Card of the Month For May, 1998
Bester
While Bester isn't always seen as a good guy in the series, he's a great help in the CCG, whether you pursue psi or intrigue conflicts. Here are some common combos:
Bester/Military Telepaths: The group card Military Telepaths gives any character with a psi ability leadership ability equal to half his psi, rounded up. This could have many advantages since most characters only have a leadership of four or less. Let him lead your Second Battle Fleet and you have a military of fifteen, surpassed only by The Grey Council Fleet and Warleader Fleet with leaders.
Bester/Secret Police: Another way to use Bester's psi ability is to turn it into intrigue. Secret Police gives Bester an additional six intrigue, adding to his existing five, becomes an impressive eleven. No other character as of yet has an intrigue close to eleven, making him somewhat of an asset to any deck that has a lot of Intrigue conflicts.
Bester/Telepathic Scan: This psi conflict, if you succeed, lets you look at a random number of cards from your opponent's hand, the number being the base psi of the character you first rotated. The only way your opponent can win is if they have two Telepaths with a base of six, or Ironheart. If they have Ironheart, just wait a few turns and he'll be gone. When Bester wins this, you can look at twelve cards in your opponent's deck and discard one of them. What a way to cripple a Minbari military deck if you take out the Grey Council Fleet or Warleader's Fleet!
Bester/Sleeper Personality: This is a great way to get rid of a few of those annoying characters your opponent has safely locked away in his Inner Circle. Since this conflict initiates both a psi and intrigue conflict, use Bester's psi for the psi conflict, backed up with Lyta or another telepath if you need them. The kicker about this conflict is if you win the intrigue conflict and psi conflict, the character is demoted to a supporting character. If you win the psi by ten or more, he becomes your character until you discard him.
Bester/Psi Corps Intelligence: If you win this psi conflict, you can decide which cards go into your opponent's hands. You can look at the top four cards of his deck and place one of those cards at the bottom of his deck. This is especially good if you want to manipulate other decks to your conditions.
The problem with Bester is that he cannot become a member of the Inner Circle, which could leave him open to attacks by Tu'Pari and such. So, what I suggest is that you have a few copies of Luxuries of Homeworld in your deck and place them on Bester in the chance that he could be neutralized. That way, you still have his impressive psi ability and even more impressive card combos to take advantage of.
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Created in 1998 by Starbuck e-mail: jim_muad_dib@geocities.com