Terok Nor Cardassian Solver - Edited 27th July

I have tried for a long time to build the best Cardassian deck that I can. After all, what deck is complete without a Gul Dukat (or as it turns out Telle). The Central Command is critical to my strategy and I find that many capture cards work directly against it by discarding The Central Command from my draw deck right when I need it most. So I decided “No more captives!” This opened up the possibility of playing a straight Cardassian Solver deck which seems more efficient anyway.

My second favourite card for a Cardassian deck is Commandeer Prototype. I searched every ship in the game to find the best option and it seems to be the Dominion Defiant (the other is Tenak’telar Vanguard of the Occupation). Problem is … how do I get a Dominion Engineer into my Cardassian deck? So this is where my Terok Nor Cardassian Solver deck came from … and as a bonus I also get to have Tenak’telar.

Missions
• Mouth of the Wormhole Terok Nor
• Commandeer Prototype
• Kressari Rendezvous
• Eliminate Harvesters
• Political Intrigue

Draw Deck (63)
• Virtual Reality Headset (x3)
• Exocomp (x2)
• Emergency Transporter Unit (x2) [+1]
• Bustling with Activity (x3)
• Fajo’s Menagerie (x3)
• Rebuilding the Fleet (x3)
• The Central Command (x3)
• Tenak’talar Vanguard of the Occupation (x3)
• USS Defiant Commandeered Warship (x3)
• Modern Galor (x3)
• Weyoun Scheming Negotiator
• Tozara’Kesh (x3)
• Imat’Korex (x3)
• Odera’Klen (x3)
• Rak’tazan (x3)
• Odo The Great Link’s Saviour
• Miles O’Brien Smiley (x2)
• Doran (x3)
• Davin (x3)
• Mavek (x3)
• Thorel (x2)
• Damar Useful Adjutant
• Telle (x2)
• Enabran Tain Retired Spymaster
• Crell Moset x2 [+1]
• Dejar
• Korinas
• Dukat Prefect of Bajor
• Elim Garak Plain Simple Tailor
• Silarin Prin

Also add Vash Treasure Hunter and Swagger x2

Strategy
• There are 9 cards that can get you Virtual Reality Headset out early … preferably turn 2 and 3. Mavek, Fajo’s Menagery and VR Headet itself all help to get it early.
• Bustling with Activity helps get the personnel you need at the right time. Use the Dominion to get Dominion Engineers and the non-aligned personnel to get Smiley. There are seven Cardassians that report directly to Terok Nor and help get the right Cardassians when needed.
• Smiley reduces cost of ships. Around half of the personnel in the deck are Engineers or Programmers (Exocomp).
• Solve Commandeer Prototype first to get USS Defiant. Use USS Defiant to move duals to unsolved missions. Use Telle to swap dilemmas. Don’t be afraid to attempt with more than 9 as Telle gives you some protection versus Fractured Time.
• 15 of the Cardassians have Treachery so work with The Central Command. Elim, Dukat, and Crell all have tricks against dilemmas. Tain also has a trick in a pinch.
• Odo also has some dilemma immunity and giving opponent 5-10 points isn’t normally enough to get them past the post unless they are going for a 2 mission win.
• The high strength Jem’hadar are great for Kressari Rendezvous.
• The three missions do not score 100 score points. Tenak’talar and/or Dejar are critical for the 100 points. (I might need to improve my mission selection).
• Cards in hand are critical to this deck. Once attempting missions I use most or all counters to draw seven cards into hand to feed Telle, Garak, Dukat, Crell, VR Headset. Also use Fajo’s Menagerie to increase hand size. Discard high cost ships (Bustling also helps with this). Use Rebuilding the Fleet to also increase hand size and recycle deck (Crell and Prin with Exocomp are valid targets).
• Silarin Prin solves some headaches for this deck. Benjamin Sisko Command Staffer is one of those headaches as is Mila Trusted Confidante. Or Kirk, or Locutus, or
• Dilemma strategy is whatever works without clogging up the deck with more cards.

Kressari is probably not the best mission without hand weapons, but it is damn easy so I dunno there.

I'd probably go 2 ETU, one exocomp, you can fajo for the exocomp and the ETUs are better priced. Maybe throw in and engineering padd for the hell of it since you have so many engineers.

I really like this deck by the way.

Ooh, Terok Nor is cool!

Hmm...Our Death Is Glory to the Founders seems like the obvious way to deal with opponent's events. I believe Noret'ikar is the last of the Jem'hadar that you don't have in there, if you want more to blow up.

Questions as a newb tries to understand the deck: Do you have enough Intelligence for the missions that require it? Kressari is just easy requirements, and Commandeer Prototype is obviously central; why use Political Intrigue and Eliminate Harvesters (cunning missions rather than Strength)? Is Tozara'kesh x3 reliable enough for operating the Defiant? Although I guess Exocomp can actually make Imat'korex into an Engineer too; do you find yourself needing to use Exocomp for that? Obviously VR Headset could be used to help get more Engineer or Intelligence people into the play. Why Plain Simple Garak and not Elim Garak, Agent of the Obsidian Order? How do you even play Rebuilding the Fleet? It requires a personnel with 2 Engineer or 2 Medical, right? And the only one of those I see is Mr. Crell...?

Yeah, I would wonder about the Smiley thing...you get the Defiant into play without "playing" it, so...mainly you want to play Tenak'talar, and the counters on Smiley versus the counters to play your one main ship? Unless Smiley really contributes to mission-solving or something...he doesn't seem like he'd be worth it.

In terms of the deck's not clicking, is that because it's so big? Would trimming it down help? Or are you confident that it has to be as big as it is?

I'd chuck the Smiley strategy. He doesn't help you set up VRH, so with Bustling with Activity too, you have too many big cost stuff you have to play before you get going.

I don't like Exocomp at all either, but keeping one and only playing it if you really want to (with the FM) is ok I guess.

Personally, I don't like Bustling with Activity at all either, as it doesn't give you a card advantage, just a selection advantage, and I'm not sure that's worth the 3 counters (draw and play), especially given it's your only event so if they have any event destruction it's a wasted effort.

I'd chuck the extra Defiants and two Rebuilding the Fleets too, because when you are setting up, they are completely useless cards to have in your hand. I might try and put another card in the deck to put Defiant from your hand into your deck. Vash would kinda work there too.

If you did chuck this stuff, you could probably chuck a Modern Galor too.

I think that's about 12 or so cards I would chuck, so I think you'll find you'll get a lot more consistent draws with 52 than 64.

As for putting stuff in, Vash is good for a discard-y deck. If you want some throwaway event destruction, Swagger isn't too bad. And given you are playing a bunch of jemmies, Our Death Is Glory seems an obvious addition. If want to get rid of more events, I guess you could play Firestorm (only if you get rid of the Bustlings though, of course), but I probably wouldn't bother.

As for missions, Survey New World would probably be a better planet option than political intrigue, as I'd guess you have a lot of engineer, security and officer, and it needs one less person to solve. Other than that, relying on the ship isn't too bad, though I get that Survey New World would ruin a dejar win, so maybe you could just switch her to duran'adar.

Duran'adar has the advantage of being another Engineer peep.

You need to score 40 points from one mission, and then you'll be free to do two other 30-pointers. Tenak'talar can make either space mission 40, but if you had on 40 point planet mission it would be good insurance.

Maybe The Siege of AR-558, Deliver Ancient Artifact, or Restore Errant Moon would be options? Feldomite Rush seems like an easy last mission, perhaps.

Some answers for Triumph ...

The Dominion are essential for two VR headsets (that uses up four) and piloting the Defiant (that uses up three). Killing them off to destroy events hinders this deck.

The Dominion personnel are not intended to solve missions but they are used for the first mission .... Commandeer Prototype ... just beause it is the first mission and I am not setup at that point.

The latter missions are intended to be solved with Cardassians that have some immunity to death and immunity to stops ... they also have highest cunning ... not so much the strength. So the other two missions need to be cunning based).

Bustling with Activity is essential for this deck as it is all about getting the right Cardassians out that have dilemma immunity. This deck chugs big time without it. In fact this is the main reason I have bad draws ... no Bustling with Activity.

Lack of skills is not an issue as Bustling and Rebuilding the Fleet cycle personnel.

I am going to cut the Smileys and Exocomps. I think this will help.

Biggest problem is lack is Diplomacy (that why I use Garak Plain Simple Tailor and some unusal personnel selections) for first mission and getting stopped by Gomtuu Shock Wave. Without enough Cardassians out with dilemma protection I usually lose alot of time against that dilemma.

I also have some issues with Gold Staffing icons. Will post some modifications soon.

Thanks for help!

Whoops ... sorry

I'm still confused on how you are able to play Rebuilding the Fleet. Crell is your only personnel who meets it's requirements. Three interrupts that hinge on having one card out sounds risky to me.

Exocomp gives Silarin Prin 2 Engineer. 2 Exocomps turns all Programmers into 2 Engineers. However ... i am going to dump the Exocomps from this deck.

Bustling with Activity is essentail as it gets Crell when I need him. Bustling means you never wait to get the personnel you need and without it the deck does not work. The issue here is if Bustling gets destroyed or if Crell gets discarded.

I will put 2 copies of Crell in the deck (but I only own one!?!). The cycle mechanic with Rebuilding the Fleet is very important to the deck.

The problem with Duran'ajar is he is Dominion and they should only be involved in the first mission attempt as they have no protection vs dilemmas. This deck is about Cardassian tricks.

Swagger is actually not a bad option for event destruction .. i discard cards anyway. I will dump all extra equipment cards to make some room.

Running only one USS Defiant is not good (it's ends up in my hand or discard pile when i need to download it after solving Commandeer Prototype ... it has happened) .. i can play the Dukat that puts cards from hand back to deck as an order but Dukat Prefect of Bajor is so good ?!? It's a dilemma. I have tried it both ways and 3 USS Defiants seems to work better.

Deck updated and definately improved

Through any about adding Friction? Most of your personnel are either Jemmies or don't actually "play" they are just placed, so you can put the hurt on your opponent without being affected yourself.

Also, why not add in some of the really great Dominion personnel? You have so many Cardi nubs that will just be taking up space, and 3 VR Headsets, why not add in some dudes like Goran'Agar who works beautifully in a TN deck, considering he gives you a free card draw every turn and makes your Jemmies all cunning 6, pretty essential if you're taking them along on cunning based missions. Or how about Arak'Taral who can save not just your Dominion but Cardassian dudes, considering how little intel you have in the deck it might be good to keep Tain alive. Then, you can look at others like Bashir/Lovak/Martok Founders who have high cunning, the intel you're missing, and loads of useful skills, all great for a solver. And of course there is Duran'Adar, who would be additional insurance for getting to 100 points, and against any potential point loss or pheonixing. And last but not least, with all these great Dominion personnel around why not add Remata'Klan to keep them all safe?

I know you really want to play just Cardassian tricks, but the Dominion have some really nice tricks as well, why not combine the efforts and get the most out of both sides? If your entire purpose for playing with the Jemmies is to get the Cardies in play you should really wonder why you are not just playing Cardassia and saving the trouble of spending 3 turns getting headsets to turn on.

Thanks for the input ... the problem I have is I know little about Dominion tricks .. I am only just start to explore this affiliation being primarily a Cardassian or Bajoran player.

Love Friction ... it is going in the deck.

I am apprehensive about loading up with to many Dominion as it throws the current balance ... I have to stop Cardassians to play them and Cardassians solve missions in this deck . There are only a few that report direct to TN. Without the need for Engineers anymore I might be able to improve my selection of TN personnel or redesign all the cheap personnel in the deck.

The real reason I am using Terok Nor is not for the VR Headests ... I am after Dominion Defiant to beef up Telle's ability. Quite often I complete Commandeer Prototype on turn 6ish then solve the next two missions on one turn as the Cardassians have too many tricks out ... a straight Cardassian solver doesn't set up the second and third missions aswell without the Dominion Defiant.

I will go back to Cardassia when I find an easy way to get a Dominion Enginner into my Cardassian deck. I may know of some, but don't own the cards as yet.