Cripple Engines / Disable Shields / Target the Main Generator
Over the years, many cycles have been added to Second Edition. A cycle is a series of cards based around a specific theme. The Second Edition Premiere set had a cycle focused on draw engines. Days of Atonement, for example, lets you discard one card to draw two. This group of cards was added to other affiliations as they appeared in the game. As expansions were released, further cycles were added. There were also the 'stones' from Peak Performance which were a series of interrupts for each affiliation that had a general use and a more specific order.

When it comes to Sacrifice of Angels, there is an opportunity for a cycle. This cycle wasn't affiliation-based, as previous cycles have been. Rather, it is attribute-based. Each of these cards works with a specific ship attribute. Battle decks will see many improvements from this set, but this group of cards allows you to draw from an attribute of your choice. It provides an interesting choice for a cycle.

Defend It and Hope / Stunning Reversal
A set dedicated solely to battle would not have a broad appeal. Fans of solvers wouldn't find much interest in battle. Deep Space Nine had had a speed deck based around different affiliations and isn't hurting for battle prowess. The good news is that this set isn't entirely focused on battle, though it was designed with cards meant to be enticing to players who aren't a fan of battle.

These two cards are designed to provide assistance if a player gets caught in a battle. Sometimes it's hard to justify including protection cards in a deck, just on the off chance that it will be useful. If the opponent doesn't battle, the cards would simply waste valuable space in a player's deck. However, these cards were designed with another use as well, which can fit into almost any deck.

Geordi La Forge
Another Matching Commander of the Enterprise-D? This probably seems an unlikely Matching Commander; one playtester completely forgot this moment of The Arsenal of Freedom. La Forge is typically more of an engineer, but this card goes in a different direction, showing his bridge officer experience. How many Matching Commanders are left among the main characters?

Gowron / Letant
Cards often go through many iterations before you see them. Most of those iterations are spent fine-tuning the cards based on feedback from playtesters. These two cards had the Deep Space Nine icon for a time. Feedback from playtesters indicated that while there were some interesting interactions with the Under Siege Team from Allegiance. That team depended on your opponent having an Assault or Maneuver in their core in order to achieve their true effectiveness. Other than that, these two cards didn't add a lot to that faction and the skills didn't help much either. In the end, the Deep Space Nine icon was left off these cards.

Kraxon
This card started as something very different. It began as an Interrupt based on Cardassians winning a battle, causing discards. In and of itself, it was pretty good. But playtesters found they were reliably able to get twenty (or more!) cards discarded per battle! Cardassians are supposed to be good at discarding, but potentially discarding half of a deck was overboard.

The obvious solution was to dial back its power. Then it wouldn't be all that great in itself and a player couldn't rely on having the other cards in hand for the combo. In the end, it was decided that it was better to have the ability on a ship that can fly around the galaxy.

Rascals
The text of this card should look familiar. One of the last sets that Decipher printed had a dilemma called The Dal'Rok. It required the player to have personnel with a high total cost, otherwise they suffered the consequences. Rascals is the flip side of that. In fact, during playtesting this card was called "Anti Dal'Rok".

Regency 1
One of the most frequent questions stemming from the addition of the Mirror keyword in Shattered Mirror was "When will it be used?" That set added a Headquarters that teased the keyword but didn't do anything with it. Both Starfleet and The Original Series have entire factions dedicated to that universe, but weren't used. The keyword opened design space for future development in the same way that Commodities were filled out after the Tullaberry Team came out. Unity introduced this group of Dominion aligned merchants who worked with a new keyword called Commodity. It didn't take long for the Ferengi to play in this space as well. With Regency 1, not only is there a ship that takes advantage of the Mirror keyword, there's an existing mission that's made even more useful.

Repurposed E.M.H.
Infinite Diversityintroduced a big expansion of the usefulness ofHolograms to the game. For example, personnel got bonuses when with appropriate affiliations: Garren gained a skill plus got an attribute boost and became Romulan when with Romulans. It was a fun cycle.

There have been other Holograms since then for other affiliations, and also a faction of their own. But the Repurposed E.M.H. doesn't get better with affiliations. Instead, he gets better with other Holograms. He gets an attribute bonus and additional skills when used with other Holograms.

Royale Casino: Craps
During most of this set's development, this card was called "Casino Royale: Craps". A proofreader not only pointed out the error, but also that "Casino Royale" sounded more like a Bond movie than a Star Trek card.

Sacrifice of Angels would not have been possible without the efforts of the Playtesting, Programming, Art, Proofreading, Rules and Creative teams. There are so many people who contributed to making this exciting new set, and all of them should be proud of the work they did. We all hope you have fun with these new cards in your decks!

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