Michael Van Breemen (The Ninja Scot) Tournament Report - 2E Standard - Deep Space 9 Regional 2011-04-16 - 11:00 AM Past, Present and Win Introduction Fourteen people made the trip to CodCon so no byes here. We left the night before to make the 4+ hour drive through torrential downpours while the town of Cedar Rapids got hit by snow. I thought that there was a rule about no more snow when it gets to spring but apparently such rules don't apply out here. After debating between a Cadet deck and a Klingon deck, Amber convinced me to stick with the Klingons. I decided that, if I'm going to encounter a whole lot of killing via Tragic turn and its assorted friends, a possible two mission win option with Baht-Qul challenge would make sense. I could get 40 points from the Baht-Qul challenges if I left Nudaq in my hand to recover one of them. I thought it was nifty but I only ever did it once. Round 1 Joshua Sheets FW (+30)View opponent's ReportView original Report Donatra + Original Thinker + Favor the Bold + Assess Contamination = Josh's deck. During his first attempt, I'm an idiot and somehow manage to forget the skills of everyone that he plays as I just give him An Issue of Trust. After giving me a look like I'm nuts, he shows his two Honor or Treachery people and walk through the attempt on the first try. Meanwhile, he nails me with a Dreamer at Investigate Alien Probe, taking away my lone Sword, a Baht'qul challenge and five other cards that I miss. Thankfully, my dilemmas were doing their job at Deliver Evidence to help catch me up so that by the time he solved Deliver Evidence, I'm also through Investigate Alien Probe and Secure Strategic Base. He never drew a single Favor the Bold so he has to do Transport Crash Survivors, an attempt that was not successful. I use every Klingon Riker/Gowron/Promise trick in the book to get through Brute Force for the win. 100-70 Well, there goes my CVP tie-breaker :) Seriously, I see him lay down Quonos and am actually somewhat relieved (I was unaware of any insanely goofy strategy for Klingons and I have TCS on the table). Knowing that Riker is probably lurking somewhere, I try to get as many TOS'ers out so I can drop Coordinated Counterattack. Strangely enough, I dont ever see a Riker til very late. I did catch MvB with an early Dreamer to give me some extra time, and he gives me just An Issue Of Trust at my first attempt at AC (he mentioned he was going to be skill-tracking earlier) and thru some random luck I only had 1 Honor and 1 Treachery so I get the mission first try. Then I have to go to DE where he holds me off for quite some time before I get thru (he caught up and got 2 missions done). I end up burying Brute Force to stop him (he attempted with 15 and I didnt get my Fractured Time or other useful items), so I know I have about 1 turn left. I draw cards looking for FtB and dont find it. Hmmm. Ironic that the mission meant to curb MvB's Goval Madness actually won this game for him, I had no skill-cheating out and apparently every TOS person has the same skills as every other TOS person. Attempt fails, and, on his turn, he gets BF for the win. Round 2 Eric Bieche FW (+65) Eric is playing a DS9 Earth Jaresh-inyo deck which he got out fairly early but Promenade School not so much. He's also running Assess Contamination along with the USS Sao Paolo as his ship of choice, suggesting that he was also expecting some death and destruction. For some reason, I didn't use Mara to download my Baht'qul challenges so by the time I solved Secure Strategic Base, I had only one in my hand. Also, I only had Riker as my only source of Anthropology at this point (he had Khod on Holding Cell and the rest of my Anthropology was in my discard pile. Riker, not a Klingon, go figure...). He was successful in destaffing my D7 however, leaving them stranded at Secure Startegic Base. However, my dilemmas held him off for a number of turns after forgetting a second Anthropology at home. He managed to get through Assess Contamination eventually and attempted Military Exercises once before I worked through Brute Force for the win. 100-35. Round 3 Casey Wickum FW (+35)View opponent's ReportView original Report Casey was also playing DS9 Earth but his was getting out a lot faster. He wasn't using Assess Contamination or Transport Crash Survivors which makes me happy. He went to Advanced Battle Simulation before I did with a litany of cheapies and high cost people. Never hit a high cost person for a random selection seemingly at all but slowed him down. Solved Investigate Alien Probe and Secure Strategic Base in quick fashion with all 3 Baht'qul challenges. However, I play dilemmas lousy and he managed to get through Advanced Battle Simulation and Obtain Vaccine in the same turn, getting it close as his next mission would've been Survey New World. So I decided to play my Baht'qul challenges as he had no 40 point missions and since I saw no equipment in play for him, no Grav-Plating trap to worry about, I went for it. 40 points later and I have my win. 100-65 Games vs MVB are always fun no matter how they turn out. Ever since nationals he has had me paranoid about Tragic Turn and Kill All Mega Death dilemma piles, so I wasn't going no where vs him without Ezri Bashir Sao Paulo and Med Teams. I seemed to botch with my skill tracking constantly and really really should have faired better since Klingons have alot of skill holes that I should have been hitting with Counterinsurgency and ID, but I seemed to whiff on all of em. Still did ok though, solving 2 mission's to atleast make it close before he rifled off a Quadruple Ba'ht Qul Challenge in one turn to finish the 2 mission solver. Round 4 Brian Gondek FW (+25)View opponent's ReportView original Report Brian was playing his Terok Nor deck that I assumed was similiar to what he had at Nationals. I'm actually relishing this as I could just use one of my three Swashbucklers to put his Ruling Councils away but I never did. I was using Caretaker's Guest to repeatedly taking out Dukat along with either Hard Time or Dal'rok to prevent the solving of Kressari. I'm almost done through Brute Force (could've tried to go with the Baht-qul but he had discarded lots of ships and had a 40 point mission which made me decide not to do that) when he gets through Kressari for the usual huge mission points but can't solve his Search for Survivors before I get the win. 100-75 Early on, Michael played a copy of Khod, pronounced "Code." Khod has all the skills for Investigate Alien Probe, and he seems to just be an all around champ. As a result, I tried making as many puns as I could about Khod (like when Khod's death was prevented, I "couldn't crack the Khod"). If we ever get a 2E Leonardo DaVinci hologram, I might have to make a deck with those two personnel and call it "The DaVinci Khod." As far as the game went, Michael caught on to the surefire way to beat my deck- pick on Dukat. He also kept hitting me with Hard Time + Dal'Rok, and as a result, I was never really in this game. Michael was already almost done with his 3rd mission by the time I completed my 1st, and even though I hit with all 3 Ruling Councils, I didn't stand a chance at my last mission. Michael went for the 3 mission solve instead of using B'aht Qul Challenge, since I had discarded ships, but he was easily able to finish Brute Force on his 2nd attempt with only 4 personnel + Sword of Kahless. I found out afterward that Michael had 3 Swashbuckler at Heart cards that would have nixed ~5 interrupts from my hand, but he never drew any of those. Round 5 Edward Pigman FW (+100)View opponent's ReportView original Report Ed was playing Capture Cardassians and plays Silarin Prin to get Riker (who I did have in my opening hand, darn it.) but he wasn't seemingly draw a whole lot of people. Meanwhile, I'm just churning out the people and with a ship in opening hand, go to IAP with 8 people. He stops me and takes away my lone Biology in play with a Hard Time along with killing someone, taking me down to 6. Next turn, I decided to bluff attempt IAP again and he gives me Secret Identity, so I bring in Khod and work through IAP, then Klag helps me walk through Secure Strategic Base. He captures Klag with Ensnared and eventually goes to Intercept Renegades with 7. I play Hard Time which takes out someone, Dal'rok which takes out Silarin Prin and Polywater, leaving nothing under. Next turn, I play Riker and others, then go to Brute Force. Even with having a good number of Security stopped and discarding 4 cards to get past Whispers in the Dark (with a Psych pressure in play), Riker gains the necessary skills to make it through Brute Force with 5 other people for the win. 100-0 Game was over really damn fast. Klingons scared me a bit, as I was fearing the Kruge/battle deck. MvB got a really good draw, and a couple of clutch random pulls, but his deck was way faster than mine and I never caught up to get into the running; it was just a good, fast, solid solver. Didnt feel bad dropping this one.