Laurence T. Stone, Portmaster

You gotta love the Original Series sub-affiliation and Kirk...only they could turn a disciplinary action into a way to win...and that's just what they do with Laurence T. Stone (Portmaster).

Here's a list of cost 1 or 0 Original Series Federation personnel to consider:
Benjamin Finney, Bitter Records Officer, Farrell, Josephs, Evil Marlena Moreau, Mathews, and Pavel A. Chekov, Young Navigator.

As you know, if you and your opponent both deck out, the person with the most victory conditions is the winner. Using Josephs to accomplish this feat of attrition is nothing new, but with Portmaster Stone, it got significantly more efficient and effective. There is no statistic on what exactly is the average deck size. However, I think it would be fair to estimate that the average deck you'll face in a tournament would be around 43 cards. (Determined by averaging the 35-card minimum and often-seen 50-card size for a control or battle deck, then rounding up). Now, subtract the opponent's seven-card opening hand (leaving 36) and the invariable one-counter spent to draw and you are back to a 35-card deck to mill. Next, assume your opponent will have one headquarters. Divide 35 by 5 and you get 7. So you can assume you need a minimum of seven plays of Josephs. (Of course, your opponent will need more than his opening hand to win, but that's irrelevant for this discussion)

Moving on to how you will accomplish this, I'll just lay it out:

• Task 1 Play a hopefully opening-hand Josephs (35-5=30) and draw two; pitch anything you don't need.
• Task 2 Play another Josephs (30-5=25) and draw two, pitch anything you don't need.
• Task 3 Play your third Josephs (25-5=20) and draw two, pitch anything you dont need.
• Task 4 Play Laurence Stone (cost 5) to put your three Josephs on the bottom of the deck. Play Mathews to place a Josephs into hand. Play What You Leave Behind to put the other two Josephs on top of your deck.
• Task 5 Play Pavel A. Chekov and bounce Laurence Stone to hand; play Marlena Moreau (cost 2) to make each player discard a personnel. Upgrade your draw to get both Josephs to hand. Do whatever to end the turn.
• Task 6 Play Josephs (20-5=15) and draw two.
• Task 7 Play either Josephs or U.S.S. Enterprise, Beautiful Lady (draw two if necessary).
• Task 8 Play the other card from task 7 (15-5=10)

At this point, your opponent has roughly ten cards left in his or her deck. However, if you're running that efficient killing dilemma pile I know you are, then chances are your opponent will have needed to draw roughly that number of cards just to have enough people to complete a mission.

Of course, this all assumes great draws... and what about Voyager? Well, that's why your back-up plan is to blow them up with engagement cards (Stone has Leadership!) and Damage dilemmas (which is entirely feasible given the fact that if you're not using Josephs, you should be able to burn through your deck quickly enough)!

This strategy not appeal to you? Well, you can still use Stone for his two-cost Diplomacy, Engineer, Law, and Integrity 6, which ain't too shabby.

To borrow from another card game which shall remain nameless - your opponent is about to get "mill"stone'd.