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Amaros Strikes Back
by Matt Kirk Greetings. I won the "No Such Thing As Luck" tournament on Friday the 12th at DecipherCon, thought you might want an article regarding it... The big night was over. The Wild Card tournament had finshed, and I wasn't going to Worlds. I had figured as much, but still I was mildly disappointed. I thought I would have done really well with my deck design; although not all was for naught. This deck would have its day... There was a plethora of different tournament formats at DecipherCon; Multiplayer, Iron Man, Galactic Supremacy. But the one format I desperately wanted to try was There's No Such Thing As Luck. In this format, you play the same opponent twice. First with your own deck, then you swap decks and try to do to your opponent what he/she just did to you. However, at the tournament, the format was slightly altered. First you play your opponent's deck, and then you play your own. I was a bit apprehensive, but this turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I was playing what some have named the "Amaros swarm." However, I had included Senior Staff Meeting and Pla-Net (with Beware of Q) to clear out the dilemmas quickly. I was using 3 copies of Test Propulsion Systems (TPS), which Amaros can complete by himself, if he's aboard a universal ship. I was using Flaxian Scout Vessels as the main method of transport. Amaros teamed with Vekor and Ty Kajada to meet the requirements for Senior Staff Meeting; after they cleared out the dilemmas, I had self-seeded Cytherians for some bonus point help. Then my mission specialists, Klag and Kromm, could come by and solve Test Propulsion Systems for 35 + 15 - 5 = 45 pts. Completing this twice brought me to 90, so then I would go attempt the third TPS. It occurred to me later that a nice Q's Tent addition would have been Baseball. In 4 out of 6 games in the Wild Card, I had the chance to commandeer an opponent's Nor (and I did twice). That would have been some very nice icing on the cake.
We were paired for the first and second rounds, and play began. I was playing against a younger opponent. We sat down, introduced ourselves, then swapped decks. The TD allowed 5 minutes to examine our new decks. I felt unsure about my opponent's deck-building skills after glancing briefly at the draw deck. Lots of Equipment, Interrupts, Events, Personnel, Ships... looked mostly to be Premiere cards. He wasn't doing much better trying to understand my deck. He asked a few different times what cards were supposed to go where, which of course I didn't respond to, except with, "That's for you to decide." My young friend had built his deck with 5 space and 1 planet mission. I saw this and shuddered, because I knew I had included Balancing Act in that deck he was playing against me. He also had 6 Artifacts in the seed deck. I asked him afterwards what he was trying to accomplish, and explained that Artifacts usually only seed at planet missions. The play progressed slowly throughout the game; it ended in a timed win for him. The imbalanced ratio of Personnel in his deck had crippled my mission-solving ability. My score: 0(-50). The second round began. I ran quickly through his dilemmas, and he offered no resistance as I wrapped the game up quickly (in about 30 minutes). I headed into the third and fourth rounds with a bit of optimism; I was at 2(+50) after all, and I wasn't completely out of the running. I pondered the different strategies I could face as the TD called out the next set of pairings. I was paired against a certain Mr. Erik Bell. He was playing Romulan, with multiple Romulan Shuttles and Ready Room Doors to get Senator Vreenak quickly, and also Cha'Joh to get Sisters of Duras early in the game. I had run a deck similar to his a couple of months before, so I felt comfortable with his deck. He, however, did not have high opinions of my deck. He mentioned the fact that his deck would win both times, and I realized the possibility, but then again, that's one reason I brought the Amaros deck to this format. It has hidden strengths. The third game began. Erik chose not to seed Empok Nor at Mining Survey (which I included as a decoy). I grinned, and redistrubuted the dilemmas I had waiting for Mining Survey to the multiple TPS (you need a Nor to attempt Mining Survey). I quickly reported personnel, while Erik piled his personnel onto a Flaxian Scout. I started solving missions, and Erik kept on reporting personnel, as if he was hoping to get a personnel out with more than three skills. No luck there. Vekor, Soto, and Suna were the most skilled among the personnel I chose for that deck. I finished up the game, shutting down my own deck quite efficiently. Erik's dilemma choices, when combined the right way, made my deck completely ineffective. Score after the third round: 4 (+150). The fourth game was my big chance to shine with this deck. Even though it was up against a more powerful deck, it was more resourceful, and counted on extra card draws from the opponent from Traveler: Transcendence and Kivas Fajo-Collector (I had seeded a Mirror Image). I organized the team of Amaros/Vekor/Ty Kajada on turn 2 with some help from Red Alert! that I had stocked in the Tent. Erik used it as well, but that was of little consequence. I busted through his dilemma combos left and right. He continued to stockpile personnel at his outpost, as if waiting for something or someone to proceed. I finished up 100-0, much to Erik's amazement, to put me at 6 (+250) for the day. That score was enough to grab 1st place, and with it, a box of Blaze of Glory. Amaros/TPS was a potent combo I had realized when DS9 released. I had always offhandedly remarked that someday I would build a killer TPS deck. I worked on the idea and refined it, and eventually, it paid off. The deck had a total of 5 rares, which was my proudest acheivement. A cheap, tournament-worthy deck. And who knows... maybe Study Badlands is next? Matt "Figrin" Kirk
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