For me, one of the most fun things about the B5 CCG is seeing how different cards can work together in potential game strategies. One caution, droping an agenda into play as an endgame move to let you win when you have about 15 (or even less) influence - especially if you haven't played many conflicts - is often frowned on. This is because it can make the game more like group solitaire rather than an interactive multi-player game. Multi-player, conflict-driven play is generally the more enjoyable, and is the strategy more likely to get the other players to play with you again. The Strategies Humans Start by Crushing Another's Strategy Walk Securely and Carry a Big Deck The Influence of Planets Support of Many Mighty Destiny's Influence Other Useful Ideas

Humans Start by Crushing Another's Strategy

[This strategy suggested by Chris Hayes on the b5ccg mailing list.]

Starting Hand

• Jeffrey Sinclair
• Talia Winters
• Telepathic Scan
• Affirm Alliance

On the first turn, declare your conflict.
Pick a player to target (whoever in your play group wins the most...).
Then use Affirm Alliance to bring out Talia.
Use Talia to support your conflict (basically a guaranteed win for you).

The conflict can remove a vital card from your opponent's hand - seriously interfering with their game strategy. Since some, or all, of their crucial cards will usually be too expensive to play on the first turn, they won't be able to get them out before you get at their hand.

Defences

• Level the Playing Field - but not for the Centauri because Londo's highest skill is just 4.
• Self Doubt - prevent Talia from supporting the conflict.
• Not Meant To Be - cancel the Affirm Alliance event to prevent talia from being sponsored on the first turn (so she can't support the conflict).

Walk Securely and Carry a Big Deck

Starting Hand

• Ambassador
• Ambassador's Assistant
• Consolidated Position - Diplomacy Conflict
  "Only members of your race may participate in this conflict.
  If the conflict is uncontested and support exceeds at least your unrest times 5, this card becomes an aftermath targeting your ambassador. While in effect, no other player may play aftermath cards targeting your ambassador."
• Diplomatic Advantage - Won Diplomacy Aftermath
  "Play on your ambassador. You must have won the conflict by 10 or more strength.
  You may draw 2 free cards instead of 1 during the draw round."

You have to hold on to the aftermath and conflict until you have enough cards to be able to win by the required 10 power (unless some evil player has bumped your unrest above 2, in which case you're probably going to have a notably harder time doing this).

Be sure to include lots of characters of your race that have good diplomacy. Also various diplomacy boosting events.

You may want to substitute an "Aide" character of your race in place of your assistant to get a little more diplomacy from the start (unless you're Centauri since the Centauri Aide isn't any better than the assistant).

The biggest weakness with this strategy is that you're putting 2 cards in your starting hand that you can't use for possibly quite a while. However, if it pays off, your hand will grow quite rapidly, hopefully making it that much easier for you to build your power and hinder the other players. (That is, until someone plays a "Reverse Advances" on you - which they can because RA targets you and not your ambassador).

I played this strategy successfully with a Minbari deck (about 180 cards - I like big decks!). My starting hand: Delenn (6 dip), Minbari Aide (3 dip), Consolidated Position and Diplomatic Advantage. I managed to pull a "Popular Support" event around the 7th turn (I think) which gave me 3 extra diplomacy for Delenn allowing me to successfully play Consolidated Position and Diplomatic Advantage.

I then lucked out by getting "The Great Machine" - a difficult conflict which I actually won because I had played a fleet before anyone else did and managed to also play one of my 6 diplomacy characters. So, I had the most strength for both the military and diplomacy conflicts of "The Great Machine" resulting in a 3 influence boost! I got my Homeworld after that. Played "Affirmation of Power" for a 2 influence boost. Then a Trade Pact for 2 influence, followed by Trade Windfall, Carpe Diem, Trade Windfall again and a second Trade Windfall from my now very sizable hand (thanks to Diplomatic Advantage) put me to the 20 influence mark - winning the game.

Useful Cards

• Power Politics - Agenda
  Diplomacy boost.
• The Hope of Peace - Agenda
  Diplomacy boost.
• Fleets on the Border - Event
  Use Military to support. (combine this with "Emergency Military Aid")
• Intrigues Mature - Event
  Use Intrigue to support.
• Level the Playing Field - Event
  Bring in other abilities to support your conflict.
• Popular Support - Event
  Diplomacy boost.
• Diplomatic Corps - Group
  Diplomacy boost.

The Influence of Planets

Combine the Agenda "Defense in Depth" (get an influence for every location you bring into play) and the Neutral Character "Catherine Sakai" (rotate and use 5 influence to pull a location from your deck) in your starting hand. With these, you can quickly build influence while putting locations into play (don't use this until you've built up your initial 10 influence).

You can't have more than one character, not including the ambassador, in your starting hand, so you'll probably want to have extra ambassador's assitant cards in your deck to increase your chance of getting one sooner.

The Minbari can't take much advantage from this strategy (they have the fewest locations to use). The Humans can get the most from it - 4 locations (5, if you use "Sleeping Z'ha'dum"), which could mean they get up to 15 influence fairly quickly (providing somebody doesn't target Sakai right away...). I've effectivly done this in actual gameplay - it makes it a lot easier to make further progress.

You may want to promote Sakai to the inner circle to protect against, or reduce the impact of, the "Extreme Sanction", "Attacking Pawns", "Hate Crime", "Kidnapping", "Na'Ka'Leen Feeder", and "Temptations" conflicts.

Useful Cards

• Enhancement: Latent Telepath
  Help protect against "Psi Attack", which your opponenet may try to use to put Sakai out of commission.
• Enhancement: Planetary Defences
  Since you'll spend a good part of the early game pulling in planets, you may want to pull this in to provide military defense. Make sure you get a fleet played so you can activate this card.
• Event: Level the Playing Field
  Useful to help protect Sakai.

Support of Many Mighty

This is centered around the Agenda "Support of the Mighty" which gives you an extra Power for each ready character you have with an ability of 6 or more. It also reduces the cost of characters with an ability of 6 or more by 2 influence.

Include characters from other races who have abilities of 6 or more. These are quite expensive (usually too expensive), but there are cards which will reduce the cost.

If you focus on one race (the Narn and Minbari are probably the best for this), be sure to get a "Disaffected..." card for that race (such as "Disaffected Minbari"). If you get that card into your inner circle, you can bring out any character of that race (that's not already in play, or allows multiple) for their listed cost, instead of the normal double cost for playing a card from a different race.

Useful cards:

• Aftermath: Cultural Connections
  Reduce cost of sponsoring characters from a specific race by 2 influence.
• Conflict: Black Market
  reduces cost of bringing out any card by 1 influence per Inner Circle character you rotate for the card.
• Conflict: Campaign For Support
  Gives extra influence, on next turn, for sponsoring a character.
• Conflict: Compatible Goals
  Reduce the cost of sponsoring characters, of races that are not in play, by 2 influence.
• Conflict: Court the Rebellious
  reduces the cost of characters of other races by that race's unrest. (combine this with cards that can change the other's unrest)
• Enhancement: Working Relationship
  Lets you reduce the cost of characters from another race by 2 influence.
• Event: Affirm Alliance
  Reduce the cost (sponsor or promote) of any character by half your ambassador's diplomacy.
• Event: Conflicting Loyalties
  Gives you a chance to play a limited character that is already in play.
• Event: Merchandising B5
  Reduces the cost of the next card you play by 2 influence.
• Group: War College
  Reduces the cost of characters with leadership by 2 influence.
• Centauri Character: Urza Jaddo
  In addition to his 6 diplomacy, he reduces the Centauri player's power by 1 for every 3 shadow marks the Centauri faction has.
• Centauri Location: Ragesh III
  Reduce the cost of a sponsored card by 1 influence.
• Human Agenda: Leading the Races
  Reduces costs to sponsor characters by 1 influence for each destiny mark your ambassador has. (good to match with the "Destiny's Influence" strategy below.
  Also adds one power for each non-human character in your inner circle.
• Human Location: Proxima III
  Reduce the cost to promote a character to the inner circle by 2 influence.
• Minbari Character: Delenn Transformed
  Reduce the cost of characters from other races by 2 influence.
• Minbari Character: Hedronn
  Can cause another Minbari character to rotate without effect.
• Minbari Group: Wind Swords
  Reduces cost of sponsoring characters with Leadership by 1 influence.
• Narn Character: Du'Rog
  Cause 4 points of damage to a Narn character when you discard Du'Rog.
• Narn Character: Kha'Mak
  Reduce the cost of Narn characters by 2 influence.
  Also, gain one influence while Kha'Mak is in play.

One 'extra' with this strategy is that you might be able to reduce the benefits of another player playing the "Rally the People" and "Consolidated Postion" Diplomacy Conflicts (which are restricted to the player's race).

Destiny's Influence

Build influence and abilities based on destiny marks.

Needless to say, any card that gives destiny marks is useful to this strategy.

Useful cards:

• Aftermath: Harvest Souls
  Use a Soul Hunter to get the destiny marks of any characters neutralized during a conflict.
• Aftermath: Martyr
  Converts all your doom marks to destiny marks.
• Aftermath: Rise to Power
  Exchange one or two destiny marks for influence. Get a doom mark.
• Agenda: As It Was Meant To Be
  Extra destiny marks from winning conflicts, also prevent discards (of neutralized cards) by exchanging destiny marks to keep them.
• Agenda: Higher Calling
  Each destiny mark gives you 1 power.
  Also increase your ambassador's abilities for conflicts which give destiny marks.
• Event: Destiny Fulfilled
  Increase your ambassador's abilities by the number of destiny marks you have.
• Event: For My People
  Gain a destiny mark by neutralizing your ambassador.
• Event: For the good of all
  Each destiny mark you have gives you a temporary +2 influence gain for the next turn.
• Event: Popular Support
  Gain diplomacy based on destiny marks.
• Event: Short Term Goals
  Trade a destiny mark for 1 influence.
• Event: Victory In My Grasp
  Increase all fleets' military by 1 for each of your ambassador's destiny marks.
• Event: You Know My Reputation
  Gain diplomacy based on destiny (and shadow or vorlon) marks.
• Human Agenda: Leading the Races
  Reduces costs to sponsor characters by 1 influence for each destiny mark your ambassador has.
  Also adds one power for each non-human character in your inner circle.
• Human Character: John Sheridan
  Doubles any mark he receives.

Other Useful Ideas

Include "Meditation" in your starting hand to help build your hand more quickly. Play it as your first action.

This website is cardware - if you find it useful, you are encouraged to send me a non-common booster card(s) from the game. (email Grant Neufeld for current address)