanna Troi, Ambassador of the Federation [blocksealed] 001 Introduction Round 1 Michael Van Breemen FW (+40) I was paired with MvB in the first round, he managed to get the Klingon starter, that lucky bastard. We shared Amnesty Talks, which I expect to be a common occurrence, but nothing else. It got a lot of dilemmas and was ignored for then rest of the report. For the most part he spaceline was split into a Federation side and a Klingon one, which was fine by me since I was playing speed solver. But Mike had tossed one of his missions away in the middle of Fed territory, so I obligingly gave it my three shittiest dilemmas (two of them were Pinned Down). That mission was also ignored. I put some pretty nasty combos at the remaining 4 Klingons missions, though I would prove wrong about which would be attempted early and which late. Mike was playing/drawing faster than me as he had the Klingon Freighter in NA mode to allow NA universal free reports with AAH and because Legit has a lot wider free report range than Finest Crew (damned elitist club, I tell ya). But I attempted first and proved to be just one body short of hopping Dangerous Climb, and that left me two bodies short. but going early proved wise as I ended up a step ahead for the rest of the game. I ended up clearing the mission down, after a couple attempts to Selok Stands Around In an Elevator but hadn't drawn into an Bio to clear it. So I went to space and cleared that fairly easily, the first go left me an Officer short of the Maglock as one had been stopped but they solved the next turn AND I found bio so solved both of my scouted missions. Mike built up a massive crew and threw down at a planet mission. This served him well, though my combos stopped him up a bit. Betazoid Drinking Game cleared all the Diplo but one so that Ornaran Threat was a one turn stop, and then I managed to set up a Dig and Wit with Tense Negotiations. But the game deciding move came when Mike found his 3 Leaders and through down with everyone he had at Dig and Wit, since the follow-up was Fractured Time. No shitting you, half his personnel promptly fucked off (including Gowron). I did struggle at my final mission as it had a ton of mass filters followed by random walls, while on the other side Worf and Picard laughed off the remaining defense. Mike used nice range and well placed ships to move all his people from a completed space to his 40 point space for a Hail Mary and I only stopped him because too many officers were screened before the Maglock. This meant he could clear the next turn, but had yet to draw the skills to solve. On my turn, I did clear my final mission, but checking the requirements I noted that I was mission Astro. That being a bastard since I had one of those left on the outpost and one I reported to the outpost (instead of utilizing the TMW). Then I realized that I left Tuvok's human brother on the ship to beam everyone up if things got to hairy. So I beamed him down FTW. Of note, during my last turn, one of the dilemmas I faced allowed Mike to draw and he pulled the mission skills. So this was really a win by a turn (or less). Round 2 Drew Christensen FW (+15) Drew had the Romulan starter, which translated into no shared missions. Right off the bat, he was drawing and playing people easily and my deck just sat there. Lackey apparently organized my deck into 'plays at cost and doesn't CM draw (first), plays at cost and does CM draw (second), plays for free with AAH (third) and Finest Crew free plays (bottom). So Drew had a mission solved before I even attempted and by the second to last turn, I still had a score of naught. Luckily, this format lacks In the Zone. There was a Maglock holding me out at one mission and a Dignitaries and Witnesses at another where I had not seen a whole lot of the Officers, like Data, Geordi, and Riker (but had RRD'd for Picard). Drew had been waiting for a well set up Friendly Fire to count down, and when it did he solved his second mission to get to 85 points. Of note, his deck was really raking in the bonus points, only flaw being that they still were not enough for a two mission win, so he needed to deck out. I decked out but he was still at 6 cards or so at the end of the game. Drew went to his third mission and threw down hard. The first dilemma was 'Federation Ambassadors Randomly show up and Talk At You' which turned out to be the game winner. I dropped Troi and Spock from my hand (where they had been getting drunk together since turn 1). Tense Negotiations and Blended didn't do much but set up the final dilemma (this combo was supposed to be at the first mission attempted after all). Ornaran Threat then killed a dude. Once I did get Riker, I sprinted right on through those two missions. That left me needing a third and I used Get It Done range boost plus two ships to go to one of Drew's missions which could be stolen. He doesn't have much of a risk running that universal mission, as the icons are Romulan and two more that nobody will be playing, but I had TMW'd a Rommie. At the time I did that, (beamed in a Romulan from another time and era) he was all set up to nuke my fully loaded ship with a small fleet of Shuttles, so definitely a good choice of include for the deck. But my people failed to blitz through my own easy dilemmas due to a lucky pick with Chula: The Chandra. So Drew moves a 3rd and 4th diplomat over to the mission which only has one dilemma under it: Ornaren Threat. He attempted with everyone and I got a lucky stop with one of the Diplomacy - leaving each of us with 3 on the planet and preventing a solve. Now I wasn't about to hand out advice that could lose me a game, but all he really needed to do was beam up to the orvitting ship all 3 diplomats and the mission solvers and then attack my two people on the planet with everyone else. That way one would die from personnel battle. He could then beam back down the 3 diplo and mission solvers for the game. Since I had forgotten to cure a Daniel Kwan with issues, he killed my only Romulan and I had to go attempt one of my own missions, but my dudes blitzed through it FTW. Round 3 Meinhard S. Rohr FL (-30) In this game I drew much better than the last. Early on, both Stefan and I were getting the most of our free plays/draws and once mine petered out, I really didn't need much else. This game was very fast and didn't last too many turns. This was in part due to Stefan attempting early (Turn 2) with just 8 people in play and managing to get almost all the way through the dilemmas. I decided to follow suite in order to keep up (he had gone first) and also attempted with everyone at the planet with my outpost on Turn 2. Like Stefan, I burned through the dilemmas and was only stopped by Dignitaries and Witnesses (we both managed to find the mission with D&W as the final wall). While Stefan was able to play the skills to bust Dig and Wit the next turn (Block Klingons are very good at Diplo and Leadership), I had to work for mine. After the Dignitaries and Witnesses, I had a Fractured time, but since Stefan had attempted this mission first and very early, he only had 9 people in play to face it. Would have been game changing to remove Gowron or Picard from play. I did have my Ambassadors on the planet, so he had to kill one to solve and that left him with few people to send at his next mission. As such, it took him two goes to find and fail the Friendly Fire. I sent most of my people (Picard excluded and for some reason I also left out a Martin) and they cleared all the dilemmas at the neighboring mission, but could not solve due to one of the key solvers being stopped. Meanwhile, I was setting up to get my 3rd Leadership. This was done by using my card play on the U.S.S. Enterprise for that turn and then the next turn's card play on Livingston to get Ready Room Door. As such, I solved both planets in the same turn, while Stefan was waiting on the Friendly Fire. I then sent people out to the nearest space, which was shared. This was somewhat of a gamble, but I figured that Stefan did the same as me and put a lot of one person stoppers there and no real walls. Also it was the only space mission in a turn's range. He could potentially steal it, but that would require him to Get It Done, which was not yet in play. I didn't have all the solvers in play yet (I needed to card play a Beverly), but I left the other solvers out of the attempt. this turned out to burn me as my first dilemma was a Magnetic Field Disruptions and Stefan's first dilemma managed to stop both Astrophysics personnel. Had I taken more people, the odds of this would have been reduced, but it was still a lucky pull. Stefan attempted his next space mission and cleared down to a Maglock, which would be easy once everyone was unstopped. I really needed to get my mission done asap. I played Beverly and flew her over to the mission, but the crappy range on the Oberth couldn't quite get me there so I had to loop the Enterprise and could only single attempt it. I ended up clearing down to a garbage Scow without the range to move it, but that was actually fine as my solvers were stopped. I could guarantee a solve my next turn with just the cards I had in play. Stefan certainly realized that and looked hard at what he could do to solve both space missions in a single turn. He played personnel at home and then card played a new ship (a third) so that he could maneuver everyone around. This was key as the ship left at his first space could solve it and then fly out to the second space to doubel attempt that on two K'vorts. The first bust the Maglock but failed the Virus and the second attempt solved the cleared mission. Round 4 Matthew Ting FW (+20) In this game my deck drew better than ever before. It was clockwork. Like my other games it was split pretty much 50/50. Matt was kind enough to attempt first turn with one dude at the mission where I seeded Diplomatic Intervention. As he had gone first, this got two personnel out of my deck before I'd even played a card. Since my deck also DLs a Warp Core and 2 mission specialists in the seed phase, I had a deck of 20 cards at the beginning of my first turn. Opening hand was also amazing. I had Ready Room Door which I used to pull Get It Done from the deck. I then placed the RRD on top of my deck so I could use it to get either Riker or Picard right when I needed them. Given CM draws, I was at 17 cards in deck at the end of turn 1. Matt kept attempting early and made good progress. The attempt in turn 2 made it all the way to Dignitaries and Witnesses. Around here, Matt sent a 2 man away team to battle my diplomats and killed Spock. But Troi was a real trooper and kept right on proselytizing to the Romulans (alone) for the rest of the game. I attempted around here and cleared the mission down to a Captain's Holiday. I'd yet to get either an Arch or a Geo into play, but they were certainly in the deck and I would just have to get the skills to solve. Turn 3 I used Ready Room Door to get Picard on the Enterprise, then went to space. Both Data and Geordi had shown up rather early this game. I went to space and Matt's combo had three personnel stopped until he end of the next turn (Devistating Comuniq. and Reluctant Informant, I think picked off Picard, Geordi, and one more likely wearing gold). This meant that I couldn't pass Maglock for two turns and couldn't staff the ship. This is were Matt attempted a space mission, which meant that he managed to pick the two missions with my weakest dilemma combos. This one was essentially just a stack of 1-3 personnel stoppers which had the effect of being cleared in one go, but stopping the mission solvers such that he would have to complete next turn. This and it didn't leave him in range of many follow-up mission choices. He could get to his solved planet and one beyond that pretty easily. When it came back to my turn, I played Riker with Finest Crew and staffed the ship which allowed me to attempt and clear the second space. This left me with three cleared and no solved missions and I think it was turn 4-5. Matt was concerned that I could win next turn (he was right) and threw everything at a third mission, which he had yet to attempt. They found the Friendly Fire. So, it comes back to me and I have to really manipulate some range to Get It Done, as it were. But two ships and the aforementioned incident meant that Picard, Riker, and Data could clear the Maglock for space mission 1 solve (Assist Damaged Vessel). Picard and Riker could bring the skills for space mission 2 (Attend Mysterious Rendezvous) and then Riker and a background guy could get their dig on and solve the first planet with my outpost (Avert Solar Implosion). Closing Thoughts If you can keep it tight enough and keep everyone alive long enough, the Feds do have the skills to bust a lot of block dilemmas.