Into the Final Frontier

by Darren Lacoste, Editor in Chief

15th February 2009

In 2006, the Star Trek writing team, in association with Decipher staff, produced a series of articles designed to introduce new players to the Star Trek Customizable Card Game. Today, we've updated this series to introduce it to today's Trek fans. We hope you enjoy this piece of history, either with reminiscence, or for the first time.

This series has nine parts, detailed below:

Part 1 - Deciding to Leave Spacedock

There are a lot of games to play in this vast universe of ours. Why should you play the Star Trek Customizable Card Game? Read this article to find out.

Part 2 - Getting Oriented in the Galaxy

Want to learn how to play the Star Trek Customizable Card Game without having to read a rulebook? Read this article to "look over the shoulders" of two players as they learn the basics using the Next Generation and Borg starter decks.

Part 3 - Expanding Your Power in the Universe

So, you have a starter deck or two, and you're looking to add additional cards to your collection. Where do you start? Read this article to hear our suggestions.

Part 4 - Customizing Your Starter Decks

Now that you've acquired more cards to use with your starter decks, which ones should you play with? Which cards from the starter decks should you remove? Read this article to begin making your decks your own.

Part 5 - Choosing a Headquarters

Eventually, you're going to want to design your own deck completely from scratch. Where will you begin? This article, as well as the three that follow it, will guide you through the design process. Since a headquarters is one of the most important deck design elements, it makes for a great place to start.

Part 6 - Choosing Missions and Personnel

Continuing the deck design theme of Part 5, this article explores the missions of the Star Trek Customizable Card Game universe, and the personnel who'll be attempting to complete those missions.

Part 7 - Provisioning Your Draw Deck

Missions cannot be completed with personnel alone. At a minimum, you'll need a starship to get your personnel to those missions. But you'll also want other cards like interrupts, events, and pieces of equipment to help get the job done. Read this article to find out more.

Part 8 - Dealing With Dilemmas

The previous three articles dealt with the "offense" part of your deck design: personnel, ships, missions, equipment, events, and interrupts. This installment shows the importance of your "defense" against the opponent on your right... using dilemmas.

Part 9 - Joining the Interstellar Community

You've learned how to design your own decks. Now you just need opponents to whoop-up on. This article talks about that, and so much more, including this site's message boards, chat room, card lists, tournament listings, online deck-builder, ...