by Darrin Bright
This is the third incarnation of a deck idea I've been toying with for maybe a year now. It started out on an idea I got from one of my Bermuda decks. The idea behind it was to make a Criminal Overlords deck that doesn't scream "I'm a Criminal Overlords deck!", which means a lot of the typical Violent Criminal groups have been left out. In fact, the only Criminal group is Junk Mail.
How do you win with Criminal Overlords then? Well, you use Political Correctness to make your Power 1 Violent Conservative groups Criminal. There are only three cards that this will work with: Police Depts, Gun Lobby, and the Survivalists. (There's one more, actually...the Assassins Ultra-Rare Militia, but it's difficult to get ahold of one and its special ability doesn't work well with the gimmick behind this deck.)
The tough part is trying to keep Political Correctness intact. That's where the Mossad and Shroud of Turin come in, and hence the name of the deck. You stack all the cards you'll need for victory at the bottom of your deck, and use the Mossad or Shroud to get at them. I designed a Cthulhu deck around this idea, but this could work for any deck that relies on a key combination of cards to ensure victory. But now that I think about what I could do to fine-tune this deck even more, I'm thinking that this deck might do better with the UFOs and two other alternate goals, Let Them Eat Cake and Corporate Masters.
This deck has three main "Feeder" groups to help build your power structure. The Republicans are for taking over Conservative/Government groups, Madison Avenue is for taking over Corporate/Media groups, and the Pentagon is for taking over Violent/Government groups. Your best lead is the Republicans, but either of the other two ought to work just as well.
If you can get the Shroud out early, you may want to check what's on the bottom of your group deck, in case there's an important group card down there like Mossad or one of your three Violent Conservative groups. If there's someone playing the Adepts, however, you may want to wait and see if he brings out a Shroud of his own so you can play Forgery.
Hold on to Newt if he comes up, if you play him early your opponents might get jumpy about Let Them Eat Cake and mobilize en masse to take him out. Newt is great for destroying Liberal groups, but this early on you shouldn't worry about destroying anything. It's possible to win with this deck without destroying anything.
If you get any NWO's early on, hold on to them. You need them for the Endgame. Discard them to the bottom of your deck so they'll be easy to get with Mossad or the Shroud. If you discard any OTHER cards, make sure you discard them ABOVE your NWOs. A little more on this later...
One other card you may want to hold on to is Secrets. This is the only card in this deck that can get rid of Nevermore, which can really ruin your Endgame.
Your focus for the midgame should be getting your Media groups out, and digging your NWO's out of your plot deck. You need your Media groups out to help deal with any nasty NWOs when you try and claim victory. Ideally, you want your Corporate Media groups controlled by the Pentagon, but the opposite alignments might make this difficult. Try Censorship if you're having trouble taking over Corporate groups with the Pentagon. You might consider Privatizing the Pentagon, but watch out for any untimely Antitrust Legislations.
Getting through your plot cards should be fairly easy if the Pentagon is properly loaded up. Otherwise, you might get a few plots from the Gun Lobby, an instant attack like Sniper or Atomic Monster, or a well-executed Whispering Campaign. Discard all your NWOs towards the bottom of your deck. You want all your Political Correctness on the bottom, then any yellow NWOs above those, then any blue NWOs, then NWO-cancellers like BloodToilTears&Sweat and Sweeping Reforms on top of that. This is what your deck should look like, in layers:
--- Top ---
<Misc. Undrawn Plot Cards, if any>
<Any BloodToilTears&Sweat and/or Sweeping Reforms>
<NWO:World Hunger or any other Blue NWOs>
<NWO:AntiTrust Legislation or any other Yellow NWOs>
<All of your NWO:Political Correctness>
--- Bottom ---
Once your NWOs have been set up, you need either the Shroud or Mossad out, and one to three of your Violent Conservative groups. You're not quite ready yet, however... Once you've got your NWOs ready and your groups ready, you need to get the following cards into your hand, and then you're ready for the Endgame: Criminal Overlords Goal, and both Savings and Loans Scams.
Some things you need to look out for include Media cancellers like Dan Quayle and Elvis. There's not much you can do about Bigfoot, but I doubt you'll see him very often. Because three of your key groups are Power 1 Violent groups, Shangri-La might be a problem. Try and convince him to agree to a non-aggression pact if he gets trigger-happy. Another thing you need to look out for is Nevermore - if it gets into play, your Endgame is finished. Secrets is the only way you can get rid of it, but if you can't stop it, make sure you Nevermore any Red or Yellow NWOs that come into play. You might get lucky and prevent your rivals from playing any NWOs that could replace Political Correctness or boost your Conservative groups.
Now the tricky part starts.
Here's what you need to do on the turn you make your bid for victory. Draw ALL your plot cards from the bottom of the deck with Mossad or the Shroud. Spend any leftover tokens, then draw a group and any plots you're entitled to draw.
Now play your Savings and Loans Scams to get the rest of your NWOs and any NWO-cancellers into your hand. Don't spend any Media tokens for these, you might need them for getting rid of NWOs.
If Newt hasn't come out yet, now's a good time to ATO him, and then make any last minute destructions or instant attacks. Try not to spend any Media tokens unless you have to, and avoid spending yourself out. Spending any tokens might be a bad idea, as you might need them for any desperate plot draws if things don't go your way. When you're ready to claim victory, play your first Political Correctness so your Power 1 Conservative Violent groups now count double.
That was the easy part. The really tough part will be keeping Political Correctness intact. Your opponents will throw down any NWOs they have in their hand to try and get rid of it, and then will spend all their action tokens to try and get more NWOs from their plot decks. Wait until the flurry is over, then play another Political Correctness and any other NWOs to keep your Criminal groups Criminal. Use your Media groups to play BloodToilTears&Sweat or Sweeping Reforms. What you don't want to see is any NWOs that boost your conservative groups, like Law and Order and Big Business, or any Red NWOs. The Blue ones generally won't affect you, except for Interesting Times. Play World Hunger or get rid of it with BloodToilTears&Sweat/Sweeping Reforms.
By now, you've probably noticed that you don't have any Liberal groups. Other than giving you some Criminal attributes, Political Correctness doesn't really do you a lot of good, and if any of your opponents have any Liberal groups, itcould wind up helping your opponents more than it helps you. If this is the case, go for a shared victory. Sharing isn't as much fun, but hey, victory is victory.
If you've still got a Political Correctness hiding somewhere in your plots deck, you might have a shot at victory on the next turn, but by now the other players know what you're doing and are probably going to crush you. If Political Correctness is gone and you're stuck with a bunch of non-Criminal Violent groups, you could look for Violent Criminal groups in play and go after 'em, or create one of your own with Power Corrupts. Another way to get a Violent Criminal group is to move Junk Mail over to the Saturday Morning Cartoons.
One of the quirks of this deck is that by trying to stop you, sometimes your opponents wind up helping you - in order to keep you from winning, your opponents must boost the power of your Violent and Conservative groups. They may have stopped you from winning that turn, but if Law and Order, Big Business, or Gun Control is out, you might be better off than you were with Political Correctness. If you're still around next turn, you might be close enough to destroy a group or two and get to the basic goal.
I'd find it difficult to take out or replace any cards as the deck stands now. The only one that you could get rid of that isn't an absolute necessity is Newt. If you're having problems moving things around, you may want to substitute Offshore Banks for Newt. Another posssibility might be putting in the Ninjas - see the Lambs to the Slaughter deck to see the fun tricks you can do with the Ninjas and the Gun Lobby.
Another way to go might be the UFO deck I mentioned earlier. Put in maybe a big Corporate group like Multinational Oil Companies, and the goals Let Them Eat Cake and Corporate Masters.
As for the other rares, you need at least either Mossad or the Shroud to get to the plots on the bottom of your deck. You can get by with one if you can't get both. I put in Alien Abduction for bringing out Newt quickly, but it could easily be replaced by another disaster or an extra Censorship/Whispering Campaign. Cyborg Soldiers can easily be replaced by a Necronomicon, which was actually the first choice for this deck. I decided to go with the Cyborg Soldiers because they're not Unique or Magic, and I didn't want to go out of my way to aggravate any rival Adepts players. But if you want to go with the Necronomicon, you could possibly offer him the Necronomicon if he agrees to let you keep the Shroud.
First posted: November 3, 1997
Last modified: November 3, 1997
Ralph Melton ralph@cs.cmu.edu