There are currently 43 skills in the game of Star Trek. Given the "Standard" skills box which can contain 6 skills or fewer, there are (including the possibility of double skills) approximately 30726128160 different possible personnel regardless of attributes, quadrant, or downloads.

As the number of these possible personnel that are available increases, and as the field of dilemmas increases, it becomes increasingly difficult to determine which personnel is best, which ones to include in a deck and which ones to exclude.

A friend of mine named David Hyttenrauch introduced me to his system of dilemma targeting. It involves a statistical analysis of how many times a skill is called for on extant dilemmas.  The system then goes on to look at how many times a skill is called for on wall dilemmas (those that do not discard) and weights those skills more highly.

Conversely, the totals of how many times a skill appears on a personnel card gives me some indication of it's prevalence in my opponents decks.

The result, a statistical analysis of skill requirements in STCCG, has helped me win time and time again in constructed and in sealed. Knowing how many skills I should put in my deck, and knowing how many copies of a skill my opponent will probably have in his deck helps me to counterbuild; to have the skills I need to statistically pass my opponent's set of Shrodinger's Dilemmas and simultaneously to stock dilemmas that will stymie my opponent's statistical average of personnel.

Now, what does that mean to you the gamer? Well it means that you can be certain that if you have 3 Geology, that is enough for your deck. Hypothetically, if a personnel card is contributing your 4th Geology, your 8th Engineer, your 6th Computer skill, a second     Empathy and your fourth law-- you can remove him as you don't need those skills.

Most top players have a good instinctive grasp of which skills their deck needs. When approaching the design of your deck, first off ask yourself: if I am building a fortress style deck how can I get ahead of the curve on skills elimination?  And if I am building a siege tactics deck how can I stay ahead of an elimination strategy?

One of the most popular fortress decks is the focused elimination deck. This deck relies on the following facts:
     A) There is no one mission win, an opponent will have to face at least two dilemma combos, often they will have to solve three.
     B) A good fortress deck can make room for 24 dilemmas, or four per mission.
     C) People try to minimize the total number of people in their deck, this means there are seldom more than 6 of any non-classification skill.
     D) Against a focused elimination strategy a skill x 2 is no more valuable than the skill x 1, as the x 2 personnel will be eliminated first.

A corollary of A + B is that in an average game your opponent will face 8 to 12 of your dilemmas. If your first seed at each mission is YGII and you back it up with Disruptor Overload, you can guarantee 2 targeted kills, meaning that your opponent will have to stock two more of the skill you are eliminating if they are to win.

The net result of C + D is that if you target the x 2 first, you only need to eliminate four personnel to reduce the target skill to unviable levels.

I'll examine this now in a hypothetical diplomacy elimination deck.

Assuming two outpost seeds, two QtR, DQSS and Next Emanation (against regenerate, Data Keep Dealing... etc) you have the 24 dilemmas to run four card dilemma combos.

In a focussed elimination strategy, there are two kinds of dilemmas you need: the targeted killers and the walls. The killers will take out personnel with the appropriate skill and the walls will then make it impossible to complete the mission.

The difficulty is often forcing your opponent to attempt missions with the personnel of the appropriate skill to eliminate.

There are two ways around this; either make the dilemma combos such that if your opponent doesn't have the skills there will be harsh consequences (such as losing everything to a sheliak) or, as I prefer, use "Sandwich Dilemmas" I.E. targeted elimination between two walls, so that they can't attempt the mission without the required skill, and they can't complete the mission without said skill.

In this case We are using a diplomacy sandwich: YGII/Clown: Guillotine/Kelvan Show/Shaka

I'll explain the order:
     Clown has mildly nasty consequences for attempting to get through the combo without diplomacy. Since YGII is effective every attempt (I know that Nanoprobes exist,     let me get to that in a minute) it doesn't matter if it is in between the two walls or not. Shaka can be effective even if the diplomacy is present; in cases where an opponent thinks they have outfoxed you by sending 4 diplomacy into the attempt, the strategic     elimination of high cunning personnel can ruin them.  Another "Outfoxing" attempt, sending two people with Dip X 2 is overcome by Kelvan, as it will stop them and force them to send more diplomats to die to the YGII.

I've selected Hirogen/Vidiian as between the two affiliation outposts you have two free reports per turn, ample access to DQSS personnel, easy access to ships and a decent skills balance.

Thus, our seed deck is:
     6 x YGII
     6 x Clown: Guillotine
     6 x Kelvan Show of Force
     6 x Shaka When the walls fell
     Hirogen Outpost
     Vidiian Outpost
     Next Emanation
     QtR x 2
     DQSS

As we are using YGII, the equipment card Borg Nanoprobes is a frightening concept. As such, Disruptor Overloads are a necessity. Between the DQSS and 10 Kivasses, it should be possible to draw up to 7 cards a turn with relative ease. Of these 7, I anticipate at least 3 to be either Palor Toffs or Overloads.

Now, facing an opponent whose deck is relatively fast, we can anticipate something like this:

     First turn, opponent reports ~15 personnel and attempts a mission, hit YGII, lose a diplomacy, hit Clown and pass it, hit Kelvan lose a diplomacy, hit Shaka and possibly passes it.

     This leaves the opponent one mission up, but two diplomacy down, which is important as when they attempt their next mission, it is almost inconceivable that they will be able to muster up the 4 diplomacy required for it.