Jeremy Benedict (flrazor) Tournament Report - 2E - American National 2019-08-03 - 10:00 AM Another Triumph For The Seedless Watermelon Introduction I wasn't sure what I was going to bring to play, but Kris suggested that people might not be prepared for Dominion tricks in the current meta. No matter what your feelings are about GenCon or Trek in general, I got a chance to play (and win) a Trek tournament in a freaking NFL stadium, and that is really freaking cool! Round 1 Herman Chan FW (+70) Herman is packing Starfleet with recent Archer and T'Pol in circulation. He's first out of the gate and gets Jupiter clear before I leave HQ, but not without losing Archer to a random death on Tactical Disadvantage on the first attempt (before anything was overcome to kick in his ability), and in my usual fashion I fed T'Pol everything from 0-3 by the time he completed it. Since Dominion is fine with an opponent scoring first, I finally got a crew rolling and managed to solve 3 missions on the first attempt over two turns - 2 on the first turn. This deck can kind of steamroll when the tools are out, and this was one of those times. Herman beats me on the 5K course, even a little injured after his last marathon, but I win this race. Round 2 Steve Nelson FW (+35) I know most of Steve's decks from local experience, and I was thrown off a bit by Bajorans coming out over Maquis or Romulans, but Steve clearly was in a comfortable place. I did manage to slow him down a bit in the early game with a Crippling Strike, but otherwise Steve was able to get two missions off me. On my first attempt he decided to remove Remata'klan with Secret Identity to prevent me from selection exclusion, but it only made things worse for his dilemmas to come with Odo coming in his place. In the process, I had a repeat performance of the first round, scoring three missions on the first attempt with the first two in one turn - exactly the same as the game against Herman. I also was able to avoid Just Like Old Times by not having anyone stopped on my first planet so everyone could get back to the ship. Stakoron cost increase ultimately did Steve in on the final mission. Round 3 Richard New FW (+100) Poor Richard, nursing a cold, sets down Romulans, and I don't know who was paler... I remember his deck from last year, I know how powerful it can be. What I didn't expect was the steamroller kept rolling early in our game. I was able to keep him locked down from completing missions, while using Crippling Strike to prevent his ships from getting back from the Gamma quadrant when he would come to visit. I completed my first two missions in one attempt each again on the same turn, with the first even being hit by Imperial Entanglements. The last mission took a little longer to work through with great dilemma play by Richard, but my dilemmas kept him from solving at all and I ultimately shut him out. Always a pleasure to play against, and one of the decks I was most worried about facing now in the rearview. Round 4 Eric R ML (-40) Eric shows up with Borg and an Alpha quadrant mission set I'm familiar with, so I sense assimilation is coming. I drop a ship my first turn and proceed to stock it with personnel for the first half of the game so I'm ready to go big when the time comes. I was not ready for the dual buzz saw of Borg with a kill pile, but I do a fair job of mitigating the first shots by putting 7 dilemmas under and only losing a small number of people - no mission clearing in one attempt at any point! I'm able to keep Eric from pouring on the Assimilation with tactical use of both Swashbuckler and a Dreamer that wiped a hand of interrupts and events ready to get dropped on me the next turn. Once he completed Assimilate Resistance he picked up Martok Founder from my discard pile (mostly for Intel and other hard-to-Borg skills), along with an earlier Odo Founder grab (with Imperfect Replacement to stop me playing another copy). I used exclusion effects to prevent him from grabbing my non-unique personnel. I got out a turn or two earlier than I should and Eric starts making me regret it with the losses I did take. I get what I thought was a miracle draw at his last mission after time was called (I went first), including a Timescape to lock him down to one attempt, but he blows up the rest of my dilemmas with a pair of Knowledge and Experience. I assume he's won. I was 3-0 and Eric is 2-1, so a full win gives him the victory but anything less and I still win. He already has 2 missions and even after kitchen-sinking my second mission I'm held to 1. He counts his Integrity multiple times but keeps coming up short and ends his turn unable to complete for the full win and giving my the title. Unfortunately he missed the assimilated Martok Founder's ability to use Strength instead of Integrity for dilemmas and missions, which would have solved for the full win, though I'm unsure if he was present in the attempt or in reserve for a follow-up. It was an epic game and we both played our best and left it all (literally) on the field. Closing Thoughts There's still some tweaks to make, but the new coat of paint on an old favorite was the right way to go and was a lot of fun to play again. That's the best part - it was fun, and every match was memorable and made the day that much better. Thank you to everyone for one of the best weekends of gaming I can remember.