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Strategy Articles
Christine Chapel and the Legendary Planet
by Daniel Matteson, Director of Communications
13th February 2019
I know it's almost Valentine's Day, and our latest Second Edition expansion, Qpid, is themed on love in Star Trek, but if you'll indulge me for a few paragraphs, I'd like to talk today about my love affair with Second Edition.
My first couple years playing Second Edition, back in 2013-14, were quite rocky. I had never played 2E during the Decipher era, and even after joining the TrekCC community, played exclusively First Edition for almost a full year.
Fortunately, I practiced a lot and had a lot of help from the online community in learning to play better, and even had deck ideas and strategies recommended to me before I set off to various local, online, or higher-level events.
One of my favorite decks in my first couple years with the TOS Aid Legendary Civilization deck. This deck used the Original Series Federation personnel and their theme of cheap personnel (with an optional additional cost). Specifically, this deck swapped out the classic TOS crew for their "experienced" counterparts from The Motion Picture, as these personnel had a high 4 cost but could be played more cheaply by ignoring their abilities. The idea was to get a crew out quickly and solve Aid Legendary Civilization (now titled Aldea) first. After solving this mission, you can put up to 12 cost of your personnel at the bottom of your deck, and then your opponent has to match that number with his or her own personnel. After solving this, you can put under three of your experienced personnel to make the 12 cost, while your opponent likely has to bury more than three personnel, giving you a big advantage as you race to your next missions.
I played this deck many times over a two year period, with varying degrees of success, even modifying it for other formats like Academy and Virtual. The mission itself, Aldea, has received errata since then, but is still quite good and sees plenty of play to this day.
Today's Qpid preview card makes me want to bring this deck out of mothballs and try it again for the first time in five years.
Let's look at the newest incarnation of Christine Chapel. She's one counter cheaper than the original version, and retains her 6/5/4 stats as well as her 2 Biology and Medical, great skills for Aldea. She does lose Anthropology (which hurts a little) and Honor (not so much), as well as her special skill of being able to return a personnel from the discard pile to hand (making the deck a bit more vulnerable to kill piles).
However, the new Chapel's special skill is certainly intriguing. For an extra two counters, she can gain all the skills on another present TOS personnel until end of turn. With the right personnel in play, she can charge into a mission attempt as a skill powerhouse. If she copies a Spock or an Uhura, she'll have a total of seven skills; if it's Willard Decker, she goes to nine!
I've made a few tweaks to one of my old Aldea decklists to update for new personnel, and added the new Chapel in to try it out. Check out the deck below. I didn't alter the dilemma pile at all - use whatever you feel is appropriate. You may try to use Kodos the Executioner for a Conscience of the King-inspired pile. Many players preferred kill piles with this deck, taking care of whatever scraps of your opponent's team are left after you bury them on a legendary planet.
Discuss this article in this thread.
This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:
- Original Series Player
- Unbroken I
- How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
- Crew Quarters: Original Series
- Good Casting: Warner (St. John Talbot)
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