Extravagance is a Virtue

With so many titles, Lwaxana Troi, Extravagant Ambassador makes an entrance. She could almost make you believe she is worth the six counters indicated. Almost. Then you read the rest of the card and discover that you will never play her for six counters. For the mere requirement of commanding three Federation personnel (never a problem in a deck which could play Lwaxana Troi anyway), you can play her for a single counter. So why did the design team not simply make Lwaxana Troi a one-cost personnel with no game text?

The answer lies in the simple phrase "4 or more." As you may have guessed, the "4 or more" theme revolves around cost. Since cards look at printed cost, not what you actually pay to play the card, Lwaxana Troi is seen as a six-cost card. In other words, you can use her to trigger any of the "4 or more" cards without actually spending four or more counters.

Now, Troi will not work with all cards in the "4 or more" theme. Some cards, like To Be a Warrior, have additional requirements (in this case, being a Klingon) beyond the requisite cost. But she can be taken into hand by Keiko O'Brien, Botanist, or get an attributes boost from Worf, Defiant Commander.

Not all cards which make use of cost specifically say "4 or more." You can use These Are The Voyages with Lwaxana Troi to draw a high number of cards. Or Laas, One of the 100 can emulate Lwaxana Troi to change his attributes to nine each. An older, but still very powerful, option is to discard Lwaxana Troi for Gorgan, forcing your opponent to discard an extremely high-cost card or stop all of his or her personnel.

There are other ways to turn Troi's high cost to your advantage, so keep an eye out for more spoilers!

I still want to know how she got Rixx's chalice, though.