Subject: Wesley's STCCG card of the day #398 Hi, folks, I'm gonna make a few people lose their bets today, namely all those who thought I'd keep this one for #400 ;-) BLACK HOLE Doorway, Ultra-rare FJ. Plays between two adjacent "Space" missions. Creates a location with a span of 1. End of each turn, "pulls in" (destroys) all other cards here. Every four full turns, also pulls in one adjacent spaceline location (including all cards there). Alternates, first pulling in the location on your left, then the one on your right, and so on. (Not duplicatable.) Okay, we all know this card sucks ;-) And why it is a doorway, we can only speculate. The most probable explanation is that Decipher could not fit all this text on any other card type... Okay, alone the Black Hole is rather weak. It just sits there and slowly removes a few spaces (which also means it forces you to play with a few Space cards). Its first real power effect occurs on your 13th turn (that is if you get it out on your first turn) when it finally gets to pull in a real mission (and by then this will probably be deserted as the time is rather predictable). So you will need to do some comboing with this card. One favorite is Cytherians. Try Lack of Preparation / Cytherians and make sure the ship will have to stop on the hole. SLURP, here goes the all- important mission crew. Just a pity it doesn't work on an outpost (did someone say "Outpost Raid" ?) or on a planet. Almost as good in getting people to holes (or holes to people) is Q. However, you will only rarely catch a big crew here as your opponent will probably have a turn or even several turns to move away before the next big SLURP. So while this is a good idea, we'll have to add some timing. Now of course we can only time it if we have control over the actions ourselves. So how can we relocate something on our turn ? Right, Blade of T'Kon. Acquire it at the right moment and there -SLURP- goes your opponent's whatever-is-just-not-the-thing-you-want-to-see. That is, if this whatever is at a planet. Hmmm, I'm sure we can do better. So let's go mad and run into a Dilemma ourselves. Namely into a Q, with the intent of failing it. Of course not before we played a Receptacle Stones on one of our opponent's ships. He gets to rearrange the spaceline, then you get to re-rearrange the spaceline and then you get to a SLURP. Result: Instant location killer. And this time with no ifs, whens or buts. Just get rid of whatever location bugs you most, and possibly on turn 5. Oh, there are a few more cards that help the Black Hole. Horga'Hn is always fun, especially when combined with one of the above methods to get a few of your opponent's locations really close to the SLURP. Then of course the Husnock Trap. For this, you'll need a Hole at the end of the spaceline, neighboring a Space and then a 5 Span location. If your opponent is moving his Husnock on the turn before a SLURP, just use a Wormhole to haul it to the Hole. Now he can stay there (SLURP) or move to the neighboring space (SLURP as well). And against a hole ? Of course, there's always Revolving Door (regardless how illogical this is) and you can also Supernova a Black Hole. The Nova cancels the Hole game text and so it stays on top of the card forever. Now here's a paradoxon ;-) Oh, how about a game where neither player can do anything ? If a game with a Black Hole takes long enough (say abut 52 turns), there's no spaceline left to play on. There's yet more fun you can have with this hilarious card, however this requires another card I haven't reviewed yet, so I'll leave that to another article... But for a closing a quick Black Hole STCCG quiz: I have no Artifacts in play and no means to score points. But at the end of my turn I will win because of a SLURP. What is the situation ? (Hint: There is no Borg Ship involved - SLURPing Borg does not get anyone points) Favorite combo(s): - Black Hole + Q + Receptacle Stones. Biggest OUCH in the game yet. Ratings for : Wesley's rating: 9.0, for plain fun. Dr. R'Mor's rating: 9.6 EHCCGPP's rating: 7.9 Picarde's rating: 8.0 Rothspar's rating: 8.0 Sirol's rating: 8.0 Tebok's rating: 8.0 (HEY!!!) Tony's rating: 8.5 ---------------------- AVERAGE RATING: 8.2 Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: crusher@kiss.de Visit the Web Page! http://www.xs4all.nl/~ldp/COTD.html (for best indexing - all cards crosslinked) With all back issues from #1 up to today ! LLAP, Wesley Crusher Temporarily immortal STCCG Lord "A couple of lightyears can't keep good friends apart" ------------------------------------------------------------------------