May 2023 First Edition Game Changes Update

by Charlie Plaine, Director of First Edition

1st May 2023

It's gonna, gonna, gonna... it's gonna be May! Well, actually it is May, and with it comes the First Edition Game Changes update. As usual, on the 1st Monday of each month, we announce errata, changes to the Modern Ban List, and changes to the First Edition Watch List. Most of our changes today come from our Balance Team, but there are a few originating with our Rules Team and 2 driving by our Creative Team. Let's get into it, shall we?

...wait, did I just say "Modern Ban List" instead of "OTF Ban List"? I sure did! As of today, we're officially renaming the Official Tournament Format (OTF) to Modern. You can read all about this change in the Modern announcement article. But the short version is that in most cases all that's changing is the name. Everything else, from the rules to our support for the format, remains the same.

Okay, now let's get into the game changes:

Modern Ban List
With today's update to the Modern Ban List, we're removing 2 cards. One of them you'll know immediately if you read articles on the site regularly: Persistent Individuality. As announced on Friday, this card is finally being released in black border. Since it's now available to all players equally, there is no reason to keep the card out of the environment. Enjoy this new dilemma!

On the other hand, I bet most of you didn't have the 2nd card on your bingo card: Horga'hn! This infamous artifact from Premiere has arguably been the most powerful card in the game. So much so that Decipher tried to counter it 5 different times before ultimately shadow-banning the card with Writ of Accountability. However, thanks to some very hard work from our Balance Team and our corps of testers, we're returning the card to Modern. It's still got a similar flavor without the rampant power of continual double turns. We hope you enjoy signaling jamaharon in 1E once again!

Errata
Today we have 11 cards receiving errata, but due to multiple printings there are 15 card faces changing. Let's start out looking at the changes originating with the Balance Team.

Horga'hn
As mentioned above, Horga'hn is returning to Modern with updated wording. This artifact now allows you to gain an extra card play each turn, or an extra card draw each turn. You get to pick each turn, so you can play an extra card once, then draw extra next.

Writ of Accountability
While most of the anti-Horga'hn counters are reasonable (see: Jamaharon, The Devil, Temporal Narcosis), Writ of Accountability forces you to lose the game if you use the Horga'hn a 3rd time. With the updated text, that felt excessive, so the Balance Team has removed Horga'hn from the "auto-lose" list on this card. Both the original Rules of Acquisition printing and the Referee Reprints version get updated.

Starbase 247
The Federation facility has been significantly better than a standard outpost since its release, and the drawback of only seeding at space missions has been insufficient. With today's update, not only does the facility get lower SHIELDS, but it loses the ability to download Spacedock.

The Wake of the Borg
This interrupt was errated in 2020 to allow an deck to exist in the Neutral Zone without fear of an auto-loss. We also took the opportunity to remove the icon. Based on the feedback from players, that was an unpopular and unnecessary changes. Today's update restores the icon to both printings of this card. Additionally, the Balance Team took the opportunity to update the number of allowed missions from 2 to 3.

Next, we have 4 cards that are being updated because they are appearing as virtual promos. As a general rule, we will update a card before reprinting it, and then issue errata to the original. In most cases, these are not functional changes. In these cases, the promos all come from Tournament Promo Series S:

In the Pale Moonlight
This dilemma has been updated to use the affiliation icon instead of the word "Federation." The order of the conditions were slightly updated at the same time to improve readability.

Captured
Similarly to the above dilemma, this card has been updated to say "non- " instead of "non-Borg" in both places where that text appears. This is a slight functional change, as now a purely Borg-species deck can now use this card where they couldn't before.

Seven of Nine (Voyager)
Both versions of this card ( border and border) have had a slight lore tweak to properly name U.S.S. Voyager in lore.

I.K.S. Chang
As per our policy, this ship has been updated in both lore and gametext to change the incorrect "I.K.C." to "I.K.S."

Finally, the remaining changes are from our Rules Team in their tireless quest to reduce confusion and move obscure rules text back onto cards:

Q's Tent
While the Rules have technically forbidden players from looking in their own Q's Tent side decks, practically nobody has followed those rules. Especially with the rise on Online play via Lackey. For this reason, this card has been updated to explicitly allow players to look at the cards in their own side decks. At the same time, the wording has been updated to modern templating. Functionally, this card works identically. Both printings of Q's Tent have been updated.

Q's Tent: Civil War
Similarly, the text on Q's Tent: Civil War has been updated in the same capacities as the original Q's Tent, as mentioned above.

Workhorses of the Fleet
Released in Nemesis, this card has caused some confusion between how the primary functions interact. This update is a non-functional change that makes it explicitly clear how the card can be correctly used.

Watch List
As is standard practice, any cards coming off of the Modern Ban List are automatically added to the Watch List. This gives the card extra attention in case it needs balancing post-release. Therefore, we are adding both Horga'hn and Persistent Individuality to this list. At the same time, we are removing Starbase 247 from the Watch List given its update via errata today. Finally, we are adding Klim Dokachin to the list because of an interaction with the new player friendly card Battle Stations: Core Protection.

With all of that, Monday's game changes update draws to a close. We here at the Department of First Edition thank you for your continued support of the game. As a reminder, game change updates such as errata, bans, unbans, and edits to the Watch List are scheduled for the First Monday of each month. Our next scheduled update will be Monday, June 5th, 2023.

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