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Massachusetts Grand Slam Report
by Maelwys Well I had quite a weekend. Friday afternoon I flew from Toronto to Boston, and made my way around the 'T' system out to Boston College for the night. Then Saturday morning, it was back onto the 'T' to travel back down to the Commons and find a ride out to the GS. I met Ted no problems (we didn't realize it until we met, but we already knew each other from GenCon last year) and we headed to his car for the drive to Milford. And thence came the first problem... no car. You see, he has a "house car" that he shares with a bunch of other people, and they just write down where they last parked it. So we went there, found a car fitting the description in a place fitting the description, but the key didn't work. Then we realized the plates were wrong too. Okay, so this wasn't it. Well after 10 minutes of wandering around the Commons Garage we found it in the right place, wrong level. Somebody had marked it wrong... oops. So after that little adventure we were really off. And we only got lost twice on the way there too. (Well not lost, just temporarily misplaced... that I-495 sign is pretty well hidden until we'd gone past it, and the directions didn't say anything about "East" and "West" halves of the street.) Yeah, finally into the store. Lots of people there, but mostly for Wars it seemed. We ended up with 10 players. Each player was asked to kick in two packs for prize support, so I threw in an SDII and a DS9 Starter. Hey, he never said what kind of packs. ;-) And then, the games started... I was playing a Romulan Double HQ PNZ deck, with a few minor twists (concentrated dilemmas that matched the Battle Bridge, things like that). Round 1 - vs. Brad Trimby (Tosk)
I scored a quick 50 points from a PNZ, but was stopped at the second mission by a The Higher, The Fewer + Dead End combo leaving me at 43. He sent the Cha'Joh into the Neutral Zone to lock me out, but Isabella quickly took it out. I tented for the Phoenix to get above 50 points (53!) but by then he had another ship in the NZ, with Youth onboard this time. A D'deridex Advanced went to deal with it, but then his large armada appeared and took it out. At this point I changed plans, decided that I would never get rid of that armada and looked for something else to do. I tented for my WNOHGB, whipped around the far end of the spaceline and stole 2 quick missions at the other end for the win. Final Score: 113 - 0
Round 2 - vs. Shane Wilhelmsen
Okay, at this point I realized that my entire dilemma strategy really didn't work against the Borg. Oops. And his dilemmas consisted mostly of Edo Probes and Dead Ends. My first attempt got me to -13 and stopped by a Dead End. The second one I actually managed to finish, after wading through another Edo. That got me to 27. The Phoenix returned to play, putting me at 37 (but still not above 50 to pass that first Dead End that still mocked me). The game ended soon after this, since he ignored most of my dilemmas. Final Score: 37 - 115
Round 3 - vs. Paul Conti
This was a really close game, that I really enjoyed a lot. He blew up my Borg Ship fairly on and lost half his armada to it (the other half "weren't there" thanks to a Picard Maneuver or two). I managed to score one missions, but had trouble with all the dilemmas at the other ones. He almost did one mission, but was stopped by a dead end. Then he almost did another but didn't have the skills. I knew it was my last turn. So, I grabbed a Secure Homeworld from my tent and complete Romulus with a self-seeded Barclays to bring my score up to 90-45. Unfortunately, that was all I could do then, and I handed it over to him content with a small differential. His turn he downloaded one person and passed it off to me again, confident that I was locked out and he would win when he got the last skills he needed next turn. Oops. Remember that Phoenix that saved my butt in Game 1 by passing that Dead End for me? Well it reappeared right then and won me the game. Final Score: 100 - 45
Round 4 - vs. Jason Petkus
This game started off looking okay. Then as soon as I tried to move he played the Wormholes. I hate Wormholes. I also didn't come prepared for Wormholes. His big team w/Genetronic Replicators blasted through my dilemmas. I couldn't even use my Phoenix for a few points because I'd used my STP to get the ship back from the Gamma Quadrant that it'd been sent to. A fairly quick loss. Final Score: 0 - 100
Round 5 - vs. Steve Clicquennoi (Kor)
This was a pretty fast deck that used a Headquarters and a Birthing Chamber w/Deyos to quickly get cards into hand and then into play. Then he would solve Gamma missions and ignore me in the Alpha Quadrant. Meanwhile I had some problems with his dilemmas and lost most of my people early on to a Sheliak/Q so that I couldn't pass the rest of his walls. I might've won (or at least tied) with a drawout, but when he was down to two cards and I was at one he noticed and started doing random Tents to prolong the game. And there goes that one chance. I got Phoenix into play yet again, to prevent a clean sweep. But that's about all I did. Final Score: 10 - 100
Oh well, not so bad for my first real competitive tournament (I usually play fun decks, or run the tournaments). After this I headed back to Boston College and had a pretty good weekend with my friend that I was visiting there, before flying back to Toronto on Sunday night. And I'm really glad that I didn't get any of the sheets, 'cuz they'd have never made it back on the plane with me. However, I wouldn't have minded that Jadzia Foil that I pulled from a pack partway through the tournament, when I was helping Chris open them up for a prize draft. Oh well, apparently it wasn't my day for that. Maybe better luck at the Ottawa Grand Slam, that I don't have to travel quite so far to get to. ;-) Chris "Maelwys" Lobban
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