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by James Hoskin
William, Nick and I were off on the first proper leg of Team London's 2005 world tour.
Our tour would be stopping at many illustrious venues – Basildon, Reading, Glasgow, Utrecht,
Indianapolis, Essen, and Bognor Regis – as we sought to become the most travelled Star Trek
CCG players in the world. We had driven to previous tour stops but getting to Glasgow
required a flight so it felt like the world tour was finally underway.
As I wrote in my previous tournament report, most tournaments start at midnight for me as
I'm still building the deck I plan to play. Having built my deck a few weeks(!) earlier this
was not the case for the Glasgow TOC, however as the venue was a good 400 miles away I did
have to get out of bed just after midnight for the flight. It was 4:15am to be precise but at
that time in the morning it still felt like the previous night to me.
As William and I set off for the airport I made sure his mobile phone was turned on. Nick
planned to call us when he left for the airport, as he lives much closer and therefore could
spend longer in bed. We both cursed this fact many times during the journey – even more so when
we had arrived at the airport and he still hadn't phoned us. For some reason I was expecting
the M25 (London's biggest car park) to be busy at 5am on a Sunday morning, so had left home
just a little earlier than we needed to – I'm sure I heard William cursing me under his breath
as we arrived over an hour before we needed to be at the airport.
With all the cursing out of the way we met up, checked-in, boarded, took off, landed and
took a bus into Glasgow city centre. We arrived a couple of hours before the tournament was
due to start, so we did the thing anyone would do when in a foreign city – we looked for
McDonalds. After breakfast we had a quick look around the city and headed off to the venue.
The deck I was playing was heavily based on one used by John Corbett at the Ohio TOC a month
earlier. I had built this deck a few weeks ago and had tweaked it to my liking after a few
practice games online and against William. It was a Maquis speed deck which could solve two
or three easy 30-point missions with small teams and then could get the win from bonus points
(Guingouin battling, ditching weapons at Kressari Rendezvous, and using Mission Accomplished).
The deck could obtain up to 90 bonus points during a game so three copies of At What Cost?
were included for extra speed. Most of my tweaks to the deck were defensive. I included
Biogenic Weapon (who wouldn't in a Maquis deck?) to force my opponent out to space missions,
Rebecca Sullivan to retrieve my personnel if they got killed, Luthor Sloan to destroy events,
and Feast on the Dying to retrieve events when they got destroyed.
We had 10 players in total for the tournament and other decks I saw included another Maquis
deck, a couple of Klingon Riker decks, Borg, DS9, Dominion (guess who?) and a Bajoran deck.
Round 1: (Sarah McFadyean – Maquis mission solver)
My first game is against
another Maquis deck. Sarah was using For the Cause to attempt missions, but she had very few
tricks to get around the strength requirement. Aside from Lore I don't think she had anyone
else with strength higher than six on the table so it would take 5 or 6 personnel to solve her
missions. Armed with this knowledge I was able to stop her for two attempts at Investigate
Maquis Activity, before I Biogenic'ed it and forced her to go to a new mission. Meanwhile,
Sarah had Biogenic'ed my Kressari and used Stalling for Time to return (6-cost) Lore back to
my hand.
I was still setting my deck up (meaning trying to get my important events out) while all
this was going on, and Sarah remarked that none of the Scottish players had a deck that took
so long to set up. Speaking to Nick and Will afterwards it seems most of the Scottish decks
were straight solvers composed mainly of personnel with little, if any, event/interrupt
tricks.
Once I was finally ready I moved off to Rescue Prisoners. On my first attempt Sarah only
gave me one dilemma (Pinned Down) against my six personnel. One was stopped but I could still
solve with five personnel as Crosis took advantage of my superior number of events on the
table.
The remainder of the game followed the same pattern. I was stopping Sarah's attempts with
one or two dilemmas while she couldn't stop me when I attempted. I don't know whether it was
her choice of dilemmas or just the dilemma pile in general, but she was having difficulty
stopping my attempts. The game finished in about half an hour.
FW 100-0
Round 2: (Nick Yankovec – DS9, Captain on the Bridge with Defiant)
A 400-mile
trip with Nick and Will, and I end up playing Nick in round 2. Bugger...
Nick's deck was based around the gamma quadrant and used the USS Defiant (Repurposed
Warship) combined with Captain on the Bridge to play the Defiant's three matching commanders
directly aboard. He was also using RATS and various other events that would, later in the
game, keep my Crosis lacking in attributes. Double bugger...
My deck is based around getting a quick 10 points from the Guingouin winning an engagement
and then using At What Cost? to out-speed my opponent. Unfortunately the Guingouin can only
get to weapons 10 using Point Blank Strike and Nick's Defiant has shields 10 so I couldn't
battle it. Triple bugger...
One thing that did go in my favour was that I drew Biogenic Weapon early. I remember Nick
talking about his mission selection and saying something like "... and another Gamma
quadrant mission that I don't attempt", so I promptly checked his missions (3 low
integrity missions and Quest for the Sword with a high cunning requirement) and used Biogenic
on one of the integrity missions.
Once I had my events out I was off to my first mission. As I had my RATS out I thought I'd
get my space mission(s) out of the way so that I could burn all my events to boost Santos'
attributes and solve Rescue Prisoners with 2 personnel! Unfortunately I didn't have my Escape
in hand and Nick's Tsiolkovsky Infection massacred my crew. I spent the rest of the game
looking for Rebecca Sullivan so I could recycle those personnel but, wouldn't you know it, she
was on the bottom of my deck.
Meanwhile Nick was burning through my dilemma pile. It started out at 31 cards but I have
various consume dilemmas in there and in this game I was consuming a lot, especially for A
Royal Hunt (having Machination'ed for some of them).
As I solve my second mission I notice I have Ro Laren in my team and wonder whether to use
her ability to put 2 cards from Nick's hand back on top of his deck. At this point I'm decked
and Nick only has 1 card left to draw – but a hand full of cards to play. I've only just drawn
Rebecca Sullivan and know that with her I can cycle Santos, who I need to solve my last
mission, back from my discard pile into my draw deck. So I have a decision: (1) Should I do
nothing and hope Nick decks himself next turn (giving me the win), or (2) Should I use Ro
Laren's ability, next turn play Rebecca and cycle Santos, and then try to solve my last
mission for the win the turn after that.
I went with the second option in the hope that Nick wouldn't be able to deck himself if
there were more cards in his draw deck. Nick told me later that I made the wrong choice. He
would have had to draw that last card on his next turn thereby decking himself and giving me
the win.
Anyway, I'm winning 85-30, Nick has a stack of dilemmas under two unsolved missions, and I
only have three dilemmas left. He attempts his second planet missions allowing me to draw all
three dilemmas. I have Final Adventure (which will consume 2), Full Security Alert, and
Tsiolkovsky Infection. I only have the points to use one of them and reason that if I use
Final Adventure I'll consume my last two dilemmas and give Nick a free pass to solve his last
mission for the win. I go with Full Security Alert knowing most of his personnel are expensive
and that it is only likely to stop one. That it does and he solves the mission.
Its now 85-65 and I've spent my turn doing the Rebecca Sullivan cycling thing. On Nick's
turn he moves to his final mission and attempts with six personnel. With five overcome dilemmas
I'm hoping that my Tsiolkovsky Infection is on the top of my dilemma pile. It is but he uses
Rites of Emergence to get past it and solves for the win.
One of the closest games either of us has played in a long time. Unfortunately one of us
had to loose it.
FL 85-100
Round 3: (William Hoskin - Dominion Speed)
A 400-mile trip with Nick and Will,
and I end up playing Will in round 3. Bugger...
After the first two rounds there are three undefeated players: Will, Nick and English
Gerard. Nick gets paired against English and Will gets paired down against me. He helped me
play-test my deck and although I've beaten him in every game we've played between our two
decks so far my gut is telling me he'll win this one. Double bugger...
Will has also been drinking during the tournament and isn't likely to think too much about
his dilemma selections (see my Essex TOC report for more details). Triple bugger...
Anyway, Will first played Dominion back in September 2003 and has been playing them ever
since. He's actually tried six other decks since then but they've all performed badly so he
keeps returning to his trusted Dominion deck. The benefit of this is that I know what it does
and what tricks he has; the downside is that Will knows the deck inside-and-out and could
probably play it with his eyes shut. It's a Dominion speed solver using the Defiant to move
dilemmas so that his third mission can usually be solved on his first attempt.
Unfortunately what happened in this game is a bit of a blur to me. I play Will so often
that, sitting here writing this report 4 days later, I'm having trouble distinguishing this
game from all the others I've played against him. What I can say is that once again I couldn't
battle his Defiant to score the early points I needed to fuel At What Cost? This pretty much
meant that is was two speed decks going head-to-head with little between them except the
Defiant's dilemma moving ability. I don't think I got my Machinations out (or I had to burn
them on earlier missions) so that when Will attempted his third mission I couldn't stop him.
I've nothing else to say on this matter except that I hate losing to my brother.
FL
60-100
Round 4: (English Gerard – Bajoran solver)
While English and I play, Will and
Nick are sitting at the top table battling it out to see who will win the TOC. The irony was
that their "top table" was in fact the lowest in the bar and we were all sitting at
higher tables looking down on them.
English is playing a Bajoran mission solving deck. As Sarah said to me earlier the Scottish
players' decks didn't take long to set up. English would play personnel and then go and
attempt a mission with them. He was using Natural Instincts to provide skills he didn't have
in the away team, and his mission solving technique seemed to be "throw personnel at the
mission until it is solved."
This tactic worked quite well against me as it caught me completely by surprise. In London
most players will attempt with 6 or fewer personnel (or use Tampering With Time or RATS) so
that they don't face too many dilemmas and get caught out by Tragic Turn. English's 9-man
attempt was all the more effective because of my dilemma draw. Trying to stop at least 4
Bajorans at a planet mission when I drew 4 space dilemmas, no Tragic Turn, and had no event
support proved impossible. I was one mission behind and as usual I wasn't yet set up to
attempt myself.
Having Biogenic'ed English's second planet mission he was forced into space. I managed to
halt his first attempt and then hit him with a Gomtuu Shockwave on his next attempt. This
would have stranded him if it weren't for my 1-span Rescue Prisoners which allowed him to limp
home over two turns.
After the Gomtuu hit I flew over and engaged English's ship with the Guingouin to score 10
points. Two At What Cost?'s later and I was finally ready to attempt. At this point I didn't
have my matching commanders out so my RATS and Mission Accomplished events were useless.
Attempting with 7 or 8 personnel I only faced two dilemmas. The first was Chula: Echoes which
I managed to get past by increasing Santos' cunning to 11 (over Crosis' 10 cunning), and the
second dilemma only stopped one. I solved the mission and moved on.
Once English's ship returned to Bajor he was able to switch the crew to another ship and
head back to the space mission – which he again solved due to my not drawing Tragic Turn. He
was onto his third mission and I'd only solved one. This time my dilemmas fell into place. A
Tragic Turn, Command Decisions, Tsiolkovsky Infection combo allowed me to kill off 5 of his 7
crew onboard the ship and bought me some time to solve my last two missions.
I finally found a matching commander and solved my second space mission without any trouble
- only allowing one dilemma against my crew of four. Waiting a turn to restore the range on my
ship I flew to Rescue Prisoners and attempted with 2 – Santos and Lore. English couldn't play
either of his dilemmas and I destroyed all my remaining events to boost Santos to a 20,21,22
beast.
FW 100-70
Final Result
Nick and Will tend to alternate victories against each other, and it
turns out that it was Will's turn to win. He came out on top with a thrilling 100-80 victory
in the final match – winning the tournament and securing his World/European byes. Nick came
second having only lost the one game to Will. One of the Scottish players came third (I didn't
catch his name, sorry) playing one of the Klingon Riker decks, and I came fourth having lost
to both Will and Nick.
Scott, the TD, was kind enough to hand out some Strange New Worlds boosters as prizes as
the TOC kit hadn't arrived. Will pulled one of the Ferengi Ships but I found a Kivas Fajo
foil shining up at me from my booster. Very nice indeed.
Thanks go out to the Scottish players for being great sports, and to Scott for running a
smooth tournament. I'm especially thankful he answered Nick's rule question correctly during
our game, and would like to give Nick a slap on the wrist for trying to get away with
something he clearly knew wouldn't work (discarding only 1 card for Rites of Emergence).
That's pretty much the end of the report although I do have one more story. The day after
the tournament we had been kicked out of our hostel and had about six hours to kill before
check-in for our flight so we had another look around the city. We walked into a shop selling
CD's & DVD's and what do we see sitting on the shelf? A DVD of the 1967 football match where
Scotland beat England 2-1 at Wembley. 1967? Was that match so important that it deserves a
DVD release 38 years later? I realize it was probably the last time Scotland beat England,
but even so...
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