More EVE CCG fun last night, with a rousing couple of games, and everyone won something, showing that our various deck tweaking skills are coming along nicely.
Game One (Minmatar (Me), vs Caldari, vs Amaar - three way), saw me pull off an very clean start, and early dominance, with a good handful of Asteroids and Trade Posts on my Home Region, complete with mining Probes. The quick draw and deployment of a Moon Harvester then meant I could throw out a large number of cheap ships very quickly, which is exactly how my deck should work. No Cyclones or Ruptures for me! Keep It Simple, Stupid!
In particular, I managed to get out a great many of my ships which have the 'Kamikaze' ability. This allows me to by-pass combat entirely, and just have my frigates ram the target ship or starbase of my choice. This might seem a bit drastic, and indeed, kills the ship while often doing less damage than a normal ship-to-ship combat round, but on the plus side, ignores defending ships, and if I have enough ships with this ability (Three Breachers/Rifters and a Burst, for example) I can insta-kill an unaugmented enemy starbase. Which I did to the Caldari, bypassing his back-line of powerfully shielded craft and knocking him out of the game quite early on.
This is lethal in two player games, but less useful in three player matches, as it leaves me open, and suddenly missing a lot of powerful frigates, giving Player Three, the Amaar in this case, a free go at my own base. Lucky, my own base, and Card of the Night, helps with that; 'Liberty Tower'. & Defence, 2 Income before upgrade, like all the others. The upgrade costs 4 to do and reads as follows:
"Upgrade only during any player's end step (instead of during your management phase). All ships that went to your scrapheap from play this turn are returned back to your hand."
Which basically means I can get back all the ships I lose in any single large-scale assault, including Kamikaze'd ones, as long as I keep 4 ISK spare. The base becomes 7 Def, 1 Income afterwards, but by that point I should have more than enough other cash coming in.
Playing that got me all my ships back, and over the next turn or two, I'd played them all back onto the table, and performed a very similar 'Today is a good day to die!' assault on the Amaar starbase. Having already Upgraded, that fleet was gone for good, but then so were all my enemies. Job done!
Game two went a bit differently. I tried for a similar strategy, but this time, the cards weren't quite as rapid to flow and the Caldari managed to get a more robust defence set up. Both players, now aware of how brutal my Kamikaze strike could be immediately set about beefing up their starbase defence points using Starbase Structure cards, and I never quite managed to play enough Kamikaze ships to beat their ever increasing defence scores. The Amaar in particular, with the Juggernaut Platforms and practically invulnerable Guardian cruisers was very well dug in, far beyond the ability of my fleet to dislodge, or the Caldari's. I waited for News cards to come through that could eliminate those, and finally got a Remnant of Vak'atioth News card (Costs X Isk, does X damage to target ship). I blundered though, and only spent 6 on the hit, which was enough to kill a Guardian outright, but not enough if he then goes and plays a goddamned Stubborn Mechanic on it (+2 Shield for 4 turns). Grrr! Hate that card, and I, a Minmatar, am not allowed to use them myself. Mind you, given the ships they fly, I'd say ALL Minmatar pilots are pretty stubborn mechanics already. Not much else you can add!
My chance blown, I went for the Caldari instead, figuring that although the Amaar was dug oin, the Caldari represented the biggest offensive threat. A large-scale fleet engagement ensued, that cost me two Thrashers, but cost the Caldari the game. Unfortunately, I'd spent all my money on the Thrasher's special ability (Pay 2, do 1 damage to enemy Scout or Frigate), and didn't have enough left to Upgrade the starbase and save them from the scrapheap.
Then the Amaar upgraded his starbase, revealing the plan behind his deck; Reclamation Tower:
"At the beginning of your management phase, if any player’s starbase shield is 20 or higher, every other player who controls at least one fewer region(s) than him or her loses the game"
I looked up and realised that while I tend not to play Outer Regions, (mostly because I like to keep all my ships as tightly focused as possible), he'd played Stain, and had a Guardian on it. Stain means I now can't play regions of my own, meaning that unless I could get news cards to dislodge the Guardian, he'd got the Regions condition. Meanwhile, his starbase shield was quite huge, but mostly due to Juggernaut Platforms - well beyond my Kamikaze potential, and the other Guardian he had in his home region meant I couldn't get through via conventional ship combat.
Juggernaut Platforms return to the owner's hand at the start of their turn though, and have to be played again, meaning that they aren't there during the checking step for the 20+ points condition, which was a relief. I waited and built and hoped for either 20 points of Kamikaze ships, or news cards that could destroy not one, but two Guardians with such convincing force that not even Stubborn Mechanics could help them, but no luck. Mind you, he had two frigates capable of attacking me, and I had about 12 points of Ambush in my home region, making an Amaar Offensive very unlikely.
Bit of a stand off, then from I-don't-know-where, he hit himself with two of my Annoying Card of the Night, 'Mind Clash':
"Target starbase structure loses its abilities (it still yields income and shield bonuses). When Mind clash leaves play, draw a card."
While a debuff in nature, using this on his own Juggernaut Platform disables the bit that tells him to take them back into his hand at the beginning of his turn, making them permanent fixtures for three turns. Two of these locked his huge shield boosts in place, giving him 20 Shield. I lose! Masterfully done, but I do wonder if he could rely on that combination of events with any real regularity on future nights...
Game three was a quick two-player faceoff, with the Amaar using my Minmatar Deck, and the Caldari trying out a Gallente deck of his own design. As with all one-vs-one games of EVE CCG, it was over very quickly - the Minmatar deck losing, after an abortive early charge over-extending him. The usually Amaarian player clearly not used to the speed and ferocity required to get the most out of the Minmatar deck I'd built. As the game before had shown, the Amaar deck is a more defensive kind of thing, and best suited for bidngin his time with...