So I’m sitting at my computer playing Baldur’s Gate 2 (which I love) when a NPC tells me I must find and slaughter a silver dragon (stuck here; if you know the location of the silver dragon…email me), when I receive a rather sudden email from my good friend Rom. He writes, “Skull, there's a new Star Trek website called www.decktech.com, could you check it out and write a review?” So I write him back and say, sure no problem. So I figure this would be another message board or have/want list that some kid threw together and will take me all of about five minutes to read. Boy, was I wrong.

I journeyed to the site and learned that it also had a section for SW:CCG and I thought that was pretty neat, but being the focused individual that I am I clicked the link into the ST area and suddenly, I went blind.  The home page was designed like a screen from a next generation ship but with this horrible purple and blue color scheme and I thought I saw, through my now impaired vision, something moving of its own accord at the top of the screen. An ad? For a Gateway computer? Flashing its specs at me relentless…..must buy computer…..must buy Gateway…..oh sorry, I digress.

After recovering from the initial shock of the site’s detail, I began to take a look around, a good deck section, where you could not only post decks but rate them as well, an area for unmitigated rumoring (including the one about Decipher going totally digital) and a series of the most common links of all ST:CCG, Kedanya, Decipher and WNOHGB, overall a pretty complete looking website with some good looking info. So now having seen all the basics I dove into some of the meat of the site, its true content.

The decks were very predictable and many of them I had seen at a tourney or two already, and because there was no filtering mechanism there were a few that I thought really didn’t belong up there because they were either ideas that had been talked to death or meta-gamed out of their effectiveness. The articles kind of struck me the same way; many covered topics discussed here months ago and carried roughly the same information.

So I ventured to the one area I knew WNOHGB did not have; a rumor mill. My pulse quickened, my leg began a random thumping against the bottom of my desk and my head tilted back and made a sound similar to the one Homer Simpson makes when he drools over something. This was gonna kick some serious butt. Finally, no Big-D police telling us what was and was not acceptable to post, no editors, nothing; just good old fashioned freedom of speech. With that in mind, I clicked on the Community Buzz room and was prompted faced with…….

”What did Riker find in Picard’s toilet?”

I sat in shocked amazement (Shock and Amaze! Shock and Amaze!), this was what free speech about Star Trek CCG was like. No! I told myself. This is just some perverted weirdo reworking that old Captain’s Log joke, what's the next posting, it will be controversial! It will be fresh and daring! Bring on the next topics, we won't stop until we’ve found a topic worth discussing…….

“Who thinks that this Decktech is gonna be as bad as the SW decktech?”
“Why is it that Star Trek Players tend to be better sportsmen than the Star Wars players.”
“I'm a new player, so I need to know- what is the easiest deck to play, and what has the cheapest cards?”
“Decktech is making money off us! (text inside)”

 Barely worth the load time. So, having figured out bad jokes and useless questions were the rule rather than the exception I settled and  read the last one about making money. In short someone else was bothered by the banners. I got used to them very quickly and didn't really pay them much attention. Then I caught this little tidbit in the message text from the network administrator:

“And you say we have nothing more than WNOHGB has on their site except banners. Well lets compare the two sites. Yes they have a great site and I would love to meet the owner of it and combine him with us into one site, But if i am correct we already have a better stock of decks and articles. We also offer a deck of the month and article of the month in which we give you free product(oh another thing thing bought with the money). So before you rant about this site give it a fair shake and look at what it will do. We have become the most successful site for SWCCG and plan on doing the same for STCCG. Thank You, Ryan ”Cardmaster” Christian Deck Tech Admin “

 Now we have some controversy, don’t we? What exactly does Ryan mean when he states, “I would love to meet the owner of it and combine him with us into one site…”, does he actually consider his site of superior quality to WNOHGB? Would he actually attempt some kind of take over? He goes on to state, “We have become the most successful site for SWCCG and plan on doing the same for STCCG.” Well, hating to burst your bubble, but for my money your site has a long way to go. With the likes of Kedanya Station, WNOHGB, and even the recently launched DigitalDeck game site, I don’t forsee that happening anytime soon.

End result, DeckTech is a flashy site with a lot of nifty things to look at, but if you’ve been a fan of WNOHGB for awhile you’ll realize its just a lot more lights with the same amount of substance and an ambitious Admin who knows a great deal about website management, but very little about what we want as players and how loyal we are to the existing Star Trek sites. As for me, the lure of an open mike and virtually unedited commentary is very attractive, but I’ve gotten used to life around here and I know one thing for sure: what WNOHGB lacks in sheer quantity in comparison to DeckTech, it more than makes up for in quality.

-Skullduggery

Decktech can be accessed at www.decktech.com if you choose to visit; drop me a line by clicking on my name at the top of the sheet, I’d be curious to hear what you thought.  Or just head over to the WNOHGB BBS to comment on this article ;-)