The Manchurian Deck

by Nathan Miracle, Assistant Designer

13th November 2015

Welcome to Face of the Enemy! We have plenty of new deck options, especially for The Next Generation and Romulans. Many of the Romulans in this set are content to sit back and menace your opponent, but you can certainly build a Romulan deck which takes a more active role in taking down your opponent.

Assassins have been part of the game since the very beginning, but only a handful of cards actually deal with the keyword. Face of the Enemy provides a new version of an old favorite with Retaya (Chemical Agent), as well as a new assassin-related dilemma with Unsound Logic. Using these two cards as cornerstones, this deck seeks to wipe out your opponent’s personnel on multiple fronts.

For the most part, the dilemma pile is a standard Tragic Turn dilemma pile, designed to kill large swaths of personnel. Unsound Logic not only potentially kills two personnel, but lets you choose the targets and triggers Tragic Turn. Such a powerful dilemma has to come with a drawback. In order to get any kills with Unsound Logic, you must devote an Assassin to your opponent’s mission. If you realize your opponent cannot complete the mission after the first kill, you can leave the Assassin at the mission. On the other hand, if you want the second kill you’ll need to return the Assassin to its owner’s hand. Fortunately, this deck has a way to put your assassins in position.

Bajorans have the most Assassins in the game, but Romulans have the best Assassin support card in the form of Vakis (Misinformed Operative). This deck takes advantage of both affiliations. Regardless of where you play the Assassins, Vakis can send them out to your opponent’s planet missions or even headquarters. Many of them can return to hand to go ahead and complete their contracts, but you can certainly leave one or two or three to fuel Unsound Logic and Assassin Team. Kaas Dromand (Devoted Fanatic) and Retaya both kill personnel without returning to hand, so they make ideal targets for fueling the dilemmas. Once they’ve done their duty, or if one of your other Assassins has no valid targets, Assassination Plot can knock off one last personnel.

Vakis may work for planets, but in space you’ll need ships. For this job, we have a bevy of D’Deridex Class ships. Devoras leads the pack as a true Assassin’s ship, allowing you to drop personnel aboard it as your opponent’s personnel are killed. Choose your targets wisely with Unsound Logic and you can even have the same Assassin who returned to hand show right back up to cause trouble. Retaya works especially well for this trick, as he then gets to kill another personnel and get you another personnel to boot.

Your other ships can help eliminate your opponent’s personnel as well. T’Met may not directly kill personnel, but it allows you to draw extra dilemmas and spend extra on dilemmas. Since the dilemma pile can put a lot of dilemmas beneath your opponent’s missions, T’Met can give you some extra mileage when your opponent would otherwise allow you to draw and spend nothing. The Rovaran and the Goraxus can both start engagements by discarding an event from your hand. The Rovaran does not directly kill any personnel, but it can deny your opponent personnel before they even play them. Meanwhile the Goraxus captures a personnel, a fate worse than death. The Enterprise Incident has both the Maneuver keyword and the Capture keyword, which means it can fuel both ships and Shinzon, Capable Commander can recycle it to continue engaging your opponent’s ships.

Even with the Assassins and the D’Deridex Class ships hindering your opponent, this deck has another trick up its sleeves. With so much potential death, Quite a Coincidence becomes something closer to an inevitability than a coincidence. You won’t win the game with these bonus points, but they can help mitigate point loss strategies like the Founders’ Homeworld (Contingent Refuge). If you know for sure you won’t need the extra points, these events can instead fuel the gametext on T’Met and Retaya. Your opponent might refuse to risk the personnel you’ve named, but doing so means you have effectively eliminated up to three personnel without actually having to kill them.

I’ve got my first Face of the Enemy deck built, Assassins are just one of the many strategies available in the new set. I’d love to hear what decks you have in mind!

Discuss this article in this thread.

This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:

• Double Down
• Unbroken I
• No Crutches I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• No Crutches II

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 20 Space 1 (5%) Cost 3 1 Planet 4 (20%) Cost 2 3 Cost 4 1 Dual 15 (75%) Cost 0 3 Cost 2 3 Cost 3 7 Cost 4 2 Total Dilemma Deck cost 48

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 48 Event 13 (27%) Cost 1 5 Cost 2 3 Cost 3 1 Cost 4 4 Interrupt 2 (4%) Personnel 26 (54%) Cost 1 2 Cost 2 9 Cost 3 11 Cost 4 4 Ship 7 (15%) Cost 5 1 Cost 6 6 Total Draw Deck cost 140

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 0 Anthropology 0 4 1 5 Archaeology 0 0 Astrometrics 1 3 1 4 Biology 0 6 2 8 Diplomacy 2 6 6 Engineer 0 6 1 7 Exobiology 0 4 4 Geology 0 2 2 Honor 1 0 Intelligence 1 9 1 10 Law 0 2 2 Leadership 0 6 6 Medical 0 2 1 3 Navigation 1 4 2 6 Officer 1 4 4 Physics 0 3 3 Programming 1 9 9 Science 0 5 5 Security 3 8 8 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 0 2 2 Treachery 3 7 7 14 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 11 42.31 % Staff Star 12 46.15 % Faction Icons Deep Space Nine 1 3.85 % Temporal Icons Alternate Universe 1 3.85 % Past 2 7.69 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Assassin 9 Capture 2 Cloaking Device 7 Commander: Deranas 1 Commander: Phoenix 1 Commander: Scimitar 1 Commander: Serrola 1 Consume: 2 3 Consume: 3 6 Dissident 1 Host 1 Infiltrator 1 Maneuver 2 Pah-wraith 2 Recall: 1 2 Region: Bajor System 1 Region: Neutral Zone 2 Region: Romulus System 1 Senator 3 Species 8472 3 Thief 1