This month, The Ninja Scot and Dr. Telek R'Mor have decided to do a one-page review of every card in Holodeck Adventures.  That's right, all 131 cards!  Better set aside lots of reading time for this…  (DTRM is doing evens and TNS is doing odds)  The opinions, of course, are those of the authors :-)

1) The City of Ba’Hala - (Artifact) - May seed only at Bajor.  Use as Equipment card.  If present where attempting a (BAJ) mission, encounter seed cards in reverse order. (Immune to Disruptor Overload)

        First, let’s look at how we can get it in play.  Unlike all the other wonderful goodies that you can seed at Bajor (namely Orbs), you can’t gather this present with a simple HQ: Return Orb to Bajor.  If you can only seed it at Bajor, that doesn’t make it the most helpful of cards just by a seeding standpoint but that can be fixed.  Starry Night would help you to avoid relying on just Bajor, it would let you get the City at any Homeworld, any place where Quark’s Bar is located, (so you could even get it in the Mirror
Quadrant) or a Ferengi Trading Post.  There’s always the other alternative of Secret Compartment.  Getting onboard your opponent’s ship or facility with someone who has Acquisition isn’t likely but the Kazon (via Boarding Party), Dominion (Invasive Beam-In) and the Vidiians (via the Boarding Claw), not to mention any Nor or their Ferengi Trading Post makes it somewhat possible to pull off.  All you need is a successful probe of an Event or Equipment and poof, a brand new city in your lap.
        But would you really want it?  It all depends on how you seed cards and how they seed cards, but it’s not for everyone.  Tired of your Orbs getting trapped by their seeds?  Place them first and use the City to snatch them with HQ: Return Orb to Bajor (great for missions like Characterize Neutrino Emissions and Orb Negotiations) Want to hit your self-seeded bonus point dilemmas instead of your opponent’s dilemmas?  Use the City.
    Its main power, however, is to mess up your opponent’s combos.  After going away from dilemma killers such as Q-Bypassing, Senior Staff Meeting, Pla-Net and  Ajur/Boratus, they’ve gone to dilemma re-arranging (much like the current trend of Q-Flash swapping) and that’s where this artifact comes into play.  Using The Weak Will Perish to kill those low-Integrity personnel so they can’t pass In the Pale Moonlight?  Doesn’t work as well in reverse.  This messes with certain theories of dilemmas, such as
build-up, killer/filter, wall because backwards, the wall won’t last for long, the killer/filter won’t kill or filter the person that they want and the build-up isn’t expected to hold them off forever.  However, that’s not the only kind of dilemma seeding method and not all dilemma-seeding methods will be affected much by this.  It’s all about the metagame in your area.

Combo: Quark (via Quark’s Isolinear Rods) + Quark’s Bar + Opponent’s Deep Space Nine or Terok Nor + Secret Compartment  = I know Quark is cool and all but how many bartenders do you know who can download an entire city to his place, all without using up a card play?

Combo: The City of Ba’Hal + Runabout Search OR Deliver Supplies = Hard enough to get dilemmas to stick at dual-icon missions, now try putting the combo backwards

Combo: The City of Ba’Hal + Zefram Cochrane’s Telescope = One choice download via Starry Night lets you see the space combo, now do you want it backwards?
 

Card #2: Alice

Dilemmas as of late have been not flat-out killers like as of the past (A Fast Ship Would Be Nice, Kelvan Show of Force) or big walls (Founder Secret or Hanonian Land Eel). Dilemmas in The Borg and Holodeck Adventures go for either more bizarre effects or one time walls (or an occasional hit-or-miss mass killer, like The Weak Will Perish). Another common trend seems to be that common and uncommon dilemmas in the last two sets aren't exactly the best in the world. The question here is whether Alice fits in these trends or breaks them.

The condition is probably the best place to start. Two Computer Skill and Biology isn't that hard to find, unfortunately. While no one personnel has both, Computer Skill is a dime a dozen, especially on Delta Quadrant personnel. Biology is a bit rarer, especially since Aphasia Device went down in usefulness, but enough personnel have it that it's not likely to slow down a player. If you truly want to use Alice to it's fullest, you'll need to set it up. A Fast Ship Would Be Nice is an obvious pick, as well as possibly Hippocratic Oath (to filter out MEDICAL personnel).

If a dilemma is going to take a bit of set up to be useful, one would hope the effects aren't bad. Capturing a personnel is never a bad thing and typically personnel with multiple levels of Navigation aren't too shabby (Dereth and Tom Paris are good examples). However, if you're truly setting up Alice, might as well go the distance and kill off their Navigation personnel, too. Surprisingly, for what is normally considered a common skill, Navigation is some what rare amongst newer affiliation (mainly in the Delta Quadrant). If you truly have the room to set up for Alice, you should throw in another filter/kill and take out their Navigation, allowing you to have a choice of who to capture. This works better on a planet where less Navigation is needed for missions and dilemmas.

Capturing decks are a tad slow in today's environment; however, there are enough support cards to make them useful. Brainwash, Interrogation, and Torture all work hand in hand to make the best use out of your opponent's personnel. If you add in some infiltrating cards you can also wreck havoc on your opponent. It is still a sluggish deck because of the inability to draw cards effectively (Prepare the Prisoner merely cycles them) or download key cards. It is a fun deck, though not entirely competitive.

However, enough about that. Alice suffers greatly because of its over  reliance on knocking out key skills that no deck goes without for a one time effect. Worst yet, because it discards after it is hit, the effect is a one shot deal. Hardly worth dedicating an entire combo to set up, especially when cards like Cardassian Trap fit much better in a capturing theme deck.

Combo(s):
A Fast Ship Would Be Nice + Kelvan Show of Force + Alice = A Fast Ship and Kelvan should easily take out their Biology personnel. If you get lucky and they only run one, use Kelvan to filter out their Navigation to set yourself up for a nice capture.
 

3) Chula: Echoes – (Planet/Space) – To get past, three personnel present (random selection) are chosen.  If the highest CUNNING among them is odd, all three are “stopped.”

        It’s another Chula dilemma, so let me get up right now and do my super-Chula dance.  And no, I’m not being sarcastic, I really do like Chula dilemmas, I like dilemmas that accidentally trip up people’s super-crews.  This one can do it too, depending on the group of people that you send down or attempt in space, unless you can get all but two people who have less Cunning than someone else and the people above them all have Cunning of like 8 or something.

I think that this could be the establishment of a definite theme in dilemmas from now on, erratic Attribute-based dilemmas, brought out primarily by the Chula set of dilemmas as far as wide-seen play.  After all, look at Chandra: one of the more popular set-up/filter dilemmas in the game and it's attribute based, not skill-based.  But there are plenty of others in the Chula realm – The Dice requires three someone's with certain attributes above the requirements, The Way Home is Integrity based while the Abyss and the Drink are Cunning based, the Lights sends away someone who has the closest attribute numbers that added up to 22, the Door has the addition of two personnel’s attributes to equal either 5 or 21, etc.  Of course, it’s not based entirely on Chula; there’s Twisted which require your Away Team or Crew to have half personnel with cunning of greater than 7, Spatial Rift wants two people with combined Cunning > 14 before you can even resolve the rest of the dilemma, Clan People wants people (up to 5 no less) who have Cunning > 38 and who can forget precious ones like In the Pale Moonlight (Integrity < 4 among others), The Weak Will Perish (Any attribute <5, you will die) and the Daddy of all of them, Firestorm (You have Integrity <5, you will burn up on the planet.)

But, for all its randomness, attribute-based dilemmas aren’t all that great in a majority of players’ decks. A vast majority of them, they’re erratic in their targets and Echoes is no exception; it all depends on your luck.  People want more assurance in their dilemmas, that’s the bottom line.  People like walls that can potentially last longer than a turn,
whereas with practically all attribute-based dilemmas, you either discard it regardless of whether you pass it or not or the effects only lasts a turn, but the point is that they only last once, then they’re gone.  Attributes are much easier to jury-rig than to come up with an extra person to pass Executive Authorization, plenty of equipment (Classic equipment being a prime example) can add skills or classifications to help overcome dilemmas but they can also add attributes of all kinds now.  Attribute-based dilemmas are basically the set-ups to the killer; they have a hard time staying tough by themselves.

Combos: Elim + Chula: Echoes – Now you can stop whichever three you want for extra spicy goodness.

Combos: 1 Tribble + Chula: Echoes + Spatial Rift + Twisted + Chula: The Abyss – And you thought all those Cunning 8 people would’ve helped.
 

Card #4: Chula: Trickery

Ah, Chula dilemmas. Never seeming to fit a set pattern (besides one of strangeness). Almost always different in ways than any other dilemmas; more so than not, this is a bad thing. Only Chandra sees a decent amount of use because of it's massive filtering abilities. Others are too hit-or-miss (like The Drink) or just down right bad (Abyss).

Trickery is one of the first dilemmas to not be overcome by skills or attributes but by your opponent's memorization ability. It's effectiveness can not be set-up by other dilemmas (though if someone like Lore were to die along the way, it'd be a nice boost). This makes it perhaps the most risky dilemma in the game: whoever your opponent is will decide how effective the
dilemma is.

I'll be blunt: I think this dilemma is horrible. Trickery has the biggest variable in the game working against it: your opponent. It's like a bad James Bond movie: you win because your opponent wasn't prepared. Problem here is they aren't reciting off the most recent Glossary entries or what not, all they have to know is their own personnel. I'll grant that certain affiliations (such as the Romulans or Vidiians) have it a bit tougher than others, but come on. The majority of players play with decks that they know, thus they'll know the personnel in it since most of them will have at least tweaked it or fine tuned it a bit. Worst yet, it's not like you can choose a personnel with average numbers because it's totally random. If someone like Sherlock Holmes or Penk gets picked, you're out of luck.

And what is the effect if you do succeeded in pulling this dilemma off? A one time stopper. Why would you use this over much harder to pass dilemmas like Palukoo or Talosian Cage? Actually, as a whole, I'm not sure why one time stoppers are that big of a deal. They were useful in the meta before Holodeck Adventures, but with In The Zone, games are going to be slowed down a bit. Stopping your opponent for a turn is really hit-or-a-miss (if they red-shirted or scanned you've accomplished nothing), but a large wall will almost always generate the same results: it forces them to bring a large mess of people who can now be targeted for much nastier dilemmas (Denevan Neural Parasites, Chandra/Alien Parasites, etc.).

As a whole, probably the worst dilemmas in a very long while (I think it ranks up there next to Impassable Door). It's a sham, too, especially in an environment that has gotten monotonous with dilemma combos. The variables associated with it are too much and even if you do pull off its effects, it does nothing more than almost half a dozen other dilemmas do. Too bad this
is the standard and not the exception for dilemmas in Holodeck Adventures. Here's to hoping that The Motion Pictures will have some better dilemmas (and that hopefully there'll be some sort of Chula enhancement in the foreseeable future).

Combo(s):
Chula: The Chandra + Chula: Trickery = May work once in a blue moon, but it at least keeps personnel with similar attributes together. Not really worth the card space, though.
 

5) Cytoplasmic Lifeform – (Space/Planet) - Unless 3 Exobiology present, place on mission.  Each of its skill requirements must be met by a different personnel when solving it.

        Now this is one interesting little bugger, a new kind of dilemma.  It’s a mission-modifier, but does it really have any effect?
        First of all, once its encountered, if you don’t have 3 Exobiology, that dilemma will stay in effect on that mission forever, barring an act of the all-powerful Supernova (but then, the mission is “gone” too) What this dilemma has its best effect against is twofold – Missions with a lot of different requirements (Hunt for DNA Program, Symbiont Diagnosis, Investigate Shattered Space, etc.) and missions that can be completed skill-wise by just one or two people (First Officer Spock, with Classic Equipment can solve at least 5 missions by himself, Geordi + Data can solve quite a few, Governor Worf can, B’Elanna Torres, etc.)

While, to be honest, I don’t know whether or not “each of its skill requirements” would extend to this extreme (Archaeology x3 is a skill requirement, so you must meet it with one personnel) or not but if it does, this dilemma would naturally not hurt immensely because after all, no one has Archaeology x3 naturally.  But when would be the best time to spring this on someone?  Well, since people can’t (or at least people feel that they can’t Scan anymore) look ahead, the best time would be to get it on their first attempt at
the mission, when they’re less likely to have the 3 Exobiology when they first attempt the mission.  And this won’t obviously work on everyone – The Feds have a great selection of plenty of great Exobiology (heck, Samantha Wildman + Naomi on Voyager gives you your dilemma-nullifier right there) but so do the Vidiians, with the others playing catch-up.

Is it worth using?  Maybe.  A mission like Restore Victims, it could be incredibly difficult to solve but Research Phage, not that difficult.  Why?  Because they don’t just need all of those skills, they can have a Think Tank personnel do it for them.  Same goes with missions like Relocate Settlers, Prevent Annihilation, Return Life-Form, Cure Deadly Virus, etc. because they name people who can complete it on their behalf.  But most of the time, people use very simplistic missions, which they have a good deal of
focus in and plenty of skill duplication so it won’t be so much of an issue.

Overall, I’d say that the dilemma has some definite uses but they’re specialized and won’t work in every deck.

Combos – DNA Clues + Cytoplasmic Organism + Opponent’s Missions + Medical-dilemmas: Send down three people down or a person and a ship to their highly skilled mission and make it that much more difficult to complete.

Combos – Dr. McCoy + The Doctor + Crell Moset + Mora Pol + The Albino + Cytoplasmic Organism – Did someone say there was an Organism around here?
 
 
 

Card #6: Dejaren

That is one psycho hologram. No matter how much one complains about some of the cards in Holodeck Adventures, the pictures are remaining very crisp and clear. In gameplay, though, is there as much as meets the eye (pun intended)?

Examining each function one at a time, the kill function is interesting. Now killing a hologram isn't that effective since they'll simply pop up again, but a normal personnel who is killed doesn't have that luxury (or at least not built in). CUNNING<9 is a hit-or-miss (I notice I'm saying this a lot about the Holodeck Adventures dilemmas) aspect. Plenty of good personnel have high CUNNING (Seven of Nine, Sherlock Holmes), but the majority do not. Normal PADDs still aren't common enough for this to be detrimental. So, as a whole here, a good start with a likely kill of at least one personnel (they may-or-may-not be using holograms, however, don't seed it just for that: it's a one turn deactivation).

The second function, though, is where Dejaren crashes and burns. Oooh, two Computer Skill. Toughie. However, it's not as horrendously bad as it seems. To be truly safe when attempting a mission, you'll need three non-Holographic (or three Holographic) sources of Computer Skill. However, with Seven of Nine being a CUNNING of nine Computer Skill x2, this could be a detriment in a player's plans.

But, wait a second, this isn't that bad as a whole. Find a way to filter out Seven of Nine or Carlos (A Fast Ship Would Be Nice) and you could have something going here. You'll have to get lucky on the random selection; however, it's a wall with almost some sort of staying power. It takes effort and work to pull it off; however, I think this has more potential than most other dilemmas in Holodeck Adventures, if it can be pulled off. Unfortunately, potential doesn't equal much in this game if it doesn't work   If your random selection pulls someone with Computer Skill, you're set. Otherwise? Nope, not going to see it having any use. Now, if you try to beef it up even more and add the ever useful Cyrus Redblock, you could nab a few personnel. However, it just requires too much set up for a glorified Impassable Door.

In conclusion, it seems to be yet another disappointing dilemma, though it has some definite hidden potential (Cyrus Redblock, Access Denied). As a reviewer, I tried to find some good merits in it (I can't hate every card as much as Chula: Trickery), but let's face it: Holodeck Adventures may be a very cool set, but the dilemmas in it (and the commons as a whole) sure aren't. Somehow I wish I had known this before I agreed to write a page for half the expansion set. ;-)

Combo(s):
A Fast Ship Would Be Nice + Dejaren = Am I the only one who thinks A Fast Ship Would Be Nice is the most underused dilemma in the game? I mean, most of the time it will kill almost anyone you want. It's a perfect set up for almost any dilemma. Anyway, here it's best to used with a Lack of Preparation or something like Navigational Hazards (read: try to get Seven of
Nine and her Computer Skill x2/CUNNING of nine in the attempt) up first. Kill off some Computer Skill, hope Dejaren gets another, and then watch as they have to send in at least three Computer Skill to pass the mission.

Dejaren + Access Denied = Don't think I forgot about this combo. Suddenly it becomes a bit more potent of a dilemma. Use the above combo and throw Ferengi Ingenuity in front. Takes out a big Computer Skill source and then A Fast Ship kills off another (and Cyrus Redblock could take another out). Hey, that's not that bad at all.
 

7) Emergent Life-Form – (Space-only) - Place on ship.   Now and at start of each turn, opponent may move ship to another location (using its RANGE).  If ship has Holodeck, cure with 2 Engineer and Astrophysics. (Countdown 3)

        You will use a Holodeck on your ships in space, that’s the message that you could infer from Product Development.  You could have every skill imaginable on your ship but if you don’t have a Holodeck, you’ve become your opponent’s puppet.  Unlike Cytherians, people are allowed to beam off the infected ship which is helpful, although your opponent could just move you to somewhere without a place to beam off to.  You
could be moved to a seeded Barzan and relocated to a different quadrant, or moved to your opponent’s waiting armada, the waiting weapons of a Black Hole or even to the open maws of a Black Hole, there’s lots of different things that your opponent can do to you.

        This is definitely a dilemma that the Feds will have a much easier shot with than other affiliations because many of their ships already have Holodecks, plain and simple.  The Ferengi have the generic Marauder, Krayton, Trullix and Kreechta, the Non-Aligned have the Darmok, Husnock Ship, Mondor, Equinox, Dauntless and the Think Tank Ship, the Dominion have only the Battleship, the Bajorans their
Warship, Klingons have the Fek’lhr, Chang and Negh’Var, the Romulans have the Goraxus, Prometheus and the Decius and the umpteen million ships for the Federation.  Who does that leave out?  The Cardassians, Kazon and Vidiians.  While the Kazon and Vidiians can readily seed a ship and therefore, seed a Holodeck Door on those ships to give them a Holodeck on turn 1, the Cardassians are hosed.

        So what goes with this?  Armadas will love this, of course as will an Assimilation deck by the Borg (Come Here! – Scorpion – Mortal Kombat) and those Capture decks, but it’s more of a stall technique against your opponent, especially if they’re far from a place where they can beam off to.

        So how does one counter it?  Obviously the Holodeck is the first key, but the rest is simple – 2 Engineer + Astrophysics is a constant nowadays thanks to Spatial Rift; it’s not as difficult to keep around. Zefram Cochrane can counter it but most people will use B’Elanna Torres (practically the most useful personnel in the Delta Quadrant in my opinion) but as I said, you have to have the Holodeck.  Product Development will not be denied!  Now aren’t you glad they stopped End Transmission with this card out?

Combos – Vole Infestation + Emergent Life-Form – Sure, you could be stopped but without your special equipment on your ship (like a Tractor Beam and Holodeck), do you really want to risk it?

Combos –Make Us Go + Emergent Life-Form – Let the Pakleds go play with the new Engineer, we’ll go and play with our opponent’s ship.

Combos – Emergent Life-Form-infected ship + Your plans – Boarding Party and Commandeer the eventually empty ship, Invasive-Beam In it, blow it up, Outgun it, Fun!
 

Card #8: Primitive Humanoids

Dilemmas with easy conditions and only a one time effect are, as a general rule, not too useful (see above regarding Alice). Unfortunately, Primitive Humanoids fits this rule all too well: its conditions are fairly simple and its effect is only meager at best.

Looking at the conditions, we see that all it requires is a pair of Leadership and Anthropology. This isn't exactly the hardest set of skills to overcome. Granted, only two personnel (Kai Opaka and Karr) have all of the necessary skills to pass it, but there are enough personnel with Leadership/Anthropology (say for example, the Hirogen) for it to be an easy two personnel pass. It is possible for it to be set up where you can filter out the Leadership (Trabe Grenade, A Fast Ship Would Be Nice, Kelvan Show of Force) and to make a decent combo.

But is it really worth the effort to go through a combo simply to stop a crew and hold two personnel on the mission until it is completed (or assimilated)?  Since it's going to require set up, I'd say the only truly effective way to do this is to throw a filter/stopper in front to weed out Leadership (Kelvan is nice since it forces them to have another personnel in the attempt) and then follow it up with a Founder Secret. Note this mainly works for Borg because you can now swoop down and assimilate their missions (assuming it is worth at least thirty-five) points and have a pair of drones awaiting you when you complete it. With at least two turns of stoppers (using Mission Debriefing), you should have enough time to do the mission.

However, the above scenario is rare since you have to wait until they clear through Primitive Humanoids, hit the Founder Secret (or what not), and can't pass it, leaving you two personnel on the surface. Trying to run it in a non-Borg deck is nearly impossible, due to the limitations Fair Play sets. You'll simply take a pair of personnel out of the mission attempt. If you can set it up correctly, it'll have a decent payoff; however, in reality, it's a weak common dilemma with only the occasional bright spot here and there.

Combo(s):
Founder's Secret + Primitive Humanoids + Hanonian Land Eel = Set it up with a Beware of Q/Q-Flash to try to filter out their Leadership or Anthropology (Quandary, Penalty Box, Mandarin Bailiff, Q-Type Android), snatch a few with Primitive Humanoids, and let the Land Eel kill another, leaving them with a smaller away team and a lot of AWOL personnel.

Primitive Humanoids + Elim = I think Elim's a very cool card that is underused because of the hardship of simply getting him to the opponent's location. However, if you can (say, with Devidian Door, though that's limited by In The Zone, or with Subspace Transporter), he simply rocks. Use the above combo and choose who is picked for the various Q-Icon cards. Do the same again with Primitive Humanoids and watch them fall head first into the Hanonian Land Eel.
 

9) Talosian Cage - (Planet-only) – Unless 3 Empathy OR Christopher Pike present, opponent may choose to discard two females (random selection) OR male with most (skill-dot) icons.  Discard dilemma.

        The Borg don’t care about this dilemma, even if the Queen and Counterparts have gender (See Current Rulings 12/5.01) For the rest of us, 3 Empathy just isn’t that common nor as easy to get.  The question is, do we really care?

        First, the only personnel who can complete the requirements by themselves are the Trois, which means that the Ferengi (Frighteningly enough) can pass this dilemma the most easily (The Feds rarely ever use them as much as the Ferengi) but that doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones who have such ability – The Federation have the many incarnations of Deanna Troi but most people will have to rely on Ocampas (Tanis or
the old, naughty Kes each have Empathy x2) or Maques in the Alpha Quadrant and someone else if they expect to solve it without incident.

    The only thing that this dilemma does is that it’ll stop most everyone.  Much like Ferengi Bug, Lethean Telepathic Attack and others (usually Empathy related), they’ll stop for a turn at most and then you can go on from there.  Depending on the deck, a stopped Away Team may be all that they need, with super-speed decks going at full tilt at a high-point planet location, get a Horga’hn and then go to the other high point mission, a space mission and then win the game.

    One of the big things that people thought about this is that they could set up this in front of Matriarchal Society, which makes sense.  Just place before the Society, let them discard two females present, and they can't be saved with Genetronic Replicators.  Add in a Female's Love Interest and you'll need 5 females to get past.

Combo – Talosian Cage + Opponent’s invincible Away Team, complete with Genetronic Replicator + your Steroid-enhanced Away Team – I don’t care, they’re still discarded, not killed and therefore gone, and you’re stopped.  Now, let me finish the job!
 
 

Card #10: The Clown: Guillotine

Finally, a good dilemma (I really regret pulling evens for this review; I mean, Michael gets Dixon Hill and Sherlock Holmes while I got four of the five Cravic/Pralor cards and almost all of the Support Personnel). As a whole, Clown dilemmas have been fairly interesting and, like Chula dilemmas, never following a set pattern of a simple wall with conditions or a
killer/filter.

Looking at its conditions first, two Diplomacy seems fairly simple. A year ago, Diplomacy was a fairly worthless skill: seen on common personnel and only needed on one rarely used dilemma. Now, however, it's integral to all decks because of the introduction of Implication. After Voyager, the most popular dilemma combo seemed to be Shaka-killer-Implication (or switched order) simply because it offered repetition and force the opponent to stock large quantities of a skill that hadn't been used much. While Holodeck Adventures and The Borg slowed this combo down a bit because the Hirogen have easy access to powerful, free report personnel with Diplomacy and/or Law and because Holodeck Adventures, if you'll notice, has an unusually large amount of personnel with Law, it is now more powerful than ever because of one personnel: Cyrus Redblock. When Implication is hit, they may now suddenly lose one of the necessary personnel to stop it from affecting them. This enhances the combo greatly and makes it more powerful than it was pre-Holodeck Adventures.

Since The Clown: Guillotine only loses the CUNNING>30 bit of Shaka (which is arguably still useful: it forces them to bring in more than just one or two personnel to pass it), it has a powerful side effect if they are unable to pass it: one personnel is killed and all personnel with lower total attributes are stopped until the end of opponent's next turn. This can be devastating because it could easily knock out a crew or away team's for two turns. It is not overly necessary to have to deluge into the power of this card because it's clear on it: someone is dead and several other are stopped for a large amount of time (two turns, despite the slow down of the game, is still an exceedingly long period of time to be without a crew or away).

The only danger in The Clown: Guillotine is that two Diplomacy, despite setup, is still not too difficult to get. Shaka's power was it still forced them to have at least four or five personnel remaining to pass it. Because of this, Guillotine must be last in the Diplomacy combo. Implication will force them to bring personnel (hopefully you'll have out Cyrus Redblock to kill off one). After they pass it, to truly make sure Guillotine is effective, a Flash swap is the best way to go. It could easily knock out another four or five personnel, almost guaranteeing the killer after Implication will knock out their remaining source of Diplomacy.

In conclusion, a powerful card, however, it does have some weaknesses compared to Shaka. The problem with the above combo is by the time they hit Guillotine, they'll have already lost at least four or five personnel from the Flash, killer dilemma, and Cyrus Redblock so that there won't be many remaining targets left for Guillotine to stop. This means a small crew of one or two personnel can swoop in to pass the dilemma and complete the mission. Still extremely powerful, but balanced compared to its predecessor in Shaka. One of the best dilemmas in Holodeck Adventures (which isn't saying too much, but..).

Combo(s):
Implication + killer + Shaka, When The Walls Fell + The Clown: Guillotine: I haven't had the seed space to play with a four card dilemma combo since First Contact came out, but if you can manage the room, this is nearly unbeatable with Cyrus Redblock for Implication and a Q-Flash on the Shaka.
 

11) The Clown: Playing Doctor - (Space/Planet) – One personnel (random selection) and all others present who have the same first-listed skill are killed (only “stopped” if a (HOLO) personnel present).

        They’re really insistent on you using Holograms, whether it’s in the technology on your ships with Emergent Life-Form or, here with Holographic personnel to save people from dying.  But, how will that affect you?

        Like all random selections, it depends on what they get but the effects can get downright nasty.  Take a look at Diplomacy-skilled personnel, many of them have that as the first skill (Picard, Dathon, Motura, etc.), same with Engineer (B’Elanna, Data, Geordi, Mr. Scott, etc.) or Leadership (Ransom, Chakotay, Karr, Admiral Riker etc.) or Medical (Dr. McCoy, Julian Bashir, Bev. Crusher, Suna) and that’s just the people
that come to mind off-hand.  If they hit the right person or you set up the kind of dilemmas where it’s more likely to find those kind of first-listed skills, the effect can be much more potent.  Plus, this is one of the few instances where personnel duplication won’t help you as obviously; they’d have the same first-listed skill (Barring things like Reflection Therapy)

        Of course, the obvious thing to do when trying to counter this is, of course, use a holographic personnel, and quite fitting for the expansion, there are quite a few great holograms to choose from. In space, you can have them on your Holodeck-enabled ship so it’s easier to protect your Holograms but the downside is that if your hologram, for whatever reason, isn’t present during the encountering of this dilemma, you don’t get the benefit of protection from Genetronic Replicator.  Conversely, while Genetronic
Replicator can protect you on the planet, it’ll have to since it’ll be more difficult to get a Hologram on the planet.

        This is certainly an interesting, potentially powerful combination filter/killer, where it can be either a filter or a killer, depending on the circumstances but also, it’s not always obvious which way you want the dilemma to go.  For example, if it’s a killer on a planet, they could use Genetronic Replicator, which would be better for them than if those same people were stopped.   That’s why I think it’s a better space dilemma than planet dilemma, depending on your opponent.  Of course, whether or not
they even have Holo-personnel at either place is entirely subjective, depending on the affiliation and their relative access to Holodecks.

        There’s no way to not have the dilemma have an effect, the question is what effect will it have? Genetronic Replicator-nullification, stopping only a few people or killing a lot more?

Combo – Harry Kim + The Clown: Playing Doctor – Fitting for the guy who came up with this, that he’d be the best victim for the dilemma.  Not many people have Stellar Cartography as their first skill, plus he can be chosen instead because of his special skill.

Combo – Elim + The Clown: Playing Doctor – “The Clown will see your Medical now”
 

Card #12: Your Galaxy Is Impure

One of the most powerful dilemmas in recent memory, Your Galaxy Is Impure (YGII) has many strengths and many weaknesses to go with it, making it a strategic dilemma that won’t fit into every dilemma combo, but if used correctly, can be a game winning card.

The card’s ability is a definite power house: an opponent’s choice kill is rare, but, when it can not be stopped, it is potentially the most powerful killer in the game. It won’t go away either, remaining a constant nuisance. Kill off someone important for the wall that immediately follows YGII and they’ll be forced to re-attempt, giving you another chance to kill. YGII fits itself into almost any dilemma combo: YGII-wall-wall is extremely powerful, giving you versatility and an almost sure-fire kill of at least 2-3 personnel, if not totally cutting off the mission from them all together.

Of course, a dilemma this powerful would not be without some sort of counterbalance, so, enter: Borg Nanoprobes. Downloadable by four different personnel and stockable in almost any deck, Nanoprobes offer the counter that any affiliation needs to this devastating dilemma. The power of YGII rides on how prevalent Borg Nanoprobes will be.

The problem is, YGII is so powerful, it almost makes Borg Nanoprobes a staple in any deck. Bariel, Mila, and Yeggie (under the right circumstance) can download it without an afterthought. This makes YGII a very risky card and forces whatever combo it is used in to have to deal with Borg Nanoprobes first.

Unfortunately, that is much easier said than done. Using The Weak Will Perish, in hopes that they’ll use it to nullify YGII doesn’t hold much water since: 1) The Weak Will Perish is fairly, well, weak. Too many people are prepared for it and a lot of affiliations (Hirogen, Delta Feds, Romulans, and Bajorans) only lose a handful of personnel to it. With YGII being too powerful, it’s too obvious. 2) Even if you do get them to nullify TWWP and then hit them with YGII, they’ll lose one personnel and simply nullify it next turn. Granted, a powerful effect, but you lose the bite of the dilemma.

Common Thief and Disruptor Overload are a player’s only remaining choice. Common Thief also loses a lot of usefulness because Mila, Yeggie, and Bariel can download the Nanoprobes between Thief and YGII. Disruptor Overload is random, however, not a horrible idea. A lot of people are using equipment where it is likely to nab something, but it is too random to have YGII rely on it to pull off.

However, don’t forget the Borg. Borg Nanoprobes isn’t used too often, from my observation (having to waste a card play to get them isn’t really worth it). Set up with some harder dilemma for Borg and try to pick off their people one at a time and hope it works out nicely. Still risky (they could leave key dilemma buster and Interlink drone on a second ship or one in orbit) and too much of a meta-game trick to be worth using.

So, in conclusion, a powerful dilemma simply because getting the Nanoprobes out requires using special downloads on personnel that wouldn’t be used otherwise (or using up a card play to get them out).

Combo(s):

Your Galaxy Is Impure + Executive Authorization = If you do pull if off, this is a killer. Few decks contain more than two or three (at most) who can pass EA. If you're running this combo, you're sure to be using Disruptor Overloads to knock out their PADDs. It’s a very nice lock, if it can be pulled off.