Thursday, October 11, 2018

Good Card, Bad Card #99

Location: Jeffersontown, KY

Pic: 2015 Worlds Final, in Australia 

I'm not going to do any 2018 Worlds bashing, which is taking place this weekend. I was just shocked there was a picture of it. You can't watch the video of this game, or any others from that event. NFL Commissioner Charlie Plaine ordered the tapes destroyed. To continue the Neverending Story that is the buffoonery of CC Leadership I noticed the 2018 Worlds foil for Tribbles is "Cheat". By the hand of Kahless, they can't stop tripping over their own dick.

Our cards today come from a quick poll I posted on the boards yesterday. The good cards were two from the recent Warp Pack: Assess Denied. Which means it's way too early to be making claims of Good or Bad, but jumping to conclusions (right and wrong) is my brand. The bad comes from Reflections 2.0. Some years back I ranked all the CC era expansions based on arbitrary good/bad card scoring. I'm too lazy to look it up, but I'm willing to bet I underrated Ref 2.0. Looking at it today, almost every card is useful. There are some stinkers though.

Good Card: Chell, Incessant Chatterbox

Why: Chell beat out The Devil by one vote, 55-45%. I was on Team Devil but All Bolians Go To Heaven. Assess Denied was all about Interrupt/Event prevention. Doing that on a personnel is tricky. You don't want to make another TOS Sisko, the most undercosted personnel in 2E. Chell here is a stud because he goes in 3 decks. I'll run down the list from least to most useful. First: Voyager. In a 5 space deck you'll probably have points to burn, even after you blow through 3 Field Studies. So his 'cost' isn't an issue. Second: Equinox. That 'cost' becomes even more of a non-issue when you turn that losing 5 into discarding a Nucleogenic card from hand. Equinox decks are not played as much as they should. Phil Schrader won a GenCon 2 years ago with Pressing On, a new card in Zero Hour. I haven't seen them since. Once Chell is out in your Voyager or Equinox deck he's a solid personnel (which you kinda got out for free). Finally: Relativity. You'll also have some points to burn, maybe having to scale back to 2 Field Studies. But the best part about him in Relativity is that Chell goes to the discard pile at the start of your next turn. Enabling you to incessantly play him over and over. At least three times, unless you want to get goofy. So enjoy Chell, and keep an eye out on my new adult film BIG BLUE BOOTY BOLIANS coming out on DVD.

Bad Card: Mr. Tricorder

Why: Mr. Tricorder ran away with this one 77-23% over Transwarp Conduit, a card with the dreaded "recent decks: none" tag of shame on it. I was in the minority again, which is fine. The day I start agreeing with the mob is the day I pack it up. The text on Mr. Tricorder is perfectly acceptable and useful. The only thing "bad" on Mr. Tricorder is the cost. First off, this card makes me nerd-angry. This image/story is from Generations when they were on the Amagosa (?) Station. This didn't happen on a planet. But anyways, if you made this dilemma dual it would go to 4 cost. Is it useful then? Maybe, but there are plenty of other non-skill 4 cost multi-stoppers to choose from. I like that Mr. Tricorder a planet dilemma. Stack-a-lacka missions were EVERYWHERE for awhile. As they should be, people played 90% dual dilemmas. Now that fad has faded, somewhat. The threat is still there enough, for me anyway, to keep a more balanced planet/space dilemma pile when possible. All that being said, as a planet dilemma, Mr. Tricorder is over-costed. Maybe not by the 'guidelines', but my gut says it is. If it had originally cost 2, it would've been used so much over the years it'd be in the HoF. It's a tricky pickle that costing.

Saturday, October 06, 2018

Good Card, Bad Card #98

Location: North Little Rock, AR. Back at HQ, my "new" truck lasting one day before breaking down. 
Pic: Playing Greg Hodgin back in an Atlanta Masters a few years back.

To find our Good & Bad cards today we're going to use the 'recent decks played' list. Which is always a sure-fire way to make you feel shame as a designer.

Good Card: Ingenious Jury-Rig

Why: Nerd fun fact. Jury-Rig comes from the French word 'jour' (day), like soup de jour. As a truck driver I'm used to have to bungee some broken stuff 'for the day'. Back to the card, plenty of 'recent decks used', so I'm not about to have any hot takes on this card. Maybe I can remind some people of other uses other than giving Shran the finger. McCoy is a motherfucker, especially in that pesky 8472 deck. Although ACE piles are finally out of fashion, I really enjoyed informing my opponent that his Bold Plan won't be returning those ACEs that just murdered my guys from beneath that incomplete mission.

Bad Card: Devastating Melee

Why: The Nth Degree has been out two weeks shy of a year now, so I might be premature on this card. I was worried when we released this card. Murder is tough mechanic to design. You can't go too far, that'll create NPEs. And if you don't go far enough you make binder fodder. This was an uber-murder card to boot, we were throwing a dart and had to hit a bullseye. I don't think we got it. It obviously is made to combine with the kill effect of the Kar'takin. If you have three of those out, you get a combined six kills. That's more murder then the Klingons can dish out with All-Out War and Ferocity. I guess the difference is the resources required to set it up. You have to go all-in with this build of deck. Even using the Iconian Gateway mission to chase down any hiding opponents. With Dominion though, you have quite a number of other options when making competitive decks. Stack-a-lacka, Crippling Strike, old school Infiltration. That probably relegates this type of uber-murder build to local level/fun deck status. 

Friday, October 05, 2018

Good Card, Bad Card #97

Location: Maverick Headquarters, North Little Rock, AR

Pic: Brett Kavanaugh 

Imagine if there were nine NFL franchises. Think about how elite each starting quarterback would be. This weekend, the Senate will confirm Johnny Manziel to the United States Supreme Court.



Good Card: Archaic Snare

Why: Those requirements are serious. Even without any filters to set it up this has a solid chance of hitting. It worked for me against a Borg solver straight up. No Archeology and one Engineer short. When it does it, then the real fun begins. Especially if they're using a 2 span space mission, and enjoy flying back and forth. Just be careful and not use it in a battle or assassin deck. That effect goes both ways.



Bad Card: Armus Roulette

Why: Mr. Miracle's recent thread on the boards has me thinking Premier dilemmas.... this one is a doozy. I recall seeing this card used one time. The very first sealed event I played in December 2002. Even then it missed.  It only has a chance to hit against a pure weenie deck. Even then any attribute cheater will overcome it, and you just wasted 4 counters. You're better off using those 4 counters for anything else. This card suffers from "Premier Costing Syndrome". There are a number of cards (like Cry "Havoc") that miss that mark on costing big time. It was after years of 1E, a game with two cost: One and Free. We'll have to cut them some slack.