Wesley's STCCG card of the day #282

Hi, folks,

here comes one of the better (and most overlooked) ways to get a captive or two. Literally.

THINE OWN SELF

Interrupt, common AU.
Plays on opponent's one- or two-person Away Team. Away Team is "lost" (place under mission). Rescued if owner later completes mission. Captured if you do.
"Attempting a mission with only a few personnel is dangerous. Lt. Commander Data suffered amnesia while alone on Barkon IV. He was lost and eventually 'killed.'"

The contrary to The Higher... the Fewer. The latter punishes teams that are too large, this one rather penalizes too small teams. Most of you will now think "Redshirting" but there is another (although risky) application that, if it works, can prove devastating.

This setup works best against an opponent with a Wrath of Wesley style deck designed to be able to do a mission very early and then relies on a Betazoid Gift Box. Beat them with their own weapons - bluff. "Forget" to put any Dilemmas under a mission they can do with one personnel. Investigate Time Continuum is best here, but Evaluate Terraforming will also do. You can bet a high stake on where their outpost is going to wind up. Now you need a little luck to draw one of your 4 or 5 Thine Own Self cards in your opening hand. If all works well, your opponent will draw just the crucial personnel needed to do the mission and head for a first turn Gift Box. You, however, just mirror the broad grin on his face and slap down Thine Own Self. With the key card for the mission gone and the Betazoid Gift Box far out of reach your bluffed-out bluffer friend will now have a hard time getting back into the game (while you can play a duplicate of the just lost personnel and get the really easy 35 points plus Gift Box yourself...)

More common however than this play (I'm not yet gonna call it legendary though you'll soon be just that if you pull it off against an unsuspecting [i.e. COTD-less] friend...) is the more basic use of this card: Hamper Redshirting. But here the usefulness is much more limited. Granted, you can be sure that the first attmept at redshirting will fail, but you could as well do so with several good Dilemmas (Shaka, Hologram Ruse). So this alternative only helps you in a deck where you already exhausted your seed percentage with more important cards. And even if you get a personnel and manage to capture him or her, you will only get the worst or least needed member of your opponent's crew. After all that's why the card was chosen for redshirting in the first place. And in this way, Thine Own Self just bites. (Wanted to say something else, but just in time remembered Q's dislike for that other word ;-) ) And your so-badly-hampered opponent just redshirts the next guy putting you back to the situation you were in before.

The only kinda instance where you could still make something out of your elimination of a wimpy personnel is when you have good means to deal with captives and the possibility to solve your opponent's missions. And while there might be a playable deck design around this concept I doubt it'll be too effective.

So we wind up with some specialized uses but not so much of a general usefulness.

Favorite combo(s):

Thine Own Self + a strategically placed Nothing! (see above)

Ratings for : THINE OWN SELF

Wesley's rating:                5.0
Allen's rating:                 7.8
Cole's rating:                  7.0
Data's rating:                  6.5
Drew's rating:                  ---
Gowron's rating:                8.8
Hal's rating:                   5.5
Jack's rating:                  8.2
Lakanta's rating:               6.0
Nanite's rating:                5.0
Nouwa's rating:                 7.0
Picarde's rating:               7.5
Q's rating:                     7.5
Ranger's rating:                7.8
Ray's rating:                   4.4
Tania's rating:                 4.0
Tony's rating:                  1.0
Wa'Qah's rating:                5.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 6.0

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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