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Strategy Articles
Suder's Rage
by Mike O'Shogay, Staff Writer
30th November 2014
BRAD DOURIF IS ONE ANGRY BETAZED
What do Child’s Play, the Halloween Remake, Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, Dune, and Alien: Resurrection all have in common? The brilliant acting of one Brad Dourif, otherwise known as Lon Suder in the Star Trek Universe. We finally have a version of him in Star Trek: Second Edition with Lon Suder, Casual Killer in the XXth Anniversary Collection. There is one deck for the guy I cannot comment on, and that is him with Relativity, as I have absolutely no experience with that affiliation. So I will be talking about him in anything but that deck.
SO MANY USES
One of the ways I saw him as useful was in a U.S.S. Equinox, Determined To Get Home deck. Not only can he help you fuel Nucleogenic cards by letting you draw up to four cards, assuming you use his ability on either Revised Neelix, Hedgehog Ops Officer or Revised Doctor, Mass Murderer, but he has a decent skill spread as well. Another thing he allows, which applies especially to the U.S.S. Equinox, Determined To Get Home, is he allows you to remove excess personnel from the ship two at a time as you have to kill a Voyager personnel and place him in your discard pile. It might be a resource disadvantage but if you have eleven personnel at the last attempt and you have no hand, pitching two personnel to draw four may be worth it, especially with all the awesome ways to use Nucleogenic cards.
One way to really take advantage of these late game card draws is to use Maxwell Burke, Arrogant First Officer who can allow you to use those cards to fuel either of his abilities. It can get really deep with him. If you have two cards in your hand, you have some interesting options. You can discard those two cards to put a Nucleogenic card on top of your deck, then kill a personnel with Lon Suder, Casual Killer to draw it. You can also discard those two cards to take a Nucleogenic card from your deck into your hand, and then if you kill a 4 cost personnel you can do that two more times. It all really depends what you have used to this point, but it really lets you maximize your deck and rewards you for knowing your deck well.
As for the ability to gain a benefit from replaying unique personnel, that doesn’t exist with U.S.S. Equinox, Determined To Get Home. All of the “When you play this personnel” abilities are on non-unique personnel.
PLAIN OLD VOYAGER
The first thing I thought of was Chakotay, First Officer, as did mostly everyone else. With this combination you put two Treachery personnel (including a copy of Lon Suder, Casual Killer) from your deck into play and then you can place Lon Suder, Casual Killer in your discard pile and kill Chakotay, First Officer to draw seven. So next turn you can play them again. This will give you a ton of cards in the mid to late game.
Unlike with U.S.S. Equinox, Determined To Get Home, a standard Voyager deck can benefit from replaying personnel that you kill with Lon Suder, Casual Killer. If you have a decent amount of Temporal events or Equipment, replaying a possibly 0 costing Kathryn Janeway, Regretful Leader is a pretty good proposition. It’s a good way to get you fuel for Grav-Plating Traps or even help your dilemma pile with Machinations. Another good personnel to kill, besides the aforementioned personnel, would be The Doctor, Emergency Command Hologram as he can get you a Maneuver card (such as Exceed Engine Output) or he can repair your ship if you are not running B'Elanna Torres, Straightforward Engineer or Making It Work.
Not only is the ability of replaying personnel a benefit but there are also ways to turn your hand into an additional resource fueled by the Lon Suder, Casual Killer card draws with the most basic example being Astrometrics Lab. All it does is boost the range, but being able to move anywhere on the spaceline is pretty useful. Another way to give you even more additional card draws, because seven may be not enough if you kill Chakotay, First Officer, is B'Elanna Torres, Chief Engineer - which will let you discard one of the named cards to draw two more. It will just give you a little extra fuel. Probably the best way to benefit from this drawing is to use it in combination with Seven of Nine, Efficient Analyst to be able to dig two cards deeper into your deck.
There are also a few Non-Aligned personnel that like you to discard as well. The first two that jump to my mind are the powerhouses of Silik, Chameleon and Shran, In Archer's Debt. Gain a skill or return a dilemma to your dilemma pile in exchange for a card sounds like a pretty good deal to me.
Getting even deeper is to use the dilemmas Tactical Disadvantage, Counterinsurgency Program, or Infinite Diversity. With Tactical Disadvantage you have the ability, over a number of turns with Finding Our Way, to fill your hand with Voyager ships. Both Counterinsurgency Program and Infinite Diversity will let you turn your card draws into ways to wall up your opponent with your dilemmas.
Adding in a couple Uninvited with Excalbian Drama and Fesarius Bluff makes you be able to go get a wall that, with a hand of six other cards, should be able to stop any attempt on its own at either a planet or space mission. Another dilemma that becomes a must play is Back to Basics, with all of the discarding you can do.
NOW ONTO A DECK
It wouldn’t be a Lon Suder, Casual Killer deck without him so he was the first card I included. Let’s add in an underused and very powerful personnel in Chakotay, First Officer, who lets you take two personnel with Treachery from your deck and put them into play, at the cost of 7. This deck has a few good Treachery personnel to really take advantage of this, in addition to the namesake of the deck. It’s really key to get the right personnel at the right time. For instance, if he is your turn two or three play, you probably want to go get B'Elanna Torres, Straightforward Engineer and either Brian Sofin or Marla Gilmore, Conflicted Engineer, as they have the highest Integrity out of your Treachery personnel to be able to help solve Caretaker's Array. However late game, due to their low Integrity, you probably want either Lon Suder, Casual Killer for card draws, Rudolph Ransom, Devious Captain to help you push through dilemmas, or Revised Neelix, Hedgehog Ops Officer for the cost efficiency.
I decided to take this deck in a different direction and go with a four Space Mission build and use The Long Journey Home. It does a few things. First off, it limits your opponent’s dilemma pile since they have to give you either Space or Planet/Space dilemmas. Secondly since you are completing four missions, you actually have bonus points to play with. My first thought with this was Field Studies. It gives you a way to get around those pesky Gomtuu Shock Waves and An Issue of Trusts that can be problems to the deck (assuming that they happen to be in the top two cards of their dilemma pile).
With this deck, your goal is to hit 115 points with your four Space Missions and be able to flexibly use either the aforementioned Field Studies along with Rudolph Ransom, Devious Captain and Marla Gilmore, Conflicted Engineer for their obvious dilemma busting purposes. I included a pair of Brian Sofins as a way to help cycle late game if you need it, also he has some nice dilemma and mission skills.
Due to the high cost of most of the personnel of the deck, three copies of Energize was a necessity. Plus if you don’t start the game with U.S.S. Voyager, Home Away From Home in your hand or if it’s not the top card, you still have things you can play. The deck also has a bunch of other ways to discount your personnel - along with Chakotay, First Officer, U.S.S. Voyager, Home Away From Home, and Energize. A single Croden, Dissembler was included, since he has decent skills and you can benefit greatly from either ability. Both Kathryn Janeway, Regretful Leader and Tom Paris, Competitive Pilot can play at relatively low cost, along with Kes, Experienced Ocampa if you have an event in your hand.
All in all Lon Suder, Casual Killer is a very good enabler. While not as efficient as dropping in a Julian Bashir, Rebel Captain to go with These Are The Voyages for the card draw aspect, he still gives you some flexibility which that combo doesn’t. Besides what I’ve detailed, there are sure to be many more uses for him. Good luck and get building.
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