Wesley's STCCG card of the day #185

Hi, folks,

for those of you who actually do play treaty decks:

K'MTAR

Personnel, Klingon, rare AU.
Integrity 8
Cunning 8
Strength 8
V.I.P., Diplomacy, Leadership, Honor, Attributes all +5 if with Alexander Rozhenko, Command Star (*), AU Icon.
"Worf's son Alexander returned from 40 years in the future to influence his younger self to embrace the way of the warrior and avoid life as a peacemaker."
A powerful personnel card. 8/8/8 is near the best attribute combinations (and the additional +5/+5/+5 makes it even better), VIP's are not the worst thing (at least since we got AU, they were rather crappy before that), and of course you get the classic Diplomacy / Honor / Leadership trio.

But many players despise this card because "it only benefits you if you play a not-so-good card, and even from a different affiliation". Hmm. Is that really worth condemning the card?

Let's see. I'll break it down by the scheme for the personnel power ratings (find them on LDP's webpage). 8/8/8 attributes = 24. VIP = 3. Diplomacy = 7. Leadership = 4. Honor = 4. Command Star = 2. Total so far 44. Good for a Klingon. (They really do not have much choice above 50 where the really good personnel starts.) The special ability is worth another 5+5+5 = 15. Divided by two, as you need two cards to make it work. So, make that 7.5 additional points. Or a gain of less that 20%.

But people always fall for this. Quick excursion into Magic (if you don't play that, skip this paragraph): Ice Age's Rime Dryad. Snow-covered Forestwalk = Crap. I agree. So the card is crap? Nope. There is no other 1/2 creature for one mana. He's almost a Savannah Lion. Which is a very highly appreciated card in most circles.

So, card game designers, listen up: If you want to make a good card that only really good players use, add a crappy special ability in prominent type. You can be sure most players will overlook that the card would be great even without the nearly useless ability. Not as extreme here with K'mtar, but I guess you see the point. Don't judge a book by its cover.

Favorite combo(s):
Ratings for : K'MTAR 

Wesley's rating:                7.5
Cole's rating:               	7.0
Conner's rating:		5.0
Hal's rating:			8.0
Heather's rating:		7.9 ("+.5 with Alexander Rozhenko hahah!")
Jack's rating:               	5.8
John's rating:			7.0
Lore's rating:			8.5
Movar's rating:			8.0
Ray's rating:			8.5
Serge's rating:			8.0
Tony's rating:			9.0
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.45
PS. Reply to a rather impolite demand: A .sig is a .sig is a .sig. If you don't want to read it, stop hitting that Space Bar after you've seen the ratings. But if you are really desperate you might also write a little program that scans the file for "LLAP," and removes the fourth line after it :-).

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With all back issues from #1 up to today !

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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