Sunday, June 16th was the upstate NY territorial at Altered States in Syracuse.  I had won the NY championships last year, and being the highest rated player in NY, it was my duty to try and win this year :-)  This was my 3rd territorial for trek, and I had already qualified for worlds via finishing 2nd to John Corbett at the NJ territorial.  However, I really wanted to win one for my own because a 3rd "runner up" binder would have driven me quite insane.  I played a new deck I've been using recently;  a Federation Ooby Dooby barzan drop deck.  The deck routinely got out 15 personnel first turn, and included a Going to the Top download chain for additional speed.  After some ooby dooby draws and barzan drops, I usually tried to do Distress Mission (with the help of Genetronic Replicators) to get a Horga'hn, then do Wormhole Negotiations for the win before the opponent gets another turn.  I had a late night Saturday, so on about 2 hours of sleep, myself, Josh Carey, Pat Ziagos and his friend Brian made the haul up to Altered States.  The tournament director was Buffalo ambassador Sean Oreily, and 11 people showed up.

First Round:

I got paired up against Pat Bortz from Erie PA; he's a good player that I've played on a few occasions.  He's playing a DQ Hirogen Cyrus deck, with Sherlock Homes for draws.  He was using Access Denied, Ferengi Ingenuity and Dejaren to try and lock the opponents out of missions via lack of computer skill.  I got a going to the top opening hand so I was able to get my Admiral Riker/Starship Enterprise/Dr. McCoy/I'm not a Doctor..../Ezri Dax chain off no problem.  No Containment Fields or anything.  I hit Ooby Dooby, drew 4 cards, then did a Barzan drop.  His turn, he did a few downloads, including Sherlock Homes, then passed the turn over.  I played a Genetronic Replicator, hit another Ooby Dooby, drew 5 or so cards, then did another barzan drop.  I started going at missions early, the Cyrus dilemmas not hurting me at all because of the Replicator.  I got 2 computer skill people stopped by Ferengi Ingenuity, then was stopped by Dejaren.  Next turn, same result at Wormhole Negotiations.  2 stopped comp skill people, and locked out by Dejaren.  He started going at missions until he hit an Ankari Spirits, that he couldn't get by or cure.  It killed a total of 6 or 8 people and slowed him down considerably.  I simply waited for the Ferengi Ingenuity's to count down, and was able to get a 2 mission win via Distress Mission + Wormhole Negotiations + Barclays + AMS.  He scored a mission for 40 points in the meantime.  Full win by 60. 2(+60)

Second Round:

I played Josh Carey who has been traveling to trek tournaments with me for years.  I got the feeling (and was right) that he was playing a Vic Q's planet/Tox Uthat/Supernova deck he had some success with a few months ago.  I got off to a dreadful start, with my important missions very far from each other, (we were both in AQ, he was Romulan).  To top it all off, I downloaded my Youth AMS people to the wrong outpost.  I had to wait a few turns before I could get them to a mission where I seeded Ooby Dooby (crappy range on OS ships)  He had a slow start as well, which balanced out my bad start.  He Revolving Door'd my Q's tent, which I promptly responded to, by discarding an STP to get an AU door to nullify.  Next turn, he played another revolving door, which I Kevin Uxbridged.  He decided to get Q's Planet anyway, but when I passed in seeding, he did the same, opting to not download his Tox Uthat.  Instead he wanted to try and make me get an additional 40 points to win the game.  Since he had Fair Play, I couldn't solve it.  I eventually started hitting Ooby Dooby's and making barzan drops and was able to cruise through his dilemma's with Genetronic Replicators.  His deck was slower, and was hindered by losing too many people to Denevan Parasites and Ankari Spirits.  Full Win by 100.  4(+160)
 

Third Round:

I was paired up against Buffalo player Jon Gallo, who 90% of the time plays Borg Decks.  As expected, he seeded 3 DQ missions and 3 AQ homeworlds, which gave away borg immediately.  I adjusted a few of my dilemmas according, for example not putting Friendly Fire at the end of a combo.  I got my download chains and ooby draws going pretty early this game, only having to Obelisk/Masaka Transformation my hand to get a going to the top.  He played out lots of tribbles, a few drones and Queen over the first few turns.  He was using tribbles to lower cunning, then had Spatial Rifts under the missions to try and lock people out.  I waited a few turns to get enough high cunning people.  He scouted a mission, but lost 3 drones and a queen to Ankari Spirits.  I eventually drew Data, and was able to cruise through the Spatial Rifts.  In the meantime, he was able to finish completing 1 Establish Gateway.  Full win by 75.  6(+235)
 

Fourth Round:

I played undefeated travel partner Pat Ziagos.  I played him at the NJ territorial the day before, so we both knew each other's decks.  I won that game.......barely, so I knew it would be close.  He was using a pretty standard Fed DQSS deck, that did array drops, and downloaded holograms with the Fortress of Doom.  He was playing LOTS of Cyrus hate, in the form of Genetronic Replicators and Short Oversights.  Pat was the first person to outseed me by 1 dilemma, so I was only able to hit 1 Ooby Dooby early, which slowed me down a little (but not too much)  He got a decent start, doing some array drops, playing equipment and various other things including a Genetronic Replicator.  Pat was using Lack of Preparations/Alien Parasites/Berserk Changling under most planet missions, to kill off the people you need to do missions one by one, to Berserk Changling.  Of course I knew this from the game yesterday, but somehow forgot about Lack of Prep, putting me in an early -10 hole.  Since I need so many seed cards, I only run 14 dilemmas, which Pat went through like butter.  My Your Galaxy is Impure/Executive Authorization combo didn't look too impressive when he attempted a mission with 2 PADDs and a Borg Nanoprobes :-)  Both of the missions he solved had the +10/-10 Rule of Aquisition Event on them, so even though I scored 55 points, I went down to 25 points when he won the game.  Full loss by 75 6(+160)
 

Fifth Round:

This round I played Aaron Northrup from the Albany area.  He was playing a Dominion/Deyos/War Efforts with Cyrus dilemmas.  His deck had lots of deck manipulation in the form of All 3's, Data Keep Dealing and The Power.  Combined with War Efforts and Deyos, he was drawing a million cards per turn.  I attempted early, and lost lots of people to the Cyrus dilemmas and couldn't break through.  He continued to play Jemmies and draw cards, along with a few free Founders and young Jem'hadar.  I eventually got a Genetronic Replicator (which is absolutely necessary against a good Cyrus deck) but he Kevin Uxbridge'd it.  I spent the next five or so turns using Data, Keep Dealing to bring back Genetronic Replicators, but he Kevin Uxbridged them EVERY time.  Fortunately for me, he had lots of trouble with Ankari Spirits, so he was slowed down by the loss of people.  I spent a lot of turns trying to get tons of Diplomacy and Science people to megateam through Cyrus.  I eventually solved both Distress Mission and Wormhole Negotiations (losing about 10 people on the way ;-) for 95 points because one of my AMS people died.  Time was running out, and he made a last ditch effort to win, did one mission, but couldn't get through another, when time was called.  Timed Win 95-40.  7(+215)
 

Sixth Round:

I played Ryan Yaegar, who has been playing ST:CCG tournaments in upstate NY for years.  He brought the most abusive cheesy deck I had EVER seen :)  The premise was to do something like this:  ferengi/Vic/Q's planet for Ferengi Conferences while earning a Horga'hn to Q bypass so he could sit on a Colony.   I got a really slow hand, but was still able to do some Ooby Dooby draws early.  I outseeded his self seeds, and he triggered a Friendly Fire which slowed him down quite a bit.  I didn't do much, building up a few turns since he got Cyrus out.  When the friendly fire counted down, he hit his
self seeded dilemmas to download Q's planet with Vic.  I was expecting a lot of decks like this, so I put a "God" in the Q-tent.  I seeded it, and after he hit one of his dilemmas, he hit "God" with only Penk :-)  I destroyed his Ferengi Maurader with Vic and Cyrus and about 15 Ferengi on it.  After that, the game was over for him, as I just cruised through Implication and Sci Methods with no Cyrus in play.  He did manage a 20 point geological survey though. Full Win by 80.  9(+305)

In the end, Pat Ziagos was first at 10 (280-ish) I was second, and Pat Bortz was 3rd at 9(+250-ish)  Both decks that made the top 2 had no Vic and no Cyrus! However, both were built with beating those decks in mind. An interesting note: Val Rogers finished 3-3 with a deck that just scored bonus points via killing Kova Tholl, The Walls have Ears and Organ Theft.  Her deck never did a mission, and she never got hit with Intermix Ratio!  Sean Oreily then passed out the prizes (which were really good, kudos to Sean) then Pat Z and I started the final confrontation.  Since I already had a bye into worlds, Pat automatically got the bye, so we pretty much were only playing for the binder, and extra packs.
 

Final Confrontation:

    Our seed phase took forever, Pat was agonizing over every seed.  I managed to get 1 Ooby Dooby first, but we double passed late in the dilemma phase, with me opting to lose an Ooby Dooby in order to have him lose 2 of his dilemmas.  I got a quick start, and got out a lot of people first turn.  Second turn, I attempted Distress Mission, and he got control of my people with Alien Parasites.  Usually he has  Berserk Changling next, so he can kill most of your people.  However, he had made a mistake in the seed phase and hit his own Lack of Preparation instead!  So, he lost the 10 points, and showed me the next dilemma.  He cleared out a mission to a Dead End, then made it my turn.  I solved Distress Mission, and earned my Horga'hn.  I decided to mega-team the next mission for some reason, and attempted with 16 people.  I hit the Weak Will Perish, which killed nobody because of Genetronic Replicator, then Denevan Neural parasites!  Luckily, I had 5 Medical people, and 2 survived, in order to save everybody.  I was then stopped by Chula the Game.

His turn, he revealed his "anti-Jesse" tech, which was Arandis.  He knew he would be playing me today, and he knew I had Horgahn.  He opted for Arandis over The Devil.  He took his double turn, but was unable to break through my dilemmas.  I ended my first turn, got rid of the Chula: the Game and solved the mission for the win.

This was a great tournament, very well run by Sean, and a good time was had
by all.  Thanks to everybody involved!