Tournament Reports

by James Hoskin

Utrecht was to be the venue for Team London's next stop on our world tour as we invaded Holland for the European continentals. There were 5 of us - Johannes, Mark, Nick, Will and myself – travelling from two different London airports, aiming to meet up at Amsterdam airport before making our way to Utrecht. Circumstances dictated that we would be lucky to arrive in time for the start of the tournaments as both flights departed late. That delay wasn't helped by the Dutch train workers strike that day. We exited the airport to see a queue of well over 100 people for the taxis, but luckily there was a steady stream of them so it only took 15 minutes to make it to the front.

Our luck continued with the taxi. The driver was using a satellite navigation system to find his way but it tried to take us up a road that had been closed (or hadn't yet been constructed – I couldn't tell). He proceeded to try an alternate route but the navigation system kept bringing him back to the same place. After 20 minutes of driving around in circles we arrived in Utrecht, only to get lost again. The driver had by this point abandoned the satellite navigation but he couldn't find the road where we would be playing. He even asked other drivers on the road but they had no idea either. Having asked the driver to head to Utrecht's railway station so that I could direct him we then passed the road we needed. By sheer luck we had found our way there!

Mark had been in contact with one of the Irish players while we were circling Utrecht. He in turn had persuaded Craig (the TD) to delay the start of the Star Trek tournament so that we could join in when we arrived. The tournament was delayed well over one hour, but even so we missed the start by 15 minutes. Craig said four of us could play each other with the fifth getting the bye for the first round. Mark played Will, Nick played Johannes and I got the bye.

Some of the following game reports may be slightly vague. Even though I took several pages of notes, as I sit here, I am having trouble remembering some of the 21 games I played over the three days. Some reports are longer than others, and it is purely a coincidence if a game I lost only gets a short report.

Tournament 1: World Qualifier

Round 1 – bye
The bye gave me time to focus on my deck. I had decided to play what I thought was my best deck. The idea being that I could test it against the other players to see how it would fare on day 2. If it did well then I could change it to cope with the meta, and if it did badly then I could ditch the deck and play one of my other decks in day 2.

My deck was a 50-card Bajoran RATS deck. Once I solved "Investigate Maquis Activity" I could then move on and attempt both my space missions with a four-man team ("Benjamin Sisko, Shipwright", "Bareil Antos, Esteemed Vedek", "Kira Nerys, Pious Major" and "Rabal"), usually on the same turn provided I wasn't stopped at the first mission. Using a combination of mission accomplished, and the 5-point scoring Kira I would also have enough bonus points to use "Krim" to remove dilemmas and for the "Baraka" to zoom about the spaceline.

The deck had started off as a 40-card deck but I had added in several counter cards to cope with whatever my opponent threw at me. I added "In the Pah-Wraiths Wake" to destroy events, "Sluggo" to combat the 5 bonus point mission solvers, and "Souls of the Dead" to retrieve cards from the discard pile.

My dilemma pile was my tried and trusted Tragic Turn pile. I need event support ("Unexpected Difficulties", "Machinations", "Stir Crazy" etc.) to play it, and as my deck stocked 3 copies of "Party Atmosphere" most of the dilemma support would be played for free.

Round 2 – Tony Gammell (Ireland)
Tony was playing his Romulan P+P/GUYS deck that he played in the London TOC a few weeks ago. As happened when we played in London he didn't play any "Far-Seeing Eyes", but it could be that he just didn't draw into them – as his draw deck looked to be around about 50 cards in size.

I didn't start this game well. After the first few turns I had all three copies of "Running a Tight Ship" in my hand but no copies of "Party Atmosphere" to play them cheaper. I had managed to play a "Machinations" and several cannon fodder personnel for my planet mission, but couldn't seem to find any of the personnel that I wanted. Meanwhile Tony had scored some points from P+P/GUYS and had used an "At What Cost?" to get "Lore" into play along with several other personnel.

Tony began attempting way before I was close to being ready to attempt myself. He used "One-Upsmanship" to remove my "Machinations" and attempted with a small crew. I played what I though would be enough dilemmas to stop his team but unfortunately picked "Lore" to be stopped for one of them. As "Lore" can't be stopped by dilemmas I was one mission down rather quickly. This then turned into me being two missions behind as Tony solved his next mission over the following two turns.

I wasn't too worried about being so far behind as I had solved all three missions on one turn in previous games. This wouldn't happen today though, as Tony managed to stop me for several attempts at my planet mission. He was using "Thought Maker" to download copies of overcome dilemmas, and managed to stop me using "Counterinsurgency Program" combined with "Harsh Conditions" for two consecutive turns.

I managed to claw some time back as I hit Tony's last mission attempt with "Tragic Turn" followed by "Whispers in the Dark" to kill 6 personnel. Unfortunately this left several dilemmas under the mission so he would probably be able to win on his next turn.

I drew into another copy of "Machinations" and played that to the table on my turn. I knew that I had "A Royal Hunt" in my dilemma pile and that combined with "Tragic Turn" could stop Tony's next attempt. What I didn't bank on though was my luck. Tony stopped me again at my planet mission (but gave me enough overcome dilemmas that I could solve next turn), and attempted with 6 personnel on his turn. With 6 overcome dilemmas I had to machinate for "A Royal Hunt". Out of a choice of 6 personnel can you guess who I picked? "Lore" – the only one who couldn't be stopped. That gave Tony the win.
FL: 0-100

Round 3 – Mark Radford (England)
Mark was playing a Borg deck. What I didn't know when we started playing was whether it was his straight-out speed deck, a full-blown assimilator, or a combination of the two that used Knowledge and Experience to bypass dilemmas after assimilating just one personnel.

Having played a ship and several personnel on my first turn I did what I normally do and beamed them up (to counter assassination attempts). The next turn I remembered that the "Queens Borg Cube" could assimilate someone from a ship at a HQ so I beamed them back down very quickly. Mark had played "Abduction" on his turn so I guessed that he was playing one of his assimilator variants. This wasn't too good for me as I only had about 15 personnel in the whole deck.

This game I did manage to get several personnel out quite quickly, so I tried to move and solve my planet mission before Mark could get his assimilation up and running. Unfortunately he managed to kill several personnel (including my last Kira) and stall me for a couple of attempts at this mission. Having used "Desperate Sacrifice" to destroy about eight of my events he came over and assimilated a couple of personnel. My deck now looked to be in trouble as I could only get 95 points from my three usual missions so I would be forced to attempt all four.

While I spent a couple of turns rebuilding my personnel Mark was off attempting his missions. I don't remember which dilemma I played against him but I do remember him trying to use "Ascertain" to get past it. Unfortunately Mark didn't have 2 programming in his team and couldn't pass the requirements he had altered! Mark then solved that mission next turn and moved to his second mission – where I stopped his attempt.

I finally had the personnel out that I needed so I flew to my first space mission and solved it thanks to "Vic Fontaine" reducing the number of dilemma points Mark could use against me (draw one, spend zero). I tried this again at my second space mission but Mark got a lucky dilemma draw – "Secret Identity". I'd decked myself by this point so Mark would get a free kill whoever he picked. He removed Vic and that was the final nail in the coffin as Vic was my last source of Diplomacy which I needed for my fourth mission.

I could still get the win though, as I had a higher score than Mark and he didn't have that many cards left in his draw deck. If we both decked ourselves before time was called I would get the full win. By this point Mark had played "The Perfect Tool" and was spending 10 counters per turn thanks to his 3 assimilated personnel.

After Mark solved his second mission he began his third where I stopped him. I solved my second space mission on my turn and flew to my forth mission so Mark wouldn't realize I couldn't solve it. I beamed some personnel down to the planet and attempted knowing that I as long as Mark stopped at least one personnel I could make out that he got lucky and had stopped the one personnel I needed for the mission. This he did by using "Hard Time" to return one of my team to hand.

On the next turn Mark flew over to my mission to try and assimilate Sisko. He used his final copy of "Abduction" and named Diplomacy. Even though I had no Diplomacy in the team I don't think he realised I couldn't solve the mission (which required 2 diplomacy). On my turn, I played the personnel he returned to hand and made out that I had to waste a turn to fly home to pick them up.

Mark then drew enough cards the following turn to deck himself. He thought that he would get until the end of turn before the game ended but Craig, the TD, ruled that the game ended immediately.
FW: 80-75

Round 4 - Enrico Evink (Netherlands)
Enrico was playing a Borg mission solver using the rare Queen to swap drones in after interlinking as well as multiple copies of "Adapt", "Analyze" and "Ascertain" to bypass dilemmas. I thought this would be a fairly good match up for me as, thanks to playing Mark's Borg decks, I was familiar with the Borg personnel.

We both started off quite quickly heading out to our first missions. I stopped Enrico's attempt and then he played "Assassination Attempt" against my team. An "Emergency Transport Unit" stopped one of the kills but I couldn't save the other.

Next turn I played a combo trying to remove both "Locutus" and the Queen from the attempt. I played "Final Adventure" to try and kill one of them followed by "Back Room Dealings". The two consumed dilemmas from "Final Adventure" couldn't have been worse for me – "Tsiolkovsky Infection" and "Gomtuu Shockwave". Enrico analyzed "Final Adventure" to stop it returning to my dilemma pile so there were now enough dilemmas under the mission that he could solve next turn.

My next attempt was stopped by Enrico, but he also gave me enough dilemmas that I could solve next turn. The game was pretty even at this point, with each of us about to solve one mission, although Enrico had more than nine personnel in play, while I only had six personnel and 2 RATS in play.

Next turn Enrico solved his mission and moved to his second where I managed to stop him by just a few cunning, and then I began my turn. I was searching for my final copy of RATS as well as one of the skills I needed for my third mission. I didn't find either so was limited to just solving my first mission and hoping that I could solve my second without having any casualties. My luck finally changed for me here (albeit only temporarily), as I attempted with four personnel giving Enrico two dilemmas to use against me. The only one he could play was "Alluring Spy". I was nowhere near to passing it but had no Security on the ship to be stopped so I solved the mission.

Enrico had interlinked most of his dilemma support events into the discard pile earlier and I feel that if I had the correct skills in play then I would have won the game that turn. I didn't have the skills and it turns out that I wouldn't win the game either. Next turn Enrico used "Ascertain" to bypass one of my dilemmas so that he could solve his second mission and moved to his third where I tried a "Tragic Turn", stopper, "Tsiolkovsky Infection" combo. Enrico spent a few seconds trying to work out how to pass TI using "Ascertain" before realising that another copy of it was overcome at his first mission. He adapted to it and solved for the win.
FL: 80-115

Round 5 - Nick Yankovec (England)
Urg, my second team London match-up of the tournament. Nick was playing his Android deck with Terok Nor to supply a few Jem'Hadar with the extra skills he needed. I knew he would be able to solve most missions with four personnel, or even three on the turn that he played Ruk. Having tried to build a similar deck, I also knew that "Lore" had the skills to solve one of the missions on his own.

Nick raced to an early lead when he attempted his first mission with eight personnel and I was unable to stop him. I forgot that Nick could use "Ira Graves" to unstop one of his stopped androids, and he did just that to solve the mission. I was still setting up at this point, and my deck relied on my opponent taking two or three turns per mission attempt, so I was expecting to lose another match.

Having played two copies of "Sluggo" to prevent "Lore" and "Data" using a skill to solve a mission, Nick was forced to attempt a different mission than he would have liked. He attempted with five personnel and I used "Stir Crazy" to draw eight dilemmas. I drew some good dilemmas and hoped to be able to kill a few personnel to buy some more time. I knew Nick had one "Emergency Transport Unit" in play so he could prevent one death, so I decided to try to kill one before playing "Whisper in the Dark" to kill 3 more. The combo worked like a charm and I did indeed kill 3 personnel.

Its turns out that Nick needed to unstop "Data" (by discarding an event) at the beginning of his turn otherwise he couldn't fly his ship, and he didn't have an event in hand. Nick drew seven cards that turn but couldn't find an event so would be stranded next turn as well. After the game Nick showed me what was left of his deck, and about half were events – a Rakal shuffle if I've ever heard of one.

This was all the delay I needed. Having solved my planet mission and destroyed Nick's dilemma support events I was able to move and solve both space missions on one turn.
FW: 100-65

Tournament 1 result
Two losses from five games put me at 5th place out of 11 players. Enrico, the Borg player who beat me in round 4, won the tournament and Will finished second. The prize support made up for my performance though, as most players received several Strange New Worlds foils and rares.

Following the tournament we all headed to the hotel where Nick had booked three rooms for us to stay in via the Internet. Will and I were sharing a room, but when we entered the room we saw a message on the television saying "Welcome Mr and Mrs Hoskin." From that point onwards I started calling William "the Mrs" or "the wife" or some other variant. (S)he seemed to enjoy that.

Following a meal Nick, Johannes and Will headed off to go drinking while Mark and I showed our age and returned to the hotel for some rest. They returned some time later with stories of the city centre being filled with gay pride convention attendees. I assume that's why the hotel thought Will was my ball and chain.

We met up Saturday morning aiming to get some breakfast before heading off for more gaming. I'd been going on about getting some "fritte sauce" from McDonalds the previous day so everyone assumed I wanted to go there for breakfast. I followed everyone else there but resisted the temptation to get any, so we all just turned around and walked back to some other shop in the shopping centre selling breakfast.

There were only ten players registered to play in day 1 of the Star Trek European continentals, and yet the top sixteen would qualify to day 2. As all the Team London players had byes into day 2 we asked if we could enter day 1 to get another Data promo foil. A resounding no from the organisers meant we got to spend the day playing in side events - which was no bad thing as the players in day 1 didn't get a promo Data foil anyway.

Tournament 2: Regular tournament
This will be a very short report as I forgot to make any notes until we were halfway through the following tournament. Mark was off playing Rings to get the promo and, from what he told us, kept being killed at site 6 all day. That meant Craig, the TD, stepped in to make up the numbers for sanctioning. Following the failure of my Bajoran deck the previous day I had decided to try out my Reman Tampering deck.

Round 1 – Craig Thomson (Scotland)
Craig was playing a Federation Confessions deck. It wasn't a great match-up against my dilemma pile that required me to skill track to make sure I could get "Where No One Has Gone Before" to hit. It didn't matter though as I managed to strand Craig after his first mission attempt. He then spent the rest of the game trying to find another ship to go rescue his personnel. I won.

Round 2 – Nick Yankovec (England)
Nick had modified his Android deck from the previous day and was trying it out. I couldn't get a "Tampering With Time" out as all three were in the last eight cards of my deck. I lost.

Round 3 – Fergus O'Shea (Ireland)
Fergus also had a continental's bye and couldn't play in day 1. He was using a Non-Aligned thief deck with "Benjamin Sisko, Outlaw" and the "Fortune" combined with artifacts. It took some time setting up but once he had it all in play most of his personnel were at least cunning 10. This meant he could solve his missions with three or four personnel and my deck just couldn't keep up. I lost.

Tournament 2 result
Two losses from three games put me at 5th place out of 6 players. Johannes won the tournament.

We had managed to play that three round tournament in the same time it took the day 1 players to play two rounds. We knew some of them wanted to play in a tournament with us, but we figured we could squeeze in another before they finished.

Tournament 3: Race to the Alpha Quadrant
For the uninitiated a "Race to the Alpha Quadrant" tournament has 12 special rules. Before each game each player rolls a d12 and that rule will affect his game. Once per tournament a player can re-roll his die if he wants to change his rule. I had decided to use the last of the three decks I took with me to Utrecht and try that one out. It was an Earth (command) Kirk deck using Trills and "Rites of Emergence" to bypass dilemmas. I had also borrowed William's unfocused dilemma pile for the tournament.

Round 1 – William Hoskin (England)
Will and I both rolled and accepted rule 7 – we could start the game with a ship at our headquarters.

Will was getting fed up with his Dominion deck and had borrowed one from Mark. It was a Klingon High Council / TNG McCoy combination 2-mission win deck, using the Enterprise, "Guinan" and "Alexander Rozhenko" to download RATS as well as other things. Mark has only recently built this deck and it turns out that it was virtually impossible to win with. He needed to play two different versions of the Enterprise-D, and had no Astrometrics in the deck even though two of his three missions required it! This meant Will needed to get "Guinan" killed twice so he could play her three times during the game if he was to win.

Will didn't know about this when we played though. He spent a lot of the game drawing trying to find McCoy so that he could solve his first 45 point mission with five personnel. He eventually gave up on this and tried to solve "Investigate Maquis Activity". I managed to stop him for 4 consecutive turns with his own dilemma pile.

Meanwhile I had been out attempting missions. Will had been trying to distaff me using things like "Biochemical Hyperacceleration" to return three personnel to hand. Luckily for me I built my Kirk deck to get past that and the 8-cost dilemmas easily. He was using a lot of dilemmas on the first attempt knowing I would be able to solve the mission next turn.

Will eventually solved his mission but by that time I had enough dilemmas under my third mission to win on the next turn.
FW: 100-40

Round 2 – Craig Thomson (Scotland)
Craig rolled and had to accept rule 6 (he must attempt missions with 9 personnel), while I accepted rule 11 (I could play personnel and equipment to any planet)

Craig was playing a Romulan Escaping Detection deck that he said he threw together a couple of weeks ago. He had several events out and his dilemma pile consisted of the 8-cost dilemmas among other things.

I was out attempting early again and could use either "Togaren" or "Julian Bashir" combined with "Security Drills" (to double skills) to easily get past the 8-cost dilemmas. Craig stopped me for a couple of turns but his deck was no real match for mine. He did manage to solve one mission but once again I was attempting my last mission by that point.
FW: 100-40

Round 3 – Johannes Klarhauser (adopted English)
Johannes rolled and had to accept rule 6 (he must attempt missions with 9 personnel), while I again accepted rule 11 (I could play personnel and equipment to any planet). For the third game in a row I had rolled a rule that wouldn't hurt me. In previous Race to the Alpha Quadrant tournaments I had rolled rules that would hurt me, so this made a nice change.

Johannes was playing a Klingon Riker deck. His deck wasn't designed for minimum attempting but I don't think he liked having to attempt with 9 personnel. At his first mission he made some comment and then attempted with 13. I drew a "Restricted Area" and proceeded to capture three of his personnel. From his perspective the game didn't get much better from that point. On subsequent attempts I captured another using an "In Training", "Impressive Trophies" combo, and killed a bunch of personnel using "Whispers in the Dark".

Johannes was using a "Tragic Turn" dilemma pile, and this did quite a bit of damage to my 9 personnel attempts. Once again I managed to overcome several dilemmas using Kirk, "Security Drills", or "Rites of Emergence". I had solved two missions to Johannes' zero when he changed missions. I guessed I had killed/captured enough personnel that he couldn't solve "Brute Force" despite several dilemmas being overcome beneath it so he moved to "Rescue Prisoners" and tried again. The only sure way I had of stopping his attempt was to use "Outmatched" (which I had borrowed from him earlier) and consume 6 dilemmas.

The next turn would be the last. Johannes only had a couple of dilemmas to stop my team but couldn't manage it and I got the win.
FW: 100-0

Tournament 3 result
I was undefeated after three rounds and won the tournament beating 5 other players.

Tournament 4: Reflections 2.0 booster draft
At this point day 1 had finished, but instead of playing another regular constructed tournament Craig told us about a draft format he had been thinking about. He wrote the rules down and added new rules as the situation arose. I assume they'll be published somewhere eventually but the basics were:

• The aim was to score 60 points and solve one space and one planet mission.
• Each player had to bring along one headquarters, and two or three missions.
• Each player could bring 1 personnel, 1 space dilemma and 1 planet dilemma (the total cost of all three being 7 or under.)
• Each player got to draft 4 reflections boosters (keep the foils, then take one card and pass the rest to the next player.)
• Minimum of 10 dilemmas and 20 in the draw deck.
• Duel dilemmas would return to the dilemma pile at the end of turn.
• All affiliations could play at your chosen Headquarters.
• There were no affiliation restrictions for ship staffing.
• You may start the game with one personnel at your headquarters, but you must reduce your opening hand size by its cost.
• When you deck yourself you may shuffle your discard pile to form your new draw deck. You may only do this once per game.
• 45 minute rounds.

Naturally every player tried to use one of the "Mouth of the Wormhole" headquarters (as they only have 1 span), but nobody had prepared and the only cards we had to use were from our decks. One quick raid later and we were ready to draft.

As I had my Federation deck on me I decided to bring "The Traveller" (2 cost), "Wavefront" (2 cost), and "Unknown Microorganism" (3 cost), as well as Earth, "Geological Survey" and "Protect the Escapees". My plan was to draft Federation science personnel but this changed as soon as I opened my first reflections booster. I pulled a foil Klingon Riker and knew that he would be very powerful against all those 2-fer dilemmas. From that point I decided to draft Klingons and hope to get some good missions. Other cards I remember drafting were a "Mouth of the Wormhole" headquarters, Locutus foil, "Brute Force", as well as several Klingons and Jem'Hadar.

By sheer luck I discovered that the "Protect the Escapees" mission I brought with me was attemptable by Klingons for only strength>30. What with the 8 strength Jem'Hadar and "Locutus" I felt confident when we started playing.

Unfortunately I had misunderstood the dilemma rule regarding what returns at the end of turn. I though it meant the 2-fer dilemmas so that was what I had drafted. This is probably what cost me the tournament as the player who won it only had 3 non-duel dilemmas in his pile – meaning that virtually everything he played returned at his end of turn.

I only drafted 10 dilemmas so they all went into my dilemma pile. I built a 22 card draw deck containing 2 ships, 10 klingons, 9 Jem'Hadar and "Locutus".

Round 1 – William Hoskin (England)
Will sat down and laid out his usual Dominion missions. I don't know whether it was a subconscious decision but he had drafted the missions he always used in his decks. He seemed to be more interested in attacking me than solving missions – especially after I locked him out for two turns using an all-duel dilemma combo (which returned at his end of turn). By now I understood the dilemma rules and was trying to use just my duel dilemmas if I could.

Will had also misunderstood the rules and drafted only 4 duel dilemmas. This meant that he couldn't stop me provided I had someone with the skill for Riker to gain and pass the relevant dilemma. I tried to take a wide selection of skills and hoped for the best. This strategy worked and I managed to solve both missions quite quickly.

It may not have mattered but I managed to score 30 bonus points by using Locutus so ending the game with 100 points. If I could just use these rules in a real tournament!
FW: 100-0

Round 2 – Nick Yankovec (England)
Nick had read and understood the rules a little better than me. He realised that the "Information Drone" would be invaluable, as it could interlink any other skill present. The personnel he had brought was "Lore" and I had visions of me selecting him to be stopped from a random pick (as happened 3 or 4 times over the entire three days of gaming.)

This game was over very quickly as I managed to breeze through Nick's dilemmas using Riker. The only note I made about this game was that "Riker rules."
FW: 70-0

Round 3 – Auwerd Bijker (Netherlands)
As I mentioned earlier Auwerd did understand the rules much better than most of the other players (except maybe Craig). Like Nick he drafted the "Information Drone", as well as all the duel dilemmas he could get his hands on. In the end only 3 of his dilemmas were non-duel.

I thought I could stop him at his first attempt using "Overwhelmed" and some dilemma requiring three or four skills. Auwerd just used the drone to give all the skills needed to another drone present and stopped that one to solve.

Meanwhile he had managed to stop me for several attempts using just duel dilemmas. "Chula: Echoes" was surprisingly effective considering most of my personnel had cunning 5. He had beaten Mark in the first round without giving him any overcome dilemmas and he managed to do the same to me. I was unable to stop his interlinking drone and he quickly beat me to win the tournament.
FL: 0-65

Tournament 4 result
My only loss was against the eventual winner of the tournament. Auwerd won the tournament beating 8 other players, and I finished second.

Soon after the tournament finished the Pulsfort brothers walked into the room. I guess they had just arrived in the area and were looking for trades. They were quite anxious to get their hands on "Annexation Drones" from Reflections so we surmised that one or both of them wanted to play Borg in day 2.

Saturday evening was spent with the rest of team London discussing how to beat the Borg :) and then writing our decklists.

Sunday morning started quite early as we had to check out of our hotel. We had been unable to find a hotel for all three nights (presumable due to the gay pride convention mentioned earlier), so would have to check into a different hotel on Sunday night. This should have meant we were lugging our bags around all day but Tony very kindly agreed to us leaving our bags in his room for the day. Thanks Tony.

We headed to the venue to find that only 20 players had registered to play in day 2. This is a marked difference from last year when there were over 40 players. We were hoping that it was the lack of hotel rooms that caused the drop in attendance and not the game itself. There was also a Premiere Series Regional tournament planned to start at the same time but as it had no serious entrants we persuaded the organisers to delay it until after day 2 had finished.

Following the success of my Kirk deck the previous day I had decided to use it today. The deck didn't have enough event support for my "Tragic Turn" dilemma pile so I had decided to combine my two dilemma piles. I removed "Tragic Turn", and added some of the dilemmas from my skill tracker pile.

Tournament 5: Star Trek European continentals – day 2

Round 1 – Ignasi Fandos (Spain)
Ignasi was playing an Android deck with Romulan P+P support. I got lucky for several turns as I always had personnel on top of my deck when Ignasi used P+P. I don't know whether he needed the extra points to solve easier missions or whether they would be used to fuel "At What Cost?" but either way it didn't matter as I just took the free draws P+P was giving me.

I stopped his first mission attempt in space using "Gomtuu Shockwave", and he in turn stopped me at my first attempt. He was using a "Tragic Turn" dilemma pile but didn't seem to have the event support for it. From my own experiences I knew that as long as I could survive his dilemmas the first attempt I would probably be able to solve on the next turn as he would have very few dilemmas to use.

Ignasi didn't have a second ship in play so decided to stay at his mission and attempt again. After I drew my dilemmas I began to wish I had added a second "Gomtuu Shockwave" to the pile. I did in fact draw a "Quantum Filament" and knew that would hit, so if I had drawn a second "Gomtuu Shockwave" I would have been able to blow his ship up – buying me several turns while he played another ship and more personnel.

He clearly had the same thoughts when he failed to pass "Quantum Filament" and saw one more dilemma still to be faced. He breathed a huge sign of relief when he flipped it to see "Pinned Down" before using "Ira Graves" to unstop whoever I picked. He solved the mission and flew his ship home to repair.

On my turn I solved my first mission and headed off to the second where he again stopped me using "Tragic Turn" combined with several dilemmas. At this point I was slightly in the lead but he soundly overtook me the following turn. He used a combination of "Stricken Dumb", "Escape", "Ira Graves" and "Shady Resources" to overcome all the dilemmas I used against him and moved to his final mission where I managed to stop him thanks to a slice of luck. My first dilemma was "Secret Identity" and I picked "Lore" to be removed from the attempt. He said he would normally just replace "Lore" with another copy but unfortunately the other copy was in his hand and couldn't be played. This bought me another turn, maybe two if I was lucky, in which to win the game.

I attempted my second mission with as small a crew as I could send down as, due to overcome dilemmas and no event support, he would only get to draw one dilemma. He drew a "Trabe Grenade" and proceeded to stop my attempt by killing someone.

Ignasi played "Lore" on his turn and, as he hadn't played a second ship, had to waste a turn flying home to pick him up. On my turn I solved my second mission and flew to the third. I don't remember which dilemmas he used but he managed to stop me with only three dilemmas.

It was now his turn and if he didn't solve this turn I was confident I could on the next. It wasn't to be though as he again used "Ira Graves" to unstop someone and could solve the mission.
FL: 65-100

Round 2 – Nick Yankovec (England)
This was to be my third game against Nick over the three days we had been there. Before we started I knew which deck he would be playing. He had told all the team London players that he planned to play his "Dominion Battleship", "Distant Exploration", 2-mission win deck in day 2 and that he wouldn't play it in any other tournament so the other players would be surprised. Nick had lost to Johannes in the first round and was playing me in round 2 so the surprise factor hadn't worked so far.

I managed to play "Luthor Sloan" early on in the game and could use him to destroy Nick's copies of "Distant Exploration" forcing him to solve three missions. At our first attempts we both managed to stop each other without using too many dilemmas, before we both solved them the following turn. I then moved to my second mission and attempted again. Nick made some comment about a gamble and just gave me one dilemma – "Rogue Borg Ambush". I had had to kill Kirk the previous attempt so Nick knew I couldn't use him to pass this dilemma. He also knew that I was using "Rites of Emergence" in my deck, but he couldn't be sure whether I had drawn any. In fact I had, and played it to give the required Intelligence to "Ezri Dax". Nick grinned and slapped an "Amanda Rogers" onto the table to cancel my Rites. I just grinned back at Nick and played my second copy of Rites from hand. Mission solved.

Nick moved to his second mission and I stopped his attempt by killing three personnel using "Tsiolkovsky Infection". I thought it might have been enough to de-staff his ship but it wasn't. It was enough that he couldn't solve the mission though, and he would have to spend the next turn flying home to get more reinforcements.

On my next turn I flew to my third mission. I didn't have the range to fly home and pick up another copy of Kirk, and I didn't have a second ship in play so I would have to attempt without Kirk. I felt fairly safe though as I had both "Escape" and a "Rites of Emergence" in hand. Nick played what can only be described a "pile of dilemmas." He played several stoppers followed by "Endangered" (which allowed him to spend 3 more on dilemmas that attempt) and "Where No Man Has Gone Before". Having stopped both "Julian Bashir" and "Lenara Kahn" (who could both practically pass the dilemma on their own) earlier I was screwed. It removed my ship from the game until the end of my next turn. It effectively bought Nick two turns while I couldn't do anything.

On Nick's next turn he flew home, as expected, and picked up more personnel with which to attempt with. After returning to the mission I managed to stop a couple of personnel but not enough to prevent him solving the mission. He then had a choice – he could either fly to his third mission and attempt with five personnel hoping I didn't massacre him, or he could wait there and play more personnel the following turn. He chose the later option as he knew I couldn't do anything the next turn as my ship was still not back in play.

After I played Kirk and a few personnel, my turn ended and my ship returned. This left us both with one mission to solve. It was Nick's turn and he had not yet started his mission, while I already had eight dilemmas under my final mission.

Nick played "Temporal Incursion" before flying to his final mission and attempting with eight personnel. I drew a "Personal Duty" among my dilemmas and figured it would stop a couple of personnel so I played it first, with two other stoppers after it. It turns out that Nick had a lot of leadership and officer on his ship and that "Personal Duty" stopped four personnel, enough to prevent his solving, so the final two dilemmas were wasted.

On my turn I played a second ship and some more personnel. I now had 13 personnel in play so I could either have two small attempts or one big one. I was mindful of "Temporal Incursion" (which allowed Nick to flip his dilemma pile to draw one extra dilemma) and called Craig, the TD, over to ask him whether this was a modifier. If it was then I could attempt with seven or fewer personnel and it wouldn't affect the number of dilemmas Nick drew. If it wasn't a modifier then Nick would be able to draw at least one dilemma no matter how many I attempted with. Craig ruled it was a modifier and that if I attempted with 7 personnel Nick wouldn't get to draw any dilemmas (the correct ruling I might add), but as I hadn't formed my ships crew yet he went away to check his ruling.

Mark told me later that Craig had asked Will and Johannes – neither of which are TD's – before returning to rule in Nicks favour. The ruling was final so I had to accept it and try to solve the mission knowing Nick would get to draw at least one dilemma, no matter how many I attempted with. I decided to try two teams, one of six personnel and one of seven, both of which could solve but neither of which could afford to have anyone stopped. Nick only had three dilemmas left and the top card was "A Royal Hunt" which would stop one personnel at random. On the first attempt it consumed the last two dilemmas before returning to his pile, ready to stop me on the second attempt as well.

With hindsight, if I had attempted with eight personnel I would have won the game – but I wasn't to know what was in Nick's dilemma pile at that point. Nick got a turn he wasn't expecting and solved his mission as I had very little left in my dilemma pile that could stop him.
FL: 65-100

Round 3 – Tony Gammell (Ireland)
After two games team London wasn't faring too well. We had all suffered at least one loss except Mark who was riding high with two wins for his Borg deck. Also suffering were the Irish players, many of whom were in the bottom half of the draw as well. I ended up playing Tony's Romulan GUYS/P+P deck again.

We had both played similar decks against each other at the London TOC. I don't know if Tony modified his deck but I had streamlined my deck by 10 cards and (aside from the two losses in this tournament) it was performing much better. I knew that Tony was a skill tracker and hated playing against Kirk decks.

I moved out early and attempted my first mission. Tony must have had a bad draw as he only played three dilemmas against me. A "Secret Identity" (removing Kirk only to see him replaced with another copy), followed by a single stopper and "Skeleton Crew". I solved the mission and returned home as I didn't have the skills I needed for my second mission yet.

Tony must have felt the pressure as he attempted on his next turn despite only having 6 personnel in play. I played "Chula: Pick One to Save Two" which returned one to hand, followed by a stopper and "Dreamer and the Dream" which forced him to discard his hand when he failed the attempt. He discarded an "Escape", two events and two personnel.

Tony stopped my next attempt with an "In Training" (consuming a Whispers and a Tsiolkovsky), and then spent his next turn drawing and playing a couple of events including "Machinations". He couldn't solve his mission so didn't try and just flew home for the turn. On my next turn he used the "Machinations" to get another copy of "In Training" to stop me again (this time consuming a Tsiolkovsky and a "Gomtuu Shockwave"), before drawing a lot of cards for his next attempt. He must have known that I could solve my second mission next turn and would be onto my third so he would have to start solving his missions quickly. He solved his first mission and moved onto his second where he attempted with five personnel. I got lucky and drew another Dreamer as well as a stopper. I knew he couldn't solve with four personnel, so I played them both and he had to discard his entire hand of 9 cards.

Having two consumed copies of "Tsiolkovsky Infection" under my missions, I was confident when I moved to my third space mission after solving the second. I attempted with nine personnel and Tony tried a combo ending with "Where No Man Has Gone Before". I managed to keep both Bashir and "Lenara Kahn" unstopped this time and could pass the dilemma using either set of requirements.
FW: 100-30

Round 4 – Ben Peeters (Belgium)
Ben is the chap with a rating of something like 15000 on the decipher website, so he's either the best player in the world or there's been a cock up. Considering the theoretical maximum any player can get is 3000 I'm inclined to think it's the later.

Ben is playing a Romulan "Alternate Identity", "Exceed Engine Output" deck. He was playing a bunch of cheap 1-cost personnel for use with "Alternate Identity" to swap them out for some 4-costers. He also had "Exceed Engine Output" to increase the range on his Romulan ships.

I used Sloan to destroy his first EEO early on before playing him again and moving to my first mission. Ben must have been concentrating too much on the skill tracking on not on the actual personnel I was playing, as he tried to use "Psychic Receptacle" followed by "Rogue Borg Ambush" on me. He knew Sloan was my only source of intelligence so named that for "Psychic Receptacle", assuming that Rogue Borg would stop me, only for me to play a "Rites of Emergence" to pass the dilemma and the mission.

At that point I still had 4 range left on my ship and none of my personnel had been stopped so I flew to my second mission to try my luck there. This time Ben played two dilemmas saying they would definitely stop me. He played "Harsh Conditions" (naming Intelligence) followed by another "Rogue Borg Ambush". I couldn't use any Intelligence this time and had no hand weapon so I just killed Kirk to nullify the dilemma and solve the mission. I now had two missions solved and Ben hadn't played a ship yet.

He played a ship and moved to his first mission where I played what I though would be enough dilemmas to stop his attempt. Unfortunately for me I forgot that Romulan B'Etor could unstop someone when she is stopped herself. I played a random stopper followed by "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" Ben stopped B'Etor for the second dilemma and used her ability to unstop the personnel I had stopped by the first dilemma. He then solved that mission and moved to his second mission where I had an unbelievably bad draw. Out of seven dilemmas I think I could only play two, one of which was a "Secret Identity" allowing him to add anyone he wanted to the mission attempt.

From being two missions ahead and looking to be on course for an easy win, the game was now back level. I thought Ben's turn was over at this point as he had no range left on his ship but he used an "Exceed Engine Output" to fly to a space mission and attempt it. I drew my dilemmas and after looking at them was sure he wouldn't be able to solve all three missions on one turn. I had drawn "Gomtuu Shockwave", and was certain he didn't have the required integrity to pass it. He didn't and now had two damage markers on his ship. If only I had added a second Gomtuu...

On my turn I moved to my space mission and attempted. Ben played two dilemmas, the first being "Counterinsurgency Program" (naming Intelligence) – which I didn't have in my team that time. We both knew I could use Kirk to overcome the dilemma but I was worried about the second dilemma. It could be a bluff and I would win the game or it could be something that would hurt my team. By now I had no copies of "Escape" or "Rites of Emergence" left in my hand, and without Kirk as well I would feel vulnerable facing that second dilemma. At this point I realised Ben couldn't name Intelligence for the dilemma (which excludes certain skills), and asked him to name a different skill. After a few seconds thought he named Archaeology, which I didn't have in my team, and I was back to deciding whether to kill Kirk or not. In the end I killed Kirk only to get hit by "Molecular Reversion Field".

Ben played a second ship on his next turn and flew home to switch ships. I don't remember which dilemmas I played but whatever they were they were just enough to stop him solving the mission by a couple of cunning points. That left me having to solve my mission next turn as I was sure I wouldn't be able to stop him for a third attempt.

Next turn I played another copy of Kirk, flew home to pick him up and returned to attempt. Ben just played a random stopper followed by "Molecular Reversion Field". This time there were no other dilemmas so I could kill Kirk to nullify it and solve the mission for the win. Looking at my next few dilemmas they wouldn't have been enough to stop Ben winning the game on his next turn.
FW: 100-65

Round 5 – Mark Radford (England)
Once again I knew what Mark would be playing before we sat down. Although he had two viable decks for day 2, I was certain he would be playing his Borg solver that he won a TOC with a few weeks ago. His other deck required real thought and I was sure Mark wouldn't want to play it over five or more rounds. One of his favourite phrases is "brain ache" and that deck would most certainly have caused it.

He was indeed playing his Borg speed deck. It used the "Annexation Drone" to score 5 points to fuel "You've Always Been my Favorite" which would then download more copies of the "Annexation Drone" and "At What Cost?" In the many games we have played Mark always seems to manage to draw into the right cards early in the game, no matter where I cut his deck.

After I cut his deck, he went first and once again managed to play an "Annexation Drone" to score 5 points. He then played two more drones followed by a "You've Always Been my Favourite" to download more cards. For once I got lucky though. In my hand I had "Lenara Kahn" and "Luthor Sloan". I played Lenara to find an event in the top 4 cards of my deck which I could then play, and followed it up with Sloan. I could then destroy my event and return Sloan to hand to destroy his YABMF. I won't say what he said when I did that.

Over the next few turns we both built up teams for the missions, before I ventured out first. I attempted with eight personnel and Mark played six dilemmas against me trying to kill everyone. I used Kirk, Rites and an "Escape" to prevent most of the damage and would be able to solve the mission on my next turn.

Mark was also ready to attempt and flew to a space mission were he attempted with ten drones. I knew he had no Officer, Leadership or Treachery in the team and drew various dilemmas that would normally stop him. However I knew Mark would more than likely have at least one "Ascertain" in hand to pass dilemmas with so I had to be very careful in my selection. In the end I decided to play "Back Room Dealings", followed by "Personnel Duty" and then two random stoppers. I hoped Mark would use "Ascertain" to prevent a kill by the first dilemma and would then be stopped by the second. Either that or he would see two more dilemmas and decide not to play an "Ascertain" on "Personal Duty" so that all four dilemmas would be overcome. He did indeed use "Ascertain" to prevent "Back Room Dealings" killing anyone and decided to stop everyone for "Personal Duty". I don't know whether he had a second "Ascertain" in hand but he didn't look too pleased when he saw that the last two dilemmas wouldn't have stopped him.

On my turn I solved my first mission and moved to the second. Once again Mark used a lot of dilemmas to try and de-staff me. I had to kill Kirk but I managed to save everyone so that I would be able to solve on my next turn.

Mark also solved on his next turn and flew to a planet mission where again he attempted with ten personnel. As he still hadn't yet played "Locutus" I knew he had no Diplomacy so decided to try another "Ascertain" inducing combo. I played "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?" followed by "Blended". Mark didn't use "Ascertain" this time so I managed to kill one and then stop the rest of his personnel using only two dilemmas.

Much like the previous turn, I solved my mission and moved to the next one where Mark played a bunch of dilemmas trying to stop me. This time I didn't have Kirk but I had to use "Rites of emergence" and "Escape" to survive.

The following turn I drew "Outmatched" as one of my dilemmas when Mark attempted. I had previously destroyed his copies of "Unyielding" so was certain that if I consumed enough dilemmas I would stop him. The only downside was that I knew Mark was playing "Adapt" and my consumed dilemmas would almost certainly gift him the game next turn. I played it anyway and consumed six dilemmas (making the requirements cunning>75) meaning he was stopped.

The only note I made about my final turn was "I solve" so I guess I can't have faced too many dilemmas when I attempted. I think it was another combo trying to get "Where No Man Has Gone Before" to hit, but thanks to "Lenara Kahn" and "Julian Bashir" I could pass it easily.

We played out the next turn to see if Mark would have solved his last mission and indeed he could have. That's two games in a row that I won by just one turn.
FW: 100-65

Tournament 5 result
There were five other players tied with me on three wins and two losses. Each of us waited to see who would place top of the pile and take 4th place (and also the last semi-final spot). It wasnt me, as both players who beat me (Ignasi and Nick) ended up with worse records than I had. I ended up in 9th place as the only Team London player with three wins. A poor showing from all concerned. Things might have been different if Craig's ruling had gone the other way during my game against Nick, but I'll never know now (I would have played other players and may have lost to them instead.)

The prizes weren't too shabby. While every other player received a foil Data with their Strange New Worlds rares/foils, Will and I didn't get one as they had run out. We'll be watching eBay soon to see where the extras went.

While the top four day 2 players faced off in the semi-finals the team London players tried to recruit more players for the PSR. It seems the entry price of €20 was putting everyone off entering as the only five to enter were in fact the five team London players. While others wanted to keep their food money for the next day some of us were happy to play in the PSR and starve the next day. Someone said that we might have had 15 players had they reduced the entry price to €10, but the organisers stuck to their high price so we all got to play against each other one last time. We found it slightly ironic that we had been trying to get a PSR in London with no luck, and yet we travelled to a different country to end up having a PSR all to ourselves. As I was too lazy to write out a new deck list I played exactly the same deck as I did in day 2.

Tournament 6: Premier Series Regional

Round 1 – Nick Yankovec (England)
Nick was playing his Android / Terok Nor deck. It turns out that he had used some of his missions during the draft tournament the previous day and had accidentally replaced one of his missions with one he drafted. To make matters worse he couldn't event attempt the new mission – although he didn't notice this until after we had played.

Having played several android decks over the three days (most of them being Nick's) I was getting more familiar with them. I knew they were slow starting but once all the androids were out I would have a hard time stopping them so I decided to try and get a quick mission. This I did although I had to use a "Rites of Emergence" to gain a skill I didn't have for one of Nick's dilemmas. I then flew home as I didn't yet have the skills for my second mission.

Soon after that Nick was off attempting missions. Having played "Data" and "Ruk" in one turn he had seven personnel in play, and Ruk was making all his androids attributes +1 for the turn. He moved to his planet mission and attempted with four personnel. I knew he could solve with three so had to be sure to stop two teams with minimal dilemmas. I did have a "Machinations" in play for the second attempt though. I stopped the 4-man team using two dilemmas so only had one to draw for the second team. I had to use "Machinations" and then discovered that I didn't have any useful 1-cost dilemmas in my pile, which I must have left with the remains of my "Tragic Turn" pile. The only real dilemma I could play was "Outmatched" so I did and consumed enough to stop Nick until the following turn.

The next turn for each of us was fairly simple. I flew to my second mission where Nick stopped me. He then solved his first mission and moved to his second where I stopped him.

The following turn I played another ship and attempted again where Nick tried to stop me but couldn't after I killed Kirk. I then flew back to Earth, used "The Edge of Forever" to get Kirk back and flew off in my second ship to my last mission. To use one of my more common phrases, it was "a dirty bluff." I had no engineer's in play yet both my remaining missions required it. To make matters worse I couldn't even use Rites to give the skill to someone as I only have two Trills in the deck and neither had made an appearance yet ("Lenara Kahn" also being one of the engineers).

Before I attempted I made some comment about "another easy win" and this must have got Nick a little worked up. He threw everything but the kitchen sink at me and after the dust settled I had seven dilemmas under the mission without too many casualties.

Nick solved his second mission after I played just one dilemma against him. It was a killer so he had to use "Ira Graves" to prevent it. He is limited to once per turn so by playing that dilemma I knew that I'd either kill someone or prevent Nick from using "Ira Graves" on his final mission. Even without "Ira Graves" I would have trouble stopping Nick, as he still had "Lore" in his team and I was becoming quite good at picking "Lore" to be randomly stopped from a hand full of personnel.

As it turns out it came down to a 50/50 chance whether I stopped Nick. I knew he had 2 Security in his team ("Lore" and "Ruk") and I needed to get one stop from "Full Security Alert". For once I didn't pick "Lore", so "Ruk" was stopped and after another dilemma Nick couldn't solve the mission. On my turn I played "Lenara Kahn" and attempted my mission with seven personnel. Nick had no event support and could do nothing to stop me winning the game.
FW: 100-65

Round 2 – Johannes Klarhauser (adopted English)
This was something of a mirror match as Johannes was playing an Earth (command) Confessions deck. His deck differed from mine in that it had a lot of events and fewer personnel who averaged a higher cost than mine.

As usual with this deck I played several personnel and a ship over the first few turns and was ready to attempt before my opponent. Johannes managed to stop me for three turns in a row by using "Temporal Incursion". It was frustrating to be stopped so many times at the same mission but I didn't lose any personnel.

My quick attempt encouraged Johannes to leave Earth before (I think) he was ready. He attempted his first mission with five personnel from a ship requiring three staffing so I thought I would have a fairly good chance of de-staffing him. I drew a "Chula: Pick One to save Two"and "Trabe Grenade". Johannes decided to stop three verses Chula forgetting that one of the three was "The Traveller". He got returned to the bottom of Johannes' deck before I killed Eddington with "Trabe Grenade". As I suspected I had de-staffed his ship. It took Johannes several turns to find another ship while he was stopping me at my first mission.

Eventually I solved the mission and moved straight to my second mission. By now Johannes had run out of good cards under his dilemma pile so decided not to use "Temporal Incursion". Whereas the previous draw had provided him with enough dilemmas to stop me for three turns, this draw couldn't have been as good. I used Rites and "Security Drills" to gain a skill I didn't have and then double it to pass a dilemma and solve the mission.

Johannes finally played another ship, which had staffing for by that point, and moved over to rescue his personnel. He attempted the mission again and I drew an "Outmatched" and "Dreamer and the Dream". I combined these two to make him discard 9 cards from hand including two copies of "Escape" and a Kirk.

On the next turn I moved to my last mission and got stopped, while Johannes solved his first mission and was stopped by me on his second. That was pretty much game over as I could kill Kirk to overcome any dilemma and still solve my last mission. I didn't need to do that though as Johannes couldn't play any dilemmas next turn anyway.
FW: 100-35

Round 3 – Mark Radford (England)
At this point Mark is also undefeated so the title of PSR champion would go to one of the two of us. Mark was playing his "brain ache" deck that I didn't think he'd play during day 2. It was a Federation Vintner deck using three copies of "Shared Problems" and three copies of "Temporal Incursion" to draw up to six extra dilemmas each mission attempt. The dilemma pile them consisted of "Urgency", "Overwhelmed" and the 7/8 cost dilemmas. His games earlier in the tournament had resulted in him almost running out of dilemmas. In one game I believe he had seventeen dilemmas under one mission before it was solved by his opponent.

As I may have said before, my Kirk deck is built to overcome the 8-cost dilemmas. I have multiple copies of Biology, Exobiology and Medical for "Tsiolkovsky Infection", and multiple copies of Honor, Officer and Transporters for "Whisper in the Dark". On top of all that I also have "Security Drills" to double up any skill so that "Urgency" is less effective against me. All in all I was quite happy with this match-up against Mark's deck

I forgot to take any notes about this game (the reason comes later) so I can't remember much of what happened. I do know that I blew through an "Urgency", "Overwhelmed", "Whispers in the Dark" combo using "Togaran", Kirk and "Benjamin Sisko" as well as "Security Drills" to solve my first mission quite quickly. I believe Mark also stopped me for a couple of turns at my second mission as he managed to play a "Tragic Turn" on the first attempt.

As you may guess Mark's deck takes a little time to get set up but once it does it's a beast. I found the only real way to beat it was to get as many dilemmas as possible under the mission on the first attempt and then make a 4-man attempt (or as low as possible) the next turn – while also having the skills to pass either Whispers or Tsiolkovsky, and of course the necessary mission skills. I was lucky in that several of these skills overlapped so I was able to make small attempts and yet still pass the inevitable dilemmas.

The downside to Mark's deck from his perspective is that he faces a lot of extra dilemmas as well. It's almost a luxury having ten dilemmas to stop a seven personnel attempt. I found I had to be careful not to use too many dilemmas as I often had such a choice to use.

That's enough waffling on about a game I can't really remember. The final result was that I won, and once again my opponent could have beaten me on the next turn.

Tournament 6 result
I won the PSR. Yes, there were only 5 players. And yes, I had played them all many times previously. But hey, beggars can't be choosers. The prizes were awesome as well. I received a Seven foil for the win. Johannes received a T'Pol foil randomly, and the other four non-winning players each received a rather unique Star Trek CCG card. These were obviously test printings or something as they had the regular card back but the front showed just three strips of colour lengthways down the card. After much begging Nick agreed to trade his to me.

So that was it. The final tournament finished and it was time to pack up and head off to our next hotel. Team London had a good showing in every tournament except day 1 where we weren't allowed to play, and day 2 where lets face it we all just bottled it.

I can't remember much of what happened on Monday. Partly because we just sat around playing Munchkin while we waited for our evening flights, and partly because I'd spent what was left of my money on the PSR and was dehydrating under the hot sun.

Thanks for reading!