J (The Mad Vulcan) |
Tournament Report - 2E - American Nationals Day One |
2015-10-17 - 09:00 AM |
Bring It on Home to Me |
Introduction |
I had two different decks to possibly play this day, but I opted for TOS because I knew them better and this is Play 10 for the achievement. They also have lots of answers for the strategies that are out there. |
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Round 1 | | Roxanne Barbour | MW (+20) |
Roxanne was doing all space Voyager, which was cool to see. I have Sisko to nuke their best interrupt, but I don't think that actually came up. I definitely got some lucky pulls and I think that Roxanne wasn't drawing well on Chuckles as I was able to set up Where No One Has Gone Before (twice, I think) and never put many dilemmas under. Still, I had the issue of not putting enough out and eventually allowing a solve. She got through two missions before the game was over. As I recall, she was doing a bit of crop dusting so that she could make a big turn later when she drew the right cards. So I think that she was pretty close to winning even if the score doesn't reflect that. And most of the game I was just playing to get a MW at time.
Don't recall much else about this game ATM. I think I also got hit with a Where No One and we both had plenty of Moral Choice to make use of, but my Shocking Betrayal was all too good in this match-up. |
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Round 2 | | Kenneth Tufts | FL (-100) |
Ken was playing Theives and it took a while to set up, but it had a few things going for it. Namely, the defensive side. I know that ken chose this deck for the achievements, but it also pairs well with one of his best dilemma piles, as it has a ton of cheap events and can two mission win easily after quite a bit of set-up.
Dead Ringer was the card that won him this game. Dukat kept people out of the graveyard and he chose someone with odd skills for me to try and use Driven, but still I tried to get as much different skills in hand as possible to try for that option (that options is weakened by the fact that they have to be an Officer. I never did draw into bridge Officer's test and I finally tried to solve the mission with only people with redundant skills so that Dead Ringer wouldn't work and that meant that I easily failed the Where No One Has Gone Before.
Meanwhile, Shran was working to get back the dilemmas that ken played, and I could not draw a dilemma to eliminate him for the life of me. |
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Round 3 | | Michael Van Breemen | FL (-15) |
I think that my deck was ready for what Michael brought and I just wasn't playing at my top game. Michael pointed this out to me after the fact, anyway. He was doing Borg Assimilation with all planets and the Genesis Planet (for the achievements) and then had K&E to cheat all dilemmas.
I used Sisko to nuke one of his assimilation interrupts, but Michael was smart enough to make sure he had all three before making his move, so had two of mine as drones, and he randomly selected good ones (for him, I didn't miss them). He also made sure to K&E any dilemma that might take them out. But here is where I made a mistake. At each of his mission attempts he would attempt and I could play 3 dilemmas, and he would K&E two of them. In ever remembered to Sisko those, even though he was always in play. And I probably only needed to Sisko the one at the last mission to win this.
But that's not even the biggest mistake I made. I got oddly draw screwed on Enterprise-B early game (3 in the deck) so I played another ship (Constellation, I think) to go do space until it showed up. Mike hit me with a Causal Recursions, but that shouldn't be a problem with the Ent-B. So playing to 110, and I solve the space before the B comes out. Then I solved my first planet with it staffed in orbit: but made a huge mistake in that one of the people staffing it was Sisko (so Mike couldn't kill him). So no bonues 10 points, and now I need a fourth mission. I did get the B points at the third planet 9since I was out of range) and at that point I started letting David Marcus help with the attempts since the extra points would not matter if I solved four.
And still, I had dilemmas under the fourth before the game was over and could send mutliple big attempts (Mike and I both play pretty fast, him a lot more so than I) but of course Mike K and E'd through his third mission FTW.
Not too broke up about losing here, though. I was glad to not make day 2 (I only brought two 2E decks and the other was Academy) and if I did beat Mike I would have had another hard game at least before the end (or maybe two more). |
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Round 4 | | Bye | BY (0) |
The 4 players who participated in the 1E side event were done and so they joined me to go to a true Mexican restaurant a few blocks over. That was real good eating and I was quite refreshed for the rest of the day and played much better. |
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Round 5 | | Leianne | FW (+100) |
Probably one of the funnest games I've played, but also the meanest. I predicted that Leianne would play an attrition pile, and she is very good with it, putting few under while making sure to have enough to lock out cheating. I went out to attempt early, and weenies helped me get multiple attempts going to start rolling through the missions.
Like I said, Leianne played a very good defense, and at the end I had all of my cheater interrupts still in hand and unused. But the real story is on the other side of the table.
Leianne was played the new Dominion HQ and a lot of high cost people, which meant a slow start. but she did get in a lot of attempts, and once when I hit her with a good damage marker dilemma (Gomtuu) she didn't have the range to return home and reattempt but she played a new ship so she wouldn't lose a turn.
So, she worked through her mission, and I tended to throw two or three dilemmas with just one going under. This continued until she had amassed two under the mission and that is when I played McCoy up costed to return them and put it back to 0. So, like a trooper, Leianne worked until she had two more under the mission and I played Chekov upcosted to play McCoy upcosted and put it back to 0 again!
Of course, this is where I won the game, so Leianne finished with a score of 0 and no dilemmas under any missions. |
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Closing Thoughts |
Fun tournament. I'm glad I didn't make Day 2 as I was not ready to shut out any of the top players there and had much more fun in the Academy side event. Had I made Day 2, I think I would have placed 4th at best. |
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