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Strategy Articles
Thunder Road: Growing Up
by Mike O'Shogay, Guest Writer
26th March 2013
I have heard many times that there isn't enough deck analysis and deck breakdown out there for players. 'Why did you use this card over others?' and such... With this article series, I plan to take a deck that I have built and breakdown the choices that I made for each card in the deck with some dilemma theory and examples included. I think all of this is good for newer players and players looking to get into more competitive Second Edition. Even if my decks are terrible, at least my reasoning is out there.
A little about myself…I’ve played Star Trek: CCG since First Contact for First Edition, all the way through the current day for Second Edition. We played casual in our play group for most of the time. During the Continuing Committee era, we got more competitive and started going to tournaments.
As for what I have accomplished…not a whole lot really; took 1st place on day 1 of NA Continentals in 2009, and placed 2nd or 3 rd in some of the largest Regionals from 2010 - 2012. Is that good enough? Probably not, but I’m all there is right now for a complete deck breakdown.
Why listen to what I have to say? What have I accomplished? You might be asking yourself. Well, I’m putting out the reasoning behind the card choices I make, which I haven’t really seen done on this website before.
This opening might sound familiar... that’s because it is. I subscribe to the old comic book adage; “Every comic book is someone’s first comic book,” and as such I’ll start each article the same.
2009 NORTH AMERICAN CONTINENTALS
MAQUIS DISRUPTION
This is the Maquis deck I played to the best finish I have had to date. I took 1st Place on Day 1 of North American Continentals. It was a different time in Star Trek: CCG: Second Edition history. Jonathan Archer, Damaged Captain had not been released. Reyga, Young Scientist came out the fall prior to this Continental, but Ferengi didn’t have that good of support to make him viable. You could still freely play non-skill dilemmas with no fear.
Up to this point, our group played mostly multiplayer and very casual. In a multiplayer environment, heavy interaction like Cardassian Capture, Klingon Kill, Romulan Discard, and even Maquis Disruption are not good deck choices at all. You have two to three other people to worry about and, unless you can hurt each opponent, it’s not really worth running. As it got closer to crunch time, we started to play more one-on-one in preparation for the upcoming Continentals tournament.
I saw that Tyler Fultz had an awesome Maquis deck he was playing. It looked fun and mean. I ran with it somewhat the same, but adapted it to my own play style. I changed up the mission set, adjusted some of the personnel to help with the new missions, and changed some of the verbs in the deck.
After playing this Maquis deck for a while, if the opponent was unprepared for it you could literally leave them with no personnel on the table at the end of the game. It was ridiculous. In addition to the heavy disruption on the draw deck side, I paired it up with a Tragic Turn kill pile.
THE DILEMMA PILE
Tragic Turn has changed over the years; it used to be a lot more effective than it is now. You can’t double dip on certain dilemmas anymore as Tragic Turn only gives you either one extra kill or one extra stop per dilemma. Also, it only kills or stops if the dilemma is overcome. So dilemmas like The Dal'Rok no longer get a second kill. The advent of better personnel to deal with non-skill dilemmas such as Donatra, Honorable Commander, Jonathan Archer, Damaged Captain, and the viability of Ferengi Reyga, Young Scientist decks have helped suppress this dilemma. Also, the more heavy use of kill prevention such as Escape, Emergency Transport Unit, and Hypospray have all been used to adapt to, in my mind, a very toxic Tragic Turn heavy worldwide meta. With the increased hate, it’s greatly decreased its effectiveness. It can still win however if a meta is unprepared.
I won’t say it’s hard to play a Tragic Turn dilemma pile, but it does need practiced hands to be able to effectively give dilemmas for it. My build is my own creation, built to help fight a very unknown meta to me and to hit a wide variety of decks. If I knew then what I know now, my build would have been very different. A couple blockbuster dilemmas are missing and I wish I had run them: Secret Identity and An Issue of Trust. In addition to that I would have adjusted some of the dilemma ratios.
DILEMMAS THAT KILL
Every Tragic Turn dilemma pile usually starts in the same spot, 3x All-Consuming Evil. I am using two. Simple reason is that in space it’s a dead draw, and to be used most effectively you need to hit it with a consume dilemma blind. All-Comsuming Evil needs to be consumed so this deck contains a plethora of dilemmas that do just that.
This deck uses more than a few ways to just outright kill personnel. A few are random selections to kill personnel, like Contaminating a Culture. Both Tsiolkovsky Infection and Whisper in the Dark kill randomly but have extremely high skill requirements to pass. These are very situational in the deck, as I don’t have that many events, but if you draw dilemmas without getting a Tragic Turn they make good substitutes.
Since The Dal'Rok bounces back to your dilemma pile it was always a good combo ender with Tragic Turn. But like I said before, with the errata this currently no longer works. This is also the case for two more pinpoint dilemmas to help you remove specific personnel. The Clown: Guillotine used to be a house with it possibly killing up to three personnel at a time when combined with Tragic Turn and also consuming three dilemmas. It’s still not bad but can now only kill. Final Adventure was also a good way at having the option to kill a high cost personnel if the opponent sent them on the mission attempt. It’s also a Consume: 2 dilemma and kills even more in the event that they have multiple headquarters. Just be aware that this dilemma, like The Dal’Rok, is a dead draw against Voyager decks.
The last three dilemmas in this category are situational but very effective. Unscientific Method kills the highest Cunning Science personnel present. That’s its main function in my dilemma pile. The wall portion of the dilemma is inconsequential. The last two are dilemmas that are one in the same. One is a planet dilemma, A Bad End, and the other a space dilemma, Don't Let It End This Way. They both do the same thing and that is kill a stopped personnel. With Tragic Turn that means, a stopped personnel is killed and then a random unstopped personnel would be killed.
DILEMMAS THAT COULD KILL
In addition to being a meta choice, both Aftereffects and Preventative Repercussions do the same thing: punish low cost decks like Cadets. These dilemmas will either kill three personnel, if the opponent is playing a deck filled with personnel like Tolian Soren, Renegade Scientist or Sigmund Freud, Father of Psychoanalysis, or it will just randomly stop one of them. But with Tragic Turn they will either kill four or stop two. This deck has two copies each of a couple of the best dilemmas in the game: Guess Who's Coming to Dinner? and Back Room Dealings. They require at least one stop, and if you are able to use other dilemmas to strip certain skills away, they will also kill a personnel randomly.
Casualties is a good way to hit people that play personnel like Persis, Loyal Daughter, Sigmund Freud, Father of Psychoanalysis, or Jadzia Dax, Soldier of Fortune. With Tragic Turn, this dilemma will either stop the personnel with the fewest amount of icons and a random personnel; or it will kill the personnel with the fewest icons (provided they have three or less) and then a random personnel. It also has a Consume of 1. Disruptor Accident simply leaves your opponent with an impossible choice if Tragic Turn is on the mission. It would give them the option to either kill 2 personnel randomly or stop 3 personnel. Toe to Toe, in addition to being a Consume: 2 dilemma, can stop a personnel. If they don’t have a matching cost personnel remaining, it will kill that personnel. If they do, it gives them the option to save that personnel by stopping a matching cost personnel. So with Tragic Turn, much like Disruptor Accident, it can either kill two personnel or stop three personnel.
EFFICIENT STOPPING DILEMMAS
Sometimes you just need decent dilemmas in order to fill out your dilemma pile. These act as a backup plan if you don’t draw a Tragic Turn. Gomtuu Shock Wave is an old standby; one of the best walls in the game because it hits so many affiliations easily. Back a few years ago, two dilemmas were so cost efficient at stopping personnel there was really no reason to not run them. Both Chula: The Chandra and Old Differences stop at least two personnel apiece for one dilemma. The former could stop even more than two personnel for an investment of four counters, while the latter could stop two but most of the time it would only cost three.
Against the right decks with little Security or Medical, Biochemical Hyperacceleration is crazy good. It can set the opponent back a couple of turns by bouncing three personnel back to their hand. It’s also a Consume: 2 dilemma. Sometimes with a Tragic Turn pile you run short of counters while giving dilemmas. A Royal Hunt helps that by costing 0. It can stop a personnel for each headquarters they have, so again Voyager is immune to this one. It also is a Consume: 2 dilemma. Against an opponent with a heavy Security build Full Security Alert is a dilemma that can potentially stop three personnel.
Distraction, while not necessarily being the greatest, gives the opponent the option to either stop a high cost personnel or a couple of lower cost personnel. It only costs 2, can be given at either Space or Planet missions, and can potentially stop two. As such, it has a pretty good cost to stop ratio. Pinned Down is just a standard one stop at either Planet or Space missions that can be more if they mega attempt or if paired with Tragic Turn.
UTILITY/META CHOICE
I ran a few utility dilemmas as well, to help protect my killing dilemma pile’s frenzy; Equipment Malfunction to ditch the Emergency Transport Units and Swashbuckler at Heart to ditch the Escapes. Timescape is used to help prevent double attempting. With a Tragic Turn pile you have a lot of dilemmas underneath missions, so double attempting is a huge threat. Entanglement is to help give you a few extra counters for your dilemmas. Sometimes all you need are three extra counters to wipe out an entire away team - plus it’s a Consume: 1 dilemma.
Probably the two biggest meta choices I ran, besides Aftereffects and Preventative Repercussions, were Racial Tension and Moral Choice. The former can easily stop personnel in a meta of efficient decks that run lots of Non-Aligned. It’s also a 0 cost dilemma, so that helps with the few counters you do get for dilemmas. The latter is easily the best way to defend against any Federation deck.
WHAT I LEARNED ABOUT TRAGIC TURN
At the time, it was an amazing dilemma pile. Now it is still really good, but there are many more tools against it. Prior to the printing of “hate” cards and the subsequent errata, I have called this card the most broken card in Star Trek: CCG: Second Edition. It made an amazing Negative Play Experience. I still think if you’re not ready for it, you will get destroyed. In order to run it properly now, you need different tools in order to deal with the hate, as it is essentially a blank card against certain Affiliations’ builds like Damaged Starfleet, Reyga Ferengi, or Donatra Romulans.
Most of the newer Tragic Turn type decks have dropped it from the list entirely and run a tight 20 – 25 card pile centering the deck around All-Consuming Evil instead. This newer pile runs a lot of Consume dilemmas and is more of a skill surgeon pile. Instead of beating your opponents with a club like the older piles these newer ones use a scalpel.
MISSIONS
Aid Legendary Civilization
Investigate Destruction
Elude Federation Forces
Athos IV Maquis Base
Surgery Under Fire
This is a pretty boring mission selection. When Aid Legendary Civilization is combined with a Maquis Disruption deck and a Tragic Turn dilemma pile it can be deadly. This is one of the lynchpins of the deck. This card alone can break the game wide open for you, especially if the opponent is playing a speed deck like TNG Cadets or These Are the Voyages Original Series personnel.
The rest of the mission set is simply missions very easy for the personnel I’m using. Investigate Destruction is very easy with Navigation, Security, and Treachery appearing on a lot of personnel. This deck has ten different personnel with Navigation, five different personnel with Security, and five different personnel with Treachery. It is surprisingly low on Treachery which makes it good against An Issue of Trust.
Elude Federation Forces is probably the best mission the Maquis have. It’s immune to Insurrection, has very easy requirements (for them), and has a low attribute requirement. With the ability to have six personnel in play that have Astrometrics and ten different personnel that have Navigation it’s not that hard to meet the mission’s first requirement.
Surgery Under Fire is also very easy to complete. Medical and Biology are very easy to come by with the ability to have six different personnel in play with Medical and six different personnel in play with Biology. In addition, the deck has four different personnel with Officer but duplicates of Julian Bashir, Rebel Captain and Cal Hudson, Attaché to the Demilitarized Zone. It has six different personnel with Leadership and three of those are duplicated as well.
My optimal order to attempt missions in this deck is Aid Legendary Civilization (To hopefully gain a huge tempo advantage), followed by either Elude Federation Forces or Surgery Under Fire. I used Investigate Destruction as a last resort because of my lower skill counts for it.
The Draw Deck
Unlike the previous deck I detailed, this one was built to be competitive in a competitive meta. The whole point of the deck is to leave the opponent with as few personnel on table as possible every turn. Between Stalling for Time, All-Out War, Cascade Virus, Alarming Rumors, and the mission Aid Legendary Civilization, this isn’t a very difficult task. Add in U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship, putting cards from an opponent’s hand on top of their deck, and this deck makes them waste many counters just trying to keep up with you.
STALL TACTICS
Maquis are one of the strongest affiliations in the game, due in part to their ability to stall out the opponent. Their arsenal of tools is pretty wide and effective. U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship is one of the best ships in the game. In addition to beating Outclassed it also gives you 10 Shields towards beating Tactical Disadvantage. On top of all that, by having it at an opponent’s non-headquarters mission, every turn you can make them put two cards from hand on top of their deck. With three copies in the deck and two copies of Cal Hudson, Attaché to the Demilitarized Zone it’s likely to be drawn or downloaded.
Reide, despite being a worse version of U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship due to the deck size being small, can still act as another way to make an opponent put cards from their hand on top of their deck. Also if you have Ro Laren, Maquis Sympathizer at the mission when you attempt and complete it, you can make that opponent put two cards at random from their hand on top of their deck. FYI: in this deck she has skills on every mission. Plus if you use multiple skills on her, she can put two cards at random from an opponent’s hand on top of their deck for each skill. If you use three skills, that’s six cards going on top of the opponents deck from their hand.
Cascade Virus is a very good Interrupt for getting rid of annoying 2 or less cost personnel such as Persis, Loyal Daughter, Dukat, Pah-Wraith Puppet, or Chakotay, Bridge Between Two Crews; or even non-unique personnel like P'tol. If you can’t prevent them from hitting play with Cascade Virus then you can play Stalling for Time to bounce personnel back to their owner’s hand. Unlike Cascade Virus, there is no cost restriction. It also can bounce multiple non-unique personnel, provided there are multiple copies of the personnel in play. Alarming Rumors, while similar to both Cascade Virus and Stalling for Time, this can prevent Interrupts and Events as well. Instead of bouncing the card back to hand, though, it places it on top of the owner’s deck. At Continentals, I won more than one game off of preventing Uninvited with this Interrupt.
If they start to pull ahead of all the stalling you’re doing and you have completed a mission, just drop All-Out War and kill 3 of their personnel. With three copies of M'vil in the deck, it shouldn’t be a problem having at least one copy of her out late game. In addition to this, she has some vital mission skills for the deck. On top of all that, she can destroy an event as well, which the opponent can prevent by putting two cards from their hand on top of their deck (assuming they have a hand).
This deck has a few ways to deal with events on the table. The aforementioned M'vil is one way, both Strafing Fire and Kalita, Maquis Pilot are a couple of others. Strafing Fire can blow up an event in play. It also removes each copy from their hand and deck then places all of them in the opponents discard pile. Kalita, Maquis Pilot can place any event in play on top of its owner’s deck. Besides what has already been mentioned, this deck also is packing one Operational Necessity to help deal with a lot of the random interrupts you see like Escape or Uninvited.
The last card that can really stall an opponent with in this deck is Biogenic Weapon. If an opponent has been attempting a mission for two to three turns or if you just got done putting five or six dilemmas underneath a mission, you can play this Event to make that mission un-attemptable until they complete the rest of their missions. It’s not quite the same type of stalling card, but it is very effective and can make or break a game.
THEY CAN SOLVE MISSIONS TOO?!?!?!
They aren’t quite bad at it either. Nowadays you need skill cheaters, stop preventers, or dilemma preventers to be able to really complete missions in a timely manner. Back then, there were just a whole lot of random stop dilemmas mixed with some great skill dilemmas. This deck is mostly pure Maquis personnel. Exceptions to this are two copies of Julian Bashir, Rebel Captain and one copy of Zefram Cochrane, Ready to Make History. Julian Bashir, Rebel Captain, is a 6 cost personnel with ¾ of the mission skills for Aid Legendary Civilization and has all the mission skills for Surgery Under Fire. Plus, against a dual-HQ deck he is a 0 cost personnel. Zefram Cochrane, Ready to Make History has 7 Cunning, can make your ships cost 2 less, is a 4 cost personnel, and he has all the mission skills for Elude Federation Forces.
The Maquis have one of the best personnel in the game in Michael Eddington, Loyal Leader. He can become a 7 Integrity, 9 Cunning, 9 Strength personnel if you need him to be. Otherwise he is just a 2 cost personnel with mission skills for most of the missions. Sometimes that 3 extra in attributes is the difference between failing a mission attempt and completing the mission. If you do boost his attributes by 3, then he is killed at the end of the turn, but you can always get him back with Rebecca Sullivan, Resistance Fighter. She is one of the best Maquis affiliated recursion personnel in the game. She also has the Biology/Medical combination, which helps on multiple missions, and a 6 Integrity to help against Gomtuu Shock Wave.
Chakotay, Freedom Fighter is also one of the best Maquis dilemma busters. He makes all other Maquis personnel attributes +1; very helpful for facing dilemmas like Gomtuu Shock Wave or even some of the other attribute based walls. Despite having a 7 Cunning, Tuvok, Undercover is much more than just that: he also is attributes +1 and gains Intelligence while facing a dilemma and he is one of the few ways this deck can pass Rogue Borg Ambush. Kasidy Yates, Conflicted Captain, who was released in the last Decipher printed set, can enable you to complete the Strength based missions with five personnel as opposed to six. Which means, as long as Transport Crash Survivors isn’t on the table, you can micro-team a few missions.
ODDS AND ENDS
Every deck has some filler and some utility cards in it. Despite Thomas Riker, Defiant Leader being in the deck to boost my U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship’s range, he also has very important mission skills. Santos, Squad Leader is in the deck just for mission skills and options. There are only three 2-cost events in the deck, but sometimes all you need is a couple more Strength or Cunning to get past a mission and he can do just that.
If your opponent is playing a strategy that is discarding cards from their hand B'Elanna Torres, Creative Engineer can make that discard random. Niles is in the deck for mission skills alone. That is his only purpose. Last but not least, the ultimate Ship this deck uses is Xhosa. Besides U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship it’s one of the few Ships the Maquis have access to that can move back and forth between their Homeworld and Planet missions in a single turn. Plus it costs only 5 and requires a single Command icon to staff.
ALL GOOD THINGS MUST COME TO AN END
I plan on writing this as a series and as such I will be going over a lot of different decks I have together from Maquis Disruption with a Tragic Turn Kill Pile, Starfleet At What Blast, more Romulan shenanigans and even one or two traditional decks. For some of the decks I use the same dilemma pile but will always detail something about them, such as: combos, theory, or even examples of different types of dilemma piles like a Tragic Turn pile.
For any suggestions, questions, or concerns please PM. Deck List can be found Here.
Tournament Record:
- Constructed - North American Continentals Day One (2009-06-27): 1st place
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
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