Ahh... the day we'd all been waiting for. I hadn't been able to make it to a constructed tournament in a while, so I was looking forward to getting together with all the guys for a tournament.

I played a Dominion Black Hole Colony deck. Yeah, yeah, cheesy, I know. My deck had a lot of loopholes - I was unbalanced, I basically relied on scanning, and if I didn't get the right cards in my opening hand, I basically had a very slow deck that couldn't do much. My goal was to draw two Young Jem'Hadar, a Deyos and/or a Tent in the opening hand. Unfortunately, that didn't always happen. Anyway, here's the round by round report.

Round 1 - vs. Doug Mittlestaedt
Doug's one of the regulars in the area, and we've gotten to know each other pretty well, so we both had a good time. He was playing a Borg deck, nothing fancy, just a solid Borg deck. He reported Locutus, played 'He will make an excellent drone' on him and had Dukat of Borg out as well. Armed with 7 of 9, he entered the Alpha Quadrant. Meanwhile, in my haven (aka the Gamma Quadrant) I was having a bit of trouble getting started. I finally got one of my Colony Preparations solved and was able to get my Colony going. After that, I scored about 15-20 points a turn, and that basically finished the game. Doug managed to Establish a Gateway, and Add Hawk's distinctiveness to the collective.
Final Score --> 100 - 27 [2(+73)]

Round 2 - vs. Eric Erickson
Eric and I have talked a bit about the States champs prior, about what kind of things to expect, seeing as he hadn't played in a tournament in our side of the state before. He's the 'resident champion' over in Madison, and fared quite well today. He was playing a modified Brad-PNZ deck. My 4 spaces threw a loop in his regions, but my Black Hole sucked them up soon enough, which probably was a mistake on my part. Anyway, I was having another one of my infamous slow starts, and he quickly closed one of my Black Holes with ES (which he got out of the Tent), and scored on a Cytherians I had seeded. I played another Black Hole, but it wasn't really worth it. He completed a PNZ, making the score 90-0. I knew I better hurry, so I scanned as many of my planets as possible, and ended up completing Changeling Research for 40 points, laying down a colony, and passing a Dead End at Quest for the Sword for a very close victory. Once again, my deck really didn't start working like I planned until I got the Colony out - I'm starting to see a trend.
Final Score --> 100-9 [4(+83)]

Round 3 - vs. Mike Kastern
This is one of the two matchups I was really fearing. Mike is a great guy, and has an incredible eye for strategy. He was playing the same basic deck he used at the Grand Slam in Detroit, which he won. I had the worst draw of the day, and by now I had realized that my deck just wasn't ready for this level of play. If only I had spent more time proportioning the draw deck....

Anyway, Mike quickly amassed all his Mission Specialists, and started going for his missions, slowly whittling away at my dilemmas. I had quite a good size crew by now, but of course I didn't have the cards I needed to pass his dilemmas when I needed to. He had some trouble with a Dal'Rok and mission debriefing, killing off way more people than he had planned, but, as always, he found a way around it and went on for the win.
Final Score --> 0-100 [4(-17)]

Lunch break! Yay! I went over to Cousins with Mike, Jeff, and some other of the guys and had a good 'ol time.

Round 4 - vs. Jeremy Huth
Jeremy was playing a Ferengi Dabo deck. He completed Kresari Rendezous quicker than I'd have liked, but I got off to a decent start. In reasonable time, I had my Colony set up and going, but he was being a compulsive dabo'er. When I got the Intermix out of the Tent, he had ammassed about 40 dabo points. I then realized that if he completed another mission he'd almost surely win. So, I red-shirted through another one of my missions (Changeling Research, I believe) for enough points to get the win.
Final Score --> 100-50 [6(+33)]

Round 5 - vs. Jeff Thomas
Ahhh...the other matchup I knew was coming. Jeff's the Ambassador in Wisconsin, and doesn't often get the chance to play - but, oh, did he ever play today :-). Thus far he was undefeated, playing his deck entitled "The Much Flaunted Ferengi/Non-Aligned PNZ deck" The title explains itself.. well, those who played him know what I mean. ;-)

Anyway, my draw was just as bad as it could get. Thankfully, my dilemmas held Jeff off for a while, and my crew in the Gamma was growing rapidly. However, lack of Science prevented me from passing 2/4 of my missions, but all I needed was a Diplomacy Vorta (I had 4 in the deck) to pass Blended and get my Colony going. No matter how many cards I drew, no Vorta. *sigh* I never got the Black Hole going, as I never drew a Tent (had 7 in the deck)...Jeff beat me flat out. Now I'm positive my deck needed a lot more work...and I was kinda dissapointed I hadn't given it the time I should have. Oh well, it's only a game. :-)
Final Score --> 0-100 [6(-67)]

Round 6 - vs. Michael Laundry
Ahh... finally, last round. No matter how much I like tournaments and playing, 6 rounds is a long time. Michael was playing a Fed-Mega Crew deck that got Red Alert and a lot of the 'mains' out on turn two. Where's my IOAG? Oh yeah, I took it out for the Quark's Isolinear Rods I never used... ahh, yeah, that's it. ;-) Well, I feared the worst even though my draw was rather good. I thought he would just blast through my dilemma combos, but thankfully a Scientific Method, Odo's Cousin, and another Scientific Method stopped him for a while at the missions he attempted to pass. I passed a combo of his at a Colony Preparations and quickly laid down my Colony. Scoring 20 points a turn, I anxiously waited to see if he could pass another mission, but thankfully, I narrowly edged him out.
Final Score - 100-65 [8(-32)]

Well, this deck could have done better if it was played by someone else, it needed more time than I have. But once the Colony is out, it's kinda scary how fast the points can come in. Young Jemmies are cool! ;-)

My score was good enough for third place, which is what I came in expecting. A positive differential would have been nice, but it doesn't matter. Jeff Thomas ended up finishing undefeated, with Mike Kastern as the only played who scored more than ten points on him all day. Mike, of course, came in second with his only loss to Jeff. These are two great players, and very cool guys. Watch out Minnesota, Wisconsin's on the loose!

Also, I have noticed that I have never noticed a player in Wisconsin get upset, unsportsmanlike, stalling, anything. I think this is just great. Win or lose, everyone here is fun to play against.

Also, I can't go without expressing extreme thanks to Sherri and Randy for coming all the way up from Illinois just to run the tournament. It wasn't exactly convenient for them, but they did it anyway and ran a great tournament.

by David 'Kyle Riker' Kludt