Prophecy

by Charlie Plaine, Chairman

27th February 2009

Raise the Stakes brings the debut of the Delta Quadrant Klingons, those that appeared in the Prophecy episode of Star Trek: Voyager. This cycle of personnel (and their mission and their ship) was one of my favorites during design, development and testing, and I'm proud to share one of my deck designs with you.

First of all, you'll notice that on initial inspection, that this is a large, expensive deck. Normally that would be a cause for concern, but this deck's whole goal is to only complete two missions. That automatically buys you some time, as you won't need to work on a third mission.

But the deck isn't nearly as slow and expensive as it looks. First of all, the most obvious trick is the inclusion of Energize, which will save you counters off the top. The more subtle savings comes from the use of the personnel, most of which play for a substantial discount. Hopefully, you'll be able to play personnel like Chang (Gorkon's Chief of Staff) or Kruge (Instinctive Commander) early, in order to get the discount for all of the other Klingons. That will save you a lot of counters, and give you a lot of high-cost personnel.

High-cost personnel are key to the deck, as it includes two copies of Horga'hn, which will let you get double attempts at your second mission. But, more than just getting cards into play, you also need to be able to move through a deck of this size. Three copies of These Are the Voyages help quite a bit, but the essential element is Mara (Science Officer), who lets you trade excess cards for events, and events are a very important part of this deck.

To assist in the two-mission win strategy, you've got quite a few options. You can use Mara to download your copies of Distant Exploration or B'aht Qul Challenge. Seek Savior can get you an extra 10 points built in, if you make a wise choice in naming a personnel your opponent is likely to play (or has already played, if he or she went first). Finally, since you'll have Assault events in your core anyway, you might get a chance to use Azetbur (Visionary Chancellor) to get extra points as well.

The dilemma pile is based on Persistent dilemmas and on The Conscience of the King, so you can play a lot of cheap dilemmas to do maximum damage to your opponent's attempts. With so many events in the deck, you'll likely get a chance to grab some of your Persistent dilemmas back via their game text, or you can use Juxtaposition to return them as you go. The dilemmas that discount based on your 40-point missions fit well, and can pack a devastating punch.

Are you ready to explore the Delta Quadrant with the Klingon Empire? Talk about this deck, along with countless others, on our Deck Designs message board.

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

• Klingon Player
• Overused Problems I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• Overused Problems II
• Pilgrims of Prophecy

Decklist

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Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 36 Space 12 (33%) Cost 1 4 Cost 2 2 Cost 3 5 Cost 6 1 Planet 13 (36%) Cost 1 5 Cost 2 2 Cost 3 4 Cost 4 1 Cost 6 1 Dual 11 (31%) Cost 0 3 Cost 2 1 Cost 3 3 Cost 4 2 Cost 6 2 Total Dilemma Deck cost 91

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 78 Equipment 2 (3%) Cost 3 2 Event 19 (24%) Cost 0 5 Cost 1 8 Cost 2 3 Cost 3 3 Personnel 50 (64%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 13 Cost 3 13 Cost 4 19 Cost 5 4 Ship 7 (9%) Cost 3 2 Cost 4 3 Cost 5 2 Total Draw Deck cost 219

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 0 Anthropology 2 14 14 Archaeology 0 4 4 Astrometrics 0 8 8 Biology 2 9 9 Diplomacy 0 12 1 13 Engineer 0 7 7 Exobiology 3 8 8 Geology 0 4 4 Honor 1 26 7 33 Intelligence 0 2 2 Law 1 8 8 Leadership 1 13 4 1 18 Medical 0 8 8 Navigation 1 8 8 Officer 0 23 23 Physics 0 9 1 10 Programming 1 7 7 Science 0 5 5 Security 3 12 1 13 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 1 9 9 Treachery 0 2 3 5 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 34 68.00 % Staff Star 13 26.00 % Faction Icons Next Generation 3 6.00 % Temporal Icons Past 20 40.00 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Artifact 2 Assault 7 Capture 2 Chancellor 4 Cloaking Device 7 Commander: I.K.S. Hegh'ta 1 Commander: I.K.S. Kla'Diyus 1 Commander: I.K.S. Maht-H'a 1 Commander: I.K.S. Qel'Poh 1 Commander: I.K.S. Rotarran 1 Commander: I.K.S. Voq'leng 2 Commander: Kronos One 1 Consume: 3 1 Decay: 2 2 Decay: 4 3 General 2 Host 1 Maneuver 3 Persistent 13 Region: Nekrit Expanse 1 Region: Qo'noS System 1