As you may have heard, 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 :-)

Card #24: Clone Machine

One of the most anticipated cards, as mentioned early back in Q Continuum and  expected for the last six years, the Clone Machine is finally here. However, does all the hype live up to what the actual card itself does?

Clone Machine, despite it’s roots in the beginning of the game, helps the affiliations in need today. Granted, it can seed at Boreth to help out the Klingons, however, its power lies in its versatility by seeding at an Infirmary or any Dominion facility. This seems primed to help out three affiliations in need: Bajorans, Cardassians, and, naturally, the Dominion.

Setting up the Clone Machine requires minimal to no effort: Dr. Farek, a Non-Aligned mission specialist, has the needed MEDICAL and low INTEGRITY. From here, the question is what the best way to use the card is and who to “clone”. The key advantage to the machine doesn’t seem to lie in it’s ability to have multiples of a duplicate out, but the power to report ANY personnel for free if you already have them on table. This opens up endless opportunities because, as mentioned before, it seems to help streamline the Bajorans, Cardassians, and Dominion the most, not only for their easy access, but because these three affiliations have a weakness with certain skills: Bajorans and OFFICERs, Dominion and MEDICAL, and Cardassians and SCIENCE. All three of these affiliations have been forced to rely on worthless universals in the past simply to get a few needed skills, however, now with Clone Machine, their key source of a needed skill is now not limited to one or two personnel.

The Dominion’s other advantage is now that Vorta can be downloaded after death. With free reports coming from The Great Link and additional free reports coming from the Clone Machine itself, it is likely that a Founder/Vorta deck may grow in power again, with the addition of Jem‘Hadar Support Personnel coming from Dominion War Effort. It allows a Dominion deck to become a much more streamlined mission solver because the personnel who contain their precious SCIENCE and MEDICAL -- the Vorta -- are no longer rare commodities. They can report for free and are sacrificial during mission attempts.

In conclusion, Clone Machine itself is a very difficult card to review: it offers endless opportunities to be used. It is not simply a speed up mechanic, but it is a way of making affiliations such as the Dominion and Cardassians more powerful: instead of needing to create new personnel with each passing expansion, old personnel can be used without limit or repercussion. It won’t singly-handily match the Alpha Quadrant with the speed of the Delta Quadrant, however.  Scission is still a powerful card and the fact it allows two card plays over the Clone Machine’s one still makes it the better card. However, Clone Machine is powerful in the fact that it rejuvenates “lost” affiliations. The doors that the Clone Machine has unlocked were perhaps worth the years of wait it took to get the card.

Combo(s):

Clone Machine + Infirmary on Empok Nor = Better for the Klingons then Borath and it also gives the Romulans some fair game.

Clone Machine + Dukat + Dukat + Dukat = Captain Log three different ships with the same person.