Wesley's STCCG card of the day #235

Hi, folks,

doesn't everyone love getting two cards for one? With a chance of getting them for free instead? Well, then this one's for you:

PHASER BURNS

Interrupt, common AU.
If you have phasers or disruptors present during an Away Team battle, before a winner is determined randomly select two opposing personnel to die.
"Even on stun settings, phased energy weapons can cause severe injuries and burns if not fired judiciously in bursts."

This card can give you a great personnel advantage. Of course, you should play Klingon or Romulan or throw a few non-aligned redshirts in your deck, otherwise you have no control on when you can use it.

Easiest use: Speed up the killing of an opponent's away team. If you have a big team present, you can get rid of three opposing guys with one shot. Two turns saved.

Better use: If you are just slightly behind in STRENGTH, use it to gain numerical superiority, thus arriving at the same result as in the first scenario. So far, so good. But these always assume I want to win the away team battle. Can't I do something different?

For a start, I take a non-aligned redshirt (in a Fed deck, to increase surprise value). Then, wait until opponent gets stopped by a Dilemma. Give that guy a phaser and beam him down to that location (Runabouts are convenient means of getting there in time as you can follow that ship the team came from). Attack. Play 4 Phaser Burns. Select 8 opposing personnel to die. Randomly of course. Which won't mean very randomly in any team of 8 or less. Result: I have used up 1 personnel (if my opponent still had some crew left) and four Interrupts. Five cards (the phaser can be retrieved). On the other side, eight cards lost for my opponent. And none of them interrupts. Worse (for her), they probably included the key crew for at least three missions...

You can build a really degenerate deck around this concept:
6 Fed missions (any planets).
1 Fed Outpost (seed as close to opponent's as possible)
6 Outpost Raid
1 Betazoid Gift Box
---
4 Kivas Fajo
2 The Traveler (I urgently need cards).
4 Starfleet Type 2 Phaser
3 Runabouts
6 Phaser Burns (to foil planet mission attempts)
7 Rogue Borg (to stop space mission attempts)
1 Crosis
3 Q2
2 Red Alert!
2 Kevin Uxbridge (I don't care about events except SWB, TAK and Genetronic Replicator)
12 personnel to solve the chosen missions, the more non-aligned the better. (4 non-aligned is minimum to make this work)

The idea is to stop your opponent from scoring anything. If they do planet missions, attack and Phaser Burn, if it's space missions from a ship, use your Rogue Borg, and if she attempts a space mission from her outpost, that's what the Outpost Raids are for. (your missions are safe as you play planet only). And only 2 rares needed. (though you will probably want a few Bridge crew to get good personnel). But it works with just 2 rares.

Legal? Yes. Nice? No.

Favorite combo(s):

- Hey, I gave you a deck. Find the combos yourself...

Ratings for : PHASER BURNS

Wesley's rating:                7.5
Cole's rating:                  8.0
Data's rating:                  7.0
Jack's rating:                  8.1
John's rating:                  7.5
Q's rating:                     7.5
Ray's rating:                   8.0
Richard's rating:               8.0
Tony's rating:                  8.5
Tania's rating:                 4.0 (*)
Hal's rating:                   9.5
Nick's rating:                  4.5 (*)
Heather's rating:               7.0 
----------------------          
AVERAGE RATING:                 7.3

(*) There's always at least one who disagrees with the majority...

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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