Tournaments | trekcc

Pope (princedetenebres)
Tournament Report - 1E - Online Event
2020-04-13 - 09:00 AM
Brunt the liquidator and the Dabo Girls using their assets for the Tal Shiar
Introduction
After playing Romulan, Ferengi, and Romulan in successive tournaments, I decided to build a Romulan/Ferengi deck using the new Community Leader to have the Tal Shiar put the Dabo girls et al to their use. It was fun, but not a fantastic deck.

Round 1	James Heaney	TT (0)View opponent's Report View original Report
Morn of Borg Borg playing dabo The Queen being trapped on a cloaked landed ship in the Mirror Quadrant ... So yeah, it was weird. Wow, what an odd game. I definitely did not deserve a true tie, based on how the game played out, certainly it's not indicative of how well we were doing relative to each other. James had a crazy 250 card deck, and very cleverly disguised that he was running a borg personnel battle deck by seeding First Stable Wormhole, and both the mirror and alpha versions of Janus VI, along with this 3 delta missions. In retrospect, I should've recognized the delta missions being ideal for Borg facilities, but the unusual allotment of them definitely made me think that it wasn't likely, and seed accordingly. I kicked myself as I'd been debating between this deck and a DS9 klingon one with many bat'leths and a bluegill infestation, with my homeworld being my principal reporting location -- so no adapting, potential DH download and ready for personnel battle -- whereas this deck... is not primed for that... at all. I even took out the only hand weapon I had in the last edit. Anyway, the addition of 2 extra new frontiers was obviously excessive, as I ended up with 4 in my opening hand. Great. Only 1 of my 3 free reporting places, and was bound to get a slow start. So I wasn't playing much early, a couple free people, to be or not to be (though I didn't think it'd be much use against a deck that strives for personnel battle), rather than getting going with draws/free reports early. James was not so slow, and got going pretty quick with the SoG Queen, and some angry red drones. I thought I was fortunate to have gotten my Morn on T2, but really it just made for the most tempting of targets. He said he'd been thinking of going after Lovok, but I assured him that I had no ulterior motive but the amusement of seeing Morn of Borg (which was true), and he swifly came over and invaded the bar to assimilate him as counterpart (I'm sure the Queen will appreciate having someone who both a) knows how to have a good time and b) isn't known for talking too much). Amusingly, the next turn when he left, he forgot to pick up his drones (including 7 and 2 of 9), while I have said before that I am nothing if not a bungler, I also would like to think that if nothing else I am also a gracious host when I have guests. So I thought I'd sent a dabo girl down to see if the patrons would like a drink or anything, or pass the time at the dabo table -- I played Leeta and downloaded dabo and invited my borg guests to have a play. James was a good sport and obliged me, though of course he couldn't score points, it was still amusing, definitely not something you see every day (or ever). Resistance may be futile, but the house still always wins. That ridiculousness aside, I'd made a stupid mistake that ended up creating another hilarious circumstance. I ran to the MQ, thinking I might get away and land (not realizing that the transporter drone could get onto a landed ship. As I mentioned, I had a hand full of new frontiers (I only just somehow realized that they required, unlike Let's see what's out there, the 4 guys to be at the same mission not in their native quadrant, whereas LSWOT doesn't mandate they all be in the same location/crew), so I should have used that to move through and keen myself unstopped, cloaked and landed, and with Koval aboard my ship, I would've been fine, able to continue reporting my tal shiar to him. I did not do this, and thus the Borg came after me. Having left those drones behind, James had to send what he could to come get me, including his Queen. Unfortunately, his strength boosting drones were developing a gambling habit at the bar, and unable to assist, and so though his talon drone grabbed one guy (critically removing that strength from his total for the battle), he tied me on total strength and did not, thus win the battle for assimilate species. Regardless I would've still had one guy left, but as it was, I was able to, on my turn cloak and land, and thus strand his queen and 3 other guys on a ship that he couldn't do anything to, since I reasoned that his decloaking drone can't target a landed ship, nor could his assimilate starship, so the queen was just going to be stuck there with my romulan mission specialist for the rest of the game, have fun queenie -- tough break just after she'd gotten a new counterpart. No time for a honeymoon, she just disappeared in the Mirror Quadrant! Anyway, things were looking less bleak, but still not great, as I couldn't get a ship to retrieve the other 3 Romulans I'd ditched outside the cha'joh, and the Borg, justifiably swooped in for some vengeance to assimilate them for 15 points (3 5-skilled people were too tempting, I'm sure). I was disappointed, as I'd thought I might've trapped his only assimilation table on the ship too, but alas he had another and my disruptor overload hadn't shown up yet. I started trying to rebuild, and played a bit of dabo, while he came back to DS9 to assimilate species to grab quark for 8 more points, putting him on 62 I think (with others his talon drones had abducted) to my handful of dabo points, it wasn't looking great. I did manage to get a staffed d'deridex advanced to the GQ where I had combined strike and started playing my people out there. The Borg would not have this, and decided to come over and eliminate my d'deridex and new found reporting location. As with last week, To Be or Not to Be would have a decisive role in my game -- but this time, I was hoping against hope that he'd come after me for ship battle and I definitely would not forget about it. Still, even damaged, his cube would be able to direct hit my ship, but the coup de grace for me was that one of the people I'd gotten out to the GQ was none other than Elim -- so my 2 flips resulting in kills meant that I had my choice of deaths on the cube, and obviously I wasn't going to let Morn survive this. :D :D :D And so just like that, for the purposes of counting towards winning, we were back to a tied game with us both having only bonus points. It was nothing short of a miraculous series of events for the good guys, or bad guys? Whichever my guys are, you know what I mean! ... Anyways, and to add serious insult to this ridiculous injury, he drew his cutting beams, both of the only 2 in his BBSD, and thus didn't even destroy my ship, and I'd also taken out his annexation drone. Needless to say, on my turn, we boarded our romulan shuttle and cloaked and landed to avoid further undesirable interaction with the Borg. Though he went after a couple missions, being stopped by Experiencing Bij at one, and clearing all the dilemmas but dead end at another, we'd run out of time, and my last ditch effort at time was stymied by Edo Probe. Unfortunately, I was on 8 bonus points from dabo, and decided that with his hidden agenda (stupidly thinking it might be Service the Collective, even though he had no counterpart out -- I murdered Morn), I might need to battle him to keep him from finishing an establish gateway for the win, so I opted to make a suicide run at his cube to block any probing. Frustratingly, I learned after the game that the two remaining dilemmas were Ferengi Infestation and Higher the Fewer, and had I just persisted, well, even though I did not deserve it, I would've passed FI and solved a single mission for the MW, but I'd satisfied myself that I was going to end up with a TT even though his Borg had been so devastating and that I was happy with that -- after all, had I failed with edo probe, I'd have lost, because it is only bonus points in excess that don't count towards winning, so losing 10 from 8 would mean HE would win 0 to -2... which seemed like too big a risk to take when I could sneak away without being handed a loss through that bloodbath. So yeah, TT 0-0.... certainly did not see (most of) that coming, that's for damned sure!
Pope wrote a really fantastic report on this game, and I won't try and repeat it. It was a wild game, chock full of memorable moments. One particular highlight: After assimilating Morn as a counterpart, a few of my Borg remained behind at Quark's Bar -- where, it turned out, they were allowed to play Dabo (at Pope's suggestion, no less!). I couldn't score points, but it filtered some useless cards out of my deck. Why didn't I win? I led for most of this game, roughly 60-0. Morn of Borg was my counterpart, worth 35 points, and I assimilated various others throughout the game, preventing Pope from building up enough forces to actually attempt a mission. One early obstacle was the loss of several personnel to a nice cloaking trick: Pope managed to land and cloak a Romulan Shuttle with several of my stronger Borg aboard (including the Queen, because I didn't care about the Queen in this deck). They were stranded, because my Tachyon Drone couldn't decloak the landed ship. This loss of personnel was hardly crippling, and I continue to menace Pope throughout, but I wasn't able to enforce the lockdown as effectively as I usually did, and Pope slowly built up forces. By late in the game, I had two cubes out. One was my "expendable" Cube, which was solving missions. (And failing, because Experience BiJ! is really tough on Borg.) The other was my "flagship" Cube, which had all the drones who were worth points, including Morn of Borg. This Cube was dedicated to keeping Pope's live miserable. In these final turns, with time ticking down, Pope had enough to make a go at a mission. I wasn't really sure whether I cared enough to stop him, because I didn't think he had time to solve a mission. But this deck's core doctrine is: don't let your opponent play the game. When I deviate from deck doctrine, I usually make mistakes. (Incidentally, this is why I am never going to be a Worlds-caliber player, despite good deckbuilding: I'm not very good at on-the-fly adaptation.) So I stuck to doctrine and attacked! My "flagship" cube flew through the Bajoran Wormhole to the Gamma Quadrant (with help from Wormhole Navigation Schematic, obviously), Eliminate Starship targeted the uncloaked Warbird where Pope had most of his personnel and range, and I opened fire. And here is why I lost. No, not because I'd forgotten about Pope's To Be Or Not To Be. It was annoying, but, frankly, not much more than that. I could take the damage and get away just fine. The crew was something like 15 personnel, and I was winning 60-0, so could afford to lose a couple drones. No, I lost because I completely failed to take into account the interaction between To Be Or Not To Be and Elim, who was aboard the ship I was attacking. 2BON2B flipped, dropped damage markers... and then Pope used Elim to turn two random kills into two kills his choice. Very sensibly, he killed Morn Of Borg, my counterpart. I instantly lost 30 non-bonus points. And then I lost ALL my other points, because ALL my other points were from Add Distinctiveness, thus bonus points, thus not protected under the Intermix Ratio rule. Final score 0-0, with other details in Pope's report. So, bottom line, these Borg steamrolled Pope, but he used a brilliant combo to get out of it at the very last second. This speaks very well of Pope as a skilled player, and highlights that I'm NOT a very good player. But I think there's still a lot to take note of in this deck: * Pope went first. By the end of my second turn, a fully-staffed Borg Tactical Cube had arrived at Deep Space 9, beamed over an assault team, killed or assimilated a number of other personnel (each Borg was STRENGTH 14 or something ridiculous, and I had a Talon Drone), and abducted Morn (who would soon be added to our distinctiveness for 30 points). * I followed Pope into the Mirror Quadrant to assimilate more drones, where my total victory turned into a pyrrhic one only because Pope could both cloak AND land his ship -- and because I didn't assimilate every person on his team on the first try. (I think I failed to stun somebody for Assimilate Species.) * It would have taken me a long time indeed to get a Full Win with this deck, and, once damaged, my cubes could not be repaired. (Between The Cloud and To Be Or Not To Be, both my cubes were damaged by game's end.) This was a real weakness. * I also followed Pope into the Gamma Quadrant, where another brilliant combo prevented my total victory -- and actually turned the tables on me. Basically, huge props to Pope for making lemonade out of the lemons my aggressive deck gave him, fantastically fun game, but he was very much the underdog in a way that didn't immediately strike me as healthy. He had to depend on genius improvisation and some really serendipitous combos to earn his True Tie. I just had to let my deck run its crushing script of doom.

Round 2	Sebastian Kirstein	FW (+6)



Round 3	Stephen P	FL (-100)



Round 4	Julius Melhardt	FL (-100)