Good Card, Bad Card #63

I saw this hat up on my "Wall of Shame" (Where I keep all my 'not winner' STCCG trophies. Plus other keepsakes, like my Schloss Picard wines from Worlds in Germany) today and it made me think. Many years ago I called a group of MN players a bunch of "Random Jobbers". So when I showed up to Worlds that year, I think it was '03 or '04, I see a bunch of guys wearing Orange Hats. They took the 'insult' I gave them and turned it into their team name. It was actually very clever (even made Trek sense if you think about changelings). After Worlds, a MN player, I can't remember who, gave me a hat as a souvenir. There was no actual bad blood, and everything was in good fun. Believe it or not, back then, MN players had a sense of humor. I know, it's tough to believe. Sure, there have always been some prickly guys in that group. But overall, they were just like everyone else. They didn't go nuts anytime somebody talked some smack, made a comment on a message board, or made crazy threats of lawsuits. Those regular guys are gone. All that's left now (at least online) are a few unhinged characters who take things way too serious. They try to blame me for players they've lost or have 'left the scene'. But the Random Jobbers I don't see at Worlds anymore are the ones that used to have fun, have a sense of humor. The ones that I would have a beer with after they beat me (it's a tough sell saying I'm a sore loser when that happens). What's more likely, those people stop playing because of a guy they saw once a year, and didn't take seriously, or their prickly locals who have reality perception issues?

Today for GCBC we'll stop at the random set of These are the Voyages. I had the MACO virus for about two weeks. I kept thinking MACO's were the truth and Tier-1. I just couldn't crack the code.

Good Card: Swashbuckler at Heart

Why: Sometime back I said "Every dilemma pile should have at least one The Dreamer and the Dream". Well, now you can include Swashbuckler in that rule. There are a lot of cheaters out there. But the good ones are really good and the rest are just ehh, ok. Knowledge and Experience, The Central Command and Bridge Officer's Test are going to see lots of play at Worlds. Sadly, against K&E all it'll do is make your opponent burn one copy to save his others. But at least it's something. Also, this dilemma can really screw up a Terok Nor deck. Oh, I didn't mention the two bonus draws. I've used that bonus to beef up Excaliban Drama. In less you're playing a ton of interrupt prevention, this card is a 100% must in your dilemma pile. Why else is it "Good Card"? Sulu with his shirt off. Oh my.....

Bad Card: Richard Daystrom, Influential Scientist

Why: He's a poor man's Kirk. Everything else is fine with Daystrom, but he's got the evil words on him.... "prevent and overcome". That alone will get you on the "Bad Card" list. The Kirk errata helps a little bit, when these two guys were tag-teaming around it was pretty silly. A really abusive deck can play Daystrom 2 or 3 times in a game. Doesn't sound like a lot, but that's either a quick solve or plenty of extra dilemmas overcome. The +2 doesn't really mean much. TOS is really just OT Kirk, this guy, and a bunch of really cheap personnel.

Good Card, Bad Card #62

I was wrong. For some reason I thought Kira Nerys, Ih'valla was in the set Peak Performace. It was in Extreme Measures. I just assumed, naturally, that anything broken must be from Peak Performance. And with so many Kiras it's just fucking impossible to keep track of them all.

So it's Day 3 of my exile from the CC message boards. The "Dork Wars" rage on. But I'll try to spare you any of that in today's GCBC. Unlike them, I have Worlds to prepare for. I played my "C" Deck and "D" Deck Sunday with mixed success. My Android deck couldn't stop the Borg Beast, even with Romulan interrupt hate tossed in. My experimental Starfleet NX Prototype Battle Deck went 1-2. Losing to Klingons and BenHosp's clever two-mission win deck. It was a fun deck to tryout. Guess that's why I don't have a 2000 rating like Australian players can get. I'm sorry, but it says nothing good about a country when a guy can run off 40 straight wins. I know the kid is good, but that would never happen in any other meta. We need to all start chipping in for a plane ticket for the Australian Continental winner to come to Worlds. It makes the rating system a fraud when one person is over 2000 and the next rated player is 1930.

Good Card: U.S.S. Enterprise-D, Diplomatic Envoy

Why: BenHosp had a big comeback on my Sunday with his two-mission win deck. I blew up this Enterprise with a NX Prototype, then two turns later a spooky "Ghost Enterprise" showed up and was solving missions. The lame part is this ship will be combined with cadets and their 2 range (range, not span since it's the same region) space mission. This is a good card because it brings some new freshness to TNG. All the other Enterprise-D's kinda suck. The 'future D' is kinda ok, but it cost 7 and is a pain to staff. Hell, it made somebody play Picard, Genial Captain for the first time. That's gotta count for something.

Bad Card: Unfair Comparison

Why: This card is definitely from Peak Performance. And it's been seeing lots of play lately. I tried it once a couple months ago, and I didn't like it. Why? It's a glorified 'crapshoot' dilemma. That's my term for dilemmas that 'might' do something. Dilemmas like Racial Tensions, Chula: Echoes, etc. Sure, you can build your pile up so the odds are big in your favor. But I've seen this dilemma miss too many time for my liking. Also, it's not immune to stuff like Archer, Reyga and Donatra, since it cost more than 1 and doesn't require a skill. To support this dilemma you need to play high cost dilemmas, which requires you to play 8-costers, which requires you to play events. If your opponent doesn't have much event destruction, you're in great shape. If they blow out your events, you're in big trouble.
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Today's Pic: The new logo of the CC.

Good Card, Bad Card #61

So I can cross another thing off my Bucket List. I finally got banned from the TrekCC message boards. A 36 hour ban it looks like, which is kinda more insulting. I received this when trying to log in:

Making personal attacks in the thread about personal attacks? Really? Take a couple days off, come back next week and try to play nice, or the next one will be longer.

I like the threat on the end. After all these years, that's supposed to scare me straight? A moderator with a Napolean complex? Nah.... that's working under the impression that I need to be on the CC boards. These Midwest clowns want me banned more then I want to be around. Why else would I feed them red meat?

So how did this nonsense flare up again? I posted this, just a random response to another player, at the time I didn't think much of it. Then Charlie made it the prime example of a personal attack:

prylardurden wrote:

Or are you just saving your 'broken' deck so a MN player can win Worlds? /semi-joking response

KillerB wrote:
I doubt Waso here represents the best MN has to offer these days. Good god I hope not....

I guess the usual suspect cried to Charlie to have my head. After it was clear I wasn't going to be banished, the usual Minnesota passive/aggressive response:

Lore wrote:

 Change the rule today?!? What are you talking about? In this article, posted in February 4 months ago, Chris was pretty clear. The fact of the matter is, no serious action has been taken against any of the offenders. You know what? F this... I'm out.

I committed the cardinal sin of responding to Kris on the boards. Pointing out the 'I'm taking my ball and going home' bluff they pull every time they don't get their way. Kevin Jaeger did it, Kris has done it in the past. Apparently pointing out passive/aggressive behavior is a "personal attack" on the TrekCC boards. Then I was banned.

 

 

The kangaroo court has judged me, and so be it. For over a year now, whenever I say something to shake their fragile emotions they cry to Charlie. When Charlie doesn't give in to their demands (You should've saw Kris demands when he threatened to sue the CC) they threaten to quit the game, and that others will quit the game. This is a tactic that works with Charlie for some reason. But, they're still here, and you can't name one person who's not around because of me. Sure Kevin 'quit' for a month, the same time he took the role of 2E Rules Liaison (opps! did I just out him? Sorry), then he was right back. Same with Kris, and now this next Minnesota wierdo who's on the boards all the time. I'll give it 2 weeks before he is back. These are the same people who cry favoritism and that Charlie is a puppet for Neil when it comes to Trek decisions. All this bullshit and stress for people WHO DON'T EVEN GO TO WORLDS. Wow, even if they weren't bluffing about quitting, what would we really lose? A couple of crybaby, emo kids who are too afraid to attend Worlds because their egos couldn't handle any kind of failure. All they do is sit back and shit on anything anybody ever does. Well, unless 24 jobbers show up for a Minnesota tournament once a year. Then it's the greatest thing in that's ever happened to Trek.

 

 

Let's talk cards instead of Blood Feud. To 'release my pain' I'll take my agression out on Peak Performance. It's the set that keeps on giving.... broken cards and headaches...

Good Card: The Text of the Kosst Amojan


Why: This is a great example of how retrieval should work. A unique event that plays on table. So you can only do it once each turn and it can be destroyed by an opponent, fair enough. Stopping a personnel for a cost. That a whole lot better than something goofy like losing 5 points or beginning a mission attempt. And to get exactly the card I want I have to have two copies of it in the discard pile. That's something not easy to do. Plus, the other removes from game. That eliminates any kind of loops that can lead to 'counterfeit' games. So hopefully Design learned something for broken Kira. Don't put retrieval on personnel. Put it on events that play in core and make in an order.

Bad Card: Exchange Program

Why: The card itself isn't the worse thing ever. The problem is logic. Going into Peak Performance, just like now, the best two affiliations were Borg and Klingon. So what do they put in Peak Performance? Two nasty interrupts for both. Exchange Program is nowhere as bad an Unrelenting, but it's just something that Klingons didn't need. Now after I get ass raped by Krudge I'm going to lose one or two guys at my HQ. In 2E you're supposed to be safe at your HQ. This is a 1E lesson forgotten by the 2E Design team. Borg and Klingon are above the others because set after set they kept getting another card. Then all of a sudden, you combine x,y, and z and you have something that's way over the power curve. Design isn't all that hard in the conception phase. That is, if there's a Tier-1 presence on the Design team. You ask yourself, "what affiliations are too strong, and what affiliations need a boost?" Instead of trying to come up with silly teams, maybe it's best to get back to basics?

Good Card, Bad Card #60

"Get to Know Your Trek Players"
*these are not intended to be factual statements*

Name: Steve Rotz
Height: 6'3"
Weight: 190 lbs.
Resides: Columbus, Ohio
TrekCC Handle: YeahToast
Trademark: Shaking his head with a sad look
Occupation: *Top Secret* FBI Assisstant Director, Ohio X-Files Division
Favorite Deck: What Charlie makes him play
Favorite GenCon Activity: Twilight Imperium with BenHosp at 3 am.

Fun Facts: Founded the Ohio Tea Party; Doesn't like to talk about his job; Hetero-life mate of John Corbett (had civil union in New Jersey); Keeps Charlie's kidney stones in his basement

We going to use the hot button topic in trek right now as today's Bad Card. With the main theme being 'retrieval', being able to get cards back from your discard pile. This was supposed to be a theme for the Bajoran affiliation. We learned from 1E that being able to get things easily from the discard pile (Palor Toff, etc.) was bad. So most of the Bajoran stuff in 2E is tame compared to that. The problems in 2E pop up when Bajoran retrieval is mixed with other affiliations, especially the stall theme of the Maquis. When this happens you see decks that 'counterfeit' the game usually in the form of personnel denial. I'll steal a poker term here (when you're two pair turns into crap because the other card pairs on the board) for this, because it kinda gives me the same feeling when it happens. "Counterfeiting" in Trek is a game where you never had a chance to win, no matter what. This has only happened a few times to me. Berlin Wall years back, and Terok Nor/Weyoun last year. From the reports of our Aussie friends, it sounds like we have another one of those situations.

Good Card: Souls of the Dead

Why: Here we have the original Bajoran retrieval card. It's an order, so the card you retrieve can't be played the same turn. That's good. Also, the card you retrieve goes on top of your deck. This means you have to spend a counter to draw for it, which is a fair cost. More important, it only allows for one card to be retrieved, that way there's not much you can do to abuse it.

Bad Card: Kira Nerys, Ih'valla

Why: Here we have a playtest fail, but it's easy to always blame the playtesters. It takes a sick mind to come up with these abusive decks, and not everyone thinks like that. I certainly don't. I'm too busy trying to figure out how to get to 100 points first, not put cards X,Y, and Z and break the game. Some people think like that, and there's nothing wrong with it. In fact, after the Berlin Wall incident I've been saying those are the types of people that need to be playtesters. Anything that has 'retrieval' has to be examined, and playtested, more than any other cards. These cards are Suspect #1 to be abused. We didn't learn the lessons on Vedek Assembly and now here we are again. Also, retrieving personnel and ships are one thing, but retrieving events and interrupts are another. Almost nothing but NPE's can result for being able to retrieve events and interrupts easily. One good thing can come from this though: No more Kira's! Please, it was cute in the Decipher days, but now it's just annoying.