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Utah State Championship Report
by Hyrum Asay I have been playing Borg ever since Enhanced First Contact was released, and so I seem to have forgotten how to play non-Borg affiliations. After recently acquiring a Seven of Nine, a second Locutus of Borg, and almost completing my First Contact expansion set, I decided to try my hand at building a Stop First Contact/Population 9 Billion - All Borg Deck. Using Sean O'Reilly's Stop First Contact Borg Deck article as a guide, I then adapted my new deck design to the tournament environment in my state. My deck played fairly well at a tournament held a week earlier. Reflecting back on the games from that tournament, I then adapted my deck some more until I arrived at the final deck design that I used at the Utah State Star Trek CCG Championship 2000 Tournament. I was late in arriving at the location of the tournament, and I was afraid that the tournament had already started, but because eight players are required for tournaments to be sanctioned, I arrived just in time. The tournament was being held Saturday, May 20, at CONduit 10, which was located at the Salt Lake City Airport Hilton. A total of eight players played in the tournament. Game #1: STCCG Player VS. Richard Caywood Richard was playing what looked like a Klingon Empok Nor Deck. He was having some difficulty in drawing a ship into his hand -- he did not seed a Spacedoor! I think he was also trying to draw the 2 Leadership and 2 SECURITY required to pass the Friendly Fire I had seeded at Empok Nor, which he never commandeered. None of my dilemmas were ever encountered. I was able to quickly complete scouting at Earth, disrupt the timeline in 2063, and complete Salvage Starship at Wolf 359 for a Full Win.
Game #2: STCCG Player VS. Melissa Caywood Melissa came to the tournament dressed in an authentic-looking costume of Seven of Nine. She was playing what appeared to be a Dominion Deck, which used mostly Founders and Vorta -- no Ketracel White Jem'Hadar -- and all six of her missions were in the Gamma Quadrant. In another game that she played in, her opponent was also using Gamma Quadrant missions; no Alpha Quadrant or Delta Quadrant was seen in that game. She took an early hit from my Edo Probe/The Higher… The Fewer/Dead End dilemma combo, but she was able to quickly complete a couple of other missions. Towards the end of the game, I was just about to kill all of her personnel due to my Alien Parasites/Armus - Sticky Situation dilemma combo, when I noticed that she did not have any Dominion Espionage card on the mission she was attempting. I disrupted the timeline in 2063, and salvaged another starship for yet another Full Win, before she could acquire the espionage card that she needed.
Game #3: STCCG Player VS. Dennis Holliday All six of Dennis' missions were universal and four of them were Geological Survey missions. I thought that he might be playing Ferengi, or even Non-Aligned when he seeded three Husnock Outposts with three Husnock Ships. It was not until he seeded and assigned two mission specialists that he revealed that he was playing Federation/Non-Aligned. I thought it would be cool to cause at least one of my opponents to place some Federation and Human cards out-of-play for disrupting the timeline in 2063. But before I was in the Alpha Quadrant, he had all three Husnock Ships staffed, along with Bynars Weapon Enhancement, Metaphasic Shields, and Nutational Shields in play! This made me a little nervous. However, he kept all three ships at his mission seeded closest to Earth, where he scanned the mission, Palor Toffed the scanning card, then he scanned the mission, again! On his turn after I had completed scouting at Earth, he attacked my Locutus' Borg Cube with all three Husnock Ships. I had both Locutus' Borg Cube -- with its matching commander and a Multiplexor Drone on board -- and a universal Borg Cube located at Earth. Neither of us was using a Battle Bridge Side Deck. He damaged my Locutus' Borg Cube, but I was able to destroy all three of his Husnock Ships. He Regenerated his discard pile into his Draw Deck, but that was little comfort when I disrupted the timeline in 2063, and salvaged another starship for yet another Full Win.
Game #4: STCCG Player VS. Cory Decaria Cory was the only other Borg player at this tournament. He played what looked like a standard Borg Cube-based deck, using Eliminate Starship and Salvage Starship objectives, along with Gowron of Borg's special skill, and an Assimilate Homeworld objective for Qo'nos, as well as some other objectives. I was trying to move my universal Borg Cube to Earth to start scouting, but he then targeted my universal Borg Cube with an Eliminate Starship objective. My universal Borg Cube was located at Wolf 359, so rather than letting him be able to download Salvage Starship, I returned my ship to my hand with Space-Time Portal. He had two Investigate Incursion missions in play, so on my next turn, I just dumped a large pile onto the mission closest to Earth. I completed scouting at Earth, and I had Stop First Contact, Montana Missile Complex, and Temporal Vortex in my hand, but I did not have a Space-Time Portal doorway in play to use the Temporal Vortex doorway. After several turns of using Seven of Nine's special skill and We Are The Borg to try to draw my second Space-Time Portal or my Res-Q, I decided to just do a strait assimilation of Earth in the 24TH Century. Cory came after my universal Borg Cube again, but I quickly used my Queen's Borg Sphere to escape to Wolf 359. Cory had already completed a Salvage Starship objective at one Investigate Incursion, and then he salvaged my universal Borg Cube at the other Investigate Incursion. I completed my own Salvage Starship objective at Wolf 359. Cory was in the midst of trying to complete an Establish Gateway objective, but he did not have a good probe outcome before time was called. I had a Timed Win, completing my two main objectives without disrupting the timeline in 2063 in this game. I was preparing my deck for the next game, when I noticed that my universal Borg Cube was missing. Cory had accidentally placed it in his deck when he was gathering his missions and dilemmas from the table.
Game #5: STCCG Player VS. Robert Kinser Robert Kinser played in the Vulcan Regional Star Trek CCG Championship Tournament in 1999. In all the games that I have played against Robert, I have only been able to beat him once -- and that game was more than a year ago, and was the first game in which we had ever played against each other. In past games, he would usually Wormhole my Borg Cubes to Empok Nor and then Establish Tractor Lock on them, until he had enough ships to destroy them for their points. Now if that was not enough, he must have had between 10 to 20 Klingon Death Yells in his deck, "yelling for the honorable Klingons that died fighting the Borg at the Battle of the Trivas System (Mining Survey)." Because it has now been ruled that a Wormhole/Hail/Establish Tractor Lock combo cannot be used, he played a Romulan/Cardassian capture deck. He used Terok Nor in this game, mostly so he could use Dabo, and he had Empok Nor at Survey Mission for Process Ore, which he never used in this game. Now if there is one thing that I hate about using Espionage Mission, it is that my opponents can steal it using Selok and Senator Vreenak and/or Koval. Robert also stole my Quash Conspiracy mission. He also had a Black Hole in play, which was about to "pull in" Earth, so I decided to try to close it -- realizing too late that my Borg Cube did not have Astrophysics aboard. Robert closed the Black Hole and used Dabo on his own dilemmas and capturing-related cards -- he had Prepare the Prisoner in play -- giving me a Full Loss. Robert had also won the previous game, using Writ of Accountability.
Game #6: STCCG Player VS. Daniel Petrulionis Daniel was playing a Devidian Door Romulan/Dominion Deck. Five of his missions were in the Gamma Quadrant -- with two universal Space missions in the Alpha Quadrant -- and he did not use Ketracel White Jem'Hadar. He used Devidian Doors to report Koval -- and other personnel -- to the Gamma Quadrant, and he would then report his Tal Shiar personnel to Koval. He also used Dr. Telek R'Mor's special skill to report directly to any ship in the Gamma Quadrant. I closed his Black Hole in this game, remembering to give my Borg Queen the skill of Astrophysics this time. He first encountered my Edo Probe, but chose not to continue. He then completed two other missions for sixty points. When he came back, The Higher… The Fewer caused him to lose ten points, barely letting him have enough points to pass Dead End and complete the mission for ninety points. I managed to scout Earth, disrupt the timeline in 2063, and salvage a starship at Wolf 359 for another Full Win. This was the only game in which my first Stop First Contact objective counted down all the way. I had to download A Change of Plans interrupt to download my second Stop First Contact objective in order to win the game.
I won the tournament, becoming the Utah State Star Trek CCG Champion 2000 and Robert Kinser came in second place. Josh Merrill was the only other player at the tournament whom I did not play against. Hyrum 'STCCG Player' Asay
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