STCCG Tourney in Clarks Summit, PA - February 17th, 2002



Pat did a tourney in Clarks Summit again and I packed myself into the car and drove up from Phila. I decided to use my Dominion deck that I played in West Berlin, since I came in 2nd with this deck.
It's a Dominion Alpha Only Deck with Neutral Outpost, Spacedoor, Defend Homeworld and Temporal Micro-Wormhole to get Deyos to a downloaded Dominion Ship. With Ultimatum I build a Remote Supply Depot in the first turn and get Ketracel White to play Obedience Brings Victory often. As missions I have Reignite Dead Star or Collect Sample + Establish Dominion Foothold for 50 points with MS. I play Homefront on table for free plays to Earth and another copy on opponent's homeworld to slow him down. Then solve Espionage Mission with 62nd Rule for 100 points.
This time I also seeded Engage Shuttle Operations: Dominion to shoot Holoships with Vic away and I added two Brain Drain against Cyrus...



1st game Bill - Dominion Gamma only

He played Dominion as well, but neither of us had the opportunity to go to the other quadrant, so no stealing or interference. He was getting out personnel quickly and since it was my first game I was a little nervous (actually don't know why). I screwed up my attempt to get Establish Dominion Foothold and one MS was killed so I got only 45 points, I also screwed the attempt with the 62nd Rule as I took 10 personnel down :(. A big help was Brain Drain which stopped Cyrus two rounds from having effect, unfortunately you're only 'allowed' to play it twice, due to Writ. He solved missions quickly but ran into my the Higher the Fewer and got 98 points. Next turn I was able to solve a Contruct Depot and the Dead End protected Earth. 100-98

2 (+2)



2nd game Pat - Fed VCM

Pat normally plays Anti-Time Anomaly in every game against me, so I was surprised to see a 'simple' VCM deck. Thus, Earth was duped. He immediatly started probing, but only for two rounds, I built my outpost with Ultimatum and then I quickly opposed him on Earth. Unfortunately he was not prepared to battle away opposing dudes, which slowed him down immensely. He still managed to solve a mission. Engage Shuttle Operations came in handy when I tried to battle his Defiant, but he took it to hand with STP. The rest was as scheduled, getting Establish Dominion Foothold and then Earth, funny side thing: We both seeded Sheliak/Dead End under Earth. 100-43

4 (+59)



3rd game Rob - Hirogen alpha quadrant

Rob played with a Ferengi Trading Post and Spacedoor and all these Hirogen Incidents to get his people onto the ship and mine onto his wall. He also seeded a lot of stealable missions, but I stayed away from him as he downloaded a Hirogen ship immediately. I started my usual stuff with Ultimatum and got me EDF fairly quickly. In the meantime he slaughtered two of my personnel and got 19 points for that. But I had no problems getting Earth. 100-19

6 (+140)



4th game Mark - Ferengi PNZ Vic cheese

I saw his spaceline and thought I just bring my ships into the Neutral Zone and he can't solve anything...my bad. With Establish Trade Route you don't have to obey the no-ship-in-NZ-restriction. I discovered this when he solved his first mission for 50 :(. An addition he had Vic's Planet , I mean Q's Planet, and downloaded Ferengi Conference all the time. It was already too late to shoot him away, since he solved his second mission fairly quickly. I should have seeded my outpost closer to him and I didn't have Balancing Act (5 PNZ) or The Big Picture either....0-100

6 (+40)



5th game Martin - Fed delta quadrant DQSS

Actually I started well with solving EDF early, unfortunately Martin solved a mission as well but with 62nd Rule of Acquisition which brought me to 40 instead of 50. So had to solve another Construct Depot get past the Dead End on Earth, but I was too slow. Borg Nanoprobes were handy in this game since he seeded a lot of 8472 dilemmas. Martin got another mission with the help of the 62nd Rule and won 30-100.

6 (-30)



Well, well, nice start with bad ending. I came in third with six points. First was Pat, second Mark, both had 6 points as well. The winner got a Berserk Changeling tourney foil, the Q2 foil went randomly to Mark, congrats.
Brain Drain was handy in the first game, but he was the only player who used Cyrus. Engage Shuttle Oparations is neat, too, especially in combination with In The Zone. Should have had Commander Charvanek, Balancing Act and The Big Picture, but who can predict all these things... Ok, now that I played this Dominion deck in two tourneys and in one online tourney, I will try something else.... :)

Anyway a great tournament with very nice people, definitely worth to show up again...