Defend Our People

"Looks like you've got your evening all planned out. I hope you left room for... the unexpected."

    - Thomas Riker

Adding to the Maquis theme of making opponents pay for cards more than once comes another mighty weapon for their arsenal: Defend Our People.

This 1-cost event forces each opponent to place a random card from hand on top of his or her deck. While this may not cause your opponent too much of a problem, the ability to replicate the event will. For the cost of discarding one Maquis- icon personnel from hand you can keep the event to use again, and again, and again... You probably won't want to discard six Maquis personnel to force your opponent to put seven cards from hand on top of their deck, but it is an option.

Rebecca Sullivan, Resistance Fighter is the key to making this card worthwhile. Each turn she can place one Maquis personnel card from your discard pile under your draw deck. This means you'll never lose anyone important while you replicate Defend Our People.

If you don't want to spend all of your counters returning cards from your opponent's hand to their deck, there are several other methods to consider. The U.S.S. Defiant, Stolen Warship, Shankar, Maquis Soldier, Ro Laren, Maquis Sympathizer, and Reide all offer a similar service. If you employ some of these cards as well as Defend Our People, then your opponent may think their personnel are safe from being returned to their deck once they've got them in play, but the Maquis have another devious trick up their sleeve. They can return cards in play to their owner's hand using Stalling for Time. This is especially useful when your opponent has no cards in hand, as you can put some there before you use Defend Our People.

To round off the fun, don't forget the dilemma pile. Biochemical Hyperacceleration, Cave-In, Chula: Pick One to Save Two and Hard Time can all return personnel in play back from where they came from. Combining all of these tricks in a deck could force your opponent to draw and play the same set of personnel over and over again - something that is sure to be Unexpected.