A LOT of people showed up, in marked contrast to most of the other state championships, which made for a VERY competitive series of games. As far as I can remember there were:

• Standard Borg/Dual Icon deck
• Borg Dual Icon/Post Garrison Deck (Nasty!)
• Cardy Process Ore/Supernova Deck (Which went undefeated to #1)
• Romulan Dual Headquarters Deck (Mine)
• Romulan Treachery Deck
• Kli/Fed MEDICAL Deck
• Romulan/Cardassian Mission Solver (Which placed Second)
• Terok Nor/Througheverythinginbutthekitchensink Deck
• Fed Mission Solver
• Fed VCM Deck
• And three others which I never encountered or heard about.

Game 1 - Me vs. Lance:Lance was playing your standard Borg Cube Deck, but unfortunately suffered from a bad shuffle, which continually left most of his queens and We Are the Borgs at the bottom of the deck. I managed to get my people out and complete my missions before he got a chance to finish scouting his first Dual Icon Mission. 2 (+100)

Game 2 - Me vs. Mandy: Mandy and I always seem to play each other in every tournament, so this pairing came as no surprise. Mandy played a Kivas heavy Fed Red Alert Deck. My IOAG deflated her Red Alert and allowed me to repeatedly scorch her hand. Again, I completed my missions before she cleared out the dilemma from her Outpost mission. 4 (+200)

At this point, I was doing rather well. Things would soon take a turn for the worst.

Game 3 - Me vs. Randall: Randall is now the current Maryland champ, so, needless to say, I got stomped. I drew a good opening hand, played a fair amount of people, and escaped on the Devoras before he nuked Romulus. I then cleared away all the dilemmas from Extraction only to find that I was without biology (and, irony of ironies, I traded for Vakis after the tournament started). I decided to go down fighting, so I set course for covert installation only to be intercepted by a Galor, the Groumall, and a Xepolite. So much for the Devoras. I made sure to do SOMETHING each turn, so I reported equipment to his Nor and Headquarters, played Roga Danar to his Security Office and commandeered his Nor for a turn, played a STA to the Central Command to attack twenty Cardassians, etc. This plus my dilemmas slowed him down enough to prevent a full win. 4 (+120)

Game 4 - Me vs. Chris Coyle: I got stomped again, this time by a VICIOUS Borg/Post Garrison Deck. I lucked out in the seed phase, having Paxan "Wormhole" and Cloaked Mission at the ends of the space line. I then goofed by reporting Kukalaka instead of an extra personal which would have allowed me to staff my D'Deridex Advanced to be sent to intercept his Scout before it could encounter his Self Seeded Borg Ship. This error probably cost me the game. On the positive side, I did manage to steal his Orb of Prophecy and Change before he completed Tarchanen Study. His Chandra/Undetected Beam In/Wall/Post Garrison combos effectively locked me out, leaving me with no option but to head out on a suicide run against his cube. It worked, as I again managed to prevent a full win. 4 (+80)

Game 5 - Me vs. Bryan: Bryan and I play each other a lot in tournaments and we tend to alternate our victories (him, me, him etc.). This game went to him, though I did manage to slow him down with IOAG and Scorched Hand. I completed Romulus (Losing 8 points to The Higher the Fewer), cleared out all the dilemmas at Extraction only to hit Odo's "Cousin" without Vekor, and hit a Sheliak/Q/Chandra Combo (with 2 Leadership and _40_ integrity. He then completed his remaining missions for a win. 4 (+2)

Game 6 - Me vs Jeff: Jeff and I were both playing Romulan, so as we played we chatted about the relative value of various Rommie Personal (we agreed that Vreenak and Sirol were tops). He had the misfortune of shuffling his ships to the absolute bottom of the deck, which let me complete my missions unhindered.

Final 6 (+102)

I finished Fifth, allowing me access to the 'Special' prizes provided by the generous and beneficent Baltimore Ambassador, Tim Burrall. >From his own collection he put the Jupiter, a set of SA premiums, a set of EFC premiums, and two OTSD's. In addition to the Q Continuum (My favorite Expansion) prize support, the store kicked in a booster for everybody. When my turn came, I grabbed the remaining Special prize (An OTSD!!!!:)), an AU booster, and Juliana Tainer. I pulled a Berlinghoff (neat) from the single AU, Quash Conspiracy from the OTSD AU, as well as Q, Barclay's PD, Kahless, and Jaglom Shrek from the OTSD Premiere. I drafted Canar, Arbiter of Succession (YEAH!), and Plague Planet from the Continuum.

I had an excellent Pizza Sub w/ Onion Rings from the neighboring sub shop, had fun hanging with the other players, and generally had a great time. I can't wait to do it again!

Paul Manheim