Toil and Trouble

by Ross Fertel, Second Edition Brand Manager

2nd March 2018

Not to get too meta, but I know these articles are kind of tangent to the spotlight series. Here we are trying to focus on specific affiliations and every Friday, here I come and bring us right back to expansions as a whole. This series is a bit of a spin off, in more ways than one, but here comes AU week and I'm all set with Matter of Time.

Okay, yes, not all cards from this set are temporally minded. It's hard to get dilemmas based on that theme and near impossible for groups such as the Dominion and Maquis. But all in all, Matter of Time did an excellent job on following up on Fractured Time.

Perhaps the biggest breakthrough of the set was the Relativity crew. The hallmark of what would end up being the final design of Brad Defruiter, this Federation team didn't have faction icons and in fact brought crews from throughout the Federation together, for a bit, anyway. Yes, they do like it when they are all from the future, but Temporal Transporters practically begs you to intermingle. This proved to be a force to be reckoned with and changed how you played against your opponent. They are by no means an impossible behemoth to overcome, but you do have to adapt your strategy on the fly.

The other big group is from Yesterday's Enterprise. Adding to the arsenal of the always strong Next Generation is hard since they can't make them even more powerful, but if they are nerfed, no one will use them. The Enterprise-C group does a great job encouraging a new decktype focusing on the Past sub-faction with a bit of incentive for the Battleship crew, if you are so inclined. If not, they are solid personnel that can mix with your other Next Generation Cards.

It's not just the fourth version of the flagship that helps the past move forward, several personnel make old cards better. It's always a risky proposition to make since if you do it wrong, you not only keep cards in the binder, you put another one in to join it. Thankfully, these cards are all personnel so even if you don't like the older card, or if it doesn't show up when you need it, you still have skills and attributes. All costed fairly cheap, you don't have to worry about busting the bank to get them out where they need to be. This is also apparent with the non-aligned personnel, who are solid to have around even if your opponent is discourteous to enough not to play with multiple headquarters, or even one.

Looking at the other cards in the set, Adversarial Trial and Standing Trial help you out while winning, which you are probably at least thinking of doing anyway. And Ingenious Jury-rig keeps dilemmas under missions where they should be. Of course, Overburdened will help you put your dilemmas to the test. Preposterous Plan will keep your opponent in check early on, and Provoke Interstellar Incident deeply rewards you if your opponent doubles up on Headquarters. Nog does an excellent job of marrying Deep Space Nine and the Future while Daniels does a great job of simply not dying.

Time travel in part of the pantheon of Star Trek. Just as it breathes new life into a show that's been operating well for years, it can also fuel excitement in the game. New familiar characters sport new affiliations and cards can go a bit outside where they would normally.

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