Wesley's STCCG card of the day #36

Hi, folks,

today I'm doing something for those of you who like those Romulans:

ALIDAR JAROK

Romulan personnel, Rare
Integrity 2
Cunning 8
Strength 8
OFFICER, Navigation, Leadership, Command Star (*).
"Conscientious admiral who questioned Romulan policy. Eventually stole a scout ship and defected to the Federation in 2366."

At first glance this card doesn't look that bad. Leadership skill, plus two 8's in attributes plus the command star makes for nice reading. Even that Navigation will fit quite handy for a few space missions...

But then, there are some doubts. Integrity 2 and Firestorm? Alien Parasites? And only two skills? Isn't there anything better?

Yes there is. And the best thing about that "anything better" is: It isn't even rare! A lowly uncommon Tebok has one less Cunning than Alidar, but you get a Diplomacy, three extra Integrity (making him Firestorm-resistant) and one more Strength.

What did you say? You need more than one Romulan Officer with Leadership and Navigation? Well, try Toreth ! She's got one less Strength than Alidar, but once again, that 5 Integrity and an extra Honor !

To summarize, I can only say Decipher really screwed up on this card. Like the Type VI Shuttle (6/2/4) easily replaced by a runabout (7/5/5) or the uncommon Sutherland (*+,7/7/7) that can be replaced both by a common Nebula (*+,8/7/8) or a non-aligned common Mercenary Ship (++,7/7/7) this is one of those "filler" cards that don't make any sense to play.

Note to M:tG players here: Your game isn't better in this respect, only in many cases the two cards to be compared are at least different colors which makes some sense. Here I'm always talking SAME AFFILIATION!

Favorite combo(s):

Well, er, I'm stumped here. What shall I do with a rare card that's worse than an uncommon of the same affiliation?

Ratings for : ALIDAR JAROK

Wesley's rating:                3.0(*)
Jon's rating:                   6.0
Allen Castaban's rating:        7.0
Tim Kwong's rating:             7.0
Habib's rating:                 6.0
Bryan's rating:                 4.5
Data's rating:                  4.0
Joe Kernodle's rating:          7.0
Simon's rating:                 7.5
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 5.8

(*) From his skills this should read 4.5, but with TWO cards overshadowing him I had no choice than to downgrade that quite a bit!

Wesley's comment for today:
Great! 9 raters!! Now if we could just get *one girl or woman* to join in... Is it really true that ST:CCG is a mens' circle??? Come on, girls. There MUST be at least one of you out there in Cyberspace...

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: blohmer@pips11.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

"A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart"