Emissary: If You're Feeling Peckish

by Mark, Freelance Writer

28th November 2013

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that tonight those who don't generally celebrate on this day will join us in the festivities.

Tonight, I get to talk about two cards that I will tangentially tie into "Federation Week" by saying that our ecumenical friends (but mainly the Feds) frequently seemed to be enjoying a good meal, whether it be at Quark's, or Ben Sisko serving something up for his crew.

I'm always one who wants to do offbeat things, and despite knowing the main themes of the DS9 Block expansions, I hoped that we might see some Fun Things To Do. One of my hopes was an avenue for playing DS9 Klingons, and I even mentioned that such would be cool on the boards.

Well the sneaky Design Team were waaay ahead of me. The two cards we spoil tonight are Chef Kaga, and a new site, Klingon Restaurant.

Let us start with Chef Kaga. Recently I was catching up with episodes of Section 31 and one had three card titles, at least one of which was a real card title from Emissary. Chef Kaga was one of the titles, and another appears later in this article. I guessed that the other card title was the real one. Surprise!

Chef Kaga is a unique personnel. He's a cook, making him helpful for the popular Do You Smell Something Burning?. He's a Civilian, naturally. He could have some fun at Promenade Shops, though in a Klingon deck more than likely you'll be starting a fight there. It could also be helpful for Important Guests. This dilemma might see more play if a DS9-only dilemma strategy becomes an Achievement. (It wasn't when I tried it.) Kaga's skills are more conventionally helpful. Biology and Exobiology are perennially useful. Music will be helpful for the new dilemma Encased In Crystal.

He has a special download of Gagh. Just what you need if you get the munchies mid-game. Unfortunately I've been led to understand that this will be a broken link.

His stats aren't bad: 7 Integrity is quite respectable, he's low on the Cunning side with 5, but he's among the strongest people in the expansion.

Now on to Klingon Restaurant, one of the coolest cards in the expansion. The first and last parts of the card are Klingon-specific. You may want to throw this card into your Block Klingon deck, just as an extra place to report, and if you have any schemes to commandeer the station for the glory of the Empire.

The middle section gives us some quite interesting options. "Once each turn, any cook may report here "for free" (or download here in place of a normal card play; player draws no cards that turn)." Chef Kaga can obviously play here. The new Benjamin Sisko can play for free here. Just in case you're playing Feds, or feel the need for an Orb-icon personnel. Is it a good idea to use one of your site slots for one free play? Up to you if it's worth it.

There's one more Block-legal cook, Rybak. After that, there's one more TNG cook, William T. Riker from Premiere.

Doing a search for other Cooks comes up with some interesting results. Saldin and Neelix we sadly have to ignore, as the Sites won't let you report someone in the wrong quadrant. That rule doesn't entirely have to stop you, though, as you could use Crossover to cheat Mr. Brunt to the Alpha Quadrant, now he can be a free play!

While we're on the subject of Ferengi in the wrong place, this might be the last card you need to make the 22nd-Century Ferengi playable. You could already use Assign Support Personnel for Grish, Defend Homeworld for Muk, and Muk to download someone else. Now you can use Muk to get Krem, and play the captain, Ullis, to the Klingon Restaurant, and use Construct Starship and Ullis to get a Spacedock, then the Quetsivoo, to your Deep Space Nine docking site.

Yes, the 22nd Century does quite well with the Klingon restaurant. The affiliation with far and away the most cooks is Starfleet, with 3 of them. Elizabeth Cutler, Mr Keyword Ethan Novakovich, and Hoshi from Straight And Steady. These are actually pretty heavy hitters, and so it might well be worth throwing a DS9 with Klingon Restaurant in your Starfleet deck. Even more so if you're running Treaty: Starfleet/Klingon. Because your Klingons can dock at Deep Space Nine if you've got the Klingon Restaurant in play, don't you know.

Today, I'm thankful to the Emissary design team for giving me some crazy deck ideas. I hope you have some fun with this, too!

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