Background:  Ever get that sinking feeling when you’ve got an exam coming up and don’t think you’ve studied enough?  That’s the best way to describe how I felt about the Betazed Regional.  I had 2 possible decks, but I didn’t like either because they were completely untried.  So at midnight the night before the Regional, I looked up an old deck of mine on WNOHGB and rebuilt it.  I figured I had the best chance with a deck that had been tested many times before.  I made a few modifications for what I expected to face, but basically it was the same old K’chiQ / STA combo.  This is, of course, keeping completely with my tradition of waiting till the very last minute for a major tournament.

Round 1 – Jarrett Menard.  Uh-oh, another Klingon deck.  And another speed-mission solver, too.  Though we only had 2 missions in common and I had Fair Play, so I wasn’t worried about theft, just speed vs speed.  He used spacedoor for a ship first turn, Traveler 2nd turn, Fajo 3rd turn.  With his 2 draws that turn he had 13 cards, so I used IOAG (one of my new additions to the deck) to Scorch him.  I must have taken 7 good cards out of his hand because that pretty much ended his game.  I played free androids and HQ personnel and beat 3 missions pretty quickly before he recovered.  100-0.  Jarrett went on to place 4th; I wonder what would have happened if I didn’t have that Scorched Hand.

Round 2 – well, I was a little worried, 100-0 means you face another 100-0 victor, and I was not looking forward to the inevitable showdown with Brandon “Alidar Jarok” Argianas.  But, wait, there were 6 players who finished 100-0, so that was good, right?  Nope.  Round 2 I face Brandon.  I expected him to play Bajoran, usually his affiliation of choice, and he had a lot of Bajoran icons on his missions.  But then he played Central Command and 2 Nors.  Uh-oh, his System 5 Armada deck!  I’ve heard about this deck, it’s not pretty.  And me without a battle bridge!  Things quickly changed, though, when he looked at his opening hand and declared “this is the worst draw I’ve ever seen!”  I got a great draw, and my Androids make short work of his Scientific Methods.  He gave up on coming to attack me and turned around to try to solve a mission.  When he moved to Intercept Maquis, I Uxbridged a System 5, reducing his weapons to below the requirements.  That slowed him enough for me to finish 2 more missions and win 100-0.

Round 3 – Paul Conti, who also waited till last minute to make a deck.  We were trying to find good ideas all yesterday afternoon.  He settled on a Romulan speed science space deck.  Speed being the operative word here.  Our game lasted all of 17 minutes, seed phase and all!  (possibly a record for decks without some 1-turn-win combo.)  In fact, when we finished, Greg, at the next table with a Ferengi deck, was only on his 2nd turn of his game!  (Ferengi download too much ;-)  We basically tossed out free personnel and threw them at missions.  I came out ahead 100-40, but it was very close.  One more turn and who knows how many points he could have had.

Round 4 – Greg Dabkowski, last year’s runner-up, playing a Ferengi dual Nor Cargo Run Devidian Door deck.  Basically, it runs back and forth, drawing lots of cards to Devidian Door lots of personnel to run lots of cards to … you get the idea.  I had meant to put a Subspace Warp Rift in my Tent to counter dual-Nor Cargo Running, but I completely forgot!  I did get a little lucky, I had a Temporal Vortex in my opening hand, and when I saw a Distortion of Spacetime 1st turn I tried to slow his combo down.  It wasn’t enough.  I did get 2 missions solved, and an Arbiter of Succession, but before I had a chance to play the Phoenix at my HQ, he had 3 missions.  I lost 100-90.  Soooo very close.  Greg went on to finish 3rd, narrowly missing the final confrontation.

Round 5 – Jason Petkus.  I’ve never played Jason, but I’ve seen him play in 2 tournaments I’ve run, and he builds FAST decks.  He looks to be playing a Klingon space mission deck, and I fall for it.  He’s playing Borg.  And I have my homeworld and 3 35 point planets, including one with my outpost!  I have a good draw and Uxbridge his Activate Subcommands, which slows him down a little.  But he had drawn 2, and I didn’t have a Palor Toff.  Still, I manage to get a mission solved before he’s in the Alpha Quad.  I get another mission before he even gets a chance to probe, but I messed up.  I thought I had an Arbiter in my hand, so I didn’t look for it with the BGB, I just grabbed the Phoenix.  So now I’m at 90 points and have to get another mission or draw the Arbiter.  I do eventually get another mission, but he assimilated one of my planets.  100-25.

Round 6 – Shane Wilhelmsen.  A rematch from last years regional that we’ve both been looking forward to.  He puts out Earth, Reunion, 2 Dual-Icon missions and 2 Investigate Incursion.  Then adds a Secure Homeworld.  OK, obviously Fed, right?  Well, I’ve seen his Stop First Contact deck that looks like a Fed deck.  I seed cautiously, ready for either, putting my irrelevant-to-Borg Dead End under Reunion and some need-to-adapt dilemmas at Earth.  Turns out he IS playing Borg.  WOW.  I have to admire that.  I had thought of playing SFC for this tournament, but with a final confrontation there’s no way I could win by that means a second time against an opponent.  He actually has a versatile deck that can solve the 2 dual-icons with Service the Collective, and heads right for Tarchannen.  He gets 2 objectives while I wait for Fightin Words to give me back my skills.  Then with Space-Time Portal, I need an extra turn for both the Phoenix AND the Reflection Therapy for Zetal.  Once I have that, it’s 45 points at Investigate Disturbance, then thru Lack of Prep / Dead End at his Investigate Incursion for another 35.  Arbiter.  Phoenix.  100-50.  And just in time, he could have flown thru the dilemma at the other mission with Locutus sharing his skills.

So that puts me in first overall and in the final confrontation against Paul Conti and his speed Romulan deck.  Isn’t much to say here.  I got a good draw, he got no personnel in his opening hand.  Though once the Kivases hit, that changed, and his 2 HQ’s dropped people quickly.  He even got thru an Odo’s Cousin with little effort.  But a Friendly Fire killed his only Tal Shiar on the Dderidex Advanced, slowing his movement down.  I had exactly what I needed.  It took 8 turns to finish 2 missions.  And this game I had played the Phoenix ahead of time, so all I needed was the Arbiter from the second BGB to win.  100-35.
 
This was a very close tournament.  No one was undefeated.  Going into the last round, there were 6 people who had a shot at making the final confrontation.
Also, it was a very fast tournament, there was one timed game all day.

For those who were there, I’d like to thank everyone for a great tournament.
I’ll see you at the World Championship.
-cb