Wesley's STCCG card of the day #264

Hi, folks,

before any nitpicker criticizes my numbering: Classic COTD #8 already exists. I accidentally redid Wormhole back in #73, so count that in. Therefore we continue with

Classic COTD #9

BETAZOID GIFT BOX

Artifact, rare.
Immediately look through your draw deck for up to thirty seconds and choose three cards to place in your hand. Reshuffle draw deck and discard artifact.
"Traditional device for presenting important gifts. Its sculpted face comes to life boisterously presenting its contents to the recipient."

Ancestral Tutor or Demonic Recall? Anyway, more than just a good Artifact. Three good cards can almost always be the difference between winning and losing and getting the three best cards in your deck, even adaptable to the situation you are in right now is very close to being an over-powerful spoiler (Magic would have discontinued this card after the Alpha run ;-) )

The only limitation you have is that you may only take thirty seconds to get your cards. So before turning your deck around, mentally go through it and choose your favorites before even flipping over one card as there is practically no going back once you took a certain card from the deck and now find you need another one more urgently.

And then, you are of course bound by the artifact limitation that you need to solve at least one mission before using the effect. But with all those missions that can be solved by one or two characters, this should not be too hard, even pretty early in a game. That is, for Federation crews. Romulans can at least resort to Excavation (with Galathon being a common and universal Archaeologist) and both Klingons and Romulans can go for Relief Mission. In both cases, Redshirting from the Outpost (without previously playing any crew besides the one to be redshirted) is a viable strategy to get past some of the nastier Dilemmas without assembling a real crew. Or, if your opponent is careless enough to play the same affiliation you do, bluff him out by seeding the Gift Box and two space(!) Dilemmas under a planet mission you can solve with a lone character and rush in, if you're lucky on the first turn. The misseeded Dilemmas get discarded (but discourage your opponent from trying the mission) and you snatch the artifact and the points. Outside a tournament, you can of course also substitute two more useful artifacts for the space Dilemmas.

One more: If you have several artifacts, always seed the Gift Box at the place you want to go to first. With it, you can easily filter the cards you need out of your deck and retrieve the other artifact one turn later. And I'd always recommend distributing your artifacts a bit. Not three of them under the same mission, even if it is allowed. Unless you are pretty sure your opponent will never attempt and complete this particular mission.

And last: One rather nasty combo is Betazoid Gift Box + Palor Toff. It is not legal in tournaments (used artifacts placed out of play), but outside that environment, you can translate the three card advantage into a five to seven card advantage, at Interrupt speed. What more do you want?

Favorite combo(s):

- Betazoid Gift Box + Horga'hn. The Box gets you the cards needed to fetch the Horga'hn and the points you acquire along the way make sure you win.

- Betazoid Gift Box + multiple Palor Toffs: Always get a Palor and two cards you need. Palor the Gift Box, lather, rinse, repeat. Until you run out of cards or Palors. Careful: This combo can result in bodily injuries if executed more than three times in a row.

Ratings for : BETAZOID GIFT BOX

Wesley's rating:               10.0 (rather 30.0 for 3 top-notch cards)
Cole's rating:                  8.5
Conner's rating:                7.5
Data's rating:                  9.0
Hal's rating:                  10.0
Jack's rating:                  7.9
Nanite's rating:                9.95
Nouwa's rating:                 9.0
Q's rating:                    10.0 ("Don't get me started" ???)
Ranger's rating:                7.2
Ray's rating:                   8.25
Rothspar's rating:              8.5
Tania's rating:                 9.0
Tony's rating:                  8.5
Wa'Qah's rating:                9.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 8.8

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"