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German National Championship 2004
by Thorsten Wanek This year the German STCCG National Championships for 1st and 2nd Edition took place in Kassel again and had a higher number of participants than ever before. With the unofficial but highly anticipated Championship for about a dozen 1st Edition players this special weekend started to gain 22 players on its Maiden Voyage and finally rose to a groundbreaking level of 36 players on the National's Day 2. One of those finalists was me and I played my DS9-deck I previously played at the Hamburg Territorial Open Championship (see TOC reports for decklist!). Round 1 against Daniel Neuhoff - The Excelsior Six Daniel Neuhoff had qualified through Day 1 (Saturday's Maiden Voyage) and confronted me with a fast TNG mission solver. With first-turn Guinan and At What Cost? he quickly attempted his first planet mission with a crew of six people that travelled there using the easy-to-staff Excelsior, but was lost in space as three people died because of Assassination Attempt and Backroom Dealings. With Captain Watters running his tight ship Valiant, I started a round later but could overturn Daniel while he had to wait for a second crew. With 5 points more to use than needed for pure win, I spent those resources to destroy my opponent's Storage Compartment (with Enemy Boarding Party) before I made a second move to explore my space missions. With Rite of Emergence and Mission Briefing, I managed to run through nasty dilemmas and had solved my second mission when Daniel completed his planet to follow my run. But in the end Tim Watters' status as commander made Daniel spend two points less in every attempt, so I won my first game. Still five to go… Round 2 against Harry Grimm - To Explore Strange New Worlds... Harry came from the south of Germany, and thus I had never faced him in a regular tournament before. He surprised me with another fast TNG solver that used Where No One Has Gone Before to prevent his Federation people from being stopped. When he had solved his second mission I feared the unavoidable, but luck helped me, killing his only Honor personal. So he had to wait for a new brave crewman to continue on his last mission while I used all my resources to win that game. Drawing my hand to 14 cards, I managed to get two Rite of Emergence and could play both to overcome Counterinsurgeny Program (call it "Espresso Machine") in need for Treachery. Note: I had a Leyton for Treachery but Harry cancelled my first Rite using Amanda Rogers so I had to play the second one that could have been discarded by the first copy… Full win again! Round 3 against Wolfram Pulsfort - Good Day to Live With two wins in advance I had to face stronger opponents every game and now the moment had come for a bitter battle between victory and destruction. At least I had that feeling as Wolfram played his "Chainsaw Massacre" deck - with I.K.C. Ning'tao and ship damaging dilemmas, his strategy was simple but effective: In space nobody will hear you screaming… I saw my only chance in running (yeah, like running in fear of death) to solve my planet mission just before Wolfram could receive his first points. The moment I had my points I knew my Kevin Uxbridge could act only once. Thus I waited till Wolfram played his Point Blank Strike and let it burn to make space a safe place again. With Lenara Khan and Jadzia Dax, Problem Solver my Rites of Emergence helped overcoming any disturbing dilemmas, and Wolfram lost track of my ship. Even William T. Riker wasn't able to help his Klingon friends, and I won my third game that day. Round 4 against Alexander Bank - What If Lore Had Found the Wormhole? Alexander had always been one of Germany's top ten players in both 1st and 2nd Edition. While playing against such an experienced player always means to learn, I had to learn that Alex had reactivated last year's top players invitational winning deck! Winning that tournament (and a cash prize of 100 EUR) made him believe he could successfully play the deck again … - and he was right. With few additions after Necessary Evil, Lore made his arrival in the Gamma Quadrant and helped the Jemmies to jam their missions with lots strength. Well, Lore was the man and I lost the game. Round 5 against Lars Flitter - Under Harsh Conditions I had lost three times with my current deck against Lars' brand new Borg deck. Although I knew his strategy and could foresee every single move the Collective would plan, Lars also had the knowledge and experience to win against my deck. So I decided to run again (Lars didn't have a cube or any assimilation card on table) and used my Excelsior together with six brave men and women to find a way around the hive's mind. From the future's point of view, Lars became nervous and made a fatal error - which resulted in him winning the game! He played Harsh Conditions to disallow me using Anthropology in combination with Antadean Assassins. Well, Harsh Conditions couldn't prevent him from simply stopping a personnel with Anthropology... but under the impression that I needed to be as fast as possible to survive that game, I played Rite of Emergence to get Telepathy and have a Lenara Khan be stopped instead. This resulted in not only discarding Rite of Emergence without use, but I also lost my only hand cards, U.S.S. Valiant and Running a Tight Ship! So half of my core cards (did I mention that I played a Running a Tight Ship deck with Rite of Emergence?) were relocated to the discard pile and I only had an Excelsior to outrun my opponent's Borg Cube. The following turn Lars assimilated Leyton and gained access to Leadership, Officer, Security and Treachery - the perfect addition to any Collective's skill mix! With that Assassination Attempt, Back Room Dealings, Dangerous Liaisons, Forsaken, Maglock and Temptation became worthless and I couldn't stop my opponent anymore. Resistance had become futile. Round 6 against Markus Deckert - Endgame After five rounds of playing, Markus and I both were tired and our turns were like clusters of automatic moves. This was true for the first 45 minutes when Markus managed to stop every attempt with dilemmas, such as Chula: Echoes that targeted attributes rather than skills so that my Rite of Emergence became useless in this game. Funny note: I had drawn all three Rites to my opening hand! After 45 minutes I could stop Markus' Klingons with Talosian Trial and Assassination Attempts at his last mission. He had made 30 points by battle, but couldn't win a forth one as Kevin Uxbridge had interrupted the game. So although he had solved two 30 points missions, game was still in progress and he had to rescue his BaH! with Jadzia Dax training at the Ressikan Flute. With Jadzia being stopped, he couldn't afford a second attempt this turn and I had the chance to solve both my second and my third mission in one turn to win that game at the last minute! Final Confrontation between Christian Pulsfort and Tobias Rausmann With 4:2 I had no chance of joining in the final, but I helped the judges watching the last game, when prizes were awarded to the crowd. Christian played his always-winning and event-heavy Romulan deck with Getting Under Your Skin and Lore, while Tobias had a DS9-Confessions in the Pale Moonlight with high-cunning science personnel. Christian, who had won all six games plus final of last day's Maiden Voyage, made a fast but fair game and won all of this day's games, too. Congratulations for defending the title of German Champion 2004! By the way I want to thank Dirk Haessner and Markus Rass, both Riders of Rohan, for voluntarily running the National Championship, as well as Carsten Weller, who not only ran the 1st Edition Championship on Friday but also helped finding a great location for such a special event! In the end I became sixth of 36 players which makes me really proud. I also didn't lose any bounty, as the only non-professional player that defeated me was Lars and he did that right after the last bounty (we had 10 Dukat, Liberator and Protector promos for players winning against 1700+ players) was gone… sorry Lars! Nevertheless it was a great weekend with great people to meet and great games to play, and I hope next year's National will draw at least the same number of players again. But before that there is a European Championship to compete in. :-) Thorsten Wanek German Nation Championship 2004 - Top 10 (out of 36)
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