[tomek]

Three 2EBC related events have occurred since my last 2EBC update.
- The July 2017 release of alternate image cards
- The release of Pre-Warp Pack which teased the Vulcan affiliation
- The release of Live Long and Prosper expansion which fleshed out the Vulcan affiliation.

Starting with the July 2017 alternate images. The following three unconverted 2EBC cards received new alternate alternate image versions:
Jean-Luc Picard, Starship Captain
Guess Who's Coming to Dinner?
Just Like Old Times

Pre-Warp Pack didn't give us any 2EBC conversions, but Soval does download Team of Ambassadors which is an unconverted 2EBC card.

Live Long and Prosper is an expansion that I have been eagerly anticipating. I've really been looking forward to playing a fully developed Vulcan affiliation, and Charlie and the design team did a great job. (I do have a nit to pick on one thing though... If Archer and Trip can work with the Vulcans, why can't Spock's mom, Amanda Grayson?)
Live Long and Prosper gave us only two 2EBC conversions. The most significant of the two conversions for me was Syrran. As a NA personnel with great skills, Syrran showed up in a number of my decks, but after his conversion he is now Vulcan affiliation and I have to pull him from most of those decks.
Even though there are only two 2EBC conversions in LLAP, the new missions in this expansion specifically reference two unconverted 2EBC personnel, Shran and Ambassador Gral. And Shran even adds 5 points to Locate Telepaths.

Countdown to Discomendation
As this dark day for the 1E game gets ever closer...

302 of the 799 2EBC cards have now been converted.
This currently leaves us with 497 unconverted 2EBC cards in the 1E card pool. And only three of these 497 cards are problematic enough to merit a ban.

Here are the updated 2EBC spreadsheets as of September 25, 2017.

Code: Select all

                              Converted Unconverted   Banned  Total
Missions                             29          13        0     42
Dil - P                              20          21        0     41
Dil - S                              18          25        0     43
Dil - P/S                            33          39        0     72
Per - Fed                            26          69        1     95
Per - SF                             33           7        0     40
Per - Kli                            10          23        0     33
Per - Rom                            11          26        0     37
Per - Baj                            16          29        0     45
Per - Car                            13          20        0     33
Per - Dom                             5          17        0     22
Per - Fer                             3          12        1     15
Per - Bor                             5           8        0     13
Per - NA                             27          49        0     76
Ships                                14          34        0     48
Equipment                             3           0        0      3
Events                               26          83        1    109
Interrupts                           10          22        0     32
				
Total                               302         497        3    799
                                    38%         62%		

				
                              Converted Unconverted           Total
Second Edition (01)                  78         122             200
Energize (02)                        34          57              91
Call to Arms (03)                    30          59              89
Necessary Evil (04)                  20          33              53
10th Anniversary                      2           5               7
Fractured Time (05)                   5           9              14
Reflections 2.0 (06)                 10           9              19
Strange New Worlds (07)               5          10              15
To Boldly Go (08)                    26          26              52
Dangerous Missions (09)               5           2               7
Captain's Log (10)                   11          52              63
Genesis (11)                         14          13              27
These are the Voyages (12)           12          25              37
In a Mirror Darkly (13)              24          17              41
What You Leave Behind (14)           15          24              39
2E Virtual Promo                      0           1               1
The Undiscovered Country (15)         4          13              17
Favor the Bold (16)                   3          12              15
Raise the Stakes (17)                 3           8              11
This Side of Paradise (18)            1           0               1
				
Total                               302         497             799
	

[tomek]

There were three 2EBC conversions from the 2E template to the 1E template in Cold Front, the most recent Virtual Expansion released by the Continuing Committee.
- The 2EBC Hoshi Sato, Empress personnel card was converted to an Event. I'll be honest... this one made me sad. Hoshi Sato, Empress was a great card that I used in almost all of my Starfleet decks. And the Archive Portrait was a beautiful card. This card went from a card that I enjoyed using to a card that probably won't see any deck time.
That just makes me sad.
- The Arik Soong conversion was a winner from my perspective. The inclusion of Khan in the lore makes him an immediate add to my Khan deck. So I am excited about this conversion.
- Distant Control is an interesting card after its conversion. Aaron and I are still trying to figure out how we can use this card most effectively.

With Discomendation looming on the horizon, I have been actively trying to focus my 1E deckbuilding efforts on decks that do cool things with 2EBC cards.
Aaron and I still get together every Friday for game night. And over the last few months we have been playing multi-week tournaments where each of us bring 4 decks and then we play a game (or possibly two) each Friday game night.

I have entered a number of the decks featuring 2EBC mechanics that I have played in these mini-tournaments into the Continuing Committee Deck Builder.
I want to share some of the fun things that 2EBC cards add to the 1E game for me.

Here are links to some of these decks.
Sybok and Surak
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17063

Davin Does Kotra
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17031

Grimp Rules
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17023

Green Girls and Yellow Droids
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16957

Voyager and their Evil Twins
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16958

Cadet Deck
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16949

There are still a number of decks that I want to build that leverage 2EBC cards, but I fear there is just not enough time left before the Big Ban...

I do have a request for the Continuing Committee.
I am hoping that after Discomendation hits, 2EBC cards will still be legal in the Open Format for 1E players that still wish to use them.
There are only 3 banned 2EBC cards out of the 494 unconverted 2EBC cards in the current 1E card pool.
- Jack, Maladjusted Misfit
- Qol, Lascivious Lackey
- Standard Orbit
I would request that the Continuing Committee make converting these three currently banned 2EBC cards a priority before Discomendation. That would give us a clean 2EBC cardpool to hopefully still use in 1E Open Decks after the Big Ban.

Countdown to Discomendation
305 of the 799 2EBC cards have now been converted.
This currently leaves us with 494 unconverted 2EBC cards in the 1E card pool.

Here are the updated 2EBC spreadsheets as of February 5, 2018.

Code: Select all

                              Converted Unconverted   Banned  Total
Missions                             29          13        0     42
Dil - P                              20          21        0     41
Dil - S                              18          25        0     43
Dil - P/S                            33          39        0     72
Per - Fed                            26          69        1     95
Per - SF                             34           6        0     40
Per - Kli                            10          23        0     33
Per - Rom                            11          26        0     37
Per - Baj                            16          29        0     45
Per - Car                            13          20        0     33
Per - Dom                             5          17        0     22
Per - Fer                             3          12        1     15
Per - Bor                             5           8        0     13
Per - NA                             28          48        0     76
Ships                                14          34        0     48
Equipment                             3           0        0      3
Events                               27          82        1    109
Interrupts                           10          22        0     32
				
Total                               305         494        3    799
                                    38%         62%		

				
                              Converted Unconverted           Total
Second Edition (01)                  78         122             200
Energize (02)                        34          57              91
Call to Arms (03)                    30          59              89
Necessary Evil (04)                  20          33              53
10th Anniversary                      2           5               7
Fractured Time (05)                   5           9              14
Reflections 2.0 (06)                 10           9              19
Strange New Worlds (07)               5          10              15
To Boldly Go (08)                    27          25              52
Dangerous Missions (09)               5           2               7
Captain's Log (10)                   11          52              63
Genesis (11)                         14          13              27
These are the Voyages (12)           12          25              37
In a Mirror Darkly (13)              25          16              41
What You Leave Behind (14)           16          23              39
2E Virtual Promo                      0           1               1
The Undiscovered Country (15)         4          13              17
Favor the Bold (16)                   3          12              15
Raise the Stakes (17)                 3           8              11
This Side of Paradise (18)            1           0               1
				
Total                               305         494             799

[Boffo97]

I'd say Qol really doesn't need conversion, since RoA gave us a card for Qol already.

[tomek]

I'd say Qol really doesn't need conversion, since RoA gave us a card for Qol already.

I agree...
I've said for a while that since ROA Qol and 2EBC Qol have identical images, I think the easiest thing to do is simply declare ROA Qol to be a conversion for 2EBC Qol.

That way all you have to do is add Qol to the Converted Cards List and you have resolved a banned card and converted a 2EBC card with minimal effort.

[tomek]

With Discomendation looming on the horizon, I have been actively trying to focus my 1E deckbuilding efforts on decks that do cool things with 2EBC cards.
Aaron and I still get together every Friday for game night. And over the last few months we have been playing multi-week tournaments where each of us bring 4 decks and then we play a game (or possibly two) each Friday game night.

I have entered a number of the decks featuring 2EBC mechanics that I have played in these mini-tournaments into the Continuing Committee Deck Builder.
I want to share some of the fun things that 2EBC cards add to the 1E game for me.

Here are links to some of these decks.
Sybok and Surak
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17063

Davin Does Kotra
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17031

Grimp Rules
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17023

Green Girls and Yellow Droids
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16957

Voyager and their Evil Twins
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16958

Cadet Deck
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=16949

Aaron and I recently started a new mini-tournament. Last night in round one I played the Starfleet deck below.

Starfleet Augmented v 2.0
https://www.trekcc.org/1e/decklists/ind ... ckID=17809

Starfleet works together with Klingon Augments, and Mirror D'Vela.
This is a rework of a Starfleet Deck I built a couple of years ago. Since then a number of Starfleet personnel, including D'Vela were converted from the 2EBC template to the 1E template.
I also swapped out the stealable Espionage Mission version of Earth for the non-stealable Starfleet Homeworld, Research Devastating Attack.

2EBC content includes A Sight for Sore Eyes (a must in all my Starfleet decks)
and two other 2EBC staples
- One Man Cannot Summon the Future
- Mission Accomplished

[tomek]

The Fourth of July finally gave me some time to get caught up on some 2EBC Updates.

The big news was the release of Metamorphosis which was the last 1E expansion to contain 2EBC conversions. Metamorphosis showed us yet again that the Continuing Committee does an excellent job when converting 2EBC cards to the 1E template.
45 of the 63 cards in the Metamorphosis expansion were 2EBC conversions.

Two large blocks of conversions in Metamorphosis involved the Federation Cadets and the Evil Voyager Holograms. This means I will have to go back and rework my Cadet Deck and my Evil Voyager Deck to incorporate the new converted versions of the Cadets and the Voyager Holos.
A number of Remans were also converted in Metamorphosis.
A significant conversion for the Borg was the Callibration Drone, the 2EBC version was basically a Universal Personnel version of Masaka which would allow a player to recycle their hand multiple times if necessary. So all my Borg Decks contained multiple copies of the 2EBC Callibration Drone. The new 1E conversion special downloads Masaka which limits the hand recycling to once per game.

While I was putting together my final list of unconverted 2EBC cards, I noticed that I had overlooked the conversion of Kira Nerys, Blockade Commander in Warp Pack Holiday: 2017. So I will note that conversion here.

Which brings us to our final count of unconverted 2EBC cards.

Countdown to Discomendation
351 of the 799 2EBC cards have now been converted.
This currently leaves us with 448 unconverted 2EBC cards in the 1E card pool.

Only 2 of those 448 unconverted 2EBC cards are currently banned.
So the Continuing Committee will be taking 446 1E cards away from the 1E community when they follow through with the Big Discomendation Ban in October.

I will be making a separate post listing all 448 of the unconverted 2EBC cards that will be banned by Discomendation (many of which are significant components of 1E deck types).

Here are the updated 2EBC spreadsheets as of July 4, 2018.

Code: Select all

                              Converted Unconverted   Banned  Total
Missions                             31          11        0     42
Dil - P                              20          21        0     41
Dil - S                              19          24        0     43
Dil - P/S                            34          38        0     72
Per - Fed                            45          50        0     95
Per - SF                             34           6        0     40
Per - Kli                            13          20        0     33
Per - Rom                            15          22        0     37
Per - Baj                            18          27        0     45
Per - Car                            14          19        0     33
Per - Dom                             6          16        0     22
Per - Fer                             4          11        1     15
Per - Bor                             6           7        0     13
Per - NA                             31          45        0     76
Ships                                16          32        0     48
Equipment                             3           0        0      3
Events                               31          78        1    109
Interrupts                           11          21        0     32
				
Total                               351         448        2    799
                                    44%         56%		

				
                              Converted Unconverted           Total
Second Edition (01)                  90         110             200
Energize (02)                        35          56              91
Call to Arms (03)                    39          50              89
Necessary Evil (04)                  26          27              53
10th Anniversary                      2           5               7
Fractured Time (05)                   5           9              14
Reflections 2.0 (06)                 10           9              19
Strange New Worlds (07)               5          10              15
To Boldly Go (08)                    30          22              52
Dangerous Missions (09)               5           2               7
Captain's Log (10)                   13          50              63
Genesis (11)                         14          13              27
These are the Voyages (12)           14          23              37
In a Mirror Darkly (13)              33           8              41
What You Leave Behind (14)           18          21              39
2E Virtual Promo                      0           1               1
The Undiscovered Country (15)         4          13              17
Favor the Bold (16)                   4          11              15
Raise the Stakes (17)                 3           8              11
This Side of Paradise (18)            1           0               1
				
Total                               351         448             799

[Boffo97]

I concur that a lot of baby is being thrown out with the bathwater here. It's hard to say that though and not be accused of wanting to save the bathwater.

[tomek]

I concur that a lot of baby is being thrown out with the bathwater here. It's hard to say that though and not be accused of wanting to save the bathwater.

I think the facts speak for themselves...

Only 2 of the 448 unconverted 2EBC cards currently merit a ban.
There's a whole lot more baby than bathwater here.

[Boffo97]

I concur that a lot of baby is being thrown out with the bathwater here. It's hard to say that though and not be accused of wanting to save the bathwater.

I think the facts speak for themselves...

Only 2 of the 448 unconverted 2EBC cards currently merit a ban.
There's a whole lot more baby than bathwater here.

Well, I'd say the bigger problem with the remaining 2EBC pool isn't bans, it's cards that are both useless and meh. Like I don't think many would have an issue with Good Shepherd (always useless in 1E because there were no BC ships) being gone, or the Qol (Lascivious Lackey) ban being solved by declaring RoA's Qol to be his conversion. Arena got brought up a lot, but it could be a perfectly fine dilemma if the number were adjusted so that the percentage of personnel hit was on par with the percentage hit in 2E.

But there is a lot of cool now either gone for years or gone forever. That's my problem in a nutshell.

[tomek]

I concur that a lot of baby is being thrown out with the bathwater here. It's hard to say that though and not be accused of wanting to save the bathwater.

I think the facts speak for themselves...

Only 2 of the 448 unconverted 2EBC cards currently merit a ban.
There's a whole lot more baby than bathwater here.

Well, I'd say the bigger problem with the remaining 2EBC pool isn't bans, it's cards that are both useless and meh. Like I don't think many would have an issue with Good Shepherd (always useless in 1E because there were no BC ships) being gone, or the Qol (Lascivious Lackey) ban being solved by declaring RoA's Qol to be his conversion. Arena got brought up a lot, but it could be a perfectly fine dilemma if the number were adjusted so that the percentage of personnel hit was on par with the percentage hit in 2E.

Even with the cards you mention, the size of the of the bathwater is still just a tiny percentage of the size of the healthy baby.
And the Continuing Committee has already been using a very successful process for dealing with the small number of cards that really are an issue... convert them.

I have yet to see any legitimate excuse for banning over 400 cards from the 1E game that aren't doing the 1E game any real harm... and in many cases are actually providing positive gameplay options for 1E players.

But there is a lot of cool now either gone for years or gone forever. That's my problem in a nutshell.

Yeah...

I really appreciate what the Continuing Committee has done for the 1E game up to this point. They breathed new life into a game I love, and they have put in countless hours of unpaid time and effort to produce new cards and gameplay options for the 1E game.

But unfortunately they are dropping the ball big time with this Discomendation Ban. Taking legitimate gameplay options away from 1E players due to personal preferences over template design is a misguided error that does not move the 1E game forward.

[AllenGould]

So, given that this thread is now five years old, is it safe to assume that until each and every one of the remaining 2E cards is converted we'll never hear the end of this?

[edgeofhearing]

In my eyes, the biggest loss will be Mavek. An entire competitive (yet not broken) decktype banned by the removal of 2EBC.

[Armus]

I'm with you guys, but I don't see how it makes a difference at this point.

The debate has been had, the decision has been made.

I'll say the same thing about this that I said awhile back on the Discommend THIS! thread:



Maybe we all need to start wearing Brown Coats to all future 1e tournaments until the last card is converted. or something....

[Armus]

So, given that this thread is now five years old, is it safe to assume that until each and every one of the remaining 2E cards is converted we'll never hear the end of this?

I hope so.

There was no consensus here. About half the community wanted 2ebc done away with, and about half didn't.

It's one thing to accept the decision, and I have. It's another to like it, which I still don't.

Dave is one of the most passionate players I know. If he wants to keep tracking conversions and posting about it, he has my full support.

[Boffo97]

Just to clarify, I assume that was tomek Dave, not me Dave.

Also, as respectfully as possible, I would remind everyone that there is an option that if one simply dislikes a topic, one is free to not click on it. Just like I do with the Politics thread unless there's some red badgy reason I have to go into there. If half the board is going to hate me, I'd rather it be for my opinion on this game rather than my politics.

As to what the point is in continuing to talk about the subject, no one has ever gone card by card on what's left and discussed the merits thereof. I'd make the argument that tomek is pretty much the foremost 2EBC expert on here, so that could be relevant feedback to Design on which cards to make a priority for re-inclusion in the game through new 1E cards in future sets, or even a Metamorphosis Supplemental type product which has been idly discussed before (though it is a long shot to say the least.)