Dilemma Pile: Making It Work With Your Deck

by Lucas Thompson, Ambassador

21st February 2020

Dilemmas That Synergize With Your Deck

The Cardassian deck uses Cardassian Processing, which explicitly requires Cardassia Prime, but some dilemmas aren't as obvious as that. For example, the Dominion deck uses Know Thy Enemy because they've got so many high strength Jem'hadar and can be pretty sure of having more strength in hand.

Here are some other examples of dilemmas that improve based on your deck choices:

• A Taste of Armageddon, Divide and Conquer, Qualification, Simulated Prey (Interrupts) - These dilemmas encourage you to stock and use plenty of Interrupts.

• Brave Words (High Mission Span) - This dilemma tends to show up in Voyager decks that are built around Alsuran Sector, since they have a lot of space missions, which have higher than average spans. The value of being able to stop a personnel of your choice is very high.

• Formal Hearing, Sylvia, Tsiolkovsky Infection, Whisper in the Dark - These dilemmas encourage you to use a lot of events, particularly ones that play to your core.

• Interstellar Exigence (Multiple Headquarters) - If you've got more than one HQ, use this dilemma. 2-3 stops for 2 cost is a steal.

• Hazardous Materials (Delphic Starfleet) - This dilemma is the reason why Elemental Instability exists. Trellium-D is worth playing on its own (often as fodder for Grav-Plating Trap), so having more upside is even better.

• Peremptory Plea, Space Seed (Khan) - If you're playing a Khan deck, you'll want to use these cards. Peremptory Plea can really increase the effectiveness of higher cost dilemmas like Where No One Has Gone Before.

• Slightly Overbooked, Spatial Interphase, Unfair Terms (40-Point Missions) - If In Development is rough on low cost personnel, these dilemmas are brutal.

• Well-Prepared Defenses (High Point Missions) - This dilemma shows up frequently in no-HQ decks (Voyager, Relativity, Khan), because all of their missions have point values.

Build-Around-Me Dilemmas

Some dilemmas might inspire you to build up the pile from scratch. If you're feeling feisty, you may choose to build a pile from the ground-up around one or more of these dilemmas:

• All-Consuming Evil - Often dilemmas with the consume keyword already kill personnel, so ACE can really cement a killing dilemma pile strategy. Key dilemmas to include with it are The Clown: Guillotine, Tragic Turn, Entangled, and Bold Plan. These dilemmas would feel particularly at home in the Borg deck, or if you customized the Cardassian deck to focus more on capture.

• Chula: The Game - There are three main strategies surrounding this dilemma. Either (a) include every Chula dilemma and go to town (more fun than competitive), or (b) only include the best Chula dilemmas with it (typically the top two are The Chandra and Pick One to Save Two). If you go the "b" route, I usually either see the pile run small to increase the odds of drawing your chulas together, or big and just have a smaller Chula side-strategy.

• Overwhelmed - This dilemma shines when combined with the event synergy dilemmas listed in the previous section. If you run enough events to get Whisper in the Dark to cost nothing, then Overwhelmed becomes very powerful. Temptation is another key card in an Overwhelmed pile, because it becomes a 3-cost 3-stop in combination with it.

• Pattern Loss - This dilemma obviously encourages you to use space and dual dilemmas that require Transporters, though it helps to use ones that are good on their own. Bread and Circuses (which also benefits from Underlying Influence), Pest Control, One Step Ahead, and Vanishing Act are the most popular dilemmas to combine with Pattern Loss.

• Terrasphere 8 - This mission (as well as Northwest Passage) enables an entire dilemma-based alternate win condition. Many of the 8472 dilemmas require the user to track the opponent's skills very carefully, so I'd usually discourage new players from attempting this type of pile until you're comfortable with that amount of skill tracking.

• Underlying Influence - This dilemma obviously encourages you to use planet and dual dilemmas that require Archaeology, though it helps to use ones that are good on their own. Bread and Circuses (which also benefits from Pattern Loss), Captain's Holiday, and Surface Defense are the most popular dilemmas to combine with Underlying Influence.

• Unfair Comparison - This dilemma, like Overwhelmed, also works well with the event synergy dilemmas - some Unfair Comparison piles also use Overwhelmed. Additionally, the 40-point mission synergy dilemmas also work well with Unfair Comparison. Other popular dilemmas include Distress Call and In Development.

Conclusion

Note that none of these lists are exhaustive; there are many, many dilemmas in this game, and many different ways to use them. This article is meant as a starting point for customizing your dilemma pile, not an end point. Go out there, play some games, encounter some dilemmas. If you see a dilemma you like in someone else's pile, try it out for yourself. Experimentation is fun.

Discuss this article in this thread.