Beginner Deck: Ferengi

by Lucas Thompson

22nd July 2022

"Only fools pay retail." Playing a Ferengi deck is a very different Second Edition experience. Some affiliations have really good attributes, others have a high skill density; some affiliations draw cards very quickly but generate waste, others retrieve cards from their discard pile efficiently; but playing a Ferengi deck is like playing competitive accounting. They're not for everyone, but I've found that players who like playing Ferengi decks get a lot of enjoyment out of doing so.

This deck will speak to any player who likes to set up a powerful combination of cards. The key pieces here are Par Lenor, Lascivious Emissary, Rule of Acquisition #141, the cards that put specific cards under Ferenginar (Quark, True Ferengi, Quark's Advice, and Obol), and the zero-cost Rules (Rule of Acquisition #6 and Rule of Acquisition #76). Here's how it works:

1. Get Par Lenor and a zero-cost Rule event in play.
2. Use Quark and/or his Advice to put Rule of Acquisition #141 underneath your Ferenginar.
3. At the start of your turn, use the text on Rule of Acquisition #141 to swap it with your zero-cost Rule event in play.
4. Also at the start of your turn, use Par Lenor to blow up Rule of Acquisition #141, giving yourself 9 extra counters that turn.
5. PROFIT

Admittedly, that's a lot of combo pieces and a lot of steps. The good news is that the combo doesn't need to go off particularly early for it to have a big impact. You may get a slow start, but suddenly having access to a lot of resources can lead to a lot of sudden mission completions. I've played a lot of test games with this deck (it's very fun to play!), and I've only had one game where the combo never went off. Even that game wasn't entirely lopsided - there are a bunch of other fun tricks in the deck that you can discover.

Once you're comfortable with this deck, you might want to personalize it. It is based on a submission by forum user abargar7510, which in turn was based on successful decks like John Corbett's 2018 World Championships winning deck. You may take inspiration from that deck list, or consider these cards:

Make the Combo More Reliable
- Trek is the odd CCG where you can actually make your combo deck more reliable by adding more cards. You could start by adding more Par Lenors, zero-cost Rules, Quarks, and Obols. Call of the Nagus is another card that can help you get the pieces you need - just download three copies of Par Lenor with it, and one of them has to go to hand.

Cook the Books
- Ferenginar isn't just useful as a place to store Rule #141; it can also act as an extension of your hand, or as a place to hold additional resources to spend on cards like Reyga, Young Scientist or Falsify Distress Signal. Doing some battle using Rule of Acquisition #45 or Rule of Acquisition #62 (and losing) can stack a whole ream of cards under there, which can then be retrieved with cards like Nava.

Don't Let Family Get In the Way of Business
- Rule of Acquisition #6 isn't just good as swap fodder, it can also be a potent resource generator on its own. You can either use it opportunistically for a few bonus counters per turn, or intentionally reduce the average cost of your deck to maximize the value you get from it. I really enjoyed attempting with gargantuan crews with this Ferengi chump deck.

Unwanted Guests
- Ferengi personnel have lots of the Acquisition skill which generally isn't that great. Because it's a very rare skill for other affiliations, it just doesn't show up that much on dilemmas... unless you force it to. This deck runs a copy of Unwanted Guests, which you can fairly easily manipulate to require Acquisition of your opponent's personnel. Once you're used to using it, try adding some more copies of it and possibly some copies of Pawn Against Pawn too (until your opponents start adding random Acquisition personnel to their decks).

General Use Cards
- Some cards can just go in any deck - and often do because they're so useful. An extra counter per turn from Surprise Party wouldn't go amiss. And once you've played a few games, you'll see how the reboot from Unexpected Difficulties can be game-changing. Alvera Tree Ritual is subtler - you basically play it for free, and not only does it protect you from any dilemma pile manipulation, but it can also be used offensively. If you keep track of which dilemmas you don't use, you can proactively use the Ritual to shuffle your dilemma pile at opportune times.

Discuss this article in this thread.

This deck is currently eligible for the following family or families of achievements:

• Ferengi Player
• No Crutches I
• How About a New Mission, Admiral? I
• No Crutches II
• Good Casting: Spiner (Lore)

Decklist

Hide Deck Stats

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 30 Space 5 (17%) Cost 1 1 Cost 3 4 Planet 5 (17%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 1 Cost 3 3 Dual 20 (67%) Cost 0 2 Cost 2 7 Cost 3 3 Cost 4 6 Cost 6 2 Total Dilemma Deck cost 84

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 35 Event 6 (17%) Cost 0 2 Cost 2 2 Cost 9 2 Interrupt 1 (3%) Personnel 23 (66%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 9 Cost 3 9 Cost 4 3 Cost 6 1 Ship 5 (14%) Cost 4 1 Cost 5 3 Cost 6 1 Total Draw Deck cost 111

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 3 10 2 12 Anthropology 0 4 4 Archaeology 0 1 1 Astrometrics 2 6 1 7 Biology 0 1 1 Diplomacy 0 7 7 Engineer 2 7 1 8 Exobiology 0 3 3 Geology 2 6 1 7 Honor 0 0 Intelligence 0 0 Law 1 3 3 Leadership 0 4 2 6 Medical 0 1 1 Navigation 0 6 6 Officer 0 4 4 Physics 1 8 8 Programming 1 7 7 Science 0 5 1 6 Security 0 2 2 Telepathy 0 0 Transporters 0 3 3 Treachery 3 9 1 10 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 12 52.17 % Staff Star 6 26.09 % Faction Icons Deep Space Nine 1 4.35 % Temporal Icons Alternate Universe 2 8.70 % Past 2 8.70 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Commander: Audit's Spoils 1 Commander: Aurulent 1 Commander: Kumari 1 Commander: U.S.S. Defiant 1 Consume: 3 1 Host 2 Persistent 1 Region: Bajor System 1 Region: Ligos System 1 Rule 5