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Strategy Articles
Declan Keogh... Didn't Even Know He Had a First Name
by Mike O'Shogay, Staff Writer
18th November 2014
The biggest knock I see and hear against the DS9 faction is that they have very cheap personnel that aren’t very good and they have very good high costing personnel, but it’s hard to get a good mix of both to make a solid deck. Fortunately the 20th Anniversary Collection is here for you in the form of Declan Keogh, Veteran Captain. Not only does he turn those non-unique personnel into reasonable to very good personnel, he also has a good skill set/cost/attributes ratio to help push the Cunning based Gamma Decks. While he only works aboard a ship, any way to boost attributes like this needs to be taken seriously.
Setting out to create a deck that can utilize him to maximize his benefits can be quite challenging. First off, DS9 in the Gamma Quadrant is probably better as an Integrity build, but his skill set just screams: Cunning missions. This means you’ll have a better spread on your skill set, which can help you pass many more dilemmas.
Being able to play a Cunning build can give you some advantages an Integrity build doesn’t have. Your game against An Issue of Trust is so much better, as you have fewer Honor personnel. You can also afford to run a few Treachery personnel and even all of the affiliated Intelligence personnel without them hurting your mission attempts - being able to pass Rogue Borg Ambush is very important. Especially in this deck, you’ll want to attempt both space missions, so making sure you get through your planet mission as quick as you can is very important.
Another benefit to building a deck around Declan Keogh, Veteran Captain is that you get to use one of the most powerful DS9 cards ever printed…Walk the Line. With so many low-cost personnel, in the late game it shouldn’t be hard to drop this and a few personnel to help you push through dilemmas. It feels bad putting a Kira Nerys, First Officer on Walk the Line to prevent Paxton Reese, Stellar Cartographer from being stopped because you need the mission skills, but when you can place Anara on it instead, it feels so much better. Another awesome thing you can do with Walk the Line is: if someone is placed on Medical Teams, you can move them from there, instead of anywhere else, to Walk the Line. It’s a corner case, but sometimes that’s the difference between winning and losing a game.
U.S.S. ODYSSEY, IT GOTS BLOWN UP
Being the first Galaxy class ship to venture into the Gamma Quadrant in the television show, it was quite shocking to see that it got blown to hell by a kamikaze attack especially, as the way to end Season 2 of the show. But this led to the quite awesome U.S.S. Defiant at the beginning of Season 3. As far as the card game goes, the U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard has finally been introduced in Second Edition.
As Declan Keogh, Veteran Captain boosts your personnel attributes, the U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard boosts the attributes of your Runabouts, and even discounts their cost. Just for reference, we are talking about the three Runabouts in the game: U.S.S. Yangtzee Kiang, Modified Transport; U.S.S. Rio Grande, Built to Last; and U.S.S. Ganges, One of the First.
Let’s assume you have the U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard in the Gamma Quadrant for all of these situations:
· U.S.S. Yangtzee Kiang, Modified Transport - It costs 2 with attributes of 4-4-4. It subtracts one from the range required to move between your Headquarters and any non-Headquarters missions. So at a 2 range planet mission, you can move to and from your Headquarters with no problem. As an order, you have the option to boost its range by +2, if you discard two events, which is very corner case but useful if you need the range. Out of all of these three shuttles, this one is arguably the worst.
· U.S.S. Rio Grande, Built to Last - It also costs 2 with attributes of 4-4-4. It also subtracts one from the range required to move between your Headquarters and any non-Headquarters missions. This one, however, will give you an extra range as long as you have an Engineer aboard - effectively making it a 5 range ship. This will allow you to move from a 2 range planet mission, move to your Headquarters, and then back out to a 3 range space mission.
· U.S.S. Ganges, One of the First - It costs 3 with attributes of 4-4-4. This shuttle doesn’t have the range reduction ability, but instead you can boost its attributes by +1 for each DS9 personnel aboard up to a max +5 making it effectively a 9-9-9.
All of these shuttles have a few things in common: all of them only require one staffing icon, all of them have very low costs for you to play them even if you don’t get the U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard out, and you can get out and attempting extremely early with these shuttles.
All of these shuttles do have one big drawback in that, if you have more than seven personnel aboard, you drop the range by -3. You can get around this weakness just by having multiple ships out. Just load the attempting ship up with your personnel and leave the rest on the non-attempting ship. This will expose yourself to a few dilemmas like Tactical Disadvantage, Quantum Filament, Artificial Wormhole, or Outclassed. You also leave yourself open to easy engagements so you must always be aware of that possibility.
LOTS OF BIG GUYS AND LOTS OF LITTLE GUYS
I’m just going to give a short little blurb on the rest of the deck. With the inclusion of so many 1 and 2 costing non-unique personnel, I’ve opted to run the more expensive versions of the DS9 Bridge crew. Jadzia Dax, Science Officer has a ton of mission skills, plus while facing dilemmas she has 8 different skills. Without running the Vastly Outnumbered suite or Confessions in the Pale Moonlight, I opted for Julian Bashir, "Frontier" Physician as a way to help against kill piles. Benjamin Sisko, Defiant Captain is money in every DS9 deck with how flexible his ability is. Odo, Constable is a good way to stop opposing assassins and even an opposing Sela. With all the non-unique Bajorans, Kira Nerys, Colonel Kira is the perfect Kira for the deck.
In addition to the Bridge crew, I am running the full complement of DS9 icon Intelligence personnel to hedge against Rogue Borg Ambush. DS9 also has some of the best utility personnel in the game in both Krim, Thoughtful Tactician and George Primmin, Starfleet Security.
DS9 also has some of the best events in the game. Walk the Line is one of the few ways to prevent dilemma stops. Security Drills helps against skill dilemmas - especially the 8-costers. Medical Teams almost alone stops Tragic Turn dilemma piles. Holding Cell is just a great catch all for stopping interrupts and problem personnel.
As far as the ship suite in the deck, you have U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard along with a couple of shuttles. I am not using the U.S.S. Yangtzee Kiang, Modified Transport, as I feel it’s just too weak even when the U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard is in play. To finish off the ship suite, I have a single U.S.S. Centaur, Patrolling Ship. It’s easily DS9’s best ship and it is hard to build a deck without including it, especially since there are two Benjamin Sisko, Defiant Captains in the deck, giving three chances to draw into it.
I don’t think this build of DS9 Gamma is the best build, but I do think that Declan Keogh, Veteran Captain and U.S.S. Odyssey, Gamma Quadrant Vanguard will be at the center of the best version of the deck. Good luck and get building.
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