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DECIPHER.com > Star Trek CCG
> Tenth Anniversary > Timeline
The History of Star Trek CCG: 1998
July 1, 2004
January
The year began with a demo
tour for First Contact, which had released just before Christmas. Ambassadors
headed for stores worldwide armed with sample decks designed to demo the
new Borg affiliation. Meanwhile, Decipher's Star Trek CCG support
team underwent several changes,
with the departure of Jason "Q" Winter transferring the rules
guru mantle to Kathy "Major Rakal" McCracken and with the addition
of Kyle "The Traveler" Heuer as the on-the-road promoter for the
game. Out on the web, Chris Heard launched his Star Trek CCG Academy website;
in August he would convert it to a Borg theme as the Unicomplex Computer
Core.
February
The regional structure for the STCCG championship circuit got its first
facelift, expanding from
eight regions to 21 with a complete new set of region names. Gone were the
quadrant names, replaced by assorted planets and, for the Virginia area
(home to Decipher headquarters), Sector 001.
March
The 1996 National Champion and 1997 World Champion, David Bowling, took
yet another title in March, winning the first Independent STCCG Online World
Championship (ISOWC), run by Helge Blohmer through his Kedanya Station website.
May
Late spring brought the Official Tournament Sealed
Deck, commonly known as the OTSD, with 20 superb premium cards, many
of which became as much staples in constructed deck play as in sealed deck.
As popular as the premiums were the boxes, a perfect size for transporting
a deck complete with side decks and spare universal missions – and
they came in six different affiliations. Around the same time a pair of
promotional cards, the Away Team pack of
The Emissary and The Traveler, were released for distribution through the
Ambassador corps and at conventions.
June
Through June and July, the OTSD product was the basis for a special
tournament series with Fajo Collections for prizes. For these special
events, players were given Away Team packs to add to their OTSD card pools.
July
At the height of summer convention season, the standalone Deep
Space Nine expansion launched. Two full new affiliations and a whole
new quadrant, plus randomized, playable starter decks, made DS9 a hit. The
surprise inclusion of a preview version of the U.S.S. Defiant was
just the icing on the cake. A pre-release at Origins drew 84 participants.
(Note: the Deep Space Nine fact page has just been updated with links to
the newly rediscovered expansion area pages and a Q&A transcript!)
November
With fall came the second World Championships, held this year in Virginia
Beach at the Chamberlin Hotel from November 13-15. Bill Chien took the title,
with Todd Soper in second place for the second time. New rules guru Kathy
McCracken served as head judge for the championships. Online, a new STCCG
card review series, the Rolodex, was started by Michel "Siskoid"
Albert; it's still going strong today.
December
Rounding out the product calendar for the year was the Starter
Deck II, a repack of premiere starter decks with added premium cards
to make them playable.
Have more 1998 highlights? Send them in to me at webmaster@decipher.com
for consideration.
Kathy (Major Rakal) McCracken
Star Trek CCG Intelligence Officer and Tal Shiar Agent
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