It was something of a minor miracle that I actually made it to this tournament at all.  A few days before, I'd been in hospital having a toenail removed (in violent fashion, with some pliers) and was still barely able to walk.  Along with that, I had been due to stay at a friend of mines place in north London the night before to make the trip to the tournament
easier, but he'd had a few last minute problems and couldn't move in till Monday.  I'd have to make the journey up on the day.  Another downer was that my football (soccer) team, Sheffield Wednesday were playing our rivals from across the city, Sheffield United at midday, live on the sports channel and I wasn't going to be able to watch it.

As it happened, my sleeping pattern had gone out of the window and I found myself waking up at 2am on the morning of the Open with a strange desire to rebuild my 'blow up outposts' deck.  I set about the task and was a little surprised when I eventually completed the 'new' deck at 20 to 7. My hopes of grabbing an extra few hours sleep had been dashed.

It took about an hour, maybe an hour and a half (a sizable journey to us Brits) to get to the venue and I had about 20 minutes till the start of the tournament.  I bumped into a few familiar faces, Ian Taylor, Ian Vincent, Mark Radford and Colm McFadden all making appearances through out the day and everyone seemed in a pretty good mood. Maybe things were looking up.
 

Round One
Richard Heales

Looking at my deck, it would fare pretty well against pretty much every affiliation, except Borg.  So naturally my first round draw put me in at the deep end.  Rich was playing what looked like a fairly straight forward Borg HP010 deck, harnessing the particle, then doing another objective with resistance is futile for the win.  Luckily I drew Motura in my opening hand and so could begin harvesting right off the bat, which helped make up for the number of wormholes I kept drawing.

I did manage to put them to good use though, getting my ship over to Mine Dilithium and completing that for 30 points, while he went for HP010 on Answer Distress Signal which we had both seeded. He cleared out the dilemmas and played Meditation to set up his Ref cycle/discard probing engine. Luckily for me I managed to wormhole myself back across and steal the mission as he was waiting to probe. That made the score 70-0 as I had Chaotica and Lonzak in the crew. I headed back to the safety of my outpost and had a go at Liberation. I split my personnel, leaving Maleth and Chakotay on the outpost and attempting with everyone else. I busted through all the dilemmas, but lost one of my Vidians and a security personnel to spatial rift along the way. No problem I thought. I've still got Maleth who can easily complete the mission.  Imagine my horror when I realized I'd actually kept Dereth on the outpost and Maleth had been killed by the Rift!  With no
security I had no way to complete the mission. Oops!

Richard got the HP010 on his turn and while I fumbled around, mad a bid for an Establish Gateway. Luckily for me Oops! (the dilemma) was causing him a few problems.  Having no leadership, it killed one of his crew, then next turn he tried again,
but had accidentally changed his Queens skill to Honor instead of Leadership. As he got past the dilemma, on the following turn, time was called.

Timed Win 70-30
TOTAL  = 1 (+40)
 

Round Two
Stevie G

I've know Stevie G (embarrassingly I know not his actual surname, but Stevie G is his official name) pretty well, he used to be a frequent part of the London ST:CCG scene and though I don't think he plays quite as often nowadays, still hangs out with the London CCG crew. Stevie was playing a HUGE Vidiian deck which at first I thought was just an Organ Harvest reliant mission solver.  I started well, Taking out his outpost on my second turn as well as beating down the endless Vidiian Scout Vessels which he dropped every turn at the Array.  This way he managed to amass people on the planet, making use of
Ancestral Vision and protecting them with two Pendari Champs and a whole host of Harvesters.

I left my main ships at Liberation to pop off his ships as they came into play and sent my Olarra, via wormholes (which Stevie OWRed), over to Mine Dilithium. I managed to complete that with a skeleton crew (which included Hogan) for 35, before being Mission Debriefed.  What happened next came as a bit of a surprise.

// Editor's note: apparently they need to reread OWR; it comes into effect when your opponent plays OWR on YOUR ship :-)

Stevie dropped a Vidiian Cruiser, picked up his personnel and headed off to the Mirror Quadrant. He Boarding Clawed my ship, used the two Pendaris to kill Lonzak and Chaotica and with the rest of my personnel stuck on the planet, commandeered
my ship, scoring 20 points in the process!  Then he beamed the rest of his personnel down to the planet, harvested P'Chan for a further 10 and then started a fight with the rest of my personnel.  Bizarrely enough he killed only two people in the ensuing battle.. Lansor and Marika! Lol.  Time was called just as the fight ended. A top class game, which I think we both really enjoyed.

Timed Win 35-30
TOTAL = 2 (+45)
 

Round Three
Jens Petritzki

I'm not sure how, but I managed to split my lip just before this round began, so I bled through out.  Not really helpful with the kind of game it was going to be.  I think Jens had gained two full wins so far, so I was a little interested to see what he was playing. When he seeded Halkan Council and an ISS Enterprise with 2 Holodeck Doors and a Fortress of Doom on it, I could see what was coming.  Immediately he went for his Seal Rift, with his STP'd and dropped Enterprise, clearing out the one dilemma (The Whale Probe) I had seeded there, straight away. Luckily he did little else on the first turn save download an scary number of people and attempt to play a personnel via Temporal Micro-Wormhole. I pointed out that he'd already used his card play and so he took the personnel back to hand and left the TMW on the table.

I did my standard start, but since The Whale Probe was now at the location of his outpost, I could only go about blowing up his ISS Enterprise.  As I reached for my Battle Bridge, Jens took the ship from the table and put it in his discard pile. Since I had 41 weapons to his 6 Shields, I let him.  On the next turn, he proceeded to get more and more people out, but didn't actually go anywhere with them.  So I obliged and attacked his outpost. As I shuffled my Tactics, Jens disputed that I hadn't used them when destroying the ISS, so I showed him the entire contents of the BBS to reassure him that the ship had been destroyed. He agreed, so we continued.  I damaged his Outpost and killed (luckily) his command staffing personnel, meaning he couldn't fly his Olarra. Next turn he made a card play, DQSSed and then attempted to play another personnel (Gann, a command staff personnel) via Temporal Micro-Wormhole.  Deja Vu.  Again I pointed out that TMW required a card play and didn't allow a 'free' report, however this turn Jens didnt agree that that was the correct ruling.  A somewhat drawn out discussion of the rules ensued and the TD was called to check the rules documents.

Eventually, the report was ruled invalid because it required a card play, the game continued.  Jens still couldn't staff his ship, so on my next turn I destroyed his Hirogen Outpost and his personnel along with it.  Then after more rules discussions, I destroyed both his remaining ships and went off to solve Assist Cooperative and gain my Horga'hn from Mine Dilithium.  By the look of his dilemmas, Jens was playing a Cyrus deck and with my limited number of personnel I was pretty glad he had nowhere to report!  I came back to Liberation and managed to solve it about 30 seconds before time was called.
Jens refused to shake my hand after the match.

Full Win 100-0
TOTAL = 4 (+145)
 

Round Four
Stuart Marsh

Now I met Stuart about 5 years ago, when he was a regular part of the London ST:CCG scene and we'd played each other a fair few times.  The funny thing was we always seemed to be playing Klingon armada decks whenever we played each other (I went
for the universal approach, while he went for an Empok Nor Captained version).  I knew I was playing a battle deck today, but what was Stuart playing?

Sure enough, he didn't let me down.  He lost his Outpost, but Hirogen ships were still coming out of the woodwork as he had a similarly sized deck to Stevie G.  The whole game consisted of Array drops of Hirogen ships, battling and damaging, while I retaliated and repaired.  It was a good spirited fight all the way, with the only break in play being my wormholing over to Wormhole Negotiations and stealing it for 45 points, before heading back to continue the fight. We timed out while still blowing each other to pieces.  In one comedy moment, Stuart did commander my ISS Enterprise which was docked at my outpost using Kavok.  How on earth Kavok made it into his Hirogen deck I've still not worked out, but Stuart always was a bit unpredictable.

Timed Win 45-0
TOTAL = 5 (+190)
 

Round Five
James Hoskin

James was another player with a monster draw deck, but I was initially pretty pleased when the spaceline came out.  James was playing PNZ, and with my battle intensive deck, I figured I could probably keep an opposing ship in the Neutral Zone for long enough for me to solve a few missions.  I started off wormholing over to his Husnock Outpost and attacking his Husnock Ship.  I planned deny him ships, while making my way slowly about the Delta Quadrant.  It didn't quite work that way.  James Spacedoored for a D'deridex and Launch Portaled for the Cha'Joh.  With Assign Support Personnel, Ready Room Door and Captains Log, he suddenly had a sizeable fleet of his own and promptly dispatched of my Kazon Warship. I ran away with my tail between my legs, wormholing back to the Detla Quadrant.  Next turn I left a Husnock Ship of my own at the far end of the Neutral Zone to try and delay his point scoring, and made a bid for Assist Cooperative. I lost P'Chan to a Mandarin Baliff, but since it was 0-0 and we were both taking quite long (but busy) turns, I thought it best to just leave him be.

We ran out of time with James just about to get Dixon Hill to work and with Friendly Fire ticking away on my Assist Cooperative. A good (although tight) game and I think my first ever true tie.

True Tie 0-0
TOTAL = 6 (+190)
 

Round Six
William Hoskin

This was it, the final round. A win of any sort would see me into the final confrontation against either Jens or William's brother James who were playing each other this round.  All day I had been unlucky always have the second turn, which considering my deck was a bit of a hindrance.  This time however, I won the toss and got right to work damaging Will's Hirogen Outpost.  I was now in the driving seat and so relaxed a little.  That turned out to be a bit of a mistake.  I 'holed over to Mine Dilithium and proceeded to hit a Fighting Words/The Clown: Playing Doctor combo.  I made a mental note to stock Oof! in future and then for some reason decided that all my personnel were dead and promptly gave them to Will to put under his Next Emanation.  Looking back that was a bit of a silly idea since I lost my missions specialists and alike. Fortunately I still had Lonzak and Chaotica to Fly my Olarra back to the DQ.

Now down to one Olarra and the ISS Enterprise as I couldn't crew the Warship, I made hard work of taking down any ships that he dropped, in fact he managed to clear out a Secure Station, but luckily lost his Alpha along the way. I moved Chaotica in to prevent him from completing the mission and wormholed any remaining ships of his to Investigate Sighting. This is where I got very lucky.  Will all but completed Investigate Sighting.  Luckily for me my only Exobiology and Treachery personnel was now firmly under his Next Emanation, so he didn't have the mission requirements.  I wormholed
myself over, completed the mission, and 'holed back to again protect the Secure Station.

I managed to sneak a few people out to finish off Mine Dilithium and then threw everyone at Assist Cooperative with only a few minutes left.  I lost P'Chan to a Mandarin Baliff and bought him back for 3 points, completing the mission with very little time to spare for a (very fortuitous) full win.

Full Win 100-3
TOTAL = 8 (+287)
 

It seems that Jens had beaten James Hoskin in their match, and I was fairly confident I could beat him again, but it turned out that James was still just ahead of him.  Uh oh, I thought.  Its now gone 6pm, I've been up 14 hours already, I'm shattered, my foots not exactly comfortable and I'm going to play an un-timed game against the guy I true tied with earlier.  Lol.  I was going to have to play this one differently.
 

Final Confrontation
James Hoskin

The first thing I noticed when we drew our opening hands was that he had heavily seeded Liberation (where I had seeded my Horga'hn this round) and so left a few other missions low on dilemmas.  I decided the best plan was just to try and out-speed him, not an easy proposition when half the cards I draw are wormholes!  Somehow it worked though.  I seemed to be pulling the right cards at the right time which hadn't really happened all day.  I sent my ISS Enterprise over to the Neutral Zone to try and delay James' point scoring, and concentrated on my DQ mission solving activities.

I managed to bust through and solve Assist Cooperative on my second turn and then headed over to Mine Dilithium which I solved on my 3rd.  James was still heading up the spaceline towards my 'opposing ship' and I thought I would throw my remaining crew at Answer Distress Signal, knowing I had no officer to complete it with yet.  I got through the dilemmas reasonably quickly, including a Borg Ship that I had to Temporal Vortex.  Meanwhile James tried a Senior Staff Meeting and lost 10 points for it, then turned around and headed back to his outpost to pick up Dixon Hill.  I drew and drew and drew
and no officer would come.

James started ferrying Dixon up the spaceline, getting closer and closer to my ship, so in a vain effort to slow him down (and because he had no Q the Refs left) I wormholed his D'deridex into the newly reappeared Borg Ship dilemma.  That, I think, saved me.  At least it gave me a little more time to find an Officer.

Unfortunately I'd taken out all my Vidiian officers that morning, so couldn't harvest for one.  In fact the only officers in my deck were Chakotay, Ransom and Kirk..  KIRK!?  What a complete fool I was!  I'd been sitting there desperately trying to get an Officer out and I'd had one sat on the spaceline since the 1st turn!  I quickly wormholed him back to the DQ and completed Answer Distress Signal for the win.
 

100-0 really doesn't do James justice.  It was a much tighter game that that score would suggest.  I found out afterwards that this was just James' second constructed tournament, so huge respect to him for playing so well.  As for me, this was my first ever tournament win.  I was now in a really good mood, and everyone else seemed to be too, even Jens and I said a cheery farewell.  I was fading fast though, I'd been up going on 18 hours now and with 7 rounds of trek behind me I was exhausted.  I bailed out on the post Gen Con drinks and headed home for a kip.  Once I got home, I fell into bed, checked the football scores and found that Sheffield Wednesday had beaten United 2-0.  It was their first win of the season.