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 #36: Data, Keep Dealing

One of the several new manipulation cards that has been introduced to the game since Voyager, Data, Keep Dealing has the same basic concept of all these new events/interrupts: know what you're going to draw. And, wow, Data, Keep Dealing (DKD) does this better than almost any other card in the game.

DKD exemplifies a card best used in the mid to late game. If it is used early on, it is most likely that you’ll simply find yourself putting two or three of the cards that you’ve discarded for it right back on your deck. While this can be useable as a mini-Orb of Prophecy and Change (re-arrange top three cards of draw deck), DKD’s real power seems to lie in the late and after previous manipulation has allowed you to streamline your deck and set it up for the discards that it provides. This seems to link DKD with Ore Processing, Bajoran Shrine, Meditation, and Mutation: these are all cards that allow a player to know what is going to be coming up and have a better insight before they start throwing cards away from their discard pile. However, worry not, because DKD comes built in with it’s own fail safe device: if you do ditch a vital card, it can be re-arranged back on top of your draw deck.

The key thing to remember about DKD is that it is not best for a pure speed deck. In decks such as those, you’ll most likely be decked out before you can use the full advantages of DKD. Now, granted, decks such as these are sort of on a downfall with In The Zone, but, do not shoot yourself in the foot: a deck planning to use DKD to its fullest advantage (read: in the mid to late game) should run at least a forty card draw deck. On the other hand, such a warning probably isn’t overly necessary since most players who use DKD will be combining it with other manipulation cards and will not have a small draw deck anyway.

DKD’s card drawing mechanic isn’t nearly the strength of it’s mini-Regeneration that it provides: it’s more of an enhanced Mutation in many ways. Just lost your key ship? Ditch that extra MEDICAL from the top of draw deck and get both of them back. Outpost blown away? Doubt some random Mutation or Power will be useful here, ditch it to get back your Outpost and some low people. In need of a Scan? Well, you get the picture. DKD isn’t just card manipulation, it’s blatant card set up. With the advent of so many manipulation cards in the game now a days, any deck should be able to get almost any card out with a bit of skills and some correctly played cards.

However, the final question must be asked: small draw deck vs. card manipulation. This is solely based on playing preferences. A small draw deck can cycle through itself quickly, however, does not have skill redundancy to spare. Card manipulation is slow, however, it can lose a large amount of personnel and still be on its feet. Pre-Holodeck Adventures, speed seem to be more in favor, however, with more manipulation tricks and the introduction of a slowed down game, manipulation with larger decks will be on the rise.

Oh, and then there’s Carlos. A lot of strategy there, so, skip down a few articles for that one…

Combo(s):

Beyond The Subatomic(s) + Data, Keep Dealing = By discarding a lot of cards when cycling for a Beyond The Subatomic, you basically set yourself up for any three cards of your choice on top of your draw deck after playing Data, Keep Dealing

Mutation + Data, Keep Dealing = Discard pile?