Good Card, Bad Card #84

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The above is just a little fun we had at the last tournament this past Sunday. BenHosp played the NA Reliant and then a nerdfest broke out. I played a Tier-1 deck at a local and had to apologize after each win. I forgot how stupid the deck was and how downloading is still an epidemic in 2E. I should've never played it. So for today's GCBC you're going to get a double shot of bad. Two cards I abused the crap out of Sunday. BenHosp is right, I'm a terrible human being and probably a sociopath.

Good Card: Small Problems

Why: I was a scumbag for playing a Quantum Filament/Rogue Borg Ship pile at a 4-person local, but I give myself a sliver of credit for using a card that nobody has ever played. It's a great combo with Rogue Borg Ship. It cost 3, so it can be abused with Subliminal Signal. Outside of that terrible stuff, it's not too bad on it's own. I can't think of too many bad matchups for it, outside Borg. Most affiliations have a good number of gold stars, usually at least 40% of the personnel. Some, like Cardassian, are super heavy on gold stars. So dig into your box of commons and dust off a couple of these.

Bad Card: K'Tal, Senior Council Member

Why: He should at least say 'once each turn'. K'Tal wasn't a problem until they made Guidance of the Council in Reflections. That created the stupid 'Klingon Download Chain'. As we know, the decks that are well above the power curve all involve downloading. Maquis didn't get silly until the new Amaros was made. Luckily, this is a known fact in Design now and future downloading hopefully will be kept to a minimum. The current downloading is still a problem. Klingon Tea Ceremony doesn't see a lot of play. Even if it hits the table, it only slows the chain down a little.

Bad Card: Energize

Why: You want to know why Borg and Klingon were the most abusive decks for the longest time? Energize is why. They both had a personnel who can download it (K'mtar and Fourth), and they had a card who could download that personnel (Guidance and Quintessence). What was I saying about downloads? Anyways, the only way you have a chance against either of these decks is to destroy Energize early. If not, forget about it, you simply can't keep up. Borg is even more ridiculous since the Energize never goes away with Fifth. People give newer cards like Sense of Obligation heat, they don't like it for some reason. But this game needs more quick event destruction. Anybody who doesn't like Sense needs to sit down and play one or two games against what I played Sunday. I'll make a believer out of them real quick.

Good Card, Bad Card #83

 


 "When the government fears the people, there is liberty."
-Thomas Jefferson

We have wars at home and abroad. I was saddened to learn that 1200 of the roughly 2000 deaths in the Afghan War have come since Obama became president. Most people close to me think "Barack's my boy", but that's mostly because I correct them when they say silly shit about him. Of all the bad things I've heard people say about him I've never heard anything about this. They care about taxes, healthcare, Kenya, but they don't care that more Americans have died in that useless wasteland during his presidency (which is only now half through) then during the 8-year Bush 2.0 administration. I can't defend "my boy" on this one. Sad part is, America's longest war isn't "scheduled" to end for another two years. Funny, I don't remember WWII being scheduled to end. Back then wars ended when you won them. That's how you know the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were just bullshit war mongering all along.

At home in Michigan the people are rising up. They've gone after the labor unions and they did it like assassins. I'm no sweetheart on the unions. They can get corrupt just like any other large organization. But I trust them more then the "aristocracy of our monied corporations" (I promise, the last Jefferson quote of the day). Now I'm not advocating violence, but I think they should keep raising hell. Republican controlled state houses in many states are up to all sorts of silliness and people needs to keep an eye on them. If you need proof just see what the yahoos in Arizona have done recently.

From serious political stuff to star trek cards. Now that's silliness. But we all need hobbies. If not I'd just watch Fox News all the time while drinking scotch. At least then maybe it would start making sense. I've been catching some heat (and it's caused a little trouble in Design), for being "Mr. Negative" about certain sets. If you're taking personal me expressing opinions on cards from sets that came out 3 years ago you need to relax. Maybe since I'm working on a set now people think I have to be a cheerleader or something. That's not going to happen. After the next set comes out if people want to start a blog and crap all over it more power to them. If something stinks it deserves what people say. If you think I won't criticize a card in a set because I was on the Design team, then you don't know me very well. Nobody shits on me better than me. Today I'm being positive, picking two cards from a set I like "Tacking into the Wind" (and not because Insurrection is in it). I remember when this set was in the works and liked the idea of a 'ships-based' set. I think it turned out real well and the guys on that design team should be proud. Now let me put down my pom-poms.

Good Card: Cosette, Reliable Raider

Why: The other day I set out to make a 'pure' Maquis deck. By pure I mean DMZ missions and a deck that doesn't revolve around shoving the Defiant down your opponent's throat. I never gave this ship it's proper look when it came out. It's really good. A ship with great attributes and a fortress for your events. I get off on playing obscure cards and was building a deck with Strafing Fire (so obscure I thought it was called Strafing Run). Since I'm not really a Maquis player (besides one Santos abuse deck years ago) my dumbass was doing that before stumbling onto the Cosette. What a relief to learn that I can play this card now without worry of wasting 5 counters. Now you can't always rig your opponent's deck so the top card is a personnel, but there are some way to get the odds in your favor. Easiest way, play Caretaker's "Guests", that's should lock it up. Second, play Kenneth Dalby. This Voyager scumbag can look at the top card of your opponent's deck at the start of your turn then place it on the top or bottom. Lastly, get the Valjean out. Use this ship's order first and if it's not a personnel that card goes on the bottom. The last two tricks should work about 50% of the time.

Bad Card: John Harriman, Captain of the Enterprise

Why: Wasted potential. John Harriman isn't terrible, I just feel he got watered down and drowned in text. That's a 5-line ability that just isn't that good. Why am I disappointed? Because it's Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I liked that character so much I named my 3rd born after him. I love the Enterprise-B, it's tough to make ships that score points that can't be abused in some way. My main problem with the ability is the price, a random card from hand. That a steep price to gain a skill on a personnel. A simple card from hand should've sufficed. One thing I like is that the personnel doesn't have to be 'present', they have to be on a staffed ship at the mission. This is sneaky, like the way Comfort Women is sneaky. Most people don't realize on that card the NA personnel only has to be at the mission. This provides some piece of mind, you can leave a person on the ship and not have to worry about not taking the right skill. Second thing I like, he's got the "mark of the beast", 6-6-6 attributes. Third, he's cheap. It's a raw deal giving Cameron the 'bad card' title, but when I made the deck with the Enterprise-B I ended up cutting him. That's a shame. Being true to the character and legacy, he's just a little bit off.


 

Ruling New Jersey- Volume 2, Issue 6

You can almost tell from body language which British guy in that picture really doesn't like me much. I'm not going to say which one. That was from GenCon earlier this year. They all should've been thrilled. For the first time ever Team Jersey lost a team event, to these bums no less. I blame Neil and BenHosp for selling us out to play board games or something.

Today I have a short, off-the-cuff list of the Top 20 "Played Out" Dilemmas in 2E. Some are good, some are bad, some are ugly. By "played out" I mean cards I'm just sick of seeing. I love it when I see a player try new stuff, or give old stuff another shot. When Ed stopped me with "Rock" People last year I had a dorkgasm (I'm trademarking that word right now). Now remember, this list might be skewed because of the "snake pit" meta I play in. It is interesting how different dilemmas are played in different areas. That is because most people subconsciously 'follow the leader'. Sometimes, especially Tier-1 players, get so stuck-in-a-rut, so keyed off of what other players are doing, they never get outside of their comfort zone. They never try something new and risky. So step up people, think outside-the-box, go through that binder, and do something cool and interesting for a change. Stop playing these cards....

#20 Old Differences
I hate this card, I never play it. But yet I still see this dilemma too much. 3 cost for two random stops isn't terrible, but it's just so goddamn boring. This is the most flavor-less dilemma in 2E. Best is when, I've had this happen twice, you're attempting a 40 pointer and your opponent forgets it now cost 4 and overpays for dilemmas.

#19 Moral Choice/Shocking Betrayal 
These cards are really the same. You play Moral Choice when not playing Fed, and Shocking Betrayal when you do. Only difference is that one makes you a hypocrite. Moral Choice was always sucky because it hits Voyager and DS9, two affiliations that aren't overpowered. And it hits Maquis, which makes no sense at all. Too much collateral damage with that card.

#18 Show Trial 
It really is too good to pass up. 2 cost stopper that requires a skill. And when you're losing it's clutch.

#17 Insurrection
I think the cats out of the bag and most people know I was behind this card (But I'll let Mr. Hoffman take the credit). I was shocked by how many people disliked this card. Easy missions were heroin and it took awhile to get them off that smack. I play decks with easy missions now just to make people realize that Insurrection is a good card for the game. Problem is, players in my area play it and it has cost me some games.

#16 Coolant Leak
This card was needed. But what pisses me off is when I have two 1-cost personnel and then just happen to have 4 engineers. That always seems unfair. Another case of collateral damage.

#15 Oracle's Punishment
See, Germans can have good ideas that don't ruin the world. What I am to Insurrection Mr. Klaurhauser is to the Oracle (I'm not sure if that's public knowledge, add it to my list of leaks). I'm the #1 abuser of this card. I was playing Debate Over Dinner just to nix the consume. I hate "heroes", and this is the ultimate hero-stopper.

#14 Timescape
Problem is, when you have only one card that can do something important in a game you see it over-and-over again.

#13 Hard Time
If this list was made 5 years ago, this would be #1.

#12 The Caretaker's "Guest's"
It's probably the best early-game dilemma. If your opponent has no answer for it, the results can be devastating. Downside is, this card can be useless by late-game or if your opponent has clever defenses.

#11 Intimidation
People just love this card. They are ga-ga for it. It's Borg and Klingon hate, I do like that. But it's just another non-skill 4-coster that only stops two sometimes.

#10 In Development 
Back in the day it was In Training, now it's In Development. Weenie hate got an upgrade with this card.

#9 Mugato
I'm just not a fan of this card. I usually love dilemmas that don't go under the mission, but Mugato just doesn't stick with me. I try to use it sometimes, but I find it's a bad matchup against too many decks I see.

#8 The Clown: Guillotine/Bold Plan/All-Consuming Evil
It's the new "Unholy Trinity". With Tragic Turns long awaited, long deserved errata, players bypassed TT and went straight for the super consume strategy.

#7 Pitching In
Tough to beat the payoff of 2 stops for 1 cost. But I shy away from it when I can. Low cost decks are on the decline, and the stops can be prevented with no penalty. And when somebody play George Primmin you might as well make it a blank card.

#6 Miner Revolt
Now we're getting into the really played out dilemmas. Lots of play in my area. Like Pitching In, for some reason I stay away from it.

#5 Agonizing Encounter
I'm so bored of my opponent drawing dilemmas, then looking at my missions, then asking, "What does Agonizing get me?" I just tell them because I want to hurry up, but I'm thinking 'Look at the missions asshole and figure it out!'.

#4 Gomtuu Shock Wave
Two integrity requirements was one of the biggest mistakes ever made on a card. It's still a staple in most decks. Why not, so many affiliations simply have too much trouble with it.

#3 An Issue of Trust
Like Gomtuu, this dilemma would simply wipe out certain affiliations. They had to make a whole series of personnel because of this dilemma. And that really hasn't slowed down it's play.

#2 Excalbian Drama
Integrity being an only requirement for a dilemma, you would've thought they learned their lesson back then. Nope. Even worse, it's zero cost and can almost become a de facto infinite requirement.

#1 Where No One Has Gone Before
I had an epiphany last time I was building a dilemma pile. I was doing the usual (what I've been doing for probably the last 4 years), putting in two WNOHGB's, and cards that set that up. Then I started thinking 'this is what everyone does now. It's what I prepare for, and what everyone else prepares for'. Why? Because you get sucked in by the payoff. It's the only card that can cost your opponent a whole turn. But do you really need that? Isn't the turn you stop your opponent enough? It should be. If I need an extra turn then I probably need a faster deck. So I said enough and swore to stop using WNOHGB. My dilemma pile worked fine, and I went 4-0. I wasn't a saint and didn't reinvent the wheel, I did pack two Gomtuu's. Hey, don't hate the player....

Good Card, Bad Card #82

It hasn't been intentional, but I've been crapping on the v-set Raise the Stakes a lot lately. I just kept running into bads card and they keep having the #17 set number on them. But now, once again by accident, I've discovered another reason to hate Raise the Stakes: It's Racist! Let me explain....

The 2E Nagata (the gentleman pictured about from the DS9 episode Trials and Tribble-ations) has strength 6. You say, 'John, what's the big deal about that?' Nothing on the surface, but follow me down the 'Road of Racism'....

In 2E strength 5 is a person of average strength in an 'average' species. Humans, basically. Strength 6 is a 'fit' person of an 'average' species. Nagata is a strapping young man, what's wrong with that? He's an engineer, that's what. Not a security officer. Did he do something in that episode to demonstrate his fitness? No, he just told some people where to go. Let's take a look at other human male engineers. Wesley Crusher (grown up), 5 strength. A young season one Geordi LaForge, 5 strength. Joe Carey, 5 strength. Kelby, 5 strength. Let's look at engineers from his TOS era: Robert Tomlinson, 5 strength. Even Scotty himself, the 3rd in command of the Enterprise, has strength 5. Engineers are 5 strength, that's just how it is.

So why is he different? Because he's Asian. They saw he was Asian, and all Asian people know Kung-Fu.

1E wasn't racist, the Lt. Nagata there has 7-7-5 attributes. 5 is low by 1E standards. Somehow when it was time to bring him to 2E Brad and Charlie assumed he was Bruce Lee. But I guess all Asians aren't 'good at math' because somehow he got dumber in 2E and has cunning 5.

Ok, I'm not saying Brad and Charlie are racist. I'm saying that subconsciously, in their hearts, they believe in Asian stereotypes. Just having some fun with you guys, Merry Christmas.

Kidding aside, let's do some cards. I saw the cardlists on the CC site has a 'random card' link. Click on it and boom, random card. I said what the hell, can't find a better way to pick two cards.

Good Card: Katherine Pulaski, Chief Medical Officer

Why: This was the first card that popped up, and we had winner. I'm sentimental about this card. This card gave my daughter her first win at the Virginia regional earlier this year. Somebody went old school and played DNA Analysis (I give Charlie Barhite props for being the only guy to use this dilemma). Constance luckily had Katherine and her 2 Medical out and she didn't have to stop anyone. There's alot of bad in What You Leave Behind, I've said that plenty, but Pulaski is a clean card. Costed right, good skills, good attributes. Most importantly it was effective Tragic Turn hate. The cards they designed on purpose to tone Tragic Turn down rarely worked. Goes to show, the simplest solutions are always the best.

Bad Card: Liam Bilby, Family Man

Why: The random link showed me I'm a 2E pessimist. It took 15 clicks before I got to a bad card. But it didn't disappoint. We got a bad card that downloads a bad card! Holy shitbox Batman, how haven't I noticed this before? It's not even 'discard a card' to download (it's place a card on top of your deck), so I can't even use to defend Caretaker's Guest. He's cheap, but that doesn't even matter since his attributes are garbage. I have to get off Pickpocket just to make him a functional person. His three random crap skills don't impress me either. Even his name sucks: Liam. Nobody likes a Liam. Liam is a smug British dude who steals your drugs and has sex with your girlfriend. Wait, that would actually make him a pretty cool dude....

Good Card, Bad Card #81

Maybe there's a "War on Christmas", maybe there's not, I don't know. But I know the people who get bent out of shape about it (every other story on Fox News is about it) have their history wrong when they defend it. They say America is founded on judeo-christian values and that this is part of who we are. Actually it's not. The first Puritan settlers saw no justification for celebrating Christmas in scripture and it was forbidden. Christmas wasn't big in New England until the mid-1800's. I think it's all pure silliness. A few wacko left-wingers, and right-wing t.v. nuts who blow it out of proportion to fill time on cable t.v.

Anyways, back to cards. We played a sealed event around here last Sunday. I usually hate, and do terrible, at sealed. But this time I was running it, so it was going to be awesome. "Jersey Sealed". Special rule: 'you could play anyone to an HQ, pay +1 if that person doesn't normally do so'. This lead to some unusual, and fun, collection of personnel. Each player drew two booster packs at random. I pulled a Captain's Log pack. I had a Romulan starter. So I basically had 1 cost Remans running around with a few Voyager personnel. Marquay is a beast in sealed. I went 3-0, but the MVP was the Deyos I pulled in that pack. Switching integrity requirements with cunning was clutch in sealed. For GCBC I'm picking two Premier starter cards.We must go back, fix whatever damage they have done....

Good Card: Shady Resources

Why: You always remember your first. When it came to cheaters in the early days, it paid to be shady. We were weird in Jersey back then. We played Cardassian before it was fashionable. So naturally this card fit. In the sealed this basically won me two games. There nice to get pass those pesky Premier "have a personal with 2 of this skill, or 2 of that skill" dilemmas straight up. Doesn't hurt in sealed when you have Marquay and Deyos running around with their treachery and mad skills. This card doesn't see much play anymore and I'm not sure why. There's tons and tons of personnel with treachery. It just became too easy to pop any skill I guess. But I think this card will become sexy again. Worse case scenario you use it to pitch a guy into your discard pile to screw your opponent's Caretaker's Guest. Also, a good side effect for Stricken Dumb too. Those 'discard a card to' cheaters were annoying back in the day, now they're a good defense.

Bad Card: Cry "Havoc!"

Why: What's the first thing you do when you open a starter deck for sealed? You take out all the D'Arsay Archives (the leftover 1E in my brain always calls this card Masaka Transformations) and Cry Havocs. Why? Because everyone is doing two planets first in sealed and all you get from this card is one lousy kill. Back in the stone ages of 2E design they overestimated the cost on this result, as they did capturing a personnel (see last week's Apprehended). 3 cost + stopping a ship = one random kill. Funny math. It's not their fault, it was a new game they were designing, and battle in 1E was pretty much anything goes. They were so afraid of the 'lockout' that could happen in 1E they got uber-conservative at the start of 2E. But I had an light bulb go off during the sealed. Next special rule: Cry "Havoc!" kills three random personnel. Can't wait for that, that'll be interesting to watch.

Good Card, Bad Card #80

The image above is how I felt when Keller ran the show as Head Judge. He wasn't J. Edgar Hoover, but sometimes answers weren't forthcoming. After Peak Performance and the disaster of Worlds in Germany I was cracking skulls and asking tough questions. When it came time to errata the 'broken cards' I got a little cloak and dagger from Mr. Keller.

Well, I got in trouble again. Not so much trouble as the Charlie Plaine "stern text of disapproval". He's entitled to his opinion, as I am. I still don't feel I pulled up the curtain, or showed how the sausage is made. I didn't name any names, or call anyone out. I just said there's disagreement on solving the "Maquis Problem". Any group is going to have competing opinions. I don't think I dropped any bombshells about the inner working of the CC.

But I am an advocate for a certain level of transparency. When the circle gets too tight, and people are left to their own devices, mistakes get made and bad things happen. This has already happened in the CC, and I have no reservations reminding them when they inch back in that direction.

I'm not a member of the Continuing Committee. Remember, I was fired many years ago. I made a couple guys lose their marbles and they demanded my head, and they got it. I'm on board now as a member of the design team for the next set. I'm not sure what position that puts me in. I'm kinda a freelancer, but I know it comes with certain rules. I know I couldn't write here about possible cards in the next set or cry if something I wanted got cut or that Mark Foreman asks me what I'm wearing during every Skype meeting (Canadians are freaky). But because of the tiny bit of work I'm doing for them I was privy to some errata discussion. I think my last blog showed there's a slight problem with how the errata process works now. First it was Keller and his "Secret Council", now it's Charlie and the Errata Gang. No process will be perfect, nobody expects that. It's not an easy job and I don't envy the person in charge of it. But if it costs me future workings with the CC because I brought a little transparency to the process then so be it. Truth is a messy business, and people don't like it when you show that their capable of mistakes. We all do it, and the CC shouldn't be afraid to lift the curtain from time to time.

Let's do some cards. We're going to the 3rd v-set, Raise the Stakes. This set is almost 4 years old now, and it's not aging like fine wine. Right now it boast three of the most dangerous cards in 2E, in my opinion. B'aht Qul Challenge, Alarming Rumors and Cal Hudson, Convincing Recruiter. And there's a few other cards I've heard people say they just don't like, Bird-of-Prey for example. I don't want to bash Brad, and whoever helped on this set. The cards are what they are. But it's good to look back on them, take what's good and bad, and use it in the future.

Good Card: Coordinated Counterattack 

Why: It's the only way to play skill tracking these days. I give Design credit, there have been no new cards in a long time that can pop any skill. Skill gaining was way, way too easy in the last Decipher sets. They lost all respect for skill gaining. That's what led us down the road of too many non-skill dilemmas, then the backlash from that. Sadly, the old skill gainers are still around. Navaar is still good, Gav is still with us, etc. But I noticed their use starting to decline about a year ago. So I made a TOS deck with Coordinated Counterattack and a pile focused on Infinite Diversity. I wanted to bring skill tracking back, and I was surprised to find out you still can do it. The deck went 4-0 and my faith in 2E was restored. As a bonus, this card completely nerfs Cadets. Suck on that Nicholas Lacarno, a.k.a. Fake Tom Paris.

Bad Card: Duranja

Why: Isn't the six Bajoran anthropology people I paid for enough of a cost for this card? Every time I want to pop this into a Bajoran deck that 5 cost scares me away. The 5 cost makes it a late game card at best, and at that point the game is probably decided. If it was 2 or 3 cost it could become at least a mid-game card and see some play. The effect is powerful, but I don't think it's as powerful as Design thought it was going to be. The effect happens at the 'end of turn'. A few wonky things could happen before my turn to screw it up. And if my opponent hits a Mugato it makes this card useless. Even if I get my card, I have to pay one to draw the thing. That's more paying after the 5 cost and the six anthro bums I had to spit out first. Too many hoops to jump through for an effect that can get screwed with. I'll just stick with Souls of the Dead.

Good Card, Bad Card #79

Maquis is broken. Anyone who plays this silly game knows that. We're at the sad stage locally right now where we have a 'gentleman's agreement' not to play it. It's no fun to play, no fun to play against. Sort of similar to Klingons a few years back. At least they had to work to get rid of my people, not just play silly cards over and over again.

Now I'm not sure how much of this is privileged information and how much is public but of course errata is in the works. I might be talking out of school, I don't know. Maybe I get in trouble, but these are my personal thoughts regardless. I actually applaud Charlie and the Errata Gang on not acting abruptly. You do need information and these things should not be rushed. But this situation is well known and documented and it's time for action. There was plenty of debate, different ideas, different avenues to solve the "Maquis Problem". But it finally fell into two camps: Errata the verbs or give Athos IV the "you cannot command any other headquarters" Borg-like text.

I am in the first camp. Maquis got verb after verb in set after set because they're really hard to play and nobody quite did it right. Well, some smart people finally caught up and abused the shit out of them. First Neil at GenCon with straight up Maquis. Then Chris at Aussie Worlds took it to the crazy stupid level combining it with Bajorans. Problem being, like most loops, strong verbs not removing from game, which has made Stalling for Time 2E's current reigning "most broken card".

I think "nuking" Athos IV and making it a 'solo' HQ like Borg is lazy and the easy way out. The Errata Gang never tried to slow down the Maquis verbs. That's where the problems lies, there's not some built-in problem with Athos IV, it's just all the junk they've been giving year after year.

I've said it from the start how to curtail this Maquis mess. #1, Stalling for Time removes from game. #2 Alarming Rumors can only target events or interrupts, not personnel (9 personnel denial cards is way, way too many). #3 Change Defiant to one card on top of deck (or stop the ship and keep it 2).

When it comes to these types of things, just like everything in 2E, stick with the K.I.S.S. system: Keep It Simple, Stupid. Sadly, I'm afraid this thing had been 'overthought' and it'll get screwed up. I hope I'm wrong.

I was away for a bit. Thanksgiving week I caught a nasty case of Strep, and when you don't have health insurance that means you sit around shivering/sweating/hallucinating/dehydrated with chest pains and the inability to swallow for 6 days. And that's no good for a fat guy like me. Dispite my girlfriend becoming a fake internet doctor telling my I could die, I sucked it up for those 6 days and came out of it like I always do. I needed to drop a few pounds anyways.

Before the medical emergency I was going through some Necessary Evil uncommons. Those are as good as rares really. So here's two for today's GCBC.

 Good Card: Hollow Pleasantries

Why: I've always loved this card. I love the image, the episode it's from. I've never been one for an Infiltrator deck, too slow and methodical. When I play Dominion I like Jemmies and free Vorta. I like to get out Keevan out quick, rack up the draws while spitting out Jemmies and then barfing out those free Vorta. I'm giving too many free draws to my opponent you say? Screw it, I'll dreamer their hand later. Dominion has always been a sub-par affiliation. One, because they have crap missions. Two, because they have no focus. Giving them one more recently with the Commodity junk wasn't what they needed. That's a failing of Design and I hope that can be corrected in the future. Overthinking, that's the culprit here again. I think they just need a few simple cards to get them on track as a top affiliation.

Bad Card: Apprehended 

Why: Sure, you cost zero. But I have to lose 5 points and win a fight (which means stopping my personnel) to get a guy in my brig? No thanks, plenty of easy ways to do that now. This cards shows the early Design bad idea in 2E which thought getting a personnel in your brig was something you had to jump through hoops to do. It's why Capture decks were never played for the first 7 years of this game. Finally they saw the light and cards like Evek and Ensnared were made. But this card isn't completely useless. You get to choose the personnel, which means this card might be worth one copy of in the deck to snag any 'hero' personnel your opponent has in play.

Good Card, Bad Card #78

"If you sleep with targs, you'll wake up with glob flies"
-Klingon proverb

It's a shame Hunter is gone, the Pigs and Fat Men are losing and they have no idea what to do. The face of America has changed and it's too late to play catch-up. Mark Rubio and another guy named Bush won't save you in 2016. They'll be no John Wayne cowboy bullshit riding in to save the day like Reagan in the 80's. The majority minority in America has left the Republican party in the dust, but it was working class white America that gave Obama another 4 years. The Republican party is just undereducated rural folk and the uber-rich, with a splash of christian zealots. I don't celebrate this too much. America is all about competition, it's what makes us thrive. Yet, we live in a monopoly of a two-party system. And one party can't even stay in the game. I'm not advocating more political parties, in fact I despise them all. But I'd like to see more independents in office. The dreamer and the dream, I know....

Today's two cards come from Thomas Kamiura (Bosskamiura) of San Diego or Florida. Whatever state he doesn't owe back child support, I'm not sure. I was lazy so I asked him to chime in with two picks. Let's start with the ugly today

Bad Card: Deep Roots

Why: I had to dig into the files because I thought I did this card before. I'm not sure how it made it this long without hitting the list. I've tried to use this card once or twice back in the day, but it simply cost way too much. Maybe in the early days this was costed appropriatly, but now it's a relic. So many easy ways now to kill events, why bother with this card? Plus, you have to pop it the turn you play it. You can't even risk it sitting in your core for a turn or it might get destroyed itself. Then you just wasted 4 counters on nothing. I'm a big advocate of "bringing sexy back" in Design. I love when old cards are made useful again. Hopefully something can be done with this card in the future. A whole Bajoran Resistance team didn't make them relevant again. Sometimes it only takes something simple to bring a whole decktype back.

 Good Card: Obrist, Temporal Tactician

Why: Mulligans, Mulligans. There were many people that thought 2E needed some sort of mulligan option like in Magic. #1, I disagree. #2, if the reasoning for anything in 2E involves Magic you're probably not going to get my support. I couldn't give less of a shit about his ability. Why? I don't know. Maybe I make good, solid decks that doesn't need this nonsense. Sure, we all get bad beat draws sometimes, that's just part of the game. Even if I pack 2 Obrists in my deck it doesn't mean I'm going to draw him at the same time as I get a bad opening hand. It's still very random. But Obrist is still a Good Card. Why? Because I love cheap NA personnel with skills and attributes. His skills are a little oddball. Anthropology & Archeology have no business going with Physics & Officer, but sure, sign me up. Combine that with a gold star and the mark of the beast, 6-6-6 attributes, and you got a solid guy no matter what.

Ruling New Jersey- Volume 2, Issue 5

The fastest highway in America opened opened for business today in Texas. I don't care about the speed limit, people can drive as fast as they want on a highway. You have to be an idiot and drive reckless on a highway to get into an accident. Sadly, there's plenty of those people. My problem is the $6 toll and why they built it. The road runs from Austin to San Antonio. It was built, with private money, because of constant traffic on the existing interstate highway. Now people can pay, and somebody makes money, for the luxury of avoiding that traffic. It's objectivism at it's finest. Ayn Rand would be very proud. A private highway making money for a corporation instead of the state.

When I see commercials for hybrid vehicles, where people are saying, "I only have to fill it up once a month" or "I never go to the gas station", I ask myself 'Are these the people getting crushed by high gas prices?' I find the people who could really use a hybrid could never afford one. A hybrid is going to run you anywhere from $23,000 to $35,000, and that's if you don't want a fancy one. The average American family is pulling in just under $50,000 a year, and that number seems to be dropping. And that only if you're white. Hispanic and black families are only pulling in 34k and 30k on average. So bottom line, no real American family can afford these cars right now. It's going to take about 10-20 years for prices to come down and for current hybrids to "trickle down" when rich people get tired of their current hybrids. But by then what kind of world will we live in?

Right now you got people with six-figure incomes driving around in hybrids saving even more money. The $100-200 they were paying at the pump wasn't hurting them anyway. I guess they can use that money to pay for their 'private express lanes'. Is that what we're going to have in 10-20 years? Traffic-filled, dirty, congested highways for the common person, and privately-owned wide-open, high speed highways you can ride if you can pay the fee?

There is a economics professor at Brown and his sell job on unfettered capitalism is that even the poorest in a capitalist country have it way better then the poorest in a different economic model, say communism. Guess what professor, no shit. Nobody is suggesting we give up the free enterprise system. Every person, like myself, who criticizes greed isn't a fan of Karl Marx and has a picture of Uncle Fidel on the wall. Greed is not good. Gordon Gecko is not a role model. It's not class warfare when I say, "When the rich get too greedy and don't pay enough taxes the whole system breaks down", it's me paying attention to history.

Good Card, Bad Card #77

I wish I posted more of my GenCon pics before going on my usual post-GenCon trek hibernation. I usually don't take pictures. Just a bunch of fat guys playing card and board games for 4 days. Good times, beers and plenty of laughs, but taking pictures of dudes isn't really my thing. But 2012 GenCon was a weird one and produced some great visual moments. Like Van Breeman's "Moment of Win". Charlie has one of me praying to the Divine Treasury during my Continental bracket game with Mike Harrington. He had a 1 in 5 random to win the game, and knowing my GenCon history with random selection I thought it was a good time to turn to religion. It worked, and I now consider bribery a form of prayer. The picture above is after a night of drinking and what BenHosp likes to call a "GenCon Random Encounter". I guess that's defined as when GenCon people encounter regular Indiana residents. These girls were fired up, we were fired up. We had props. BenHosp's trek protest signs and our WCT Heavyweight Title belt. The three guys with them didn't have a clue what was going on, and I don't think they much appreciated the situation after a couple minutes. But they couldn't do anything to stop three drunk girls and about 6 fat, drunk dorks. The next night Ken, Nick Yank and myself tried picking up three downtown yuppie Indianapolis girls at a biker rally (sounds so silly you can't make it up). That mission didn't end well. Who would've guessed two Jersey bums and a English bloak couldn't seal the deal with three executive broads.

So for GCBC, I'm going to take two cards I used Sunday. For once I got my act together and won a tournament. I felt like playing an old school Klingon kill deck. Figured nobody would be prepared for that. I was right for a change and honorable death filled the day.

 Good Card: Security Weapons

Why: I spent a lot of time on my dilemma pile for Sunday. I tried to make some big, odd Unfair Comparison/All Consuming Evil/3-costers dilemma pile, with Subliminal Signal as support. First thing I learned Sunday, All-Consuming and Subliminal Signal don't work together. Deckbuilder fail for me. Wasn't that big of a deal, the pile worked on sheer force. I had all sorts of wicked stuff. Clown: Guillotine (not played in 4 games), All-Consuming Evil (never consumed), Sylvia (never played), Unfair Comparison (played once in four games). The pile worked off of Oracle's Punishments, plus the 8 and 6 cost dilemmas. But one of the "sneaky 3's" was Security Weapons. Every game I played it, and every game it hit for a kill. In fact, in my games against BenHosp's androids and Neil mirror TOS, I won by leaving them one personnel short of solving their last mission. Not entirely because of this dilemma, but every person killed counts. 

Bad Card: Kor, Courageous Governor

Why: Redundancy. My deck wasn't based on past icon Klingons, but I had a number of them in there. I put Kor in to simply be a 4-coster for Call to Arms. I really didn't need him for that, and I realized he's useless for missions. He offers nothing different for Klingons. Skills: Anthro, Honor, Law, Leadership, Officer. Got that in spades. He ability: Klingons are +1 strength while facing a dilemma. Huh? If there's a strength dilemma that I can't pass then I should lose the game. The other two past "Blood Oath" guys are pretty sweet (however, you can use their abilities against them with the 'lose 5 point' dilemmas. See GCBC #71), but Kor should be saved for Mara fodder. Do something cool, pitch him, download Ja'Chuq and earn glory in battle.

Good Card, Bad Card #76

I got binders full of women too!

So I'm back from another unplanned hiatus. Besides the myriad of personal problems I have right now (probably the worst month of my life that wasn't spent in a jail cell), some of it has to do with actually designing cards for real now. I'm not sure how much is public knowledge or what's 'official', but a few months after the disaster of Worlds in Germany and Peak Performance Charlie did an overhaul of Design. He made plenty of good changes, and I don't mean bringing me into the fold. I didn't do much at all really for a long time. First I just read alot. Years of posts from Charlie, Brad and others from all the previous virtual sets. Occasionally I would look at playtest files and give Charlie my opinions, let him know if I saw any 'red flags'. A few months back Charlie decided to put me on an official 'design team' for the set that's due out in December (I think). So along with him, and Mark Morris, that's really all the Trek stuff I've been doing since GenCon. But League Play has started back up, which means I'm looking at cards, which means I get the itch to yell at whoever reads this which ones are good and bad. Let's take two from the new mini-set Tapestry. I haven't had a chance to play any of these cards yet, so I reserve the right to change my mind about them in the future.

Good Card: Beverly Crusher, Encouraging Commander

Why: Non-uniques getting some love, I'm all about that. I can't wait to dust off my Davies, Rixx, and Daniel Kwan's. I'm not too thrilled that the Enterprise-D is getting another matching commander, two mission win decks don't need any more help, but it's a small price to pay. Plus she has 2 Medical, that's always a clutch thing to have.

Bad Card: Shared Hallucination

Why: I'm not 100% sure why, but my spider sense goes off when I see this card. It seems way strong to me for zero cost. Remember, when something cost zero you can always play it with Uninvited. At a time when Maquis is strong, it's not cool to have to lose cards in hand. The only decks I see this card helping are decks that don't really need it (with the exception of Romulan discard, which nobody plays). Hopefully I wrong, but I have to wave the red flag at this card.

Ruling New Jersey- Volume 2, Issue 4

"The Thrill of Victory/The Agony of Defeat"

Written under duress
by John Corbett


I never had food poisoning before. I've been lying in bed for hours with stomach cramps, with nervous dashes to the bathroom for horrible things I won't describe to you. So excuse me if I forget some details on GenCon '12. The picture on your left is Mr. Michael Van Breeman, winner of "Who Wants to be the Last Seed". Michael snuck into the bracket and made it to the semi-finals. Good for him. Even though he did it with a terrible, terrible cheesy deck that only he could conceive. On the right we have Phil (last name omitted for future employment Google background checks), in all his post-Biermeister glory. Where do I begin....

To make things fun, Phil and I were scheduled for a "Belt Match" at the Biermeister. Throughout the day it was looking less and less likely we were going to actually do a Biermeister tournament. Not enough people, no venue, etc. But at the last minute Nick Yankovec rounded up enough participates/victims and we headed over to the hotel restaurant. You've never seen a less thrilled waiter in your life. 10 dorks taking up all his tables for the rest of the night.

With no intentions or desires to win and drink myself to death (I drank the two previous nights and already 'pre-gamed' a few hours before in the same restaurant), I played the worst deck ever created: Gatherers. I played it three times before and never came close to winning a game. Round 1, Sean O'Reilly. Sean had the same plan as me, bring a shit deck, have fun, don't drink yourself into a coma. So after a hour of his shitty Romulans and my shitty Gatherers failing attempt after attempt, I somehow got three missions done. Great, so I order three more beers and get cracking.

Round two I play Joel Skon. All I remember this game is yelling at Joel constantly. He was playing a legitimate deck, and he destroyed my Gatherer's Raid. That's just cold-blooded and ruthless in a Biermeister event. I remember getting two or three No Win Situations out (I had O'Brien to protect them), so Joel couldn't get thorough his missions. We both had one mission done when time ran out, but I scored 5 points off that terrible Key to the Alpha Quadrant dilemma which gave me the win. At least the timed win meant one less beer.

They kicked us out before the last round so we went over to the restaurant at the JW Marriott. As destiny would have it, I played Phil in the last round. It gets even blurrier, but I remember yelling at Phil (who was playing Starfleet) for stacking his deck. He got Sight for Sore Eyes out on turn 2, and all 3 At What Cost? by turn 4. I was in rough shape, but Phil was a goddamn mess. So Phil proceeded to smoke my Gatherers and win the game. Then I told him good luck finishing the next 4 beers in order to win the "belt match". At this point, Charlie was sitting at the table behind us, and warned Phil not to do it. Phil came over, set his beer down, and started rambling about something. Then when he turned back to grab his beer, he knocked it over and Charlie caught some beer shrapnel. At this point, Nick DQ'd Phil from the Biermeister. I wish I could say that was the end of Phil's night, I wish I could say alot of things....

Phil stumbled around the bar a little longer, the waitress finally had enough and told us he had to go. That's about when BenHosp knocked over a glass and it shattered. Time to go. We get back to the room, and Phil crashes on the bed. Another rookie mistake for poor Phil (he left his GenCon badge at home when we left DC). See, and I talk from experience, when you hit the bed and look up, things start to spin, like the whole room. Phil sits up and all hell breaks loose. It's coming out violently. Ken runs for a trash can to help. Darrell, Neil and BenHosp simply run out of the room and down the hall. In true hero form, I go right for my cell phone to take pictures. Then Phil makes a run for the bathroom, and starts praying to the Porcelain God. There we leave Phil to his shame alone in the room. 

After a few late night games of Werewolf, we go back to the disaster scene. Holy mother of god, what a nightmare. Neil took the worst of it. He left his suitcase open and his backpack in between the two beds, or as I like to call it, "Ground Zero". The backpack was covered. Neil had to wash it out in the shower. There was even some on the wall. Neil's OCD starts kicking in and he has to clean the bathroom. At this point I'm exhausted and lay down in the bed, with a vomit covered floor right below me.

I proceed to be woken up at 8am with, a probably still drunk, Phil mumbling, "You stole the belt from me." I curse at him and go back to sleep.

Good Card, Bad Card #75

GenCon decks are ready to go. I usually bring 3 decks to GenCon. Two serious decks, and a fun deck so I can scrub out in side events. But since this GenCon is all screwy this year, with a 1-day Continentals and meaningless vanilla side events (really, GenCon is for side events with silly formats. And draft doesn't count. Fuck draft, fuck it in it's stupid ass. Thumbs down to the schedule this year.) I figured what the hell and made a bunch of decks. Two are serious decks, two are almost Tier-1, one is a Biermeister exclusive and one is a pile of monkey crap. Honestly, I'm just going this year for the Annual 1E Multiplayer Battle Royal (you have to talk to Josh Sheets and Steve Rotz to play) played with the original, horrible 1E rules. The best part of last year was me winning and one guy taking the game way, way too serious. Maybe I'll finally snag that dirty LARPer chick that's been eluding me all these years. I think you have to LARP to get a dirty LARPer, and I'll do anything for love... but I won't do that.

Today's GCBC we look into one of my least favorite sets: Allegiance. Ahhh... teams, teams, teams. Terrible, shitty, sometimes broken teams.

Good Card: Genetronic Treatment

Why: The one solid, simple card in the set. Kill prevention is pretty simple most of the time. Do I play Escape or ETU? Blah, blah, blah. Well, here's a nice alternative. Instead of paying a random card from hand, which can bite you in the ass sometimes, or paying for equipment, I can stop a jobber instead of good personnel. But Genetronic can live forever if I pay a little extra. With the trend towards big decks these days that's not such a great thing. I probably won't get it back during the game. But if you're playing a tight 40-45 card deck it's probably worth it. I used this card in my Terok Nor Worlds deck in Germany. What's that? You wanna kill Dukat? Nah, I think I'll stop a 1-cost Magren instead.

Bad Card: Ulis, Unidentified Pirate

Why: Ulis is fine, it's what he's turned Ferengi into that's the problem. Nobody plays Ferengi pirates, they suck. They just use Ulis as a bodyguard for Dr. Reyga. Once you get The Play's the Thing out and give Reyga the past icon things get real stupid. Secret ID don't work no more. Oracle's Punishment, not going to cut it. So Ferengi now is this mash-up of stupid one-trick lame personnel. It's get x,y,and z out and then turn dilemmas into blanks. It's no fun to play, it's no fun to play against. It's 2E at it's worst.

Good Card, Bad Card #74

Colorado isn't allowed to have guns anymore. I don't care about the 2nd amendment, there's just too many crazy nuts out there. Sure, here on the east coast we having shootings, but it's just usually somebody just snapping, pulling out a gun and popping off. Out in the mountains of Colorado you have people methodically planning these movie-like rampages. Combine that with the ability to acquire all sort of weapons a regular person shouldn't be able to get. Hell, he got things through the mail for god's sake. A 100-round drum that can shot 50-60 rounds a minute. If you can explain to me how the 2nd amendment justifies normal citizens having military grade weapons then you're a smarter person than me.

Another thing, what the f*ck is your 6-yr old baby doing at the midnight opening of a Batman movie!? I have no sympathy for the nutjob who did this, or the mother of this poor little girl who got killed. That's the definition of irresponsible. I'm sorry, but this is a problem in America these days. Young mothers who don't understand you can't live your life the same way after you have a child. No going to bars anymore, no midnight movies, no young 20's lifestyle for you. Sorry you couldn't find a babysitter Ashley, you have to stay home with your baby tonight. I know, that's harsh, but I can't believe that wasn't mentioned somewhere. Keeping your 6-yr old out to 3 am isn't acceptable.

As for GCBC, I'm sticking with Lineage again. I just spent hours cutting them up yesterday so that's what's on my mind.

Good Card: John Doe, Emergent Herald

Why: John Doe is just a good, clean Non-Aligned personnel. Nothing fancy, just something you'd splash in a deck. Plus it gives you some backdoor personnel retrieval. I'm not a fan of cards like Tacking into the Wind or any event that lets you shuffle ten people or ships into your deck. Events can be prevented, John Doe can't. Plus, I probably only need a personnel or two back from my discard pile. If I need ten I probably lost the game already. Where John Doe will shine is in integrity decks. He joins a fine tradition of NA integrity heroes like Maques, Riva, Aaron Connor. Cheap with an 8 attribute is always a recipe for a good card.

Bad Card: Unity

Why: Another missed opportunity. Just like Evade Samaritan Snare, Design had a chance to put the brakes on abusive downloading and wussed out. Same as before, the discard needs to be a random card from hand. A simple discard is meaningless. If I'm playing Borg I can't just pitch a drone, which is helpful sometimes. I don't understand why this event is even unique. Maybe if I could have multiple copies out it might do some damage. I like the fact it can't be destroyed, but at the end of the day this card is another bullet that missed it's mark.

Good Card, Bad Card #73

Strange part about me liking Torchwood is I can't stand Doctor Who. My girlfriend loves it, but I just don't get it. In fact, that show annoys the shit out of me. But she was watching the mini-series Torchwood: Children of Earth a few years back and I liked it. When the Torchwood: Miracle Day was on Starz I gave it a go. It started off good, got hazy in the middle, then had a solid ending. Now that I'm a Netflix junkie I've watch the first season of Torchwood. It's cheesy and campy sometimes, but all good sci-fi shows are.

For today's GCBC we'll stay with current events and pick two cards from the new set Lineage. Much like Torchwood this set is growing on me.

Good Card: Sense of Obligation

Why: Kill them all. That's my opinion on events. It's not that I hate events. They do all sorts of cool things. They also do lots of bad things. That's why there needs to be many different ways to blow them up. Some decks don't have many options. Then you're stuck playing Grav-plating Traps and a bunch of equipment you don't even need. I don't want to have to pack 7 or 8 extra cards in my deck just to have some form of event destruction. That's why I've been playing Quinn exclusively for the last 2 years. But Quinn is a 'nuclear' option, Sense of Obligation is a scalpel. Sense also doesn't have that annoying 'event in core' stipulation. I never understood why some cards did that. Usually events on a mission are way more problematic then events in core. They need to be just as exposed to destruction as any other event. Sense doesn't have a cost either, which is good, even if your opponent prevents it he won't be scoring 5 points. The drawback is minimal in my mind. Early game it could bite you in the ass, if they're packing At What Cost?. But late game it's almost a non-factor. Any benefit they might get is probably off-set by your need to get rid of something nasty that's in your way. It seems too many decks these days are relying on early events. Cards like Energize, Quintessence, and Guidance of the Council. It's good to finally have a easy answer to junk like that.

Bad Card: Robin Lefler, Pragmatic Specialist

Why: I hate this card. I know, the premiere set version of her kinda sucked, but we didn't need a mulligan on her. Her ability is ehhh, ok. And she costs 3, so it's balanced. So I don't hate it for gameplay reasons. Except the fact that TNG doesn't need anymore tricks. They're the most popular, most played affiliation. Do we need to keep making TNG cards then? I don't think so. Somebody with an Ashley Judd fetish thinks so. It's bad enough when they remake the big characters. We have enough Worfs, Datas, Picards, etc. Now we're remaking two episode jobbers? Give me a break. It's lame. And she has Science? It's like the Battleship Geordi, why do they feel the need to put Science on a engineer? They have no business having that skill, and it doesn't make sense. They do it just to be different then the original card and it's even more lame. There are probably over 100 characters you could make a card for if you felt the urgent need to put a TNG into a set. Stop making people I've seen before. I've said it before, enough with the remakes. Trek has so much, we don't need to be like Star Wars or LoTR CCG's. New faces, I want new faces!

Good Card, Bad Card #72

I liked the movie Serenity when I saw it years ago. I never saw the show, but it was still cool. I recently overthrew my Comcast slavemasters and gave up paying for cable and just went with Netflix. Every Trek series (we're starting Season 1 of TNG, by "we" I mean I force my kids to sit through it) and all sorts of neat stuff. That's when I found Firefly. So over the course of two nights I watched the short-lived series. It was a fun show, shame it couldn't survive a little longer. Next up on the Netflix list is either Torchwood (to make my girlfriend, and her Captain Jack crush, happy) or Jericho.

For today's GCBC I have a couple of cards from my attempt to build an Equinox deck for the first time. It was pretty much a failure, but it was fun to play something new. But it does fall into the '2E team trap', where it's really just about getting out a certain number of people and abusing strong abilities.

Good Card: Firestorm

Why: Event 'destruction' combined with a little dual-HQ hate. Nothing wrong with that. My only knock on it is the 'non-decay' stipulation. That's annoying if you're playing against a deck relying on an early Energize (Borg, Klingon, Androids, etc). But if you're playing against a deck with events for dilemma support this really throws a monkey wrench into their plans. Especially if you have multiple Firestorms going on. To really make them sad you can use Optimism to put your hand on the bottom of your deck to keep the Firestorm from decaying.

Bad Card: Good Shepherd

Why: It's really sad that with all the overpowered nonsense in the set What You Leave Behind that the Voyager card is a useless piece of crap. I thought since Equinox had two commanders this card might be worth something. I was dead wrong. I don't like, but I understand the idea behind some cards where you pay early, then break even, then reap the reward later. Cards like Energize and Surprise Party (the latter you benefit right away, but that's a different problem). Good Shepard simply takes way too long and the price is too high for the measly benefit of some free jobbers. Paying two for the event, and having to stop my commander for a whopping three turns isn't worth it. This card needs a makeover. I would make it an order. This way you would be able to speed up the process by stopping more then one commander in a turn. It wouldn't make the card great, but at least it be way better then the current version.

Good Card, Bad Card #71

“Just because a couple people on the Supreme Court declare something to be ‘constitutional’ does not make it so. The whole thing remains unconstitutional,”- Rand Paul

I'm starting to come around to the idea of abolishing the Senate. Or maybe we should abolish Kentucky for electing such an obvious unqualified person. It was kinda sad though, the mandate didn't sit well with me until John Roberts explained it. I don't like the government telling me whats for my own good. I have a healthy Jefferson-esque distrust of government. At the same time, I think government can do great things, when it's run by smart, honest people who aren't beholden to big donors or corporations. Has there been a president since FDR that wasn't? Too bad he didn't have a few more years, healthcare would been a constitutional right by now.

As for GCBC, we have a new set to dive into: Lineage. When I heard the theme would be species I wasn't thrilled. But rewarding decks with diversity and punishing decks without it, i.e. Borg and Klingon, isn't the worse thing to do. There will be some collateral damage, i.e. Ferengi and Bajoran. Overall, it's a nice, simple set. Nothing earth shattering, and that's a good thing.

Bad Cards: Shadowplay/Brothers

Why: I'm starting with the "bad" today because we have two for the price of one. First off, I hate wordy dilemmas. The "when you reveal, discard blah, blah, blah.." stuff. What I like less it that these two are just glorified giant attribute walls. No skills tracking required. Those skills listed are just there for Legacy-related purposes. Skill tracking has been just about obsolete from 2E since sets 9 or 10 in the Decipher days. The v-sets only made the problems worse. Only recently has there been little progress bringing that back into the game. This is a small step backwards. Brothers is worse than Shadowplay. Holograms aren't that strong, so giving them a big attribute wall is probably a good thing. But Android decks aren't bad. They're a little slow (but that's what Energize is for), but once they get rolling some dilemma piles have absolutely no answer for them. In the dilemma department Lineage only gets a "D" grade.

Good Card: Oh No!

Why: I've been waiting for a new "lose 5 points" dilemma. My favorite part about the last WCT League season was when I play Damaged Reputation on Neil when he was playing Klingon, and had the past Kang out. Then it got even better when he attempted his next mission and I used Manheim Effect and played it again on him. I won the game 100-95. There needs to be a sneaky defense to mega-crewing, or simply having 'uber-attributes'. There's lots of attribute boosting cards out there now (Enterprise-J, Kohlar, Comp/Opp drone, dissident Seven, etc), it's only fair that there's a defense for it. I wonder if anyone has ever used the 'lose 5 points' dilemmas sucessfully as a wall? I never have. Be cool if someone did. I might've given Lineage a bad grade on dilemmas, but Oh No! gets a A+.