Instigate Dissension

by Kevin Jaeger, Staff Writer

3rd April 2008

Teamwork. Without teamwork, failure is a likely result. Without teamwork, the triangle defense collapses and the striker breaks through for an easy goal. Without teamwork, the other team steals the ball and takes it back for an easy lay up. Without teamwork, a blitzing linebacker breaks through for a punishing sack. You get the idea. “But why am I getting a lecture on teamwork? Trek is a game played by individuals.” Well, imaginary voice in my head, Trek does involve teamwork because teamwork sometimes puts on a mustache and goes to the local fight club meeting under the alias of – synergy.

When you build a deck, for it to be successful, the cards in it need to work well together. If the cards in your deck don’t mesh well, or they fail to cover a weakness, the deck loses. In competition, the need to defend against an aggressive opponent is key to making it through a multi-round tournament. Experience has shown me that aggressiveness in the game of Trek takes many forms including battle, dilemma manipulation and - most importantly for the purposes of this discussion – splashing a second or third affiliation for a limited purpose.

A few years back, Strange New Worlds was released and with it came a new strategy spearheaded by members of the Minnesota players group – using Ferenginar just to use Brunt (FCA Liquidator) to nullify events. This strategy has continued to find success on the World Championship level, finding its way into the 2007 Day 3 decks of several Minnesota players including yours truly. It’s a nasty, efficient strategy that finds great synergy with just about any speed solver. The teamwork Brunt has with everyone (except Borg) is easy to incorporate. Well, The Undiscovered Country is about to put a monkey wrench in that kind of teamwork.

Instigate Dissension, for a cost of four, will stop two personnel ("guaranteed") at any mission. That’s enough for Instigate Dissension to find its way into some dilemma piles. The reason I think it's going to find its way into nearly every dilemma pile is the additional text. If the opponent is running with the “Minnesota Tech” or some other variation, that player will get two stops, a means of slowing or shutting down the second Headquarters, and as a bonus – no overcome dilemma!

I must say, I find myself in a love/hate relationship already. The “Minnesota Tech” has been a great way to counter an opponent's Machinations, battle strategy, skill cheating or assimilation...but then again, I really, really like battling, assimilating and dilemma pile manipulating. I guess I’m just going to have to use Instigate Dissension and use Ohhhh! Nothing Happened!, Gem, or Krim (Thoughtful Tactician) to get rid of my opponent's copy.