Notes on the Multiplayer Team Tournament - Part 2

This Strategy-Note article was written by openCards user thsch and was published first on "The Continuing Committee (trekcc.org)" at Sep 24th, 2010.

Using a straight solver in a Multiplayer Tournament sounds dangerous, taking into account that in the worst case you have to face two bloodthirsty, hunting, assimilating and sabotaging opponents. And believe me, if you just combine two of your best single-player solvers, it is! On the other hand, if you prepare for the possibilities this format has to offer, you can survive (and win).

Playing in any kind of Team Tournament means you have to rely on your teammate if you want to win. Playing in a Multiplayer Team Tournament also means that you can rely on him or her if you face an obstacle you cannot handle on your own. Thus, one of the most important points to keep in mind when choosing affiliations is not only to combine their strengths, but also to cover each other's weaknesses.

For example, assume your teammate is playing a Borg Solver. With Two of Nine and Quintessence he is more than capable of controlling events in your opponents’ cores and making sure you will not have to worry about Machinations or No Win Situation. So there is no need for you to stock some inferior event destruction. On the other hand, the Borg event destruction is pretty much screwed as soon as Two of Nine is arrested in a Holding Cell. Thus, stocking some ways to prevent an event might be very wise. So why don't play Dominion and use Our Death is Glory To the Founders? Of course Dominion only has very limited ways to destroy events in an opponent’s core (especially high-cost events) but hey, that’s what Two of Nine is for! Perfect teamwork!

The possible combinations are numerous. Your teammate is playing DS9 with Holding Cell? Maybe you should not spend too many card slots on Interrupt prevention. He is playing Maquis? All his denial cards should be enough to make sure you will never have to deal with James T. Kirk, Original Thinker or Reyga, Young Scientist or "Damaged" Jonathan Archer, Damaged Captain in any mission attempt, so reduce the Secret Identities in your dilemma pile. He is playing Voyager? Let him do the space missions, you can concentrate on the planets. All the advantages of a Long Journey Home or Genesis Deck without the problems (i.e. keeping The Long Journey Home in play or completing Genesis Planet). Believe me, this is as nice as it sounds.

At last year's Grand Prix Team Tournament, Tobias Rausmann and I tried this combination. I was playing a Voyager Deck with five space missions and all the nice stuff Voyager has to offer. For Tobias’ planet only deck, we had multiple options. But since my event control was limited to three copies of Grav-Plating Trap, we decided to use TNG with its flagship U.S.S. Enterprise-E, Flagship of the Federation.

Take a look at Why bother with Planets? and Why bother with Space?, our decks from last year. Even if a few things have changed since we played them, both decks are still a viable option for a team tournament. Of course, after Transport Crash Survivor you cannot that easily dodge Necessary Execution by attempting with five and using Vic Fontaine. So why not add some more kill prevention (the various TNG Doctors come to mind here)? Or add Ohhhh! Nothing Happened! to the Voyager deck. It is a temporal event so both Chakotay, Bridge Between Two Crews and Naomi Wildman, Astrometrics Officer will be more than happy to use it in case your opponents are not playing Necessary Execution or Transport Crash Survivor.

Time for you to decide what your decks should look like and how your teammate and you can work as a team. See you in Frankfurt!