Excelsior Act 2 Preconstructed Decks

by Fritz Meissner, Ambassador

21st June 2018

Excelsior's Act 2 card pool is close on unrecognisable from the first act. Klingons are gone, two new affiliations (Cardassian and Dominion) are in, and even the Feds have a new "earthy" look. With Continentals Excelsior side events just around the corner, you'll be needing to bring something new. Here's a deck per affiliation that you can either print as-is, or use as inspiration.

If you're in the mood to try building your own decks, have a look at the other deck idea I list for each affiliation. To help you in building your own decks, the TrekCC deckbuilder has an Excelsior filter, and here's a PDF of every card in the pool. 

Federation: Cadets

https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=38844

This is one of the simpler decks in the list. You have cheap personnel, use them to overwhelm your opponent's dilemmas. Your sheer numbers should be really good against Chula dilemmas, which are definitely the easiest dilemma pile to assemble in Excelsior, and likely to be the most popular in Excelsior 1.1.

Alternative Deck Idea

If you'd rather experiment with something else, have a look at Common Cause and Common Purpose with the non-Federation personnel that can report to Earth, and archeology commanders you can report with Loren III.

Cardassian: Tain speed

https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index.php?deckID=38847&mode=viewdeck

27 cheap personnel play really quickly, and then Enabran Tain refills your hand. Your simple draw deck strategy is paired with a more complex capture pile. The dilemmas are mostly about capturing, or filtering the skills out that the capture dilemmas require.

Alternative Deck Idea

If this isn't your thing, check out The Die is Cast and the Gamma Quadrant missions that are available to you. It'll be slower to start, but really strong against all the attrition dilemmas in the format.

Dominion: Jem'Hadar Strength solver

https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=38624

The Jem'Hadar natural strength of 8 combined with a suite of really good strength missions makes them the team to beat in this format. Some of your missions can be solved with only 4 personnel!

The deck is paired with a Chula Pile and Uninvited. Chula: The Game is really strong in this format, and really easy to assemble and play. Watch out for opponents who might start to tech against it due to its popularity!

Alternative Deck Idea

Dominion commodity decks also benefit from great attribute boosts, the cheapest non-unique ship in the format, and dilemma busting abilities on Hanok and Inglatu.

Romulans: Assassins make your dilemmas better

https://www.trekcc.org/decklists/index.php?mode=viewdeck&deckID=38843

This is definitely the most complicated deck on the list. Get Assassins and Shinzon on a ship with Escaping Detection (but be careful which quadrant your ship is in when you're playing against Dominion). Your opponent will have a tough time passing your dilemmas and her missions. There are various skill locks possible here; if you take out all Diplomacy and Leadership, they can't pass your walls; but consider other options too, like de-staffing.

While you're slowing them down, the rest of your personnel play for really cheap, and you have a few good stop prevention tricks up your sleeve as well.

Alternative Deck Idea

Romulans also benefit from The Die is Cast. It's a tough ask to slow down a Romulan player who has so many different options for stop prevention.

Go Win Your Games

I hope you like these decks, and that you're inspired to try building a few of your own. There's a lot to explore in this format, good luck and have fun!

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