STCCG Tourney in Clarks Summit, PA - March 17th, 2002
I drove up to CS from Philadelphia with John C. who came over from New Jersey. The weather and traffic was fine, so we arrived 40 min early and had time for Lunch at a local fast food restaurant.
John and I playtested our decks before so we knew each others deck. After two tourneys with dominion, this time I tried Borg. I seeded Establish Gateway and wanted to scout the mission with my Unicomplex and switch objectives after clearing off dilemmas to Harness Particle 010. The deck was concentrated on this purpose so it consisted only of 45 cards. Of course 3 Handshake to rig the probe and 4 Borg Queens. The Queens were from The Borg expansion. I like them because of the Event download, which can be Cranial Transceiver Implant, Activate Subcommands or Retask (I seeded two Borg Ship dilemmas, in two games I could use Retask). I added two Gowron of Borg for Assimilate Homeworld, which would give me the win with 110 points, as Borg are immune to In The Zone. I preferred Gowron above Tomolak (cloaking) because of the ability to attack once without objective. I seeded three delta and three alpha missions, including Study Protonebula for my Transwarp Hub and Qon'oS. Mission Debriefing, Service the Collective, Examine Singularity and two QtR completed the seed cards.
1st game - Pat - Fed VCM
Pat played the same deck as last time. A standard Fed VCM deck. Unfortunately he had some trouble getting "equipment" probes, so he just drew cards. My starting hand included a Borg Queen who let me start quickly with an Activate Subcommands download. I get the "recycle drones" and the two kids with the Maturation Chamber download. After the third turn I started scouting with a Spacedoor-downloaded Borg Probe for Establish Gateway. The dilemmas were no problem and I took Establish Gateway to hand with Fifth and downloaded with the Transceiver Implant Harness Particle 010. Pat was asking if this is allowed because of "not yet scouted" on HP010. We looked into the glossary and had some trouble finding the side with the answer, but he agreed. Next turn I rigged the probe with Handshake and completed. Then I got Gowron of Borg and moved to Qon'oS to Assimilate Homeworld. Scouted, I think, twice with three drones each and probed successfully in the same turn, 100-0.
2 (+100)
2nd game - Jesse - Klingon
Jesse played Klingon with Liberation and Caretaker's Array and a Kazon Warship seeded there. He also downloaded stuff with Kivas Fajo and Blood Oath and had quickly a lot of ships out. Good for the Borg that my outposts were highly shielded. I did my EstablishGateway/HP010 thing successfully. Then Jesse tried to steal my empty space mission (countered with Fair Play) instead of moving the Kazon Warship away. All the Klingons were aboard. I got lucky to draw Gowron of Borg the turn before, so I could attack his Kazon Ship, but in the right moment he took everything to hand with STP. While he tried to get his stuff into play again, I moved over to Qon'oS and assimilated to win, 100-0.
4 (+200)
3rd game - John C. - Hirogen/Hologram
So now the clash of the day, I thought, John always beats me so I hoped I would have better chances this day. I got a Queen in the first turn again and started well but John was quick as usual. The Hirogen have an armada out very fast, also he added Vic Fontaine and DQSS. He solved a mission and got fifty points, then he tried to attempt Establish Home Planet with an Holo-only crew to win the game. He hit my The Higher the Fewer/Dead End Combo and was stopped. Then he forgot to beam down a non-holo personnel, which would have saved him from Deactivation. Next turn I downloaded Deactivation and erased his away team, including Cyrus and Vic. The moment of the day! In the meantime I completed HP010, again a Handshake saved the probe. I moved to Qon'oS, started scouting and was stopped for a turn. John speeded up and solved another mission the Dead End Mission was then no problem, unfortunately I didn't have In The Zone. 30-100
4 (+130)
4th game - Mark - Ferengi Vic cheese
Mark also played the same deck like last time. So I actually knew what I was supposed to do. He had five PNZ and one planet with Ferengi Trading Post. He did the Q's planet trick in the first turn etc... I changed my plan a little bit and tried to get a staffed Tactical Cube as soon as possible, I also downloaded the Multiplexor Drone. Luckily I got Gowron quickly so I didn't have to use Eliminate Starship. He was stopped by The Higher the Fewer/Dead End when I moved over and blew his ships away. Then I moved back to do my EG/HP010 trick. Due to this battling I forgot to download Fifth, which I recognized when it was too late. I couldn't switch Objectives. Due to this mistake I bit into the table and completed Establish Gateway and then an Assimilate Planet for 50 in total. He had of course time to report some peeps and solved a PNZ mission. I had to move over and use Eliminate Starship, which gave me more time. I assimilated Qon'oS for 90 total. Unfortunately I had only one Resistance Is Futile in my hand the other got "somehow" into the discard pile. Q's Planet was not solved yet. He did then another mission and solved Q's Planet, 90-100.
4 (+120)
5th game - Martin - Fed DQSS
Martin played his Fed/DQSS/ex-Borg deck that kicked my decks twice in tourneys before. But this time it worked well, although it took me a while to draw a Queen. Then I did my EG/HP010 trick and assimilated Qon'oS for the win. This time I was faster than Martin, but I must admit I hit The Higher the Fewer/Dead End/Garbage Scow which makes it of course easier. Borg Nanoprobes were also useful against 8472 dilemmas. 100-0
6 (+220)
I came in third due to my fairly good differential. ....and guess who won this tourney! No, not the Vic cheese, Joshua Carey (won a Genetronic Replicator Foil) with a standard Romulan-2HQ-Supernova deck, I didn't encounter it but I heard he just blew everything away. At least, on St.Patrick's Day a "green" deck won...
My Borg deck encountered a lot of Dead Ends, The Higher the Fewer and 8472 dilemmas, which were no problem. Except the game where I did the big mistake the EG/HP010 swap works fine. Very useful was Gowron of Borg with his ability to initiate battle. Good choice, especially against the Ferengi deck. Cloaking from Tomalak wouldn't have helped here.
All in all a great tourney and thanks to Pat for hosting it....
Then John, Pat and I had dinner and we drove home, which went ok, despite the snow/rain mixture suddenly pouring down..