Good Card, Bad Card #67

So apparently playing Trek in Jersey is like the mafia, you can never quit. My fellow players stepped up and took over running the league and I'll just sit back this year and just enjoy playing for a change. I've been in sort of a 'trek depression' since GenCon. Maybe 'trek burnout' is more like it. But Sunday we played the Ferengi Fight Club format and it was a good time. Playing Render Assistance like it's a real card is good cure for 'trek boredom'. The highlight for me was when I used Ferengi whip to get past Mugato. Somehow my 100+ card deck manage not to lose a game. Two timed wins and a draw. Today's two cards come from that event.

Good Card: Falsify Distress Signal

Why: This is good, solid, not-too-difficult mission for Ferengi. I've been saying forever, if you want to make a mid-level affiliation better, give them better missions. Sadly, most of the top-level decks focus on waaaay too easy missions. Rescue Prisoners, Kressari, Restore Errant Moon, etc. This mission is cunning>33, that's fair and above the 32 threshold. My general rule of thumb is: anything below 32 in 2E is abusive. But what makes this mission special is the ability. Sure, it's only 30 points, and you have to sacrifice 5 more to pop the ability, but it's well worth it. An extra turn is huge in this game. Besides, playing Ferengi there's plenty of way to score some bonus points. That's what the Tongo wheel is for.

Bad Card: Borg Queen, Bringer of Order

Why: In Ferengi Fight Club there's the "mercenary rule". You can play non-Ferengi treachery personnel to Ferenginar for +2 cost. I decided to sprinkle some Borg in, maybe using a clutch Adapt when trying to solve missions. The plan was terrible because the deck was so big. I also noticed I could use this Queen to give my Morik any skill. Something that probably would only happen in this format. But this card doesn't do it for me, maybe because the other Queens are better. When playing Borg the ability to 'dial-a-skill' (a Michael Keller old school deck) is more useful then trying to guess what skill you need. Back in the early days of Borg this card wasn't so bad. But now they have more drones with Officer, Treachery, even one with honor, so it devalues this Queen even more. The only skill you can't find is Intelligence. Plus, there's always Ascertain to change skills to programming. This Queen is past her prime and you can just use her for backing on new v-cards.