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The New Dilemma Ruling
by Chris Brennan From the current rulings:
The simple explanation: Dilemmas need a target in order to resolve, just like any other action. To explain this in terms of other dilemmas: Start with Framed for Murder. Now everyone knew how that worked. If there's no unique personnel to place it on, the dilemma is discarded. The new rule extends this logic to all dilemmas with specific targets. What about Angry Mob? If there's no SECURITY or Shapeshifters present, there's no one for the remaining away team to rescue. OK, most people played it that way already, now that's the official rule. Empathic Echo is a card that was completely changed by this rule. Since it says "one personnel with Empathy is killed unless...", you have to start by targeting an Empath. If there are none, then you can skip the conditions and go to the next dilemma. How about Berserk Changeling? Well, that's just like Empathic Echo, it kills a specific personnel (this time with a lack of a characteristic, a non-changeling) and has conditions. It just happens to be phrased as "Unless [conditions] kills [specific target]", where Empathic Echo is worded in the opposite order. What does this mean for gameplay and strategy? There are a number of dilemmas that, with the new ruling, immediately discard if the targets are not present. Let's look at the 14 dilemmas affected by this: Empathic Echo: The odds of having an Empath present are not very good. So this dilemma is now rather useless. That's OK, this had been replaced by Scientific Method in most decks already. Center of Attention will likely be discarded, too, but it was pretty useless already. Assassin's Blade and Berserk Changeling: What are the odds of an all-Changeling away team? The ones I do see have 3 SECURITY (Odo Founder and Kira Founder) for Berserk anyway. All-android away teams are extremely rare, so Android Nightmares and Barclay's Protomorphosis Disease will probably work just as before. Thought Fire tends to find a target all the time, too. So does Untrustworthy Associate. Flaxian Assassin: There's a very good chance that this card will find a target. The weakness here is that the opponent can now get by it on the second attempt with just a mission specialist, but that's not much worse than knowing they have to get 2 SECURITY and Biology. Most people don't have that many 1- or 2-dot personnel in their decks, so they will probably be redshirting if they try that. Put a Lack of Preparation or Armus: Sticky Situation or other anti-redshirt card behind Flaxian. Or use Beware of Q to swap in a Flash with an I Tried To Warn You. Zaldan: This works just like Flaxian, though it doesn't have quite the same chance of finding a target. The problem here is that it's easy to get rid of the dilemma if there's no Diplomacy present. It might as well read "discard dilemma", since no one will be stuck behind it for long. Unfortunately, there's nothing to put after a Zaldan that would really hurt a team without Diplomacy. But with those conditions, Zaldan wasn't a very good dilemma to begin with anyway. New Essentialists: This is now irrelevant to Borg. It's not a complete loss, since now they can't use it to stack up lots of drones on a planet. Like most irrelevant dilemmas, this is a good card for Borg to scout through if stealing opponent's missions. No Loose Ends: This is actually a lot better now. If the opponent encounters it with no MEDICAL or ENGINEER, they ignore the conditions and can not be stopped. That means that they can't avoid the next dilemma. I know that if I hit a No Loose Ends, I would expect a MEDICAL-related dilemma afterwards, so if I was stopped by No Loose Ends, I'd definitely get some MEDICAL before re-attempting. But if there's no MEDICAL at all, there's no way to avoid hitting that Barclays or Tarellian Plague Ship. Angry Mob works the same way, and now combos even better with BPD. Cardassian Trap: Well, what are the odds of the opponent having no unique personnel? (And no, don't tell me they would only have universal personnel attempting if they scan. After a scan, they could prepare for anything, Cardassian Trap is no different.) The real problem now is that Cardassians walk right through this dilemma. Or do they? The good Cardassian decks I see are now using Cargo Bay for NA support personnel. Those are still good targets for the Trap. Consider using this in your own Cardassian decks. It's easy for them to espionage through. Seed Cardassian Trap - In the Pale Moonlight under a mission you want to steal. To sum up, I count three (Cardassian Trap, No Loose Ends, Angry Mob) that became even more evil. One more (New Essentialists) irrelevant to the Borg, which isn't much in the long list of cards they find irrelevant. Eight others are not really affected. And only two (Empathic Echo, Center of Attention) were hurt. That's a small price to pay for making all these cards play more logically. Chris 'Rom' Brennan
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