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Bonus, Bonus, Bonus!
by Kevin Cline and Mathew Woolaghan Why have bonus point decks been popping up so much recently? Well for one, they're fast, they work very well and it doesn't take a genius to pull off a 1-5 turn win with one of them. So lets take a look at how they work and what's a good way to keep yourself from being another victim of their speed and power. Recently we have seen that a person can win purely from bonus points. Now for them to accomplish this it usually means they plan on attempting your missions encountering their own dilemmas. An example of a deck like this would usually start out with 2 mission specialists (often Gibson and Dr. LaForge) and a seeded Husnock ship, at the Husnock Outpost. The following dilemmas would be seeded at 2 of your space missions: Barclays Protomorphosis Disease, Nanites, Null Space, Cosmic String Fragment, Crystalline Entity and Cytherians. A deck would be stocked with several copies of Suna who would, if possible be played first turn. He would then download Reflection Therapy to change Dr. LaForge’s Exobiology into Diplomacy. The Husnock Ship would then move with crew towards one of the opponents space missions. Once there an attempt would be made and all the dilemmas except Cytherians would be passed, giving you 30 points. A wormhole would be played and a seeded Space-Time Portal would be discarded to move the Husnock ship to the end of the spaceline, giving a total of 45 points. This process would then be repeated on a second mission, giving 90 points. The next 10 points would usually be gained by either having Kova Tholl on the ship, and adding a Borg Ship Dilemma to one of the combos, or by having Samuel Clemens go back through a Devidian Door. Now how do we stop these decks or, at least, slow them down? Well a lot of them need to be able to get to their Q's Tent to be able to grab an affiliated personnel matching most of your missions, and a treaty, if the correct one was not seeded. So a few Computer Crashes would certainly slow them down but would still only leave you with a maximum of 6 turns. So here is what you need to do. If they get the first turn don’t worry too much, it’s rare for a deck based on bonus points to win in its first turn. Now when your turn comes up, and you feel that your opponent is going to go after bonus points for victory, get into your Q's Tent and grab Intermix Ratio. It is unlikely for you to be hit with a Computer Crash or a Wrong Door on your first turn. (Editor's note: Unless you play against someone good - if he doesn't win on his first turn, he'll crash your Tent and win on his second.) Once you get the card also play it immediately as a Hidden Agenda. Now they may still feel they can pass a mission or two, but if you keep your missions unique and under 40 points then they will just have cleared out a mission for you, leaving you with an open mission to complete. Also, another good way to stop them from attempting your missions is to seed HQ: Defensive Measures and keep them from attempting your mission for three turns for each one you seed. No matter how good these decks are, I still think that Fair Play can stop them with ease, although some decks will come equipped to handle this, making these decks face your dilemma combos will cause them a lot of problems. Kevin Cline and Mathew Woolaghan |
