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Rules of Acquisition Metagame Preview by Alidar Jarok Well, the Worlds are slowly creeping up on us. A lot of the qualifers probably expected to tweak their decks before the Worlds start to take advantage of what will be the current metagaming trends. Oh, how correct they were. However, "tweak" may not be a strong enough word. They will be getting a dozen Rules of Acquisition cards to augment their decks with, designed at limiting certain strategies, among other things. Again, "limiting" might not be a strong enough word either. "Kill" might be more like it. Half of the cards below cripple just about every deck that has won a Regional, some to more of an extent than others. So, what effects will these cards bring about? Kukalaka Equipment Beloved childhood companion (and first surgical patient) of Julian Bashir. Loaned to, and especially treasured by, Leeta. A timeless symbol of innocence and security. Your non-Borg personnel present are each INTEGRITY +2, or +3 if Leeta present. Also, each player is limited to one Brain Drain OR one Going To The Top every turn. (Unique.) A card most easily accessible to the Federation and Bajorans. However, of all the affiliations, they probably need this card (at least for the first function) the least. Instead of having a bunch of INTEGRITY 8 personnel, they have a bunch of INTEGRITY 10 personnel. Whoopie. However, the Romulans and Cardassians can definitely take advantage of this. This card will be a savior against Firestorm in some cases, which is ripe for a comeback because of the high volume of Cardassian decks seen today. More importantly, it makes getting by Alien Parasites a lot easier for these two. As for the second function... good and ok. The Brain Drain limit of one can still hurt you quite a bit - Draining a key personnel at the right time can kill your entire crew. IP Scanner has a better effect here, though it's not global. Limiting the Going To The Top is good, though. It doesn't kill the purpose of the card - you can grab an Admiral here and there. However, it does kill GTTT/Q decks... providing you can get to the teddy first. Unfortunately, if they get the first turn, you might not even get the opportunity... I like how they mentioned that the bear is a symbol of security. Unfortunately, it appeared in the lore instead of the game text. Random Oddity of the Day #1: Julian's sleeping serenely, cuddled up next to his trusty teddy, when suddenly... *BOOM!* Mr. Bear blows up. Apparently, his stuffing overloaded... It's Only A Game Incident, Hidden Agenda, Referee Seeds or plays on table. Limits each non-Borg report with crew action to four total personnel/equipment. Limits Red Alert to one Personnel, one Ship and one Equipment card per turn. Limits probing and doubling for Visit Cochrane Memorial to once per game per persona. Also, whenever opponent draws three or more cards in one turn, you may download (even from discard pile) Scorched Hand, ignoring Computer Crash. This, in essence, hurts speed decks. You can't report a Future Enterprise full of Federation personnel anymore, which kills the Plans/Q decks. Ironically, you can still report a Borg Scout Vessel full of 20 drones. It's even easier for the Queen-less Borg decks to accomplish this now, when you factor in cards like We Are The Borg. Just build up a hand and drop it all down multiple times. As for the second part... Do phrases like "kick a man when he's down," "stabbed in the back," and "overkill" mean anything to Decipher? Examine Singularity killed Red Alert, for all intents and purposes. Where it fails, Ready Room Door and Yellow Alert take over. You can even use his Red Alert with Mirror Image or Spacedoor before nullifying it as well. Do they really need to do anything else? Ah, this also proves a good VCM counter. No more beaming Reg down to Earth on the first turn, then discarding a few Scanner Interfaces to make opposing it next to impossible. If you want to use it, now you'll have to stock a number of ENGINEERS in your deck, and always keep them close to Earth. Kivas Fajo - Collector takes another hit. Now not only can you Mirror it, but you can immediately knock them back down to six cards in most cases. I like it. Makes things a little more risky. The ignoring Computer Crash part is nice, because Computer Crash itself can counter most of the counters when they're needed the most, and getting 10 and 01 into play quickly can be inefficient. I'm also glad about the way they worded the download - you can download Scorched Hand only when they draw three or more cards. Prevents a repeat of the Examine Singularity cheese. Quark's Isolinear Rods Incident, Hidden Agenda, Countdown 1 Seeds or plays on table. You may ignore each opponent's Computer Crash. Also, you may nullify any or all cards preventing you from playing Q's Tent (discard incident after card taken from tent). Once per game, you may download to hand Intermix Ratio, The Big Picture or a non-OFFICER who has Computer Skill x2 (discard incident). Does not count down while you have any Quark in play. A Computer Crash Crash? A little funny, as Computer Crash was introduced in DS9 to limit downloading abuses and to counter powerful combos (Scout Encounter / Quantum Singularity Lifeforms was the source of a lot of controversy after FC was released, for some reason). So Computer Crash countered it, perhaps a little too well. But the threat of the Compulink Drone (which almost every Borg Cube deck uses, if only for his seedable staffing icon) and 10 and 01 (who are becoming way more popular if only for their special download) kept these strategies in check, or at least made them a risky use of seed slots. But now? Again, this is a counter that is powerful and counters multiple decks, so it'll be commonly seen. Should we really kill Computer Crash? It's risky enough, and balanced enough, IMHO, as it is now. It allows ensures that you'll be able to access your Tent. Is it just me, or was the "necessity" of a Tent one of the central complaints about the game when Q-Continuum was out? Draw a Tent on the first turn, get Dathon. Next turn, get R'Mor. And so on. This was a precursor to downloading, in a way - it was easy to get what you wanted. And in that day, getting what you wanted was more of an advantage than it is today, given the way the game has evolved. Granted, Ops takes away the power of this a bit, and the strategies are getting more diverse. But, like the previous function of this card, it's a bit strange that Decipher's moving back to a mechanic that players have complained about before as being broken or too unbalancing. Yes, I know that most of the first- or second-turn win decks are based around keeping an Intermix Ratio in the Tent. These Borg Hunter, dilemma bonus point, and Colony decks are probably the reason why this function was made. But this card may open up a can of worms that Decipher didn't think about beforehand. This has the potential of being abused, and could possibly need a counter to the counter of a counter. Don't we have enough counters? Other than in the poor exuse of a kitchin in my dorm room, of course. ;-) Once per game, you may download an Intermix Ratio, The Big Picture, or specific personnel. OK, the ease of getting the Intermix in play is apparent - it's always been wondered why Intermix wasn't seedable (and, in fact, there's a rumor floating around that it was seedable during playtesting), and it should help a bit. As for The Big Picture, it might be going a bit far. This will force every player to solve diverse missions, instead of encouraging them to. But in the end, it's probably not all that bad. As for the personnel, it's there more for thematic reasons. However, there's some interesting possibilities here. In essence, you can "seed" Elim, Odo, Senator Letant, and even Quark. How would you like to start off with 10 and 01 and two mission specialists? Now you can, if you don't mind giving up the ability to download the two previous cards. At least it takes up your card play (because it downloads to your hand) to balance it a bit. It doesn't count down with Quark in play. Again, a thematic feature, but with Quark in play Computer Crash is totally useless. And he can be downloaded by this card too! Download good ol' Son of Keldar on your first turn using this card, and a second copy will totally kill Computer Crash. Reactor Overload Incident, Hidden Agenda, Referee Seeds or plays on table. If any player has "processed ore" to draw two cards per turn at any one Ore Processing Unit, destroys that site. OR Seeds or plays on table. Place on your ship or facility. EM surge disables each android aboard until Cybernetics present; erases all (holo) cards aboard; kills each Borg aboard (unless (Com) drone in hive); and kills all Rogue Borg aboard. Return incident to your hand after either use. Well, there goes the popularity of the Cardassians. I predict a sharp decrease in their decks by the end of the year. Process Ore as you normally do, and suddenly your Nor will be minus one site. That's very harsh. And possibliy necessary, due to how much they're being abused today. But it severely limits the card advantage of the Cardassians, plus it makes non-Ore Processing affiliations (specifically the Bajorans) more likely to be used. Keep in mind that Ore Processing still can be abused. After all, you can still decide to draw one or no cards. Take the ol' Klingon Empok Nor deck. Download a unique K'Vort as your card play, then play Ready Room Door to download its commander. Place the Ready Room Door back on the top of the deck. Next turn, process one of your "Examine Singularity cards", enabling you to draw your Ready Room Door to repeat the process until you run out of K'Vorts. I'm sure there's other ways to take advantage of this as well. It's also possible to use it to prevent drawing out - process a card, and draw none. Your net card draws for each turn will then be zero. As for the EM surge part of the card, it's protecting for your ship. An android assault party will be disabled (unless they decide to bring Telak or the like with), plus it's yet another way to kill all-holo teams. However, Deactivation is much easier to take care of holos, as they don't have to be on your ship - why would I beam Newton over to your ship in the first place? As for killing the Borg, what hive doesn't have a (Com) Borg? This would only really be a quick way to "reclaim" a personnel hit by Borg Servo, or to take care of a careless Borg player's Undetected Beam-In download. Kills Rogue Borg? Not the first counter, though it's probably more effective since it can be seeded. The last part is interesting - you bring it back to your hand when you use it. Again, this is better wording than Examine Singularity. In essence, you "download it from your discard pile once per turn", but this way doesn't lead to abuses. However, since playing the card counts as a card play, you'll be lagging behind, using up your card plays to stop Rogue Borg, while your opponent gets card plays. But with Ore Processing down and It's Only A Game, it's unlikely they'll get all those RBM's without sacrificing card plays in the first place... Writ Of Accountability Incident, Hidden Agenda, Referee Seeds or plays on table. Once per game, downloads an FCA personnel; discard incident. OR Seeds or plays on table. Place on your (Fer) FCA personnel. If opponent has used Subspace Schism, Brain Drain or Horga'hn more than twice OR played Static Warp Bubble, Anti-Time Anomaly or Black Hole more than once OR used their own dilemma(s) to score more than 15 points or to discard other seed cards, they lose the game. Um, where to start? First, it's another of those once-per-game personnel downloads, this one geared towards the Ferengi. How would you like to be able to "seed" Brunt? For the second part, it meshes well with the first part. It needs a Ferengi FCA personnel to play on, which you can grab with the first function. But this is a very interesting function: use an abusive strategy, and you lose. Assuming that this card is anything like Devidian Door (and due to the wording, there's no reason why it shouldn't be), that'll be a 100-0 loss. Try to Q-bypass on me? I win, 100-0. Try to use a Horga'hn on me for a couple of turns? You lose 100-0. Going to try to win with two 40-point missions and two Barclay's Protomorphosis Diseases? I win, 100-0. Try that Holo/ATA cheese on me? The victory is mine. Brain Drain / Thought Fire? I win. This is good that it eliminates most of the cheese out there - dilemma bonus point wins, Q-bypass, ATA, Black Hole / Examine Singularity, and so forth. Unfortunately, it knicks a few viable strategies. What's wrong with giving up five points to use Pla-Net to kill the next dilemma once per mission? Is that really any worse than Senior Staff Meeting? Actually, it's nowhere near as bad. So why punish it and not the Meeting? I do like how it totally devatates these kinds of decks - it should do nothing but make the game more fair and enjoyable to all. All you need to do is Tent for Brunt (more on him later) and download this card, and you win. Unless you play Borg, of course. In this case, you're stuck using the older, less-reliable methods. But then again, the metagame itself should be enough. There are two ways to use this: sooner or later. You could wait until they use a Horga'hn for a few turns, then pull out this card for the win. Or, you could pull this out immediately to prevent them from playing such a deck. If your entire deck is based around scoring Cytherians points, you'll have problems getting any more than 15 points. Of course, there's the third way to use this too: metagame. We don't see Balancing Act often, yet we almost always see balanced spacelines. Same will happen here: you won't have to use this card as much as you'd expect. Just the thought of a deck type automatically losing 100-0 from an uber-counter should discourage that deck like nobody's business. Leeta Bajoran/Ferengi Personnel CIVILIAN Bajoran dabo girl. Formed the Guild of Restaurant and Casino Employees with Rom. Amateur sociologist. Was formally separated from Julian Bashir on Risa in 2373. • Anthropology • Youth • Computer Skill • Leadership • Music [sd] Dabo OR Kukalaka INTEGRITY 7 CUNNING 6 STRENGTH 4 Let's see... why is she here? Well, her Computer Skill/CIVILIAN status could allow her to quickly strike and commandeer a defenseless Nor, but how often do we see those lying around? With a Fed/Baj Treaty and any Federation male CIVILIAN, Risa Shore Leave is all yours. But why use that mission when there's easier ones worth more points with a tighter skill selection? Her CIVILIAN and Anthropology will get you by Primitive Culture, but that dilemma died when DS9 was released. She can download an equipment card that gives the Feds and Bajorans more of what they have more than enough of. Um... Oh yeah! That's it! She's in there solely for autograph purposes! Of course, things may change if considering her for a Ferengi deck. But right now, she stands as much of a chance of making it into my Bajoran deck as Tora Ziyal does. Dabo might change this, but then again, Dabo may be as useful as Live Long and Prosper or Make It So are. Random Oddity of the Day #2: Koloth, the Great Klingon Warrior, commander of the IKC Gr'oth, nemesis of the legendary James T. Kirk, can't lead a bunch of eager Klingons into battle. However, with the appropriate treaty, Leeta the Dabo Girl can lead them to glory worthy of song. Lemec Cardassian Personnel Command Star OFFICER Gul in command of the Reklar. Clashed with Captain Edward Jellico over troop and ship movements along the Federation-Cardassian border. • Geology • MEDICAL • Music • Transporter Skill INTEGRITY 6 CUNNING 7 STRENGTH 8 He's a Gul, so he reports for free to Central Command, and he's a leader. He's also the commander of a ship, but it's not out yet. As for his skills, Cardassians have the best MEDICAL personnel outside of the Federation, and Ghoren also supplies the Geology and Music. Telle supplies the MEDICAL and Transporter Skill, but also adds the ever-useful SECURITY. In essence, he's not all that impressive right now. You're still better off using other personnel, unless you want to report him for free to Central Command. Deyos Dominion Personnel Command Star, Gamma Quadrant SECURITY Vorta in charge of Internment Camp 371. Responsible for training and equipping Jem'Hadar troops. Accepts nothing less than perfect obedience. • May draw a card for each non-Youth Jem'Hadar that enters play here. • Treachery x2 • Archaeology INTEGRITY 4 CUNNING 7 STRENGTH 6 Ah, now Deyos is a bit different from Lemec - he's hardly "just an ordinary personnel." He actually makes those seemingly-obsolete unique Gamma Jemmies useful again. After all, why play them when you can play a whole bunch of universal Jemmies quicker with the Birthing Chamber, or plop Kudak'Etan right into the Alpha Quadrant? Because now you get card draws. Play Ixtana'Rax while Deyos is at your Primary Supply Depot, draw a card. Report Goran'Agar, draw a card. Of course, you can do this with the Alphas too, but you're more limited. But best of all are using the Birthing Chamber with him. Load him on a ship with the Chamber. You don't get the card draw with the Young Jemmie, but you do get the draw when your universal Jemmie replaces him. And that card draw could very well be another Jemmie, allowing you to build up a very quick force without resorting to the mirror-able Traveler and more-risky Fajo. As for his skills... he has skills? Really, will we ever use them? He's much more valuable just sitting around on an outpost/ship... Nog Federation/Ferengi Personnel Staff Star ENGINEER Dedicated, hardworking ensign. The first Ferengi in Starfleet. Friend of Jake. Briefly served as chief engineer of U.S.S. Valiant under Captain Watters. • Physics • Honor • Youth • Acquisition • ENGINEER (if aboard your Defiant-class or (Fer) ship). INTEGRITY 8 CUNNING 8 STRENGTH 6 Let's see, he's a super-ENGINEER only when on the Defiant for an affiliation that has more super-ENGINEERS than it knows what to do with. The Physics can easily be found on other super-ENGINEERS. Honor can be found on countless Bridge (or Ops) Crew. So really the only advantage that he has over other Fed ENGINEERS is his Youth and Acquisition. However, unless you plan to use them for something, they can probably just be ignored. So what's his use? To be autographed! Of course, things will probably change when he's being considered for a Ferengi deck. But the Ferengi aren't out yet... Brunt Ferengi Personnel Staff Star V.I.P. Liquidator with the Ferengi Commerce Authority. Rude. Arrogant. Corrupt. Despised and envied by Ferengi everywhere. Strives to ruin Quark. • FCA x2 • Treachery x2 • Navigation • Law • Greed • Computer Skill [sd] Writ of Accountability INTEGRITY 2 CUNNING 8 STRENGTH 5 Six skills plus a special download? Two of those skills being doubled? And the special download being more powerful than others like, say, Sense the Borg? Only Lore matches him in efficiency! He's Ferengi, but he does have a purpose. Download him to a Guest Quarters using Writ of Accountability, then download Writ of Accountability. Cheese dies, you get a personnel (though you probably can't use him for much), and you don't even use up your card play. Other than that, right now it's not that easy to predict his exact uses. Treachery x2 can be used for many things, and the FCA x2 can solve Earth alone (assuming you get the necessary Espionage card in this set). Navigation is always useful, as is Computer Skill, Law's actually getting more important, and Greed is just to be expected. Oddly, no Acquisition. We'll just have to wait to see his full uses. Margh Klingon Personnel Staff Star SECURITY Veteran Klingon warrior. Achieved many glorious victories. Trained in battlefield medicine. Former member of Gowron's elite High Council honor guards. • Honor • Geology • MEDICAL • Transporter Skill INTEGRITY 6 CUNNING 7 STRENGTH 7 Rates right up there with Lemec. He can report to The Great Hall for free, and SECURITY is always nice. As for his skills, they're almost identical to Lemec's. Klingons have caught up in Geology with Hon'Tihl, they have more Honor than the know what to do with, and they're getting more and more Transporter Skill. His SECURITY/MEDICAL classification alone, however, will land him in many Klingon decks. Senator Cretak Romulan Personnel Command Star V.I.P. Female Romulan. Kimara Cretak was liaison to Deep Space 9 in 2375. Coordinated a fleet of warbirds attempting to deliver weapons to a Bajoran moon. • Honor • Law • SECURITY • Physics • Your (Rom) ships at same location are WEAPONS +2. INTEGRITY 7 CUNNING 7 STRENGTH 5 The Klingons got Martok, then the Cardassians got Dolak, now comes the Senator. Not only does she report for free at the Office of the Proconsul (I see a pattern here), but she also provides the same WEAPONS boost as the others do. As for skills, Honor isn't much use to the Romulans in general, Law isn't that necessary because they can easily pass Drumhead, Physics isn't entirely useful for Romulan decks and has no dilemma value whatsoever, and the SECURITY is good. So her skills aren't to write home about. So basically, her only use is her WEAPONS bonus. This gives Warbirds a bit of a boost. However, Science Vessel Swarms will make a more fearful attack force (Science Vessel Assault Armada - go figure). Unfortunately, she's not a leader, so she'll have to "double up" on a ship, making her a little less efficient. Now that three of the four "militant" have armada-enhancing skills (Klingons, Romulans, and Cardassians), all that's missing is the Dominion. Lumat'Ukan comes close, but only modifies one ship. But then again, does any affiliation that has universal ships with WEAPONS 8 and only one staffing requirement really need enhancements? Random Oddity of the Day #3: Cretak, member of the Romulan Senate and briliant tactician, can't even impliment those tactical commands... but Leeta the Dabo Girl can. Well, if these are any indication of the cards that will be in Rules, we'll have a highly interesting set. On the other hand, the number of magic bullets here are slightly less than what appeared in Blaze, and Rules promises to have a ton of Ferengi personnel and ships, and a lot of other stuff no one will ever use, like Ferengi PADDs. However, as is evident above, the set has a lot of potential. As for the decision to release these cards to the Worlds players, I think it's a good idea. Though they'll say otherwise, I'm sure that Decipher wasn't thrilled with a Q-bypass deck winning the Worlds last year, which is supposed to be the pinnacle of all Trek tournaments. And those of us that follow SWCCG remember what happened to the SW Worlds when they released Special Edition... It would be nice to see a normal deck win some for once, not one that skips dilemmas or solves no missions. This promises to be a good tournament to watch... Too bad only those in the Finals get the cards. :-( But what should the finalists do about these cards? I'd say not stock them. After all, they're new and they're insanely powerful, so a lot of the finalists will feel compelled to stock them. As such, they'll probably go for any deck that isn't targetted by one of the cards listed above. If the majority of them do this, then they wasted seed slots, for the most part. Why not make the most of it by using a Wormhole deck instead, and saving the seed slots for something else? :-) Just the humble thoughts of a tired, overworked Romulan defector, of course. ;-) Alidar Jarok bwa@force.stwing.upenn.edu http://force.stwing.upenn.edu/~bwa/stccg/