The Road to Worlds: First Edition Winning Deck Analysis, Week 12

by Lucas Thompson, Ambassador

17th June 2014

The 6/5/14 1E Vandros IV Regional in Bremen, Germany was won by Stefan. He used a Kazon deck titled "People of Culluh".

Deck Stats:
Play Engines: The Kazon Collective (21% of the deck), New Arrivals (19%), Going to the Top
Draw Engines: New Arrivals, 34th Rule of Acquisition
Percentage of deck that plays for free (or is downloaded reliably): 72%
Bonus Point Mechanics: Assign Mission Specialists
Unique Dilemmas (to be updated as the season progresses): Quantum Fissure (1)
Non-Dilemma Seed Cards: 17

Stefan's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
I was somewhat bored by playing straight up speed solvers the last couple of tournaments and also I saw that many of the other decks were just solvers as well. Therefore I wanted to mix it up a bit and send my Kazon Armada hunting. The second choice would have been to just replay my Hirogen deck from the other Regionals.

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
I hoped to face straight solvers with at most one HQ that aren't able to fight back against weapon 36 at the outpost on turn 2/3. Borg are a good matchup as well, I wasn't too keen to see other battle decks but knew I could stand my ground against them as well.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
Haven't played straight battle in a while apart from NA in block. I was surprised how well the Kazon can solve missions after battle or even while maintaining a good spaceline presence with their Armada.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
I once more included Computer Crash to nullify the popular suspend play downloads of equipments or personnel. Some Disruptor Overloads were added to cope with the one or two Ablative Armors which in some decks are the main resource against battle.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
Kazon Warship together with The Kazon Collective. It's the flying outpost where everything can report and be transported. Together with Voyager's and the Raider's ability to also hold ships aboard it is very easy to control the whole space line and bring an Armada to almost anywhere as soon as the opponent decides to get away from his hiding place.

Do you have anything else you'd like to say about your deck?
I am surprised how well Kazons did in solving and moving around. With Warship / Voyager / various landing possibilities you don't even miss the transporters on the other Kazon Ships.

My Commentary:
Now, you might think that seeing only 13 dilemmas appear under your missions would be a good thing. Solving them will be easier, right? Well, yes, but dedicating 17 seed slots to non-dilemmas usually means that you're facing some sort of interactive deck, and those missions are about to get a lot harder.

Spacedoor and Call for Reinforcements mean that Stefan's got two different ways to get ships out early (in addition to the seeded Voyager). And with four What Does God Need With a Starships, those ships are going to keep coming. Even if you choose to let the interrupts stall you instead, the Disruptor Overloads mean that you're going to need to build defenses without counting on Ablative Armor to protect you.

Usually, the Kazon are a battle threat within their own quadrant, but don't pose much of a threat elsewhere. However, Stefan's using two of the Wormhole Mission IIs, meaning that he can show up and destroy you (or block your mission using Quantum Fissure) in both the Delta and Alpha quadrants with relative ease. Since the Kazon Warships can pack the other Kazon ships aboard with ease, he can move a whole armada across quadrants quickly.

His AQ personnel report freely to the Ferengi Trading Post with New Arrivals, and the Kazon can report to the early Warships using the second The Kazon Collective (downloaded with the Outpost), so the need to hop back to the DQ for reinforcements in negligible. The FTP also provides a site to play Gint (downloaded to hand with the 1st Rule), who in turn gets the 34th Rule, a powerful draw engine. Thanks again to Quantum Fissure, he may even tempt you into giving him draws on your turn so that you can at least attempt your missions - assuming you're even able to damage his massive ships. Of course, with four Outgunneds, he may not even need to attack you at all.

While the Voyager/Seska/Make It So Culluh-retrieval technique appears in this deck, there's also a simpler way to get him (and others) too: Going to the Top. In its new form it can fetch Culluh early (there are six copies and a seeded Command personnel), and has the mid-game flexibility to grab some other useful personnel. Like its cousin the Holodeck Door, it is a play engine that uses downloading to get its targets into play, so it avoids discarding New Arrivals. Now yes, it is still a target for Containment Field shenanigans, but making your opponent burn a Q the Referee to fetch that card means that you could potentially avoid being hit by something stronger like In the Zone or You Are a Monument.

 

The 6/15/14 1E Deep Space Station K-7 Regional in St James, Australia was won by Robert Dawson. He used a DS9 deck titled "Laptop + iPad + Printer = Deck". 

Deck Stats:
Play Engines: Here By Invitation (46% of the deck), Chamber of Ministers (20%), We Need You Here
Draw Engines: New Frontiers, The Traveler: Transcendence, The Celestial Temple
Percentage of deck that plays for free (or is downloaded reliably): 80%
Bonus Point Mechanics: (none)
Unique Dilemmas (to be updated as the season progresses): DNA Clues (1)
Non-Dilemma Seed Cards: 11

Robert Dawson's Commentary:
Why did you choose the deck that you used? What other decks did you consider using?
I've been wanting to try a DS9 deck since cards started being spoiled for Emissary. The tournament scene here in Perth has been very quiet lately, so Regionals was my only chance.

What sorts of decks were you hoping to face while playing your deck? What decks did you hope not to face?
I was interested to see how my deck would face up against another deck using DS9. Matthyas was playing such a deck - having both of us using DS9 to play the majority of our personnel early in the game was fun. On Matthyas' second turn he played Ilon Tandro to capture my Odo, who I'd played on my first turn and left in the Security Office. On my next turn I Ops-downloaded my copy of Ilon Tandro to capture his Ilon Tandro and free Odo.

Prior to this tournament, did you have much experience playing this deck (or decks like it)? Did you learn anything new about it when you played it this time?
None whatsoever. First DS9 I'd ever played.

Did you use any situational cards (cards that you wouldn't expect to be useful in every game)? Are there any whose usefulness exceeded your expectations? Were there any that you wouldn't include if you played the deck again?
In my game against Matt, he attempted Mining Survey and cleared out all of the dilemmas, but was hit with Friendly Fire. I had a one-turn window to steal it from him before he completed it. I needed to commandeer his Nor and couldn't waste a turn docking my ship there. I took a chance and reported Luther Sloan to his Ops. I was lucky enough not to be hit with Intruder Alert, and scored a free mission.

What would you nominate as the MVP card from your deck?
Probably Luther Sloan - see above.

My Commentary:
My projected first turn: turn the card play into an Ops download of the U.S.S. Defiant (let's take the one from the Tent). That'll create a free-play location for the Here By Invitation personnel that don't match the initial six sites, in addition to netting a powerful ship. Next, we've got a seeded Defend Homeworld in addition to two seeded Q the Referees - to me, that says we're going to plan on using it to download someone on the first turn. My money's on Sisko, since he has the Orb icon needed to activate the Celestial Temple Draws. Planning a first-turn DH download reinforces my suspicion of a ship download with We Need You Here, since that way a General Quarters won't ruin your plans.

This deck has a decent number of Command personnel, but not enough to guarantee a second to play on turn one (thus staffing the Defiant), so I imagine that DS9 will be seeded at the mouth of the Bajoran Wormhole itself. That way the docked Defiant's weapons won't deactivate the Celestial draws, thanks to Trust the Prophets, and Sisko can hop right from Ops to the Temple. This set-up is convenient, but be careful, since it leaves DS9 vulnerable to attack.

However, those attacks won't be coming any time soon with an impressive eight copies Loss of Orbital Stability. With that kind of stalling power, Robert likely had plenty of time to build up the perfect crew and hop over to the Gamma Quadrant. Once there, the HBI free-plays (and Sloan) can continue to report aboard the Defiant, though any further Chamber reports and WNYH downloads will need to hitch a ride on one of the other ships in the deck.

I would recommend some caution though, when relying on LoOS for protection. Without Contain Boarding Parties or Sisko 197 Subroutine, an opponent that stocks Quark's Bar and some form of Quark has a quick way to get a Computer Skill personnel into Ops. Fortunately, this deck has Ilon Tandro, who makes a great Ops defender - I suspect Guest Quarters is a priority site download.

In reference to the deck title, I love that in this era of printability we're just a laptop and a printer away from being able to play. Maybe most of your cards are in storage, maybe you've had to sell some of them off, but that doesn't need to stop you from having a good time playing a game with some friends. Just make a decklist in the online deckbuilder, make the pdf, and start cutting some cards out. Have fun!

 

Thanks for reading! See you next week with the results from the three upcoming regionals, and hopefully from the Delphic Expanse regional from this past weekend.

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