Wesley's STCCG card of the day #301

Hi, folks,

now that the #300 hype is over (did ya like it?) I can take my time to get at those cards that pose a little more difficulty evaluating. Namely the two QC doorways. (For those of you yelling "It's Classic time" - I am in a serious shortage of ratings and most raters obviously didn't even see the request at the bottom of #300 part 2, so I'll present these two without ratings and resume the Classics with #303...)

Here's the first:

Q'S TENT

Doorway, common QC.
Place one atop Q's Tent side deck (up to 13 different cards) during the seed phase. Q'S Tent is now open and in play. OR Stock in deck and use as follows: Once per turn, play to take a card from tent into your hand, either your choice (discard doorway) or random selection (place doorway on top of your draw deck). Must show card to opponent. Draw no cards this turn.
Probably the greatest new idea since STCCG's basic set, side decks add an entirely new level of complexity to this game. Remember that I already talked about quite a number of cards with the general direction being "Yeah, it is great, but unfortunately your opponent has to play a [variable part] and you just can't rely on that"? And this class of cards are prime candidates for a Q's Tent. Add an assortment of all 3 Incoming Messages and you'll always have the right one in your hand. But this is only half the use of a Q's Tent. There is another class of cards: Those you'd rather like to have early in the game (Red Alert, The Traveler) or prefer to see after some building up has taken place (Anti-Time Anomaly, Supernova, Distortion of Space-Time Continuum). For the discussion, let's assume you want to play a deck with all five of these cards. Without the Tent, you draw seven cards (including the Supernova, and the ATA) and start waiting for your Red Alert. Which comes up second last card in your draw deck.

Now let's put the five cards into the tent instead. You now draw two Q's Tent instead of the Nova and the ATA. Two Doorways you can as well exchange for a Traveler and a Red Alert (discarding them). Bingo. And when you later draw more tents, you get your Nova or whatever. Almost as good as stocking your deck.

But nothing comes without a price: Each Q's tent card costs you two card draws, one to draw the Doorway and one more as you lose that turn's draw. And if you have the Traveler out, you even lose three cards for the one you retrieved (you draw no cards, not one less card). So don't exaggerate the Tentmania. If you put 13 important cards from your main deck into the Tent and replace them with 13 Tents, you'll never get to draw normally. Unless of course, you have an unbeatable strategy that relies on only 13 cards drawn in a certain order. In this case play a draw deck of nothing but Q'S Tent and you'll always get your combos.

But the regular play style will be about 4-5 tents in your draw deck with a similar number of vital cards in the tent. The rest will then be specific cards like Incoming Messages or the Devil. If you have room, you can also stock a Dilemma or two and retrieve them for free when a Q's planet is played. And just so you get an impression, I made a tent for The Wrath of Wesley (deck listing available on the Decipher site under Cool Stuff - Decks). Number of tents in draw deck: 5.

Cards taken out of the deck: Red Alert, The Traveler, Destroy Garbage Scow, Goddess of Empathy, Distortion of S/T continuum. These five go into the tent (2 early-game cards, 3 late-game cards!)

Add the following:

13 cards and you'll most probably agree that depending on the way the game runs you'd only want to see a few of them at any certain time. A last tip: Always retrieve by choice unless you make a crew tent (place your entire crew in the tent and start drawing them one by one, regardless of the order. Add a few tents and lots of nasty events and interrupts to your draw deck. Might work in a stall deck, too slow for everything else. And when you reread older COTDs and stumble upon the word "sideboard", this should read "Q's tent" now...

Favorite combo(s):
Please direct all email conc day to: crusher@kiss.de

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LLAP,

Wesley Crusher, the new STCCG Lord

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