The First Couple of Identity Crisis

by Jeremy Commandeur, First Edition Director

12th December 2008

This week's Identity Crisis cards are Rom and Leeta.  What makes them special in my mind is that I include Rom and Leeta in almost all of my Bajoran decks and almost every Ferengi deck I build.  Few dual-affiliation personnel have such strong utility for both of their affiliations.

I use Kira in Cardassian decks (her Honor is useful with For Cardassia!), but never in Federation or Bajoran decks.  I've only used Major Rakal outside of a Romulan deck once.   Data and Picard, Stolen Attack Ship, Nog and The Emissary have never made it into one of my Federation decks.  I've never used Seska in a Cardassian deck or Iden in a Bajoran deck.  Orum and Garren have never made the cut in one of my Romulan decks.

However, I have employed Leeta and Rom in every Ferengi deck I can think of, and 95% of my Bajoran decks.   What makes them so useful?

Rom has fantastic skills.  Two ENGINEER (enough to tow a Garbage Scow), Astrophysics (to pass Spatial Rift), Honor (for those angry "Spirits"), Navigation with Cunning of 9 (for Subspace Shock Wave) and Physics (for Quantum Fissure and Replicator Accident).  In space, Rom is a dilemma-busting machine.  Add some SCIENCE and he has all skills needed to solve Characterize Neutrino Emissions.  To top it all off, Rom plays for free at Quark's Bar.

Leeta is not nearly so impressive in the skills category.  Leadership is the only skill she possesses that is often useful.  She can't even help pass I Hate You because she has Youth in addition to Music.  Occasionally, being a CIVILIAN with Anthropology does come in handy for Primitive Culture.  What makes Leeta shine are the three things she does at Quark's Bar:

1. Plays for free.
2. Downloads Dabo.
3. Can play Dabo in Bajoran mode, thus protecting my Dabo team from attack via Strategema.

Dabo filters the discard pile and scores bonus points.  The bonus points are often critical to Ferengi decks and the discard filtering speeds up the cards that can be retrieved by conducting services in Bajoran decks.

GrendelX provided a full-blown decklist for his recent article, raising the bar for card extras.  Not to be outdone, I feel compelled to one-up GrendelX by providing a decklist in both text and visual HTML with images, along with strategy on how to use the deck.  ;-)

Personally, I would rank the Ferengi as one of the three weakest affiliations in the game.  They have lots of cool tricks and gimmicks, but when it comes to actually solving missions, their skills and attributes fall flat.  Building a winning Ferengi deck can be very challenging.

The following deck has the best win-loss record of any Ferengi deck I've ever built.  It works in both Standard and Open format.  Find the visual HTML version of the decklist here.

Ferengi Cargo Run

Missions:
Geological Survey
Salvage Borg Ship (ST2E-EN03103)
Kressari Rendezvous
Supervise Dilithium Mine (ST2E-EN01202)
Relocate Settlers
Study Plasma Storm
Empok Nor (Seeds during mission phase)

Doorways:
Temporal Micro-Wormhole
Bajoran Wormhole: Mirror Universe
Q's Tent
(1)Medical Tricorder
(2)Ferengi Disruptor
(3)Romulan Disruptor
(4)Gold-Pressed Latinum
(5)Establish Landing Protocols
(6)Bribery
(7)Dabo
(8)Shape-Shift Inhibitor
(9)The Big Picture
(10)Fair Play
(11)Temporal Vortex
(12)34th Rule Of Acquisition
(13)Scepter of the Grand Nagus

Facilities and other seeds:
Deep Space 9 (seeds during the dilemma phase)
2x Q The Referee
Nor
Ferengi Trading Post
1st Rule of Acquisition
D'Kora Transport

Sites:
3x Docking Ports
2x Cargo Bay
Quark's Bar

Draw Deck (46):
Altovar
Vekor
Gaila
Grand Nagus Gint
Kazago
Leck
Leeta
Letek
Maihar'du
Morn
Rom
Fontaine
Beverly and Will
Rudolph Ransom
Gegis
Hajur
Icheb
Riley Frazier
Yeggie
Gallatin
Colonel Kira
Uri'lash
Vash
Miss Sarda
Kasidy Yates
Seven of Nine

Gold-Pressed Latinum
Plasmadyne Relay
Ferengi PADD
Emergency Transport Unit (ST2E-EN04032)
Borg Nanoprobes

62nd Rule of Acquisition
Regenerate

Hidden Fighter
Distortion of Space/Time Continuum

Defend Homeworld

Quark's Treasure
Xepolite Freighter

2x Rule of Acquisition #33 (WYLB049)
2x Mutation
2x Brunt's Shuttle
2x Bajoran Wormhole

3x Nanoprobe Resuscitation
3x Space-Time Portal

This is a fairly complex deck and will take some practice to master.  The basic function of the deck is to use cargo runs to draw a bunch of cards and then use Brunt's Shuttle to report multiple crews.

The key to getting the deck to work is playing smart in the seed phase to set up easy cargo runs.  All of the missions have only one or two span.  The deck uses four facilities.  The facilities should be arranged so that the Nor and Deep Space Nine are several low span missions apart.  Deep Space Nine should be seeded at the Bajoran Wormhole (1 span) to maximize the cards drawn with a cargo run.  Keep in mind that the Mirror Bajoran Wormhole can be seeded in any phase, allowing the position of the Bajor Region (and thus Deep Space Nine) to be controlled.  Care must be taken because each of the facilities can only seed at two appropriate missions.  Because Empok Nor seeds during the mission phase, the deck requires the player to plan out where each of the facilities is going to seed as soon as the spaceline is completed.

One Docking Ports seeds on Empok Nor (just for reporting Brunt's Shuttle).  One Cargo Bay and one Docking Ports seed on the Nor.  Deep Space Nine gets Quark's Bar, a Docking Ports and a Cargo Bay.

The 1st Rule of Acquisition is in the deck to get Gint and a latinum.  It is best to report the latinum as part of the crew with the first Brunt's Shuttle drop.  The plan is to report Brunt's Shuttle with crew to the uncontrolled Empok Nor every turn, or every other turn until there are enough personnel out to attempt missions.

In addition to drawing cards with cargo runs, extra cards can be drawn for having Morn at Quark's Bar (Morn can be downloaded with the Cargo Bay), or with the 34th Rule of Acquisition (War is Good for Business).  Gint can download the 34th Rule and then attack the uncontrolled Empok Nor to draw two additional cards each turn. Gint is also a VIP, allowing his ship to dock at the Nor.

The deck has plenty of equipment to cargo run with.  A Gold-Pressed Latinum should be cashed in as soon as possible to download Plasmadyne Relay for extra Range. Kassidy Yates is there to help draw extra cards. The deck works fine without her; she is just an enhancement.

The average turn should go something like this:

1. Report Brunt's Shuttle to Empok Nor with about four folks aboard. Keep in mind that the "report with crew" action gets around quadrant restrictions, so playing Delta Quadrant personnel is no problem.
2. Complete a cargo run for at least two draws.
3. Attack the uncontrolled Empok Nor to draw two cards with War Is Good for Business.
4. Use Space-Time Portal to return Brunt's Shuttle to hand. Nanoprobe the Space-Time Portal back if it was the only one in play.

Missions were chosen for their span and for playing facilities. To solve the missions that don't have a Ferengi icon, Bribery or Kira (who should be reported via the Temporal Micro-Wormhole) can be used.  Kira is important to the deck; thus Emergency Transport Unit is in the deck to help keep her alive.

The plan would be to solve a 35 point planet followed by Kressari Rendezvous for another 35 points (with the hand weapons).  Dabo and the 62nd Rule of Acquisition are included to score extra points.   With a little luck, the deck may have to solve only two missions to win.

Back to Archive index