Trouble with Tribbles Card Review #36 - Subspace Transporter (#18, C)

Again, I apologize for the long break between reviews.  I'm on spring break now, but I'll be going on a mission trip to Mexico with my church for the week.  It'll be great fun, even though I won't get to relax and I end up missing about three tournaments. :-)

Subspace Transporter (Common [TT] Event, #18) Bok beamed to and from the U.S.S. Enterprise using a subspace transporter that forced his body into a state of quantum flux. Though dangerous, such devices have greatly extended range. Plays on your ship.  Each turn, ship may beam one of your Treachery personnel to and/or from *anywhere* at same or adjacent location.  Nullified only by Subspace Interference.  

Although the card looks powerful, in reality it's not that useful.  It has a few specialized uses, but these can usually be accomplished by other means.

A commonly asked question (at least when Tribbles first released) was this card's role in a capture deck.  Could you beam over with Ilon Tandro and nab someone?  At first, yes; the capture rules at the time allowed a captive to be relocated to any of your crews or Away Teams at the location, not necessarily the one doing the capturing, so players could snag a captive of their choice without waiting for the personnel to be stuck on a planet or go to the trouble of using Invasive Beam-Ins.

Of course, that rule was changed shortly thereafter, and it was additionally decided that the captive could not accompany the Treachery personnel during the beaming.  As a result, there's no real point in using this card to capture personnel.  When you beam your own personnel back, the captive remains on the ship, and unless you have another way of escorting the prisoner, the opponent can release your captive.

The only viable option would be to leave Ilon over on the opponent's ship, but with only a paltry four STRENGTH, he would usually be killed in short order, again allowing the opponent to release the prisoner.

Of course, Ilon Tandro isn't the only personnel with an effect that's best used on an opponent's personnel, Leck being the most prominent example. Play the Subspace Transporter, beam Leck over, and knock off whomever you want.  This is probably one of the better uses for the Subspace Transporter.   That doesn't mean that it's necessarily the best way to use this.  Instead of using a card play on the Subspace Transporter, another option is to use Devidian Door.  This has the added advantages of not using your card play, gives you greater flexibility in that Leck doesn't have to beam from a ship at the same or adjacent location, plus you can always use the Devidian Door on someone (or something... don't forget that you can D-Door Equipment :-) else if you don't want to use it on Leck.

There are downsides to using Devidian Door, though; there is a risk of losing the game if it gets knocked out of your hand, and any opponent who still has an Obelisk/Masaka combo left won't hesitate to use it in this case.  Definitely be prepared, either by stocking Kevins, a number of Devidian Doors, or by putting a D-Door in your Tent.  Also, if you're only using a Space-Time Portal to play [AU] cards, the D-Door will use up the once-per-turn limit.  Plus, you can't use Leck for all of his other wonderful features (that Exobiology and SECURITY definitely comes in handy) if he's stuck in your hand waiting for you to Devidian Door him at the appropriate moment -- and he might be stuck on an opponent's ship or facility afterwards.

So, the decision here comes down to how much you want to dedicate the Devy Doors too (and how much you value Leck for anything other than his killing ability).  There's a chance you're planning on a Devidian Door strategy anyway... in this case, it's definitely better to replace the Transporter with an extra D-Door.

These are the primary uses, although there are a number of other fun things you can do with this transporter.

- It essentially increases your ship's RANGE by one spaceline location for one personnel.  This is useful for effects that require you to be at the same location as your opponent such as Protection Racket (always usable here, because you can't use it without a Treachery personnel anyway, so there's no worry about the Transporter's restriction to Treachery), 47th Rule of Acquisition (Be sure to put the Rule on a Treachery personnel in this case), or stealing Orbs with HQ: Return Orb to Bajor.  You can even use Ves Alkar in case your opponent has any pesky female Empaths. :-)  This is also good if you need to add someone to one of your crews/Away Teams at an adjacent location in case of dilemmas, or anything else.

- It allows one personnel to beam through the SHIELDS of your Nor.  You can also beam between Nor sites (if the ship is docked there), which you might want to do to get around the once-per-turn restriction on walking.  Did you just complete a Cargo Run and want your personnel back on your ship?  A Subspace Transporter will take care of this.  You can also complete a cargo run this way once you've docked the ship at the Nor, although you can only beam twice per turn with this card: once from the ship to somewhere else, and once from somewhere else to the ship (not necessarily in this order).

- Personnel battle.  Although this won't be very good against large crews, you might occasionally want to take someone like Lore onto your opponent's outpost or ship to start a battle.  I assume that you can carry Equipment cards along with your personnel, so you can add a few hand weapons if you think they're needed.  This is particularly effective against players who run ships with just one or two personnel aboard (such as armadas), or if you draw the Subspace Transporter early in the game and want to stick someone on your opponent's outpost.

- Getting somebody onto an empty ship to commandeer it.

There are probably plenty of other uses as well, but these are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

The biggest drawback to this card is that it costs a card play.  Against modern speed decks, you have to be very, very careful about where you spend your card plays, and in most decks, I don't think a Subspace Transporter makes the cut.  How many decks do you have where you can honestly say it'll help more than, say, a Kivas, a ship, or a good personnel who doesn't play for free, like Dr. Soong?

In a stall deck it's more useful.  Because you plan on making more card plays, each one is essentially worth less, so you can afford to use it on things that you wouldn't consider in a speed deck.  You had better make sure you can stop a speedy opponent, though.  Stall decks also tend to find more use in messing around with your opponent with battle, Protection Racket, 47th Rule, Ves Alkar, etc. :-)

One final thing worth mentioning is its immunity to Kevin Uxbridge.  Few players stock Scanner Interference.  Right after Rules of Acquisition released some people started stocking it to counter HQ: Ferengi Credit Exchange, but I haven't seen either card in months.  As a result, it's more like an incident or objective in the sense that the risk of it being nullified is very low.  I wouldn't stock extra Amandas to protect this card.

The final verdict: This card has quite a few sly uses to it, and can act as a mini-Devidian Door for personnel in play, in the sense that you can move them essentially anywhere within a spaceline location of their current location.  It's also re-usable, although it won't play anyone for free.  As a player who primarily uses speed decks, I haven't found much use for it, but in a deck planning on heavy interaction, it's a good way to get someone to where your opponent has personnel.  Although it does cost a card play, it's also likely to stick around for the entire game.  IMO the coolest trick is the early-game "stick Lore on the opponent's outpost" gimmick, which has a bit of potential for stalling decks through the opening into the middle game, where a slower deck can really come into its own.

Next, whenever that will be: Temporal Investigations

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles