Where No One Has Gone Before- An Unoffical ST:CCG Magazine

The Seed Deck:
The invasion begins here. Intelligence Operation and Rescue Founder will give you plenty to do if you can't get a Bajoran Wormhole from your deck or if the Wormhole closes, trapping you in the Gamma Quadrant. The other four missions are there for your invading pleasure. For each facility, there's only one location where you can seed each of your facilities, which admittedly makes The Sheliak a problem if your opponent is paying attention. Also, I know you're thinking I'm insane for using Empok Nor with the Dominion (and you're probably right, all things considered), but you do have ways to protect it. The key is to not seed a docking site. That way, unless your opponent is either also using an Empok Nor deck or has a spare docking site on hand, he won't be able to get aboard. The dilemmas are pretty standard: just try to take out as many personnel as possible through attrition before hitting them with the nastiest walls out there.

The Draw Deck:
Admittedly this is a lot of personnel, but that's where the Birthing Chamber comes in. You should be able to draw a Young Jem'Hadar pretty quickly and you'll have no end of universal Jem'Hadar grunts in hand. You'll need them. Remember, the Jem'Hadar are bred on Deep Space Nine to be expendable shock troops on the front lines. They're here to be used as such. Redshirt with them when possible, to protect your key personnel. Strike Three, You Dirty Rat, the Sacrifices (remember, the Jem'Hadar are expandable) and Flight Of The Intruder are there to help you protect your Founders during missions, if you need to commit them, and in battle. Shape-Shift is the most important here, as it will give you a little extra flexibility when it comes to commandeering Empok Nor.

Q's Tent:
The Tent is almost exclusively contingency cards and downloads. Thermal Deflectors are there to help you deal with Thought Fires (you have no Empathy to pass it) and Firestorms (which are quite capable of eliminating most of your personnel -again redshirt if possible). The Great Link is there in case The Sheliak decide to show up at Rescue Founder and take out your sole means of reporting ships, Vorta, Founders, and unique Jem'Hadar. The dilemmas are for Q's Planet, the Security System to protect your interests aboard Empok Nor, Goran'agar in case you need another Jem'Hadar or his support skills. The Traveler in the tent is a spare in case the one in your draw deck doesn't come up or is nullified. Everything else in the Tent is a download, with two key exceptions. The Kira Founder is for Empok Nor, although you can download her with Shape-Shift if needed. She and the O'Brien Founder are the only two personnel in the deck who can Process Ore without going through withdrawal and they can each commandeer Empok Nor without any help. I recommend letting her do the work since the O'Brien Founder is more useful with your missions. The other exception is Borath. He's probably the best support personnel in the entire Dominion affiliation thanks to his MEDICAL, Exobiology, SCIENCE, Cybernetics, and species. You should try to Tent for him and get him into play as soon as possible, especially if you need to attempt Rescue Founder.

Actually Playing This Deck
I recommend trying to get into the Alpha Quadrant as soon as possible. That way you can make your presence known and begin going after your missions. Try to solve a Construct Depot with Establish Dominion Foothold first to download the Remote Supply Depot. However, if you have a Depot in hand and an ENGINEER in the Alpha Quadrant, build it anyway. You'll want to have a place to replenish and report White. When the time comes, send the Kira or O'Brien Founder onto Empok Nor (using Invasive Beam-In to get you through its SHIELDS) and commandeer it. Begin to Process Ore on the next turn. The deck's biggest problems are getting enough cards into your hand; The Traveler and Process Ore should be more than enough to combat that and keeping a steady supply of Jem'Hadar on hand for redshirting and sacrificing themselves to protect the Founders. If you need to slow down your opponent, let the O'Brien or Lovok Founder beam a strike team aboard your opponent's ships to battle. The Founders can be used quite effectively here, but you need to be careful. Strike Three is a great way to do damage with them and they have high STRENGTH ; but you'll need to keep them alive. The only way to protect them in battle is with Flight Of The Intruder or to hope they don't run into anyone who can mortally wound them.

Anyway, good hunting!

Taibak