Who Wants a Space-brazilian?

by Niall Matthew, Matching the Carpet with the Curtains

14th September 2015

Before you read any further, look in the card search engine and search for Personnel with the skill of Barbering...

As you can see, Crossover brings this extremely rare skill to the Mirror Quadrant, adding a whole new dimension to your Alliance or Empire/Rebellion decks.

Before we look into this skill, Allow me to introduce V'mor, and what else he brings to the table.

He is one of the Vulcans which we see serving The Intendant, which will automatically give him the new name of 'Vulcan Love Slave' (The Intendant is after all very open minded about the company she keeps). This association allows him to report for free with Emblem of the Alliance if The Intendant is in play. Anthropology comes in handy if you want to add him to your quirky Vulcan deck and draw cards from Duck Blind. Mindmeld comes naturally to his species, so make sure to have a Vulcan Mindmeld at the ready. His special skill is a handy one indeed. If you have managed to keep him away from the sexual allure of The Intendant, then he can nullify Strict Dress Code. Being one of the Alliance's top fasionistas, I can imagine myself playing out scenes from Zoolander while I nullify this Dilemma (I'd better get 'Relax' at the ready on Spotify just in case).

His attributes reflect the dark side of the space fashion industry, as he needs to be relentless in moving up the ladder of success (INTEGRITY 5), he needs the knowledge to make trendy space clothes (CUNNING 8), and he needs to be able to 'handle' The Intendant when needed (STRENGTH 7).

Now, let's get back to that skill I mentioned earlier.

During the days of Decipher, there were three very useless cards; Mot the Barber, Mot's Advice, and Barber Pole. For years, these cards were considered binder fodder. It wasn't until All Good Things was released, that these cards were finally given some relevant gameplay functions through the Objective In for a Trim. Not only did this give those three cards freedom from the binder, but it also emulates the idea of barbering very accurately.

In for a Trim allows you to peek at X cards of the opponent's deck, where X equals the number of Barbering Personnel in play. There are now two ways you can get a head start on building up the Barbering in play from the start of the game. You can either select Mot the Barber as a mission specialist, or you can download V'mor to the Promenade via Ops: Mirror Universe. If you are not using Continuing Mission or Reshape the Quadrant, you can easily use both personnel.

So there are two Personnel with Barbering out in play. How do you get more Barbering? Mot's Advice plays for free on any personnel to give them that skill (just remember not to play them on mission specialists if you want those all important bonus points). Note that In for a Trim merely says 'plays for free' and not 'once each turn, plays for free'. With wording like this, you can play multiple Mot's Advice on the same turn.

Now you have a few Barbering out, you want to start using that gametext of In for a Trim. To use it, you need one final card; Barber Pole. This one also plays for free, but you really only need one in play for the effect to take place. You can get rid of excess Poles from your hand by discarding them with Mutation, or simply play multiples on the table in case your opponent has Kevin Uxbridge.

As I said earlier, you get to peek at the top X cards of the opponent's deck once each turn. When you look at the cards, there are two things you can do:

1) You may discard any or all Events, Interrupts, and Incidents (except Borg only or Referee cards).

2) After you discard the cards you want, you may then rearrange the remaining cards as desired.

How powerful is this? It depends on the type of deck your opponent is using. Handshake is one of the most utilised draw engines in the game right now, along with Mutation and The Power. Having the ability to remove these cards from the opponent's deck will almost likely shut down their drawing ability. If you can catch some of those Espionage cards that download via Bajoran Resistance Cell, even better. Kazon Battle decks rely heavy on Interrupts to do maximum damage, so you can hide somewhere and keep denying those primitive space cavemen the ability to Wormhole/Outgun/Go to the Top. If anyone needs a good hairdo, it's the Kazon for sure.

As for rearranging the deck afterwards, there are a few fun options out there. Perhaps stock a copy of Fire Sculptor in your deck to remove the opponents Q the Referee from play, preventing them from shuffling their deck afterwards. You can skill track the opponent and use skill based dilemma walls. For example, use In for a Trim to keep MEDICAL and Biology from being drawn into, so when they hit Medical Crisis, it will be more difficult to pass. Maybe move ships to the bottom of the Barber stack to prevent spaceline movement. You can even make sure the top three cards are Personnel, allowing you to score ten points from Security Sweep.

On the 'decks used' section of In for a Trim, you will notice that I am the only one that has been crazy enough to take a Barber deck to a tournament. When Crossover is released, I encourage you to whip out your Vulcan love slave, drop the opponents pants and give them a Brazilian they will never forget.

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