Wesley's STCCG card of the day #290


Hi, folks,

a card against opponents who get too predictable in outpost placement:

SPACE

Mission, space, common QC.
Point value: N/A
Span: X
Counts as 1/2 card. May insert into spaceline. X=3 + number of adjacent universal locations.
"The final frontier..."
Hmmm... Why did I know the flavor text of this card right upon seeing the name?

The key to the power of this card lies in two abilities, first the possibility to play two of them instead of one other card. Most decks rely on only four of their six missions anyway, so you can insert four more Space cards and make sure the spaceline gets just that bit longer. Which of course affects both players, but the second ability will make sure it hurts your opponent more than yourself:

You can insert this card into the spaceline! You will usually have a pretty good idea where you want to seed your outpost, so you'll keep it away from that place and add it in at a position that is much closer to the place where your opponent will most probably have hers. Which is surprisingly easy, after all, you'll have more mission cards to play than your opponent so you'll get a few extra seeds after your opponent is already finished doing her mission cards. In the best case, you'll be able to surround your opponent's most probable outpost location with an 8 span gap to either side (assuming you play 4 Space cards), effectively forcing her to reconsider her entire strategy and putting several of her missions at a severe penalty (amongst which will most certainly be the one she intended to rely on most).

You will have a much easier time as the area you yourself want to explore is not so badly spread apart, but you will still want to take some adjustments to your deck when playing a heavy allotment of Space. A fast ship from the AU expansion will be a good start and all your ships should be of at least the 8 Range category unless you play a Range Enhancer equipment (Runabout + Plasmadyne Relay comes to mind). If you use Space as a roadblock, putting all of them close together (the most promising strategy anyway) , a WNOHGB or Lakanta will completely nullify the penalty for you leaving your poor opponent with a time-consuming gap in the spaceline you yourself closed "around the corner". Just keep an Uxbridge handy to remove your opponent from exploiting her own WNOHGB... And last, add a few Transwarp Conduits, Distortion of Space/Time Continuum or Wormholes to keep your movement freedom.

A good addition to any stalling deck, but make sure you have enough card drawing power or you'll spend too much time getting your crew cards with the additional cards you need to devote to insuring your own freedom.

BTW: If you're courageous, try playing a Romulan/Klingon Espionage deck with 12 Space cards and a K'ChiQ or two to make sure you can do your opponent's missions...

And a rules question for Q: What's the exact meaning of 'adjacent' here? Directly neighboring or in an uninterrupted sequence? Thus, will the span of three Space cards next to each other be 13 or 15?


Favorite combo(s):
Ratings for : SPACE

Wesley's rating:                6.5
Allen's rating:                 4.0
Cole's rating:                  6.5
Data's rating:                  6.7
Drew's rating:                  6.7
Hal's rating:                   3.4
Jack's rating:                  7.1
Nanite's rating:                8.0
Nouwa's rating:                 5.0
Picarde's rating:               4.0
Q's rating:                     4.5
Rothspar's rating:              ---
Tania's rating:                 5.0
Tony's rating:                  6.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 5.8

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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