Gimme More Dumb

by Ross Fertel, Smart Writer

3rd November 2015

Dumb Waiter. Heehee.

Seriously folks, there's a lot going on with this card. The cost of five is pretty high; you won't be able to play much else that turn and that's presuming that you can even play it in the first place. Not only that, but you need to park a personnel at the mission, meaning that not only do you have to practically announce a bit of your strategy, but at least one personnel can't be involved in a mission attempt where they can help solve a mission, score points, and win.

But the reward is great: you can stop three personnel. That's usually enough to stop the mission attempt, and since they are your choice, you can ensure it. Add in the fact that it's a dual dilemma, you can get a lot of mileage out of the Dumb Waiter.

Of course, it's all for naught if you can't pick a skill that your opponent lacks and yours have in abundance. So yeah, Officer is probably not going to cut it, but the… unconventional skills are a better way to go. Let's face it, some of those skills are pretty rare. The Borg in particular are all but cut off from them, and several other affiliations are hard pressed to find Telepathy. Acquisition is pretty well found in the Ferengi affiliation and maybe the Dominion.

Hrmm, Acquisition. That reminds me of a Commodity deck I played some years ago. Every personnel had Acquisition and of course, at least one opponent was entirely stopped with nothing more than Unwanted Guests on three consecutive mission attempts. Come to think of it, Pawn Against Pawn works in a similar vein. In-Fighting was there to help winnow down the numbers along with Joint Operation Drills. The more recent Put to the Screws can help as well. Boy, there are sure a lot of dilemmas that let your surgically target a specific skill.

Listed below is the Dominion/Ferengi Commodity Deck. They are fun to play, but be careful because, although there are six ships in the deck, you might find yourself affiliation-screwed, to borrow a term from Magic. Your non-aligned personnel can help you staff the ships and get going.

Credit for the deck goes to Nathan Miracle, though I've done enough tinkering that any mistakes are fully attributable to me.

Feel free to try it out, and thanks for reading about a dumb card.

Discuss this article in this thread.

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

• Double Down
• Uncommon Quality
• Overused Problems I
• Unbroken I
• No Crutches I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• Overused Problems II
• No Crutches II
• War is Good For Business

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 28 Space 3 (11%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 2 Planet 1 (4%) Cost 1 1 Dual 24 (86%) Cost 0 3 Cost 2 8 Cost 3 3 Cost 4 5 Cost 5 5 Total Dilemma Deck cost 76

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 35 Event 9 (26%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 8 Personnel 20 (57%) Cost 1 3 Cost 2 8 Cost 3 5 Cost 4 4 Ship 6 (17%) Cost 4 3 Cost 5 3 Total Draw Deck cost 94

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 3 19 1 20 Anthropology 0 3 3 Archaeology 0 0 Astrometrics 1 4 4 Biology 0 1 1 Diplomacy 1 8 1 9 Engineer 0 3 3 Exobiology 1 5 5 Geology 1 5 5 Honor 1 2 2 Intelligence 0 0 Law 0 5 5 Leadership 0 4 1 5 Medical 0 1 1 Navigation 0 3 3 Officer 0 0 Physics 0 2 2 Programming 1 7 7 Science 0 7 7 Security 0 1 1 Telepathy 1 0 Transporters 0 0 Treachery 2 7 7 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 7 35.00 % Staff Star 7 35.00 % Temporal Icons Past 1 5.00 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Artifact 1 Commander: Aurulent 1 Commodity 6 Consume: 1 2 Nebula 1 Persistent 2 Region: Ligos System 1 Region: Omarion Nebula 1 Rule 1 Smuggler 1