Announcing The Gift

by Charlie Plaine, Acting First Edition Brand Manager

2nd November 2018

Today, I'm happy to officially announce The Gift, a nine (9) card boutique expansion for First Edition. These cards are all about the Delta Quadrant, and a chance to give some love to Delta Quadrant fans, who haven't seen much in our usual expansions. These cards will be available, for free, one week from today on Friday, November 9th. As usual, they will then be legal for play (in allowed formats) one week later.

The Gift was born out of a desire to give fans of the Delta Quadrant, and the native affiliations there, some love. Our focus on blocks has been mostly Alpha Quadrant themed, with dips into the Gamma and Mirror Quadrants. And while we've made a few DQ cards over the years, such as the Kazon-affiliation Voyager and the Revised crew in Metamorphosis, there hasn't been anything just for fans. And while The Gift might be small, it's packed full of fun!

First, let me thank all of the volunteers who work so hard making these expansions. Aside from the design team (whom I'll introduce in a moment), expansions like The Gift wouldn't be possible without a host of people working to make them. Please help me thank our testers, proofreaders, artists, and folks who are creative-minded and rules-oriented. We wouldn't be anything without you and your efforts, and you have my deepest appreciation.

Here's a quick look at the design team for The Gift:

James Monsebroten [Orbin], Lead Designer
Designer Profile: James Monsebroten
James has been a workhorse designer since his victory in Make it So, and has more than earned the right to lead a design. Fun fact, this is technically his second project as lead, it just happens to be coming out before his first - next year's Project Delenn. The Gift is James' third project as a First Edition designer, and you'll be seeing a lot more of him: he's on two projects due out next year!

Dan Hamman [SirDan], Assistant Designer
Designer Profile: Dan Hamman
Dan has been leading so many expansions, it's unusual to write about him as an assistant designer. Dan's style is unique, fun, and some may say whacky, but it works well. Fun fact: prior to working on The Gift, Dan has been the lead on more expansions than he has not. As of now, he's tied up with seven (7) leads and seven (7) assists.

Andreas Rheinländer [Dukat], Assistant Designer
Designer Profile: Andreas Rheinländer
Andreas joined the design team for The Gift, his third First Edition project (and second boutique) out of love for the Delta Quadrant. As always, Andreas works hard to make sure the cards are as good as they can be without risking unbalancing the game.

Regretfully, We Cannot Attend
I'll start by being honest. With only nine (9) cards, there are some things that unfortunately had to be left out. The Borg were one of those things. The design team made Borg cards, but they were left on the cutting room floor at the end of the day. However, as the Acting Brand Manager for First Edition, I've seen the future, and Borg fans have reasons to be excited. As has been often said, they are coming.

Another affiliation that doesn't have a new personnel or ship in The Gift is Vidiian. The affiliation has some obstacles that need to be overcome when designing new cards that can make it challenging. And while they can absolutely benefit from the new missions - including Preliminary Incursion - they don't get any nouns in their color in this expansion. However, it's not all bad news for Vidiians - Organ Theft is back! Check out Head of Errata Matthew Zinno's article to see how the cards looks now as it comes off the ban list.

Finally, and somewhat surprisingly, there are no Federation cards in The Gift. That was a decision made early on by the design team, given that most of our expansions feature a lot of Federation content. (After all, they are the point-of-view affiliation for most of the shows and movies!) Not including a Federation personnel or ship in the expansion gave more room for other affiliations to benefit. But that's not to say players get nothing - there are general use cards they will enjoy as well.

New Faces, New Colors
"Well," you might ask, "who does get a new card in The Gift?" In terms of nouns, you won't find any ships. You will find one (1) Hirogen-affiliation personnel, two (2) Kazon-affiliation personnel, and two (2) Klingon-affiliation personnel. There are also support cards for any Delta Quadrant deck to enjoy, a new Treaty, and a card that fulfills a frequent request from Hirogen players. There is a lot packed into a small expansion in The Gift, and we hope you'll enjoy it!

What, what's that? Kyle sent you? Oh, okay. I think I know what you want. Take a look at a familiar face in not one but two new affiliations:

Klingon Janeway! Hirogen Janeway! All-in-one! This is an awesome card, and while she isn't Hirogen species, she has everything a Hirogen player could want. She has Anthropology, so she'll benefit from your Rituals of the Hunt. She mentions Karr, so she can be a free play with Hirogen Hunt once he's in play. She's female, which is a huge plus for Hirogen decks. Her download of Warrior's Birthright can turn her special skill into a blanket +1 boost to attributes. And don't forget her V.I.P.-classification, making her just the second such personnel for Hirogen (and the other, Iden, is a Hologram).

That's a LOT of cool packed into a single card. Kudos to the design team of The Gift for finding an easy, logical, and Trek-sense way to add so many useful things to an entire affiliation on a single personnel. And of course, this can be a way for more new personnel to show up in Kazon, Hirogen, and Vidiian colors some day as well.

Please enjoy the next week of daily spoilers, some of which will feature articles from our talented writing team. The Gift is releasing one week from today, on Friday, November 9th!.

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