On June 2nd, I made it to the East Texas Territorial Open Championships at Strike Zone (North) in Houston, Texas.  From San Angelo, it's about a 400 mile trip one-way, so I pretty much burned the entire weekend either on the road, deck tuning, or in the tournament.  I took off Saturday afternoon and crashed at my buddy Mark Satchell's home in Austin.  Early the next morning, Mark and I were joined by Geoff Midler, and the three of us headed on down the road towards Houston.

(As an interesting aside, there was a Motorcycle Rally and a Gay/Lesbian Rally held in Austin on Saturday, so we shared the road down to Houston with some very interesting people.)

We got to Strike Zone about 11:15, and met Alan Denny, the local LOTR Rider who was running the event.  We had nine total players - and three of us were PC's/TD's, so it was fairly easy to help Alan get a quick ruling on any question.

In the first round, I was paired against Louie Garcia, who is one of San Antonio's better players - he won the TMP Pre-Release I held in San Angelo in April. Louis was playing a classic Rom Neutral Zone Deck.  I was playing a Blood Oath/Honor Klingon Deck, spiced up with Barzan Wormholes and Mutation/Palor Toffs/etc. (... and of course, I had trimmed out my Balancing Act & Wake of the Borg the night before - figures).  I was a very tense, tight game, highlighted when I got hit with an Engine Imbalance/Cytherians and had to make the LONG trip across the Neutral Zone.  I escorted the affected ship with a Vor'cha during the trip, which complicated Louie's plan to kill the lone ship.  He eventually managed to kill the ship with Cytherians, but the delay cost him while I bulled my way through several missions.  I managed to pull off a timed win 66-50.  Overall, a close, very good round.   Score: 1(+16).

This round, I played Greg Claudy, the TD responsible for revitalizing STCCG interest in San Antonio.  Greg was playing a Tri-Treaty AMS deck - unfortunately for him, my dilemmas nailed his one-skilled wonders especially hard, and my deck had a great run that game, and I pulled off a 100-0 win.  Score: 3(+116)

In the third round, I played Matt Rollins from Dallas.  Matt had a particularly vicious Hirogen/Vic/Cyrus deck that quite frankly mauled my deck.  It was a particularly frustrating game for me as my deck refused to give up personnel - my drawing/shuffling
mechanisms kept giving me ships, interrupts, equipment - ANYTHING but people.  Fortunately, I had just enough to get through one mission for 40 points with before Matt steamrolled over me, and I lost this one 100-40.  Score 3(+56).

In the fourth round, I played against Kristopher Kern from Dallas in what turned out to be the most interesting game I've ever played in a STCCG tournament.  Kris was the 2000 Texas State Champion, and I was particularly interested to see what he came up with.  Kris did not disappoint - he ran a very innovative Vidiian/Romulan deck.  After the mission phase, I was facing two universal Space missions plopped in the middle of the Alpha Quadrant.  Based on the spaceline layout I convinced myself he was going to go with the hammer-and-anvil strategy of Black Hole and delaying dilemmas/events.  So after seeding a couple of dilemmas I started passing, gambling that if I could get him to pass also, I could outspeed him on my missions.  When I passed the first time, Kris gave me the Spock's eyebrow and seeded.  The second time I passed, be looked at me as if I had lost my mind, but seeded again.  The third time, Kris finally had had enough and passed as well.  I very soon found out why he was willing to pass.  Kris's strategy was to use Examine Singularity to close the wormhole and get 15 points, then hit two of his high-point missions.  My seeded Scanner Interferences locked one of his planets, while I confidently plunged into my "Honor" missions.  And ran headlong into Scientific Methods under three of my missions.  So what was supposed to slam-dunk turned into a very tense, "who's gonna get the right skills first" race.  I finally managed to get Kitrik, then used Blood Oath to convert a card draw to get Jadzia in play to pull off the win the next turn at 100-55 - good thing too, as Kriss had all the cards he needed to sweep his side of the board the next round.  While only about 20 or so minutes long, it was by far the best STCCG I've ever played in.  My thanks again to Kris for an OUTSTANDING game.  Score:  5(+101)

In the fifth round, I got to play my buddy Geoff Midler, a TD from Austin.  Geoff also played a Hirogen/Cyrus deck, but this game was a reverse of my third round game from Matt Rollins.  Geoff couldn't get his key cards out quick enough, and my deck played very well thank you - and I took the round at 100-0.  Score: 7(+201).

In the sixth and final round, I faced off with Ray Cox from Dallas.  Ray and I were fighting it out for second place, so it was the round to watch.  Ray played ANOTHER Hirogen/Cyrus/Vic deck, and managed to get Cyrus out on his first turn.  My deck worked fine, but his dilemmas wound up chewing up too many of my Klingons for me to give him a serious challenge.  I had to resort to an Arbiter of Succession to prevent a complete shut-out, and Ray took the game at 100-10.  Final Score: 7(+111)

Matt Rollins and Ray Cox squared off for the final confrontation, which Matt won handily at 100-0.  Matt's final tournament score was 12 VP and well over 500 differential.  Matt's deck was truly the best in the game, and I was happy to learn I was the only player to have at least scored against him!  I wound up in 4th place overall.

This was one of the best tournament experiences I've had.  Alan Denny did a superb job running a great tournament, and there was a total lack of any attitude or temper problems which have marred some of the other big tournaments I've attended.

My sincere thanks and appreciation to Alan and the staff at Strike Zone for running the tournament, and congratulations to Matt Rollins for his well-earned victory.

Hope to see ya'll in San Angelo on June 15th for the West Texas Territorial Open Championships here in San Angelo!!

Matt Clouser
STCCG Ambassador, Ronara Region
San Angelo, Texas, USA