Well, after a very long break, here is number forty.  I've been busy all summer long with such things as working and taking a rather intensive set of summer classes, not to mention having most of my mom's side of the family visiting, having my wisdom teeth extracted, and having our septic system fail. :-)  So, with most of that out of the way and nearly a month before fall quarter begins, I should be able to start doing these again.  Who knows, I might even start a State of the Metagame Report...  But anyway, here's today's card from Tribbles:

Deep Space Station K-7 (Rare [TT], #22)
Federation frontier station, circa mid 2260s.  Consists mostly of fabrication facilities and storage units. Federation Facility (Station)
Icons: Alternate Universe, Original Series
Plays at 2267 Sherman's Planet; may be used by all players' compatible cards.  Once per turn, one [OS] card reporting at this location may report for free.  (Not duplicatable.) SHIELDS 16

Well, this is a key card of the set, but unfortunately I don't think there's a whole lot to it, strategywise.  First off, it's an almost automatic inclusion in any [OS] deck.  There's little thought that has to go into this... Sherman's Peak requires you to download this card when you seed it, and you can't use this card anywhere else.  So if you're using Sherman's Peak, this gets thrown in as part of the deal.

As a result, there's no real point in arguing whether or not it's worth including it in your deck: you *have* to use it if you're using Sherman's Peak.  And if you aren't using the Peak, then you can't even consider this card.  So, I'll be discussing the various benefits and drawbacks of it, although I'm aware that there's not very much deep stuff here.  I'll try to ignore obvious things like doing Hero of the Empire here.

First, you can report one card from this time period for free here.  That includes personnel, ships, and equipment -- even if other [OS] cards are made, only personnel, ships, and equipment "report for duty."  Since it automatically comes with Sherman's Peak, then you essentially get a free card play a turn if you're playing an [OS] deck.  This is quite nice for Alpha Quadrant affiliations (compare with headquarters), although quite frankly it's nothing compared to the Delta Quadrant where it's rather easy to play half a dozen cards each turn between Caretaker's Array, Delta Quadrant Spatial Scission, Vidiian Sodality, Home Away From Home, Liberation, etc.  It does make up for the fact that you have to expend some resources to get to and from the Peak, usually either a Temporal Vortex or Wormholes.  This tends to balance them with the other Alpha Quadrant affiliations.

Note that your opponent can do the same.  Although this isn't that big of an issue (unless your opponent's playing an [OS] deck, but then your opponent also suffers from the same limitations of moving to and from time locations), there are some times a clever opponent can take advantage of this.  For example, if you time traveled and left the Temporal Vortex in play, your opponent might be able to drop a ship for free, a personnel there as a card play, and move back through, since you can't use Q the Referee to cycle the Vortex on your opponent's turn.  (A possible reason it would still be in play on your opponent's turn would be that you already used your Q the Ref cycle on a [Ref] card in your hand).

You can take advantage of this for some specialty tricks, though.  IMO one of the easiest counters to Hero of the Empire (at least if playing Feds) is to stock the Starship Enterprise in your Tent.  When your opponent drops the Bomb off at K-7, Tent for the Starship Enterprise, play it for free, then download either Lt. Bashir or Lt. Dax, then download the appropriate Tricorder and start trying to uncover the Tribble Bomb -- with all of this costing only a Tent, since all of the other cards involved are useful anyway.

Earlier, I mentioned that leaving a Temporal Vortex on Agricultural Assessment can leave you open to some problems, such as the opponent taking advantage of the free plays.  A bigger danger might be a battle-happy opponent taking advantage of the low SHIELDS of K-7.  One lone D'deridex can hit this without too much trouble (Captain's Log, Senator Cretak, and a Battle Bridge will do it), and with two ships it's extremely easy to hit. Of course, you would be wise to cycle the Vortex on your turn, forcing your opponent to grab one or leave the ship/fleet stranded there, but be prepared for this if you leave a TV there at the end of your turn.  Now, if you already used a TV, then you probably have reported a number of your personnel, so losing K-7 might not be completely devastating -- although remember your opponent can stock Vortices (or Wormholes) too.  Using Hero of the Empire and downloading Kirk might be a defense against this, although it won't faze a Gamma, Mirror, or Delta Quadrant opponent.

There are some semi-sneaky tricks in seeding, though. Unless it's really important for you to get last seed during the dilemma phase, if you see your opponent seed Agricultural Assessment seed your Sherman's Peak immediately, so you can download your K-7. Note that Sherman's Peak doesn't allow your opponent to download K-7, which will probably clog up the opponent's draw deck with another card (the draw deck is after all the logical place for it -- it downloads before you draw the opening hand, and it doesn't cost a Tent slot).  It's not duplicatable, so your opponent can't play K-7 if yours is already there.

The final verdict: Well, it's a mandatory inclusion of you're using Sherman's Peak.  And Sherman's Peak is a very logical choice if you're playing an OS deck.  There really isn't much else to say about the card, except to accept the fact that it's not too hard to destroy.  There are a couple of small tricks as mentioned above, but this card doesn't really lend itself to in-depth analysis, except maybe as part of a larger analysis such as "How do Original Series 'affiliations' compare to the traditional Alpha Quadrant ones?".  I might do some things like these when I've gone through the whole set, but I think it's too general a question for this one review. Sorry.

Next up: Chain Reaction Ricochet

Steve "Sergei Rachmaninoff" Boyles