Extreme Measures: A Stranger In Town

by Conno Hendriksen, Make it So Runner Up

18th January 2011

You’re reading this article because over a year ago I, along with 19 other contestants, participated the Make It So competition. I did not know what it would bring me, or how long it would take, but I was happy to make it to the final. Although it did not earn me the final title, and I missed out my Bajoran Pah-Wraith cult making it to playtesting in the penultimate challenge (something I’m not too bothered about as I’m looking forward to see what Gooey’s Dominion traders can do), I did end up in a respectable second place, which gave me the golden opportunity to design a card (D-A-C). Any card.

Any card, that was where the ‘problem’ started. There are so many options to go with. In the Make it So challenges you always had some sort of context to steer you, and most often you could make a couple of cards, so you could create a couple of things you liked. With D-A-C you have one opportunity. So making one thing, automatically means you can’t make the other ideas you had in mind.

Also, there was so much we did in MiS, I was creatively a bit exhausted. I could still come up with some nice cards and cool ideas, but I didn’t feel I was on my game as I was during MiS. But then enter the World Championships. As this year they were in Germany, I finally should succumb and join. That’s how the WC became the first ever official tournament I entered. Before that, I did play a lot (and I mean a lot) of games since 1999 (first 1E, then 2E), but only friendly games against my brother. It was only two or three months before the championships that a 2E player was living in the same town as I was (granted, I moved to that town one and a half year ago), so I did get some games in against Auwey. Creating a deck for WC was quite a different experience than MiS, and you can imagine playing in such an official tournament is an eye-opening experience as well, compared to the friendly games I played at home, with some of our own house rules. That said, I thought it was great. I met nice and interesting players, and it also got my creative juices flowing again.

At that point I was finalizing my choice for the card I wanted to submit. At first I thought about a sort of dilemma or event to curb some of the more powerful strategies I saw at WC. But in the end I felt bad about that, firstly because I wasn’t sure when my card would be put in a set and if the same ‘problems’ would exist then (and I felt the CC probably would take care as well), secondly because I’d forfeit my chance to do a character I would like to see.

So, I wanted to do a character. Lots of choices played through my head, with various abilities. I won’t go through all of them, but in the end it came down to Mr. Homn (because he’s played by a Dutch guy), Kes (she’s one of my favorite characters, and I’d love to see a version of her from the episode ‘Fury’), and Deanna Troi. I decided not to go with Mr. Homn because I couldn’t get his ability to really work the way I wanted to. The ‘furious’ Kes would turn out to be more of a fanboy card, because I’d wanted her card to be of an uber-telepath. So in the end I went for Deanna, who is my favorite character from the TNG main crew (I guess I have a thing for telepaths…). The versions I doubted between are an AU version from Parallels, and Durango. I picked the latter simply because I figured she’d be NA (to honor 1E a bit), so I could use her more often J. Also I wanted to deal with the Security theme their 1E version had going. That’s how the ability started and got tweaked to what it is. Basically she’s keeping an eye on what’s going on in town. I chose her skills so still to relate to her previous versions, but also make her a bit specific to that episode. In the end, I think she has an interesting skill-template for a NA, and her ability can be useful just to hinder your opponent when he plays that critical personnel (or that annoying Archer). I really like how the card ended up, and I hope you do too!'