No 1E CRD BTW, but OTF Ban List changes

by Allen Gould, First Edition Rules Master

5th March 2012

We've been reviewing the Ban List in response to feedback from players - namely "why is that card on the list anyway?" To help nail down the reasons, we've been taking some cards and giving them to the playtesters as-is, with instructions to show us just how broken they are in today's game environment.

Sometimes, the cards just aren't as bad as they used to be. Or more properly, the game isn't what it used to be. For example, look at Static Warp Bubble and Telepathic Alien Kidnappers. Any long-time player can tell stories of getting locked out by two events. In an environment where you would normally only draw one card a turn, being forced to discard one (possibly two) cards a turn ran your hand dry very quickly.

But today's game is a lot faster - it's trivial to be drawing multiple cards per turn - to the point where we worry that players are drawing too many cards every turn. Not only that, there are many other ways to discard cards from an opponent's hand, and many of them are more reliable (and yet, not raising flags of being unbalanced). Therefore, we're removing these two cards from the Ban List without any errata.

On the flip side of the coin, Relics of the Chase is being added to the Ban List. Some creative players have combined Hirogen with Jem'Hadar and White Deprivation, forcing a personnel battle between their own cards - essentially farming their Jem'Hadar for Relics points. We expect to have it errataed and removed from the list shortly.

First Edition rules documents and errata (if any) are released on the first Monday of the month. The next release will be Monday, April 2.