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Before I start, I'd like to disillusion any visions of grandeur. I don't consider myself the best deck builder or anything high handed like that. I've already seen many people tackle and succeed in writing great articles on how to construct a deck. I've probably agreed with almost everything I've seen written on the subject, but I'd like to add my thoughts to the collective pool on the subject. So here we go: (Note: I'm using the words "Solve" and "Attempt" missions, in general you can just substitute the correct Borg terminology in if you choose to play Borg.)
I'd also like to apologize for my long windiness, I just
seemed to start a section and then it would just
keep going and going and going.....
Anyways, please forgive me if I get a bit off topic or
if I repeat myself.
General outline before I begin: Remember that the goal of any deck is to win. The only way to win in STCCG is to score 100 points (or 140 if a Q's Planet is out) faster than your opponent can. While it may be fun to do things that annoy your opponent (in a fun sort of way mind you) or are just all-round "neat," if you can't score enough points to win the game then there really isn't much point in making the deck, is there? This doesn't mean that every deck you produce should be a cut throat tourney level deck capable of so disabling your opponent that you fail to enjoy the games; by all means I encourage you to make quite a number of "fun" decks that attempt to do wacky, new or weird things that fun to do. But make sure that all of your decks are capable of winning. There's not point in designing the best attack deck in the world, that will completely annihilate my opponent, if I can't win the game myself. Your opponent will eventually end up getting lucky and score just a few points, enough to win them the game either by time out or by having both players eventually draw out. That being said, let's move on to more specific points (no pun intended) about how I'd see making an effective (or at least decently playable) deck:
1) Pick a theme
Decide, in general, what you want this deck to do. Do you
want this deck to be a mission solving deck? A battle
deck? A deck that tries to do something special?
Myself, I find that I build two types of decks. Your
basic mission solving/speed OR stall decks and your
"specialty" decks.
Your Mission deck usually is the one
that will almost totally ignore your opponent except
for dilemma selection and perhaps a few offensive/defensive
interrupts or events, and concentrates on solving missions.
Points are only scored through solving
missions. These decks tend to be quick, or else end
up as stall decks which are designed to be quick....
in relation to your opponent. :-) This deck doesn't
usually aim to do any specific missions, it is prepared
to attempt and complete any of the missions seeded,
your own or your opponent's. An example of this type
of deck that I've created would be
Kahless'
Real Borg Planet Deck,
Kahless'
"Same Old" Klingon Space Deck and
Kahless'
Romulan Treachery Deck.
The "Specialty" decks, as I call them, tend to have a
focus on some particular strategy/combo. They usually
have a more or less specific type plan in mind, such
as "complete these two missions" or "use this killer
combo to annihilate opponent and then complete missions
at your leisure." Any deck that has a specific focus
and that tries to get out specific cards early on to
utilize in whatever harmful or helpful way, is something
I consider a specialty deck. These decks are sometimes
"poker" decks, they either absolutely stomp your
opponent, or turn into mush and lose the game miserably.
:-) I guess it just depends on how well you build the
deck and how well prepared your opponent's deck is for
something like what you're trying. An example of this
type of deck that I've created is
Kahless' Black Hole Deck,
Kahless' Second Transporter Phobia Deck and
Kahless' Range Reducer Deck.
Okay, so now you've hopefully picked a basic theme for your deck, be it a "Federation Speed/Mission Solving" deck or a "Non-aligned Kill-Kova-Thull-off-repeatedly" deck. So now you're ready to get into the actual construction of the deck. These steps are not in any "hard and fast" order in which they should be done, in fact, in some decks, this order will not work at all. But this is the general order I find that I construct my deck in. This moves us into:
2) Mission Selection
Okay, this is particularly important in mission solving decks. In general, you'll want to find missions that have a good deal of skill overlap. If the same skill can be used to complete 4 or your 6 missions, then anyone having that skill can be useful for all of those missions. I know I'm jumping around here, but also consider what skills tend to go together on the people you'll be looking at. For instance, if a lot of the Klingons with Honor also have Diplomacy or Leadership, then you could also consider missions with those skills. You usually want to make the mission selection as "tight" as possible, in other words, you want to make sure that the fewest number of skills possible are needed to complete the maximum number of missions possible.
In Specialty decks, Mission Selection may not be quite
as important. If for instance, you choose to score
most or all of your points from hunting the Borg
ship dilemma (or Borg Cubes, if you opponent is
accommodating) then your mission selection is not
very important to not a factor at all. Your only requirement
may be to have enough space mission to have some flexibility
over where you will seed the Borg ship dilemmas. On
the other hand, if your specialty deck is based around
a trick to annihilate the opponent, then score points,
then mission selection is still very important. For
instance, a Klingon armada deck will try to blow away
every trace of it's opponent on the spaceline, then
sit back and complete missions at their leisure. So
missions that complement the Klingon leaders used to
fly the K'Vort class warships would be important. So
in that case, you first assemble your personnel, and
then go back and select your missions after to see
which ones fit the personnel the best.
One factor to consider in any mission selection is
Balancing Act. You have to decide for yourself whether or
not you believe this to a factor you should worry about.
If your opponent customarily uses the Balancing Act
dilemma "just in case" then you likely should make mission
selections that don't risk a Balancing Act. But if
your opponent has become lax in this, then you may be
able to sneak in the occasional all planet or all space
spaceline, to try and eliminate some of their dilemmas
and just to throw them for a loop (never underestimate
the value of psychologically defeating your opponent, even
in something as small as this.)
3) Personnel Selection
One of the most important factors in the game. What is
this deck going to try and do? Which personnel will be
needed to accomplish this goal? Personnel are really the
"functional units" of STCCG, they are the cards that
will most determine what happens in the game. So you want
to find the best mix and variety of personnel that will
best accomplish your goals and at the same time thwart
likely goals of your opponent. If you suspect your
opponent is going to try and make a Personnel attack
deck, then you may want to include a number of high
strength personnel or holograms. If you're planning
on making a personnel attack deck, then make sure that
you include lots of strong personnel or holograms
yourself.
In most decks, you're going to want your personnel to
match up well with your missions. If a lot of your
missions are completed by Engineers, then you should
likely want to include a number of personnel who are
Engineers. Look for people who contribute the maximum
number of useful skills to your mission set. At the
same time, consider including a number of mission
specialists, as with Assign Mission Specialists they
can easily be downloaded and each will net you an
extra 5 points for each mission they contribute their
skill towards solving. Also make sure that there is
fair amount of skill overlapping among your personnel.
If lots of your missions require Stellar Cartography,
and you only include one personnel with that skill, should
that person get trapped at the bottom of your draw
deck or get killed/captured/disabled etc. so that you
can't use them anymore, then so many of your missions
are going to become unable to be completed. The more important
the skill is to your mission set, then the more often
it should show up in your personnel selection. You
must prepare for such contingencies as untimely deaths
or bad shuffles, if you have a lot of personnel with
Stellar Cartography, then there is a very good chance
that at least one of the people with the skill will
show up or survive to complete the mission and net you
the points.
Consider which skills, classifications or
Subcommand Icons in the case of the Borg are going
to be useful in helping to pass through various
dilemmas and obstacles likely to be thrown in your
way by your opponent. While their may be no requirements
for Diplomacy in your mission set for example, it might
be prudent to include it in case your opponent decides
to throw some Q-Nets in your way or you encounter a
Shaka, When the Walls Fell. Skills like Exobiology can
help if you encounter a Coalescent Organism. Music can
prevent a death in space from a marauding Crystalline
Entity. Decide which dilemmas are "in vogue" at the
moment, and then plan ahead for them. If there's any
particular dilemmas that could potentially just sink your
deck, pick personnel who are able to get past those
dilemmas. Some people may have no other purpose than to
get rid of dilemmas. Madam Guinan has incredibly useful
skills, but not because they help out for missions.
The ability to nullify AU dilemmas can be very useful,
as such things as Frame of Mind (very much used), Empathic
Echo and Quantum Singularity Lifeform’s (seeing much more
use after the advent of Scout Encounter) can crop
up frequently in decks. And the skill of Anthropology
is very useful combined with her Civilian classification
because she alone can pass Primitive Culture. Someone
like Kitrik is also a good example, the dual Medical/
Science classification is incredibly useful, and the
skills of Music and Exobiology both can help out
against specific dilemmas (Crystalline Entity and Coalescent
Organism respectively.) Also, you can expect to be losing
some personnel to various dilemmas, so you'll want some
"cannon fodder" so to speak. Even if you're not directly
redshirting, you'll want some "fall guys" to help bear
the brunt of many of the negative effects of dilemmas.
4) Ship Selection
Which personnel did you select? Do you have the staffing
requirements for each ship you're thinking of including?
Are you making an aggressive deck that might lose a ship
or two? Questions like these come up when choosing ships.
I find that ship selection is one of the easier things
to consider. If you have a number of AU icon personnel
in your draw deck, then you could think about adding
that big AU ship with the icons as the staffing requirement.
If you're going to be including a Spacedoor, then you'll
want to include at least one universal ship to be downloaded
to your outpost. Unlikely as it is, if you don't have
any or very few Command or Staff stars, then make sure
that your ship selection reflects this. A deck with
only 1 command star, shouldn't attempt to fly ships
that require command stars; as one bad shuffle or an
unfortunate death will leave that ship stranded.
If your deck is going to be aggressive, then consider
adding more ships, as you're likely to lose a few of them
in battle. If you selected lots of matching commanders,
then include their ships and some Captain's Log's and
Ready Room Doors to download both the commanders and
their logs. Shuttles, Borg Spheres and Scout Ships (with
use of Launch Portal) can all be carried, the shuttles
and scout ships requiring Engage Shuttle Ops in play. This
could become useful if you want to establish a line of
ships, carry all of the shuttles as far as possible on
your "mother ship" and then when the mother ship runs
out of range, launch the shuttle and continue on down
the spaceline, allowing your crew to cover much more
ground. Also, shuttles, Vulcan Landers and scout ships
being able to land on planets can help immensely; they
avoid all beaming obstacles (Atmospheric Ionization,
Distortion Field, Particle Scattering Field and Barclay's
Transporter Phobia) and it is also a mission requirement
on the Universal Planet mission. Just a few more little
things to think about.
Try to choose a reasonable number of ships, since it does
you no good to have a hand full of ships and nobody to
fly them. The Spacedoor card can help immensely here, as
you have the ability to include only the bare minimum
number of ships that you feel you need, and then leave
room for other cards in slots you might otherwise have
needed to fill with ships to ensure that one is drawn.
Pick a number that will get you a few ships out. Also,
it is sometimes helpful to have out a ship with very
few to no staffing requirements, to be used for shuttle
duty; bringing people back and forth between your outpost
and the operational ship, or between two different crews
without distracting either from their current goal.
5) Objective Selection
This is particularly important in a Borg deck, for obvious reasons. You'll have to decide which objectives will be useful to you, or in the case of the Borg, which ones fit with your focus. A Borg battle deck, for instance, would probably include Assimilate Counterpart and Eliminate Starship; possibly in multiples. In a non-Borg deck, consider if any of your objectives could help you out. Assign Mission Specialists will obviously help if you choose lots of single skilled personnel; Visit Cochrane Memorial has lots of neat effects and if your cards would make friendly probes, can be a very powerful card; Prepare Assault Teams is you suspect battle will be a factor and Reflection therapy either to gain a captive or else to gain a much needed skill.
6) Interrupt/Event Selection
Decide which events and interrupts are vital to your
strategy. If you are playing a Parrallax Arguers deck,
then include lots of Arguers and decide which events
you could include to inflict maximum damage on your
opponent should they choose to argue with you.
Decide which events and interrupts could inflict damage
on your opponent or act as defenses for you. Wrong Door
is an excellent card, it can prevent against a misplaced
Revolving Door (a defensive function,) redirect an
Iconian Gateway traveler (rarely used but powerful
function) or nullify one of your opponent's Q's Tents
(a very useful function, as many players put important
cards in their tents.)
Cards that you believe could really
hurt your opponent's strategy (Klim Dockachin, Supernova,
Static Warp Bubble etc.) can be very useful, as long as
they aren't overdone. It can get too easy to get caught
up in including so many killer events, that you dilute
your deck so much that it no longer can effectively
score points. The Borg in particular have to be careful,
as cards such as this will dilute the number of favorable
probe cards in the deck and serve to slow or hurt you
just as much as it's hurting your opponent.
Cards that serve a defensive function also can come in
very handy. If an event or interrupt can protect against
a strong tournament strategy you're likely to encounter,
then consider adding it. If the card(s) can stop your
opponent from pulling out a very harmful strategy, card
or combo of cards, then it may be worthwhile to consider
including it. Cards like Nutational Shields, Metaphasic
Shields, Genetronic Replication and Hugh are all good
examples of a defensive type event or interrupt.
And events or interrupts that aren't really Defensive
or Offensive, but still serve another useful function
must also be considered. If this card doesn't harm your
opponent, but still can give you an edge, than it can
be even more powerful than something that harms your
opponent. Since you don't know beforehand your opponent's
strategy, cards that act as offensive attacks may not
be very potent if their deck is designed to counter
that specific attack. Or if you include a defensive type
of card and then your opponent ends up not using that
offense against you, then it's essentially a card serving
no purpose in your deck. But cards that help you without
hindering your opponent are more reliable, because you
can almost always be assured of how their effects will
come into play, since you can design your deck around
using them or accommodate your deck towards them. Cards
such as this include Red Alert, Lower Decks, Kivas
Fajo-Collector and Retask are all examples of this type
of "useful but neither offensive or defensive" card.
Choose a few events and interrupts that you feel
will best complement your deck, keeping in mind your
theme or focus and how these cards will affect it or
how they will work with it. Overkill is easy to do, so
be careful not to fall into that trap.
7) Doorways
Since their introduction in the Alternate Universe Expansion, doorways have increasingly become more and more important. You'll have to consider which, if any, doors you want to use. For instance, if you choose to use the Three Way Treaty from the Sealed Deck product, then you won't be permitted to have any seeded sidedecks, which are opened by doorways (Q's Tent or Q-Flash.) Or if you include any AU icon cards in your draw or seed deck, you'll need either a seeded AU door or a Space- Time Portal to bring them into play.
Doors can add speed (Ready Room Door, Devidian Door), open up new possibilities (Q's Tent, Q-Flash, AU Door), or be just plain weird (Temporal Vortex, Manheim's Dimensional Door). You'll have to decide if any of these doors will suit your strategy, if so, how many of each to include. For instance, Devidian Door can be an immensely useful card if played at the right moment, but if you don't have enough of them, you may never get to use it. If you have too many of them, then you'll end up using them just to get them out of your hand, because you have too many of them. So finding the right balance with doors, as with any other card, is essential. Decide which doors you want, and then decide how many of each you're going to want.
8) Equipment
Are there any equipment cards you need to include? Are there any classifications you feel weak on that an equipment card could compensate for? Is there somewhere where a specific equipment card could come in handy (eg. Medical Kit for Theta Radiation Poisoning, a Tricorder for Alien Labyrinth)? Do you need to raise any of your attributes (eg. a phaser/disruptor to increase strength, a PADD to raise you cunning)? Any specific instances that you may want to prepare for or special benefits you want to attempt to garner from equipment (eg. Increased Range and Shields from Plasmadyne Relay, ability to damage opponent's ship with Anti-Matter Pod, Ability to download implants and assimilate a counterpart with an Assimilation Table etc.) Decide if you want to include any equipment, and which ones.
9) Dilemmas
Save the best for almost last, right? I don't know why,
but I always tend to make my dilemma selections at the
very end of building my deck, hence why I listed it last.
By no means does this mean that that's when I think it
should be done, it just means that I do it then. :-)
Dilemma selection is probably one of the hardest parts
of creating a deck. Making effective dilemma combos
is going to change all the time, depending on what the
latest craze deck is going around at the time, and what
the latest expansion/product has brought in terms of
both dilemmas and personnel for getting around dilemmas.
In general, dilemmas do not change much between the style
of deck you're playing. Your goal is usually to
slow/stop your opponent or possibly garner benefits for
yourself. I'm not going to attempt to go into the
complexities of dilemma combos right here, because
everybody does dilemmas radically different, all depending
on local play environment, and taste. I'll only offer
one or two general tips.
If possible, suit your dilemmas to your deck. If your
deck is a stall deck or is very slow, then you'll probably
want dilemmas that are going to slow/stop your opponent.
This is usually easiest with wall dilemmas. Some people
try to set up dilemmas that remove the skills or personnel
needed to get past the wall, while others will include
a series of walls that are just so unlike that it will
take lots and lots of attempts to figure out which skills
are needed and bring them to the mission. Whichever
strategy appeals to you more, the point is to use dilemmas
which are going to slow your opponent right down; if they
can't score points because they're stopped or can't
get past your dilemmas, they can't score points and they
can't win the game.
Another type of dilemma to consider adding is one that
you're going to actively take a part in making sure your
opponent won't pass. Something like a Tarellian Plague
Ship is a very potent dilemma, especially when combined
with Barclay's Transporter Phobia. :-) Or including
a Sabotage Drone and getting it over to your opponent's
ship... right before they encounter that Cytherians
you seeded there. :-) Their trip may end up becoming
a great deal longer. So you can sometimes include dilemmas
that you know you're going to interfere with, either
through interrupts or through direct interaction.
You can also consider adding dilemmas that are going
to spell benefits for you own deck. A Borg Servo in a
Borg deck can come in very handy, it can give you a
drone without risking a personnel battle, and will
stop the attempting crew in the process. Or a Scout
encounter for either the Borg or Romulans can allow
you to get another small ship out with a crew in a place
that could be beneficial to you. A dilemma like
Royal Casino: Blackjack could not only score your
opponent negative points, but could score you positive
points.
So in general, I would say that while dilemma strategy
doesn't change a great deal between decks in the same
environment, you may sometimes want to consider dilemmas
that fit with the theme of your deck, or would end up
being as a big benefit to your deck in some way.
10) Q's Tent
While not every deck is going to be including a Q's Tent,
almost all of them do. And why not? This card is one
of the most valuable resources in the game. You can
include contingency cards, surprise cards, or just
cards that you want to be able to guarantee getting
at some point in the game. So what should you include
in your Q's Tent?
Personnel needed for special situations or ones that
you need out early fit well into Q's Tent. Some personnel
are only needed in special situations which *may* come
up, so you don't necessarily want to clog up your draw
deck with them on the chance that they end up not being
needed. As well, you may want the ability to pull them
out at exactly the right moment to deal with special
circumstances. So the Q's Tent is a perfect place to
leave people like that. Someone like Zon is magnificent
for personnel battles, but his uses outside of battle
are limited. So if your peace loving deck fears a battle,
then you could consider putting Zon in your tent. If it
looks likely that a war like opponent is going to be
attacking your away team, then simply tent for Zon and
include him in the away team. Your opponent may want
to think twice about attacking that away team now.
Essential personnel also fit well into the tent. Someone
that you absolutely need to make your deck work
usually is best put in the tent, so they can be pulled
out as soon as you draw a tent. So if your deck is
focused on using Rogue Borg, Lore being in your tent
is likely a good idea as he will make each of those Rogue
Borg much more dangerous. So if you have a personnel
that's a necessity to your deck, then the Q's Tent might
be the best place to put them.
Of course, essential personnel aren't the only thing
to go in your tent. Any essential card that's necessary
to your strategy would be a good candidate for the
Q's Tent. For instance, a deck using lots of holograms
might not want to rely on waiting to draw a Holoprojectors,
they may instead want to put a lone Holoprojectors in
the tent and then just use a Q's tent to retrieve the
Holoprojectors. In short, any playable kind of card
that is absolutely needed for your strategy would be
well suited in the tent.
And of course, any contingency type cards that you want
to have "just in case" could be put in the tent. They
will not interfere with your normal draw deck, but will
still be available for use if needed exactly when needed.
Something like the Devil is almost completely reliant
on your opponent playing with certain cards, but it can
be invaluable against an opponent using those cards with
it nullification abilities. So including it in the tent
works very well; you can pull it out if you need it and
exactly when you need it.
Finally, including Q's Planet and Artifacts/Dilemmas
in your Q's Tent can sometimes help. If you're looking
to score a quick artifact, rather than trying wade through
dilemmas at a normal mission and waste a seed spot,
you could just throw the Planet and the Artifact in your
tent and play it early on. Unless your opponent has
included dilemmas in their tent or somehow has dilemmas
in their discard pile, you'll likely have a very easy
walk to your artifact. And that is also why including
dilemmas is a good idea in your tent, in case your
opponent gets that exact idea. But a few well placed
dilemmas could stop your opponent cold, without even
costing any of your precious seed slots.
Also, be aware of attempts to close off your tent and
be prepared to counter them. Revolving Door can completely
cut you off from this valuable resource, so a Wrong
Door, AU Door, Kevin Uxbridge or a Revolving Door of your
own can all help keep your tent open.
11) Miscellaneous
Now that almost all of the deck is ready, you'll want to include in those last few essentials you may have forgotten. *Always* include an outpost (I've forgotten them a number of games!) or possibly two. Decide if there's any artifacts that you want to add in to your deck. Any other seed cards you may have forgotten (the seeded Q's Tent/Q-Flash, the seeded Open Diplomatic Relations and the Treaty in a treaty deck, etc.) Double check that you haven't missed any essential cards.
12) Practice shuffle/Cut cards
One of the most important steps of all. Practice shuffling and drawing practice hands to see how well your deck works out. Did you include too many personnel? Not enough ships? Figure out how well the deck balances even from the opening hand. Check the number of cards in your draw deck, with the new 30/30 rule, isn't incredibly easy to overdo your draw deck and dilute it so much that you never draw the cards you need. Cut cards that you end up deciding don't really serve enough of a purpose to warrant keeping them. Repeat this step many times, drawing and cutting to see when you've finally reached the happy medium. You don't want to cut the deck so bare that you no longer have enough of the essentials, but you don't want to have it so big that you're unable to draw the essentials because you're bogged down with "semi-useful" or "contingency" type cards.
There! And that's it!
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