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"Stasis" Decks: An Overview
by Mark Bloom Much like its Magic counterpart, STCCG's Stasis deck is designed to deny the opponent resources while getting resources at a normal or accelerated rate. In Magic, the name is self explanatory, as Stasis is the key card, but our version requires a bit of explanation. To deny the opponent resources, STCCG's Stasis deck uses hand control and personnel control. Hand control is designed to keep your opponent's resources at the minimum by reducing the opponent's cards (or quality cards) to a minimum. Personnel control is meant to keep the opponent's personnel (or quality personnel) to a minimum. After gaining near complete control of the game, Stasis then proceeds to win via a chosen path. Hand control can go two distinctly different routes. The more common, and easier to use is Static Warp Bubble and/or Telepathic Alien Kidnappers. These two events cause the opponent to discard. Static Warp Bubble allows them to choose which card to discard, while TAK allows you to have a little bit of control over what is discarded (but it doesn't always force a discard). The downside to using these events, is that they are easily countered. Deactivation (especially with Examine Singularity) takes out the Bubble, while Countermanda nails TAK, and the Palors that are in 2 out of 3 decks. Events such as The Traveler: Transcendence and Intruder Force Field also help... TTT cancels the Bubble and disallows the Stasis player from playing another until they nullify TTT, with the handy side effect of getting an extra card draw to help make up for those that have been discarded; Intruder Force Field reverses TAK to give the Stasis player a case of their own medicine. The second, and more difficult to pull off, route is to give your opponent Nightmares. Nightmare, from Enhanced First Contact, allows more control over what is taken out of the opponent's hand, but is self nullifying if the opponent isn't getting card advantage from other sources to counter the disadvantage of nightmare. To keep an opponent's hand full, the Stasis player would use Anti-Time Anomaly, to discourage dropping personnel, and Kivas Fajo - Collector and/or The Traveler: Transcendence with a egamI rorriM giving the effect to both players. Making Nightmare more difficult to pull off is the fact that you must have Borg (either affiliation or Borg Ship dilemma) on the table to play it. Other than forcing self-nullification by getting rid of most of the cards in your hand, Nightmare is nullified by Plexing, a card that isn't really worth stocking, even as a tent card... unless Nightmare is really giving you problems. Personnel control also has a few options. The most popular, and strongest, of which is Dixon Hill's Business Card. The Card requires the opponent to play a Universal (v) personnel before playing any Unique Personnel. For some decks this is simply impossible, and in any case, it may be a few turns before this can be accomplished. Stocking a few Universal Personnel in decks is a good way to work against the Card. If you can download them in any way, shape or form, all the better. Other options include Anti-Time Anomaly and Klim Dokachin, both of which make you think twice before reporting your Uniques who you may have problems getting back. Both of these are best taken out by Kevin Uxbridge, but Q2s flow through any deck based on events. After using any or all of the above methods to gain control of the game, the Stasis player looks for a way to win. Often this is a rather cheesy route, such as a Q's Planet colony, or Q-Bypass, although straight mission solving could also be done. By this time in the game, the Stasis player has probably ground their opponent into little or no draw deck, so to beat Stasis in the endgame, you must go after it in the early game. Seeded Hide and Seek, as well as a Q-Flash help against the Bypassers, and Intermix Ratio takes out non-mission colonies... but only if it comes out before Stasis completes the lock down. Stasis decks are built on a card advantage engine, usually either Process Ore or Visit Cochrane Memorial, but any will do. Kivas Fajo - Collector gives alternate targets for Kevins, and Promenade shops works well with the large number of events and interrupts used for Stasis decks. Support interrupts for Stasis decks often include Fire Sculptor and Energy Vortex, as well as a full complement of Kevin Uxbridge and Q2. Fire Sculptors are used to take cards such as Deactivation, Temporal Wake, and Regenerate out of the opponent's Discard Pile. Energy Vortex is used to keep "important" cards from being played, instead trying to make the opponent discard them with SWB/TAK. Q2s are used to protect the events that are otherwise vulnerable to Kevin. Kevins are to take out rogue The Traveler: Transcendence and Intruder Force Fields, or to work against other stasis decks . The main event used for support is Revolving Door, used to keep the Tent and/or Q-Flash from influencing the game. Decklists for Stasis decks are available in Decipher's Star Trek section under Deck Designs. Most decklists from the past few weekends are either Stasis-style decks, or are built to be able to handle Stasis decks. Mark "Neral" Bloom
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