|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
 |
Submit an Article
|
|
 |
Read and Sign
|
|
 |
Bulletin Board
|
|
 |
| Terms and Acronyms |
|
 |
| News and Updates |
|
|
STCCG 2E Sealed Tournament Report - Necessary Evil Release - Germany [2E]
by Thorsten Wanek
Necessary Evil has finally arrived!
Last weekend on March 20th and 21st the official release sealed deck tournaments for the brand new Necessary Evil set took place all over the world - the same here in Germany where we had one each day!
Preparation
As any TD may know it's always hard work to get players to your tournaments, so it was the same with these special events, although each participant was going to get an exclusive Sela, Devious Schemer promo card. Nevertheless we only had 8 players on each of both tournaments, but as most of them were different ones on Saturday and Sunday we had a total of 14 players with half a dozen more on the next weekend's release sealed. :-)
As the release packages hadn't arrived yet we had to use my personal one I had ordered at the Decipher store, so we were only short for our first tournament, but had enough promo cards for everyone. To enjoy the new cards of almost every affiliation we had all six starters from 2E Basic and Call to Arms available and gave them to the players at random selection (although some beginners gained the right to chose theirs). It was real fun to open the new cards' packages, and whenever a player opened a pack with foil everybody noticed that by the "wows" that were loudly audible.
The games - Day 1
The first tournament took place in Hanover's card shop Fantasy-In. I myself got the Klingons on our first day and had the luck to draw a foil Odo even if I couldn't use him. I would've preferred an All-Out War but the two dilemmas (Biochemical Hyperacceleration and The Dreamer and the Dream) also weren't bad! In contrast my starter-rares were not usable as I drew an Enterprise-E, Tasha Yar and Bajoran Resistance Tactic, but I could trade all of them the same day for missing LotR cards. :-) I also had a couple of great new dilemmas like A Devil Scorned, B'omar Stipulations and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and included the cool Party Atmosphere to my deck. Although it hardly helped me with the less costs for events (I only had two copies of Cry "Havoc" in my deck), I wanted to have an event in my core as a guardian against On Foreign Ground.
The first round brought me one of Germany's top ten players in 2nd Edition constructed, Marcus Knopf. He played Dominion with good speed, but I placed a combo of The Dreamer and the Dream with some definitive stoppers and he lost his whole hand together with a second ship and his just-downloaded Martok Founder. At first I thought Klingons would have no chance at all, but although all their starter missions require Cunning, their skill-combination is excellent, and missions can easily be solved with seven Klingons, or six and the help of Kahlest. Then Kahless and another Klingon left play with Forsaken, and in the end of that game I made a fatal error because I forgot about Marcus' Hannah Bates (Cunning 7) and let him solve his mission with the exact minimum of needed Cunning!
The second round was against Tobias Rausmann who'd traveled several hours for this tournament. He played DS9 but had the problem of difficult staffing as the starter contains few command-star personnel. This round was over before I even noticed it: When I solved my third mission all I said was "Damn, I can't fly again this turn!" but then Tobias smiled and told me I'd just won the game...
The next round Lars Flitter played against me with Dominion again, one of the affiliations he had played every day on our German-wide Call to Arms promotion tour where he'd won nearly every tournament and thus jumped to Number 1 in world ratings. Since then he lost his place and became world's second, but that made him no less difficult to win against. I used dilemmas very ineffectively this game, especially with the new dilemmas, as my Biochemical Hyperacceleration didn't hold and I combined On Foreign Ground with The Dreamer and the Dream resulting in a living personnel and no effect from the Dream (because Lars discarded his hand voluntarily on the first dilemma, of course). To my surprise the Klingons managed to overcome the Dominion starter's dilemmas very well and I won my second game.
In round four I played against Alexander Bank, second best 2nd Edition player in Germany and a hard-to-beat opponent. When he got the Borg starter he started to moan, but after his first game he realized that resistance may be futile from game to game - especially as he hadn't lost any game yet. He played his Borg right, the direct way of mission solving, and made it hard for me to block him, but when time out was called I could stop his third mission's attempt. Then I noticed that he had five points more (two 35 missions against a 35 and a 30 mission in my deck) and he just won his third game (after a true tie in round 1 I think).
In the end Marcus Knopf won the T-Shirt and I made the third place after Alexander. With our guests from cities far away (as Tobias and Timo Catterfeld from the west or Stephan Krueger and Thomas Vorwerk from the east) we had a great afternoon and met for our traditional "after-party" at the local cocktail bar where a fun and enjoyable day ended.
The games - Day 2
Next day we played in the Steigenberger Hotel in Celle, where the Lord of the Rings TOC also took place (most interesting fact was that they only had the same number of players as we had). As Necessary Evil was sold out at Fantasy-In and the Star Eye in Celle hadn't received their packages yet, I had to organize a box from Kassel, from where two of this day's players came to participate at our tournament. But thanks to Carsten Weller we were able to play and after I got the Borg starter I hoped to rock the tournament as Alexander did, who'd drawn the DS9 starter this day. All my rares were useless as I only had three Domionion-thematic cards in my starter (like Jem'Hadar Birthing Chamber) and the cards from my NE boosters didn't help that much. But I had the new Examination Drone and both Biological Distinctiveness and an additional event to assimilate personnel: Targeted for Assimilation!
The first game was against Alexander and Sunday began as Saturday has ended. Now I had the Borg on my side and decided to make use of my Borg Queen. Unlike Alex did the day before, I preferred Security and thus made all my Borg securities. To my enjoyment Alexander couldn't play his Ornaran Threat effectively and I soon solved my first mission. Later, on my second mission, Alexander killed my Strength-enhancement Borg with On Foreign Ground - although I had included Biological Distinctiveness and Party Atmosphere again I hadn't drawn any of those cards yet. Even In the Way was a definite stopper as all my Borg had Security, and so we stopped each other well and this game ended as a True Tie.
After that I hoped to face an easier opponent when playing Carsten Weller in game two. My opponent started his first attempt with an obvious bluff as he hadn't enough Cunning to solve. I hoped to kill his Leadership and only command-star personnel with an Old Debt, but he could overcome that dilemma - if I'd only played the Pinned Down to lower his Cunning ... His Next Generation deck rocked with high-Integrity characters like Jean-Luc Picard and Worf, and when I drew Targeted for Assimilation I knew what to do: When he was stopped on Geological Survey I used five points from my first mission and assimilated Jean-Luc Picard to add his knowledge to my collective. :-) Next round I attempted two missions the same round (one with Queen and the other with Locutus) but couldn't solve any. I had great hopes to complete both the next round, but then time out was called and Carsten managed to solve his third mission the following round to win this game.
Game number three let me play against Patrick whom I often play on our gaming afternoons in Celle. At first he was selected for the Borg, but as he'd played Borg in the Call to Arms prerelease sealed before, we traded our starters and he now had Dominion. As Dominion is great in solving with only a handful of Jem'Hadar, he completed his first mission very soon. On the other side I was able to assimilate his Founder Leader with Borg Cutting Beam and put her on my Biological Distinctiveness, which gave me a great advantage as I only needed six drones for solving. Too, as I drew two Strength- and one Cunning-enhancement drone I was able to complete all my missions with only five personnel. When Patrick made the mistake of playing Inside Collaborators as the only dilemma (he had forgotten about my Borg Queen) I overturned him and won the game.
My last opponent was Tiemo Mittelstedt who participated together with his brother Michael. He played Romulans and had some nice personnel (especially some of the un-stoppable ones) but didn't have the dilemmas to counter my Borg as I got the right interlink drones into play and managed the other stuff with my Borg Queen and Analyze. Thus I won my second game and came in fourth in the end. And I was really happy about that as my prize booster contained a Romulan B'Etor foil. :-)
Highlights:
- Party Atmosphere is the Barber Pole of 2nd Edition - just cool!
- Not amused at interlinking? Borg don't scout well In the Way ...
- Lore gives me a headache every time I have to think of dilemmas that stop single personnel ...
- Didn't draw a Locutus in your Borg starter? Simply get one by assimilating Jean-Luc Picard. :-)
- Harsh Conditions and Lack Preparation are a great combo - but they stop not a single personnel!
- Ever played against Klingons using foil All-Out War in a sealed deck?
- Never combine On Foreign Ground and The Dreamer and the Dream unless you only want your opponent to discard his hand voluntarily ...
- Uh, no random foil again... wait, what's that shiny thing in my booster?!?
Enjoy Necessary Evil!
Thorsten Wanek aka Jaglom Shrek, STCCG-Turnier.de
Photos of the Tournament!
Comments?
Post on the New WNOHGB BBS!
|
|
