Wesley's STCCG card of the day #42

Hi, folks,

yesterday's trekdinner was a bit long, so you had to wait a day longer for the answer to life...

the universe...

and the burning question...

What is the WORST card in Star Trek: CCG?

Well, the answer is:

TACHYON DETECTION GRID

Interrupt, common.
Must have at least four of your ships in play to use. Play on any cloaked ship to detect its presence. Ship is forced to de-cloak for rest of turn.
"Network of active tachyon beams between many ships. Devised by Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge in 2368 to detect cloaked vessels."

Ho-Hum. So where do I start analyzing here? Obviously this card has two fa- cets worth reviewing. A prerequisite and an effect. Let's ignore the prerequi- site for a moment and look at the effect: One ship is forced to de-cloak for rest of turn. What can I do with it? Yep, I can attack that ship, provided neither of the player plays Feds (If I do, I cannot attack, if he does, what cloaked ship?). Also, at least one of us must be a Klingon player, as Rommies cannot attack other Rommies. So to get a chance of using this, we must have one out of the K/K, R/K or K/R combinations. Even if all nine affiliation combinations had the same probability, this would work out to a 67% chance of the card having NO EFFECT AT ALL! (Actually, it's worse - Most people play Federation).

So let's think of not attacking but playing an interrupt (or event) that can not affect cloaked ships:

We could use Warp Core Breach(R), but he has an ENGINEER aboard, pretty sure. Nah.
Neural Servo Device(U)? Works only on non-aligned ships, so no cloaking device.
Incoming message(U)? Why not wait until he de-cloaks to attempt a mission - He'll be much further away from the outpost then!
Temporal Rift(U)? This is a natural event, so you can play it on the cloaked ship.
Rogue Borg(C)? Again, I can wait; it doesn't really matter when my opponent loses a few turns and personnel - he cannot attempt a mission before I get him.
Disruptor Overload(C)? Once again - wait.
Ship Seizure(C)? Hey - cloaked ships are not empty!
Time Travel Pod(R)? Again - patience, your time will come!

So isn't there anything we could do? Sorry? What did you suggest here?

Plasma Fire(U)? Nice try. Could actually work as SECURITY is not that common.

So let me summarize: We have a card that allows us to use a Plasma Fire on a cloaked ship. Great.

Now let's take a look at the cost: We need four ships in play. So that means we need five or six in the deck to get them out. Six ships? Anybody playing with more than four? Doh. Add a card slot in your deck that could be used for something sensible (like a Temporal Rift, if you don't have any better ideas) and you're stuck with four useless cards (2 ships + the Grid + the Plasma Fire).

But I won't discourage anybody from using it, as long as he plays against me :-)

Favorite combo(s):

You didn't expect me to write anything here, did you??
On second thought: Four of them in my opponent's deck.

Ratings for : TACHYON DETECTION GRID

Wesley's rating:               -9.999 (Sorry, 1.0 of course) 
Jon's rating:                   4.1
Allen Castaban's rating:        2.0
Tim Kwong's rating:             1.0
Habib's rating:                 1.0
Bryan's rating:                 ---
Jeff's rating:                  0.3 (Guess we should say 1.0 here, too)
Holt Kernodle's rating:         ---	
Simon's rating:                 ---
Data's Rating:                  6.7 (Huh?)
Jason's Rating:                 1.5
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 2.3

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: blohmer@pips11.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

"A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart"