Wesley's STCCG card of the day #401

Hi, folks,

new year (well, a few days ago), new 100-set of COTDs, new expansion? Oh what the... - why not.

RETASK

Event, rare FC.
Downloads [universal] Borg Cube and seven drones. ( [Borg] x3, [Comm]x1, [Nav] x2, [Def] x1) to replace any Borg Ship Dilemma in play. Discard Event and Dilemma. Draw no cards this turn. [Borg use only]
"Even a Borg cube ship can lose contact with the collective and begin marauding through space. Proper protocol re-establishment reintegrates it into the collective."

THE card. For the cost of just one measly card, you get not three, not five, not seven but eight cards from your draw deck. And you get to play them all right away. And what's more, you get to choose them. No hoping for that Interlink drone or the Range enhancer drone. No, you get them all right away. A Betazoid Gift box on steroids. Or is it? A card that powerful must have a drawback somewhere. More often than not, this drawback in the end kills the card. Here as well? Let's have a look.

First you need a Borg Ship Dilemma in play. That means someone must seed it. As you can't rely on your opponent being that friendly, you'd better do that yourself. And while we're at it, you should also be able to trigger the Borg Ship yourself just in case that person on the other side has no intention of doing you the favor of attempting the mission you seeded the Borg ship at. So, maybe a Scout ship and a green drone would also make a good addition to a retask situation. Oh, and while we're at it, add an Establish Gateway objective, after all, you want to scout the location to trigger the Borg Ship. That makes your investment a bit higher, of course, four draw cards and one seed card (Or three draw and two seed). Eight for five is however still better than a Kivas. Especially as you do have the choice of those cards and you thus get to very selectively thin your deck and you also get to play the cards right away. So still a good investment.

But like every profitable investment this comes with a sizable risk. One measly Uxbridge can spoil your entire plan. Of course you could draw some profit from the Ux by revealing a number of "The Line Must Be Drawn Here". But to be worth the expense of five cards, you'd need to make at least a 20-25 point profit off the card. And as Trelane already noticed on the BBS, this costs you 4-5 seeds. Seeds that could be Maglocks, Yutas or - Borg Ships. Or you can use Q2 to overcome the Ux - a Q2 you need to draw and of course with the Q2 you are exposing yourself to the Line, a fate that is even worse to the Borg whose scoring possibilities are pretty low-point so that a few negatives might hurt twice as much. Of course if the Ux hits, you might have lost five cards for nothing.

So, yes, Retask is powerful. Maybe in sheer and raw power the most powerful STCCG card we've seen yet. But it's balanced by the significant risk you are taking to get it to float. Your best hope is to stock a high number of Retasks (Palors don't work very well if your opponent has the Kivas Fajo personnel card) and hope to get one to float (stock Mirror Image to make parallel use of his Kivases if he has one - you won't want a card disadvantage in a deck relying on the power of a successfully executed Retask.)

Favorite combo(s):

Oh, guess that's pretty obvious ;-)

Ratings for : RETASK

Wesley's rating:                8.0
Allen's rating:                 9.0
Cpt. Targ's rating:             8.5
Dr. R'Mor's rating:             9.8
Gowron's rating:                7.1
Sirol's rating:                 9.0
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 8.6

Not that many ratings today, but for a request I sent out two hours ago, quite an acceptable turnout. Any hey, would you rather have incurred another delay? ;-)

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher
Temporarily immortal STCCG Lord

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