Mot's Useless Card Review #68: Bendii Syndrome

It's almost getting to the point where the only kind of deck without any Vulcans is a Borg deck. There are now a total of 13 Vulcans (although some of them do have Youth), many of which are showing up regularly. Spock is a favorite in virtually every Federation deck. Tallera is finding her way into many Romulan decks, and even more Klingon decks. The new non-aligned Vulcans from First Contact are popular as well, not only for their great skills, but because of the Primitive Culture dilemma.

So where it used to be a gamble whether or not your opponent would play any Vulcan personnel, now it's as sure a bet as it's ever likely to be. Time for Bendii Syndrome to come out of the binders. There's no way to overcome or get rid of this dilemma. Even Sakkath can only suspend its effects. And there is plenty you can do once all your opponent's personnel are down by 2 INTEGRITY.

Firestorm suddenly becomes not only a powerful Romulan killer, but can start cutting into the other affiliations as well. Conundrum becomes tough enough to send most ships on a chase. Don’t Call Me Ahab can effectively stop one OFFICER with INTEGRITY > 8. The Q dilemma becomes quite fierce indeed. Alien Parasites is no longer as easy to pass. Best of all, if you take control with an Alien Parasites and complete the mission, the Bendii Syndrome (and the Vulcan) stick around, since they aren't the player who scored! Not to mention that missions can become harder to complete, since some of them require INTEGRITY.

One can begin to see why Bendii Syndrome is a rare card. Not so illogical after all.