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Strategy Articles
Maquis: The Kings of Disruption
by James "RedDwarf" Hoskin, Staff Writer
27th March 2008
What words would you use to describe a Maquis deck? A recent survey of one person (fortunately holding a thesaurus) gave the following replies: agitation, annoyance, chaos, confusion, disarray, disorder, disruption, distraction, hindrance, turmoil and upheaval. These words describe what you, the player, must cause if you are to have any chance of winning a game with the Maquis.
The premise of this deck is very simple: keep returning your opponent's personnel back to his or her hand, and keep returning cards from your opponent's hand back to his or her deck. In general, your dilemmas will be performing the former, while your deck will perform the latter.
Thanks to the ability on Shankar (Maquis Soldier), who forces each of your opponents to place every card in his or her hand on top of his or her deck, you can start the disruption on your first turn. Historical Research has been included in the deck for the sole purpose of downloading Shankar, should you not take the first turn.
The next two cards in the deck to look for are Reide and the U.S.S. Defiant (Stolen Warship). With both in play you can force your opponent to place up to four cards from hand back on top of his or her deck. Make sure you use Reide's ability first, so that the two random cards get placed on your opponent's deck before the other two cards, which the Defiant lets your opponent choose, to be placed on his or her deck. With a little luck, your opponent will have to spend four counters just to draw the card he or she wants to play that turn.
Athos IV (Maquis Base) allows you to play any Federation Treachery personnel. This means that the Maquis personnel can be supplemented with personnel from Voyager as well as The Original Series and others. Unfortunately, very few are actually useful because none of them have the Maquis icon. This means that you can't discard them as fuel for Reide, so you have to be careful about how many you put in the deck. Kenneth Dalby (Insubordinate Crewman) is the exception though. His ability, to look at the top card of your opponent's deck and to potentially place it under the deck, is hugely helpful in disrupting your opponent. It also gives you two chances of boosting the Valjean's attributes, should you need the extra range to fly anywhere.
With all the discarding you'll be doing thanks to Reide, you may be in trouble of decking yourself if you don't use the ability on Rebecca Sullivan (Resistance Fighter). By placing one discarded Maquis icon personnel underneath your deck every turn, you can be sure that you won't run out of personnel towards the end of the game.
Chances are that your opponent will have attempted, maybe even completed, one mission before you are ready to make your own attempt. That doesn't matter though, because you have another couple of tricks in your arsenal. A well-placed Biogenic Weapon and the Phoenix (Risen From the Ashes) could force your opponent to complete four of his or her missions. It is very likely that your opponent's main missions will only provide 100 or 105 points. There may be a higher-scoring backup mission, in case some madman actually plays the Phoenix, but you can force your opponent to attempt all other missions before that one, thanks to the Biogenic Weapon. Think of yourself as the puppet master; you get to tell your opponent which missions they may or may not attempt next.
This deck attempts missions much like lemmings do in the computer game. You just keep going until everyone is dead or you've completed your mission. Once most personnel are in play, they are expendable. Just make sure you've got enough to staff the U.S.S. Defiant and for the occasional surprise triple use of Improvised Modifications. By leaving personnel on board the Phoenix and playing Warp Speed Transfer, you can have one personnel join a mission attempt in progress. This also has the added bonus of activating the ability on the Phoenix; forcing your opponent to either damage the ship or to score 110 points to win the game. Ro Laren (Maquis Sympathizer) provides two skills for Elude Federation Forces and all three skills for For the Cause. Don't forget to use her ability when you complete missions, as it means you probably won't have to use Reide or the U.S.S. Defiant that turn. Finally, don't forget to make use of the Strength of both B-4 (Dangerous Simpleton) and Dukat (Pah-Wraith Puppet) when you're sure you can complete a mission.
There will be games when you won't want to use Dukat during your mission attempts. His primary purpose in this deck is to take personnel from your opponent's discard pile, and to remove them from the game. This turns The Caretaker's "Guests" into a very powerful dilemma, wherein you can pick which personnel gets placed on top of his or her owner's deck and can not be replaced. There are other dilemmas that also perform similar actions, including Forsaken, Hired Muscle and Unexpected. Added to these are several dilemmas that return personnel to their owner's hand, including Biochemical Hyperacceleration, Cave-In, Hard Time, Lawgivers and Paranoid Escape. The remainder of the dilemma pile is designed to support these cards so that you get the chance to use them.
See this deck in action here. Please note that some idiot called RedDwarf was misplaying Improvised Modifications throughout the game. The personnel to be placed on Improvised Modifications should come from play rather than your hand 
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Tournament Record:
- Constructed (2008-03-30): 1st place
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
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