Weekly 1E Roundup - 11 SEPTEMBER 2019

by Charlie Plaine, Director of First Edition

11th September 2019

Welcome to the Wednesday 1E Roundup, a weekly column looking back at the past week in the world of First Edition as well as a preview of the week ahead. If you've got an event coming up and you'd like to be featured in this column, feel free to contact me at cplaine@gmail.com or on the forums via PM to MidnightLich.

The Big News

Normally, our rules updates happen on the first Monday of the month, but last Monday was a holiday in the United States so we deferred everything a week. That means that this past Monday saw a number of rules changes in the most recent Current Rulings Document (CRD). You can read about these changes in this forum thread. In addition, IDIC: Power of the High Command and Treaty: Romulan/Vulcan received errata, bringing the former back into the game after a brief stay on the ban list; Matt Zinno (commdecker) explains those changes in his article.

The Top Ten

I've been thinking a lot lately about First Edition decks I want to make, and there are just too many of them! The other problem is that, as a 1E designer, sometimes I start thinking about potential for new cards for certain decks. Once I start ranking things and putting things in lists though, I start thinking about Top Ten lists; thus, you get a new Top Ten list today. Below are ten decks that I want to make and/or or which I want to develop new cards. Take a look, and then let me know how you would order these decks!

10) A Q-Flash deck. This is going to be tough to recreate in an OTF environment since you're limited to seeding just two Q-Flashes under missions (plus a third on table). But I'm very curious about some new design space for Q cards, and to poke around in that space I need to play the deck.

9) Gamma Quadrant Ferengi. In hindsight as a designer, we had a lot of misses in the Deep Space 9 block - misses that I'm very eager to rectify. No doubt that's why you'll see so many themed decks on my list, starting with a Ferengi deck with Where Opportunities are Made. The deck isn't a simple one, and I'm not the best at figuring out complex interactions, but I'm very eager to put together a Ferengi/Dominion Acquisition deck and see how it works.

8) Borg. I'm on record as disliking almost everything about 1E Borg. But, if I am to learn from Sun Tzu, then I must heed the wisdom Riker shared with Portal: "know your enemy and know yourself, and you will always be victorious." This is the only item on this list I have as a personal challenge, instead of a deck building / design based challenge.

7) maH nLv. This was, to the best of my recollection, the first truly broken deck made by the CC. The card was inspired by the virus in Enterprise that melted the forehead ridges, and so it played around with letting and Klingons swap and work together. The original version enabled some insane reporting of quality people and led to an aggressive errata. But I'm curious to try it out again now that Klingons have been developed and Klingons are around the corner.

6) A mission deck. I think universal missions hide a deep and rich vein of unexplored design space. This remains largely unexplored because of the fear of mission theft, but I want to explore it anyway. We've dabbled in this space somewhat, with dilemmas like Explosive Decompression and support cards like Renewed Spirit, but I'm eager to put all the pieces together and see how my missions fare.

5) Span Denial. I dabbled with this a bit in a recent playtesting deck, but I'd like to play with some high span missions, spaceline interference, and other cards that seek to making moving around difficult. I'm not terribly interested in doing it to trap and blow up an opponent, but just to slow them down so I can do some slower strategies like artifacts. There are a few ways to increase the span of a mission - notably Woteln - but how well do they work together?

4) Combined Task Force. I think the biggest problem with this deck is going to be the fact that there just aren't very many Klingon personnel. That makes this deck rely on mostly Feds, which are almost always better paired up with the Bajorans. But to really help DS9 Klingons, then I need to experience that for myself.

3) Infiltration. Through the Looking Glass was a beautiful expansion, put together by Thomas Vineberg (Exon) and his team. There is an infiltration/infiltrator theme running through that set that has been calling to me for years. I'm very eager to put this one to the test.

2) The Inner Light. This card had such a cool concept: to take one of the most beloved stories and turn it into a themed deck. With so many disparate pieces of the story in the deck (Investigate Alien Probe, Ressikan Flute, Drought Tree), it seemed like a no-brainer to put them together. But we missed the mark, and I'd like to play with the deck to find out exactly what went wrong.

1) An "All Good Things" deck. When we made Investigate Anti-Time Eruption, we had plans. We've talked about making two Time Locations to go with it, each with their own Enterprise, to let you play Vintner Picard and his friends to solve the mission. A lot of this would be new cards, but if I can build a deck around the mission now and understand the pieces that exist, then so much the better when we do get around to making all of these crew.

This Day in Trek

Today is actress Roxann Dawson's birthday! She is famous for bringing the half-Klingon, half-Human B'Elanna Torres to life on Star Trek: Voyager. Here's a fun fact I didn't know until writing this column: she was married to Casey Biggs, the actor who brought Damar to life on DS9! And they met and married before either of them appeared on Star Trek. Small world! Aside from playing B'Elanna, Roxann also directed two episodes of Voyager and a total of ten episodes of Enterprise. Happy 61st birthday, Mrs. Dawson!

Tournament Reports

It's been a quiet few weeks in the world of organized First Edition play, but this past weekend was our inaugural run of the First Edition, First Weekend program. We invited players to play 1E, be it in a tournament, on their kitchen table, or solo and post about it with the social media hashtag #showusyourspaceline. It was still a quiet weekend, but forum user SuddenKapala and I took advantage. Sudden and his friend Luuke played 1E, which you can read about in this forum post. He's got a great write-up, so here is a quote:

"Initially, my Traditionalist Romulans had Covertly Rescued some poor sods who crashed their "one-man" scout craft; and Strategically Diverted some of Luuke's attention. But obviously not enough to really hamper him, as it turned out; "Game over man, game over!" cried Colonial Marine Hudson (who turned up as a stowaway on one of our boats!?). Toreth and Tomalak got stuck at Cerebus II, trying on a red shirt together. Didn't fit them both, but they survived."

Meanwhile, I busted out some Coming of Age TNG starter decks and reacquainted my roommate, Chris Lobban (Maelwys) with the modern game. Chris is an old school 1E player, former Ambassador, and our Chief Programmer here, so it was fun to see him relive the past with modern cards. A lot of fun. Sudden, I'll be packing up a surprise for you as a thank you for participating. And if you missed out this weekend, don't worry - the program will continue October 4th, 5th, and 6th - so schedule your events now!

Tournament Previews

This week kicked off the Online Masters, hosted by Director of Organized Play Kris Sonsteby (LORE) and branded "Masters of the Universe 2." Twelve (12) players started round 1 on Monday, including top players like Jon Carter (pfti), Michael Van Breemen (The Ninja Scot), and Greg Dillon (Latok). We'll be keeping an eye on this event over the next month and keep you up to date.

This weekend will feature a single tournament, an OTF Complete Constructed event in Eden, New York in the US. Hosted by Robin Honeycutt (robin1234), a long-running subject of this column and genuinely amazing person, this tournament doesn't show any other preregistered players as of the writing of the column. But I know Robin has a forceful personality and a long list of buddies, so I'm confident I'll be writing about the results next week.

Looking a little bit further ahead, we have the Space Coast Trek Masters event in West Melborne, Flordia on November 10th and the British Nationals event in Greater Manchester on November 16th. Right now, the event in Flordia needs players to pre-register, because there are some amazing prizes on the line. The British Nationals event looks to offer some great rematches from the World Championship, with nine (9) players pre-registered.

Do you have an event coming up? A tournament or get-together? Let me know! Contact me at any of the links at the bottom of this column, and I'll happily promote your event in a future edition of this column!

Short Takes (In Other News)

• The next set of virtual promos, Series O, has been revealed. Visit the virtual promo page (and scroll down to the bottom) to see the nine (9) new promos. If you've run any tournament in the past six (6) months, you can head to The Promenade to requisition a set for your next tournaments. My personal favorite from this series is the Fissure Research AI, although Cytherians is pretty great too.


• What do you think about errata and design "misses"? Every time we issue an errata, there's a discussion about the changes, and this week's is no exception. This discussion has dipped into bigger issues of power level, the optics of changing cards from a previous block when the new block is out, and design missing the mark on power. What do you think?


• 2019-2020 League Signups are now open! Our World Championship Trek (WCT) league takes place every year from October through February as a way to promote playing more Trek. Kris a.k.a. Lore has all of the details in his article, including information about signing up and running events. If you do, you'll be able to get some reprints of Series A foils for your events as prizes!


• I've started a new series of threads where I ask questions on Fridays. Two weeks ago, I wanted to know which characteristics in the game needed some love. This past Friday, I asked about which cards in the game are most in need of an alternate image version. I plan on posting a new question every Friday, and a lot of them will directly relate to things we're working on for the future of 1E.


• I've also been looking for feedback on my performance as Director. I've been officially on the job for a third of a year, and I'll be facing a vote to keep my job in January or February. I started a thread so I can find out what you think of how I'm doing, so I can make sure I'm satisfying the community of 1E players. So share your thoughts, good or bad, and let me know where we can improve.


• Should we make exclusive white border preview cards - and should they be legal? There was a bit of controversy recently when it was discovered the newest white border preview card, Persistent Individuality, was out in the world but not on the site. A change to policy earlier this year made the card legal, which understandably concerned people. What do you think about things like this? Should we make exclusive cards, or no? Should they be legal?

Finally, I want to take a moment to thank everyone in our community that is a past, present, or future member of any armed service around the world. Eighteen (18) years ago today, the World Trade Center towers fell, and the United States - and much of the world - has been involved in a war ever since. I never had the courage to serve myself, but I have the deepest respect and admiration for those that do. I know several active and former members of the military participate in First Edition, Second Edition, or Tribbles, and I'm honored to be part of the same community as these heroes and warriors. Thank you for your service. In the immortal words of Mr. Spock, live long and prosper, my friends.

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That's all for this week's roundup of First Edition news and events. For more news, you can follow The Continuing Committee on Facebook, Twitter, or bookmark our front page. News about upcoming First Edition projects can be found in the most recent Project Status Update from August 2019. My next Office Hours will be on Tuesday, September 24th at 6:30 PM Pacific. If you've got an event coming up and you'd like to be featured in this column, or if you have comments about this column's content, feel free to contact me at cplaine@gmail.com or on the forums via PM to MidnightLich. Until next week, may you expand your power in the universe and live long and prosper.

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