So you have this great deck made from Voyager cards, and you want to try it in an “Open” format tournament.  What should you do?  Most Voyager decks can keep up with Open decks with just a few modifications.

Counter old abuses.
   Instead of seeding cards like Fair Play and Villagers with Torches, seed Q the Referee.  Stack the Ref cards in your draw deck, along with any other Ref cards to counter old abuses (like It's Only a Game, Temporal Vortex, Wake of the Borg and especially Operate Wormhole Relays).  Then, for the same one seed slot, you have whatever you need.
   Know what else you need to counter in the local metagame.  Do you need Revolving Doors to stop Q Flashes?  Do you have Transporter Skill to get rid of Tribbles?  Can you land a ship if you see Distortion Fields?  You don't need to bloat the deck with counters, just make sure you cover what you expect to run into.
   Don't bother going out of your way to counter anything, like trying to force Writ into a DQ deck.  For the most part, it's only the real extreme abuses that take complex counters like Writ; you probably won't even see them played.
   If you haven't played a lot of Open games, it will probably take a little while to determine exactly what will cause a problem for your Voyager deck, but don't worry – nothing from the older cards is unstoppable.

Watch your deck's weaknesses.
   There are a couple hundred extra dilemmas in this format, but only a few are a problem.  For the most part, the Voyager-affiliations have everything you need to beat all the old dilemmas.  Make sure you can pass Executive Authorization.  Be extra prepared for Conundrum if the opponent is in another quadrant.  There are more anti-redshirt dilemmas in this format, like Chula: the Lights, Berserk Changeling and Alien Parasites.  Although they don't require skills, be aware of Sheliak, Borg Ship and Dead End causing troubles for your game plan.  There are enough dilemmas in this format for deprivation strategies, like anti-Med or anti-Officer.  Depending on your local metagame you may need to shift your personnel selection slightly, but you shouldn't need to look for non-Voyager personnel to overcome this.
   Some cards don't have counters in Voyager-only but suddenly do in Open.  Ancestral Vision, even if seeded, is an easy target for an Uxbridge; you could prepare for that with a few extra Nanoprobes in the deck, or load up on The Line and Oof! to punish the opponent.  Distortion of Spacetime may sneak past Quinn, but Temporal Vortex is a lot more popular, and downloadable with Q the Ref.  Watch out for things like Disruptor Overload and Thermal Deflectors.
   Opponents hiding from you in another quadrant can be seen as a counter to your strategies.  You have no one to battle, no one to steal organs from, no one to hunt.  If you're looking for interaction, throw a few Wormholes in the deck, making sure you have enough to get you back to your missions.

Take advantage of a few benefits.
   Consider using Defend Homeworld, Assign Support Personnel or Quark's Isolinear Rods to get key personnel into play quickly.
   You probably have enough ships in your deck already, but consider adding Spacedoor.  Since Open is so much faster, you might need that ship first turn instead of third or fourth.  Also, using one seed slot for Spacedoor will often let you cut back on the number of ships in your deck, making room for a few other modifications.  The boost from a Battle Bridge will help you fight back against battle decks with fewer ships.
   Q's Tent can save you some room in the deck.  Just seed one and move any downloadable cards in there to increase your deck efficiency and add a little speed.  I find that it takes a large change to stack Tents in the deck, so I would suggest just sticking with the downloadable Tent.
   Artifacts can give you a boost, especially Horga'hn and Betazoid Gift Box.  Consider a Tribbles Side Deck, just for fun.  And don't forget my personal favorite seed card: Obelisk of Masaka.
   Where do you get these seed slots?  I find that Voyager decks average around 24 dilemmas, mostly because there's not much else to seed.  Open decks rarely go above 18 dilemmas, so if you drop a dilemma or two you're OK.  In fact, with a few old dilemmas like Dead End that have a lot of “kick”, you can easily cut back to 3-card combos.
   And, of course, don't forget to add 6 sites.

The majority of cards I've mentioned here are common or uncommon.  They should be easily accessible to new players, and your local Ambassador should be able to help you find them.

Email Chris "Rom" Brennan