Mot's Advice on the Borg - #22

Well, the 1998 World Championships are over and we can now answer the question, did the Borg have what it takes to be competitive? Two players represented Borg on the first day of competition. Both made the top 12, one deck placing an amazing 3rd overall for the day, and the other never falling out of the top 10 in all eight rounds of the tournament. Three players played Borg on day two, rising as high as 6th in a field of the best players in the world.

I think the answer is a resounding yes. Resistance is futile.

A special acknowledgement to Chris Stevenson for "joining the Collective" on day two. ;-) (With an untitled deck -- names are irrelevant...)

Brad DeFruiter collaborated extensively with me on the Borg strategy we employed at the Worlds. It's the strategy that I played undefeated at the GenCon Open. And now, it can be your strategy, because here's the full details on our approach to the "best Borg deck in the world", sometimes known as "Crash 'n Trash" or "The Killer B's", but *always*....

Mot's Advice on the Borg #22: Gamma Swarm


The Philosophy. It says in the First Contact rules supplement, "The Borg are single-minded in their objective" and this is very well reflected in the game. The Borg work best when played with this in mind. The more stream-lined and focused the deck, the better it is likely to perform.

This Borg deck is based on the Establish Gateway objective. The goal is to plow in full steam and scout copies of that objective at your opponent's mission locations, acquiring artifacts, and using Computer Crash to prevent your opponent from accessing their Q's Tent for cards that might stop you.

The deck list. This is the version I played. (Later on, I'll discuss the differences in Brad's version.)


Seed Cards (30)

Missions (6)

Camping Trip
Changeling Research
Investigate Rumors
Survey Star System (x3)

Dilemmas/Artifacts (16)
(usually played in these combos)

Radioactive Garbage Scow
Cryosatellite
Horga'hn

Radioactive Garbage Scow
Cryosatellite
Orb of Prophecy and Change

Radioactive Garbage Scow
The Sheliak
Q

Altonian Brain Teaser
The Sheliak
Q

The Sheliak
Dead End

The Sheliak
Dead End

Doorways (4)

Q's Tent
Space-Time Portal (x2)
Transwarp Network Gateway

Other Seeds (10)

Computer Crash (x5)
Establish Gateway (x4)
Mission Debriefing

Draw Deck (33)

Personnel (12)

Borg Queen (x3)
Survey Drone (x9)

Ships (9)

Borg Scout Vessel (x9)

Doorways (4)

Q's Tent (x2)
Transwarp Network Gateway (x2)

Interrupts (7)

Adapt: Negate Obstruction (x4)
Amanda Rogers (x3)

Objectives (1)

Assimilate Planet


Q's Tent Side Deck (13)

A Change of Plans
Assimilate Planet
Borg Queen
Countermeasure Drone
Intermix Ratio
Intruder Force Field
Oof!
Ready Room Door
Regenerate
Scorched Hand
The Devil
Transwarp Network Gateway
Yellow Alert

More than half of your work is done in the seed phase. In the ideal situation, your opponent will be playing a split of four space missions (with point boxes) and only two planets. The four Establish Gateways seeded will then be used to scout those four space missions. The first two dilemma combos (including the Horga'hn and Orb of Prophecy and Change) should be seeded at space missions within 7 span of the spaceline end, so you can report a Scout Vessel with crew to the end of the spaceline, move in to the correct location, and immediately begin scouting.

Play to acquire the Horga'hn first. Seed your initial Transwarp Network Gateway within range of the mission where you've seeded the Horga'hn. With nine sets of ships and Survey Drones in the deck, you are very likely to have what you need in your opening hand. Report a Scout Vessel with crew (a Survey Drone) on your first turn, reveal an Establish Gateway, and target the mission. Radioactive Garbage Scow is an irrelevant dilemma to the Borg, and will place on the mission as an obstacle your opponent will have to move before they can attempt it later. Meanwhile, you'll complete scouting and be able to probe (most likely successfully) on your next turn to acquire the Horga'hn.

About the time you acquire the Horga'hn, your opponent will be itching to get hold of The Devil. Odds are they have one in their Q's Tent. That's where Computer Crash comes in. You can Crash any attempts to access a Tent, but since you are taking double turns off the Horga'hn, Crash will not affect your second turn should you need to download. (Crash also works great for keeping your opponent from downloading ships with Spacedoor, ships which could tow away your Scows, or worse, come hunting your Scout Vessels.)

If your opponent has seeded four space missions, there's not much more for you to do but scout those missions in succession. If they've played more planets than space, however, you'll have to make some choices. If they have planets you can target with Assimilate Planet, then you will want to acquire your Orb of Prophecy and Change soon after your Horga'hn. Using the Orb to place cards with Communications icons (Borg Queen, Adapt: Negate Obstruction) on top of your deck when you probe, you can scout planet missions just as easily as space missions.

Another alternative (or for cases where your opponent has not provided four locations you can target) is to begin scouting your own space missions. You should also run to the Gamma Quadrant if your opponent builds up enough ships to attack your swarm. Use Space-Time Portal to clear out the Alpha Quadrant as best you can, and use the report with crew function of the Scout Vessel to start over again in the Gamma Quadrant (downloading Transwarp Network Gateways there as necessary). You have enough Queens, expendable drones, and Adapts to be able to score at least one of your own missions, and quite possibly two or more depending on how skillful your opponent is with anti-Borg dilemma strategy. Meanwhile, Computer Crash again helps you, keeping your opponent from downloading the Gamma Quadrant end of the Bajoran Wormhole to easily chase after you. (Your Adapts also come in handy if your opponent has self-seeded dilemmas at the locations you seeded your artifacts for the early game.)

This deck must do what it does quickly. Give your opponent enough time to develop, and sooner or later they will draw a ship naturally, draw the ENGINEER personnel they need to tow your Scows, and teach you a lesson for messing with their missions. Press the double-turn advantage as hard as you can -- that's why there are Amanda Rogers in the deck. It does violate the cardinal rule of maintaining the best possible ratio of successful probes, but they can easily be worked around using the Orb once you acquire it. If your opponent does somehow get hold of The Devil, you'll have a second line of defense for your Horga'hn.

About the dilemma combos. The first two listed are "space-only" combos, meant to be seeded at locations you will scout. The final two combos (Sheliak/Dead End) go at your opponent's two planet missions. In a shortened Alpha Quadrant, with you taking double turns, this combo can often kill off entire Away Teams. (Don't forget you still have Mission Debriefing to still nail your opponent if they overcome it and complete the mission.) The middle two combos, while they feature both space-only and planet-only dilemmas, are meant to be you "flexible" combos. Seed them at space missions or planet missions, whichever your opponent has. The Altonian Brain Teaser can be pulled out as a separate card. Place it at the end of the spaceline and release it yourself if you suspect your opponent of using multiple self-seeded Cytherians to win. Also reveal it early and get it to your discard pile if you suspect your opponent of playing a Q's Planet Colony deck -- you can place the discarded Brain Teaser at the Q's Planet to block that strategy too.

The Q's Tent is not essential to this deck, obvious when you see only two copies of the Tent in the draw deck. Instead, the Tent houses a few extra cards that can be downloaded (keeping the draw deck smaller), and fallback cards for protection:

A Change of Plans will help you download an Assimilate Planet objective if you were prevented from doing so after a completed Establish Gateway by your own Computer Crash.

Assimilate Planet (along with another in the draw deck), in case your opponent hasn't played enough space missions for you to win, and also in case a Q's Planet requires you get to 140 points.

Borg Queen, mostly in case of self-seeded dilemmas. In most cases, you'll only need to Tent for the Queen if you need to Adapt early in the game to a dilemma your opponent seeded at their own mission. Most of the time, you'll draw into Queens naturally in your draw deck, and often won't even need to play them.

Countermeasure Drone to download Adapts if things are going very badly.

Intermix Ratio will stop Colony decks and strategies centered on bonus points (although be warned those kinds of decks often use Computer Crash themselves!). Mostly, Intermix Ratio is here as an endgame card. If your opponent has managed to destroy one or two of your Alpha Quadrant scouts for points before you could escape, get this card on your last turn to take those points away. Intermix Ratio can turn 100-20 wins with this deck into shut-outs.

Intruder Force Field to protect against Rogue Borg Mercenaries making it difficult for you to probe. Also useful for reversing Telepathic Alien Kidnappers (if your Tent wasn't closed first...).

Oof! If your opponent had Q2s to block the Amandas you used, or used their own Amandas on your Adapts, you can hit back with this.

Ready Room Door/Yellow Alert. An anti-Red alert combo.

Regenerate is good when you've lost a number of ships and personnel to dilemmas (Borg Ship is a common cause) and need to restore cards to probe with.

Scorched Hand again gives you cards to probe with. If your deck is running low, quit playing cards when you draw them and plan to Scorch them back to your draw deck later. (Added benefit, you can hurt opponents with large hands, too. Works great against a player with more than 13 cards who has just called "Devidian Door!")

The Devil. True, it's hiding in your Tent just like you're hoping your opponent's Devil is too, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't have one at all. Stops treaties and Horga'hns, both prominent on the tournament scene.

Transwarp Network Gateway. Download it if necessary when reporting a Scout Vessel or completing an Establish Gateway objective.

Brad DeFruiter played a very similar deck at the Worlds. The same framework was in place; try to catch your opponent with four space missions, scout them using seeded objectives, and defend a Horga'hn with Computer Crash. The major difference between our two decks was how we handled games where that didn't happen. My approach was to use the Orb of Prophecy and Change to move to planets instead. Brad chose to instead stock almost twice the number of Adapt: Negate Obstructions, moving on to his own space missions and planning to powerhouse through his opponent's dilemmas. Other notable changes:

Betazoid Gift Box. Since Assimilate Planet was truly an secondary plan for Brad, he instead chose to use the Gift Box as his second artifact. The advantage here is he could completely clear his deck of bad probes early in the game, and get all his Amanda Rogers in hand to defend his Horga'hn. The disadvantage is that if forced to use Assimilate Planet, he had no way to increase his likelihood of a successful probe.

Computer Crash. Brad ran one fewer dilemma (one less Garbage Scow) in favor of one extra Computer Crash. While this leaves one mission a little more vulnerable to being completed, it keeps the opponent away from their Tent (and likely, their Devil) one turn longer.

Deck size. Brad's deck is slightly larger, including an extra ship, Borg Queen, and Q's Tent. This makes sense given his plan to encounter his opponent's dilemmas and try to push through them in the second half of the game (where I planned to continue avoiding them as long as possible).

Q's Tent contents. Brad has three alternative choices for his Q's Tent. Where I used Ready Room Door/Yellow Alert, he is using Anti-Time Anomaly as his "anti-Red Alert" card. It has the added advantage of taking out a lot of his opponent's personnel whether they were using Red Alert or not, but the disadvantage of being vulnerable to Kevin Uxbridge for a prolonged number of turns (though the Horga'hn helps with this). Revolving Door is a more aggressive card than Oof! and will be usually used to close off the opponent's Q's Tent. Finally, Brad had room for an extra card, Palor Toff, useful for retrieving the Adapts and ships he'll need more of for his approach.

There is one other significant difference between Brad's version and mine: his mission selection. He uses Colony Preparations instead of Camping Trip. This may strike you as particularly odd, as the Borg cannot target Colony Preparations with Assimilate Planet. It gets into another aspect of playing the Borg which I will discuss in my next review.

In the meantime, enjoy the Gamma swarm strategy and try out changes of your own. More to the point, I should say enjoy it while you can. The Dominion is just around the corner, and soon the Gamma Quadrant won't be a safe place for Borg Scout Vessels. :-)

Next Time: Disguising Your Borg Deck

- Mot the Barber

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