Ah, I'm back from vacation, and here comes the next Tribble review.  The set has released, so I'll go back and start doing the cards I skipped for lack of sufficient knowledge to do a decent review, starting with Darvin. Today's card is a very powerful one, though:

Defend Homeworld (#41, U)
Objective
Icons: Hidden Agenda, Referee, Trouble with Tribbles
Seeds or plays on table.  When opponent initiates battle against your card at a homeworld matching that card's affiliation, just after it is targeted you may download there any number of HQ cards and compatible ships, leaders, SECURITY personnel, and hand weapons.  Once per game, you may discard objective to download a SECURITY personnel OR any HQ card (except Return Orb to Bajor).

Although by now most players agree that the second use is the one most people will be putting it in their decks for, I don't believe anything in the game exhibits the raw downloading power of the first (even Sphere Encounter limits you to downloading Spheres).  Since that's the use that caught everybody's attention first, I'll discuss it first, right after a quick analysis of its more superficial features.

It's a Hidden Agenda which has the flexibility of being either seeded or played, or downloaded or played for free with Q the Referee.  This is excellent in this regard, although by no means the only card which shares these abilities.  Most people will probably seed this card, as it's the second function they're really after... why bother with an extra QtR just to download this?  However, if you're using it more as homeworld insurance, the QtR would be a wiser use of the seed slot, as you can download something else if it's needed more.

So, on to that truly immense download.  Really.  All the ships, leaders, SECURITY, and hand weapons in a deck?  Yikes.  That's *HUGE*.  Even if you don't design your deck around it, with SECURITY, OFFICER, and Leadership being in such high demand these days, you'll be able to download at least 3-4 personnel, plus all ships and any hand weapons you might want to include.  And that's bare minimum, assuming a very tight personnel selection designed for raw speed.  A large, 60+ card deck will likely have twice or three times that many cards to download.  Yikes, indeed.

Now we have this great download.  So, being the typical players we are, let's try to find a way to break it. :-)  There's got to be *some* way to abuse something this big.  So, we have to find a way to force the trigger of the download: an attack at your homeworld against a card with the same affiliation as the homeworld (e.g., an attack against a Romulan personnel at Romulus would count, but an attack against Suna there would not).  First, you cannot attack your own cards, which also rules out using Alien Parasites, Neural Servo Device, Install Autonomic Systems Parasite, or other methods which allow you to gain control of your opponent's WEAPONS.  You can always hope that your opponent will take the risk of a ship battle, or forgets about this card and tries the ol' report-Roga-Danar-to-a-HQ-first-turn-and-kill-everybody-who-reports-there trick, but there's no way to rely on that.  Those two rule out quite a bit. So, we have to try to find a way to force your opponent to attack without directly controlling his ship.  Incoming Message: Attack Authorization isn't a good idea for this.  Although it does meet the criteria, your opponent has to be playing Feds, have a ship already at the homeworld, have Treachery but no V.I.P. aboard the ship, and you have to have a ship matching your homeworld's affiliation there for him to attack.  Eh, never mind. ;-)  The Issue is Patriotism isn't very reliable either, as your opponent would have to have either a ship or personnel at your homeworld while another crew is attempting missions.  That's not too absurd a situation, but nowhere near common enough for the trick to work most games.  So, we're left with the one most players have already found: Conundrum.

OK, so we've got the basics of this type of deck down: Conundrum your opponent so he attacks your ship at your homeworld, then download your deck: there's enough SECURITY and Leaders around with enough skills to get past almost anything.  AMS, ASP, QIR, or your normal card plays make up the rest; plus, there's the added bonus that many SECURITY/OFFICER/Leadership personnel already report for free at the HQ.  How viable is this?  Here's the short answer: not very.  Here's just a short listing of ways around this strategy.

1. Your opponent just plain passes the Conundrum.  Even with a filter (Chula:the Chandra, Hide and Seek, etc.), this may not stop a megacrew.  40 INTEGRITY really isn't that much.  On average, that's nine personnel, less if playing Feds.  Both C:tC and H&S can be rendered virtually ineffective by one card, if used in multiple: our good friend, the Soong-type Android. Even with Q-type Android out there, I still predict STAs will continue to be popular cards.  A report-for-free dial-a-classification is still very strong, even if not reliably reprogrammable.  Anyway, 4-5 STAs and you might as well kiss Conundrum goodbye.  5 STANs and any other INTEGRITY 7 personnel is enough to pass it... not to mention any high CUNNING or STRENGTH personnel you might chance to have.  Ditto with Hide and Seek... once a STA is chosen, the Seek is gone.  Even without androids, some players build decks to be completely immune to Chula: the Chandra by making all the personnel (or at least a good number of them) match at least one attribute.  You can add in some other filters (Lineup, etc.) but there's no guarantee that these will trigger either, plus in a large team, they'll likely still have the nine requisite personnel.

2. The ship, in some way, shape, or form, is unable to attack.  The most common way is for the ship to not have the necessary staffing requirements. Redshipping is a common strategy for going after space missions, especially now with Scans taking even more hits.  Between Borg Ships, Cytherians, nasty Aphasia Device combos, and this Conundrum/DH trick, it's definitely a wise idea to attempt the mission with only a few personnel (perhaps even meeting the mission requirements to bypass LoP) on a backup ship, keeping the mission-solvers away.  If the ship doesn't have staffing, well, too bad.  It can't attack, so it can't trigger the Defend Homeworld.  One other thing I'm unsure about is whether or not a ship has to have a leader on board.  The Dilemma Resolution Guide says that it overrides Borg attack restrictions, but does not say that it overrides the need for a leader.  If it does not override this restriction, then without an OFFICER or Leadership on board, again the opponent cannot trigger the DH.

3. Your opponent STPs the ship back to his hand.  No more Conundrum.  What can you do to stop this?  Seed Commandeer Ship and get a personnel to the ship somehow.  If there's lots of personnel on the ship, Scorched Hand your opponent after they pull it back to their hand.  Revolving Door the STPs. That's about it.  You can do the first and third option with minimal hassle (Sloan, infiltrators, etc. make it fairly easy to get somebody on your opponent's ship).

4. Your opponent wins the game before the ship attacks.  Not entirely out of the realm of possibility.  After all, your opponent may not even attempt space missions.  You can put out The Big Picture, but if (after red-shipping, even with staffing) solving the space mission puts your opponent over 100, the Conundrum didn't do much good.  Two planets and a space mission is 100 Big Picture-free points, and those missions can still be safe with Fair Play.  Ignoring Fair Play, one planet and one space can often do the trick.  Also, it takes several turns for the Conundrum-ed ship to attack.  The ship's stopped after failing to overcome it, plus however much time it takes for the ship to move to your homeworld.  2-3 turns is a reasonable estimate.  Note that at this point in time, your opponent is already out attempting missions.  There's a good probability that your opponent can solve most dilemmas and the missions by this point as well. 2-3 turns is plenty of time to win.  Even if you don't win by then, by the time you do the DH trick your opponent may well have a 40-plus point lead. A Mission Debriefing to keep your newly-downloaded supercrew from snowballing through the missions seals the advantage your opponent has, likely to the end of the game when he'll win.  You can try to make your opponent attack early... such as by infiltrating, then using Issue Secret Orders to force an early attempt at a mission with Conundrum.  Trouble: There is no way to infiltrate a Dominion, Cardassian, or Borg player; exposing the infiltrator can put an end to the thing; and your opponent can use one of the "ditch-the-infiltrator" tricks once there's a second ship around, to limit you to controlling one ship with one personnel... a ship that may not have its staffing requirements met.

5. There's always Computer Crash. ;-)

So, while any of these four can probably be decently accounted four, accounting for all four of these makes a deck very bulky.  And you have to account for all of these.  Omit one, and there's a good chance it'll cost you at least one game in a tournament.

Consequently, I don't think that dedicated DH decks will do too well in tournaments.  It'll win a decent share of games, but I seriously doubt they will dominate the tournament scene.  There's just too many things to account for for the deck to be reliable enough to consistently win tournaments.

Whew.  That's the first use.  Now onto the second one, which is now the focus of most of the discussion concerning this card.  Downloading a SECURITY is a very, very powerful function.  Not only will it assist any deck in its quest for speed, but it jump-starts a number of other decks. Playing Dominion?  Get Deyos right from the start.  Playing STAs?  Download Telak (who has Cybernetics) right off the bat.  Need any one skill?  DH Suna.  Even if he's not at the right location, his download isn't restricted to where he's at.  He can download Reflection Therapy into a different quadrant -- heck, even to a different time location -- if need be.  DH'ing Sloan has its advantages too... it makes Captured-PX easier, as well as commandeering Empok Nor or your opponent's ship if your opponent failed to seed an Empok dilemma or leave someone aboard his ship.  Or, you can just put him right with the rest of your mission-solving personnel.  There's lots of options for this second use.  You can also download a HQ card, but the SECURITY download will be the more influential one.  Most of the HQ cards are already seedable (Defensive Measures, Secure Homeworld) or downloadable by personnel or Q the Referee.

The last question about the second use is when the best time to download is.   Right from the start, or later?  The answer (the same answer that 99% of strategy questions get): Depends on the deck and the circumstances. :-)  If you're after sheer speed, download ASAP.  Not only does it get you the personnel, but it also strips a card out of your deck so you can draw into even more personnel/ships/card drawing/whatever.  Other decks might benefit from waiting, though.  I make it a policy not to reveal hidden agendas until necessary; the more you can keep your opponent guessing about your HAs, the better.  Also, once you discard one DH, your opponent will be more likely to attack your homeworld, hoping you don't have another.  Keeping them hidden maintains the suspense, and lessens the time your opponent might have to attack your homeworld before you win.  Also, it acts as a semi-Q's Tent.  If you wait until you need a certain SECURITY personnel (for example, you hit a wall that requires a skill found on a SECURITY personnel you haven't played), you can get exactly what you need.  Sarita Carson for Scientific Method, or whatever.

The final verdict: This is a card that'll be in almost every deck, but more for the second use than the first.  It's kinda like AMS: how could you refuse the download of a particular skill, classification, or whatever you want right off the bat?  If your opponent does and you don't, you've given him a significant card/play advantage (like a Black Lotus to lesser extent for M:TG players).  And as for that first use?  It's big enough to frighten off would-be homeworld attackers (glad I don't have to worry about Roga popping up on my HQs now), but it won't be used too much... sort of like Balancing Act or I Tried to Warn You.  The threat's usually big enough to discourage the trigger.

Next, an old one: Arne Darvin

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles