I know I said I would rate the top tournament deck this month and I will, but I thought I would rate the draw engines first.

        The key to all great Star Trek decks is the draw engine, if can't get at your resources what good are they? So for you I have the 12 best ways to draw cards. Naturally the more abusive the engine the better it is but also I take in account if the engine has any specific counters. By the end of the article Scorched Hand will never have looked so good.

So here we go.

12. The Traveler: Transcendence - A simple event from the dawn of time which allows you draw an extra card at the end of your turn. It's the easiest way to draw an extra card per turn.

Why it's number 12: Beside the standard Kevin distruction, Mirror/rorriM can subvert it to help your opponent. Though the main reason it's at the bottom of the list is that you get the extra card during the draw phase, so if you tent or do an Ops download, you get zip.

11. Kivas Fajo - Collector - Another simple event from the dawn of time, except you get to draw three cards in the place of a card play. Better than traveler because you have a little more flexibility.

Why it's number 11: Like the Traveler, Kevin will stop you cold and Mirror/rirroM will help your opponent, but what bugs me is you have to sacrifice a card play for it. So unless you have a headquarters you won't have a chance to get many people out.  

10.  34th Rule of Acquisition - If you attack anything you get to draw two cards. Plus if you have a Scepter of the Grand Nagus out it becomes safe from Kevins and that's a plus.

Why it's number 10: While the Scepter can protect it, it totally depends on your opponent whether or not you draw any cards (usually), if he can evade your hit squads (landed ships, facilities in other quadrents) you get nothing. Plus it can be nullified by 35th Rule of Acquisition.

// Editor's note: although you can use Empok Nor to be sure of having something to // attack  

9. HQ: Return Orb to Bajor - Find up to five Orbs (Fragment, Mysterious, P&C, Time, Wisdom) by attempting mission(s) or stealing them from your opponent and bring them back to Bajor to draw three cards per Orb and score ten points. TwT gave us both a bane and a bonus to this card, Barry Waddle. He allows any affiliation to use the card and to nullify it. Nasty, but the Mirror, Mirror expansion has breathed new life into the card and it is a prominent engine in Mirror format; get all five at Characterize Neutrino Emissions and just multidimensionally transport to Mirror Bajor for 15 cards and ten points.

Why it's number 9: It's a little intensive, you need 5 seeds for the Orbs,  an Orb personnel (11 so far, only 5 non-Bajoran), the card itself and a crew to pass the mission. Dead End shuts this down cold and so does Hero of the Empire. It's a great card but too many ways to shut it down.

8. Deyos - Yes, he's very specialized, but he is all so good. I ranked him in a previous article as the sixth best personnel in the game. He allows you to draw a card for every Jem'Hadar that enters play at his location.  As I said before he is the reason that we will never see Jem'Hadar mission specialists.  You can seriously abuse Deyos with Devidian Door and Maska Transformation, just keep calling out Jem'Hadar with DD to draw your deck and if you run out of Jemmies (a hand full of DD) just Maska for some more. Then go trash the AQ, fun for the whole family.

Why it's number 8: Only the Dominion can use it, and that's a serious blow. As mission solvers Jem'Hadar kind of fall short, so hoards of Jem'Hadar are only good for red shirting and fighting. Without Devidian Door or Red Alert the most you can draw is an extra two cards.

7. Process Ore Mechanics - You have a person in a Ore Processing Facility (or Shrine) and you recycle your discard pile to draw extra cards. Sweet deal. Honestly Processing Ore is much, much better than Conducting Services, drawing cards at the beginning of your turn is more flexible and you need an Orb and the extra person to get the extra card at the shrine. Now with Overseer Odo you can get Process Ore out even faster. Mirror Nors have it best because they can be made immune to Reactor overload, then would come AQ ore processing, then conducting services. This is the best non-abusive draw engine.

Why it's number 7: It's a non-abusive draw engine unlike the next six. A simple disrupter can destroy a shrine and Reactor Overload can limit any AQ ore processing.

6. Cargo Runs - Take a piece of non-lethal equipment, move it using a freighter or transport from any facility to a Nor's Cargo Bay, and for each mission you passed you get to draw a card (plus two if you have Kasidy Yates).  Do this in the Bajor region with a 9-range ship, throw in Yates, and you'll be drawing at least 5 cards a turn.  Not to shabby.

Why it's number 6: Well You have to get Yates, a Freighter, and move back and forth across the spaceline. A lot can go wrong: armadas, Jem'Hadar, huge distances, Rogue Borg pinging…heck, System 5 Disrupters will nullify your freighter status and it's a little slower than the next five.

5. Empok Maska - Commandeer Empok Nor, download a slew of equipment, bring them aboard your ship, STP it all back in your hand, then use either Maska Transformations or Iconian Computer Weapon to draw a huge supply of cards. You then do a huge STP drop and/or play a bunch of Devidian Doors to play your entire deck the first turn.  It's can be brutal against someone whose isn't prepared. The key to this deck is not to violate the 12 card maximum, because if you get scorched it's all over.

Why it's number 5: Someone could Kevin the Maska if you go that way, or Thine Own Self if you go the other way but your big fear is the Scorched Hand. To totally accomplish it you have to distribute the equipment over multiple ships(playing free freighters at docking pads for example) and have to discard a STP every time, plus if you want to do this in one turn you have to have hit multiple Iconian Computer Weapons.  So it's pretty demanding and tough to pull it off, though if you could pull it off it would nasty.

4. Captured/Prisoner Exchange/Fajo's Gallery - It goes like this: seed one Fed outpost, one Defend Homeworld, a Q the Ref, a Fajo's Gallery  and 13 Captured and 13 Prisoner Exchange. Then you DH for Sloan to a spot where the opponent has a unique person. Flip the Gallery , flip a Captured, take the guy hostage draw two card, Flip a Prisoner Exchange let him go to download any personnel. Drain, Rinse, Repeat. So all in all you will have downloaded 13 people and have draw 26 card.  That's on the first turn people.  Add in 7 Going to the Top to use up extra cards and you have a godly crew.

// Editor's note: better yet, make it a dominion deck and combine with Deyos…

Why it's number 4: One card, a magic bullet and it's called Hostage Trade. It totally shuts down this engine to once per turn. Unfortunately it's not a hidden agenda so the opponent can see it coming a mile away. You could also trap your opponent, by luring Sloan onto a planet and then Thine Own Self him.  This strategy is seed intensive so if you have Hostage Trade, you'll win easily (no dilemmas).

3. Rascals/Ooby Dooby - Get 5 personnel with Youth, attempt a mission hit Rascals gain five more youth, hit Ooby Dooby draw between 5-8 cards, Devidian Door out a bunch of people and/or do a STP drop, play Distortion, do it again,  until you get a super crew and win by turn three.

Why it's number 3: Temporal Vortex work nicely about slowing him down, it buys you three more turns at least. Plus it's also seed intensive, 16 to 20 seeds leaves not many dilemmas so you can redshirt and race him while he is stalled. Scorched Hand doesn't really work because I've seen professional players work around it.

2. Mister, Mister - Basically you play a Mr. Ferengi from Mirror Mirror(usually Mr. Quark because you can grab him QIR), send him down to a mission, have him hit a Chula the Lights so he bounces to your hand. Since he left play you can download the next Ferengi and repeat until you get a huge hand and sacrifice it to Maska, to draw a huge hand, play lot's of guys for free (Devidian Doors, HQ, whatever). The thing is Scorched Hand only slows it down since it doesn't destroy the engine you can do it again next turn.  Personally I like using 16 to 20 Ferengi with plenty of Fire Sculptors. If he Scorches me then I Sculpt it out the discard pile and win next turn. The nice thing about this it's not seed intensive 14 to 16 seeds at the most.

Why it isn't number 1: It's because it has more counters than the first place slot. Thine Own Self totally shuts this engine down. Since  the Ferengi is still in play under the mission you can't complete the cycle (Quark -> Rom -> Nog -> Brunt ->) and the deck is stalled big time. You could also fly to the mission and pass the dilemma yourself. Kevin Uxbridge will slow him down but more importantly it'll use up one of his Obelisks of Maska, and at the most he will be seeding three. It would be a cluttered deck if your opponent stocked both Q2 and Amanda Rogers (can't tent for them because he wouldn't be able to draw anything).

1. Guardian of Forever - On the first turn you get a bunch of people with anthropology and archaeology into the past and on each turn after bring one person back through playing GoF and drawing up to 5 cards per turn. I like this the best because it is so solid, really your opponent can't do anything. If he Revolving Doors your GoF you can toss any extra GoF's you have in your hand to nullify it or toss STP to get an AU Door. Your opponent can only Thine Own Self your guys on the way back and who cares, they did their duty. Without actually going down there and killing them you can't stop it. It can't make any first turn wins but since it takes up no extra seed slots (except for the time location) you can use a few to counter such strategies (extra Q the Refs, Hostage Trade etc.) By turn 6-8 you'll have drawn your entire deck playing guys for free (I like having two HQ) and have yourself a super crew and blast through any dilemmas that come your way.  

        So there you have it. I hope this has been insightful and wish you best of luck at your regionals. If you wish to let me know what you thought of this you can send your comments to esprusak@telusplanet.net.

Peace.

Earl Prusak