Well we had a quick Call To Arms Sealed Deck tourny tonight which consisted of three rounds. I was excited as this was my first chance to play with the new cards! I randomly selected the Dominion starter, which somewhat saddened me as I was hoping to be impressed with all the new Borg stuff. Anyway, in 1E I never played the Borg or the Dominion because of two reasons: Borg Rules, and White Deprevation (the built in rule, then the dang card) so it was still fun to finally get a taste of these two affiliations.

First off, a quick thank you to the art team, the Dominion Purple looks so much better then the puke brown the 1E Dominion had. Plus the Borg template just plain looks cool. :)

I opened my deck and took a look at the three rares, I got Demands of Duty, Borg Queen, and Tenak'talar, Weyoun's Warship. Not bad, not only did I get to tease the Borg players about getting one of their rares, I got two usuable rares to boot. ;) To bad the packs were not as hot. I got a Pseudopod, which wound up in my deck but never got used, Quark, and Psychological Pressure. So in the end, three rares made my deck. I also switched out one of my missions for clash at Chin'toka, but sadley I never really ever made it too the Alpha quadrant. The rest of my deck was pretty simple, all the dilemmas I got except Secret Identity, it seemed far to likely that that drone could suddenly turn into Locutus, or the Borg Queen, or Seven of Nine, just too quickly. The rest of the draw deck filled out with 2 of each of the Dominion ships except Weyoun's, which I only had one of, all my usable people, without violating the rule of three, and a few Events and Interupts. Oh yea, I had a Jem'Hadar Disruptor pistol in there too, but it got a little dusty, and never saw battle. A pitty really.

On to game 1!
(BTW I do apologize for not getting names)

Game 1:
My Dominion deck vs. Another Dominion Deck

I draw 7 cards, oh goody, I get 1 copy of each ship I have in my deck, a couple of Staff Star Jem'Hadar, Sunad, and Dispensing the White. I sighed wishing I had a Vorta in hand. First turn he played three Jem'Hadar and drew a card. I threw down the Tenak'talar. He played a Vorta and a couple of Jem'Hadar. I played my Jem'Hadar, and Sunad, staffed the Jem'hadar and flew out to Rescue Prisoners of War as a complete guess, since it was a shared mission. Next turn he finally got a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship out and flew over to Salvage Dominion Ship, where two dilemmas stopped him. I played a Jem'Hadar warship and drew a card. I then moved the Tenak'talar over to Salvage Dominion Ship. He Played a few cards on the homeworld, then he promptly reattempted SDS. A couple of more dilemmas stopped him and I scored ten points. (10-0) So now I realize he is getting close to solving a mission, and spend a ton of points drawing cards and only playing 1, 1 pointer Jem'Hadar. I still don't have enough Command Stars out to take out the Warship so I get the Tenak'talar back to base and over to Rescue Prisoners of War, and attempt. A couple of dilemmas and I am stopped. Anyway in the end he goes in for the kill on SDS, and realizes he has no honor, and gives up on the mission. I then solve RPoW. (45-0) He moved over too Destroy Iconian Gateway, and it took a few turns but he fianlly solved it. (45-35) And that is where it ended as time was called. he did try to change that though, as he sent a last minute desperation 17 man Crew to RPoW. Sadly all my pin downs were gone already so I used a Limited Welcome to widdle down to nine, and took it from there with about 5 or 6 more dilemmas. He ended up with 4, and just short of the strength requiremnt. He also had no Exobiology. We took forever because each of us had to read to understand which each deck did. Since when Time was called he was not ahead of me, we decided not to play my final turn, but sadly now I wish I did, because I might have had a full win, since I was on the Verge of completing SDS myself, then head over to DIG. (And Now That I write that acronymn I am saddened that Archaeology was not a requierment. ;) )

Timed Win: 2 points.

Game 2:
My Dominion Deck vs the First Borg Deck

I went into this game scared, because of a couple of things. First, what if they started assimlating my people? Also a lot of my dilemmas were killers of specific skills like Security.

This time I got to go first, and played some people. It was the exact opposite of the first game, I couldn't get a ship. By the third and fourth turn I was spending all my points on draws, trying to get a ship. I finally ended us with a Jem'Hadar Attack Ship, but by this time he was out already with his Borg Sphere, Queen, and Cube attempting missions. but luckilly I coulsd stop him fairly easily with the right dilemmas.

In Fact I figured out a list of a few killer Borg dilemmas in the starter decks: Inside Collaborators. Outside of the Queen, who else has Treachery or Diplomacy? So play it when the Queen isn't snooping around. It stopped two 8-drone away teams in my games, as the only dilemma I put out! Plus it goes right back to my dilemma pile! No fewer dilemmas for the next attempt! I love to not waste dilemmas, I am sure I am not the only one. Again hitting hard on Diplomacy: Sokath, His Eyes Uncovered. This one does take a little set up so try and get a Triage or Command Descisions or Pinned Down to lower the cunning to under 36. Depression is another great dilemma, but it is a little tougher to pull off with the number of Medical, or the presence of an interlinked Medical drone. Run a Triage or DNA Analysis ahead of it to clear the way. So Many Enemies is great if you can happen to get the Queen with it. History Repeats Itself, Another great dilemma if you can get the right drone. For the player opposing a Borg deck, always keep your eye on the Queen, Locutus, and Seven. Strike when they are not there. Borg players: Learn how to play the shell game very well. It will come in useful. (Another sidenote: Kudos to Evan and Brad for this, it makes sure the player is awake to follow what the other player is doing or what he is trying to hide.)

Anyway, back to the game.

Since this was now my second game I felt much more at ease with the deck, not having to read every card. I was able to finish RPoW the turn or two after the Borg player finished his first mission. I then moved over to SDS and finished it after a few turns. After finishing SDS I had enough people to make a Stab at DIG (Destroy Iconian Gateway for those who don't remember). I sent an away team of nine down and they got four dilemmas. Pinned Down and Kolaran Raiders were the first two, then another one I don't remember, finally Failure to Communicate finished it out. Now the only two Security in the away team I had left were Sunad and Odera'Klen. I held my breath since Sunad was my only Physics. So who did he pick? Odera'Klen of course! Take out the bully Jem'Hadar of course. I let out the air with a sigh of relief and flipped over my Founder Leader and a couple of Engineering Jem'Hadar to join Sunad and win the game. My earlier fears of Assimilation never came to life.

(5) victory points!

The final game:
My Dominion Deck vs the Second Borg Deck

Again I wasn't sure if I would be assimilated or not, but now I was confident in my deck, and just went out full force. I never knew that the Dominion were such Dilemma Busters. It took me a few turns to finish RPoW, but once I did I moved right over to DIG and beamed down another away team of nine. Only two dilemmas popped up. Again the last one was Failure To Communicate, again it was just Sunad and a Jem'Hadar Security guy. Again Sunad was my only Physics. Again, I thought I was doomed. HE PICKED THE JEM'HADAR AGAIN! WAKE UP!! PHYSICS IS THE BIGGEST WEAKNESSS IN THE DOMINION DECK!!!!!!!!!! LEARN TO LOOK PAST THE BIG MUSSLES AND LOOK AT SKILLS VS REQUIREMENTS!!! So Again I solve DIG in one attempt and move to DSD. If Odera'klen had not been stopped by FtC at DIG I would have finished all three missions in one turn. But I didn't, and Authenticate Artifacts stopped me. I got him the next turn and won the game. :)

(7 victory points) After a few drops from the first round I Won the tourny!

Morals of this story:
- Borg Player: If you don't know how to now, learn how to play the shell game.
- Dominion Player: You can NEVER have enough Physics.
- When you're playing against a Borg player: Most attributes are pretty well set at 5 or 6. Use this to your advantage, and determine how many drones you need to take out to either A) Hit them with an attribute-requiring dilemma, or B) Knock them down enough so that they can't meet the attributes of the dilemma. Also don't forget to track wehre the Queen, Locutus, and Seven are to the best of your abilities. They provide valuable and rare skills to the Borg player, and if you can aim your dilemmas at the drones, without their leadership, you can economize and save dilemmas in your pile, and get as few dilemmas overcome as possible.
- When you're playing against a Dominion Player: Target weaknesses like Physics and Honor. Don't be afraid of the strength of a single Jem'Hadar, they are a dime a dozen, and I have plenty more of them from where they came from.