Wesley's STCCG card of the day #304

Hi, folks,

today I am finally taking all my courage together and start those cards with the black text boxes. Right, the ones with the cute little Q icons in the top left corner. And which one would be a better starting place than the one that caused the biggest controversy ?

GIFT OF THE TORMENTOR

Q-Interrupt, common QC.
If your current score is zero, score bonus points. Otherwise, place this card in your discard pile. (May be nullified only by Countermanda).
"We have offered you a gift beyond all other gifts."
The one card nobody understood. After all, why should I be giving my opponent the win? And yet, you can use it for yourself. But, it is not easy and you'll have to take some preparations (but then, 100 points without any means for your opponent to defend against them are not that crappy). So first, you'll have to prevent your opponent from scoring. Several of the easy 5 point Dilemmas have been suggested, but I'd rather propose a much safer and also more lucrative solution: The higher... the fewer. Your opponent is definitely not going to have 0 points after that card. He might have less, but that's life ;-)

Now you have a Gift of the Tormentor sitting in your opponent's discard pile. And you'll have to get it from there. The clue is another common Q-Interrupt - Are these truly your friends, brother? Feed your opponent's discard pile to a certain point (draw out some interrupts) and then use other cards to decimate his away teams so you get the effect of the card while still having a good chance at drawing the right card. So much for theory. And practically? You still need other ways to win or you won't win many games but this combination will give you a shot at a really spectacular win now and then. With good timing, you might pull it off once every three to four games. So why not add these two to your Q-Continuum?

Side Note: Every now and then, you'll meet an opponent with good playing skills. He'll seed an innocent Sarjenka somewhere and attempt the mission afterwards with exactly five people in the away team, so The Higher... will reduce his score to 0 and he now threatens to score big. So keep a Countermanda in your deck if you plan on using this card combo to increase your winning percentage. Or cure the risk by seeding Royale Casino: Craps instead of The Higher... (not showing any personnel from your hand). You lose 7 points, but your opponent does not get the 100. Or combine the two, making your RC:Craps action dependent on the current score of your opponent. This makes it nearly risk-free. If you could now only read his mind to find out where he's gonna put his outpost this time... ;-)

Favorite combo(s):
Ratings for : GIFT OF THE TORMENTOR 

Wesley's rating:                4.24242424242424242 (enough 42's?)
Cole's rating:                  8.8
Drew's rating:                  1.9 (*)
Gregory's rating:               8.0
Hal's rating:                   9.9
Jack's rating:                  3.0
Locutus' rating:                5.5
Mot's rating:                   9.5
Nanite's rating:                1.0
Nouwa's rating:                 7.0
Picarde's rating:               2.0
Q's rating:                     2.0
Ranger's rating:                9.5 (*)
Rothspar's rating:              6.0
Tebok's rating:                 6.0
Tony's rating:                 10.0
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 5.9

These two added a second "under certain circumstances" rating. As they were pretty much the opposite of what they said here, I left them out for averaging (they somehow cancel each other out).

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With all back issues from #1 up to today !

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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