Premiere Starter Deck II, 8 cards (fixed) + (random) 2 rares, 13 uncommons and 45 commons all from WB Premiere.
Average Picture Score: 3.44
Average Lore Score: 3.34
Average Trek Sense Score: 3.2
Average Seedability/Stockability Score: 3.69

PRODUCT CONCEPT: A smaller, cheaper Sealed Deck? Sure, why not? The idea here was to create 8 cards that would allow you to play any Premiere starter deck right out of the box. Obviously, that was going to require 6 missions, an outpost and a way to allow all three aligned Premiere affiliations to mix without repeating the cards from the OTSD. Not every problem has been fixed though, since you have no guarantee of being able to use holograms and no reason to use Treaties, but for the most part, unless you get somehting odd like a deck with fewer than 30 deck cards (i.e. non-seeds), it should work. The product is a good way to market the Premiere starter for new players, creates a new playing environment "right out of the box", and adds cards that prove useful in the normal environment as well. No real link between the 8 premiums, but with such a small number and so precise an agenda, you can't ask for too much. See Usefulness for a look at average deck viability using this product. Let me sign off for now with a score of 4.

PACKAGING/LOOK: Though purple (wink, wink), Starter Deck II is infinitely superior to the plain blue Starter I. Instead of reserving the ship and planet images for the back of the box, Starter II does the right thing and puts them up front. The background looks to me like the inside of the Energy Vortex and really centralizes the composition of what otherwise would have been a left-leading one. One of each affiliation's ships make up the foreground, again a good choice. That's the USS Enterprise in the middle, with a non-card K'Vort (looks good!) to its right and a mirror-angled Haakona to its left (all three affiliations are also given lip service on the back text). The front design is topped with the Star Trek logo with the lightning bolt crossing it, great with those roiling clouds. The back of the box is well balanced too. It shows a universal K'Vort and Diplomacy Mission (given the nature of the Starter II experience, not a bad choice) which oppose each other as the two basic strategies if you will (war and peace). It also has a picture of every Premium so you know what you're getting as far as basic card types. The booster pack advertisment is understated.

Open it up, and you'll find a rulebook version 1.1, which graphically does away with the frontspiece ships but leaves the Vortex alone. Looks good. What's inside is much like the original rulebook, though on softer paper. It still focuses on Premiere cards (no explanation of card types or affiliations not found in that set), but updates the personnel battle rules (though not yet ship battles) and other sundry rules (like deck size). The glossary is more complete. The included card list is only for the basic set (naturally). It's ok. One word on the cards themselves - it's too bad unlimited Premiere is white-bordered. It just clashes too much with other cards, including the premiums included. A rather good Packaging score at 3.5.

DISTRIBUTION: The 8 Premiums are available in every single Starter Deck II, make it useable right out of the box even for veterans (you'd have to play in the Starter II sealed deck format) and comes at a relatively low cost (between 10 and 12 dollars in most North American venues). I think 2 rares is a little low for a 60-card product (when the equivalent 4 Premiere boosters would yield twice as many), but that's a problem with Starter deck design in general. It could be said that the addition of 8 premiums more than makes up for it. Might be a little held back by the packing of yet more Premiere cards, but not enough to make it go lower than a 4.

NEW ICONS, CARD TYPES & MECHANICS: About the Ferengi card... The First Anthology actually had the first Ferengi icon, and now the Starter Deck gives us the Ferengi border color predating the introduction of the affiliation by a few expansions. I'm not, then, going to discuss it now, only when Rules of Acquisition reveals the affiliation for real. All this was merely a curiosity at the time. I will discuss the Starter Deck II format which is detailed briefly in the rulebook though:

Starter Deck II Environment
Text: "The Memory Wipe event implements a special environment when playing Starter Deck II vs. Starter Deck II. You and your opponent each seed the card and agree not to nullify it. This allows each player's cards of different affiliations to mix without having to use one more more Treaty cards."
Trek Sense: As mentioned under Memory Wipe's Trek Sense, it's a more than a little hard to believe that even if amnesiacs, all these characters would think they are working together despite different uniform and ship styles. Even more disturbing is the fact the Satarrans hit every ship and facility in the sector, on both sides of the table, yet your personnel do not recognize kinship with the amnesiacs on the other side of the table, even if they ARE using the same ships and uniforms they are. And since the Enterprise personnel eventually did "snap out of it", the rule that the card cannot be nullified in this format is entirely artificial. Doesn't go above 0.5.
Usefulness: If you are going to use the product as it was meant to, you have no choice but to agree that this is a good compromise. You get to use your deck right out of the box, and so does your opponent. Of course, the Warp Speed rules can now entirely replace this, but it still doesn't totally invalidate the product's own built-in format, since players may enjoy the longer spaceline, actual mission points, etc. A necessary evil, the mechanic doesn't survive in any other environment. A 3.
[Average total: 1.75.]

(Average score for new mechanics: 1.75.)

OVERALL USEFULNESS: So, IS the average Premiere starters supplemented with those 8 premiums viable an playable? Let's open two decks to see (well, I opened them a long time ago, but kept them together). The first had way too many ships (10!), 8 dilemmas (but only one seedable in space), 4 extra missions, a Romulan outpost (if I'd rather not use the Trading Post) and the rest in Events (inlcuding a useless Treaty and practically irrelevant Espionage), Interrupts, Equipment and Personnel. In this kind of format, the commons and uncommons are usually more important than the few rares (Picard/Hood and Tomalak/New Contact in these examples). In this format, Red Alert and Static Warp Bubble will prove most useful. most of the personnel I drew were mission specialists, so I'm glad for Picard, McKnight and Tebok. Still, this makes most of the missions difficult to complete with small Away Teams. They ARE solvable though (except my First and New Contacts).

Second deck does a little better in some areas with only 5 ships and a better mix on Non-Aligned personnel like Baran. There's a greater choice of missions and the 8 dilemmas are split 50/50 between space and planet (including Firestorm). This time, 2 unusable Treaties (2 Espionage cards too), but a Q-Net, Kivas Fajo-Collector and Red Alert. Again, the personnel can complete most missions you'd put on the spaceline. I'd have to say the Starter Deck II passes the test there.

For the veteran player only looking for the premiums, it may not look like it's worth it to buy an entire deck for 6 missions and 2 other cards. Well, those two other cards are pretty useful in the standard environment. Memory Wipe has a number of useful and nuisance effects thanks to its second function. The Trading Post is one of the cards most named by Rules of Acquisition expansion cards. Both are worth it. A few of the missions have a little something special, from seedable hand weapons (Search for Weapons is a great mission) to incentive to use Atmospheric Ionization (pass). One of them is great, the others are average. 3 need-to-have cards isn't bad, though it's too bad they can be useful in multiple, yet come in this pre-packaged product that forces you to buy 65 others. I'd have to say Starter Deck II has a little something for both the newbie and the veteran player, plus creates an fairly random playing environment where both may meet, and where one can teach the game to the other. A 3.5.

TOTAL: 16.75 on 25 (67%) No OTSD, but still recommended.

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