This pairing was absolutely brutal for Old Ted. His deck was very focused on two easy Klingon missions while combining Dominion Jem'hadar and great Klingons to get microteam solves and battle to both put dilemmas under (and therefore not face them) while scoring bonus points to get a two mission win.

But that meant a focus on a very few expensive people and events. His deck was quite small and I started eating through it fast. He played Optimism, and that allowed him to refill the deck and turn duplicates of the people into draws in order to actually get out what he needed. But when he decked he had 2 ships, 6 people, and a lot of events in play.

I switched focus to solving space and did so, eventually. While Ted attempted his space and planned to start ship battles. The first attempt saw me relieve him of his only Anthropology in play (with Secret Identity, I believe), to set up the Antedean Assassins. But later, Ted admitted that it was also his only Dominion Officer and so he couldn't use The Dominion Will Prevail to get dilemmas under his mission. I also relieved him of Call to Arms, around here, with Grav Plating Trap, which made Ja'chuq a dead card. Any of these could have helped him through that first mission and to a MW.

But it was Ted's second mission attempt that decided thie game. I killed one more personnel, but that left him with just 4 in play, and not the mission skills, and no way to do a mission or score any bonus points and he opted to surrender.

A pretty sweet pairing since both of us were trying to burn the other's deck and inhibit play. Bruce went first and played a universal dude that required me to discard a card from hand. Given a decent size deck on his side, I tossed a ship to get as many low cost Dissidents out, this decision would prove problematic later.

Going second got me Jake Sisko from Historical Research and I started churning the decks quick. I lost the second and final ship off my deck on turn 2 or so, making me very dependent on Tapestry. Bruce used Forcing Their Hand and At An Impasse to mess with my cards further and also had a card that punished me for not drawing even when an impasse had been declared. I was careful to get both Archaeologists into play, making solving the planet possible. Shortly after it had been played, I used a Grav Plating Trap to nuke Prejudice and Politics but only after Bruce had gotten off one Far Seeing Eyes. This was integral as it might have been a 5 - 0 result for the game, though most of my non-people were in hand or graveyard.

Forcing their hand killed on copy of Tapestry, as it was way too early to play it. But I had one more in hand. When it pulled the second, I had a big decision to make. Risk everything on finding the third (still in deck) or play it. I played it safe and removed the 9 cards left in my deck from game to make sure I had ships and could attempt a mission. This cost me a Tapestry, a Multidimensional Trasport Device, two Grav Traps, a couple spare copies of Jake Sisko, and the Odo that can actually play to my HQ.

Bruce ran out of a deck first, and before that happened I had begun to suspect that he didn't have any ships left. But after killing the deck he went on to play two of them. So his total was 14 people and 2 ships (and he also played Data after the fact.) So, not sitting too bad.

I actually went out to attempt first, the initial attempt saw The Dreamer nuke my hand, An Issue of Trust stop all but two, and then a hit from Gomtuu Shock Wave. Bruce parked his first ship at the mission so he could get a dilemma back when I returned home to repair, though what I ended up doing was simply switching ships as I drew and played the second.

His second ship, played the following turn, went out to attempt space. I drew a lot of planet dilemmas, but what I had worked fine as I used Secret Identity to take out Picard (the only Anthro) to set up Antedean Assassins.

Bruce's dilemma draws, when I attempted space a second time, did little. But the one dilemma that made the difference of a solve was Full Security Alert, as the mission requires Security.

All through this point in the game, I am considering just decking myself and getting the true tie. Not at all certain what sort of graveyard retrieval Bruce can pull off and not at all certain if I can solve a mission. But I kept on. We both got one more mission attempt. My final attempt saw Bruce pull another Issue of trust, but put enough dilemmas under that I had a decent chance of solving on the next go as long as I did not fly away and the people on his ship there weren't able to stop me. Bruce did not have the range to return home for Data and I did not draw an Antedean Assassins. Instead, I used The Clown: Guillotine to make sure Telepathic Deception would hit. this gave Bruce a goodly number of dilemmas under the mission (five).

But I did not have the counters in hand to avoid drawing the final card in my deck anyway, so we'll never know if one of us could have solved.

Well, this did not go well for me at all. It's the inherent flaw of a deck built around 1 key personnel that it doesn't work so well if you don't draw into that personnel.

Jordan went second, so I didn't get my Historical Research download. I started out spending as many counters as I dared on drawing but I finally settled in and spent 3 full turns of counters just drawing to find Jake Sisko. I did get it going, but it was a bit too late. Jordan attempted with a deck, weakening Secret Identity considerably, and almost everyone had the strength to make The Clown: Guillotine get just one kill, and every other person had Anthropology, and the ships all had good weapons.

This just wasn't going to go my way and it sure didn't.