What's this about Gifts? I have a return!

by Matthew Zinno, Head of Errata

2nd November 2018

Hand in hand with this new expansion themed around the Delta Quadrant, I have some errata for you in the same vein.  First on the list is the card I get asked about most often.  It's the one you've all been waiting for, Organ Theft, coming off the ban list.  This card was part of the original OTF ban list, judged to be too powerful as a combined play engine, bonus point engine, and denial strategy.  Fixing it was a pretty hairy puzzle to face; we certainly wanted the core of the card to stay close to the original, but there are so many different knobs that could be turned to adjust it.  Several people had their noses in the project over the years, and they brought different senses of which portions of its functionality were too powerful, or which knob settings would have just kneecapped it into unstockability.  In the end, the changes which looked right to our eye (and that of the playtesters) were these:

• The Vidiian using it is stopped.  This imposes a cost it didn't have before, and prevents using it for hit-and-run tactics.  If you board your opponent's ship to get organs, they will be able to do things to you next turn.  (Subject to details like attack restrictions, of course.)  
• The Vidiians entering play, whether downloaded or played from hand, are now limited to being universal.  
• Discarding the objective for points is limited to three times per game.  

The heart of the card stays the same: a guaranteed play engine (because you can target your own personnel) and the possibility of points (but not too many).  Arm your guy with a Harvester, and head to town!

There are two more errata accompanying this new set, but these are purely to support easier wording on one of the new cards.  For years, the defining quality of Delta Quadrant decks -- that they're in the Delta Quadrant -- has meant they're separated from the more usual Alpha Quadrant decks.  And since almost all of the affiliations have major strategies based on meeting up with the opponent, they frequently need to stock a way to get the Alpha Quadrant.  One of the simplest was to use the Barzan Wormhole, seeded in the Delta Quadrant spaceline, and the Premiere mission Wormhole Negotiations which that doorway would move you to.  This strategy carried a significant drawback, that this was a 45-point mission, stealable, with requirements and affiliations that many decks had the potential to easily meet.  And so The Gift provies a new mission to replace it: the new mission Preliminary Incursion is a new version of that mission persona at the Barzan location, with DQ-friendly affiliation icons and a theft-proof point value.  The location is renamed to the Wormhole Terminus, in the location text of Wormhole Negotiations and the gametext of Barzan Wormhole.  The two missions share that location text, making them versions of the same mission persona (i.e. if the two players bring the two different versions of that place, the mission cards will overlap on the spaceline).  And whichever variety of the mission you use, the doorway can lead you there.

These errata (and Organ Theft's exiting of the ban list) will take effect on Monday, November 5 (the first Monday of the month, standard for Errata releases).  What do you think of them?  Give me your gut reactions in the thread below ... if you have the nerve.
 

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