Not having time to build and learn anything new, I took the same decks as I did to Nationals, albeit with a couple of tweaks (-1 Brain Trust, -1 Shi.Kyu, -1 Space Camp, -1 Caprice, +2 "Clones Are Not People", +2 Clone Retirement to the Tennin deck, -3 NACH, -2 Employee Strike, +2 Rumor Mill, +3 Networking, -1 Making an Entrance, -1 Sports Hopper, -1 Trope to the Val deck)
So we had 8 players there including Paul and me, with the format being 4 rounds of Swiss and then a top 4 double elimination.
Game 1 vs Ian - Kate/ETF
Against Kate, I managed to score out 3 Medical Breakthrough very quickly, but unfortunately without seeing any copies of "Clones are not People"... and then he stole all my 1 point agendas (along with 2 Shi.Kyu) , leaving me with only 3 The Future Perfects left in my deck and only two Trick of Light left to score it with... which still would leave it vulnerable for a turn. No problem, I'll just Jackson back a trick of light, there's 1 left in my deck. Got down to two cards... (what I thought was a 3rd ToL, and the Jackson) but only had two actions left so decided not to risk it. Next turn he thankfully didn't run R&D, so I drew one... and it was a Shock!? Drew the last (thankfully a Jackson) and installed it. End of his turn, popped the Jackson to bring back a pair of Biotic Labours... Biotic, Install, Trick, Trick, Advance WIN. My hands were shaking for about 45 minutes after that match!
Against ETF, the stars lined up and Val worked her magic. He scored a pair of ABT out quickly, but then the Keyhole Machine fired up and I started grinding his deck away - only found one agenda, but got rid of a few key cards in his deck and every time something hit the table face down I blackmailed in and took it. Was looking to be a timed win for me, but managed to score the last few points in the last turn with Blackmail and then picking up the milled agenda from the bin.
Result: 2-0 (Ian finished 7th)
The first round overall had two splits and two sweeps, putting me in the top 2. Obviously, it's not going to last.
Game 2 vs Alex - Kate/CI
Against CI, RNJesus did not smile on me and I didn't see any money... so no keyholing for Val, and with nothing much to Blackmail except a very full HQ I only just got myself to 2 points before the combo fired off and it was GG time. Rebirth *might* have made some difference if I could have become Edward Kim and sniped key operations out of his hand, but it was not to be. An account siphon or two would have been amazing, but didn't see either all game.
I lost track of how many time I could have scored agendas if it wasn't for either Clot or the threat of it against Kate. Probably could have finished on 11 points... instead I think I finished on 5, and even Alex having no cards left didn't help. 2 cyberbex and 3 "Install advance oh look it's clot ok overwrite with Jackson" didn't manage to end the clot threat. No idea what to do against clot except "not play Fast Advance".
Result: 0-2 (Alex finished 2nd in Swiss, and 1st overall)
We then broke for lunch, and while eating a delicious Subway I chatted to Hamish for a bit. Turns out that the Alex who swept me in round 2 was Alex bloody White, the UK Nationals Champion for 2015 so I immediately felt better about losing.
Game 3 vs Michael - Palana/Wizzard
Wizzard struggled to find a breaker other than David, which kept him out of my centrals - and made me very careful to keep my ice walls lower than 5 strength! By the time Faust made an appearance, I had scored 5 points and had all I needed to score the last 2.
The game against Palana though was very bad... 2nd turn he removed his bad pub (at which point I then had two Blackmail pop up through Earthrise) and Eater didn't make an appearance until he'd got 5 points scored and had already advanced his last agenda twice. Elusive breakers on both sides made this pairing a little disappointing.
Result: 1-1 (Michael finished 4th in both Swiss and overall)
At this point, I'm in 4th place with a round to go... not sure if a split will do or if I need to sweep to get into the top cut. Turns out I would have needed to sweep, and have my SoS carry me through. (IDs aren't allowed at BABW though, so even if I was confident in my maths it's not an option.)
Game 4 vs Jim - ETF/Gabe
In this game, I discover that Crisium Grids on R&D and HQ just fucks my whole game plan up - no Keyhole, no Account Siphon, and with Jim slamming out Biotic Labor I can't even Blackmail my way into servers to steal agendas. This is the trouble with decks that rely on special tricks...
As the corp, I drew a hand of 3 assets and 2 operations, so decided to mulligan... big bloody mistake right there, as the new hand was 3 agendas and 2 operations, with 3 more agendas on the top of the deck. Jim stole all the low value agendas bar a single Clone Retirement (which I scored BEFORE he stole one) leaving me struggling to get the cash required to Biotic/Trick/Trick/Advance out TWO Future Perfects. As you can probably guess, that didn't happen.
Result: 0-2 (Jim finished 1st in Swiss, 2nd overall)
Which means at the end of the day I finished on 3 and 5, for 6th place. I did have the highest strength of schedule at the end though, having faced 1st, 2nd, 4th and 7th place! Turns out a split in the final round would have only got me to 5th, and a sweep would have actually got me to 2nd place! What a difference 2 points make, even in a 8 person tournament.
All told though I had a great day, had some excellent games and didn't get paired up against Paul (which as we play each other twice a week anyway, would be a bit of a waste). I also got to game point against a UK Nationals Champion, so even though I didn't technically win the match I'm counting that as "good enough for now".
Thanks to Hamish from Guardians of Tyr for running it, Wargames Workshop for hosting, and all the players (including Mikee and Matt, who I didn't play) for being friendly and welcoming, and Paul for giving me a lift so my wife could have the car! And Alex... I'm adding "take at least 2 points from Alex White" to my goals list ;-)
Edit: I originally said it was hosted at Wayland Games, but that's the store in Birmingham I tried to get to at Nationals... #fail
Edit: I originally said it was hosted at Wayland Games, but that's the store in Birmingham I tried to get to at Nationals... #fail
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