Favor the Bold

by Kevin Jaeger, Player's Representative

7th January 2009

Completing a mission more than once.  No, it's not a mistake or typo.  I really mean you can now complete a mission more than once; and no, Favor the Bold does not allow you to play with more than one copy of a mission.  However, you do get to the keep the points from completing it the first time.  Oh yeah.

It allows you to actually complete a particular mission more than once.  Wow.  This whole thing just about blows your mind.  It's such an awesome thing that I didn't feel I would be able to brainstorm by myself.  So after enlisting the help of my number two Johannes and my number three James (sorry guys, that's just how the Worlds final results came out :-) ), together we came up with an incredible, awesome, mind-blowing and very bold list of crazy things you can do with this card.  Again, this list is a combined effort.

1. Use it to avoid a bad implication or result of a Maquis opponent's Biogenic Weapon.
2. Stock your deck with a mission you don't actually care to complete; don't worry, Favor the Bold essentially doubles one of your other missions.  Then, have no fear and use Historical Research or Find Lifeless World.
3. Speaking of which, you can now feel free to go *gasp* TRIPLE HEADQUARTERS and still get to 100 or more points on missions.  Just don't be surprised when Favor the Bold gets prevented by Amanda Rogers, etc.
4. Complete Assimilate Resistance for a second "assimilation" out of the discard pile.
5. Complete Commandeer Prototype for a second "capture" of another ship. Yes, now you can get both the Dominion Defiant and the Queen's Borg Cube.  Mayhem.
6. Complete Inversion Mystery more than once to name two dilemmas you don't want to see at the planet mission you eventually attempt.  Rogue Borg Ambush and Excalbian Drama OR Back to Basics and Gorgan OR Tragic Turn and Whisper in the Dark.  The list goes on.
7. Play it on Runabout Search and get your Kirk back a second time in a Bajoran or Ferengi Deck.
8. Complete Aid Maritime Sovereignty in a deck with Shran to get even more dilemmas back.
9. Turn your easiest mission into a tightest mission skills possible double dip focus of your deck.  I say again - mission skills don't get any tighter.
10. Complete Breach Barrier, choose the 5 point reward which you can then spend on Favor the Bold, and then go complete any two easy 30 point missions...OR go complete two 35 pointers and get around yesterday's card Causal Recursion.
11. Complete any super-easy mission twice.  Caretaker's Array perhaps - which would net you 35 points for just three skills (shown twice) and Integrity > 22 (shown twice)
12. Maquis decks can now stock Elude Federation forces, any two Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) missions, and any other non-DMZ mission of choice and simply complete Elude Federation Forces twice and the other mission once (or vice versa) while still getting the benefit of Shankar without needing For the Cause.  This is especially good if the non-DMZ mission is Survey New World - keep recurring the Shankar abuse.
13. Get an additional three people returned from Critical Care.
14. Complete Aid Legendary Civilization twice to really set your opponent back.
15. Completing a mission with low Span and/or Range to get to...something like Practice Orbital Maneuvers for the Federation or Deliver Evidence for Bajor/DS9 or again, Rescue Prisoners with its one span.
16. Using it on a Gamma Quadrant mission while playing with Dominion.  One of the stumbling blocks to making a competitive Dominion Gamma deck has been the mission selection compared to the Alpha Options.
17. Spreading your mission selection out to avoid Agonizing Encounter.
18. Get a second download out of Collapse Anti-Time Anomaly.
19. Complete Investigate Maquis Activity and use the first five extra points to play Favor the Bold and then complete it again for another 35 and you are on your way.

So there you have it.  19 solid reasons for using Favor the Bold.  This card is really gonna open up some interesting strategies.  The biggest strength of this card is just how straightforward it is for a player to use.  Nothing crazy like having to complete a different mission first or having some sort of weird or difficult requirement like having two ships in play. You just need to have three personnel with a cost of four or more.

The best part is that if you've got the points to spend, you can just splash it into your deck and use it for reasons #2, #9 or #11.

Take us in, Mister Castillo.