Wesley's STCCG card of the day #44

Hi, folks,

let's today take a look at one half of the most talked-about killer combo:

TELEPATHIC ALIEN KIDNAPPERS

Event, uncommon.
Plays on table. At end of each turn, guess a card type and point to a card in your opponent's hand. Card must be shown. If guessed correctly, card is dis- carded.
"Unknown aliens abducted Captain Jean-Luc Picard for telepathic studies about authority in 2366."

Let's approach this card by comparing it to another: The Static Warp Bubble.
Three differences are visible: First, Static Warp Bubble always works, a card is dropped every turn. Second, while the opponent has control over his discards with the bubble, TAK divides control between chance and the player of the event. Lastly, TAK is only countered by one card while SWB has two cards working against it.

So there is the tradeoff between the number of cards you get to remove from your opponent's game and the power of these cards. With TAK your best bet is to concentrate on one of the more commonly used card types (Personnel or Event) and to try to deny your opponent one of these card types. With SWB, you can just hope to keep it in play long enough to remove all choice of which card to play.

Now of course, clever players have devised a killer combo using TAK and a- nother event named "Alien Probe". They use the Probe to expose their opponent's hand and the TAK to steal the best card each turn. In spite of this having been declared legal by Decipher in friendly play, this combo has been outlawed for tournament play.

Our group here didn't take that approach to it, but we went by the card text. The house rule is now: When targeted by TAK, you are allowed to shuffle your hand and present it to the owner of TAK face down. This even applies when Alien Probe is in play, though the whole hand must be uncovered again after the guess.
With this rule, there is still an advantage to the combo (you see what card types are most common or most dangerous on the hand), but it is not as devas- tating.

A nice summary for this card comes from Bryan, and I think I couldn't say it much better, so Bryan -
> What's up, Wes?
could you take over for a sec?
> eh for the TAK, yes. Sorry my group has outlawed this card. It makes a good
> Kevin Ux "sucker". Gets rid of KU for other, more destructive events.
Thanx a lot. People always panic over this card...

Favorite combo(s):

Well, I don't like the TAK / Alien probe combo (see our house rule above), I just prefer TAK + Static Warp bubble for removing 1.5 cards each turn.
Not too bad: TAK + Thought maker! Arrange all his good Events to the top, then TAK them away, especially if he has few cards in hand.
TAK + Q2: Opponent panicks, Kev Ux, Q2 => my turn and one interrupt less to worry about.

Ratings for : TELEPATHIC ALIEN KIDNAPPERS

Wesley's rating:                7.5
Jon's rating:                   8.6
Allen Castaban's rating:        7.5
Tim Kwong's rating:             8.5
Habib's rating:                 7.0
Bryan's rating:                 6.5
Jeff's rating:                  9.3
Holt Kernodle's rating:         9.0
Simon's rating:                 9.5
Data's rating:                  6.7
Jason's rating:                 7.0
----------------------
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.9

Back to #42: Holt Kernodle's rating got stuck somewhere in the depths of the net, here it is:

TACHYON DETECTION GRID: 3.0

Please direct all email concerning card of the day to: blohmer@pips11.informatik.uni-mannheim.de

LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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