Good Card, Bad Card #59

I got hustled into finally creating a facebook page. I clicked on a link to see something posted on facebook one night and I didn't know that just 'signing up' created a page for you. So I figured since I was already duped I'd might as well join the 21st century. I like the thing where it suggest friends you might know. It had Kevin Jaeger and Kris Sonsteby on it. I wonder if they would accept my friend request.....

Today's bad card is the last card to be released by the CC. And what surprise it was. I invited the Chairman to write a "good card" section for it since he was defending the card to me. I sort of mini-debate. He declined. I'm going to call him out on politics on this one. I don't think he wants to offend any Midwest players out there by hanging out with good ol' KillerB on his blog. No big deal then, there won't be any defense of Surprise Party, just me crapping all over it.

Good Card: Odera'Klen

Why: He's my favorite Jem'Hadar. Cheap, has two skills you always need, and let's you do missions with 4 or 5 peeps. What's not to love? It always makes me sad when I have to kill Odera'Klen with Our Death is Glory to the Founders. But... it's not my life to give up... and it never was.... Anyways, I guess this is the opposite of today's bad card. Here we have a nice, simple non-unique. And there, a card that breaks the very fundamental structure of the game.

Bad Card: Surprise Party

Why: Did you read that last sentence? I'm starting to become like Worf, and hate surprises. This card came out of nowhere, I wasn't a fan of that. I remember the last surprise, Peak Performance, one month before the World Championships in Germany. Broken Terok Nor was a great surprise after spending all that money to fly to Europe. I'm not just kicking the dead horse of Peak Performace, but it's kinda the same feeling. It's the issue of "auto-includes" in decks. Non-unique Rituals were a terrible idea. Everyone packing this same card is the same thing. Besides the gameplay reasons, it just looks bad for the game. It reminds me of Q Referee cards in 1E. Let's get to the gameplay reasons now. I'm no math whiz, just a junkie with a monkey from Jersey, but if my opponent gets this card out Turn 1 and I don't for a few turns, I only have 87.5% of the counters he does. Here we are running a 100 meter sprint and I'm spotting him 12.5 meters, that makes my chances of winning pretty slim. The cost on this card is also misleading. You get one counter back the turn you play it, so it really only cost 1. Have a Party Atmosphere out, and it's free and raining extra counters for future turns. The game is simply based on 7 counters a turn. Only a few cards change that, and they're hard to get off. 1E was a doomed game because it had no costing mechanism. It was really "One or Free", that's what it turned into. So 2E came along and learned from that mistake. 7 counters a turn, and everything is costed based on that. Even screwing with it by one changes the game completely. It lets decks do things that they normally couldn't do. So when one player has it out and the other one doesn't, it puts someone at a serious disadvantage. When both players have it out, we're playing a whole new game where cost is different. I remember when 1E "jumped the shark", when DQSS came out. From that point it was all downhill. I don't know if Surprise Party means 2E "jumped the shark", but I have a sinking feeling in my stomach that it does.

Good Card, Bad Card #58

I had an idea the other day when building a deck for my daughter, "Is it safe to go back in the water?" By that I mean, is it ok to build 35 cards decks (or any small deck) again? I guess we won't really know if the Tragic Turn monster has been slain. I'm thinking it'll be like Pennywise the Dancing Clown, and come back to torment us in the future (don't worry, no picture of Pennywise, I promised after the Legacy errata you'd never see him again). I mentioned in my interview with James Hoskin, on the CC site, that Jersey was a "culture of speed", or used to be anyway. For the first years of 2E, you never saw a deck over 50 cards. For the past 3-4 years I haven't seen one under 50. Now Tragic Turn is still feasible I think, but it's good that it'll be most likely only played in bigger events. I hope....

We finished our trip back through time, going through every 2E set, wrapping up with Premier in the last GCBC. So let's fire up the Delorean, kick that sumbitch up to 88mph, and go back to the future. Here's a couple cards from the last expansion, Extreme Measures.

Good Card: Jaresh-Inyo, Federation President

Why: He made a pretty lame HQ playable. I can't recall playing Earth, Home of Starfleet Command much in the past. Maybe a lame cadet deck, trying to snag some League HQ bonus points. But now Jaresh-Inyo plus Promenade School give this HQ a legitimate build now. I can't say it's quite Tier-1, but it's damn solid. What I like better is that the personnel is not only crucial for his ability, he's also the 'backbone' of the deck. I use the term 'backbone' for personnel that provide mission skills. Jaresh gives you just about all the skills for every mission in that build, and his high integrity helps. He's got doubles of key skills. Double Honor for Honorable Pursuit, a popular dilemma these days. And double Leadership, we all know by now what to do with that.

Bad Card: Donatra, Honorable Commander

Why: New Rule: No more Kirks! After playing against, and losing to, some Donatra/Assess Contamination cheese the players said, "Well, at least Romulan is winning now." First of all, Romulans were always a solid affiliation, but they were really hard to play. That's why you didn't see them much. Second, at what cost? (pun intended) Is giving an affiliation a Kirk-like personnel the way to go about making an affiliation Tier-1? No, it's not. I'm confident that we'll never see "prevent and overcome" on a personnel again. I'm sure Design knows that it's no good for the game in the long run. Let's just hope Donatra is the last of her kind. Hopefully, years from now, we'll look back at these types of personnel like a VCR and say, "They still make you?"

Good Card, Bad Card #57

"KillerB, we miss you!"  I get an email with this title about every week from the Minnesota Trek Player's message boards. Telling me I've been inactive and inviting me "back to join the fun!" I tried to join the fun, a few weeks back, and was quickly banned. I didn't really say anything, but I guess I'm not allowed in Sonsteby's "happy place." Those boards are the 'KillerB Safe Room' for Kris. I thought it was funny that their site was taunting me and didn't even know it.

So we finally stumbled to the finish line and back to where it all started, Premier. Well.... where it started for a second time anyways. I would do a 1E GCBC, but would probably end up in an asylum if I did.

Good Card: Captain's Holiday

Why: An oldie, but a goodie. If Len dies before me, I'm going to put a copy of this dilemma in his casket. I don't love it as much as him, but I pack this dilemma from time to time. The obvious combo is putting Picking up the Pieces (previous good card) in front of it. Unless they can make someone lose a skill (or gain one) they won't have the geology. And archeology is a pretty easy skill to track. It's just a good solid skill dilemma that, if you're a good player, you can stop your opponent easily if you're tracking right. This is a lost art form is 2E, too many non-skill dilemmas and too many easy ways to pop skills. In the early days, skill tracking is what separated the best from the best at Worlds. Now it's who can turn the most dilemmas into 'blanks'. Back to the card, did I mention it usually craps all over Klingon too? It does, most of the time. Those are two skills the Empire doesn't care much about.

Bad Card: Alien Gambling Device

Why: Every time I almost had the balls to throw one or two of these in a deck just for fun I punked out. They're just too damn expensive. Shit, Vascular Pad unstops a person and it only cost 4. This is just going to let me spin the wheel one more time. I always wanted to see a personnel who made this card cheaper. This terrible El Aurian on the image, from the DS9 episode, I forget his name. Every time I almost packed this equipment I thought about how sad I would be if someone played Equipment Malfunction. Now somebody could steal it with Stem-Bolts. That would really piss me off. Downright rude.

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Today's Pic: You can find everything on EBay. Just something I picked up for GenCon. Big things planned for this year, big things....

Good Card, Bad Card #56

"Get To Know Your Trek Players"
*These are not intended to be a factual statements*

Name: Jared Hoffman
Resides: Mount Vernon, Ohio
TrekCC Handle: Mugato
Motto: "Would you like a snack?"
Motto #2: "Going to the bathroom? I'll come with you."
Occupation: Serving The Lord
Family: Wife, Barbara; Wife, Nikolette; Wife, Margene; 14 children
Favorite Deck: Borg/Back to Basic cheese, Klingon/TT
Fun Facts: Graduated BYU, Did 3 years of missionary work in Southeast Asia (missionary work is also how you end up with 14 kids). Was sent home for violating Rule #71 of 167 'Do not sleep in the same bed as your companion' (those 167 Mormon rules are real), Owns 340 acres of land in Utah


I'm writing today's GCBC from my porch. I was in the kitchen, then I thought about how nice it was outside. This reminded me once on a Sunday, while watching football, I see my buddy going into the bathroom with his laptop. I said, "What are you doing?". To which he replied, "What does it look like? I'm taking a sh*t."  Genius this guy I thought. This was an epiphany for me. Up until this point my brain hadn't adapted to wireless Internet yet. I was a free man now, free to surf the Internet while doing #2. God bless America! So instead of being in a warm kitchen sweating like a fat guy, I'm out enjoying the air on a nice, cool summer evening.

Two sets to go. Here's Energize. Things are starting to get foggy on me now. It's tough to remember the impact of the first expansion in 2E. I remember the first 2E Worlds, where I needed to win in the last round (No bracket that year, just a final confrontation) where I attempted, and my opponent got two to draw/spend. He had to stop one. I was playing Klingon and had a Relentless, so I thought I was golden. Back then, there wasn't much that could've stop me. Then my opponent play Chula: Pick One to Save Two and I became a sad, sad person.

Good Card: Picking up the Pieces

Why: This card saw tons of play back in the day. TNG speed, with geology missions, was 80% of the decks in my meta back then. This dilemma would pretty much seal the deal on one attempt. Even today, I find myself dusting this baby off and finding it still works great. Hell, against Klingons sometimes you can use it as a wall. Unless they have that dirty bastard Duras hanging around....

Bad Card: Assassination Plot

Why: Still waiting on somebody to use this card in a tournament. Come on, somebody step up to the plate and do something with this card. Speaking of never played cards, at the Richmond Regional (also where Neil had that Duras) a kid played the Borg Diamond ship. I gave the kid some credit for being the first person I ever see use the ship..... then proceeding to beat him 100-0.

Good Card, Bad Card #55

On today's episode of "Blood Feud Weekly", On Monday, when I got back from the Regional in Worcester, a closet Ohio fan I have pointing me in the direction of this from Kevin Jeager's CC Blog, which was written before said Regional:

"Voldemort takes home his first regional win in 2 years when there is no one from the top 50 in player rating there to challenge him. A couple of valiant efforts by some up and comers with potential will scare for a second but ultimately, Voldemort wins but still proves nothing."

You're hating on me for winning the Regional before I win it? Wow, that's taking player hating to a whole new level. You should get a future icon for that kind of hate. Sad part is, Kevin's 'prediction' was spot on. Voldermort, I get it. Funny, I refer to my exwife as "she who shall not be named". Better part was somebody replying to the blog thinking that it was so clever not actually mentioning my name. Buddy, I'm not Beetlejuice, if you say my name three times I won't show up at your house. Or will I.....

The only thing more sad than Kevin's blog is the back-and-forth between Kris Sonsteby and Neil Timmons. Neil sounds like a Nazi sympathiser trying to explain all the 'atrocities' I've committed. The only good part was this from Kris, speaking about his 'threats' of legal action:

"Because his and my economic situations are not the same, it didn’t make sound business sense for me to pursue further and I instead elected to be adult about the situation and abstain from further altercations."

Did he just call me poor? I think he just called me poor..... Well, I can't be mad about that, I am poor. Working poor, but poor nonetheless. At least I'm not alone, 30% of America is in the same boat as me. I'll give Kris his delusion of even having a case for a second. But even then, only after realizing that I have nothing he could sue me for he decides to be an "adult"? Wow, that's real noble of him. Kris, you're the model of integrity my friend. This reminded me of The Dark Knight, when Batman was beating up The Joker in the holding cell. "All your strength, yet you're so powerless."

I digress, let's get back to GCBC. Three sets to go now, and today we have Call to Arms. Which introduced Borg and Dominion into 2E. One is, arguably, the most powerful affiliation in the game. The other, not so much.....

Good Card: Sensing a Trap

Why: Romulans have some fun cards. This is one of them. Forcing Their Hand, Brainwashing are others. Problem is, cards like this sometimes find their way into your Romulan decks, but when it's time to cut 3 or 4 cards this ends up being one of them. But sometimes I play Sensing a Trap because it can 'lock out' your opponents from playing a certain card, unless he wants to pay the toll. It's like the movie Goodfellas. You playing Kirk? F*ck you, pay me. You're playing Terok Nor? I name Tenak'talar, f*ck you, pay me. TNG speed? I name Excelsior, f*ck you, pay me. Cardassian? I name Central Command, f*ck you, pay me.

Bad Card: Psycho-Kinetic Attack

Why: What's the difference between 'Psycho-Kinetic' on this card and 'Psychokinetic Control'? Why are they spelled differently? I really am curious about that. Is it because one sucks and one doesn't? Because this dilemma is pretty bad. I know, it's a starter card, so it's not supposed to be fantastic. But come on, 3 cost, with easy requirements, just to kill one guy? And what if there's not a security person present (or somebody played Stricken Dumb, people used that back then)? Then I might not even get a kill. It's not all bad, at least the image on this card is pretty sweet.

Good Card, Bad Card #54

You ever find a pack of Star Trek cards in your freezer? I would guess no you haven't. I did last night. The one-armed drunk midget somehow got on top on my table, pulled out one pack from a OTSD box I keep unopened packs for prize support, and then, for whatever reason a toddler has, decided the freezer was the proper place for it. The pack was from the set To Boldly Go, so maybe even he knew nobody wants that for prize support. If you were wondering why he's a 'one-armed' midget now, it's because he lost a bet to me and didn't pay up. Just kidding, don't call the cops. I've seen this kid take full headers off chairs onto the floor, cry for a second, then get right back up and start playing again. This time when he was playing with his sister on the couch, he just fell back a little bit, but his arm was behind his back and he managed to get a tiny fracture in his elbow. He'll be fine, just a cast on it for a few weeks. He was only slowed down for a day or two before he adapted and went right back into 'baby rampage mode'. He's like a tiny little Borg, he's relentless, resistance is futile.


We'll take a tiny step back on GCBC and look at the Tenth Anniversary Collection. A little promotion with nine ships and their matching commanders (a theme you'll see again soon). Overall is was a great idea. Except for the Dominion Defiant part.....

Good Card: Gowron, Sole Leader of the Empire

Why: Klingons have always been good in 2E, but before they were insanely good Gowron was a nice addition. He has 8 strength that can make missions broken, and the usual Klingon skills (leadership, security, blah, blah, blah), but his ability is money. He's kinda like Dukat, Prefect (a.k.a. Pimp Dukat), an ability that forces your opponent to overplay dilemmas. This Gowron is like fine wine, getting better with age. Reflections gave him Klingon High Council, so he can be downloaded. V-cards gave him Bridge Officer's Test to key off his 2 Leadership. Life just kept getting better and better for the Empire. I would've listed his ship too, but it's a over-costed big piece of crap. Who would pay 6 for a Klingon ship?

Bad Card: Naprem/Dukat, True Cardassian

Why: Our first 'bad card' combo. I don't know who came up with the Cardassian Infiltration idea, but that wasn't his best. The ship is bad because it only works on planet missions. Dukat is bad because, I believe this is the first time they tried this engagement/unstop ability, sure he unstops everyone involved, but the ship's range doesn't get restored. Great, I unstopped all my people.... but I got 2 range left. So the ability was a giant fail, and they should've put some errata on him so he actually works. But even then, nobody would play him. Trying to 'cross-pollinate' affiliations rarely works. Infiltration is a Dominion thing, Capture is a Cardassian thing, etc. Sometime you can try, like Romulans should have better capture (because it makes trek sense), most of the time it's just a gimmick that doesn't work.
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Today's Pic: So exhausted from all the havoc he's cause, the drunk midget can't even finish his dinner before passing out.

Good Card, Bad Card #53

I was bugging Charlie for some spoilers from the next set (due to release at Worlds) and he sent me a reprint instead. He said since I was onto the set Necessary Evil on GCBC it was perfect timing. Actually the 10th anniversary cards were next, but we can just skip those. So we get the beast-mode ship U.S.S. Valiant. This card played tricks on my eyes when I first looked at it. I said to myself, "Where the hell is the ship?" Then my eyes adjusted and I realized what I was looking at. I like the image, showing it compared to the massive size of the Dominion Battleship. You know what was the best part about the cadet episode? They all died. Well, except Jake, Nog and Dorian Collins. Would've been my favorite episode ever if they died too.

Necessary Evil was one of the few sets I had to actually pay cash for. Those Decipher Dollars were good for something at least (they beat me for my last couple hundred). I remember when I went to the store to buy it (ironic, I live 1/2 mile from it now but drive an hour to play trek in DE) and the guy charged me full retail. He always gave me a deal and I remember being pissed off and calling somebody, maybe Len or Alex. Then they told me the set was in limited print, or something, and that was all there was going to be of it. So this set is 'special' compared to any other Decipher set. Cards from this set are a bit more rare than others. That's why you see alot of archive portraits and alternate images from this set, so people can have a copies of hard-to-get cards. Which kinda makes me think of the argument of making all cards printable, which I'm not a fan of. I won't rant on it, but I'll just say I don't think it's a necessary evil (worst pun ever) we need yet. Plus, I think it'll make the game look shitty. Maybe it's my OCD, but I can't stand it when somebody has shitty prints of v-cards. I remember how terrible Star Wars CCG looked when they first went to v-cards. I remember thinking, 'who wants to play a game that looks like shit?' How can we expect people to take Trek serious if they look at it and see black-and-white printouts or a bunch of ugly paper-cards? The only reasons v-cards work now is because they almost look like a real card. Most games you never even realize the difference. So much for not ranting about it.....

Good Card: Riley Shepard, Confident Cadet

Why: I'm gay for Riley Shepard. I have no problem saying that. I used to say it alot back in the day. Blue was played alot back then, and if you did (in non-cadet decks), this guy could save your ass. First, he was Kirk's bodyguard (this is the days before OT Kirk, I still can't believe they made a worse Kirk). Tons of people played Kirk, tons of people played Charged-Particle Precipitation to filter him out. Since Kirk only had 2 skill dots he usually got snagged. Hence why I would sneak Riley, and his sexy non-skill dot having ass, and he would do the noble thing and take the bullet. Other than bodyguard duty Riley Shepard had the money skills. Biology and Security, plenty of dilemmas required those. And, mostly at Origins and Gencon, some Ohio fool would try to play a Quantum Filament pile, and Mr. Shepard would whip out his 2 navigation. The only knock on Riley, and I mean only knock, is that he had programming. Which means he would get stopped by Picking up the Pieces, a super popular card in my meta back then.

Bad Card: Weyoun, Warship Commander

Why: I forgot all about this Weyoun. Hell, I had to check my binder to make sure I even had a copy of this one in it. A shame really, Weyoun was such a cool character in DS9, but all his 2E cards are either lame or broken. So this one is basically just a cheap copy that is the matching commander of the Tanak'talar, since they forgot to add that keyword on both Call to Arms versions of him. I understand the token engagement ability (which is the best ability in our multi-player 'battle royal' format), I just don't get why a non-Terok Nor icon person needs the Cardassian ship part. That doesn't make any sense. I guess that is money for your dual-HQ Dominion/Cardassian deck that you never made, or never will make....

Good Card, Bad Card #52

                                         "R.I.P. Michael R. Keller 2007-2011"

I'll save my words on the former CC Head Judge/Rules Master/Words Lawyer and just dance on his grave.

Some serious errata hit the fan yesterday. Tragic Turn, OT Kirk, Mara and Navaar all got a yellow card for playing dirty. I'm agreeable with all the errata. The ironic part is, that out of all four of these 'bad cards' Mara was the lesser of the four evils, but got the most drastic errata (though it's well deserved). I would've came down harder on the other three, but the CC was afraid of the backlash if they nerfed TT and OT Kirk too much (I think 99% of people want Navaar to be nerfed). These cards are a crutch for some people, and are the few people you see crying about the errata. Trying to justify that Tragic Turn, and mass murder in 2E, is a good thing for the game. These are the people who didn't play 1E and don't remember how absurd it was when an entire away team would get wiped out by one dilemma.

For GCBC we can almost see the finish line on our journey back through the sets. We're at #5, Fractured Time. I've heard the phrase "Fractured Time saved Trek", but I think it's mostly a myth. Sure, Fractured Time was a financial success for Decipher, and people credit that for Decipher deciding to keep the license. It was a great idea, and package (because most people bought 3), and people spent their money. But what else was Decipher going to do? Star Wars ran it's course, and the LotR well was just about to run dry. And we all saw the other 'great ideas' Decipher had in the pipeline.... WARS, Young Jedi, Fight Klub. That's a sad list of fail right there. I highly doubt Trek was going anywhere at that time. Any set they released would've sold and Trek would've been safe for the time being. Sad part is, Decipher was a messed up, terribly ran company, but the thing they were supposed to do, design and sell card game, they were pretty good at. They just had a doofus owner who ran his company in the ground.

Good Card: Medical Teams

Why: This was already a solid defense against Tragic Turn. I used three copies of it last weekend at the Richmond Regional (Tragic Turn's last hoorah) and it was a smart call since I faced four (the TT virus spread to the Norfolk meta) TT piles. The only thing that slowed it down, like other kill prevention, is that you couldn't save stopped personnel when they were killed (since they lose the DS9 icon). But hello Mr. Errata, and now Med Teams becomes a really great defense if somebody goes "Tea Party" with Tragic Turn and 'wants to take their country back'. It's not just a TT meta card. You can always use some kill prevention against other piles. Overwhelmed and 8-pointers, Necessary Execution (if you get cute and go planet first), etc. Plus, if people drastically stop playing TT, design might start being able to make kill dilemmas again without being afraid of the TT Monster.

Bad Card: Kira Nerys, The Intendant

Why: I decided to go a different route on chosing the Fractured Time 'bad card'. There's already some previous ones, and some obvious choices. Fracture Time did a lot of stupid things, and we all know what they are. So I went with the sexy little she-devil that is The Intendant. She's 'bad' because nobody plays her. That's because she doesn't fit in any Bajoran deck build. She has no integrity and isn't in the Resistance, and those are the only two Bajoran decks I can think of. There's a million other versions of Kira to choose from (another stupid thing I won't get into now), so the Intendant always gets passed over. This card is why if I ever had to see a new HQ I would want a Mirror Terok Nor. Let me 'dream card' for once: non-Fed yellow icon personnel can report there, and non-unique Klingons and Cardassians. It doesn't make any trek sense that the mirror universe people can't play at the same place. I always thought a mirror affiliation would be kinda neat. Probably a rules/gameplay nightmare, but fun.