In For a Trim
by Johannes Klarhauser, Staff Writer
8th April 2008
As we all know, at some point during Deep Space Nine, Benjamin Sisko decided to have his head shaved and sport a more martial look to go with the battle-heavy seasons four through seven. I don't know whether there was a barber aboard the space station, but let us for a moment assume that there wasn't. Who would you go to? Well, I dare say that it must have been O'Brien who recommended a visit to a certain snappy conversationalist. Not because that would make any sense, but because it gives me an excuse to build a deck that hearkens the good old days of Baraka cheese. This time, I guess it's some kind of blue cheese.
The idea behind this deck is to use Mot (The Barber) to reduce the number of dilemmas your opponent may draw. However, this ability only works when there are two or less dilemmas under the mission, so it usually only triggers on the first, and maybe second, attempt. In order to benefit the most from Mot, we have to make sure that we can complete the mission on the first attempt. This works best if we keep the number of personnel in the crew or away team to a minimum. Unfortunately, the Bolian barber only has Honor to offer as his lone skill. (At least it's not Barbering, right?) What we are looking for are personnel who -ideally - provide all the skills to complete a mission by themselves.
My personnel of choice are Inad, a two-cost Non-Aligned personnel who covers all the skills alongside the Integrity requirements on Encounter at Farpoint; Rachel Garrett (Displaced Captain), who takes care of Investigate Destruction; and finally, Benjamin Sisko (Shipwright), who will join Mot's mercenaries and help them complete Protect the Escapees. (Notice how the hair-and-goatee Shipwright persona fits right into the transitional period between early Sisko and bald Sisko; don't tell me there's no Trek sense behind this deck!) Sisko is also the corresponding Commander of the Baraka, a ship he can staff by himself. With Running a Tight Ship, this reduces the number of dilemmas your opponent may draw at a space mission by two.
Enter Matthew Dougherty (Misguided Admiral). The Admiral can sacrifice a staffed ship to make all of your personnel attributes +3 until the end of the turn. This means that our ragtag crew can complete each of our missions with only three personnel – in the same turn! First, Mot, Inad and Rachel Garrett will have an Encouter at Farpoint; Inad will stay on the planet, while Sisko, Mot and Rachel Garrett will fly on to complete Investigate Destruction and Protect the Escapees.
You may have noticed that the missions are only worth 90 points in total, and the Baraka also requires some points to increase its Range and be able to reach the space missions. That's why Deploy the Fleet is in the deck. Once you can staff both the U.S.S. Enterprise-C (Yesterday's Enterprise) and the Baraka, move them to an opponent's non-headquarters mission. At the next turn, you can score ten points for each copy of Deploy the Fleet you play.
Kira Meru (Comfort Woman) and Kira Taban (Husband and Father) are in the deck for two reasons: as cheap personnel with past icons they can be stopped for Tampering With Time to rig the opponent's dilemma pile to your liking; and with three Bajoran-affiliation personnel in play, you can use In the Pah-wraith's Wake to destroy any dilemma-manipulation events that might put a dent in your strategy of dodging dilemmas altogether.
If everything works out as planned, your opponent will only be able to draw and spend two on dilemmas at your planet mission, and one at each of your space missions, so with a little bit of Tampering, you should be able to make it through the attempts unharmed.
Additional copies of unique personnel can be discarded by Days of Atonement to draw more cards; the 0-cost personnel serve only the purpose of staffing the Enterprise-C and sacrificing themselves to Dougherty's order; Ranjen Koral is there to get any card back from the discard pile.
The deck is, of course, highly susceptible to anything that forces you to discard a lot; also, battle and capture strategies can easily hit you while your ships are away from your headquarters. There are counters for all of these (e.g., Resistance Tactics), but Mot's advice to me was to trim the decklist as short as possible, so I kept it at the minimum of 35.
Decklist
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|
Draw Deck (35) |
Event |
1 | U | 85 | | 3x Days of Atonement |
4 | U | 47 | | 3x Deploy the Fleet |
1 | R | 90 | | 2x How Would You Like a Trip to Romulus? |
7 | C | 22 | | 2x In the Pah-wraith's Wake |
4 | R | 71 | | 2x •Running a Tight Ship |
5 | P | 14 | | 2x Tampering With Time |
Interrupt |
1 | R | 129 | | 2x Kevin Uxbridge |
Personnel |
| Bajoran |
0 | P | 6 | | 2x •Benjamin Sisko, Shipwright |
4 | R | 103 | | 1x •Kira Meru, Comfort Woman |
5 | P | 23 | | 1x •Kira Taban, Husband and Father |
1 | U | 222 | | 1x •Ranjen Koral, Student of B'hala |
| Federation |
10 | R | 75 | | 1x •Matthew Dougherty, Misguided Admiral |
14 | C | 82 | | 2x •Mot, The Barber |
10 | U | 78 | | 2x •Rachel Garrett, Displaced Captain |
4 | C | 146 | | 1x •Seth Matthews, Red Squad Cadet |
| Non-Aligned |
13 | C | 92 | | 1x •Ezri Tigan, Soldier of Fortune |
1 | C | 330 | | 2x Inad |
7 | R | 109 | | 1x •Tolian Soran, Renegade Scientist |
Ship |
| Bajoran |
0 | P | 15 | | 2x •Baraka |
| Federation |
10 | R | 110 | | 2x •U.S.S. Enterprise-C, Yesterday's Enterprise |
|
|
Hide Deck Stats
|
Draw Deck |
Total Draw Deck | 35 |
Event | 14 (40%) |
| Cost 0 | 5 |
| Cost 1 | 5 |
| Cost 3 | 4 |
Interrupt | 2 (6%) |
Personnel | 15 (43%) |
| Cost 0 | 7 |
| Cost 1 | 1 |
| Cost 2 | 4 |
| Cost 4 | 3 |
Ship | 4 (11%) |
| Cost 2 | 2 |
| Cost 5 | 2 |
Total Draw Deck cost | 52 |
|
Skills Count |
Skill | # Missions | # Personnel |
| 1x | 2x | 3x | Total |
Acquisition | 1 | | | | 0 |
Anthropology | 0 | 7 | | | 7 |
Archaeology | 0 | 1 | | | 1 |
Astrometrics | 1 | 5 | | | 5 |
Biology | 0 | 3 | | | 3 |
Diplomacy | 2 | 3 | | | 3 |
Engineer | 1 | 3 | | | 3 |
Exobiology | 1 | 3 | | | 3 |
Geology | 0 | 2 | | | 2 |
Honor | 2 | 7 | | | 7 |
Intelligence | 0 | | | | 0 |
Law | 0 | | | | 0 |
Leadership | 0 | 3 | | | 3 |
Medical | 0 | 2 | | | 2 |
Navigation | 2 | 5 | | | 5 |
Officer | 1 | 3 | | | 3 |
Physics | 0 | 1 | 1 | | 2 |
Programming | 0 | 2 | | | 2 |
Science | 0 | 1 | | | 1 |
Security | 1 | 1 | | | 1 |
Telepathy | 1 | 2 | | | 2 |
Transporters | 0 | 4 | | | 4 |
Treachery | 2 | 1 | 1 | | 2 |
Icons Count |
Icon | # Personnel | % Personnel |
Staffing Icons |
| Command Star | 6 | 40.00 % |
| Staff Star | 3 | 20.00 % |
Faction Icons |
| Deep Space Nine | 2 | 13.33 % |
| Earth | 4 | 26.67 % |
| Next Generation | 2 | 13.33 % |
Temporal Icons |
| Alternate Universe | 1 | 6.67 % |
| Past | 4 | 26.67 % |
Keyword Count |
Keyword | # Cards |
| Admiral | 1 |
| Bajoran Resistance | 1 |
| Cadet | 1 |
| Commander: Baraka | 2 |
| Commander: U.S.S. Enterprise-C | 2 |
| Pah-wraith | 2 |
| Prylar | 1 |
| Region: Bajor System | 1 |
| Region: Neutral Zone | 1 |
| Region: Sector 001 | 1 |
| Temporal | 2 |
| Thief | 1 |
|
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