Wesley's STCCG card of the day #288


Hi, folks,

slowly the Artifact block of the classics is dwindling to an end, but we still have two left, one of which is:

Classic COTD #16

VULCAN STONE OF GOL

Artifact, rare.
Place in hand until played as an Event card. Kills everyone in an Away Team without Youth or CUNNING > 7. Discard Artifact.
"Ancient Vulcan telepathic weapon. Kills by magnifying aggressive and violent thoughts, but can be blocked by peaceful thoughts."
Another killer Artifact, which we already had two of in this classic subset, Tox Uthat (plus Supernova) and Kurlan Naiskos. Maybe an apporach pointing out the differences will get us best to this card.

Advantage: The Stone of Gol does not need any other cards to work. The Uthat needs two cards to use its destructive power and the Naiskos even needs at least 6 (Naiskos, ship, 4 crew). Also, its destructive effect is more surgical that Supernova's, leaving the mission score and all other cards at the location (your ship you couldn't move away in time, your stranded love-interested card) intact.

Disadvantage: It is far less powerful. Against the typical Feddie Bridge Crew deck, the five most important cards will be left intact: Picard, Data, Beverly, Geordi and Wesley. Only Worf, Riker, Troi and Yar will bite it out of the big nine. (And if someone has a Federation PADD or other Cunning enhancer, they'll all be safe!). Roga Danar and Dr. Reyga are also safe, meaning that out of the core crew of my Fed decks (the above five immune Feddies + Danar, Reyga, Vekor) only one will be affected by this artifact.

Of course, against Klingons it will prove devastating: Out of the entire Klingon empire, a measly 8 (9 if you make K'ChiQ a kid) will have the brains or naivity to survive the onslaught of this telepathic massacre.

And Romulans, while on the average having a high Cunning, will also find they'll have a large death toll to pay as 7 is the most common Cunning number in Rommies (16 occurrences of which 5 have Youth) and there are also a few mentally handicapped ones with a Cunning of 6.

And even if you have the luck of playing a Klingon opponent, you'll still need a way to get an away team stranded on a planet at the start of your turn, meaning your opponent will either give it to you by playing a Colony or battling you or you'll need to find a Dilemma to stop the team. So the advantage of being usable on its own is now upset by the fact that you'll need to establish certain conditions, which requires a cooperative opponent or a card (or even several cards). I'd rather have a Naiskos at any time. I can be sure to wipe out the entire crew, I do not need to rely on a stopped opponent and with QC the disadvantage of having to carry a CIVILIAN and a V.I.P. is not a big one anymore, as there are quite a few decent specimens of each kind floating around now.


Favorite combo(s):
Ratings for : VULCAN STONE OF GOL

Wesley's rating:                3.0
Allen's rating:                 ---
Cole's rating:                  5.0
Data's rating:                  9.0
Drew's rating:                  4.6
Hal's rating:                   4.3
Jack's rating:                  7.9
Nanite's rating:                8.0
Nouwa's rating:                 8.0
Picarde's rating:               5.0
Q's rating:                     6.0
Rothspar's rating:              8.0
Tania's rating:                 4.5
Tony's rating:                  6.0 (had to average this out...)
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 6.0

PS: I'll be away for three days but don't want to let you down, so I'll send the next articles to Cole for posting - if you usually find COTD by author search you'll have to look for 289, 290 and 291 under "Cole Bozman ".
(I also want to keep Decipher under pressure to put out new cards - Q suggested I might slow down COTD to ensure I'll not run out of reviewable material, a favor I'm not gonna do them unless they start keeping me busy designing new cards or doing some other thing to enjoy the STCCG player community ;-) And after all, did somebody say "Internet expansion III" ? Bottom line: WE WANT MORE CARDS. Hope everyone agrees with me on this ;-) )

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"