Good Card, Bad Card #50

The 'Book of Hosp' reads, "Navaar is God, and Gav is her prophet. And one day they will all live on Assess Contamination with Kirk and Donatra and live happily ever after." So I went to the Romulus Regional to play 3 BenHosps and an Alex. I played Ben, of course, a Donatra/Assess Deck, with some NA Thieves. Phil, who was playing BenHosp's TOS Kirk/Assess Contamination. Josh Sheets (who gets props for making the journey) was playing a complete Assess Contamination sellout deck with Donatra AND Kirk, apparently getting some online help from Mr. Hosp. Then Alex, who didn't read the 'Book of Hosp', but had a Borg deck with Assess Contamination.

This won't be a rant of hate for Assess Contamination. I like the mission, it's a previous 'good card'. The game just wasn't ready for the Donatra/Assess combo yet. The problem, which the current lead designer already took offense with when I 'spoiled' my opinion, is that Design didn't use any long-term thinking by releasing these cards at the same time. The problem now, and why this combo is super-strong, is that dilemma piles that are 85-90% skill dilemmas just aren't that good. When somebody has Navaar and Gav out, they can just about handle any skill based dilemma combo. When they're attempting Assess Contamination with Donatra, that wipes out any non-skill combos you might have. It's never good when an mission attempt can have the answer to everything. As for the 'drawback' of cunning > 40, and it being a tough mission to solve, that doesn't exist for Romulans. Power Shift at Assess Contamination is sick nasty stuff. I've seen it solved with 4 or 5 people. So when I talk about 'long-term' thinking, I mean Design should've released more skill-based 'support' dilemmas before release that nasty combo. Like Coolant Leak, a weenie hate card with a skill. There needs to be an Urgency-type dilemma that requires a skill. There needs to be a Timescape-type card that requires a skill. When Design decided they wanted to go in the direction of making people play more skill based dilemmas they should've taken more time, and came up with a better gameplan. Now there's a big gaping hole in Tier-1 and it'll be a patchwork job to fix it up. Sadly, that's been the problem with Trek Design from the beginning, even the Decipher days. Problem, patchwork solution, new problem, more patchwork. It's like how we fix our roads in America, just keep doing one shitty fix job after another, instead of doing it right the first time.

On our stroll back through sets in GCBC we stop at the Archive Portraits. The ultimate fanboy experience, big pictures of girls in tight outfits. Or Shinzon, if you're into that sort of thing. Hey, I'm not judging.......

Good Card: Persis, Loyal Daughter

Why: If I had "Exhibit A" of why every personnel doesn't need text on it to be good it would be Persis. Her skills are money for most space missions, which probably you'll be doing first (Unless you read the 'Book of Hosp'). And those attributes.... wow.... and I'm not talking about female attributes. 6-8-8 for 2 cost!? That's the definition of value. And if you need another reason why the archive Persis is a good card, I only got one word for you: Nipples. The headlights are on, if you know what I mean.



Bad Card: Improved Scenery

Why: I swear, I did not do it on purpose, but when I was looking through the Archive Portraits the only bad card there was the 'World Champion Design-a-card 2008 Kevin Jaeger' Improved Scenery. So after winning his worlds with Worf, Security Detail Leader he probably knew errata was coming soon to Mr. Worf. So I guess he decided to put that terrible ability on a interrupt. Improve Scenery is nothing more that a 2E version of the 1E cards Scan and Full Planet Scan. Listen, any card that messes with your opponents dilemma pile is bad. It's goes against what this game is about, getting through (and I mean through, not 'around') dilemmas. I've mentioned in the past about 'protecting the integrity of the dilemma pile'. Just about all the cards that 'break' the game involve 'dilemma choke'. Many a World Champion has been crowned by getting around facing dilemmas. That's fine, you play to win the game. But if you don't understand the concept of protecting the dilemma pile, then you don't know what this game is about.
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Today's Pic: A stressed out BenHosp playing Josh Sheets. Josh was going for the win, deciding on who to attempt with while me, Phil, and Alex were talking. Josh overheard us and said something. Ben then called 'clock' on Josh, because he didn't know how much time was left and was scared the game would go to time. I then informed Ben that there was 20 minutes left and he was a terrible human being for calling time on a player who doesn't play slow. BenHosp stopped Josh, then won on the next turn. Then turned back into Mr. Happy. I'm pretty sure he's bi-polar and probably a sociopath.