Terok Nor Week: Top 5 Cards

by James "RedDwarf" Hoskin, Staff Writer

15th July 2008

Stat Alert! According to the tournament statistics, at the time of writing, only 16 people have played Terok Nor decks in tournaments. That is only 1.8% of all decks recorded in the database. This works out to be nearly half as many as the next lowest used headquarters – Athos IV (Maquis Base) with 3.3% – and over eight times less than the most popular headquarters – Earth (Cradle of the Federation) with 15.1%. Why the lack of love? It looks like Terok Nor week has come just in time to encourage players to give them a go in the forthcoming championship events. For my part, I hope this article sparks a deck idea or two, and as a result, more people give Terok Nor decks a chance. Here, in no particular order, are my Terok Nor top five cards:

Jake Sisko (Reporter Behind the Lines)
Aside from a deck using Jem'Hadar to complete easy Alpha Quadrant Strength missions, and the occasional Android deck, every other Terok Nor deck I have ever seen has been based around this card. When I think of Terok Nor, I think of Jake Sisko. It's that simple. In the last few years, discard decks have gone from strength to strength. Typically, they would require a large draw deck, but they don't even need that any more thanks to Aid Legendary Civilization. You can mill cards from the top of your opponent's deck with Jake. Then you can complete the mission and put up to twelve counters' worth of your personnel back under your deck, before playing them again to mill even more cards from your opponent's deck. This strategy can decimate a small speed deck, so it gets the thumbs up from me. The final "coup de grâce" to mention is that Jake does not need to be present when you play the Dissident personnel. This opens up the relatively small pool of Terok Nor personnel to the numerous Romulan and/or Cardassian Dissident selection. That's a whole lot of discarding!

Kir'Shara
This card is a vital cog in the Terok Nor discard strategy. Before its release in What You Leave Behind, forcing your opponent to discard cards was primarily achieved through Jake Sisko. The problem was that once Dissident personnel had been played, they had served their purpose. With this card, however, they remain useful while attempting missions as well. That's Borg-like efficiency. It is worth noting that this equipment has the Artifact keyword, so you must complete a mission requiring Acquisition, Anthropology or Archaeology before you can play it, but that is not an issue. Quark (Resistance Informant) has two of the three skills required by everybody's favorite go-to mission for Artifacts: Investigate Alien Probe. Finally, I'd like to mention Mavek (Science Officer) because he can download an equipment when you play him. You shouldn't have an issue drawing Kir'Shara when you need it, but it is always useful to have a back-up in your deck.

Reclaim Terok Nor
While researching this article, I looked through all the relevant cards to make sure that I hadn't missed anything obvious. With only three ships and 22 personnel having the Terok Nor icon, this week was my quickest recap ever. Fortunately, if you decide to build a deck based around Mouth of the Wormhole (Terok Nor) you are not limited to that small pool of personnel. Reclaim Terok Nor gives the Terok Nor icon to each personnel you own (including those in your draw deck), expanding your options by around 100 personnel. You can even stop this card from ever decaying with Optimism. Just before you end your turn, you can place each card in your hand back under your draw deck. That way, at the start of your next turn, you can't place a card from hand on the event.

The New Resistance
This card is one of those that I initially overlooked. It didn't come to my attention until I faced a deck that used it to play multiple Dissident personnel for free in the same turn. While it does rely on the top card of your deck being a Dissident to continue the chain, there is one easy way to fix that: Jake Sisko (Reporter Behind the Lines). As both cards trigger off the same action (playing a Dissident personnel) you can decide the order they resolve. After you play a Dissident, you check the top card of your deck with The New Resistance. If it is a Dissident personnel, then you can play him or her for cost-3 and repeat the process. If the top card is not a Dissident personnel, you can discard it with Jake Sisko and then check the next card of your deck for a Dissident. You can even go further to fix the top cards of your deck, if you're playing with the Romulan trio of Data (From the City of Rateg), Jean-Luc Picard (Bearer of Ill Tidings) and Spock (Celebrated Ambassador). You just need to use One Man Can Summon the Future to examine and reorder the top five cards of your deck when you play a personnel who has a cost of 4 or more. Just think about how many personnel you could play in one turn...

Kira Nerys (Iliana Ghemor)
While this version of Kira does not have a Terok Nor icon, she makes this list because she works very well with any deck using Dissident personnel. At a cost of five points, you can download up to three Dissident personnel and then place them on a headquarters mission where they could be played. This may not seem like such a good deal when you think about zero and one-cost Dissidents, but what about the Romulan trio mentioned above? That's 13 counters' worth of personnel you can download into play, for only five points. I happen to know of a player that used this exact combination to great effect in local tournaments last year. He went on to choke at the major tournaments, but that's a different story... isn't it Will?

With such a small pool of cards to choose from, there are only two honorable mentions this week. The New Occupation is a great card that can help you past any attribute-based dilemma. It can be helpful when you need to increase your total Integrity for Investigate Alien Probe, and it also gives you the opportunity to play duplicates of Dissident personnel once it has decayed. This week's second mention goes to Damar (Useful Adjutant), because I spent many-a-game with him and Vic Fontaine (Vegas Crooner) denying my opponent dilemmas. Happy days.

Which cards would you pick in your Terok Nor top five? Let us know on the message boards here.