I realize it's a bit ironic that the first post-Christmas review is of a Rule of Acquisition, which don't necessarily embody the Christmas spirit. At least not the ideal one, reality may be slightly different. :-)  But don't get me on to that soapbox. :-)  Oh well, that's just the way the scheduling turned out...

62nd Rule of Acquisition
[Rule]  Common [TT]
"The riskier the road, the greater the profit."
#16 Plays on your unattempted mission.  Nullified if you begin an attempt with <3 (or >7) personnel, or if you play (or have played) Scan or Full Planet Scan.  If you solve, score points; opponent loses points (discard event.)  [+-10]

Any Rule of Acquisition is most easily used in a Ferengi deck, for obvious gameplay and storyline reasons.  You can use the Equipment card The Ferengi Rules of Acquisition to put Rules cards not immediately useful underneath your deck, a la Q the Referee, either drawing a card or downloading a Rule of Acquisition of your choice.  You can also download any [Rule] card with Grand Nagus Gint, who's easily obtainable through a seeded 1st Rule of Acquisition.  He can even play for free at the Tower of Commerce, essentially giving you the Rule of your choice for free -- this is a common tactic in Ferengi decks.  And you can use Scepter of the Grand Nagus to play your Rules for free and prevent their nullification.

Of course, not all of them may fit in perfectly with a good Ferengi strategy.  For example, Ferengi battle decks aren't too common, so 34th Rule is less used in pure Ferengi decks (unless attacking an uncontrolled Empok Nor to draw cards while safe from retaliation.)  However, this rule fits in quite well with Ferengi decks.

Scoring 10 points is hard to pass up, and it's even harder to pass up when you penalize your opponent by 10 points.  That's a 20-point spread -- about half of a typical mission!  Using two copies of the 62nd Rule and two 40-point missions gets you right to the magic 100, while penalizing your opponent by twenty points.  In tournaments this is especially powerful, because differential is very important.  If your opponent solves one mission (to your two), typically you'll win with a +60 differential or so.  Use the 62nd Rule twice and you'll have a +80.  Twenty differential points times five rounds gives you potentially one hundred extra differential points -- and anybody who's lost a tournament due to differential knows the pain in this.  (I know I do... one tournament I went undefeated and beat the two highest ranked people in the world (at that time), but I had a timed win and a tie and came in second by differential.)  Even if you don't win, you can get more time to win.  There are still a lot of decks that have a plan to hit 100 points right on the button.  Sure, they've adapted to The Big Picture, and have a contingency for Q's Planet, but knocking off twenty points goes a long way to derailing such plans, often forcing the opponent onto another mission.

True, you can't Scan, but I think players have gotten used to that by now. Note that it doesn't matter which mission you target with the Scan: if you have ever played a Scan, the 62nd Rule nullifies itself.  After you score the points, it can't be nullified, but you can't do the first-action Scan trick, which has become popular among some players (stock enough Scans to draw one in the opening hand; if you go first, play it as the first action of the game before a QtR is flipped; otherwise, try it anyway if the opponent doesn't flip over a QtR immediately).  Attempting with 3-7 personnel isn't much of a disadvantage anymore either, with megateam-punishers like The Higher... the Fewer and Denevan Neural Parasites seeing plenty of use.  You have few enough people to nix any THTF losses with Bribery, plus you're risking fewer personnel to various other nasty dilemmas.  One very powerful strategy I've seen involves using the dual-icon missions Runabout Search and Deliver Supplies, very easy Ferengi missions. During the seed phase, use Assign Mission Specialists to download Dr. Borts and Dr. Farek.  Use your Defend Homeworld to download Gaila, who downloads a Hidden Fighter for Quark's Treasure.  Assign Support Personnel for Prak, and use your card play for the 62nd Rule.  Put Farek on the planet and everybody else on Quark's Treasure.  You have a matching commander aboard, so discard a Make It So to download a Ready Room Door to download Senior Staff Meeting.   You've already eliminated one dilemma, and the others are much easier with the rules for attempting dual-icon missions.  When you face "either" (i.e., space/planet) dilemmas, you choose whether the crew or the Away Team is affected.  Run into a Higher... the Fewer?  Choose the small team.  Ditto with a Q-Flash: if either the crew or Away Team is completely removed, the mission attempt *immediately* stops: even in the middle of a Flash.  So, if you run into a Flash and encounter, say, Penalty Box... choose the one-personnel Away Team to be affected.  No more Away Team, no more mission attempt, no more Q-Flash... and yes, the Flash is discarded.  Use the typical Ferengi speed to crash through the remaining dilemmas, scoring fifty points for solving the mission.  (40 base, 10 from 62nd Rule).  Go to the other dual-icon mission, lather, rinse, repeat, and win, free of The Big Picture.  If you're lucky, the two Ferengi doctors will still be alive, giving you AMS bonus points on Runabout Search, compensating for any miscellaneous losses.

Or you can combine it with other point denial cards... Hero/DRAGS/62nd Rule has seen some popularity.  Knock off 10 points from most missions with Hero, another 10 with Destroy Radioactive Garbage Scow, another 10 with 62nd Rule... how many points was that mission worth again? ;-)  Of course, Hero doesn't work as well with the Ferengi (they don't get the mission-point enhancements that other affiliations do, because there are few (if any) missions showing a Klingon and Ferengi icon) unless you want to use some Bribery.  So, you may have to do some mismatching (either lose the Ferengi benefits of playing the 62nd Rules for free, or lose the extra points on your missions) but it has some potential.  Of course, one problem with these decks is that it's often possible for an opponent to outrun them, or lock them down either with battle or stasis, before all the denial falls into place, giving the opponent plenty of time to win anyway, even though it may be a timed win.  But the bigger risk is that you've virtually ensured a loss against a Borg deck.  Absolutly *none* of the aforementioned point-denial even touches the Borg.  So, while you've devoted all the seed slots to Hero cards, all the dilemma slots to Radioactive Garbage Scows (or even the combo FLI/RGS dilemma) that are completely irrelevant to the Borg, and all the deck slots to DRAGS and 62nd Rule that, at worst, kill one or two Borg scouts.  It'd be tough to win (assuming both players were of similar skill) with so much of your deck rendered essentially useless.  It's also harder against a Dominion deck, where Hero's point-reducing effects don't extend to the Gamma Quadrant.  And a heavy troika deck can nullify the DRAGS and 62nd Rule (if no Scepter is in play) with a barrage of Kevins and Mandys.

The final verdict: Useful in some specialty decks, and possibly worth splashing into some other decks.  In the aforementioned trick decks it'll be a staple, and a standard Ferengi mission-solver might benefit from it as well, but in the latter case I wouldn't necessarily overload the deck with them or expend a number of resources getting it out early.  It can work with other point denial, but such a deck has a number of weaknesses that keep them from dominating the tournament scene like Thought Fire did.

Next: Organian Peace Treaty

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles