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Strategy Articles
Challenge Deck: Dominion War Earth
by Lucas Thompson, Designer
23rd April 2021
"Welcome to paradise, Captain." Earth, and the Federation at large, wasn't quite the paradise that it was during the Next Generation years. Paranoia ruled, and Federation officers found themselves in the trenches of a terrifying war. In the first six episodes of season six, the Dominion even took Deep Space Nine from the Federation, leaving our heroes to pilot Salvaged Attack Ships.
Draw Deck Strategy
This deck has three main attribute boosts: the aforementioned Attack Ship, the paranoia event Hollow Hospitality, and Sisko's dad, Joseph Sisko. Between those cards and an additional boost from Elim Garak, you can pump your attributes to very high levels. You'll need that advantage, because this deck is one of the slower pre-constructed decks. Having high attributes helps solve missions faster, but you'll need something more than that to win.
Dilemma Pile Strategy
This dilemma pile, which utilizes Underlying Influence and Pattern Loss, is one whose effectiveness will scale greatly with your ability to track the skills on your opponent's personnel. You can start by just trying to keep count of the number of Archaeology and Transporters personnel that they've played, but the sooner you can count other important skills (like Exobiology and Treachery), the better your results will be. A dedicated skill-tracking player can buy this draw deck a lot of time to work its magic.
Now, tracking your opponent's cards isn't for everyone, but there are some Second Edition players for whom it is the best part of the game. That said, this deck has a few other tricks up its sleeve. Generally, my recommendation is to go to a space mission first, since there are some dilemmas (like Neural Parasites in the TNG deck) that get nastier if you go to a planet mission first. However, in most match-ups, this deck will want to Cardassia Prime first - getting three dilemmas under that mission is a priority, as it will prevent the opponent from using interrupts to cheat past your skill-requiring dilemmas.
That said, this deck does contain an interrupt itself, and Cardassia Prime will block your interrupts too. The reason for Dear Friends' presence in your deck is that it is very important to attempt two space missions first against the Dominion War Cardassia deck. As you won't be heading to Cardassia right away in that match-up, you'll likely be happy to have an interrupt that can prevent some of the killing that deck's dilemma pile can dish out.
Customization Tips
- The event, Strategic Tug-of-War, is a great way to build on the advantage that Vargas can give you from starting a battle with Nadia Larkin at a Dominion-icon mission. Stack a few Tugs of War on one of your missions, strand an opponent's personnel at that mission with a few copies ofHippocratic Oath, and start pinging away!
- If you're already adding some more battle in the deck, consider using those Vargas points to go for a two-mission-win, and face fewer dilemmas! The missions are harder though: look for The Siege of AR-558 and Bajoran Sector, which will only require one Vargas victory to reach 100 points.
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