Wesley's STCCG card of the day #227

Hi, folks,

during yesterday's review I mentioned a cute little card:

BARCLAY'S TRANSPORTER PHOBIA

Interrupt, uncommon AU.
Plays during transport by beaming, Dimensional Shifting or Iconian Gateway. One personnel (random selection) refuses all transport until cured with Plexing.
"Lt. Reginald Barclay refused to transport out of fear. When forced to transport in 2369, he saw creatures in the beam and believed he had transporter psychosis."

This is one of those cards you'll probably have multiples of in your deck if you play it at all. Because its only flaw currently is the random selection. Plexing does not exist yet (and we have no idea whether it will have other worthwhile uses besides curing this effect) and until it appears this is quite permanent. Except for Wolf, but then that card is really limited and except against a Transporter phobia deck, it is not really worth including.

The effect can be devastating on any planet mission deck. As very few people play with shuttles, refusal of transport essentially means you will not get your personnel on a planet anymore. So you might almost word this card "One personnel (random selection) cannot be used on planets anymore". Obviously, using multiples of this card can cripple an away team before it even arrives on the planet. Great against these nasty all-planet decks...

Now in case your opponent does not do you this favor and plays a deck with lots of space missions. In this case, there isn't much beaming, as you do not need to beam to get from an outpost to a ship or back and you don't need to beam to do your mission either. But there is an incredibly nasty combo. Throw a few Tarellian Plague Ships in your deck. If your opponent hits one, she has to beam over a MEDICAL. She'll obviously select her worst MEDICAL if she has any choice anyway and beam her over alone. Too bad that the random selection in this case is not very random (err, let's see, one out of one...). So this doctor won't beam anywhere and definitely not to the Tarellians. Now, there can be two cases:
1) Your opponent has another MEDICAL (obviously better than the one she wanted to get rid of). In this case, you've gained something and you know what card you should have under the next space mission, don't you? Which will, sooner or later, lead to case
2) Your opponent has no more unaffected MEDICAL. Oops, wanted to say, no more crew...

And if you want to be a little more certain of case 2), make sure you have TWO Transporter Phobias in your hand when the Plague ship is encountered. Works great.

Other little neatos:

Love interest + Phobia. Now who beams down a rescue squad to get that runaway key personnel? They just beam him up. Which means they don't...

Jamaharon + Phobia. Same effect, different flavor text.

Portal Guard + Phobia. Had that yesterday. Oh, BTW, I got another Portal neato in my mail: Alien Abduction + Portal Guard. You know who you are going to beam back down (those who cannot solve it) and you are definitely not going to give up that mission attempt. (Yes, sometimes even I can learn something new ;-) )

Almost a gamebreaker, but often overlooked. And it is pretty always useful.

Favorite combo(s):

- Barclay's Transporter Phobia x2 + Tarellian Plague Ship. Instant BIG killer.

Ratings for : BARCLAY'S TRANSPORTER PHOBIA

Wesley's rating:                9.5
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Conner's rating:                6.5
Data's rating:                  7.0
Hal's rating:                   7.0
Heather's rating:               9.0
Jack's rating:                  8.2
John's rating:                  6.0
Q's rating:                     8.0
Ranger's rating:                8.5
Ray's rating:                   7.1
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.6

BTW, guys, I'll have a really busy weekend which among other things includes chairing an STCCG workshop, so don't expect me back before monday. Sorry...

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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