(Update: I'm still not sure if it's official or not, but AIWMTB apparently can't bring back events or conflicts.. something this deck sort of hinges upon. Thus, it's really only good now for groups that don't play that way, people who can find a way to modify it into competativeness, and for historical purposes.)
Section 1: The Cards:
Aftermaths:
Enrage, Personal Enemies, Rise to Power, Glory
Total
# of aftermaths: 4
Agendas:
As It Was Meant To Be
Total
# of agendas: 1
Characters:
Jeffery Sinclair, John Sheridan, General Franklin, General Hague, Human
Captain *2, Sandra Hiroshi, Susan Ivanova, Warren Keffer, Jha'Dur.
Total
# of Characters: 10
Diplomacy
Conflicts: Immortality Serum
Total
# of Diplomacy Conflicts: 1
Intrigue
Conflicts: None
Total
# of Intrigue Conflicts: 0
Military
Conflicts: Blockade, Border Raid *2, Gunboat Diplomacy *2
Total
# of Military Conflicts: 5
Enhancements:
Commerce Raiding
Total
# of Enhancements: 1
Events:
Changing Opinion *3, Concentrated Effort *2, Declaration of War *2, Destiny
Fulfilled *2, Exploration, For the Good of All, Level the Playing Field
*2, Not Meant to Be, Victory In My Grasp *2.
Total
# of Events: 16
Fleets:
Colonial Fleet *2, Deep Space Fleet *3, Expeditionary Fleet *2, First Battle
Fleet, Fleet of the Line, Reserve Fleet, Second Battle Fleet, Utility Fleet
*3
Total
# of Fleets: 14
Groups:
None
Total
# of Groups: 0
Locations:
Earth
Total
# of Locations: 1
Total # of cards in deck: 53
Section 2: Strategy
Opening Hand: Jeffery Sinclair, John Sheridan, As It Was Meant To Be, Blockade
Opening
Strategy:
Spend the
turns up to when you get to 10 influence just building and using the extra
influence to draw cards. If you have a fleet and one card to raise
your tension in your hand when you do that last build, replace Sinclair
and rotate Sheridan to put AIWMTB out for your next turn. By waiting
this long to do ANYTHING in 3 or 4 player games, they might have started
to ignore you.. but that won't remain so for long.
The cards
to hope for in the beginning or soon after you start going are: Concentrated
Effort (which you recycle w/ AIWMTB), and Declaration of War, so you can
keep going. NOTE: You might not have to start a war - see Variations.
Midgame
Strategy:
Here, your
priorities are 1) Keeping the Minbari from gaining a fleet 2) Keeping
the Minbari from gaining influence. Thus Blockade should be played
EVERY turn. Sacrifice the destiny mark to attack the few fleets they
are able to get out.. Destiny marks are Not your winning mechanism.
A strong
option is to switch to Gunboat Diplomacy when you get it - the war doesn't
become important. This might not be an option, however -- see Variations.
The other
wonderful thing about limiting your opponent to 10 influence is that their
influence becomes VERY valuable to them! That's the reason for Enrage
and Personal Enemies. Also, when you pull out For The Good
of All, watch your opponent drool! The reason for choosing the Minbari
was that for them to use their power, they generally need more than 10
influence to get things out.
Some rules
to Remember when playing Blockade:
1) They
can gain influence and use it on the turn they gain it - they just lose
it during the resolution round if you won.
2) The
target's influence is ONLY "reduced" -- don't fall for your opponent's
argument that since there it makes them return to their influence level
at the beginning of the turn (min 10) that they can possibly GAIN influence.
Endgame
Strategy:
The only
real trick here is playing Rise to Power - a damn nice card, IMHO.
Just keep playing a conflict to give you power while you keep them from
gaining any from anything they do w/ Blockade.
Weaknesses:
The more
players you're playing with, the more likely it is that someone will take
compassion upon your victim and find a way to end your tyranny. You
still have a good war deck - make use of it. I don't see anything
else particular to this deck nor anything serious, but I might be missing
something. If you have a contribution, send it to me!
Section
3: Variations
This deck
was made trying to keep clear of what seems to have been labled the "cheese"
cards. By name: Trade Pact *3, Trade Windfall *3, Short Term Goals
*3, Long Term Invenstment *3. (Which is still by me a viable and
good strategy for tournaments, just not the most fun to play anymore.
Hopefully with Shadows it will become more exciting!) Just because
I didn't include these cards does not mean they are bad for the deck.
In fact, they would flourish in this deck. (Just watch your proportion
of characters and fleets to total cards.. but more importantly - the cards
that raise tensions!) To cap off the "cheese" variation, add a Higher
Calling or two!
I pulled out a lot from the deck.. I had an extra AIWMTB to avoid problems w/ FI, Ramming to be sure they didn't get a fleet out, Hire Raiders for the same point and to gloat about how much influence you had, Draft appears to be a wonderful card, but I didn't want it keeping me from drawing a fleet. I had some planetary stuff, but took it out for 2 reasons: 1) The Minbari don't usually play w/ anything but Minbar, and 2) It doesn't further the goal of winning.
You can make it fit the theme of a more true-to-life "Cold" war by adding more diplomacy characters and diplomacy conflicts. In fact, if you play with friends who like 150 card decks, that would be an excellent strategy - it's just much less likely to get the lock.
You can remove all the war cards if your playing group has explicitly ruled that AIWMTB can get you back a conflict. Include 3 Gunboat Diplomacies at this point - they have the possibility of giving you more than 1 influence per turn and don't care if it's been opposed. That will also cut your deck down to below or around 50 cards after getting rid of the Changing Opinions, etc..
If you love conflicts, you can set it up so that you can play three conflicts - just add a Psi contingent of Psi-Corp Intelligence, the Psychers, and one or two psi conflicts. If you don't goto war, this would be an amusing replacement.