Unique planet missions worth no more than 30
points. This will make your deck valid for the next thing discussed.
Also by having all your missions being 30 points or less, the borg can
not play Assimilate Planet on it. This means that your missions will remain
that, your own.
Fair Play. This card makes a great
addition to you Tent, or to your seed deck directly. if all your missions
are unique, not attempted to be seeded by opponent and less than 40 points,
your opponent can not complete that mission. Be weary of when you
play this card. If you wait to reveal it, as I did in a tournament, until
they've attempted one of your missions, they can clear out all the dilemmas
for you, and then you can mop up the points for yourself.
HQ: Defensive Measures. In addition
to your missions being unique and under thirty points (your space can be
35, Fair Play doesn't protect you from the Borg, but it does from other
affiliations) you may want them to have more than one affiliation icon.
Or, you can use this, and have your space missions be more than forty points.
Remember, however, that this Objective has a countdown on it, so you may
want to stock 2, maybe even three, copies if you really want to protect
your mission. The permanent Fair Play, however, is a much better choice.
And this offers no protection against Espionage decks, but Fair Play does.
Kevin Uxbridge. If you read Counter's
Corner #1, you saw Kevin Uxbridge make an appearance there, also. This
is the only card to make both Counter's Corner's articles, showing it's
great diversity. Here, it is present for Espionage cards. If your opponent
is not playing Romulan or Cardassian (possibly even if they are) they won't
have any "Plans of the..." Cards in play, which means their Espionage cards
can be nullified. Simply play Kevin on them, and they lose the ability
to attempt that mission. You, of course, may want to stock more Kevins
in case they pull more Espionage cards out on you.
Self Seeding Dilemmas. By seeding
dilemmas that may be difficult for your opponent, but you can get by easily,
you can keep your missions from being solved until you say so. Some such
dilemmas include Chula: The Door, In The Pale Moonlight, Barclay's Protomorphosis
Disease, Unscientific Method and Dead End. All of these are easily overcome
by your personal since you know what is coming. Be weary of this strategy,
however, as with only thirty seed cards to work with, even with 3 cards
combos across the board you'll have 24 cards on dilemmas to protect your
missions. Only having six cards left for everything else isn't easy, you'll
be glad for that Tent to store other cards.
Attempting Your Missions Before They Can.
The Ferengi have been known to get eight personal out on the first
turn. With that kind of speed, missions are easily done. Klingons can get
12 personal out in 3 turns (with good card draws). Attempt your missions
early, especially those on the outer end of the spaceline, or close to
their facilities. This is where they're likely to take them away from you.
Scans. Lots of Scans and Full Planet
Scans. If you play them early (who uses Scanner Interference anyway?) you'll
know where the misseeding has occurred. Then, once they know you know,
it'll be a race to get there. If you win this race you'll be up points
as their strategy will have been foiled, do this twice and you'll win the
game.
As the intended purpose of this article is to provide
meaningful counters, let's look briefly at a list of your Tent cards as
described in this article.
In The Draw Deck...
Seeded Cards
That gets you half a Tent, and your missions
countering Mission Stealing Decks. Look as articles go more along the line
for me to stop and put them all together for one balanced set of 13 cards
to counter almost anything.
This ends Counter's Corner #2- Mission Stealing Decks,
and using this information may you live long and prosper.