Well, lookie, lookie. The meta-game has certainly changed in the past
month, when the
Enhanced First Contact Packs and the Dominion expansion were released,
bringing loads of
new strategies to the meta-game environment. While Borg decks have
started to become
much more present in the meta-game scenario, players are struggling
to try out the new,
fully playable affiliation of the Dominion. And most old strategies
got a boost. So much to
prepare for, which is the fun of the meta-game.
Before jumping into all the new strategies and how to prepare for them,
a glimpse of how
each affiliation turned out after these two sets perhaps should be
in order. The rank in
which they are reviewed in below does not only translate their over
all power, but how
popular they are with players, which should give you an idea of which
affiliation has
strategies you should prepare for in your deck.
Klingon: Ah, the days of battling glory are still yet unsung.
The Klingons have rarely
shown their head in the tournament environment, but this does not stop
them from being a
popular fan favorite. And, with the advance of Dominion, they may have
a few strategies
they could bring in for a few winning games. Martok gives armada decks
a large boost.
Players should be weary of a single staffed Rotarron with Martok aboard.
Captain’s Log
and a single Bynar’s Weapon Enhancement (downloadable thanks to 10
and 01) brings up
to a WEAPONS 14. A Klingon player looking to create a fleet can do
this nicely. All they
need out is a ship which has a matching commander and then download
the commander
with Ready Room Door, already having out Captain’s Log with RRD, which
goes back on
top of the deck. If you bring out the Hegah’ta, you can have a two
ship fleet with 28
WEAPONS in total.
Unfortunately, Klingons still did not get a major boost in the skills
department with Dominion. Martok’s skills are found in better place
(like Governor
Worf or Mogh) and Ch’Pok has nothing else new to offer, except Law,
which is not
needed much. Atul’s single Klingon Intelligence makes him barely worthy
even with a
seeded Assign Mission Specialists. However, one thing the Klingons
did get that they can
take good advantage of is Empok Nor. The personnel who they do have
with good skills
(Kitrik, Governor Worf, etc...) can be gotten out much faster and allow
you to get to
missions that much faster, and Ore Processing will let you cycle through
your deck nicely.
The Empok Nor dilemmas should not be too much of a problem for Klingons
(except
getting 2 Exobiology for the rarely seen Garak Has Some Issues). Problem
is, against a
Romulan player (who can commander it first turn with their affiliated
Computer Skill
mission specialist, Patelh) or another Klingon, keeping control of
Empok Nor could be
hard...
Oh, and for the missions the Klingons got in Dominion, they are fair
overall.
Archanis Dispute is the best one, it appears, with good points and
easy requirements.
Quest for the Sword is the easiest and best, point wise, but making
the side trip to the
Gamma Quadrant, unless using Colony Preparations, just doesn’t seem
worth it. One last
saving grace, however, for the Klingons in Dominion is The Great Hall.
The Great Hall
allows more personnel to report to it for free then any other headquarters,
and is most
likely to be seen in most Klingon decks, especially since HQ: Secure
Homeworld is fairly
easy for the Klingons.
Federation: The Feddies, to some players' surprise, are in the
bottom overall ranking, even
though the series revolves around them. The Federation’s main problem
seems to be the
fact that even though they have a large group of good personnel, they
don’t seem to be
able to spread out and use other strategies too well. And their big
name personnel, such as
Picard and Sisko, are seemingly outclassed by other personnel, such
as Rachel Garret. One
major problem with the Federation is classifications don’t seem to
overlap as much along
with skills, with certain skills or classifications being confined
to certain groups of
personnel. On the upside, in certain areas, such as Medical, they have
easily the best
personnel of that group. However, other affiliations usually have Medicals
with other
classification (such as Science) or they fit in with other skills already
needed in the deck
(like Tal Shiar). It doesn’t matter if one personnel has three Medical
on them or not: on
Hippocratic Oath or Tarrelian Plague Ship takes them out, regardless
of the quantity of
Medical they have on them.
The Federation has also lost a lot of speed without the lack of
much of any main
strategies beside straight mission solving. This, however, makes the
Federation key
for non-affiliation based strategies like Compensater/Schism or Thought
Fire/Nightmare
decks. The Feds have the good personnel to do the missions when the
time
comes, but most of the deck is so bent on destroying your opponent’s
resources that it will
be a while before things happen, hence all the time to slowly drop
the crew. Scans of all
types, though, are mostly needed in Fed decks, unless you go for self-seeded
Q, which is a
particularly big thing for Feds with their high Integrity. Hide And
Seek doesn’t help much
because their huge mega-crew will be able to blow by those dilemmas,
making Q-Flash the
easiest way to stop them.
With Dominion, the Feds got some goodies, though not enough
to bring them back up into the great realm of power they had pre-QC.
Jaresh-Inyo gives
the Federation a few fair skills, though the download of HQ: Secure
Homeworld is not
that good because it can already be seeded. Office Of The President
lets a few good
personnel report to Earth, but not nearly enough to make it too worthwhile.
In the
Meta-Game, one must deeply consider using Earth because it is easily
stealable by most
affiliations, and the Borg can hurt you badly with Stop First Contact,
if they use it with
Population 9 Billion--All Borg. Though they’ll seed Earth anyways and
SFC is not much
of a viable strategy as it is, having the Borg face their own dilemmas
at the mission you
seeded for them is not good, especially with Service the Collective
allowing them to scout
and probe in one turn, no effort really involved, beside getting Locutus
out. Eddington is a
nice Security classification personnel, something the Federation has
been in need of lately,
like an affiliated Roga Danar. The Defiant, Admiral Riker, and Kirk,
however, open up the
possibly of an interesting Fed battle deck. While seeding the Three
Way Treaty does make you
lose the ability to make use the Tent, the Feds can get a large fleet
out fairly quickly.
Download Enterprises with Wall Of Ships and Riker (or you can use Space/Time
Portal to
get them out) and downloading the matching commander with Ready Room
Door. The
basic ships in this deck would be the Odyssey, Defiant, all the Enterprises
except E, and
the Pasteur. The crew is the Federation’s big heavy hitters for classifications
would be
there, but they could take their merry time getting them out while
they blow away your
ships and personnel. Crew Reassignments help alot because there will
be several AU
personnel in this deck. The draw backs are still a factor of speed
(you need, on average,
two more personnel beside the matching commander on the ships, so while
you can get
the ship, matching commander, Captain’s Log, and Defiant Dedication
Plaque out easily,
you still need more crew to command), easily spotted (by seeding a
Three Way, you give
away your deck design, so your opponent can prepare more for it), and
of course, the lack
of a Tent.
Dominion: Ah, the new affiliation. Expect to see the Dominion
a lot at tournies just like
the Borg right after the release of First Contact; players will be
trying out different
strategies with the Dominion, and trying to get a feel for them, which
means if you use a
deck that has already gotten some good testing pre-Dominion and just
add a few goodies
to it from Dominion, it should be able to hold up against a Dominion
deck.
Several players have already noted the weakness of Dominion decks, ranging
from the lack
of some major classifications in quantity (only two Medical), Ketracel-White
addiction, starting
off in the Gamma Quadrant, only having two ships, etc... Some of those
weaknesses aren’t
that bad. The Universal Medical, Eris, isn’t that bad, and is worthy
enough to use two or
three of in a deck. The problem of two ships isn’t anything,
you only really needed the
universal Jem’Hadar Attack Ship; its range is easily increased with
one seeded
Plasmadane Relay. Unfortunately, right now an Alpha Quadrant Dominion
deck has some
problems of its own. Unless you seed a Neutral Outpost so you can use
10 and 01,
Crashes will stop your Bajoran Wormhole from coming out fast. (Unless
you're smart
enough to use Operate Wormhole Relays.) Construct Depot is extremely
easy for the
Dominion, and with Establish Dominion Foothold, they can make is a
good 35 point
mission and a good way to get White to the Alpha Quadrant. The problem,
however, with
Alpha Quadrant decks, is they are still somewhat slow. Unless you scan
your Construct
Depot before attempting it (which is highly advised) you may run into
trouble, like Lack
Of Preparation/Borg Ship, causing you to lose some good personnel and
a ship. Also,
after a few missions, you could find yourself low on personnel.
Making the side trip back
to the Gamma Quadrant is time consuming.
This makes Alpha Quadrant Jem’Hadar decks rather slow in the end. However,
Gamma Quadrant decks seem to be fairing better. White is never
a problem in the
Gamma Quadrant and you can get personnel out when you need them. What
has
made Gamma Dominion even more popular, though, is Black Hole.
While you sit
back in the Gamma Quadrant, your opponent’s missions are quickly
vanishing, making it very hard for them to do much. Also, a Gamma Dominion
deck has
one big advantage: Colony Preparations. After Securing the Intelligence
Operation and completing Colony Preps, you’ll have about 70 points.
That means around
3-4 turns of the Colony, and you can have a win. Meanwhile, your opponent’s
missions
are vanishing and your tough dilemma combos are keeping them stuck.
This Dominion deck type is very viable, something that should be looked
out for. Revolving
Doors on the Black Hole don’t help much because your opponent will
obviously be
prepared for them with Wrong Doors (having your Tent closed is very
bad) and AU Doors,
downloaded thanks to Space/Time Portal. Perhaps the easiest way is
to use Crashes to stop the
Tent from grabbing a Black Hole early on, and perhaps stopping the
download of a Colony.
(Though that it can just be played from hand.) It is doubtful they’ll
seed a Neutral Outpost
just to get out 10 and 01, so stalling with Crashes should give you
ample time to at least
get out your crew and get a mission or two done before Black Hole is
out. If you use
self-seeded dilemmas for points, you could grab a second mission and
maybe have enough
points to win. A sneaky way to get points if Black Hole comes out is
to use Wormholes
and Space/Time Portal to move one of your ships to an opponent’s mission
and steal.
Most Dominion players will seed Survey Star System just so they are
safe from Balancing
Act. Well, Fair Play can’t stop you from stealing that, so after you
get one or two missions
done, move over to SSS and steal it. Maybe putting a Cosmic String
Fragment or
Barclays’ there for points, if you considered using one. Ah, the fun
of the meta-game, to
decide whether or not to use Cosmic String Fragment in a rare case
(though Dominion
Gamma decks may become more popular). Well, at the very least, you
can always
self-seed it at your own space mission for the easy points.
Cardassian: The Cardassians seemed to have lost a bit of their
edge with Dominion, even
though they got several personnel and a ship with it. Stealing had
always been one of the
Cardassian’s bigger traits, with their wide variety of skills and the
ability to Espionage
anyone except the Romulans. Plans Of The Obsidian Order, along with
all the fine
Obsidian Order personnel, made the bulk of this deck, until Dominion
came along. Fair
Play absolutely puts this deck back into the binder, making over 75%
of the missions out
there unstealable. Sure, the Plans can be used to attempt your own
missions, which is
great because the Cardassians can do nearly any mission with their
personnel selection, but
the versatility and pure speed of doing your opponent’s is gone. Dominion
attempts to
make up for this by giving the Cardies a lot of new personnel. Damar
is a good addition if
you know you’ll be using Dukat, but his skills beyond that are only
partially fair. Prin is a
very good uncommon, though, and his skill of killing two of the best
Bajoran personnel
makes him at least a note worthy addition to most Cardassian decks.
Garak is a good
personnel over all, and can save you from tough dilemmas such as Yuta,
Flaxian Assassin,
Berserk Changeling, etc... only problem is the fact he is a one shot
deal, unless you stock
multiples of him. The remaining personnel fill in gaps of classifications
that were missing
from the Cardassians in Dominion. Engineering classification personnel
are really only
needed for downloading directly to the Ore Processing Unit, compared
to simply
getting them out to the Security Office or downloading them to other
sites if they have a
different classification or skill. (Like the Tailor Shop.) The fact
the Cardassians got a few
good Medical personnel, mixed in with other skills, is nice though.
The Trager is just
another ship, not much of anything with Macet, while the Keldon Advance
can see some
good use with an Obsidian Order personnel, who will still be in most
Cardie decks,
regardless of the Plans or not. Missions in Dominion, however, are
a good thing for the
Cardassians. Bioweapon Ruse and Security Briefing are easy missions
for the Cardassians,
especially Bioweapon Reuse, which maybe the easiest 40 pointer out
there, beside Quash
Conspiracy. In the end, expect to see a few heavy hitter Cardassian
decks, looking for
good speed with Ore Processing and Scans to breeze through their easy
missions with a
good mix of skills. (Like Bioweapon Ruse and Alter Records.)
Bajoran: The Bajorans, like the Cardassians, got many new personnel
in this set, but
unlike the Cardassians, the Bajoran’s main strategy, pre-Dominion,
was not affected
much. The Bajoran’s bigger strategies have always seemed to revolve
around Deep Space
Nine and also seeding Chamber Of Ministers, both at Bajor. Secure Homeworld
is an easy
mission for the Bajor, and the DS9/Chamber combo gave them a great
versatility boost to
begin off with. Some of the more successful Bajoran strategies have
been a Rinnak Pire
armada or an odd Arguers/Orb deck. With HQ: Return Orb To Bajor and
Renewal Scrolls
(and to a lesser extent, Duranja), Bajorans have always had a good
scope of versatility.
Dominion adds a little more to that. Kai Winn has a fairly good mix
of skills, however, her
download is not that good, with Open Diplomatic Relations already allowing
Treaties
to be seeded.
//Editor's Note: This is one of the places where I disagree with R'Mor. Saving a seed slot is nice; being able to get another treaty if the first one is killed is good (remember, Fed/Baj treaty is seedable without ODR), and she lets you get out a treaty when you need it without the opponent knowing you are using that treaty until then. //
Orta and Keeve Falar, while not that great skills wise, are huge for
attributes
enhancing, just as The Earring Of Li Nalas makes already great personnel
attribute wise,
even better. Watch out for Q decks for Bajorans to grow more popular
with Keeve Falar,
along with the Emissary. A +4 of Integrity to all Bajoran Civilians
and a normal two to
everyone else will make Q very easy for Bajorans to pass. Oh, and the
Earring gives you
more points for an already easy mission. Zyree is fair, but will require
a let of set up to
make his special skill work (though it can kill a Dominion deck). General
Hazar boosts a
fair card, though I would rather put a Tactical Console on an Interceptor
myself. The
missions for the Bajoran player in Dominion are only fair, over all.
Which is really what
the Bajorans get, fair cards. But with all the strengths that they've
had since DS9, not much
can knock them out of the tourney scene.
Romulan: Ah, my personnel favorite affiliation. The Rommies are
just so versatile, and
have always had a great deal of power and speed since Q-Continuum.
They got a lot more
in Dominion, which, well is a great thing. Many could argue (myself
included a bit) that
they are coming on the verge of being unbalanced. The most popular
pre-Dominion
Romulan strategy in the tourney environment, by far, was a Plans deck.
The Romulans
have always had a large mix of personnel, and Plans allowed them to
steal your missions
before you even had a good crew out and going. Then, comes along Fair
Play and
Romulan stealers are brought back down to the bare minimum.
However, unlike the Cardassians in some ways, the Romulans have always
had the speed
and versatility to do their own missions. Covert Installation and Investigate
Raid are two of
the easiest missions, with a simple skill requirement on each (Covert
being able to be done by only
one personnel, Sirol), attributes, and 35 points, these missions have
always been a great
advantage in Romulan decks. Of course, the most well known Romulan
mission is Quash
Conspiracy, which can be done by one of six personnel and is worth
40 points! Dominion
has added even more to the versatility of the Romulan speed solver.
Lovok and Senator
Vreenak both have a wide assortment of skills and the needed Tal Shiar
to make them
both good mission solvers (they join the ranks of personnel such as
Vakis and Sirol who
also have a good variety of skills and are great mission solvers),
the D’Deridex Advance,
which is an easily staffed ship for the Romulans, T’Rul, who also has
a good variety of
skills and an interesting (though not that powerful) special skill,
making her a superb
support perosnnel, and Engage Cloak, which allows the D’Deridexs to
move almost
anywhere on the spaceline.
However, the biggest boost which the Romulans got with
Dominion was Empok Nor. The Romulans can commander Empok Nor on turn
one
(presuming neither player seeds dilemmas at it) with Patelh. The Feds
can, too, but they
can’t use Empok Nor to their best advantage because they can not Process
Ore. The
dilemmas at Empok Nor are fairly easy, the most common one likely to
be Friendly Fire,
which is easily passable with Lore and Roga, or a large mix of other
personnel. Garak Has
Some Issues is rare, and you can easily abandon the personnel selected.
(Though with the
high Cunning of the Romulans, you may not even have many personnel
killed.) Sleeper
Trap is a pain, yes, but Smoke Bombs can get you through that. Once
a Romulan player
takes control of Empok Nor, expect pure speed to ensure from there
on, with Ore
Processing being a deadly tool in the hands of a Romulan player, who
can cycle through
their small decks (Romulans normally have no more then 35 cards in
their typical speed
deck) very quickly to get out what they need. All in all, with Empok
Nor, a large amount
of multi-skilled and classification personnel, and several non-aligneds
and other personnel
(Lore, Lorcano, Galen, Sister’s Of Duras, Tallera, etc...) working
best with the Romulans,
it is no wonder why some players consider them a bit overpowered. One
wonders what
Blaze Of Glory will give them...
Borg: Much controversy has arisen over the Borg with the release
of Enhanced First
Contact and Seven Of Nine, with several players believing they are
now too powerful, which is
ironic since right after First Contact, everyone was convinced that
the Borg were too
weak.
// Well, most people were... ;-) -Ed //
Well, lets look at how the Borg were pre-EFC. The most popular, and
really only,
Borg deck in the tournament environment is the Borg Scout Vessel stealer.
I won’t go
into details about it, everyone reading this article I am sure knows
how it works, but the
real fact was Cube decks were dead. Enhanced First Contact revived
them. But did it
really make them too powerful? The number one problem of Cube decks
was Computer
Crash always stopping them from getting much out. (BTW, do not I don’t
plan to rehash
everything said about EFC again, just quickly overview it.) The Complink
Drone prevents
that, now making it so that at least a Cube deck can get off the ground
reasonably. Barriel
and Dukat offer very little to a Borg player, with skills already commonly
seen on the
drones (except Dukat’s Treachery, which is good for saving your Queen
from Unscientific
Method). Gowron Of Borg is powerful, yes, but seems to be a bit of
a one shot deal with
him, after he uses his special skill to destroy a ship (which most
smart players will either
cloak and get far away with Engage Cloak or use an STP to escape from),
his skills are
nothing special. Tomalak Of Borg may be the best of the counterparts,
with the three skills
that you want from Locutus, and a great special skill. However, his
special skill is best in
the BSV Stealer, where his skills are of no use, so it balances out
a bit. Service The
Collective is a good speed addition to a Cube deck, but nothing too
powerful (simply
probing the turn you scout isn’t a broken ability at all, and requires
some planning with the
Borg). The Reassimlation Drone is extremely specific and specialized,
and Sphere
Encounter is pure defense. Assimilate Distictiveness's first function
is purely for battle
orientated decks with Assimilate Counterpart; the second part is fairly
weak. Population 9
Billion requires a deck to be built around it before its effects are
out and going, which
gives you time to get crew out. We Are The Borg, yes, is powerful,
I do not deny that, but
it has draw backs in the long run of slowly dwindling you out. Seven
Of Nine, well,
everyone knows she is the key of making a second Cube deck come out,
and her card
drawing power will help you a bit, but she is not essential, a Cube
can be out be out by the
fourth or fifth turn without her. In the end, IMHO, EFC balances out
Cube decks, but
look out for Borg decks, they are by far the most popular affiliation
out there. Look below
for some tips on dealing with them.
Well, that was a long section above, and we aren’t finished yet. ;-)
This next section briefly
looks over a few of the more powerful and popular stratergies, and
how to prepare agianst
them:
--Q: Even with Hide And Seek as a threat, Q decks are still seeing
some good use.
Actually, to some decks, Hide And Seek isn’t sufficient enough. It
only works against one
self-seeded Q and, more importantly, it takes up a seed space. Several
players have
stopped using Hide And Seek because Q is not popular enough to warrant
it in often
enough, it seems, it is doubtful Q will ever be that popular with Hide
And Seek hanging
around. But this bring up the problem: to use Hide And Seek in your
deck, possibly
wasting the seed space, or not? Actually, Hide And Seek is not that
powerful. After
Assign Mission Specialist’s errata, Q decks have become mega-crew thing.
This basically
means that even if Hide And Seek ends up hitting them, they are still
likely to breeze past
the dilemmas, which isn’t a good thing. Other ways to stop Qs are to
use a Q-Flash,
which, for sure, has been noted by now. The effects of the Flash are
damaging, but are very
rarely a permanent nuisance. (e.g. Penalty Box is one that sticks.)
That, and more Q decks
are preparing for Flashes with the likes of Guinan and other Flash
nullifier. One of the
more sneaky ways to get rid of the Q is trigger it your self with your
personnel. Sure, you
opponent will re-arrange the spaceline, but it is worth it to get rid
of the Q. Of course, if
your opponent’s missions don’t have the same icons as your affiliation,
no help there.
Also, note that not all Q decks look so. Most players expect to see
high point Bajoran and
Federation missions, but in fact, I’ve seen several Borg Cube/Establish
Gateway decks use
Q, especially with their Counterpart and Service The Collective, to
allow a lot of speed.
Just be on the look out for it.
--Rouge Borg Mercenaries: Rouge Borg didn’t get much of a hit
with the
release of Dominion, except Enhanced First Contact, which only helps
the Borg, but I
have always been surprised to seem them out and about pre-Dominion.
Intruder Force
Field makes them much harder to use, and Goddess Of Empathy saves you
for a couple of
turns against them. So why have they always been so powerful? The simple
reason is
because all of those cards were commonly seen in the Tent, and Crashes
(or Kevin
Uxbridge) would stop them from coming out and working. Some players
believe
Dominion will take care of that problem, with 10 and 01. One should
not get too cocky,
because until 10 and 01 do come into play, Rouge Borg are a serious
stalling problem, and
it does take time to get back on your feet after so many turns wasted
to them. Distortion
Of The Space/Time Continuum makes them have to really use two Rouge
Borg to catch you,
which could save you a turn later on. (DOSTC is a suggested card for
most Tents, it just
can save you at a pivotal moment.) Of course, getting 10 and 01 one
out early will take
care of Rouge Borg all together.
--10 and 01 and Computer Crash: 10 and 01 one offers a simple
solution to a problem
that has been plaguing several decks: you’ll need to have an important
download or Tent
to get the game rolling, but then your opponent Crashes you. Other
decks use
Crashes as defense, like in a Cytherians/Cosmic String or Rouge Borg
deck, to stop you
from getting the counter card (e.g. Intermix Ratio or Intruder Force
Field) from out of
your Tent. With the release of 10 and 01, and its counterpart from
EFC, the Complink
Drone, Crashes are becoming harder to use. However, this does not mean
they will fade
from the tournament scene entirely, just as Oof! and The Line Must
Be Drawn Here did
not ruin the countering trio. While the Complink Drone can be seeded,
10 and 01 one can
not be, which means to get them out you’ll have to draw them from your
deck. (Having
them in your Tent does no good at all if your trying to get rid of
Crashes, now does it? ;-))
Presuming you have a 35 cards draw deck and 2 Bynars in it, you have
less then a 20%
chance of getting them in your opening hand or your next three card
draws. The Bynars,
beside nullifying Crashes, are only good in armada type decks looking
to use the download
of Bynars Weapon Enhancement. In other terms, this makes the Bynars
more of a
threatening card. Players who used several Crashes (like 8 or 9, which
was common in
defensive strategy decks like Borg Scout Vessel Swarm Stealer, which
still do use that
much) will likely lay back a little on the number that they use, in
case 10 and 01 come out
(or the Complink was seeded) and a bunch of their seed spots become
wasted. Of course
if they Bynars or the Complink later are killed, lose their skills
from a Brain Drain, etc...
then you can Crash freely, but it is doubtful that they will do much
more then sit around at
your Outpost (unless a Borg player is doing the two turn staffed Cube
strategy with Seven
Of Nine) to avoid dilemmas and Brain Drain is a one turn fix. In the
end, plan to see a few
Crashes in decks (like 3 or 4) if opponent tries a big download and
Bynars or the
Complink aren’t out, but expect them to decrease in usage a bit later
on. (Of course, some
players may presume they Bynars will become like Balancing Act, more
of a threat card.
Well, that works good for saving space in your deck, but if you get
hit by a heavy Crasher
or a Balancing Act in the Tent with Q’s Planet, you’ll feel pretty
bad, but that is the fun of
the meta-game, trying to relize if people will use Bynars and/or Crashes
at all.)
--Empok Nor: Empok Nor is a great boon for Romulan, Klingon,
and to a lesser extent,
Federation players. If a Romulan or Klingon player can be doing Ore
Processing and Ops
download by Turn 1 (which the Romulans can do with a simple seeded
AMS),
things could easily sway in their direction. This is different from
the Cardassians, who
desperately need the speed boost, compared to the Romulans whoa already
have great
speed, and Empok Nor just makes it ridiculous. The easiest way to stop
Empok Nor from
becoming your opponent’s, of course, is dilemmas. But exactly how efficient
are Empok
Nor dilemmas? Friendly Fire is likely to be the most common one, but
its requirements are
fairly easy (of the top of my head, I can think of about six personnel
who have
SECURITY/Leadership on them, and getting two isn’t hard in a Rommie
deck with
Tallera, Lore, and Roga), but would take a few turns to build up, making
it a good stall.
Garak Has Some Issues is difficult to complete, however, the Romulans
and Klingons
have several of their Cunning personnel around the same level (6-7
for Klingons, around 8
for Romulans) that most players can avoid GHSI on an Empok Nor by using
around the
same Cunning level, saving personnel from deaths, making GHSI a simple
one turn
stopper. (At the worst, after a couple die, you can just move the infected
person away
from , abandoning the person infected at another site, and then attempt
again.) Sleeper
Trap could cause you to lose some personnel, however, if you bring
along some of the
higher Strength personnel, including Sister’s Of Duars and Lore (or
just use Smoke
Bombs to get of to the entire thing), there won’t be much of a problem,
if you run into
that dilemma (which I doubt you will). Also, another big problem with
Empok Nor, is the
delimmas are harder to work into normal dilemma combos outside of Empok
Nor itself. Once
your opponent commandeers the station, you’ll never get it for your
own, unless you can kill
his crew. So, in the end, the easiest way to prevent your opponent
from
taking control of Empok Nor is to at least consider GHSI and/or Friendly
Fire, and make
sure they can be worked into your other dilemma combos. This will buy
you some time
before they get out their personnel and do Ore Processing, which is
plenty of time for you
to get going. (Of course, they could also be going by then, too, but
without their Empok
Nor advantage.)
--Black Hole: Black Hole has returned with a vengeance with the
release of the Dominion,
an affiliation that, if needed, can stay just in the Gamma Quadrant
and let a Black Hole suck
away at your missions in the Alpha Quadrant. Not fun. Revolving Door
is not that
effective, either, because they are well prepared for it with an AU
Door and Wrong Doors
to take you out. However, the other strategies to stop Black Hole are
good because they
work somewhat efficient even if Black Hole isn’t out. A few Wormholes
and a seeded
STP or two will get you into the Gamma Quadrant. As noted in the Dominion
affiliation
balance above, there are always at least one or two missions in the
Gamma Quadrant
(normally a Survey Star System, though if you do it early on you can
take their all valuable
Colony Preparations). After you complete a mission or two of yours
before Black Hole
comes out (you’ll have time to hopefully get a crew and Scan out),
Wormhole out of there
and do your opponent’s mission, maybe seeding a Barclays’ or two there.
Also, Crashes
work very well, if you seeded some, because it is doubtful they’ll
add a Neutral Outpost
just to get the Bynars out, and this will give you sometime to get
things rolling. A more,
um, aggressive way is to seed two universal Spaces of your own and
Tent for your own
Black Hole. Now your opponent in the Gamma Quadrant, whether Borg or
Dominion,
will be facing down the barrel of their own Black Hole, and they’ll
be in serious trouble.
The two Spaces, if they aren’t using the Gamma Quadrant, can be used
to twindle down
the Alpha Quadrant, killing both you and your opponent slowly, or just
to use as a road
block right after where you think their Outpost will be.
--Nightmare: Ah, yes, Nightmare. We all have seen Nightmare/Thought
Fire decks, which
build up your hand very quickly with a Traveler and then make you run
into Thought Fire,
using Brian Drains to get rid of your Empathy, or having Nightmare
do that. The easiest
way to deal with this deck is to stock a Kev in the Tent (or better
yet, a Mercy Kill), and
take out Traveler, but it will be back, so try to empty your hand out
quickly if possible
before you next card draw, keeping yourself down to a minimum against
Nightmare. Red
Alert! will help, if you can get it from your Tent (no Bynars for you,
they’ll take it out of
your hand if they see, and Crash everything in sight.
Slow seeding, however, will give you an advantage by letting you
possibly seed over your opponent’s Borg Ship dilemma before they seed
theirs. If not, you
can seed some of your own dilemmas over the Thought Fire, maybe a Barclays’
just for
the points. (Or if using a Beware Of Q, definitely seed a Pla-Net at
your Outpost mission.)
Plexing also works, if you can get it out, though, that is the problem.
In the end, the
various strategies of emptying your hand (especially with stuff like
Remodulation) works
the best.
--Borg: Admit it, everyone is trying the Borg in the tourney
environment, and they are
likely to be the most used. A simple way to prepare against the mega
Cube decks is by
preparing dilemmas that may hurt them a bit, but work in normal dilemma
combos at the
same time. Cytherians work great, by making them travel rather far
for no points.
Anything that stops for a turn before they can Adapt (and isn’t too
easy to pass with skill
sharing) works nicely. Also, a Brain Drain in the Tent can be used
at crucial moment to
help you against them. Say they are about to hit your Unscientific
Method/Yuta/Barclays’
combo, but have Dukat present. Simple solution: on your turn before,
get the Brain Drain
from out of the tent and Brian Drain Dukat after they announce scouting.
Now, if the
Queen is aboard, she will become victim of Unscientific Method. Oh,
and while I mention it,
Yuta is a great anti-Borg dilemma, with the Queen, Counterpart, and
Seven’s number being
easy to pick out. Assimilate Homeworld is very time consuming for your
opponent
(getting the pre-made Counterpart out, if one exists for your affiliation,
and then having to
scout a planet, harder then space, and getting a perfect probe) that
you’ll probably have
time to get a crew out before it happens. What one should be worried
about, however, is
BSV Stealer. Everyone knows how is works, with taking your mission
with an
Radioactive Garbage Scow/Cryo/Horga’hn/Tommie combo, then snatching
another with
RGB/Cryo/Betazed Gift Box in it, then going to the Gamma Quadrant with
Adapts and
Countermeasure Drones if you have no more missions to steal. This type
of stealing isn’t
stopped by Fair Play, either. The easiest way is to try to get a Bynars
out from your deck
and stop their Crashes, getting your Devil from the Tent and getting
rid of the Horga’hn.
Typically, they’ll have one Amanda Rogers in the deck to get out with
the BGB to guard
their Horga’hn, but if you get The Devil before the BGB, they are in
trouble. (Unless, of
course they get the BGB first, but that will give you some extra turns
early on that way.)
You can easily do your missions which they stole, however, Mission
Debriefing will slow
you down a bit. (Don’t be fooled by a Sphere Encounter, most of the
time it is just to
scare you off.) Also, BSV dilemma combos are usually only two dilemmas,
which means
red-shirts can normally breeze by unless they use something like Flaxian
Assassin/Odo’s
Cousin). Meanwhile, they’ll be in the Gamma Quadrant, it will only
take tow turns to
scout, one to probe. The real advantage for you is they will have to
try to keep you from getting
The Devil from your Tent. (Another strategy beside Bynars is just keep
Tenting or
downloading like with Spacedoor every turn, see if they’ll waste the
Crash or not, which
will give you a few more turns of speed compared to them in the long
run.)
Well, this article has certainly covered alot, but there is one more
thing I would like to
look at. There are several cards which I find very useful in almost
any deck (several of my
Borg decks are the ones without most of these cards, but even then
they use several of
them). Each is followed by a very short comment:
--Space/Time Portal: Ah, most of my decks seed at least two of
this card. It is so
incredibly versatile, from getting out an AU Door (which can be used
for many situations)
and the return to ship to hand has saved me many times over.
Empok Nor: If your playing Romulan or Klingon, this is a must,
but read the above of this
article for more on that.
Scans: Nearly essential in now-a-day mission solving with all
those difficult dilemma
combos in existence.
Crashes: Expect to see a downpour in the use of the Bynars in the next month or so.
10 and 01: Expect to see more Crashes in the next month, so take
your opponent off
guard.
Tent: Ugh, it would take me 20 pages to explain that alone. ;-)
Six Missions: Geez, wonder why ? ;-)
If you would like to contact me regarding this article (and I would
appreciate comments
and questions) E-mail me at lichten1@ix.netcom.com.