PA Territorial Opens in York, PA - 05/19/02


May and June, the time of the championship circuit for the stccg. Time to prepare to go to regionals, respectively this year Territorial Opens. The first one around was the PA Open in York. John C. was TD and drove with me from Philadelphia. We arrived at 10:30, so enough time to get ready. In total 11 players showed up, which was much less than the day before. 50 players attended the LotR tcg. But with the recent announcement from Decipher, you can be happy that still players show up.

I used my Kazon/Hirogen Outgunned Deck, which works with the help of the Olarra and Vic. I seed a Kazon Warship at Liberation, download Razik for Make It So and Captain’s Log. MS are Dr.Farek and Ayala. Of course I seeded DQSS and a Kazon and Hirogen Outpost to dl. their incidents. In the draw deck I put every unique personnel twice and eight Holodeck Doors to get Vic quickly. A selfseeded Mission Fatigue helps with Vic downloads to get Chakotay for Ancestral Vision and Cyrus for my dilemma combos, which where mainly murder dilemmas. I added several Wormholes and three Outgunned for “interaction” and seeded Verify Evidence to get home again via Caretaker’s Array. With Hirogen Hunt I can download ships at will including Olarra.

Prize support was four stccg boxes and the trophy binders. Two boxes where from the local ambassador. Unfortunately one of the boxes had no rares, but the TD will take care of this. At 12pm we finally started…


1st game – Mr. Bye
Unlucky as I am, I got the bye in the first round. So I played a friendly game against the TD. My first turn stuff worked well and got an Olarra in the first turn. With Wormholes I moved over into the alpha quadrant where John has set up his Fed VCM deck. Stupid me, I attacked him at his homeworld. He downloaded with Defend Homeworld all kinds of cards, which was pretty much my end… I lost and learned. I always forget Defend Homeworld.
2 (0)


2nd game – Pat – Fed Delta
Against Pat it’s always interesting, since he’s known to me as the ATA-man. But that changed with the last several decks, so no reason to be scared any more :) He played a standard Fed DQSS delta deck with the two 40 point Fed missions. Nice, I thought, and since we agreed that shooting around and slicing personnel is not very ethical, I stole his these two missions instead and won 100-0 with, I think, Acquire Technology.
4 (100)


3rd game – Mark – Ferengi PNZ Vic cheese
Ok, I admit that I use Vic as well, but surely not in this extensive way. Mark seeds 4 PNZ missions and a PNZ planet, and a Ferengi Trading Post. At least he is balanced by now, he has beaten me with this deck already twice and used 5 PNZ, but he must have encountered some Balancing Acts… :)
He takes his Marauder with Holodeck Door on it back to hand and plays it again, gets Vic and dl. Q’s Planet with the usual selfseeds. These give him several Ferengi Conference downloads. I built up my fleet as quickly as possible and moved over to the alpha quadrant. I managed to shoot a ship away and outgunned his last ship with five personnel aboard. I put them on the wall for extra points with Relics of Chase. Next target was his outpost. After this was gone I did three missions and won with the bonus points from Relics of Chase. 100-9
6 (191)


Now it was time for a break, I got me a pretzel and a soda in the shop nearby. While eating I remembered that in my Regionals in 2000 and 2001 I played as well battle decks. First a Cardassian then the next year a Kazon deck. Both years not very successful. I hoped that this wouldn’t be a bad omen..


4th game – Jesse – Hirogen
I knew Jesse’s deck from my last tourney so it was not a surprise to see is Hirogen deck. He improved his dilemma combos by putting Your Galaxy Is Impure before the usual Cyrus dilemmas Implication and Scientific Method. But the game was already over for me before I touched his combos. I had my dream beginning hand against Hirogen with Razik, Culluh and a Kazon Raider. I did my usual downloads and played the Raider to Caretaker’s Array. Recylcing of a Ref card gave me the download of the Olarra. I had three staffed ships (no Hirogen aboard) and destroyed his Olarra with Cyrus and Vic aboard. But I decided to attack his outpost as well next turn, which was the big mistake. He could download two ships with Kivas Fajo draws. So I lost my Olarra as well. Since he had then the better card draw mechnism, I didn’t have my Chakotay out yet, I eventually lost 0-100.
6 (91)


5th game – Robert – Fed alpha
Robert played a standard Fed alpha deck with the typical Fed download chain, which brought him the Dr. McCoy, Admiral Riker etc. etc. His deck was also built around the deck manipulation cards like All Threes or Data Keep Dealing. He also stocked several coounters like Amanda and Kevin. I go my stuff quickly but was stopped by his dilemma combos: Cyrus dilemmas with Your Galaxy Is Impure in front. Of course he stocked Disruptor Overload in his deck. With his Future Enterprise he was able to solve missions, Dr. McCoy could nullify all my Scientific Methods, and moved back to his outpost where he was safe. Mission Debrfiefing would have helped here. He won 0-100.
6 (-9)


6th game – Chris – Movie Deck
Chris played a Fed/Klingon treaty deck based around Khitomer and the time location and with the help of the Guardian of Forever. He played Q’s Planet with a Genesis Device but I had my Dead End in the tent. I built my armada and was able to shoot and outgun him. Relaxing last game with a 100-0 win. 8 (91)



I finished 3rd, Jesse and Robert made it to the final confrontation. Interesting, that both players had almost the same dilemma combos: Cyrus dilemmas with YGII and Disruptor Overload in the deck. Robert had only a few seed cards, so he had 22 dilemmas in total which helped a lot. Also his bunch of counters (Amanda and Kevin) were handy, especially since he got them back with Data, Keep Dealing, he could counter Jesse’s Small Oversights. Needless to say, Robert won the final confrontation. Good to see that a Fed Alpha deck can deal with all the DQSS and Vic stuff, deck manipulation and counters were the key for the win, in addition to the dilemma combos.
In the standard rounds, Robert lost to Mark with the Ferengi deck and won against Jesse.
And my thoughts in the lunch break were right, didn't make it again with a battle deck....but could be the player's fault ;)

Congrats to Robert Corbett for the PA Territorial Chapionship!


Results:
1. Robert 9 (392) Fed Alpha (won final confrontation)
2. Jesse 10 (300) Hirogen
3. Alex (me) 8 (91) Kazon/Hirogen Outgunned
4. Rick 5 (84) Fed OS
5. Mark 5 (–35) Ferengi PNZ
6. Brian 5 (-194) Borg Harness Particle
7. Pat Z. 4 (-18) Fed Delta
8. Pat B. 4 (-73) Vidiian/Hirogen
9. Blake 4 (-125) Borg Assimilation
10. Chris 4 (-193) TMP Deck
11. Billy 2 (-240) Dominion Gamma


All in all a great tourney with nice players, good job by the TD John Corbett,…although he probably lost any sympathy from Billy…but that’s a different story :)

After the tourney we went to a local “sports bar”, had some chicken!…then John and I drove home….

Since John from NJ did the PA Opens, I am gonna run the NJ Opens in Cedar Grove next month. The only downside is, I can’t play then, but it will be interesting to watch and a relaxing day….let the others sweat :)
Hope to see you all..