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Seed Phase Strategy 
by Jesse Carlucci The seed phase is one of the most important aspects of STCCG. It's fairly easy to figure out your opponent's strategy and defend against it during this phase. Some things to look for: Homeworlds, Dual icon missions, Planet missions over 35 points
Just because your opponent has 1 homeworld and planet missions over 35 points doesn't mean he's playing Borg. If the homeworlds are in conjuction with the dual icon missions, or there are more than 1 homeworld there is a good chance he/she is playing Borg. There is no positive way to tell, because a lot of people fake playing Borg, but most of the time you should be able to protect against it. Now the question is how do you defend against it? Well, if you have a dilemma combo that targets gender or is bonus point related, it's important to break it up. Try to get as many dilemmas under each mission that will delay the Borg as you can. Make sure to put Cytherians on both ends of the spaceline, and remember Borg ship won't hurt you're opponent much. Empok Nor seeded during the mission phase
After they've seeded the Empok Nor, there is very little you can do during the seed phase to stop them. The obvious part is to use Empok Nor dilemma's. More importantly, REMEMBER to seed them under Empok Nor. I've played in many games where my opponent has forgotten that Friendly Fire, Sleeper Trap and Garak Has Some Issues seed under Empok Nor. Also, if possible seed your main facility as far away from their Empok Nor as possible to delay their attack (unless you're going to try and commandeer it). No facilities
If your opponent has no facilities, scout swarm or AU drop is the most probable explanation, although I have seen some others. The easiest ways to deal with scout swarm are to destroy the ships. Scouts have very low shields so one ship should be able to take out one scout. You will probably need a couple of ships, since they will have lots of scouts. Also, an Access Denied in your tent can do a lot of damage to a scout deck. If it looks like they're playing AU drop, an It's Only a Game pulled from your tent would ruin their deck, as they would only be able to play one AU ship and four personnel! Unbalanced Missions
The obvious defense against these decks is Balancing Act. I've seen a lot of people who seed the Balancing Act under their opponent's mission, and hope they hit it. I think it's much easier to seed it under one of your own missions and trip it early in the game. Try to keep your opponent guessing as to where you seeded the BA, so they don't try and seed a dilemma in front of it. Editor's Note: Most people will assume it's an artifact anyway, especially if you're playing Bajoran! I think it's very important to keep a dilemma out, in case your opponent tries to self seed a dilemma under his own mission. I always keep a dead end out as long as possible. Some cards your opponent might try and seed under his own missions, or a mission he can attempt: Ooby Dooby If you can delay your opponent from hitting his self-seeded cards, you can really hinder his strategy. For example, I played an unblanced romulan space deck a few weeks ago. My opponent kept one dilemma out of his combos, while I kept a dead end out. After he seeded the card under his homeworld, I seeded a dead end under the same mission. First turn of the game, he attempted the mission and hit a dead end instead of the Balancing Act. He was never able to get enough points to trip the Balancing Act before I won the game. Basically, if you pay attention to everything your opponent is doing during the seed phase you can get a good handle on their strategy. Don't just fast seed and get the seed phase over with, or you might get hammered by a strategy you could have seen earlier. Jesse 'Zaphod' Carlucci 
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