Star Chamber is not an easy game to learn. The board game part is difficult to grasp. The cards are varied and often unintuitive. Taken together, its enough to stump even the smartest MENSA members.

The second problem confronting new players is that they’re likely to lose. A lot. We’ve seen several players get so frustrated at their inability to win after a week or two, that they give up on the game completely. To make matters worse, the starter decks are, to put it bluntly, uncompetitive at best, even among new players.

Rather than watch our community lose new players, we thought a series of articles on how to modify the starter decks into something more competitive would be both useful and fun. Fun or us, and hopefully useful and fun for new players.

When we set out to modify the starter decks, we set rules for ourselves - we would use, as much as possible, the cards already present in the deck, and add common cards. The reason for these self-imposed rule is simple - new players are unlikely to have access to specific rare or uncommon cards, and they will have access to a full set of common cards, plus, the deck should introduce a player to what its like to play each given race.

If you’re a new player, ask others for spare commons. Most of us give away our extra common cards for free (TIP: Under no circumstances should you pay anything for common cards. If a particular player is asking for event passes or your rare or uncommon cards in exchange, try someone else.). Thus, a new player should be able to assemble our modified deck without further investment.

In this first article, we examine the Clave starter deck - Nargha's Vengeance.

Introducing the Kitty Terrorists

The Clave are one of the most aggressive races in the Star Chamber. At their best, Clave decks combine the destiny control of Life based cards and the pure destructive power of Entropy. Fortunately for the new player, the starter deck does both. Unfortunately, it does neither one very well.

Let’s take a look at the deck list and break it down card by card.

Nargha's Vengeance
Race
0I0 Clave
Draw deck (40 cards)

4S34 General Nargha (Living Legend) x2

General Nargha (Living Legend) is a great card. His 3 leadership (4 with the Clave leadership bonus) alone is great. If he conquers a few planets, he can be almost unstoppable. This card is also the strongest in the deck, so the General will be the crown jewel of our modified deck.

4C24 Battle Totem x4

This isn’t a bad card. It’s a dual purpose mod - give your ship permanent alert crew status and causing an opponent’s ship to lose theirs. Its tech cost is cheap too.

4C25 Bloodthirst x2

This card isn’t great. There are better and more certain ways to gain influence. We pulled this card out.

4U26 Bushwhacker x2

This is a very nice Clave scout. It has cannon weapons, which are the only type to fire 3 times and has a damage bonus when fighting on an enemy planet. Since the deck includes beam weapon mods (which will also receive the damage bonus), combined with the conqueror bonus for even more damage, it was an easy call to keep it in. On the downside it has a higher tech cost than a regular Clave scout (the same as a Clave cruiser). Still, the two Bushwhackers are keepers.

4U27 Caterwaul x2

The Clave have a number of cards designed to sacrifice a citizen, hero or ship for an advantage. Unfortunately, this is one of the worst. It is expensive in terms of tech, and losing a hero to remove another persona is rarely a good trade. We took these cards out.

4C30 Dying for the Cause x3

This is another card that emphasizes the sacrificial aspect of Clave play. Also another one that isn’t very good. We took these cards out.

4U36 Grunt x2

Grunts are nice cards. The ability to place a Grunt anywhere during a time of war is great - especially for Claves who like to be at war. The reason we decided the take this card out was because it didn’t fit the tech curve of our deck. We’ll explain more on tech curves later in this article.

4C38 The Nargha Maneuver x2

Finally, a Clave sacrificial card that is worth keeping. This card is a higher cost, but slightly better, version of Ramming Speed. What makes this card shine is the ability to select the ship you’re going to destroy. Did you end a turn next to an enormous android capital ship? Destroy it at the cost of a scout!

4U42 Rearguard General x2

An interesting Clave leader, but one that is neither a conqueror (and thus, provides no bonus to our Bushwackers or Mounted Pulse Guns) nor fits well with out tech curve.

4C167 Advancing Horde x2

This turn 1 card can be useful, but not so useful that it merits keeping. The problem with cheap cards is that, while they’re great if you get them in you’re opening hand, you’d much rather draw a cruiser on turn 7-12 than one of these.

4C171 Homesteader x2

An interesting card, but one that falls WAY outside our tech curve, so we have dropped these guys as well.

4C179 Steward x2

The Steward is a nice card for life-based Clave decks. Since many Clave ship destruction cards require a local persona, leaving a Steward at an artifact plant provides influence in the form of a hero (and cannot be bombed during war) and ready to plant a Time Bomb card on an enemy ship. While we like this card we decided to remove the Stewards entirely because they didn’t fit well into the theme of our deck or its tech curve.

4C63 Aggressive Pilot x2

The Aggressive Pilot does fit our tech curve. With the Clave leadership bonus, this leader will do 15 points of beam damage while leading a scout. Those 15 points are enough to kill scouts without modifications from every other race except android. We kept this pilot.

4C71 Mauling Crew x3

The crew, like the Advancing Horde, isn’t a great card except as a turn one drop and as a way to add power to our Mounted Pulse Guns.

4C72 Medal of Triumph x2

The Medal is a great way to turn your non-conqueror heroes into conquerors, and the ability can be useful.

4C73 Mounted Pulse Gun x3

The Mounted Pulse Gun is one of the best common card ship modifications. The +4 to your beam weapons practically guarantees you’ll win early scout fighting. If you add it to your cruisers, they become fearsome indeed! They can even be added to bombers for unexpected firepower. Plus, they fit the conqueror theme of our modified deck. About the only bad thing we can say about this card is that the starter only includes three of them!

4C77 Spoilage x3

Spoilage is probably the least useful card in this whole deck. The resource denial only works on your opponent’s homeworld - which isn’t very significant. It would be marginally more useful if it could be used on minor industrial planets. We threw all three of these away.

After having removed the wheat from the chaff, we decided the theme of our modified deck would be angry, vicious lions! Our deck would make use of the conqueror bonuses and lean more toward entropy than life.

SIDEBAR - Tech Curves - We’ve made a number of references to a tech curve and you may be wondering what we mean. A deck’s tech curve refers to the order in which a player should select her technology breakthroughs. Understanding a tech curve is a key to understanding good deck building.

Take, for instance, the Homesteader and Threat of Violence. The Homesteader’s tech cost is 4 Life. Threat of Violence’s tech cost is 4 Entropy. Both life and entropy are the native techs of Clave, so they both fit in the same deck right? Most likely, the answer is “no”. Because if you put both cards in the same deck, the actual tech cost of one or both cards becomes 4 Life 4 Entropy. The reason is that if you want to play both cards, you’ll need to develop a total of 8 tech breakthroughs.

Another example from our modified deck - we liked the Grunt card, but opted to leave it out. The reason for this is our deck’s tech curve goes from 1E to 1E1L, 2E1L, 3E1L, 3E2L, 4E2L, 4E3L, 4E4L. Which means the actual cost of playing the Grunt card is 4E3L. The Grunt provides good value when it costs 1E3L, but it’s a terrible deal at 4E3L. He’d be more expensive than General Nargha (Living Ledgend)!

Understanding your deck’s tech curve is a fundamental skill for good deck building. When you select cards, keep in mind their actual tech cost in your deck.

Presenting: Nargha's ReVengeance

Race - 0I0 Clave
Draw deck (43 cards)

4C72 Medal of Triumph x2

We kept these cards to make conquerors of your heroes.

4C71 Mauling Crew x3

A useful turn 1 drop.

4C24 Battle Totem x2

We reduced the Totems to two.

4C73 Mounted Pulse Gun x4

We added another Mounted Pulse Gun. Try to save them for your cruisers, Bushwackers and bombers. Also, try to save them and play them right before a battle, so your opponent will not have factored them into his assessment of the upcoming fight.

4C63 Aggressive Pilot x2

As mentioned earlier, a good early hero for early scout duels.

2C12 Gunner x2

This hero should accompany your cruisers or Bushwackers. The bonus he provides to cannon can become truly monstrous in a big fleet.

2C29 Dilettante x2

This card will help you either avoid destiny problems or compound them on your opponent. Remember, you can target your own citizen with it - so if your artifact planet is taken over with your citizen still sitting there, go ahead and play it on yourself. That way, your opponent cannot simply reshuffle the Dilettante somewhere else.

3C25 Slow Poison x2

A couple Slow Poisons provide useful hero or citizen removal. Try not to play it too early - many players make the mistake of playing it as early as possible. You’ll be much happier you played it on an Archon Overseer than a Ferrier citizen. Still, it allows the opponent to ditch a card each turn to keep their perosna alive, so this isn’t a guaranteed death.

3C12 Time Bomb x2

Like Slow Poison for ships but better. This card is extremely useful for taking out strong ships. Don’t waste it on early scouts. Its much more fun to plant a time bomb on a Dreadnaught.

5C33 Iconoclasts x2

Iconoclasts are very strong conquerors. Their ability to reduce the destiny bonus of ALL your opponent’s artifact planets should not be underestimated.

2C28 Broken Pact x2

This deck is weak politically. You’ll usually not be in a position to win many votes. The Broken Pact is a useful way to not have to worry about your opponent getting instant Peace Keeper reinforcements. Try to play it on a voting turn (turns 6, 12, 18 or 24), as sometimes your opponent may lock in certain votes into the peacekeeping category using a card Egalitarian Agenda - a card they may not play if they know there’s a Broken Pact on the Chamber.

4C38 The Nargha Maneuver x2

As we mentioned above, this is a strong ship-destruction card. Try not to use it on early scouts. It’s much more effective on cruisers and capital ships.

5C39 Threat of Violence x2

Your deck does better during wartime. This card helps you declare war without having to win a single vote. This deck has a lot of conquerors in it, so you shouldn’t have a problem finding a planet with a flag upon which to play it. It’s even more fun to play on a planet you just conquered that has enemy citizens on it.

5C20 Roving Warlord x2

The Roving Warlord has many advantages over the Rearguard General it replaces. It fits out tech curve much better, is a conqueror, and can become truly deadly when leading a large fleet.

4C28 Demolition Squad x2

The demolition squad is a deceptively powerful card. He is a strong leader on his own. More importantly, he can be used to destroy a strong enemy ship at minimal cost to you. Use him when leading a large fleet, or send him alone with a scout it fight an enemy capital ship. Either way, you’ll be pleased with the results.

2C10 Desperate Sacrifice x2

This is another card that can surprise your opponent. The +4 to all weapons can turn a beam-modified cruiser into a true nightmare. Additionally, the sacrificed ship is lost at the end of the movement phase, so any citizens or leaders will land safely. This card combines very well with the Demolition Squad.

4U26 Bushwhacker x2

As mentioned above, a nice replacement for the standard Clave scout.

1C19 Clave Cruiser x4

The cruisers provide extra military power to your deck. Also, since we are using only additional commons, it is one of the higher tech cost cards that exist in the deck to provide it with extra “muscle” to control movement on the map. Use them to build up a good sized fleet.

4S34 General Nargha (Living Legend) x2

And finally, the crown jewel of our deck. The General. Honestly, this is the card which least fits the deck. The deck’s tech curve is 1E to 1E1L, 2E1L, 3E1L, 3E2L, 4E2L, 4E3L, 4E4L, so the General’s actual cost is 4E4L. Who cares though? He is too cool to leave out!

Taking the deck out for a spin

So we’d modified the deck in a way we thought made sense. But was it truly competitive? There was no way to known until we tried it. Our results were good in several games we played in the Mezz (Casual Lobby), but that wasn’t a real test. People often play fun and unusual decks in the Mezz, and don’t often play finely tuned tournament decks. Fortunately, the Even Stevens III tournament was only one day away.

The Even Stevens series of tournaments are player-run events in which the prizes are distributed to all participants equally. It provides a less pressure-intensive and more relaxed play atmosphere. The competition, however, is no joke. Veterans dominate these events. Even Stevens III was no exception. Zorro played the modified starter deck in the event, hoping it would be competitive in a tournament.

Round 1 - Zorro wins versus Grezz on Hourglass.

Grezz is a relatively new player who is improving every day. In this tournament, he played what appeared to be a destiny rocket Clave deck. Zorro got the early advantage by blocking Grezz’s access to the Star Chamber on Romdulin (the planet just above the Chamber and in between the two industrial planets). This blockade proved decisive as Zorro swept the first vote and furthered his advantage by blockading Warner (the artifact planet just below Grezz’s homeworld.). These strong blockades forced Grezz to build up his fleet, during this time, Zorro conquered all the artifact planets and quickly won a cultural victory.

After the game, Grezz told Zorro that he’d selected the wrong deck - he’d accidentally selected a deck of all common and uncommon cards he’d made for the uncommon ground tournament held a few days earlier. We were happy the modified starter had won its first tournament game, but didn’t take too much comfort since it obviously wasn’t confronting a tournament tuned and rare-heavy deck.

Round 2 - Zorro wins versus Executor on Arena

Executor is a clever player with a knack for pulling off surprises. This game was no exception. Executor was playing an Omior deck with a cyber splash, giving him access to powerful Zhikanii and Silica cards. Executor’s deck was very aggressive.

Things began poorly for Zorro who lost his early scout and leader on turn two during a battle on Nuvark (the barren planet between both players’ homeworlds) - Executor played a Sun Bloom on his scout. Stung by the early disadvantage, Zorro limited his expansion in the Arena around the Star Chamber to one industrial planet, and used several scouts to block Executor’s citizens from the Star Chamber.

Executor won the Peace Keeper vote, and Zorro planted a time bomb on it. These moves, combined with cruiser played out of Zorro’s hand on Scrom, allowed him to gain a decisive edge, and conquer the other industrial and artifact planet, while maintaining his blockade. Executor tried to create threats against Zorro’s home world, and left his own somewhat vulnerable. Zorro’s fleet pounced on Executor’s home world for the win.

Round 3 - Zorro wins versus tsai on Points of Power

We knew this would be a tough match up. Tsai is perhaps the strongest active Thrass player, and he was playing a deck which makes excellent use of the Thrall Chamber, as well as other Thrass powerful rare cards such as the Hive Queen (Reborn), Parasite and Harvester. Our modified deck’s biggest weakness, political control, was tsai’s greatest strength. Given this, Zorro decided his best course of action was to play as if he had 18 turns to pull of a military or cultural win. In essence, he completely ceded the Star Chamber vote and devoted all his early resources to capturing the planets on the top of the map.

The action was tense, and in the early game, tsai was outmaneuvering Zorro. However, Zorro was able to declare war using Threat of Violence, and used bombers to consolidate his hold of the upper artifact planets, while sending a fleet to capture Praxion (the artifact planet below the Star Chamber).

By this time, tsai had exhausted his reserve time, and was forced to move quickly. This led to a strategic miscalculation on his part, allowing Zorro to win by destiny on turn 18 - right before tsai had a chance to win the decisive 3rd power play vote and the game. In truth, had tsai not been forced to rush due to time pressure, he probably would have recognized the danger of earlier and tried to avert it. This game was not so much won by Zorro as lost by tsai.

The Right Honorable Zorro

So is this modified starter deck competitive? We think so! And we have a tournament victory to prove it. Our modified starter faced stiff competition from strong players and prevailed. We can’t guarantee that a new player can use this deck and win immediately, but unlike the unmodified starter deck, this one won’t get in the way.

The Road Ahead

We believe this modified starter deck, which only uses cards found in the deck itself or common cards new player can obtain for free, is fun and competitive. However, adding certain uncommon and rare cards does make it stronger. Here is a modified version of the modified starter deck that incorporates several rare and uncommon cards.

Nation of Claves
 Race
      0I0 Clave
 Draw deck (44 cards)
      5C101 Mark of Entropy
      5C102 Mark of Life
      4C71 Mauling Crew x3
      4C73 Mounted Pulse Gun x4
      4C24 Battle Totem x2
      2C12 Gunner x2
      2C29 Dilettante x2
      1U56 Proton Cannon
      4R45 Storm Clan Radicals
      5C33 Iconoclasts x2
      1U18 Bounty Hunter
      5C20 Roving Warlord x3
      5C39 Threat of Violence x2
      1C19 Clave Cruiser x2
      4U26 Bushwhacker x2
      5R15 Guerilla Band x2
      5U21 Storm Clan Infiltration x2
      4U41 Political Fallout x2
      4S34 General Nargha (Living Legend) x2
      1R22 Core Overload
      5R84 Nationhood
      1U28 Sabotage x2
      1U29 War Cry
      5R13 Caleph (Khan of the Free Clave)
      4R43 Sharpfang (Flagship of the Hunt)

This deck has a similar play style and feel as the modified starter. The main difference is that the citizens, including the 1 tech mauling crews, remain useful throughout the game, and the tech curve starts heavy toward Entropy, and then switches back to Life. The citizens can be used as targets for the Storm Clan Infiltration, and they gain territorial influence once you play Nationhood. Like our modified starter deck, the idea of this deck is to control the board, mostly by blowing up the opposing ships, and then declaring war to bomb citizens. The Threat of Violence cards can be used to declare war, or can be ditched to plant flags for when you play Nationhood. The tech curve of the deck is 1E or 1L - 1E1L - 2E1L - 3E1L - 3E2L -3E3L - 3E4L - 4E4L - 4E5L - 4E6L.

To assemble this deck, you’ll need to collect the following cards

Uncommons:
1U56 Proton Cannon
1U18 Bounty Hunter
5U21 Storm Clan Infiltration x2
4U41 Political Fallout x2
1U28 Sabotage x2
1U29 War Cry
  
Rares:
4R45 Storm Clan Radicals
5R15 Guerilla Band x2
1R22 Core Overload
5R84 Nationhood
5R13 Caleph (Khan of the Free Clave)
4R43 Sharpfang (Flagship of the Hunt)