Taking Care of Equinox: A Decklist

by Benjamin Rostoker, Caretaker Set Designer

8th October 2021

"It's easy to cling to principles when you're standing on a vessel with its bulkheads intact, manned by a crew that's not starving." In the episode “Equinox”, a short-term planetary research vessel is thrown into the Delta Quadrant by the Caretaker's Array, wherein it suffers a series of horrible events that decimate its crew and strain their limited resources past the breaking point. In order to cope with this loss and get back home as soon as possible, the Equinox turns to capturing and killing Nucleogenic lifeforms as a source of fuel leading to an eventual face-off with the Voyager crew who take them to task for their crimes. In the game, the Equinox sub-affiliation lives aboard their mediocre ship and keeps trucking towards victory via the sacrifice of Nucleogenic cards.

One of the goals of Caretaker was to breathe a little more life into Equinox via Equinox-exclusive tools that offer them a little more flexibility and choice in deck construction - such as an additional Nucleogenic card with a useful ability and a personnel who can help them survive in a world where nearly every personnel they command will have Treachery. 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 use Plasma Storm Depths to fish out your lone ship in the event you don't draw it, either by discarding personnel you don't think you'll need right away or dumping a Nucleogenic interrupt or two to prepare for the requirements for Sidney Albert's ability. Of course, while actually completing this mission shouldn't be your main game plan, you can complete it fairly reliably (should you need to) at the considerable risk of not being able to play any personnel or equipment should you end up starting your turn there. Your actual mission plan is fairly flexible. You can do one of the space missions and both 40s; or you can do Null Space Catapult, Caretaker's Array, a 40, and then get your last points via Pemberton. Your road home is as flexible as your personnel's morals, so don't worry if too many nasty events or dilemmas end up on one of your missions and scare you off.

Caretaker gives Equinox a total of three new cards designed just for them to add to your draw deck. In addition to allowing you more flexibility with your missions, Pemberton's true talent is that he allows you to 'bank' your Nucleogenic cards, turning an interrupt in hand into its raw 5 points essence for use with other abilities. This is especially useful if you expect to run into decks or piles that run a lot of hand disruption (like The Clown: Ultimatum or Shankar) that might otherwise ruin your perfectly good contingency plans during a mission attempt. Sidney Albert, on the other hand, allows you to bluff and cheat your way past tough obstacles that would otherwise test your crew's questionable Integrity such as the infamous Gomtuu Shock Wave, provided he has been sufficiently jaded by several rounds of Nucleogenic harvesting. Lastly, in addition to being useful as another source of fuel, Triquadric Algorithoms has an effect that can be incredibly powerful in the right circumstances. Knowing the bottom card in a dilemma stack can tell you what an opponent is filtering for, which can allow you to make informed decisions when presented with options for who to stop, save, or swap. This can sometimes turn what would otherwise be a disastrous trap with low chances of survival into merely close calls.

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 back in some copies of Christening to augment or outright replace Plasma Storm Depths, or add in the Baxial or one of the Voyager shuttles to help ferry away teams and go for multiple attempts in space. You could even throw out Pressing On and all the planet missions altogether to go for the rarely sighted 4 Space Equinox. With all those new missions and the plethora of personnel options open to Equinox via Non-Aligned personnel, you have tons of options!

The Dilemma Pile Strategy and Caretaker

This dilemma pile is largely standard, though with all those events stacking up in your core, I've opted to include plenty of cheap(er) 8-cost dilemmas that pack a big punch, including the new The Killing Game. However, The Equinox crew does have one special trick for their piles, as they now have their very own 'HQ dilemma' in Equinox Conspiracy, which allows you to potentially snag two kills at the cost of an Nucleogenic card and some filtering. While playing it as Equinox potentially transforms it into a slightly cheaper and less reliable Simulated Prey, there's nothing stopping you from pairing the two if you can spare the counters and have the needed fuel ready to go…

Discuss this article in this thread.

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

• Voyager Player
• Unbroken I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• Caretaker Release
• Spend Money to Make Money
• Equinox Player

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 52 Space 15 (29%) Cost 3 3 Cost 4 5 Cost 6 2 Cost 8 5 Planet 15 (29%) Cost 1 1 Cost 3 4 Cost 4 2 Cost 6 2 Cost 8 6 Dual 22 (42%) Cost 0 1 Cost 2 7 Cost 3 4 Cost 4 7 Cost 5 1 Cost 6 1 Cost 7 1 Total Dilemma Deck cost 234

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 65 Event 14 (22%) Cost 0 5 Cost 1 4 Cost 2 2 Cost 3 1 Cost 4 2 Interrupt 12 (18%) Personnel 36 (55%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 9 Cost 3 23 Cost 5 1 Cost 6 2 Ship 3 (5%) Cost 4 3 Total Draw Deck cost 136

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 2 2 Anthropology 2 9 9 Archaeology 0 6 6 Astrometrics 2 10 10 Biology 2 12 12 Diplomacy 2 7 7 Engineer 1 9 1 10 Exobiology 2 8 2 10 Geology 0 6 6 Honor 0 0 Intelligence 0 1 1 Law 0 0 Leadership 1 8 8 Medical 0 7 7 Navigation 1 6 6 Officer 1 8 8 Physics 1 14 14 Programming 0 7 3 10 Science 2 11 11 Security 1 6 6 Telepathy 0 1 1 Transporters 0 7 7 Treachery 2 30 4 34 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 13 36.11 % Staff Star 20 55.56 % Faction Icons Voyager 31 86.11 % Temporal Icons Alternate Universe 1 2.78 % Future 2 5.56 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Assassin 1 Commander: Delta Flyer 1 Commander: Eleventh Gradient 1 Commander: U.S.S. Equinox 4 Decay: 2 1 Decay: 4 2 Decay: 5 2 Genetically Enhanced 2 Infiltrator 3 Nucleogenic 12 Persistent 1 Region: Badlands 1 Region: Nekrit Expanse 1 Ritual 1 Thief 2