"One day, when the big, bad, hungry wolf was looking for helpless kids wandering through his forest, he spied upon a small person wearing a bright red hood. Thinking it was his lucky day, he walked over, bid the little thing under the red hood a good morning, and went on to tell it that, unfortunately, it would not surive said morning, what with him being a big, bad, hungry wolf and all. But before the wolf had finished his often-used and well-rehearsed speech, he was stabbed in the gut by Little Red Riding Hood and left bleeding to death."
One of the goals of Matter of Time is to encourage playing with cards that have only seen little use - or no use at all. Among the unattractive binder fodder that has appeared in exactly zero (to quote our Chairman: "0") decks is the interrupt Cultist Attack. Released in the Call to Arms expansion from the early days of STCCG Second Edition, it suffers from having several downsides that have understandably disqualified it from making the cut.
To play, it requires a Treachery personnel. In such an Integrity-heavy affiliation, this can take some turns to set up. Also, the effect is entirely dependent on several factors outside of your control - it only hurts your opponent if they are playing interrupts, and only if they are planning on recycling those interrupts from the discard pile. Additionally, it affects you just the same, much like many of the flavoured cards. Thematically, Treachery Bajorans working against one of the main strategies of "good", Integrity-based Bajorans (playing into and from the discard pile for benefit) is fine, but the usability of this card was so limited that there was really no justification for stocking it.
Enter Kaas Dromand, (Litte Red Riding Hood) (Devoted Fanatic). His attributes are nothing to write home about, the six Strength is useful in a Bajoran Resistance deck, though. An unnamed character on the show, he appeared one day out at the Siskos' house, and without making a big deal out of it, he attacked Benjamin Sisko for the glory of the Pah-Wraiths. On the show, the Cultist Attack failed; the Captain survived. Main characters having the tendency not to die at the beginning of a new season, and all. In 2E, Kaas Dromand's chances of eliminating an imporant personnel are a lot better: calling out Cultist Attack by name, Kaas Dromand instantly boosts the Call to Arms common's stockability several notches by granting a free kill with every use of the card!
When you play Cultist Attack, you get to choose one of the guys who happen to be present with Kaas Dromand to be killed. Choice kills are huge in this game, and they are even better when they come at no extra cost - all you have to do is get Kaas Dromand present with your opponent's personnel (just fly him over after a failed mission attempt at a planet mission), and play the interrupt in your order phase. Needless to say, Kaas Dromand has the necessary Treachery to play Cultist Attack in the first place.
Oh, and while we're at it: since we are using our precious Range anyway to get to an opponent's mission, why not take Trazko (Hired Muscle)
and Neela (Misguided Activist) along? They will be happy to do their thing, too (ideally, before you play Cultist Attack, so that you can have a look at all the personnel present and see whether there are any good targets left for their assassination abilities). Ideally, you can combine the gametext of your three Assassins to deal enough damage to either leave your opponent's ship destaffed, or his crew short of mission skills.
Wait, hang on, did I just say three (Chairman voice: "3") Assassins? That is right, we are going to get us ready for some Assassin Team fun. Using Invocation of the Kosst-Amojan, we can get our evil trifecta out reliably enough to have them ready for an opponent's planet mission attempt. A choice kill and complete stop for one dilemma under is no bad deal, and it gives us a nice idea for a fun little Bajoran deck:
We are using the Bajoran Resistance crew as the backbone of our mission completing side, and sprinkle in the three assassins. Using Quite a Coincidence to get bonus points from all the assassinations we are planning to make (dilemmas like He Wasn't Nice or The Clown: Guillotine also help us out on this front) and the old one-two punch Just Like Old Times / Day Kannu (Field Colonel), a two-mission win is our goal here.
Bouncing Kurn (Bajoran Security Officer) back to hand after a successful combat provides additional synergy to our killing strategy. Souls of the Dead can be used to retrieve any of these pieces from your discard pile (it neatly bypasses the new retrieval-control Ritual Emanations).
For Neela, we have a solid skill spread on our own personnel to fuel her ability (Invocation fills double duty here, downloading a personnel we want, while at the same time grabbing Neela fodder), but Trazko might find himself without an eligible target. That is why we also have The Albino (Killer of Children) to look for alternative targets in Integrity-based decks, as well as Assassination Attempt and Occupational Hazards to exploit these skill holes.
If everything goes according to plan, we can use the killer dilemmas and assassinations to take out enough personnel so our opponent won't be able to get past wall dilemmas like Dignitaries and Witnesses or Telepathic Deception, or to lock him out of a mission entirely.
The following deck list is not refined and should only be seen as a starting point to experiment with the new card. As such, it probably will not win you the next Regional, but you might well end up taking an unprepared opponent by surprise.
Of course, there are many other fun things you can do with the Bajoran Assassin trifecta and its new/old tool, Cultist Attack. How about combining them with even more Assassins? Romulans with Tal'Aura and Sleeper Agent Geordi would be glad to lend a helping hand, and with Vakis you could report an entire / away team to an opponent's planet mission and surgically take out Diplomacy, Leadership, Honor, Treachery and other personnel as desired. Or how about splashing the Bajoran Assassins into a Cardassian deck that uses Ensnared? How many personnel of your choice can your opponent afford to have killed or captured? He had better stock some of the new non-aligned children of time personnel...As always, we are looking forward to hearing your ideas and reports on the message boards!
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements: