Taking Care of Delta Klingons: A Decklist

by Benjamin Rostoker, Caretaker Set Designer

8th October 2021

"I'd like to know what you're doing in the Delta Quadrant." In the episode “Prophesy” the Klingon pilgrims are deep inside the Delta Quadrant on a quest to find a promised land far from home. In the game, the Delta Klingons likewise tend to largely remain deep in the Delta Quadrant making ample use of their ability to play directly to their ship - often with a discount. One of the goals of Caretaker was to create additional gameplay incentives to get players to see and play Delta Klingons as a viable deck type with unique, useful tricks, as opposed to a gimmick build with relatively little that competes with a simple Klingon Strength Speed Solver. To do this, we took steps to fill in skill gaps so as to enable Delta Klingons to natively do their own theme missions without needing TNG/TOS Klingons to do all the heavy lifting. And where possible, we filled in some long standing fluff/persona gaps (like Tom Paris) to do so. Hopefully this deck inspires you to see for yourself if we've been successful in this endeavour.

The Draw Deck and Caretaker

The strategy for this deck is to either begin with Seek Savior (hopefully naming something you know is a staple card for their HQ for the extra 10 points) and then stop off at Kelsid II for the discount, or, if you are willing to risk a Necessary Execution, attempt them in the opposite order to get the most out of the discounts. After that, if the point gain from Distant Exploration hasn't eked out a two mission win for you, you can either do Battle Reconnaissance or Hunt Alien for the last set of points. While seeking out the Kuvah'magh, M'tokra is a powerhouse carrying most of the skills needed, along with higher than average Integrity to get you past the mission's rather onerous attribute requirement. Tom Paris and Neelix (who can be picked up with a Tak Tak Negotiation, if need be) can also help in a crunch by tanking lucky random stops or preventing a cheap mass stop altogether. When it comes time for Kelsid II, Tom Paris may lose some of his pluckiness, but he does offer another native source of Geology to help you scout out the right planet to settle down on in concert with his pilgrim friends.

Of course, this is just how I built this deck. You've got plenty of options if you want to adapt this deck to better suit your playstyle and taste. You could add in additional ships to help ferry your personnel around if you don't want to risk dropping people off at the nearest planet while attempting a late space mission or throw in Tosk to guarantee that your opponent will command the named personnel for Seek Savior (though it's worth keeping in mind you'd also be giving them someone with a bunch of useful skills for free). You could even add in some cheese via Apprehended to enable A Day Long Remembered and additional cards that require Assaults and Maneuvers, or whatever else fits your fancy.

The Dilemma Pile Strategy and Caretaker

For this deck I went with what I like to call an 'All-Consuming Clown' pile. It's a standard All-Consuming Evil pile integrated with a sizable Clown component to help move it along. Getting off a The Clown: Fear Incarnate + The Clown: Bitter Medicine + The Clown: Guillotine + All-Consuming Evil is going to result in a whole lot of bodies hitting the floor. The way it works is that Fear Incarnate gets you a free stop when Bitter Medicine appears which can then lower stats across the board if you target their most common skill to make it more likely that Guillotine can hit and get its two kills. Alternatively, you could name a mission critical skill or a skill found only on their VIPs for Bitter Medicine so that you all but ensure Guillotine hits them where it hurts with surgical precision. Either way, hopefully Guillotine consumes an All-Consuming Evil for even more free kills. Finally, after their away team is (hopefully) whittled down to the point where they can't possibly solve, Fear Incarnate transforms its earlier stop into one final kill for the potential destaff. In the long term, if you manage to place one on every mission they attempt, you'll get kills and chaos even after your All-Consuming Evils are all used up. Just keep in mind that only one personnel per attempt gets stopped/killed by Fear Incarnate, even if you throw in a bunch of The Clown dilemmas into the same stack!

Discuss this article in this thread.

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

• Klingon Player
• Unbroken I
• No Crutches I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• No Crutches II
• Pilgrims of Prophecy
• Caretaker Release
• Good Casting: Warner (Gorkon)
• Bitter Medicine

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 29 Space 2 (7%) Cost 2 2 Planet 5 (17%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 3 Cost 3 1 Dual 22 (76%) Cost 0 2 Cost 1 5 Cost 2 6 Cost 3 2 Cost 4 6 Cost 5 1 Total Dilemma Deck cost 66

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 39 Event 6 (15%) Cost 0 1 Cost 2 3 Cost 4 2 Personnel 30 (77%) Cost 1 2 Cost 2 10 Cost 3 12 Cost 4 6 Ship 3 (8%) Cost 5 3 Total Draw Deck cost 111

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 1 1 Anthropology 1 10 10 Archaeology 0 4 4 Astrometrics 0 7 7 Biology 1 7 7 Diplomacy 0 10 1 11 Engineer 0 4 1 5 Exobiology 2 9 9 Geology 1 5 5 Honor 1 15 1 16 Intelligence 0 2 2 Law 1 7 7 Leadership 1 3 2 5 Medical 0 2 2 Navigation 1 6 2 8 Officer 0 6 6 Physics 0 6 6 Programming 1 5 5 Science 1 5 5 Security 2 8 8 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 2 7 7 Treachery 0 0 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 17 56.67 % Staff Star 11 36.67 % Temporal Icons Past 2 6.67 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Chancellor 2 Cloaking Device 3 Commander: I.K.S. Voq'leng 2 Commander: Kronos One 1 Consume: 1 2 Consume: 2 2 Consume: 3 3 Region: Qo'noS System 1 Ritual 1