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Strategy Articles
New Deep Space 9 Virtual Starter
by Torbjörn Lindquist, Ambassador
10th April 2015
With the release of Strange Bedfellows comes a new virtual starter. My initial thought when looking through the card list was to make a Dominion starter with the new Dominion HQ. But I then realized that the new headquarters is not at all starter friendly, so I with Deep Space 9 instead, since they got so many new personnel. Deep Space 9 was one of the first four headquarters I made a virtual starter for in 2009, and after many iterations I have now made a new one for the new expansion.
One of the main goals of the virtual starters is to get new players to be able to try out most of the game mechanics in the game such as combat (Bajoran starter from Extreme Measures), engagements (Klingon starter from Extreme Measures and Dominion starter from Extreme Measures), capturing (Cardassian starter from Tacking into the Wind), saving people from getting killed by dilemmas (most starters) et cetera. It should also provide some star power like the TNG starter from Tapestry which includes most of the bridge crew.The decks should still be easy to play and don't require the player to get much of an explanation to the deck itself before playing it, just a brief explanation of the basic rules of the game.
Another goal I try to accomplish when making a new starter is to base it around cards in the new expansion. This time the expansion lend itself very well to this goal. I have used two missions, four dilemmas and thirteen different cards in the draw deck from Strange Bedfellows. It uses for example the equipment Hyperspanner which gives your Engineers Anthropology and Geology on planet missions in the Gamma Quadrant. That means Boq'ta and Jake Sisko each have all skills needed for the new mission Stakoron II, Mine Miszinite. In the same way it uses Coil Spanner to give Astrometrics and Navigation for Stakoron Strait, Patrol Shipping Lane to your officer personnel.
While the deck is built to not require the Equipment to solve the missions, they do help. Not only with the missions themselves but also with dilemmas like We'll Never Know. The deck uses personnel from several affiliations so Common Purpose and Common Cause should also help speed up this deck. If you want to customize the deck I would suggest testing with a few extra of those cards. Common Enemy is another card on the same theme.
If you want even more different affiliations in the deck, you can get Cardassian in by using Elim Garak. There are quite a few more Ferengi personnel that can be played at Deep Space 9. Since the deck has quite a few affiliations, and one of them is Federation, the deck includes quite a few species. A card that works well because of this is Promenade School if you need some bonus points. Lastly, if many people are playing nasty interrupts in your area, or there are particular personnel you have trouble handling, Holding Cell is the card for you.
If you are a new player, and like the DS9 TV series, this should be a good entry point to try the game. I will print this deck and sleeve atop some physical cards that could be usable to customize the deck and give it away to a new player in my next tournament.
Discuss this article in this thread.
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
- Deep Space Nine Player
- The Bare Minimum
- Common Problems
- I Printed My Whole Deck!
- Overused Problems I
- Unbroken I
- How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
- Overused Problems II
- No Crutches II
- Strange Bedfellows Release
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