Saturday's tournament, the first in the region since the release of Tribbles, unfortunately wasn't sanctioned.  Only four or five players showed up, but nevertheless we still played a couple of informal games.  Having only found out about the tournament at 9:00 the night before, I didn't have time to build something from scratch.  Instead, I took my old Romulan/Dominion report-for-free mission solver and updated it for TwT -- dropped the Scans in favor of Extraordinary Methods and [Ref] cards; to the seed deck I added a couple Q the Referee, an ASP, and messed around with the dilemma selection.  My haste in building the deck was obvious: I intended to seed a Defend Homeworld and Obelisk of Masaka, but neither appeared in my deck when I actually started playing.  (The Masaka was still in my Tent if I needed it, though)

The deck's concept is very straightforward: play Tal Shiar and Founders for free at the Continuing Committee and Great Link, who by themselves possess nearly all skills needed for planet dilemmas.  To them I added Goran'agar (extra OFFICER who also nullifies Hippocratic Oath, plus Biology if I had to go into space), Suna (SECURITY and MEDICAL plus any skill of my choice), the mission specialists Tallus and Palteth for bonus points solving the missions (plus useful classifications), and the support personnel Thei for Geology; Morn was included for extra card-drawing.

Basically, the plan for turn one was *supposed* to be: Defend Homeworld for Koval to the Romulan outpost, ASP Thei to the outpost as well, turn over Spacedoor for a D'deridex Advanced, cloak, and move to the Continuing Committee.  Due to the wording on the HQ ("may report for free *here*", as in anywhere at this spaceline location) I could continue to report my Tal Shiar for free directly to the cloaked ship, free from attackers or anti-beaming cards.  (Of course, since I left my Defend Homeworld back at home this didn't work right away). Next turn, Cargo Bay for Morn to start drawing extra cards, and from there on play a Kivas Fajo - Collector, a free Tal Shiar, and a free Founder each turn.  It wasn't blazing fast (usually took about 7-8 turns to get the people out), but after that there's very little that can stop them in the way of dilemmas.  If my opponent Mirror Image-d, I'd wait until he was over twelve cards and QtR-download Scorched Hand.  (I can always play a Kivas on my opponent if he's hanging around at the 10-11 card level.)

Oh, and just for novelty I brought the Federation pre-constructed TwT starter, just to see how it would hold up against a constructed deck. ;-)

After doing some quick trading, we paired off for a couple games.  My first opponent was Ryan Agnew, who was playing a Romulan report-for-free deck using both HQs and Kivas Fajo -- Collector to draw cards.  This game was with the pre-constructed starter.  I wasn't expecting to really score any points at all: there were a number of dilemmas and combos the deck would have a lot of trouble passing, plus there was no consistent drawing or playing engine, so he'd have a huge advantage in both drawing and playing cards (not to mention the cards he played were of higher quality... I play Taitt, he plays Cretak, Parthok, and Lore).  Oh, and he was unbalanced, too.   :-)  In hindsight I should have self-seeded the Cosmic String Fragment, but for some reason I just shoved all the space dilemmas under one mission. Anyway, the game got off to a slow start for me.  I drew the Starship Constution, downloaded Lt. Grant, and started red-shirting.  After losing some personnel and passing a wall or two, I came up against a dilemma I was unable to pass: Executive Authorization.  Well, so much for that mission. :-)  I was further stalled by running into a Maglock in space, and then an anti-OFFICER Hazardous Duty combo on a planet.  At this point, I was one OFFICER short of passing the mission and scoring at least *some* points. So, Ryan moved his personnel onto the Apnex, beamed down, and attacked. Just my luck, the Sisters of Duras, Roga Danar, Lore, and Tomalak came up near the top, so all my personnel save one were mortally wounded.  (Gibson was safe in the Punishment Box, the other died at the end of combat from having lower overall STRENGTH).  With not much else to do (my only other ship was a Runabout, and most of my personnel were dead), I beamed up Gibson onto the Starship Constution, which she couldn't staff, but at least wasn't vulnerable to personnel battle.  (Ryan ignored the ship for the rest of the game, not seeing the point in destroying it because I couldn't use it).  He solved one planet mission after having Lore killed off by a dilemma... highlight: I Live Long and Prosper-ed for seven cards!  That gave me some more personnel, so I started to re-build... however, he solved another mission and built a Colony.  The game would be over in a matter of turns if I didn't do anything, so I hastily played a Runabout, and started to oppose his Colony.  He realized a much better idea would be to destroy the Runabout, so he beamed up his personnel onto the Apnex and D'deridex Advanced, obliterating the ship.  However, he neglected to kill T'Shonra whom I had beamed down to oppose the Colony... scoring me one point at the beginning of my turn!  Yes!  The game was over soon after, but at least I scored a point!  Ryan wins 100-1.

After this we played another game -- I was playing my regular deck this time around. :-)  It was eery how similar our turns were: Kivas, free personnel #1, free personnel #2.  Anyway, I outsped him this time around.  He solved a planet mission, then attempted a mission where I had seeded Chula: the Lights/Maglock.  He redshirted, and when he moved in the personnel to pass C:tL, I used Beware of Q to swap out the Chula for a Q-Flash, which stalled that attempt.  Meanwhile, I plowed through the dilemmas at my Gamma Quadrant missions, solving two of them (plus some bonus points: 10 from AMS, 15 from a self-seeded Barclay's Disease and Sarjenka) for the 100-31 win.

Next opponent: Todd Soper, the one local player I've never been able to beat, having played him at least a dozen times.  He was playing a Romulan report-for-free deck using both HQs and Kivas Fajo -- Collector to draw cards.  (Yes, I just pasted that in from before. ;-)  His deck focused on battle as well, with multiple Hidden Fighters, Ready Room Doors, and Going to the Tops to amass a quick Obelisk-immune armada.  (Cha'Joh/Sisters of Duras, Apnex/Mirok, and Romulan Shuttle/Senator Vreenak were the matching-commander pairs IIRC).  The small ships were backed up by a D'deridex Advanced, Husnock Ship, and Senator Cretak.  Oddly enough, we had played each other in the last tournament with virtually the same decks... Todd just modified his deck with TwT cards, just as I had done.  He won that game 100-0, so I wasn't expecting this game to end up much different.  We played very few Kivases early on, both of us trying to skirt around Scorched Hand and the other's Mirror Image. :-)   So, with both players' card plays often going to personnel, we built up our forces very quickly.  Knowing his deck had a battle element and a seeded HQ: Defensive Measures, I avoided him at all cost while still staying safe: keeping ships cloaked (preferably) or docked, or through the Bajoran Wormhole where he'd be stopped after pursuit.   I placed a Revolving Door on his Q-Flash, which was a key element of his deck.  As a result, I beat the dilemmas easily, as the Q-Flash was vital to the combos: without a Q's Planet popping out of the Flash, the Q-type Androids did little good.  The plan was for him to remove two personnel of his choice each attempt, one from a QTA in the Flash, the other from a seeded QTA (using Beware of Q to seed dilemmas).  Instead, all that happened was that Suna became an android, then reverted to human next attempt. :-) He pursued me into the Gamma Quadrant, but I won one turn before he could attack.  Finally!  I win, 100-0.

After breaking for lunch (which, incidentally, included Corn Flakes and Pork and Beans) I was playing against Keith Watabayashi.  He was playing a Cybernetics deck, using Soong with Lal and lots of Soong-type Androids to blast through dilemmas at warp speed.  Yep, the old Scan 'n' STA trick.  To defend against Q-type Android, he included both Mortal Q and Riker in his Tent, with John Doe to prevent Panel Overload deaths.  The deck won by completing three Establish Relations with +10 from AMS to win.  The missions also had the benefit of downloading a non-aligned when solved, so after Scanning the next mission, he could download needed skills, another STA, or even another Dr. Soong if he died.  I was prevented from using the Continuing Committee for free-reports by his seeded Homefront, which proved fatal to my deck.  While playing Founders for free I was alternating my card plays between Kivases and Tal Shiar.  By the time I got the necessary 4 SECURITY to Romulus (Odo Founder, Suna, and Telak, I believe) he had already solved two Establish Relations for 70 points.  Although he was stalled when I Revolving Door-ed his Tent, he still kept the speed up.  At one point I attacked his Husnock Ship with a D'deridex Advanced and Romulan Shuttle, but even damaged it was within a turn's RANGE of one of his two seeded Husnock Outposts (he transferred his personnel onto the other seeded Husnock Ship). He solved a third mission for 105, at which point I downloaded The Big Picture with Q the Referee.  (Surprisingly, I appeared to be the only player at the tournament using this... I thought it'd be an automatic inclusion). I had kept him from winning earlier by my Temporal Vortex (downloaded by QtR -- very useful card) which nullified his Distortions (he tried to Distortion out of my Mission Debriefing, plus to compensate for the low RANGE on the Husnock Ship).  Ironically, the Vortex prevented me from solving a mission, as I would be stopped after passing through the Bajoran Wormhole and I couldn't play my own DS/TC.  So, he solved the fourth Establish Relations to win 100-0.

End diagnosis: the deck needs some definite tuning, but I think it also has a great deal of potential.  Against Keith's deck, my speed would have been more comparable if he hadn't seeded the Homefront.  It takes me a while to get used to the new cards after a release, and my deck simply wasn't prepared to handle a Homefront.  The Defend Homeworld would make it much easier for me to start my free-reporting again, as would a SECURITY mission specialist in my Q's Tent.

Some closing notes about the post-Tribbles environment.  Surprisingly, very few people changed their strategy from before TwT's release.  I think that each one of has had played our deck in a previous tournament, just changing them by adding some Tribbles cards.  Every opponent (and me) was using Q the Referee in moderation, which seems to be the best way.  With 4-5 bullets in the draw deck, you won't run into too many problems with drawing too many of them, (Todd expressed some dismay when, after using Guest Quarters to double a Q the Referee draw (cycling a [Ref] card), he could choose between drawing Panel Overload or Oof! :-) but you still have enough to deal with the most serious threats to your deck.  (But nobody else thought of including The Big Picture... very odd)

Also, oddly enough, I only saw one point-deprivation deck, and it didn't seem to do very well.  Speed still seems to be the way to go.  Romulans also seem very popular.  Three out of the five of us were running Rommie decks, and when I played this deck at the last tournament, two of my five opponents were also playing a similar deck.  (I lost against one of them by one turn, but it was downright spooky how similar our decks were: we duplicated about three missions, both intended on using Ultimatum for Bajoran Wormholes to seed DS9 and use Guest Quarters and Quark's Bar to draw cards -- there were five GQs on DS9! -- plus we each used Kivases to supplement our card-drawing and free plays at the Romulan HQs, then Scanned missions and solved them quickly)

Hopefully the next tournament will be sanctioned...

Thanks for reading,

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles