Mot's Useless Card Review #32: Gi'ral

This might well be the most interesting card to come out of the 2-Player Set, because it presents a way to win the game without ever attempting a mission. Now obviously, her skill is something you are either going to build an entire deck around, or ignore entirely. So let's see what a deck like this might look like.

Well, you obviously need Tokath for starters. A Devidian Door can quickly get him to the location of your prospective Colony. It would also be a good idea to try to situate a Neutral Outpost right next door to a planet mission, and then use Zibalian Transports or Yridian Shuttle to quickly ferry personnel from the outpost to the Colony. Since both these ships are Non-Aligned, and neither has any staffing requirements, everyone, whether they can act as staff or not, be they Romulan or Klingon, can quickly get themselves to the Colony without assistance.

Next step would be a healthy supply of CIVILIANs. Ba’el is number one on that list. The 4 points a turn at the Colony is too good to pass up. From there, just make a run through the Klingon and Romulan CIVILIANs available. (You can use both; according to the FAQ, your own Away Teams do not oppose each other.) It would be a good idea to use as many dual-classification people as possible, just in case you should get backed into a corner and actually have to attempt a mission. Some ideal candidates for your Colony are Kahlest, K’chiQ (she'll need someone like Koral to give her a reason to live), Ira Graves, Kareen Brianon, Garak, and Thomas Paris. That group alone is 20 points a turn at a Colony, when added to your founding trio. Really though, any CIVILIAN will do. Nobody in your deck should be without it.

You may want to place your target mission as close to the end of the spaceline as possible, without actually being on the end itself. (You wouldn't want Love Interests bringing you unwelcome visitors.) Since missions don't matter to you anyway, you might just play as much Space as possible between you and your opponent's outpost(s) to buy you time. If you can keep your opponent from getting a Red Alert! they will never manage to amass enough ships or people to do anything about your Colony before you win the game. Consider stocking Hugh in case of emergency.

The bottom line is, if you can get a Red Alert into play yourself, it's possible to win with a Gi'Ral Colony Deck in less than 10 turns - that's as fast as any other deck people are abusing right now, and you never need risk a dilemma in the process.