Excelsior Cadets v2 [Excelsior 1.1]

by Justin Eaton

Welcome to Excelsior Season 1, Act 2! This deck puts you in command of the cadets of Nova (Star Trek: The Next Generation) and Red Squadrons (Deep Space Nine) as well as some supporting stars from those two shows.

Cadets are young starfleet officers in training. This is demonstrated in the game by their low cost and lack of skills. They do gain skills while facing dilemmas (suprising resourcefulness of youth!).

So while they may not be the skills you need when solving missions (hold that thought), they're well worth the price for the rest of the attempt. Even without skills, they're still good for providing the attributes you need when solving.

Also important to note: if you're solving your mission Practice Orbital Maneuvers, the cadets get to use their "dilemma skills" for the whole mission attempt, so they essentially become normal personnel.

If you're interested in seeing the cadets in action, you should check out the TNG episode "The First Duty", and DS9's "Valiant".

Tournament Record:

• Excelsior - Regional (2018-07-01): 5th place

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

• Next Generation Player
• Unbroken I

Decklist

Draw Deck Strategy

Most of your personnel are cheap. Play lots of personnel and attempt missions fast :).

In every game you'll want to solve Practice Orbital Maneuvers, your cadet mission where your unskilled cadets come into their own. Watch out for the requirement of 3 cadets, your opponent will try and target the cadets if they realise you only have a small number at the mission.

If you're not solving POM, Obtain Vaccine should be your next priority. This has a low 30 cunning attribute total so it is easy to solve with a small number of personnel. Note that if you're low on Diplomacy personnel, the Universal Translator equipment gives Diplomacy to all of your Officer personnel.

Cards to watch out for:

Cadets - Dorian Collins, Jean Hejar, Karen Farris, Nicholas Locarno, Nog, Seth Matthews, Sito Jaxa, Tim Watters, Wesley Crusher

Boothby makes your cadets better while facing dilemmas.

Sneaky good cards: Kamala, The Perfect Mate; William T. Riker, First Officer; Universal Translator; New Life; Escape

Dilemma Pile Strategy

There's no major theme to the dilemma pile, this is just about stopping as many people as possible with as few dilemmas as possible. Try and keep track of whether your opponent is playing cheap personnel ... some of your dilemmas are better against low cost personnel e.g. Pitching In, Miner Revolt, Inquest.

Dilemma Deck Total Dilemmas 24 Space 7 (29%) Cost 2 1 Cost 3 6 Planet 6 (25%) Cost 2 3 Cost 3 3 Dual 11 (46%) Cost 2 2 Cost 3 2 Cost 4 5 Cost 5 2 Total Dilemma Deck cost 75

Draw Deck Total Draw Deck 35 Equipment 2 (6%) Cost 1 2 Event 2 (6%) Cost 1 1 Cost 2 1 Interrupt 2 (6%) Personnel 25 (71%) Cost 0 1 Cost 1 6 Cost 2 10 Cost 3 5 Cost 4 3 Ship 4 (11%) Cost 5 3 Cost 7 1 Total Draw Deck cost 80

Skills Count Skill # Missions # Personnel 1x 2x 3x Total Acquisition 0 1 1 Anthropology 0 5 1 6 Archaeology 0 4 4 Astrometrics 1 3 3 Biology 0 2 2 Diplomacy 2 4 4 Engineer 1 4 4 Exobiology 0 2 2 Geology 0 1 1 Honor 2 9 9 Intelligence 0 1 1 Law 0 3 3 Leadership 3 7 1 8 Medical 0 2 2 Navigation 2 8 8 Officer 1 7 7 Physics 0 3 3 Programming 0 3 3 Science 0 0 Security 2 5 5 Telepathy 0 2 2 Transporters 0 1 1 2 Treachery 0 0 Icons Count Icon # Personnel % Personnel Staffing Icons Command Star 10 40.00 % Staff Star 11 44.00 % Faction Icons Earth 12 48.00 % Next Generation 9 36.00 % Temporal Icons Past 1 4.00 % Keyword Count Keyword # Cards Admiral 2 Cadet 9 Commander: U.S.S. Enterprise-E 2 Commander: U.S.S. Valiant 1 Dissident 1 Genetically Enhanced 1 Hand Weapon 1 Region: Briar Patch 1 Region: Sector 001 2