Like many of us when Star Trek: First Contact came out, I was excited in seeing how they would incorporate the Borg into the Star Trek CCG that we have all come to know and love. So, after getting a box for Hanukauh, I proceeded to look at the cards without even regarding the rules (typical for me ;-) After looking at all the drones and the Queen that I had, I’m thinking to myself: “Cool, there’s practically no mission I couldn’t attempt without so much of a problem...” Then, I read the rules and I was surprised: No mission attempts for the Borg, they scout missions instead (which makes sense) but I wasn’t happy because that meant that I probably wasn’t ever going to play the Borg. Why, you ask? Because the Borg just don’t feel right (which may or may not be accurate to all) but then, I only cared about me at the time. They just aren’t part of my playing style, go figure.
However, I knew that while not everyone was going to change to playing Borg overnight (esp. with the un-intentionally abusive combination of AMS/RRD) I figured that eventually people will play Borg with greater frequency so I better figure out how to stop them before I get assimilated so to speak by a Borg player of any kind. Luckily, my roommate became a true die-hard Borg player so I began to refine the craft of really annoying him ;-) And, with the introduction of the Sealed Deck and DS9, the Borg became both more popular and more vulnerable at the same time with other assorted additions. With the results of the World Championships, the Borg did quite well which will only increase their usage so I thought that I, being an anti-Borg player, thought I might help aid in your quest (not in finding the Holy Grail ;-) but in against the Borg overall.
From what I have observed, there are about three types of Borg decks: Swarm/Scout ships decks that basically are designed to only attempt their opponent space missions and are quite sacrificial (Horga’hn’s and Cryosatellites are common) Both Mot’s and Sirna’s (a.k.a Brad Defruiter) used these types of decks quite effectively. Second, there’s the Borg cube decks which rely on any objective that they choose, relying on the Borg Cube’s strength in taking out ships and salvaging them or even assimilating a homeworld where appropriate. Investigate Incursion and Secret Salvage are common missions in these type of decks as well as a homeworld to fall back on if need be and are also more reliant on downloading than the previous deck. The third and most rare of these types of decks are the Counterpart decks which do nothing more than attempt to assimilate your men and fall under the control of the Queen and if others get killed in the process, they too will be assimilated. Surprisingly, I don’t see this deck often but it is a valid concern (30 pts from Picard and just imagine if they assimilate your Lore...) because it gives them a reason to attack you, strength enhancement drones and the Talon drone take your people away making it hard to defend against. And hopefully after reading the following, you’ll have a better understanding of how to resist assimilation.
First, we have doorways. Now, most people use a Q-Tent, couple of Space-Time Portals and even the occasional Q-Flash. Out of all that are listed, I’d keep maybe the Q-Tent and two Space-Time Portals at most. Reasoning behind the maybe of the Q-Tent: While it is handy to have, it isn’t as necessary against the Borg as it is against others because the Borg are limited in their forms of play and it can be a liability when you’re using Revolving Doors on their Tent and Transwarp Network Gateways as it gives your opponent a target for Wrong Dooring these Doors away from their doors. As for the two Space-Time Portals, I’d use them so you can seed AU dilemmas and their special abilities (handy for avoiding an attacking Borg swarm or Cube, helpful in their rapid deployment potential and wormholes, which you won’t see that much of in Borg decks since it upsets the probe probabilities but you can use it on yourselves as you see fit) I’d also have a back-up AU door in the Tent if you have one for other reasons that will come up later.
Second, we have your missions: For planets, stick with no homeworlds (unless you’re are either using an headquarters or a Visit Cochrane Memorial) and have the point value of the missions under 35 pts since they can’t assimilate them. I pick four planets (limits the Borg’s ability to assimilate missions of yours and their ability to walk through a mission. I recommend that you use missions that include the usage of AMS personnel for the mission’s requirement. Such missions include Plague Planet (Ogawa premiere and Dr. Royse), Gravesworld (Toby Russell and any officer), Restore Errant Moon (Soren and any of the three Leadership AMS plus an Engineer), First Contact (Lwaxana Troi and Riva) that can be completed by just the Fed’s alone. The Klingons and the Romulans have others (usually using the skills of Honor and Navigation or Treachery, Computer Skill and Stellar Cartography depending on the affiliation) but you get the idea. It would not be ill-advised to have one of these type of missions in the Gamma Quadrant if you wish to wormhole them to the Gamma Quadrant (not something that I do since it’s not hard for the Borg to come back to the Alpha Quadrant. Now that leaves two missions left and if you don’t want to worry about Balancing Act, they’re both going to be space. For one, I strongly recommend Paxan Wormhole, the only space mission that cannot be assimilated by the Borg because they’re always relocated since they don’t have an android. As for the other, since point value in space is irrelevant, make it a mission that you can pass in a hurry for two reasons: One, your opponent has seeded cards there that probably will be irrelevant to the Borg and perhaps even a Cryosatellite and either a Betazoid Gift Box or a Horga’hn so it’s imperative that they don’t get it. Self-seeding some anti-Borg dilemmas will help (such dilemmas will be later in this article) as well as easy space missions: Repair Mission, Explore Black Cluster, Explore Typhone Expanse, Study Lonka Pulsar, Warped Space etc. That gives them only one of your missions that they can scout and probe successfully, forcing them to do their own missions (ah, poor baby ;-)
Third, we have dilemmas. Now, there’s a lot of good dilemmas that will stall or eliminate the Queen or Locutus’ effectiveness if present and since placement is the key for all good dilemma combos and is left up to your digression, I can recommend dilemmas for you to use. Planet dilemmas, we have the following: Wind Dancer, Malfunctioning Door, Flaxian Assassin, Clan People, Alien Parasites, Hologram Ruse, Armus: Sticky Situation, Punishment Box, Security Precautions, None Shall Pass, Blended and Seismic Quake are all great dilemmas for Borg drones to encounter since it almost requires them to either use Adapt: Negate Obstruction or have either Locutus or other assimilated personnel or have the Queen’s skill chosen to bypass the dilemma. That is the main key: Use skills that the Borg just don’t have: Empathy, Diplomacy, Greed, Leadership, Music, Youth etc. Hard to assimilate a mission if you run out of Adapts or have your Queen or Locutus captured or killed ;-) For space, we have less than I’d like: Maglock, Strict Dress Code, Microbiotic Colony, Scout Encounter/Quantum Singularity Life-Form, Nagilium, Cytherians are all suggested for the same reasons as the planet dilemmas. Note that most Borg decks have more space missions than planet mission (or both missions but more on them a little bit later) so keep that in mind. Luckily, there are some good either dilemmas that are effective: Lack of Preparation, (if you can get it to work: Scout Encounter-Extradition) Thought Fire, Shaka, Dead End, Make Us Go, Hippocratic Oath, Unscientific Method, Cardassian Trap, No Loose Ends and (if used with Beware of Q) Fightin’ Words not to mention Assassin’s Blade, Common Thief and Yuta. The trick is this: Don’t use the same dilemma twice because it makes it easier to adapt pass them. Choose dilemma combos carefully and for the two both planet/space missions (Tarchannen Study and Deliver Supplies) I’d recommend having no either dilemmas here but both of space and planet dilemmas at each since you want them to earn each and every point as hard as possible so that you can eventually triumph.
Now, we have the hidden agendas, artifacts and everything else
seeded. For hidden agendas, you probably only need two types of them:
Computer Crash and Mirror Image. Crashing your opponent at appropriate
times (Retask, Scout Encounters etc. or most importantly, Adapt: Negate
Obstruction downloads) can bide you time for your plans to continue.
While the number of crashes that you use are up to you, I stick to either
4 or 6 depending on my mood. As for Mirror Images, it’s mostly for
having Thought Fire being more viable but you don’t need to. As for
artifacts, besides the common ones (Horga’hn, Betazoid Gift Box and for
Borg-hunting Kurlan Naiskos) I’d recommend two others: Mysterious Orb and
Saltah’na Clock. The Orb for the obvious reason of taking their Queen
or Locutus away from them and basically killing them and as for the Clock,
if you can manage it: Have a Neutral Outpost at the place where the Borg
have a chance of getting the Clock and when they acquire it, they’ll be
stuck for a while trying to take out the Neutral OP. And finally,
anything else: Besides the outposts (unless Cardassian or Bajoran and then
I’d recommend their Headquarters) I would recommend against Nors since
you will be crashing or will be crashed by your opponent. In fact,
most anything that mainly uses downloading I’d recommend against for this
reason. Add an AMS and you’re all set.
Now, you have your draw deck. Now, since you’re limiting
your deck design to using mostly non-downloadable cards, obviously the
smaller, the better. Basically, having a deck design that’s pre-First
Contact works for this situation modified to the current rules. My
rule of thumb is to keep it under 45 at all costs, but 30-40 is the goal.
Since I don’t know your playing style or which affiliation that you like,
I’ll only go over general rules of thumb of mine.
As far as personnel go, obviously it depends on your deck strategy but if you use as many of your female personnel and very few or no male personnel is preferable, then you it’s hard for the Borg to get a counterpart from you and if no males are present, they will find it quite hard to battle your women. I’d also recommend from against using the Federation (Stop First Contact or Build Interplexing Beacon gets me paranoid) but that’s just a personal choice. You will more than likely use a treaty so keep that also in mind.
As far as equipment to go with your personnel, obviously pick which equipment that best fill those holes that you can find but besides that, since you will probably not be doing space missions (or at least I hope not) I’d add an IP Scanner for a good reason: Brain Drain, probably the most under-rated Interrupt in the game IMO. A short-term modified Framed for Murder that you can pick whom you target and it’s an interrupt, I have no problem with it ;-) In any case, it makes a good choice from Common Thief if nothing else.
Events are rather important for use against the Borg and the two that are my favorite against them are Revolving Door and Goddess of Empathy. No Tenting or traveling through the Transwarp Network Gateway or Adapting for you this turn. I’d keep them in multiple. Other events that you can use include the staple crop of old-school events: Red Alert, Traveler: Transcendence and Kivas Fajo-Collector and probably one other: Regenerate to pick up the cards and use them again.
But the most common cards in decks against the Borg are interrupts without question and the most important of these is Brain Drain. Can’t share if you don’t know how, can’t pass this dilemma without adapting etc, show the world that even the Borg aren’t always that bright ;-) Wrong Door is probably the second best card for these decks, telling your Borg opponent “No Borg, bad Borg, no tenting for you ;-)” Not only that, but it helps the Revolving Doors that you’ll hopefully have in play stay on what you want it to be. Besides the obvious Amanda Rogers, Kevin Uxbridge and Q2, Temporal Rifts and Energy Vortexes might be helpful and yes, Parallax Arguers are certainly helpful (5 pts or I play this Revolving Door or Goddess of Empathy now ;-) But, I gotta submit an award for the binder card award for this deck: Loss of Orbital Stability ;-) Go ahead and look it up, I’ve written an article about this card for WNOHGB and hopefully appears in this issue as well ;-)
A suggestion: There’s not much that’s stopping you from stealing their missions if you set out to do so. Most common dilemmas include Edo Probe, Radioactive Garbage Scow, gender-related dilemmas that they seed for missions that they want to complete themselves. As far as what is common for them to seed against you, mostly stall dilemmas but expect at least one Sheliak-Q combo if not more. Another suggestion: Q-Planet, more annoying for the Borg. And a good chance to get an artifact if you need to or just leave out there just to really annoy the Borg. One more suggestion: Devidian Door helps for an extra person out in a hurry and if they’re counting on Retasking that Borg Ship dilemma, you can stall with Temporal Vortex (handy if you don’t have Hugh at the time)
Anyway, that’s pretty much it. Ships are up to you, my favorite
as of late has been the Xephilote Freighter as of late but it’s up to you
in this regard. If you want to blow some scouts or Cubes up, judge
accordingly. Just keep this in mind: Resistance is not futile, you
just have to prepare appropriately.
The Ninja Scot (probably the only one without a Web Site ;-) resides in his domicile of darkness and padding in the land of ash where the ore has gone and in Kedanya Station as a member of KIMS (Kedanya Information and Messaging Service). Can also be found on Decipher’s site in the Buzz or the Deck Design page (notes that since he has less time than he’d like online, he can only review decks that are e-mailed to him but will be glad to review and critique all decks that are sent his way. He’d love to hear what you think about this article as he shall be hopefully be writing more articles for WNOHGB and Talon Karrde’s Mykr site in the future.