Wesley's STCCG card of the day #202

Hi, folks,

you want MORE ? Guess ya shall get it...

Star Trek: Collectible Card Game
The Internet Expansion

Rank # 8, 630 points, Author: Mike (MAGagne@aol.com)

REPULSOR BEAM

Artifact, rare.
Use as an equipment card. While on any ship with tractor beams, nullifies Birth of Junior, Dwarf Star Fragment, Gravitic Mine, Iconian Computer Weapon and Tarellian Plague Ship. Automatically pushes Radioactive Garbage Scow to adjacent mission location (Opponent's Choice).
"New device created by Wesley Crusher. Uses tractor beam technology to create a force that is capable of pushing objects away instead of attracting them."

Whoops ? Wait a Sec! Dwarf Star Fragment ? As in

DWARF STAR FRAGMENT

Dilemma, Space, uncommon
Ship destroyed at end of next turn unless Shields >20 OR ENGINEER + Computer Skill x3 on board by then OR Stop ship + discard a shuttle and a pilot (random selection) to divert fragment to nearest unsolved mission on the shorter end of spaceline.
"While affected by Tsiolkovsky virus, the Enterprise was nearly destroyed by a star fragment."

Okay, now I cleared that one up. First the Dilemma. It is very strong and really close to being unbalanced, but the one turn delay actually makes some kind of escape possible for your crew unless there is neither an outpost nor a planet in range of the ship. But I only included it for completeness of the card that is at the heart of this article, the Repulsor Beam.

The use of it as an equipment on a large ship seems justified and no big problem if you consider it is an artifact so you will at least have something out when you get it into play. The Dilemmas it nullifies are all Space Dilemmas, so you have nothing to gain from the card if you play all planet (except for the rare case your opponent pushes a garbage Scow over to a planet location). So you need to play some space missions for this card to work and those have to be missions you actually plan to attempt and score from. One of the best environments for the Repulsor would now be a six space mission deck with a Cryosatellite as you get the full use of the Artifact once you have it.

Amongst the Dilemmas you get rid of are several really strong ones, Birth of Junior, which can be debilitating, Tarellian Plague ship, which rids you of at least one MEDICAL and is the base of many nasty "kill 'em all" combos, the Star Fragment and the big slowdown Radioactive Garbage Scow. All four pose no more threats to you and I thus think the effect is better than the one of Senior Staff Meeting. And it is reusable and might even work several times during one mission (and it has less requirements). So this nicely balances the extra effort you have to spend first getting hold of the artifact.

A good safety card along the lines of the Shield enhancers and other Circles of Protect... (sorry, wrong game :-) ), and really balanced. I liked it a lot.

Favorite combo(s):

Uh, I have one, but I'll hold that back until a later one of the Internet Expansion set as it involves another Dream Card not yet reviewed...

Ratings for : REPULSOR BEAM

Wesley's rating:                6.5
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Conner's rating:                6.5
Heather's rating:               4.5
Jack's rating:                  5.5
John's rating:                  7.0
Leto's rating:                  7.5
Q's rating:                     4.0
Ray's rating:                   7.5
Tony's rating:                  8.0
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 6.40

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: crusher@kiss.de

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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