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+.