Deck Ideas
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I've finally faced facts. I've got ideas for some
potentially great (or not so great - but clever) decks - and I'll never get the time to
build them all, let alone play them! Therefore, I've posted my crazy schemes here. Feel
free to submit some of yours too.
Perhaps you can use one of these ideas in a game of your own.
Perhaps you might even make a write-up, and who knows, win yourself a deck of the week
award.
A number of decks below are primarily defensive decks.
These have their title written in red.
With Assassins came the Interesting Times card, SubGenius has Sultan of Slack, and the
basic set had Upheaval. These 3 cards, especially Interesting Times, makes it very easy to
foil a players shot at victory. This has made the game slower, giving players more time to
build up a good defense. Also, in long games with big power structures, a strong defense
may very well prove vital to securing the victory. (And once your defense is in place,
perhaps an NWO: Australian Rules will motivate your rivals to beat up each other).
Pretty Solid Ideas
- Shangri-La: Qantum Leap
The errataed Blinded by Science goal is a lot harder to acchieve than
the old one. But come on, it can still be a very nasty isolationist goal.
There are 4 easy to defend secret science groups, and 3 of those are even
violent, ready for those Cyborg Soldiers. Top that off with some secret magic
groups combined with Sufficiently Advanced Technology and Nutrition Nazis (as
a plot card). Finally, Newt Gingrich and General Disorder are science, and can
be patched up by the Clone Arrangers. ATO Newt, then he can power an alien
abduction to grab the general. Don't forget Messiah now.
- Servants of Cthulhu: Rigor
Mortis Will Straighten You Up.
Corporate, Weird and Criminal have their doubler goals. Conservative,
Liberal, Violent and Peaceful have their destroy goals. But did you know that
the Straights have a destroy goal too? It's The Anti"Bob". Forget about all
that Subgenius stuff for a moment. The goal says "destroy 2 weird groups" -
and the Straights are the best at this. You won't be able to hit a Discordia player, but many decks use a few
weird groups, and you can get at those.
The key is to use groups that can be turned SubGenius in one fell swoop at the
right time, so use mainly personalities (Secret FisTemples), and weird groups
controlled by Ross Perot or Stammtischpolitiker to reverse some weirds for
Philo Drummond.
Just remember a
Rewriting History or 2 in case of an emergency.
- Society of Assassins/Bavarian
Illuminati: Jihad.
Basically, you can use Church of Violentology to seppuku with any of
the 7 'x-y' goals (+ Population Reduction). The best goal choice is one where
CoV will count for your goal, since you need it on the table anyway. Not
needing to destroy your entire power structure is also good. And you
want a 1 group discount? You got it!
Play 7 churches, one of them (probably the 7th) being CoV - sacrifice 2 to the
lord and win with Science Can Not Remove the Terror of the Gods.
If something goes wrong, like rivals getting their groups instead of yours
destroyed by the CoV - unmask as Cthulhu, and combine your destructions with
Brag of the SubGenius.
Or, as an alternate goal, all those churches combined with End of the World
and Messiah should make Power for It's Own Sake (or Bavarias goal) very
viable.
- Servants of Cthulhu? (Anyone
but the Gnomes): Church of ViolentEcology.
Seppuku with failed attacks vs. the Church of Violentology, using Earth First
as your goal. Play a corporate deck with Rama Lama Dingdong (green). This will
make it look innocent that you are using Church of Violentology - after all it
is the only corporate church, and a Messiah needs his churches. Once you are
at 7 groups, have everyone except Lama Rama make failed attacks against the
church. The final group attacking the Church should be protected by the Ark of
the Covenant, making sure that the Church too goes up in flames.
You might want to make this deck an anti-government predator, giving you a
non-seppuku way to win. Your corporate groups will have no problem attacking
the government groups, especially with the help of Autonomen. False Overmen
and Saturday Morning Cartoons could then supply a few violent groups for up
against the wall.
- Shangri-La: The State vs.
L. Ron Hubbard.
Seppuku with failed attacks vs. the Church of Violentology,
using Population Reduction as your goal. This has the advantage that you don't
have to blow up your entire power structure in order to succeed, just 3 huge
places. This should allow you to recover if your seppuku ploy is foiled. Heck,
with just 6 groups on the table (CoV + 5 huge places) you can seppuku your way
into victory - just be sure that the places aren't all nations. That way you
can maintain plausible deniability regarding a WW3 seppuku.
- Bermuda Triangle: Spitting
Image.
When creating a Bermuda deck, you often try to create a mesh of
alignments on your groups. The problem is that when 1 group is destroyed, the
mesh means that you have to replace it with 2. A better way would be to use
pairs of groups that have the exact same alignments, so that you have a
perfect replacement.
But finding such groups is hard. So how about using each of the groups twice,
and just include a few media blitzes?
- Bavarian Illuminati:
Janus-Head of State.
Bill Clinton is a very powerful slurper. So is Helmut Kohl. And they
both slurp most government groups on a 10+. Use Bavarias privilege and Black
Helicopters for a lot of privileged 10+ attacks. Also, all those personality
specific plots become a lot more interesting to pack in duplicates, when you
actually have 2 personalities to play them on.
- Bavaria: End of the World.
With 'the magic goes away' in play, Bavaria can still use its privileged attacks
(and Perhaps Censorships/Power Grabs) to grow unhindered. The deck tries to capitalize on
this head start by playing multiple upheavals. SLAK (and it's pre first turn token) will
help bring out your NWO straight away by powering plots like Savings and Loans Scam, in
case you didn't have the Magic Goes Away on your starting hand. If this deck gets off on
the right foot, Fratricide may be an option.
- Church of the SubGenius:
Secrets Pinks Were Not Meant to Know
Stockpiles illuminati tokens, and then
attempts to take over heaps of secret groups on a single turn with Junk Mail and Library
at Alexandria. With a doubler goal, you can even surprise your rivals by burning all your
illuminati tokens, instead of saving 3. Can potentially be built to go for Blinded by
Science, since there are 4 secret science groups, as well as some magic secret groups that
can become science with the use of Sufficiently Advanced Technology. Nutrition Nazis (as a
plot) can be used too.
A sneaky way of generating extra slack tokens: Hurricane (which can only devastate) and
Kill "Bob" will let a SubGenius place generate a token at no risk.
- Servants of Cthulhu: Servants
of CthuLaw.
Cthulhu has taken over the establishment - use brute force to smash up the weirdos
and liberals that plague our society. Several strong combos: Ross Perot+Punk Rockers,
Attitude Mutations + Scandal, Miracle Diet Plan, and Truck Bomb + Manuel Noriega to cause
serious havoc. FBI, LPD's and perhaps Deprogrammers.
- Bermuda Triangle: Dire
Straights
The Straight alignment has so many groups with 3 alignments. Its even got 2
(german) groups that can be both straight and weird! The obvious Bermuda choice other than
criminal - the only 2 alignments that can be monochromatic, and still have all 10
alignments.
- Bermuda Triangle: Chopperslurp.
Uses Bermudas special ability to maximum effect. Black Helicopters is ultra
powerful, and also cancels out the only drawback to the equally powerful Back to the
Saltmines. Use these 2 with England to slurp up 2 groups per turn and then reorganize.
Blivit is in for protection. A place deck in all its glory. Group suggestions: England
(lead), New York, Canada, Pentagon, Dobbstown (ATO), Germany, Las Vegas. Big Prawn can
generate both power and an alignment. Cyborg Soldiers can generate more power.
- Bermuda Triangle: Manta-ray.
Simple Really. Build up power by only employing huge media groups. Slap down
Manta-Fahrer, and use it's special ability to create the remaing 5 alignments that
you need. This might be a good way to put a game winning spin on an
über-Björne deck. Alternatively, Fussballprofis could be a quick way to get a
lot of media power.
- Bermuda Triangle: Global
Power.
Go for Bermudas special goal. You won't have problems with aiding your own groups.
Who needs matching alignments, when you've got juggernauts with global power? Combine that
idea with this observation: Bermuda players often try to create a group deck with a mesh
of different alignments - but this means that if a key group gets knocked out, it's
replacement alignments will have to come from 2 (or even 3) other groups. Instead - the
group deck should be designed so that each group has a back-up with the exact same
alignments.
Possibly: Dobbstown (+3 Fisted Tales)/Hackers, Big Media/Triliberal Commission, Vatican
City/Church of Middle America, Clone Arrangers(Lenins Body)/New York(Big Prawn),
Multinational Oil Companies/Madison Avenue. Hidden Influence will make for a nice back-up
plot.
- FreeWall Decks: Drs. for "Bob", France, Italy and Ramalama
DingDong can all protect other groups for free without spending a token. 3 of them (not
Italy) can even protect themselves too, right out of the box. If you boost these groups
power, then you can achieve a truly massive defense! If you can get 2 such groups to work
in combination, your defense gets even stronger. This works best if they can both protect
each other too. Consider:
Discordian Society: Les
Doctoros di Bobbo.
Bring out Doctors for Bob and Italy. Pump them
up as much as you can. Then play nothing but weird subgenius groups. Italy can be made
weird (and power boosted) with Big Prawn. Italy could potentially be a (weird) puppet of
Philo Drummond to also become SubGenius - but that might be too much since Philo is not
weird himself.
Shangri-La: Monsieur le
Dingdong.
France and Ramalama. France can be a dictatorship and have
doubled power. Ramalama should be made liberal, and could become the Messiah. There are
absolutely tons of good liberal green groups, even generating a big slurp bonus to go with
your strong defense.
Shangri La: Vive la Liberte.
2 (Partitioned) Frances, and nothing but liberal
groups. This defense can become sickeningly strong with Dictatorships+Cyborg Soldiers,
Clipper Chip, Political Correctness, Big Prawn, and naturally both Emergency Powers and
Self Esteem. As usual, if it is to be worthwhile to set up a strong defense, you'll
probably have to bring some (boring) Interesting Times. If not, your rivals probably will.
You might also throw in Italy, make it a Discordia deck, and use the liberal
weird groups.
Not so solid Ideas
- Servants of Cthulhu: Rest
in Peace.
A peaceful Cthulhu deck, (with the potential to unmask as Shangri-La -
especially if there is another Shangri-La player at the table). Fnord Motor
Companies can reroll any attack - thats a great cthulhu group!! And it
certainly hasn't been done before :) AMA is great, and a privatized CDC (with
Holy Grail?) has a whopping +23(!) to destroy all those pesky violent
government places.
Anyway - once you've blown up stuff, you can pull some serious alignment
changes for a surprise x/y-goal win:
Yetis (innocently peaceful) can attach itself to Ross Perot/Saturday Morning
Cartoons, and Dittoheads can attach itself to a alignment-changed personality,
copying the new alignment. False Overman and Dictatorship is a great way to
make something violent. Suddenly you've got many x/y options: Kill for Peace,
Hand of Madness, Up Against the Wall and Let Them Eat Cake!
- UFOs: Super Sandbag.
Currently liberal/conservative. Has all the power groups of both alignments in the deck.
Check out your rivals, then play the opposite alignment, and sandbag them with tons of
agents. Not so much fun if none of your rivals are playing liberal or conservative heavy. Can
always seppuku with Let Them Eat Cake or Power To The People. Attempts to make it work
against 2 more alignments have not been succesful.
- UFOs: Gameplayers of Titan.
Probably too slow to be worth it. Also, isn't so great as winning itself, as for ruining
the chance for everyone else. Kind of a vengeance deck. Las Vegas with multiple tokens and
back-up dice manipulation can burn an awful big hole in your rivals plot decks. Multiple
Internet Worms help too. Start it off just prior to your turn. Then get new tokens and do
it again on your turn. Finally, Seize The Time for a third go, and you probably won't have
any friends left at the table. Bulldada is an excellent way to roll a 12, since you can
power it with plots won from your rivals deck.