Greg Hodgin (tomalak) Tournament Report - 2E - Cardassia Regional 2016-04-16 - 01:00 PM It's been a long road... damn, wrong song Introduction I'd never played a big tournament with a Federation deck, so I thought I'd try Voyager, knowing that I was playing against a bunch of people who teched against Feds. Voyager is insanely powerful, however. Round 1 Michael Shea FW (+65) Mr. Shea and I are good friends and play a number of games against each other every week to stay sharp. He was playing Terran Empire against me, and I know that deck pretty well. He knows my Voyager deck as well. I was unable to draw Voyager or a way to download on the first turn, so I wasted a turn. Unfortunately for Michael, I was able to slow him down effectively with my dilemma pile, and he wasn't able to recover in time when Voyager got up and running. Round 2 Michael Schwartz FW (+65) This was one of the scariest games I've ever played: the second I saw Athos IV hit the table, I knew I was in for a world of trouble. Schwartz locked me out of Caretaker's Array w/ Biogenic weapon, and changed requirements on another w/ Strange New Worlds. I had one Law in the deck and no event destruction (I'll be fixing that problem later). I kept Tuvok on another ship, did a mission to get points, and Field Studied my way to having Schwartz draw one dilemma when I tried that mission and he hit nothing. I also managed to choke him for 5 turns on his mission and stopped him cold, keeping him from getting points for OTA. By the time he did, he had ground me down and stopped my Homeward Bounds. In the end, though, it didn't matter: by getting out from under the lockout I managed to eke out the win. Round 3 Nathan Miracle FW (+40)View opponent's ReportView original Report Ah, DS9. I liked the concept behind Nathan's deck: an insanely fast draw/play deck with cheap people to knock out dilemmas and missions. Unfortunately my dilemmas were able to slow him down and although he kept me at Caretaker's for a bit I managed to finally burn through that and the game was up. He used Holding Cell to throw Revised Chakotay on there, but I escaped someone (they died but I got it on Holding Cell) and the second I finished Caretaker's I threw Homeward Bound to get rid of Holding Cell. That saved me later: the last turn I needed I had two ships out and two teams to do the mission, and Homeward Bound won me the game. Greg and I both have incredibly speedy decks. Frankly, he's a good enough dilemma pile player to slow down even the speediest of decks. I did hold him off at Caretaker's Array for a while, but Voyager 5-space really hits the accelerator once it completes that first mission. At Inversion Mystery, I drew three planet dilemmas, Fractured Time and The Dal'rok. Ugh. Free mission for him, but I threw all five just to clean up my own dilemma pile. That terrible draw made a big difference, as Greg named Moral Choice upon completing the mission. Greg also played a couple extra interrupts to blow up Holding Cell. I would have had the game on my next turn (we played it out), but close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades. Of course, putting Revised Chakotay in the Holding Cell helped. Round 4 Nic Brautigam FW (+100) Nic came to win. I ensured he did not. He came with a weenie TNG 2-win mission deck, with Guinan and Edge of Forever to download the Ent-D. It's an old deck he updated with new cards. My deck got up and running and he couldn't slow me down, and I held him to no points, as I had teched against Feds: adopted authority hurts 2-mission win decks, and moral choice is always a pain. He SSR'ed, but he couldn't stop it all. Closing Thoughts I'm glad I teched against the Feds: 3 Moral Choices, 3 Distress Calls (Voyager), 3 Personal Duties, 3 Adopted Authorities, 3 An Issue of Trusts... it made for a thick dilemma pile but it's tough to come back from 3-4 stops a turn for one dilemma under. Once Voyager gets up and running, it's incredibly difficult to stop. Romulans, Borg and Feds. I don't know what I'm going to do next. Stay tuned.