A Beast of a Draw Engine!

These Are The Voyages is a very versatile card and one of the most efficient ways to cycle through your deck. It allows you to draw a number of cards equal to the cost of a personnel you command, then put three cards from hand on the bottom of your deck. While at first glance this is simply a good draw engine, TATV can be used for multiple purposes, some of which may not be immediately obvious:

 

Cycling through your deck:

This is the most basic function of TATV. The more cards you can draw, the faster you will be able to get your key cards into play. Even if a 4-cost personnel is the most expensive personnel you have in play, TATV is still a decent way to draw a lot of cards if you are looking for a specific card. Also, note that it's safer to use than the old D'Arsay Archive, because if TATV is canceled by a card like Amanda Rogers or Our Death is Glory to the Founders, you will lose 1 counter, whereas a countered Archive will result in 2 lost counters and the loss of all your remaining hand cards.

 

Generating extra counters:

Of course, TATV does not really allow you to spend more than seven counters, but if you have certain personnel in play, it does indeed effectively save you some precious counters. Let's have a look at the maths. Using TATV has the following costs:

• drawing TATV: 1 counter = 1 card draw
• playing TATV: 1 counter = 1 card draw
• putting 3 cards from hand under your deck: 3 "wasted" counters = 3 card draws

Thus, you will already break even mathematically as far as counters / card draws are concerned if you use TATVon a 5-cost personnel; but, don't forget that in addition you get the opportunity to draw for cards you need and get rid of those you don't, so playing TATV on a 5-coster is never a waste of resources.

With a 6-cost personnel (Lore , The One and Mirror Bashir can be used by any non-Borg affiliation, Ferengi can use Gint, and Federation players have Lwaxana Troi and AU Data), you get to draw an additional card for free, which nets you one extra counter. Voyager players can get even more of a payback if they play TATV on Chakotay, First Officer - 2 free card draws! With 3 copies of TATV in the deck, this can buy you almost an extra turn's worth of card draws over the course of a game.

 

Setting up downloads:

Many cards that allow you to download a card will actually only work if you have the target card in your deck - bad luck if you have drawn all copies of that card early and have them in your hand now. With TATV, you can put those cards back under your deck, while at the same time drawing other, more useful cards. For example, this can be useful if you want to use Quark (True Ferengi or Simple Barkeep) to put a certain card beneath Ferenginar; if you want to solve Commandeer Prototype but have already drawn the ship you wanted to commandeer; or if you want to use One-Upsmanship to get rid of an opponent's events.

 

Replenishing your deck:

If you have a cheap personnel in play, you can use TATV to prevent yourself from decking out. Just play TATV on a 0-cost personnel, draw 0 cards, but put 3 cards you cannot play from your hand under your deck, and maybe you can avoid the deck-out for just that one more turn.

 

Emptying your hand:

Similar to the previous example. Sometimes you want to have an empty hand, for example if you're playing Mirror Starfleet. Just spend your last counter for the turn on TATV, targeting Tolian Soran, draw 0, and you can get rid of 3 hand cards without having to discard them.

 

If you're running a couple of personnel who cost 5 or more in your deck anyway, there's no reason not to include These Are The Voyages into your deck. Give it a try!