Leader of the Sect

by James Cream, Staff Writer

3rd December 2014

Kazon and the KCA have long been considered the worst affiliations in First Edition, and with just cause. The main issue with both is the primary free play engine. In both cases, you are required to have a specific personnel in play just to get the free plays going. For the Kazon free play engine, The Kazon Collective, that is a Maje which corresponds to the sect that is named by the person you wish to play for free. But the Kazon Collective has no built in way to get that Maje. What’s more, Maje never play for free, with the exception of Razik and Jabin, who both head the Ogla sect. One of which can be played for free once the other is in play.

Compare this to other free play engines. Perhaps the best FPE, Bajoran Resistance Cell, does not even require a place to play the personnel (planets are everywhere, and difficult to destroy) and only requires that the persons playing for free are Bajoran and have the skill of Resistance – plus it has a built in draw engine. The Vidiian play engine allows any Vidiian with MEDICAL as their classification to play for free (7/18 possible Vidiians) to any place they could legally play, and then allows medical-related equipment to play for free as well, just to make those personnel more awesome. The Hirogen are easily the best DQ affiliation, sure their play engine also requires a specific person, in this case an Alpha that is named in lore by the person being played for free, but those Alphas also play for free. Considering that any Hologram can be fetched for free with Holodeck Door, any Hirogen personnel is a potential free play.

But for both Kazon and the KCA, the free play engines require a bit of set-up by the player. They must first invest time and resources into getting the key named personnel into play in order to get the free plays flowing. For the KCA, this issue was solved with We Need You Here, since they can now perform Ops downloads without the cost of no end of turn card draws (all KCA personnel have the Deep Space 9 property logo, so making it a Reshape the Quadrant deck is a non-issue.) The Kazon have had to fall back on more creative means to get their Majes into play. Certainly, First Edition has no deficit of ways to fetch key personnel, but this does put the Kazon at a disadvantage to other affiliations. Where most can use Defend Homeworld to get any choice Security personnel, and can even save that download until a key point in the game when they need to dial-up a certain skill, the Kazon need to use that download immediately just to get their inherent free play engine up and going. I am, of course, referring to fetching Razik early in the game in order to allow any Ogla Kazon to play for free. But note that this can only be done as early as the play phase of your first turn, meaning that no Kazon will play for free by this means on Turn 1.

And things would get more problematic if you wanted to run a different sect. Going to the Top works to get Culluh into play and then free play Nistrim Kazon, though one would need to stock a good number of that Interrupt in their deck to ensure drawing it. A more versatile option is Ready Room Door, which downloads the matching commander to their corresponding ship. Four of the Maje have a matching ship that they command and since each is universal, Spacedoor can be used to fetch the key ship in order to use a Ready Room Door. Unfortunately, that means sacrificing any end of turn card draws – a pretty steep cost just to get what everyone else takes for granted. Plus, all of these options will not get you Minnis, who heads up the third largest sect, the Pommar.

But all of this changes once the 20th Anniversary Collection becomes legal on December 5^th, 2014. The card representing the Voyager expansion, where the Kazon were first introduced and this profound design error was made, finally gives us players a straight forward and inexpensive way to get one key Maje into play. Leader of the Sect allows a player, at the cost of just one seed slot, to download whatever Maje is key to the deck, to a Kazon Facility – no questions asked, no card play used, and no price of lost card draws. What’s more, it can be done during the opponent’s turn. It is quite possible that, for the Kazon, going second in a game is the ideal situation. In that case, the player could download their Maje to their Kazon outpost during the opponent’s first turn, allowing him to hang out with the Mission Specialists. This would subvert any restrictions with General Quarters, as the key Maje would already be in play, and in the best scenario, a player could potentially force their opponent to fetch General Quarters themselves during their own turn 1! This could be done by simply making Dr. Farek on of your mission specialists and then drawing either Going to the Top or I’m a Doctor Not a Bricklayer in the opening hand, if they don’t want to fetch General Quarters, well then you get to start your first turn with four personnel in play.

But the card is not without its restrictions, and that is understandable. Repeatable downloads are ripe for abuse and I wouldn’t be a Kazon player if I didn’t know a thing or two about abuse. First, it requires having a Kazon outpost in play and the download goes specifically to that location. This prevents the card from being used easily by non-Kazon decks, they don’t need any more help. Next, it only works if you do not already have a Maje in play. This is good as the Maje themselves are all quite powerful personnel and a free one every (opponent’s) turn would be just too amazing. It does mean, that the one key Maje to your deck can be replaced if they should run afoul of dilemmas or interaction, assuming that you don’t have any other Maje in play. This brings the Kazon more on par with Legitimate Klingons.

Now that there is an easy way to get a Maje into play, let’s have a look at what the options for this sweet download are:

Sect	Maje	Number of Skills on Maje	Number of Unique Kazon in Sect	Number of Universal Kazon in Sect	Number of Different Skills within Sect
Nistrim	Culluh	8	5	5	21
Ogla	Razik or Jabin	6 or 6	6	1	21
Pommar	Minnis	7	2	2	13
Relora	Haron	6	1	1	10
Hobii	Loran	5	1	0	5
Mostral	Surat	6	1	0	6
Oglamar	Valek	6	1	0	6

 

For a solver, the ideal situation would be to get the Maje for a non-Ogla sect first, using Leader of the Sect, and then to get Razik using Defend Homeworld. This would allow the highest number of personnel to play for free. Given that most Sects either have just a Maje with no underlings or a single Maje with a single universal underling, as with the Relora, the options are really just Pommar or Nistrim.

Before we look more closely at each of the major Kazon sects, we need to consider the Home Away from Home play engine. This has long been a staple of many DQ builds, but has become quite key to making a deck with a majority of Kazon personnel, which would qualify for the Kazon Play and Win achievements, since the Kazon Voyager was released. This play engine allows any matching (Kazon) personnel with a staff star to report for free to the ship. This is important to consider since this play engine will overlap with that of the Kazon Collective in many ways, but it also means that we only need to consider those personnel for each sect which do not play for free with Home Away from Home, when choosing our key Majes. HAFH allows 19 different skills to report, with 15 of those on Universal personnel (e.g. available in unlimited quanitity). It will be important to choose a free play engine which covers the skill gaps of Home Away from Home.

Nistrim might seem like the obvious choice, as there are simply more there. Also, they have one of the just two possible females in the Kazon affiliation and the only possible source of Transporter Skill, outside of Non-aligned support, in Seska. The Maje himself is pretty amazing, Culluh has OFFICER, Diplomacy, and Greed – all of which are not available in high enough quantity from HAFH. But he also has Engineer and Leadership x 2, this latter skill being key to busting up a Friendly Fire dilemma combo. His special download of Boarding Party can net you bonus points while denying the opponent a ship. Tierna doesn’t have much in the way of impressive skills, though one can never have too much Security, but his ability to download Kazon Bomb right into your opponent’s away team (or even into the crew of a ship, if Culluh gives him a little assist) can be a game winning move. Maniz is also a great Nistrim personnel, especially in the battle version of a Kazon deck, as he is universal and brings Leadership and OFFICER, neither of which is supplied sufficiently by HAFH. He can also be a pretty cunning Navigator, if Lower Decks is in play.

Ogla is almost a given, since one of their Maje has SECURITY and can be fetched by Defend Homeworld. But other than that and adding potential Range boost to the biggest Kazon ship, Razik isn’t all that impressive. Jabin brings Greed (a surprisingly rare skill for Kazon) as well as the requisite Leadership and OFFICER that comes with being a Maje. But the real benefit of these guys is their synergy. Most Maje will not play for free, even though they are the main source for Leadership, Diplomacy, and OFFICER in the affiliation, but with Razik and Jabin, at least one will play for free once the other has already been played. What’s more, having one or more of each in the deck increases the likelihood of drawing one and that would mean that the Defend Homeworld download can be spent elsewhere or even saved for a late game key download. Haliz is another OFFICER with Leadership who does not play for free with HAFH, making the Ogla a nice supplement to that play engine, but of course the main draw of Ogla is their token female. Ril is not only a female and a MEDICAL but she has CIVILIAN (quite rare for Kazon) and is universal to boot.

Pommar might not be the most numerous sect, but they make up for that in quality. Maje Minnis might very well be the best Kazon so far. He has Leadership and OFFICER, as with the other Maje, but also Diplomacy – one of the rarer skills for Kazon – and Computer Skill x 2. This last bit is by far the most important, due to the popularity of the Access Denied + Ferengi Ingenuity + Dejaren dilemma combo. Only one other Pommar cannot be played for free with HAFH, but he’s a doozy. Saldin is a CIVILIAN (one of only three possible Kazon Civies) who has SECURITY, Computer Skill, and Archaeology. Computer Skill and SECURITY might very well be the two most important skills in the game – you just can’t possibly have too much. But the real kicker is that he is a Bartender. Not because he promotes drinking (which is pretty great) but rather, so that he can call in a doctor if you get too drunk. That’s right any Non-aligned or Kazon doctor straight to where you need them, on call. Take a moment to appreciate all the wonderful options there are before making the call. My personal favorites include: Orum, who has Cybernetics; Kes, who can get you out of many a tight spot, and the three for one deal that is Beverly and Will (one female Doctor, one bearded Diplomat, and a Tricorder).

(Protip: Play Saldin for free on your turn and then toss I'm a Doctor Not a Bartender at him during the opponent's turn, to subvert General Quarters, and get Orum right into play. Then play a Nanoprobe Resuscitation to bring Saldin back into play, to Orum. Rinse and repeat as needed.)

If you have yet to earn your Kazon Player achievement and have been considering giving this often neglected affiliation a try, then perhaps make use of the decklist below. It's a straight forward but strong solver and a good introduction to the boys in burnt sienna.

For experienced players, this is where the article ends, but for those who have never attempted to play Kazon before, the remaining half of the article will go into further detail on just how a Kazon solver deck can work.  

How to Play the Deck:

First thing to note is that the deck is essentially 60 cards, as four cards download out of it during the seed phase. These are: Home Away from Home (with the seeded Voyager), The Kazon Collective (with the Kazon Outpost), and the two mission specialists (Ayala and Angelo Tassoni). Usually, the order in which things are seeded doesn’t matter. But in this case, one should seed the Kazon Outpost at Ocampa first, with the Spacedoor on it, and then seed Caretaker’s Array followed by the Voyager. This allows the Voyager to seed docked at the outpost and makes it difficult for the opponent to eliminate it before you’ve had a turn. Assign Mission Specialists should be seeded last, since it downloads two personnel to a compatible outpost, you will want to have an outpost in play before seeding this. Whatever outpost the Voyager is docked at is where you will want to put your mission specialists. I said to seed the Kazon Outpost at Ocampa, and this is almost always true but if the spaceline happens to fall in such an order to allow the Nekrit Depot to seed at Ocampa, then that is perhaps an even better choice – primarily because the Kazon Outpost has many more options on where it can seed.

Missions:

The goal of the deck is to get 140 points from Planet and Space missions in the Delta Quadrant. That is, the deck is built assuming that the opponent will play You Are a Monument. This deck is particularly good at getting to 140 points with just three missions solved, as all but one can be solved for 40 or more points. Keep in mind, though, that In the Zone limits players to scoring 50 points in a single turn. So to get to 140 with just three missions, you will need to complete each mission on a different turn.

Kazon Conference is worth only 20 points, but scores an additional 5 points for each Maje involved in solving it. There are five Maje in the deck, so it is possible to solve the mission for 45 points. However as I mentioned before, Maje do not often play for free and it will therefore be a bit of a challenge to get five into play. For this reason, I consider this mission to be more of a back-up in case the others prove problematic.

Assist Cooperative and Combat Training are the best missions in the deck. Like Kazon Conference, both list a small point value but are actually worth considerably more when the right persons solve them – meaning that they are 40+ point missions which cannot be stolen in OTF. Assist Coop is quite easy, with Seven of Nine having all of the skills and those also occurring on many other personnel. To get the bonus points, you just need to have a Communication (blue) Borg icon. There are five such persons in the deck. Combat Training is worth 25 points plus another 5 for each Ogla involved in solving it. There are six different Ogla in the game, but only five different ones in the deck. So this can be worth as much as 50 points.

The two space missions, Collect Omicron Particles and Study Protonebula, are worth just 35 and 30 points respectively. But both have Astrophysics and Navigation as required skills. This means that the two mission specialists can help solve these for 45 and 40 points respectively. Study Protonebula has a bonus of allowing a once per game download of One, which is why it is seen used in so many DQ decks.

Liberation is the mission worth the fewest points at just 30. It is in the deck due to its being a requirement for using Caretaker’s Array. But it also makes a good, safe place to put Ancestral Vision, since it won’t often be attempted. What’s more, it can always be attempted if the opponent is running point loss dilemmas and you find yourself short 30 or so points. While the deck can get a three mission win, it’s more reasonable to plan for a four mission win. This isn’t nearly as hard as it sounds when you are playing DQ. It also probably looks rather fragile, since certain people need to be kept alive in order to solve each mission under the ideal circumstances, but that also is not as much of an issue as it would seem thanks to Nanoprobe Resuscitation. Let ‘em die, they can always be revived before the end of the episode.

Draw Engines:

The draw engines for this deck could not be more straight forward. There is Handshake, usually used for the third function, to toss three less useful cards in order to draw seven. This costs the card play and isn’t always the best option for a DQ deck. I have made great use of Handshake function two when playing Kazon as it allows me to search the top five cards of the deck to find the card that is needed on the next turn and set it in the top two for the end of turn draws. Function one is always a great choice, if you can get it to work, as it does not take a card play and nets three cards drawn. But it is very dependent on how attached to their cards the opponent is.

The second draw engine is Ancestral Vision. There are actually a few ways to set this up in the deck. Firstly, any universal Kazon with Honor can potentially have high enough Integrity if Lower Decks is in play. But that does require drawing into just the right cards. For this deck, the only Kazon personnel who can pull it off is Narret. There is only one of him in the deck, so drawing him early will be unlikely. Then you would need to also draw a copy of Ready Room Door to fetch the Lower Decks, all of which will take a few turns to pull off.

Another option is One. He has an inherent Integrity of 8 but no Honor. Fortunately, his special ability allows him to gain the skills of any Borg at the same location and that means that you just need to get him and P’Chan into play. One can be downloaded using the text of Study Protonebula, while P’Chan can be drawn into or downloaded by drawing and playing Marika or Lansor. This means there is 3X the likelihood of getting a P’Chan as compared to Narret. But this option for setting up Ancestral Vision will still more than likely require two turns to set up, thanks to General Quarters, even if you are lucky enough to draw the right card.

Since those options are both non-assured, I have put a third and much better option in the deck – one that is quite common for decks running Ancestral Vision. Assign Support Personnel is seeded and can be used to download Dr. Nydom from the Q’s Tent to the Nekrit Supply Depot. Note that it is important for this download that the personnel and destination have matching affiliations, in this case both are Non-aligned. This is the main reason that the Nekrit Depot is in the deck and also why it is important to seed that facility as close to Ocampa as possible.

At this point, I’d like to point out the importance of choosing the right order in which to download personnel. This is because of the restrictions on downloading imposed by General Quarters , and I should point out that this deck is exactly why that referee card exists. Without the limit, it can download an impressive number of personnel in a single turn. So, make sure to thank the next opponent you encounter who didn’t stock it. In most games, you will be limited to one personnel downloaded into play each turn, and for that reason you must plan well. Dr. Nydom is important to get one of your main draw engines going while both Minnis and Razik to set up the play engines. Nydom is probably the most important and should be fetched first if you have the first turn. Then Minnis can be fetched during the opponent’s first turn and Razik during your second turn. If the opponent goes first, then you can get Minnis during their turn and Dr. Nydom during yours and then try to get Razik too, just in case you can. Because General Quarters is a Referee Icon with a Hidden Agenda it steps back the events to before you activated your download and prevents that. As such, you do not lose the downloads just for trying to use them.

Play Engines:

I mentioned previously Home Away from Home, which is downloaded into play during the seed phase by the seeded Voyager. This is likely the free play engine which will get the most use in any game. It allows any Kazon personnel with a staff star to report for free (once each turn) to the Voyager. Nine of the personnel in the deck may play for free here.

Second is The Kazon Collective, which allows Ogla Kazon to report for free if Razik or Jabin is in play, Nistrim personnel to report for free if Culluh is in play, and Pommar personnel to play for free if Minnis is in play. I consider Minnis to be the top priority among these for two reasons: first he has the most personnel in the deck which can play for free to him (at seven) and second he can only be fetched using Leader of the Sect. If you happen to be lucky enough to draw him, then both Culluh and Haron are good options for the Leader of the Sect download. Razik is second must important, with five other Ogla personnel in the deck. But he is easily fetched for free with Defend Homeworld. Culluh is a pretty great personnel and also has five personnel in the deck who can report for free if he is in play, but Seska is the only Nistrim who cannot also be played for free with HAFH.

The third free play engine, in addition to the skill density on DQ personnel, is what makes this deck good enough to not need a fourth or fifth free play engine. It is all the Interrupts in the deck. Going to the Top will get you Culluh for free when it is drawn and I’m a Doctor Not a Bricklayer can net any one geologist. Even better than these, Nanoprobe Resuscitation can allow any personnel to play for free, once you have a Navigation (blue) Borg drone in play. The trick is to get that personnel to be the top card in the discard pile, and this is where Spacedoor is useful. That card allows a player to get a universal ship (any ship in the deck) for the cost of a card play and then allows the player to discard a card (always a non-free play personnel) to flip it back over. The Kazon Raider is the best option for the first ship to fetch, as once it is in play any drawn Kazon Fighters can play for free.

As I mentioned before, I’m a Doctor Not a Bartender is one of the key cards of this deck. It has four solid choices for the downloaded personnel. Kes is absolutely necessary for attempting space missions, if you haven’t drawn into her, as her special download of The Gift can end a mission attempt and get your ship and crew out of there before anything really bad happens. It can also get you out of a battle situation. Orum is usually the first I go for, if I haven’t already drawn into a blue Borg, but he is also absolutely necessary against any Borg opponent as Cybernetics is needed to get by Borg Servo without adverse effect. Haron is one of the best personnel in the deck, but can’t normally play for free. Luckily, he does have the skill of MEDICAL. Finally, Beverly and Will are just amazing as they have so many skills (and a tricorder!) to bust dilemmas.

Given that you are playing Kazon: all guns can play for free or be downloaded, all the ships can play for free or be downloaded, and the range is all but unlimited too - such are the benefits of joining a gang. Not only do the Kazon Fighters play for free if a Raider is already in play, but they can be downloaded with Hidden Fighter. Then Hidden Fighter can fetch Establish Landing Protocols while the Fighter itself nets Blue Alert. Together, these cards allow a player to get around without transporters by allowing ships to land (with one of these key cards) and take off (with the other) in the same turn. This does use a bit of range, however the fighters can be carried by the Raider or Voyager (when Blue Alert is in play) and those ships can be carried by the Kazon Warship. This means that the added range of a fighter, a mid-sized ship, and the mothership can move you all the way down the spaceline in one turn.

Protip #2: If you suspect that the opponent is playing a battle deck, use Spacedoor to get a Kazon Fighter on turn one in order to get Blue Alert and land the Voyager. This is key as it will protect the Voyager from being blown up, as Home Away from Home makes the Voyager an important free play engine for the deck. If you happen to draw a Ready Room Door, it’s possible to just skip the middle man and grab the Blue Alert (a Captain’s Order card) directly.

Other Important Notes:

The Medical PADD in the Q's Tent may very well be the most improtant card in the deck. Every deck needs a way to get past Executive Authorization, but the Kazon have no inherent ability to do that. For them, the solution to this popular dilemma is Halek's special download, which will net you one Medical PADD. This download can also be absolutely clutch if the opponent is playing a MEDICAL drain dilemma combo, as you can instantly go from none to a ton of MEDICAL in the mission attempt. 

If you are lucky enough to draw into a Razik early in the game, then the next best option for the Defend Homeworld download is Penk. He's nothing special on his own, but what Penk brings to the team is his special download of any Pendari card, which for this deck is the Pendari Champion. The Champ can bring high strength, Leadership, and Security into a mission attempt and bust a good number of popular dilemma combos. Just remember what skills he has so that you can dial him up when you need him.

Discuss this article in this thread.

Decklist

Print Decklist • Copy Deck

This deck is legal in the following Card Pools:

• Complete

This deck is legal in the following Rules Sets:

• Open
• Revised
• Warp Speed

This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:

• Kazon Player
• Three Stops Me
• Good Casting: Combs (Penk)
• Good Casting: Armstrong (Lansor)

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