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"This Old Deck," with Ensign Regis From J.D. Harper, aka Ensign Regis Hi everyone. With the recent arrival of First Contact, it occurred to me that Star Trek CCG deck building has changed. Here are my thoughts on the matter. No matter what kind of deck you play, you have to be able to solve missions. The Borg are the sole exception. Let's deal with traditional decks that focus on missions. In fact, let's build a Federation Mission Solving deck. Its design should give a solid foundation, particularly to new players. First and foremost, realize that even though you can now have large draw decks, bigger is not always better. Try to make your draw deck as small as possible. Step One. Choose six REALLY EASY missions. The Star Trek CCG premium Warp Pack helps with this. If you want, you could include a couple of high-points-hard-personnel missions. You need to have at least two planet-based and four space-based missions, or vice versa, in order to be safe from your opponent's use of Balancing Act. I recommend easy missions because they can be completed quickly. Take, for example, Study Stellar Collision. It requires just one personnel skill- Stellar Cartography. Include in your deck at least four or more personnel with that skill. See if you can get ONE personnel with only Stellar Cartography and include an Assign Mission Specialists card. If you get any of the five cards in your first draw of seven, then you can beat the mission, assuming you also get a ship. The newest Star Trek CCG ruling states that you must have a ship to attempt a mission. Choose cards with similar text for ALL of your missions. If you need to, trim the number of personnel possessing the necessary mission-completing skill to two or three. Remember, equipment cards can enhance your personnel, though they are usually so weak that they stay in your binder. However, if you find you have a lot of Science and only 2 Medicals, put in a Medical Tricorder. Now, you have Missions and Personnel for your deck. Good. But you are still missing some vitally important cards. Ships, for instance. Make room for four or five - you will need them. For the record, I would include two Runabouts, a USS Nebula, a USS Galaxy, and the Enterprise, if you have it. If you don't have the Enterprise, use a second Galaxy. The Runabouts are easy to staff (even Mot the Barber can figure it out). Your personnel are all dressed up, but they have no where to go, unless you include in your deck one outpost for each affiliation, and one neutral outpost. And if you need it, put an outpost in your draw deck. Now, you have to assume that your opponent is as good a player as you are - maybe a better player. So it's necessary to throw the occasional monkey wrench into her plans. Dilemmas are the answer. Put them in your deck in sets of three and four. Put together dilemma combos, and you can really make life difficult for your opponent. Try Edo Probe-Female's Love Interest-Matriarchial Society. Edo Probe's card text reads, "Abandon mission attempt until any player has completed a different mission OR continue but lose ten points if you fail this turn. If your opponent chooses to go on, they'll encounter Female's Love Interest. That will knock a female to the planet farthest away from this one. And Matriarchial Society requires 2 females. Ouch. So now, your opponent really needs 3 females to complete a mission, or they lose 10 points. That's a challenge they're not likely to meet. Look at your dilemmas. Put them together and hurt your opponent. But suppose they try YOUR missions? What then? You put your artifacts and few dilemmas on those missions of yours, right? So you have to find active ways to hurt him and help you. Interrupts and Events sure help out here. There are Events that really hurt when directed at an opponent. Anti-Time Anomaly kills every single personnel already reported for duty. That hurts. A lot. Hurts you too, but maybe not as much. Klim Dokachin puts the brakes on, because every time your opponent plays a unique personnel, she doesn't get to draw a card. Masaka Transformations is rich. If your opponent goes crazy when she draws a card, and says "Yes! Yes! Yes!", play this ASAP. It'll drive her nuts. Some Events help you out. Like Red Alert, which lets you play as many Equipment, Personnel, and Ships as you want, and Kivas Fajo, Collector, which lets you draw 3 extra cards). And of course, there are the Interrupts. Cards like Incoming Messages (go back to your outpost, do not pass go, do not collect $200 ), and Palor Toff-Alien Trader (trade him for a card in your discard pile, as long as it is not a personnel). There are 3 Interrupts that are VERY IMPORTANT. Stock 2 each of Amanda Rogers, Kevin Uxbridge, and Q2. These nullify Interrupts, Events and the other two mentioned Interrupts respectively. There are also some Doorways to include in your deck. Typically, you would use Q-Flash, Q-Tent, and the Alternate Universe door. Q-Flash, when encountered, opens the Q-Continuum and invites your opponent in. Q-Tent allows you to stock 13 cards in a separate side deck, which you may then retrieve when you draw a tent (either by your own choice or through random draw). The Alternate Universe doorway opens up the Alternate Universe and brings its cards into play. I think that's it. Happy Deck Building. |
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