What Are They Good For?

"What are adversaries for?"

I said, "What are adversaries for?"

If you didn't respond (mentally) "scoring" to the above questions, then you may need to read my article. The Stargate Online TCG scene has changed. Score those adversaries as fast as you can. This article will discuss why and give an example of a strategy for this.

First, a little history for any new players that are joining Stargate with the release of the System Lords set. Previously, the way to win was through experience points. That is, for each mission you complete there is a number in the lower right corner. That is the experience rating for the mission and you got experience points equal to that number. When your 'experience' was equal to or greater than the total cost of your opponent's team characters, you won the game. A secondary way to win was with a 'glyph win' by completing seven missions. The last way to win was with a villain win, by scoring villains so that the total cost of scored villains was equal to or greater than your opponent's total team character cost, and this wasn't an easy option.

System Lords changed 'conventional' wisdom.

Why Score Villains?

Now to be clear straight from the beginning, I am advocating this, not as a deck dedicated only to a villain win, but to score villain points so you will be able to win by a villain or hero win. This isn't the only strategy, of course, but it's a strategy now made viable with System Lords. Before we get into building our deck, though, let's consider the question "Why would I score my villains if I'm going for a hero win?"

There are ways to get "stuffed", as I like to say, in this game, especially if the right cards are drawn against you early in the game or you begin with a really crappy hand (maybe all villain cards?). Normally, if you have only one mission and your opponent has four or five under his belt, the chances of you winning the game are slim to none. There can be comebacks; I've seen it happen, but they are few and far between. If you have been scoring your villains as you stop your opponent's missions you have another avenue open to you. So what if your opponent is one mission away from a win? You still have a chance.

Now let's consider another question. "If I'm gunning for a villain win, why would I want to complete missions on my hero turn?" The conventional wisdom before System Lords, if going for a villain win, was not to complete any missions on your hero turn at all, or very few, so that your opponent wouldn't be able to ditch his villain cards. Theoretically, his hand would be clogged with unusable cards. You would dedicate your 20 cards from your hero side to only supporting ways of helping your villain side, including but not limited to: Fro'tak (Jealous Rival) or Ocker (Tok'ra Operative) + Healing Device combo, Galaran Memory Device or Quantum Mirror for discarding your hero cards, Reconnaissance for forcing your opponent to ditch his hero cards.

However, when going for a "pure villain win" you are subject to your opponent's decisions. Your opponent could go for only one mission a turn. He had no reason to try for a second; after all, you didn't have a chance of winning on your hero turn. This would make it much more difficult to score villains. However, if you're completing missions on your hero turn, as well, you're pressing him from both sides. Your opponent will be much more inclined to go to a second mission, because not doing so gives you the opportunity to outpace him on your hero side. Making him go to that second mission gives you another chance to score a villain.

How to Play Your Adversaries

We're getting to the example deck, but before we do I wanted to discuss, abstractly, how to play the deck, however backwards this may seem. Mainly, how do you want to treat your adversaries? The main point of this section is to play your adversaries like obstacles.

"Like obstacles? But they are adversaries; they're designed to be revived and stick around for free difficulty later!" Here I am to challenge that concept. It is my belief and opinion that the developers originally designed adversaries to be played like obstacles in that you didn't expect them to necessarily make it past the current mission; adversaries were designed to be scored, revived only if they can't make your opponent fail at the current mission, with some exceptions of course. I think this is exemplified with the System Lords set. We now have Dominion obstacles, whose main feature is to be scored alongside your adversaries, and adversaries like Anubis (Powerful Nemesis) and Robert Kinsey (Vice President), who actually give you a bonus from the score pile or Apophis (Enemy of Sokar) and Brainwashed Teal'c (Faithful First Prime) who are designed to be scored for some effect.

Playing your adversaries this way will also affect which adversaries you play. You might choose not to use adversaries such as Baal (Charming Villain) or Osiris (Emissary of Anubis). Those villains are designed for a different strategy.

Deck Building Example

For building this type of deck we'll start backwards from normal, beginning with our villain side. Major points: We'd like to be able to play an adversary each turn, hopefully to score them. We need effective adversaries that would be well-played even as an obstacle. We would like adversaries that help us with our score goal, so having some effect upon scoring would be helpful. Also, we'll be including at least a few Dominion obstacles to score with our adversaries.

Dominion obstacles are all Jaffa or Goa'uld, and their effects are generally dependent on having a Jaffa or Goa'uld adversary assigned, so let's choose a few of them first before going on to our adversaries. Entranced provides a decent CTDR (Cost to Difficulty Ratio), which is good because may sometimes have to play these obstacles without adversaries assigned, as well. With a Goa'uld adversary assigned, we also get to move a glyph, so lets keep in mind that we need a culture/science Goa'uld. Horus Guard is Entranced's opposite, still with a decent CTDR and if a Jaffa adversary is assigned we can stop a character, which helps us to throw more at this mission than we might normally have done. Also, Occupation Force becomes a Dominion obstacle when a Jaffa adversary is assigned, it's 2 cost (for more scoring points!) and best yet, it covers three skills, so it's versatile. Recognized we'll also put on our list, but only as a one of, since it's rare.

So we have,
Entranced x 3
Horus Guard x 3
Occupation Force x 3
Recognized x 1

Let's pick some adversaries to go with these obstacles. Anubis, with every version having a culture and science rating, would go well with Entranced. Which version of Anubis works best as an obstacle? Anubis (Galactic Menace) is punishing, but kind of bland. Anubis (Powerful Nemesis) is interesting, and might make the rest of your scoring easier, but you have to score him in the first place. In my opinion, neither of those versions provides a good CTDR upon first place. Anubis (Banished Lord), however, allows you to destroy a support character when you first play him. He has 2 Culture and 2 Science, but likely you'll be killing a character with at least 2 Culture or 2 Science, so you can kind of count that in with his "effective" difficulty. Lastly, if you fail a mission (because another support character was available?) you get to destroy another upon revival.

I went with Anubis (Banished Lord) for my choice, but it's not the only choice. For example, all Baals have a rating in culture and science, as well. Other adversaries would also get score value from it. For me, I looked at the other Dominion obstacle we chose, Horus Guard, and decided we could have a Goa'uld for the Culture/Science, and a Jaffa for the Combat/Ingenuity coverage. (Plus, I like destroying characters. :D)

So what adversary did I choose for my Combat/Ingenuity coverage? Herak (First Prime of Apophis) covers those skills. Getting to destroy an assigned support character would make his 3 cost for 2 or 1 difficulty okay, as well. However, because he has to wait for the support character to be assigned, if I played him I would tend to hold him back for a few actions, and that leaves me open to the opponent passing and trying a different mission. I will have missed my chance to score! Another obvious match was Erebus Commander (Death Camp Commandant). I liked this choice a lot better. 2 cost for 2 difficulty in Combat and Ingenuity made him okay when played "as an obstacle". His text also gives plus 1 difficulty when a Dominion obstacle is played with him, making it much easier to make your opponent fail. This time, I chose Erebus Commander.

I have Occupation Force as one of my Dominion obstacles, but no culture Jaffa adversaries. There's a couple options. Sindar (Loyal Servant of Cronus) is an okay option, and it's neat to get the option to get something from your discard pile every time your opponent fails a mission, which you might find happens a lot more than you realize. However, at 3 cost for 2 Culture and 2 Combat, he doesn't exactly fit our "play like an obstacle" mentality. Brainwashed Teal'c (Faithful First Prime), however, is a 3 cost for 2 or 3 difficulty, but you also get a free complication with him, so you can look forward to providing 3 or 4 difficulty at the mission. And his scoring text encourages us to pursue our goal of scoring, if your opponent is playing Jaffa or SGC.

So far for adversaries we have,
Anubis (Banished Lord) x 3
Erebus Commander (Death Camp Commandant) x 3
Brainwashed Teal'c (Faithful First Prime) x 3

Still, nine adversaries is probably not enough, not if we want to be able to revive them when needed (so we need a larger draw deck) but still want to reliably draw an adversary to play one each turn.

What are a few more choices? Apophis (Enemy of Sokar) pops out to me right away. 3 cost for 3 or 2 difficulty isn't too bad, but when you do get to score him will be guaranteed to kill 2 characters or incapacitate an opponent's team character. Also, Apophis (Enemy Reborn) fits our "play an adversary like an obstacle" strategy (see Too Close Encounter), so we could slip in one of him, too. Baal (Heir to Power) could provide a good finishing move, even if we don't stop the opponent at that mission, so I'll put one of him in. Baal also happens to fit all the skills of Recognized, as well. Hathor is always good, the rare version or the new ultra rare version. The new Ultra Rare version, though, encourages us to score her when we can, though, to destroy either support characters or gears. I'll also put in an Ardent Prior (Damaris) and a Devout Prior (Instrument of the Ori) for their high score value, but be sure to include a couple Standoff and Risk of Exposure obstacles to afford playing these high cost adversaries.

This gives us a base villain side of,
Anubis (Banished Lord) x 3
Apophis (Enemy of Sokar) x 2
Apophis (Enemy Reborn) x 1
Ardent Prior (Damaris) x 1
Baal (Heir to Power) x 1
Brainwashed Teal'c (Faithful First Prime) x 3
Devout Prior (Instrument of the Ori) x 1
Erebus Commander (Death Camp Commandant) x 3
Hathor (Rising Power) x 3
Entranced x 3
Horus Guard x 3
Occupation Force x 3
Recognized x 1
Standoff x 2
Risk of Exposure x 2

Fill in the rest of your villain side with 'normal' obstacles that will help make your opponent fail the missions, so most of these you'll probably want to be low cost, though a couple "punishers" like Senate Expense Review are okay.

Now that we have our villain side outlined, what do we do with the hero side? Should we have a team of 4 six cost characters and leave it at that? Remember, our plan is to make a reasonable play for either a villain or hero win, so let's not include 6 cost characters for the sake of having 6 cost characters. Form a balanced team with a reasonably high experience value, probably at least 17 experience. If your opponent is going for a glyph win, experience probably won't be an issue. If your opponent is going for an experience win, he'll probably be choosing more high difficulty missions, making scoring your adversaries that much easier. Picking the exact characters is out of the scope of this article, though.

For the hero side of your deck it might be helpful to include cards that not only further your try for the villain win, but also give you some support on your hero turn. The Fro'tak (Jealous Rival) + Healing Device combo is by now well-known, and useful. Don't be afraid of using it. Since you already have a Healing Device in your deck, feel free to include cards like Ocker (Tok'ra Operative), to help with ingenuity or mess with your opponent's deck, Shau'nac (Of the Red Hills), Kheb Monk (Adherent of Desala), Orlin (Fading Genius) and the list goes on. Brian Vogler (Company Man) is another new character that makes a cross over to the villain side. For 4 power on your hero turn you can help with ingenuity, and get to kill an opponent's support character when you're the villain.

Cards like Mark Devlin (NID Assassin) do not belong in this type of deck, though. True, Mark Devlin becomes a villain on your opponent's turn, but a villain that cannot be scored is of no use to this deck.

I hope this article gave you some new ideas and plans on how to break the former meta wide open. As always, constructive comments are appreciated.