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Strategy Articles
Genesis of a Deck
by James "RedDwarf" Hoskin, Staff Writer
29th January 2008
Step 1: Find Inspiration
This stage generally involves looking at cards - Star Trek CCG cards tend to be the best. You could look for one card or a group of cards, but what you want is something that draws your attention and brings a smile to your face. If you're really competitive, then you'll probably be thinking "This card is so broken. I have to base a deck on it." If you're less-competitive, then you'll probably just be thinking "That card looks fun, I'll try basing a deck on it." If you're anything like me, then you're probably thinking "Mmmm, Green women." Yes, I decided to go with the Orion Slave Girls.
While Vina (Orion Slave Girl), D'Nesh (Manipulative Gift), Maras, Navaar (Experienced Gift) and Neras (Slave Girl) may be pleasing to the eye, they do also offer some interesting gameplay as well. As long as you have events in your core when you attempt a mission, they offer a multitude of ways to overcome dilemmas and your opponent in the process.
The inspiration doesn't end there though. While perusing the ships in What You Leave Behind, you may have noticed the U.S.S. Reliant (Part of One Big Happy Fleet). As this deck is going to have quite a few Non-Aligned personnel, it makes sense to use this ship as well. Taking one more logical step, it makes sense to take advantage of the ability on this ship (discard a Non-Aligned personnel from hand to make this ship attributes +2 until the end of the turn). You may notice that this order is only limited by the number of Non-Aligned personnel you have in your hand, so why not discard three or four and turn this ship into a monster? And what do we do with monster ships that have high Weapons and Shields? We blow things up, obviously!
The U.S.S Reliant can't form a battle deck by itself, though. Being unique, you can only ever have one in play, so it is going to need some help causing mayhem and destruction. That's where the U.S.S. Prometheus is going to rear its head. Both the Federation version (Experimental Prototype) and the Romulan version (Stolen Prototype) can download a Damage card to be placed on an opponent's ship after winning an engagement. All you need to do is decide which to use.
Step 2: Support the Inspiration
The cards you've decided to build a deck around can't do anything by themselves, so you need to add cards to support them. In this case, we're going to need events for use with the Slave Girls and battle cards for the ships.
Before we can start on that though, we need to decide which version of the U.S.S. Prometheus we're going to use. While both ships are similar, they do differ in two ways. First, the Federation version requires one fewer staffing icon to fly it. Second, each ship has a different cost to downloading the additional damage card after winning the engagement. The Romulan version requires us to discard a personnel costing 4 or more, while the Federation version requires us to discard a Decay event from hand. Given that the Slave Girls are going to be using events anyway, it makes sense to go with the Federation version in this case.
Now we can move on to the events. We're going to need events to discard with the Slave Girls and Decay events to discard for the ship. The simplest option here is to add lots of cheap Decay events that can be played to your core. Security Drills is a prime candidate, as we'll be able to make use of its game text as well. Unfortunately, this is the only cheap Decay event that would be of much use in a Federation deck. That's not going to stop us adding more though. Both Five Year Mission and Gatherers' Raid play for zero counters. While you may not be able to use them for their intended purpose, they'll work well in this deck. They may also serve to confuse your opponent when it comes time to play this deck.
There are a limited number of Maneuver events available for use by the Federation, so our decision over which ones to use is made fairly simple. You can't go wrong with the classic trio of Pierce Their Defenses, Point Blank Strike and Precise Attack.
Before we can think about staffing for the ships, we have another decision to make. The U.S.S. Prometheus (Experimental Prototype) has the Earth icon and can be played with either The Next Generation personnel at Earth (Cradle of the Federation) or Federation Deep Space Nine personnel at Earth (Home of Starfleet Command). A quick look over the personnel each Headquarters offers, and it becomes clear that Next-Gen has much more to offer. Not in the least the potential to play Guinan (Listener) and At What Cost?? as well as James T. Kirk (Living Legend).
With that decision out of the way, we can return to ship staffing. The two ships are going to need a combined total of four Command icons and two Staffing icons. The Maneuver events are also going to need personnel with Leadership, so that you can begin the engagements. At this stage, you should be looking at cheap personnel, so that you can get both ships staffed before your opponent has won the game. Checking these three requirements are Rixx and Rachel Garrett (Displaced Captain). Unfortunately, we then run out of really cheap personnel, so we have to move to some slightly more expensive Leadership personnel with a Command icon: Elizabeth Shelby (Formidable Presence) and T'Lara.
Step 3: Turn the Cards Into a Deck
At this point, you should be able to do what you intended with the cards already picked. What you may not be able to do is win the game. You need to turn the cards you have into a deck, and to do this you're going to need missions and dilemmas. Or, if your inspiration was a dilemma, you're going to need missions and a draw deck.
Before picking the missions, it is a good idea to look at the skills and attributes that you already have in the deck. In this case, the most common skills are Diplomacy, Exobiology and Treachery. The personnel will also have the easiest time trying to complete missions with Cunning requirements. They should be able to complete Integrity requirements and will probably have a tough time completing Strength requirements. Using one of the various online databases to search for missions that fit these parameters, we come up with Investigate Sighting, Risa Shore Leave, Investigate Maquis Activity and Deliver Evidence. You should be able to score 100 points from three of these missions, and they only have skills overlapping on any two of them (it is always worth keeping Agonizing Encounter in mind when picking missions.)
Picking dilemmas for this deck should be fairly simple; to help with our battle philosophy, we want anything that can cause damage. Gomtuu Shock Wave, Stolen Computer Core and Prefix Codes are a good place to start. Next we'll need some cheap stopper dilemmas that we can put before the damage dilemmas, so that they have a greater chance of working. Chula: Pick One to Save Two, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and Distraction are all good choices. Cargo Pirates, a three-cost dilemma that would normally only stop one personnel, isn't very efficient and wouldn't generally be used, but as we have several Thief personnel in this deck, it becomes very usable. To round-out the dilemma pile, it is always wise to add some anti-weenie tech (Aftereffects, Preventative Repercussions and Moral Choice), some anti-skill-cheating tech (Psychokinetic Control), some anti-mini-attempt tech (Skeleton Crew) and some anti-Borg tech (Formal Hearing).
Step 4: Complete the Deck
All that remains is to add cards to the deck to help it work. In this case, we're going to need some more personnel with mission skills and some more events. Anthropology is slightly lacking, so Neelix (Morale Officer) and Sigmund Freud (Father of Psychoanalysis) fill that gap. They also add different species into the deck, so scoring additional points from Risa Shore Leave should be easier. Event destruction is going to come from Luther Sloan (Man of Secrets), and Harrad-Sar (Slave of the Situation) serves two purposes: He can either be used to download three Thief personnel when played, or he can be discarded from hand when you pay the U.S.S. Prometheus.
Crowd Control and Ohhhh! Nothing Happened! make good choices for additional events. The former costs zero counters to play and might come in handy if you're facing a weenie-deck. The latter will be very useful if you should come up against an opponent who likes to play Quarren Labor Shortage. In both cases, though, they are cheap events that you will probably end up discarding with the Orion Slave Girls.
The final card worth mentioning is Back to Basics. Should you start running out of personnel in your draw deck, you can use this dilemma to shuffle every discarded personnel and ship back into your deck. Depending upon your opponent, this one dilemma could be the card that wins the game for you.
Step 5: Improve Efficiency
With the deck built, you're going to need to go through it to see if you can make it more efficient. This means looking for cards that aren't going to help you towards your goal, or cards that just aren't needed any more because you have added other cards that provide the same service.
As painful as it may be, it looks like some of the Orion Slave Girls are going to slow the deck down. While Vina (Orion Slave Girl) may give you the ability to gain any skill, her attributes are just too low to help you complete missions effectively. To avoid holding duplicate copies of personnel in your hand, you may also want to cut down on the number of duplicated unique personnel in the deck. Neras (Slave Girl) falls into this category, as do many of the other personnel not necessary to the goal of the deck. It is worth going through your binders to see if you can replace any personnel with cheaper versions who perform the same function.
Step 6: Test and Modify
The only real way you'll know if the deck works is to test it. First, by yourself to see if you can get all of the components into play relatively quickly. Whatever deck you're playing, don't forget that you will also need a ship during the first few turns. After lots of test draws (and any associated modifications), you can then move onto human opponents. This will show you how the deck fares against someone who may try to counter your strategy and give you the chance to make further modifications. After that, try a different opponent (or the same opponent with a different deck) to see how the deck works again. Just keep testing then modifying until the deck works really well or you decide that your original idea wasn't the best.
Join the Writing team here on Sunday 3rd February @ 8pm GMT (When is that in your timezone?) to see Johannes Klarhauser play James Hoskin in the first Continuing Committee Message Board Match-Up. James will be taking this deck through a step 6 iteration in front of an audience. He welcomes any suggestions for improvements to the deck, so that he doesn't lose to Johannes too badly!
Final Thought: I managed to go through an entire article about Orion Slave Girls without mentioning waterplums. Phew 
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Tournament Record:
- Constructed (2008-02-17): 2nd place
- Constructed (2008-03-30): 1st place
- Constructed (2008-04-27): 2nd place
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
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