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Frooled You Once.. by Olav "The Pendari Champion" Rokne The day before the regional in Calgary, the city was sweltering under a record breaking heat wave. Michael John Rosebush, Michael Sydney Erskine Hoskin, and myself headed out to the east side condominium owned by none other than the notorious Dr. Cornelius Funk Hyttenrauch. Dr. Cornelius Funk Hyttenrauch was the previous product champion of the greater Calgary metropolitan area, with his knowledge of skills databasing and his volumous, yet well organized collection, the four of us were certain that we might be able to design ingenious and fantastical new strategies for the next day's regional. The good Dr. greeted us, and beaconed us to enter.  "Greetings, my good man" he said unto me. "It is with great regret that I must inform you that I shall not be able to accompany you to the Sentry Box tomorrow." "Alas!" I replied, "What fiendish machinations prevent you from attending the weekend's festivities and tests of courage and knowledge?" "I'm afraid that I have fallen under the spell of the fairest of sirens, Dee." He explained. "I shall be spending the weekend with her. This does not prevent us, however, from building decks this afternoon." The four of us whiled away the afternoon and evening attempting to perfect our decks. I, with my armada, was certain that I could blow shit up better than anyone else. Michael Sydney Erskine Hoskin was certain that his Vidiians could survive more than anyone else. Michael John Rosebush was certain that his collective could sit there and be borg. I'm not certain if he had plans beyond that. I suddenly realize that no one talks like that, so I will revert to a more realistic writing style. After about 6 hours of honing my draw pile, I realized what was wrong with the deck I had created: it didn't have enough Frools. I am uncertain as to whether or not you recall the card "Frool," but he is a common from Rules of Aquisition. He has youth, greed, civilian and the ability to play for free to a Ferengi Trading Post. He is also a waiter. Now the end result of this is that if the 211th rule of Acquisition is in play and I have more Frools at the Ferengi Trading Post than my opponent, he may not play cards on my turn. This includes downloads, specifically cards downloaded off the Q the Ref. I spent from 6 PM until 2 AM building the Frool deck.  The trick is that I first get out as many Frools as possible, then the Scepter of the Grand Nagus (so that my 211th can't be nullified) then the 211th. Then the pre-game download people go and attempt my missions, quickly Q-bypassing for 100 points on the first turn without fear of Feedback surge. Trouble is, that if the opponent knows what's going on, he can download the feedback surge before I play the 211th rule. The following is an account of the results. The problem with this kind of deck is that the resulting tourney report is kind of dull. The deck either won (they didn't manage the ref-download) or I lost (they did manage the download) there's no middle ground. I get 100 points first turn, or none at all. Round One: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Earl "Sparky" Prusak I showed him the draw pile (not the seed deck) and convinced him that my deck was not a threat. I told him I was playing a pile of Frools as a dare, and he let me go first and get last seed. His mistake. I quickly solved my missions for a 100 - 0 win. I felt almost guilty about conning him. Almost. He finished the game by saying "I can't believe I lost to Q-bypass" I wish he had said it more quietly.   Round Two: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Christopher William Jurasek I told Chris that the first win was just a fluke. I told him that I was playing the deck as a dare. I showed him the draw pile. He told me that I could go first. He let me have last seed. I can't believe that it worked twice in a row. I felt even more guilty. He said, again rather loudly "I can't believe I lost to Q-Bypass!"   Round Three: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Thomas Knight Solway Tom is smart. Tom doesn't trust the Olar. Tom Goes first. Tom says "Since Frool has no dilemma busting ability, then logically you must be playing some sort of bypass" he downloads Feedback Surge on his turn. I can't get through his dilemmas. Ever. I lose 100-0   Round Four: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Kimberly Dawn Dell Gould Kim doesn't know what I'm up to, but certainly doesn't trust Olav. I think that's the lesson to take away from this tourney. Or one of the lessons. "Never trust your opponent. Especially when it's Olav."  Kim managed to outseed me. But for some reason that I can't explain, she only seeded dilemmas that Frool can easily get by. I went first. I managed the one turn win.   Round Five: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Michael Sydney Erskine Hoskin Well... this was kind of a forgone conclusion. We had spent a couple of hours the previous evening discussing exactly how to defeat the deck I was playing. So after he downloaded his Feedback Surge, I lost. Nothing much to it.   Round Six: Olav Nord Rokne Vs. Tara Nora Dubois After a seed phase where I couldn't bring myself to care about the game, I thought that I had seeded both my Q-s under the same mission, which would have been fatal. I don't want to play the game. I just want the tourney to be over. I didn't think that I would make finals, and I thought that Tara would defeat me. I was wrong, however. So after four wins and two losses I have differential of 200 and 8 victory points. Due to the massive number of timed wins, I have more victory points than any other player... meaning that I'm in the final. The problem is that my opponent Earl (AKA Sparky) Prusak played me in the first round and this time he isn't going to fall for the "I'm just a lost puppy dog" routine. So, knowing I'm going to lose, I try to make the final as painful to everyone else as possible. I, slowly, ever so slowly shuffle my deck. I count my opponent's seeds. Slowly. I seeded my dilemmas face up (and then asked for specific rulings on why this could not happen.) I cut my opponent's draw pile, carefully spinning some of his draw pile so that the top edge of the sleeves was not facing in the same direction. The great part about this is that it isn't against the rules to do so, and it really irritated Earl (aka Sparky) who  compulsively requires his sleeves to be oriented in the same direction. When he next did a download, he straightened his deck out so that the top edge of the sleeves were all facing me. I insisted that he shuffled his deck between every download, that I got to cut it... and did it all again. When I got a turn, I made sure to perform as many legal actions on my turn as I could without stalling. I set off downloads for cards that weren't in my deck, then insisted that my opponent look through my tent and draw pile. I was an obstinate bastard. I did my little "am I annoying you yet" dance. I acted like a moron, made sure that "Chaos" is not the same as "Chaotica" for the purposes of Fortress of Doom...  I repeatedly ran my hundreds of Frools into the same killer walls, forced him to make the random selections. Just to piss him off. A game that should have been over in minutes dragged out... and almost timed out. Earl wanted to kill me.  The TD threatened me with bodily harm. It didn't change the outcome of the game... but I enjoyed it sooo much. I haven't enjoyed a game that much in about a year. On my first turn I played a "Frool" as a hidden agenda, and just before he could win legitimately, I revealed it to deny him the satisfaction. Good times had by me. And no one else. Seed: Q-Tent Obelisk of Massaka Mission Debriefing Combo Scow X6 Q X 2 STP TMW Holoprogram: Fortress of Doom D'kora Transport ASP AMS Writ Defend homeworld Quark's Isolinear Rods Arandis Cryosatelite Horga'hn Dr. Roger Korby Holodeck Door Husnock Outpost Husnock Ship Ferengi Trading Post 1st Rule of Aquisition Halkan Council Missions: Hunt for DNA Program Deliver Supplies Uncover DNA Clues Risa Shore Leave Inversion Mystery Mine Dilithium Tent: DTRM Gold Pressed Latinum Masaka Transformations Arachnia Maihar'du Scepter of the Grand Nagus Tantalus Field Classic Communicator James Tiberius Kirk Nilva Gand Nagus Gint Prot 211th Rule of aquisition Draw: Dr. Borts ISS Enterprise Hogan 2 X Mutation 2 X Power 2 X All threes 24 X Frool Ty Kjada Comments? Post on the WNOHGB BBS!