Mot's Advice on the Borg #2: Downloading

(01/12/1998)

As the Borg, downloading is your speciality. Other affiliations have a few ways to download cards here and there, but no one can really do it as rampantly as the Borg. It is a very powerful ability to be able to search your deck (Q’s Tent, hand, or Zalkonian Storage Capsule) for a card and immediately play it without it counting as a card play. It's like turning your whole deck into a Q's Tent.

Downloading allows you get away with stocking fewer copies of a specific card than you normally would. Let's say, for example, that you are playing a normal, non-Borg deck, and in your mission selection, you have two missions that require Archaeology. You want to make sure you'll get Archaelogy as early in the game as you can, so when selecting personnel, you'll probably choose at least three people with that skill. After all, if you picked only one, what would happen if that one got cut to the bottom of your deck? Or even in the middle? It could take several turns before you ever saw it - if you saw it.

With downloading, that conventional wisdom goes out the window. Let's say the primary element of my Borg strategy is to rig probe draws with an Orb of Prophecy and Change. I'm gonna need the Survey Drone in order to acquire that artifact. Normally, I'd want to stock several of these to be sure one came up in time for my first scouting attempt. With downloading, I can simply go get that drone when I need him. I can play an Activate Subcommands on turn one, and immediately go get that Survey Drone, or whatever card I value most highly in my strategy.

You might at first hesitate at stocking only a single copy of a vital personnel, even knowing you can download it when you need it. What if your Tachyon Drone gets killed somehow? Or your Procurement Drone? Well, don't forget about the special ability of the Bio-Med Drone. The Bio-Med can "reabsorb" one just-killed Borg per turn into your draw deck if present. Even when you lose a vital card, you don't have to lose it for good.

So by now, it should become obvious that the Borg Queen (FC) is the card to have. With her, you can download a drone or A Change of Plans in place of a card draw. That doubles your ability to report personnel in a turn, or gives you a way to draw an objective or change out one going badly. I firmly believe you could build a Borg deck without a Queen, but I'm certainly not yet skilled enough to try it. :-)

Activate Subcommands and Awaken are also great cards. With Activate Subcommands, you get three Borg personnel reported in one turn, of your choice. You do sacrifice your card draw for this privelege, but it's worth it. As for Awaken, you might wonder why you should bother to stock a card that lets you download one drone when you could instead stock the drone itself. For one, Awaken has all three Borg subcommand icons, where a drone will have only one - this goes back to the important issue of probing. Also, smart players know that the best way to stop Borg opponents is to initiate personnel battles against them. Awaken gives you a great way to respond to this. You can look all innocent with only one Assault Drone on board your Cube, and when they come calling with their phasers and disruptors, immediately download two more Assault Drones in response.

Don't forget that you can download to your hand in most cases, not just into play. Why would you not want to play a free card? I mentioned in my "Useless" Review about probing how you can use Zalkonian Storage Capsule to rig your probe draws. If you don't have the right icon for your objective on any card in your hand, you could download one there using your Queen to complete the trick.

A word of caution on downloading: just because you can download so much when playing Borg doesn't mean you should. Remember that probing is your livelihood. If there aren't successful probes in your deck, you cannot win. So don't download more cards than you need (or at least, not many more). You'll thank yourself later for not over-indulging when you're trying to score points.

I've focused mainly on the Borg ability to download personnel. A few last notes on some other very important forms of downloading:

The Procurement Drone with Borg equipment. Currently, that's just the Assimilation Table - but what an important card to many Borg strategies. Don't worry about not having the Table when you need it... my formerly Bolian friend will get it for you.

The Quantum Drone with Alternate Universe Doors. I can't stress enough the importance of stocking at least one AU Door in a Borg deck. It will get you past Q-Nets in a pinch. It'll hold Rift-happy opponents in check. Most importantly, it nullifies Revolving Door, which many players are gonna try and do to your Transwarp Network Gateway before you can get into the Alpha Quadrant.

The Transwarp Drone and Transwarp Network Gateways or Transwarp Conduits. You don't have to worry about how long it will take you to move to the Alpha Quadrant once you get that Cube staffed, not with this drone to help you go when you're ready.

Finally, the ability of objectives to download other objectives. Most Borg objectives let you download another when you complete them. This is great. You can get away with stocking only as many Objectives as you really need, since you'll just be daisy-chaining them along on your way to victory. No need to worry about whether they'll come up or not. Just seed one such objective to start the game, and you're off to the races.

You'll note I've left out one major way the Borg can download. And download a lot. I'll save that one until...

NEXT TIME: Retask.