Perfectionist

Alert

Control

Resource

Type

Power of Standards

Claims Only Wanted Pods

Whenever you would claim pods, use this power to “reject” any or all pods you do not want, shrouding those pods in your nexus instead as your “reject pile”.

Whenever another alien would snatch pods from your cache, use this power to force that alien to snatch any number of those pods your reject pile instead. If the forge is ever empty, add your reject pile and any number of pods from your cache directly to the forge.

Special Offer: 1 influence – Reveal and offer one pod from your reject pile. The pod must be accepted to receive the influence.

Legacy: Whenever an alien drafts or snatches multiple pods, that alien may scrap one of those pods.

The Perfectionists have an extreme aversion to flaws, even minute ones that only they can perceive. Having long since determined the Cosmos to be greatly flawed, they seek absolute dominion over it to correct all these annoying mistakes.

Any: Any

Mandatory

Wild Flare

Whenever you gain pods from compensation or boons, you may discharge this flare to seal one of those pods in your nexus and gain one more. The sealed pod is then scrapped. If it was compensation, you may return it to its owner.

Any: Any

Super Flare

When using your power to reject pods, you may discharge this flare to claim pods from the same source equal to the number of rejected pods. You may use your power on those pods as well but not this flare.

Any: Any

Modifications

Original Perfectionist is the power to “Be Finicky”. Changed to satisfy my one-word power name edict.
Original Perfectionist is optional an optional power. I considered it pointlessly optional since Perfectionist can choose to reject nothing, and perfectionism is a mental condition that can’t be turned off.
Original Perfectionist must draft pods to replace whatever it rejects and cannot reject the new pods. This aspect of the power made it considered one of the most powerful pod gaining ability in Cosmic, allowing it to gain a free mulligan from every resupply. My version is based on the retrain of Perfectionist from the Venture Galaxy, who possesses the power of Idealism.
Since original Perfectionist is optional, the pod snatching clause is also an optional effect. My version simply allows Perfectionist to have them snatch no pods from the reject pile.
Original Perfectionist would scrap 15 pods from its reject pile if the forge were empty. The retrain makes Perfectionist scrap all of them, while allowing it to also scrap any pods from its cache as a bonus. It is a much more elegant solution with some minor synergy.
Wild Perfectionist must return pods to its owner’s cache if taken as compensation. My version gives the option to scrap the pods instead. The retrain of Wild Perfectionist is the same as the original.
Original Super Perfectionist can “reject” sponsors after approach, removing them like a Force Field artifact. My version is based on the Perfectionist retrain, which adds the original Perfectionist’s power back. While the original could get a mulligan but not use its power again, the updated version can mulligan the second pods as well but cannot discharge the flare again to mulligan the second set of pods. It is more fitting for the alien, since Perfectionist is never forced to take pods it doesn’t want.
Original Perfectionist can offer pods from its reject pile during negotiations. Mine has a special offer to provide the same option.
Perfectionist’s legacy allows every alien to be picky about the pods they receive and scrap one pod when receiving multiple from drafting or snatching. Compensation aliens like Ethic and Lawyer can appreciate this legacy to get more value out of their power. Pod drafting aliens like Extortionist and Doctor can also benefit, though Remora doesn’t really appreciate it given that it only drafts one pod at a time. Original Cosmic has no legacies.

Tips

Perfectionist is the ultimate cache pruning alien, always receiving the ideal version of its cache from provisions. It never has to claim a pod it doesn’t want unless zapped.
Perfectionist has to be on-guard against gaining too many resupplies. Since Perfectionist can theoretically scrap its entire cache when gaining a resupply, it can quickly and easily run out of free resupplies if not careful.
Perfectionist never has to gain pods unless it likes the pods, no matter where they come from. Even cache junking powers like Philanthropist cannot put bad pods in Perfectionist’s cache if it doesn’t want them there. This alien can freely gain pods from boons, compensation, or anywhere else without concern for filling its cache with junk. This degree of flexibility can allow Perfectionist to either gain resupplies quickly or never require them.
Perfectionist has no natural ability to gain more pods than any other alien, aside from its potential to gain resupplies more quickly.
Perfectionist’s reject pile normally only contains junk, since it serves the dual purpose of providing defense from compensation. It has the option to keep a few good pods for negotiations, but it does have to be wary about gifting them if targeted by compensation.

Development Notes

Original Perfectionist was considered one of the strongest aliens in the Eon Galaxy at the time it was discovered. While pods are not strictly good or bad in Cosmic, quality pods are always good. Original Perfectionist had the ability to keep its original good pods and mulligan all the bad ones, gaining a much higher chance of getting an exclusively good cache. Since it retained this power with each new resupply, as well as boons and compensation, Perfectionist became infamous as one of the best resource powers in Cosmic. Even crazier, it is effectively immune to compensation since it can use its reject pile to defend against it. When the retrain was released after the Venture Galaxy, the power was brought more in line. Perfectionist could only reject pods without immediately gaining replacements. It could still potentially mulligan the whole cache if it rejected everything, but doing so would require it to scrap every pod, both good and bad. The compensation protection becomes much more justified, since it isn’t much of a resource power anymore.
A “perfectionist” is one that is highly self-critical and accepts nothing less than perfection. Perfectionists take on great anxiety when things don’t go perfectly, and this power of pruning the cache of imperfect pods is a good fit. The power name was quite difficult to figure out for this power, since there aren’t many action verbs that refer to grabbing specific things and throwing them out. I considered the power to “nitpick”, but that term is used more in the context of criticism. Cherry-picking would be a great power word for this alien, but I thought it felt weird to associate this power with cherries. The power to “choose” or to “pick” seems too simple and doesn’t fully capture the idea, and the power to “reject” sounds more like it’s rejecting aliens. I appreciate the thematic bonus that I am being a perfectionist about the power name, though that is fairly common with many of these aliens. I ultimately went with the power of “standards”, to encapsulate the idea of the alien having high standards that inform its decisions. No pods can enter its cache unless they are of a certain degree of quality. It’s also a subtle jab at every other alien, implying that they don’t have standards.
Even though the compensation protection and special offer pad out the power effect, the base idea is quite elegant and perfectly fitting as a green alert. A new player would greatly benefit from the ability to only keep its best pods and then ignore compensation on top of it.
Mechanically, Perfectionist is most similar to other cache pruning aliens. Porcupine, for instance, has a minor combat ability from its power that it can use quite often, allowing it to freely scrap worthless pods from its cache in exchange for minor might. Porcupine could arguably be considered strictly superior to Perfectionist without the compensation protection, but I can appreciate that Porcupine has the additional pressure to scrap even its strong pods for the chance to eke out a close win. Ninja can freely scrap pods in place of losing ships while also being able to gain pods instead of ships. However, its timing is limited to losing ships, and the lack of compensation protection can leave it vulnerable when it scraps all but its strongest pods. Other aliens like Cavalry and Alchemist can only use their power one pod at a time, which makes them slower at pruning their cache than Perfectionist even without the compensation protection.
Perfectionist has no need to be an optional power, since the difference is mostly just semantic. It also doesn’t make sense for a perfectionist to be able to choose when it feels perfectionism or not. If it chooses to keep a pod, it must perceive it as valuable for some reason, even if it’s only to have some trash for Outlaw to snatch or an N pod to defend against Pacifist.
Since every pod Perfectionist rejects is virtually vaporized, Perfectionist is potentially just as dangerous as Mouth when it comes to wiping pods from the pool. To compensate for this aspect, Perfectionist’s rejections have a hard limit that puts all of them back if the forge if it ever runs out of aur. Normally the pods would be scrapped and then recharged
Since my version adds the additional drawback of limited resupplies, Perfectionist shouldn’t be in danger of being overpowered. However, the ability to prune caches and only keep the best pods is strong enough that I don’t suspect the power will be too weak either. Thematically, I really like how the retrain never forces Perfectionist to accept any pods it doesn’t want. It can be a true perfectionist about its cache and keep it pure of unwanted pods.