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The 24 (or so) People You'll Meet in the Nekrit Expanse

by Charlie Plaine, Has Seen Things, Has Done Things

30th November 2017

Karyn Berlin

I talked yesterday about wanting to make sure that the Warp Pack: Holiday 2017 offerings had some tools for [DQ] decks. Well, aside from a Vidiian/Federation and a Hirogen personnel, there's one more: Karyn Berlin. She isn't much to look at, really: a [Univ] [NA] support personnel, with a [DQ] icon, SECURITY-classification, Law, Diplomacy, and average attributes. So why did she claim a slot in this 9-card boutique product?

Well... I only partially remember. We were testing another expansion - it might have been The Terran Empire, but it also might not have come out yet, and there was some concerned tester feedback that a few of the recent dilemmas were really hard to pass for [DQ] decks. Specifically, they were in need of Law and, in particular, more females. So really, the most important word I used to describe this new card was the first one: "She."

So, since there isn't really much specifically to talk about with this card. But she did get me thinking about skills and dilemmas for the Delta Quadrant. It's only a matter of time until we make a bunch more [DQ] cards, so I thought it would be an interesting experiment to see how well a Delta deck would do against some of the more popular dilemmas in the game. I started out by listing out all of the dilemmas used in the Top 4 decks of the 2017 World Championships.

Unsurprisingly, Quantum Incursions is at the top of the list with five (5) copies. If you take the dilemma as a whole, it has some daunting requirements: 2 [AU] icons, Empathy x2, Navigation x2, Physics x2, SCIENCE x2, and SECURITY x2. So I started thinking about the smallest team I could get out that would pass all of those requirements. I would be building a [DQ] [NA] deck, since I wanted to run Karyn Berlin so I focused on just [NA] engines. I figured a Home Away from Home on a U.S.S. Equinox plus a War Council on a Nekrit Supply Depot would give me two, solid free reporting engines. From there, I decided to see what I could do and how quickly I could do it.

I started with two mission specialists, Angelo Tassoni and Kathleen Tonell. Angelo brought Navigation and Security, and while Kathleen didn't bring any of QI's skills, she did have a precious [AU] icon. So before the game even started, I had two personnel out with 25% of what I needed. On turn one, I thought of using Gem, bringing the 2nd [AU] icon and Empathy x2. Now I'm at 50% of what I need; I can use a seeded Quark's Isolinear Rods to get Seven of Nine into my during turn 1. Playing her for free on turn 2 gives me a Physics and my second Navigation, giving me two-thirds of QI's requirements. I haven't downloaded anything yet on turn 2, so I use a Defend Homeworld to get Penk, who brings the 2nd SECURITY into play. I've got 9 of 12 requirements, and I just need a Physics, a SCIENE, and a Navigation to finish up my crew. I did some searching and I found exactly one [NA] personnel with those three skills: Mona Luvsitt. I added in Holoprogram: Dr. Noah's Retreat and boom - a six person crew that can pass QI on turn 3.

But that got me wondering about all the other dilemmas in the top 4 decks, so I started digging deeper. If you limit yourself to the free reports in the deck, how much coverage can you get? I ran out of time before I could really finish everything, but this quick start deck gets you most of the way to covering all the skills required by the dilemmas used by the best players in the world in 2017. If you'd like to see the spreadsheet I used to figure out my skill coverage, as well as the list of dilemmas I worked from, I've shared it as a Google Sheet. You can make a copy to your own Google Drive and manipulate it, or simply leave comments on mine.

And that's it! Tomorrow you'll see the last two cards in Warp Pack: Holiday 2017 (the last one if you follow us on Facebook). I hope you have enjoyed reading these odd little articles and jump start decks over the past week. This was a lot of work, but I wanted to try this experiment to see if it was something there is a demand for in the community. So please, let me know! Let me know what you think of the skeleton and the ideas here. If you use this as an inspiration for your own deck, please post it! Enjoy the finished product tomorrow, and thank you for reading!


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Decklist

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This deck is legal in the following Card Pools:

This deck is legal in the following Rules Sets:

Mission (6)
Mission
82 U1x Assist Cooperative
83 C4x ❖ Catalog Phenomena
92 U1x Liberation
Seed Deck (12)
Doorway
1 V1x Q's Tent
10 V1x Temporal Micro-Wormhole
Event
46 R1x Ancestral Vision
Facility
Non-Aligned
56 S1x ❖ Nekrit Supply Depot
Incident
59 R1x Caretaker's Array
28 C1x Holoprogram: Noah's Mountain Retreat
63 C1x Home Away From Home
61 VP1x Quark's Isolinear Rods
67 R1x War Council
Objective
18 V1x Assign Mission Specialists
26 V1x Assign Support Personnel
Ship
Non-Aligned/Federation
156 VP1x U.S.S. Equinox
Draw Deck (20)
Doorway
34 VP1x Space-Time Portal
Equipment
34 S1x Engineering Kit
38 S1x Medical Kit
42 S1x Starfleet Type II Phaser
Personnel
Non-Aligned
84 R1x Buster Kincaid
87 U1x Gem
96 P1x ❖ Karyn Berlin
27 V1x Kathleen Tonell
106 U1x Lansor
166 S1x Magistrate Drang
105 R1x Mona Luvsitt
168 S1x Nimira
112 U1x P'Chan
170 R1x Penk
Non-Aligned/Federation
68 C1x ❖ Angelo Tassoni
104 R+1x Icheb
123 R1x Lon Suder
124 C1x ❖ Mariah Henley
108 R+1x Marika
Non-Aligned/Hirogen
80 R+1x Hajur
Q-Tent Side Deck (1)
Personnel
Romulan
77 VP1x Dr. Telek R'Mor



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