[twgi-general] forwarded message from Eric Lui: KublaCon Tournament Report

[mjn-twg at thirdworldgames.com]

Hi everyone,
    We ran a constructed Firestorm tournament at KublaCon this past
Memorial Day Weekend in Burlingame. (San Francisco Bay Area)
    Jessie, Nav, and Craig showed up, and by their generous allowance,
i was able to play as well.  Nav even gently corrected me on a few of
the rulings, since i hadn't played a lot of the tech gain cards in
years.
    Craig built his deck in the half-hour before the tournament, and
we got rolling by 10:15-- that must be some kind of record for a
tournament i'm asked to judge.
    With only four of us, we settled into a round-robin format where
everyone would get to play everyone else-- we came to play, right?

Round 1
Nav (Muero Multiple Choices) vs. Eric (Muero Support)
Jessie (Human Insurrection Support) vs. Craig (Human Explore/Fight)

Jessie and Craig had a pretty lengthy game-- they were both in the
double-digits in tech before it was all said and done.  I didn't get a
good look at what he was playing, but Craig was kind of surprised how
Jessie got all uppity in Craig's star system.  Craig got his Brain
Trust in play, feeding Simon Christiansen to it, only to have Jessie
drop a spy and blow it up the next turn.  Jessie took the win by
destroying Craig's homeworld.

Nav and i had a pretty quick game.  He gained tech quickly, but i was
able to drop one (just one!) ship or Hero every turn, while drawing
into most of my support cards.  I think i had 3 Mining Facilities and
my City online by the end of turn 4 or 5.  We traded Mercenary
Fighters early on, but my Primaag Sutraal was camped on the outside of
his star system with a badly banged-up Mercenary Destroyer.  I finally
moved up my Orbital Space Station (Move: 1 at a time!), and Nav
figured he had to strike in the typical turning point battle of the
game:
- Elite Fighter, Mercenary Fighter, Mercenary Destroyer, Destroyer
vs
- Elite Fighter, Mercenary Fighter, Destroyer, Orbital Space Station

I think Nav misunderstood how Elite Fighter works (that won't happen
again!), but he Massacred me at Triton, and banged on my ships.  I
used Shield React prevents and Hero deflects to keep Sutraal's ship up
and running.  This made Nav's attacks far less effective, and he kept
forgetting about it as he made his attacks... but i know he knows how
strong Sutraal is, since he runs the big Primaag himself.  I finally
pushed back with my Elite Fighter, wearing down his shields on his
Fighters.  We had some nasty exchanges, but i was able to save my
ships with Lucky Break (the damage bonus, to force a shield
activation) and a timely Glancing Blow against his D-14 missile.  He
did force Josidynn Prosidius out the airlock with that, but he left
Primaag Sutraal to live and fight another day.  My Orbital Space
Station wiped out his last two ships with its puny guns, and it was
pretty much over from there.

Round 2:
Jessie (Human Insurrection) vs. Eric (Muero Support)
Nav (Muero Multiple Choices) vs. Craig (Human Explore/Fight)

Jessie was playing lots of irritating Spies, including the redoubtable
Andrew Masters, as well as Insurrection Support.  I kept the heat up
with an early Destroyer with Nebb Charr in his system, and he missed
two or three activations of the Insurrection because he couldn't keep
his Commands up.  He destroyed two of my Mining Facilities, as well as
inflicting piercing damage on my ships as they rolled out of my
Homeworld.  I had Spies of my own, though, and managed to blow up his
Orbital Space Station as well as shank Rupert Einstein with Josidynn
Prosidius after i'd made her an Assassin.

In the end, his slowdown didn't show up fast enough, and despite some
very clever "attack and retreat" tactics (burning up his Commands), he
was unable to hold me off.  I rolled into his Homeworld around Turn 8
with 6 or 7 ships to his Mercenary Destroyer.  I didn't even bother
trying to blow up Jupiter.  I hate that planet.  Always asking me to
use up all my power...

Nav won very quickly, getting up in Craig's grill with Destroyers and
Mercenary Fighters, and not letting Craig explore very much at all.  I
think he even took three planets from Craig and revealed Military Vise
for the maximum style points.

Eric 2-0
Nav 1-1
Jessie 1-1
Craig 0-2
Tournament organizers don't win prizes, so we made Nav and Jessie's
game the one for all the marbles.

Round 3:
Jessie (Human Insurrection) vs. Nav (Muero Multiple Choices) FINAL
Eric (Muero Support) vs. Craig (Human Explore/Fight)

I played a game against Craig.  My Muero are sort of classically
dumb-- they have good strategies against the Space Tarts (Dysori) and
other Muero, but don't know quite how to deal with the subtleties of
Human Tech gain decks.  Is he packing three Secrets of the Ancients?
Should i go after his homeworlds?  Is he going to go Science Ship
nutty?  Lurk on the outside of his Star System (or worse yet, mine)
with vaguely threatening Fighter Scouts and then drop a ton of
Planets?  Too many options!

In the end, I just wasn't aggressive enough.  I blew up Craig's planet
at D, taking a chance that he couldn't drop two ships and finish my
early Destroyer.  But i chased down a few of his ships and blew them
up, and then blew up his Ruins of Pellaponia (after he triple-explored
with Kain Richards, an Arch Student, and a Fighter Scout for SIX Tech
gain).  This left my fleet scattered all over the galaxy.  Craig
Tech'd to 30 (i'd even cancelled his Discovered Technology with Only
Fools Roll the Bones!), but i swooped in to destroy his Homeworld.  I
won the game, but Craig won the moral victory-- his deck would surely
have pasted me if he'd built something just slightly more tuned.  I
don't remember which Advantage he used, but he was lamenting not
playing Advanced Technology, which would have given him the win the
turn before, or Exploration Efficiency, which might have as well.

Nav and Jessie traded ships, and Jessie even got off the Tactical Bomb
at Nav's 2-production planet, blowing it up.  But Nav's steady flow of
ships and Tech gain were too much for Jessie's bold spies, and Nav
launched a gigantic attack directly into Jessie's Homeworld.  Perhaps
after Spycraft becomes a dead game, Jessie's Human will ride again.

Nav is the KublaCon Master of the Firestorm, and the Muero win again.
Maybe it's time to stop packing all that Space Tart hate...

All the players were generously rewarded for their time and effort--
two booster boxes apiece, plus one more for the winner, Nav.  Third
World hooked them up with a pile of the beautiful Flying Tricycle
Firestorm counters (Power/Resources, Damage, and commands) as well as
demo decks featuring the promo-only Third World.  Finally, the
KublaCon staff dropped by and gave us some Firestorm starter boxes.

I had a great time, and i hope Jessie, Craig, and Nav did, too.  I'd
love to see a decklist, Nav, and i'll see what i can do about getting
it on Third World's website.

Hopefully, all their new toys will go right into new decks, and we'll
see them (and more) next year.  I understand that Joe "King of the
Space Tarts" went camping or something with his own space tart, so
perhaps he'll turn bold next year and give Nav a run for his money.
Erik "Queen of the Space Tarts" B. might need to make an appearance,
or Darren, who craves Vegetable Head victory.

Special thanks to KublaCon for being the best convention ever, Jan
Malina for giving me a place to crash, and Mike Nickoloff and Vince
Wong of Third World for hooking us up with great prize support and
convention time.

-- 
Eric