A Tribble of a Different Color

by Charlie Plaine, Director of First Edition

5th May 2020

It's Cinco de Mayo - the 5th of May. Aside from being a national holiday in Mexico, it's also my birthday. And as my gift to you, we're giving you a new Trbbles expansion chocked full of goodness. A Tribble of a Different Color features eighteen (18) new Tribbles cards with a total of twelve (12) new powers. We've also got some old favorites on new denominations for you to enjoy as well. All of these cards are available now, for free and immediate download, and will be legal in all formats one week from today, on Tuesday, May 12th.

Before we dive into looking at all of the cards, I want to thank everyone that worked so hard making these cards possible. I especially want to highlight the incredible art of Johnny Holeva (jjh), who made the icons, and Andrea Heywood (Kamala), who created the images. These are some of the brightest, most colorful cards Tribbles has ever seen (hence the expansion name), and they deserve incredible kudos. But I would be remiss for not thanking our designers, playtesters, and proofreaders as they worked incredibly hard on these cards as well. From the bottom of my heart, thank you!

A Tribble of a Different Color
Let's take a look at all of the new and returning powers in this expansion. Hopefully these will inspire some deck building ideas!

1 Beam
Beam is a new power that will help you deal with unlucky seating arrangements. If your deck relies on hitting some numbers, and you're stuck in a spot that isn't getting those numbers, Beam is worth including in your deck. If you have this power in your play pile and you didn't go out, you can exchange places with any other player. If multiple players trigger this power, they choose in the order of highest total score to lowest. If there is a still a tie, determine the order randomly.

1 Kindness
Can't we all use some more kindness in the world? When you play this tribble, you draw a card. Then, every player in the game that has 4+ cards in their hand may place a card of their choice from their hand on the bottom of their play pile. Finally, no matter how many cards you have in your hand, you get to place a card from hand on the bottom of the play pile. Be nice to others, get good karma!

1 Mirror
Tired of players running up the score? Now you can get a piece of that action with Mirror. If this tribble is sitting on top of your play pile, when another player scores points (except via going out), you get those points too. If Steve hits a Poison for 10,000 points, you get 10,000 points. And it triggers every time points are scored this way, so you can collect a lot of points just by having a Mirror on top of your play pile.

1 Recycle
Recycle makes its first appearance since 2012's Nothing But Tribble with this new 1 Recycle power; it's previously appeared on 10, 100, 1,000, and 10,000. When you play recycle, you choose a player and have that player shuffle their discard pile into their deck. Choose yourself if you're low on cards, or choose a Recycle player to stop them from looping through their discard pile. Recycle is now available on every number except 100,000 - what does that allow you to do?

10 Decloak & 100 Decloak
Speaking of disliking looping decks, Decloak is the power for you. If you're tired of players hitting 1 Go - 10 Go, or 100,000 Replay - 1 Replay, or the Recycle chain, Decloak can put a stop to those chains. While it's on top of your play pile, nobody else can activate a tribble power if the previous tribble in their pile had that power. So, unlike Freeze, Tony can play that 10 Go after he plays a 1 Go - but he can't use the power.

10 Generosity
It's good to be generous, and this new tribble pile gives you a reward for doing so. When played, both you and another player of your choice score 50,000 points. But then, you draw a card. That's a small price to pay for some points! Just beware other players with Mirror out, because they'll also get the 50,000 points.

10 Time Warp
With the addition of this new Time Warp, featuring Odo, there are now five different Time Warp cards. If you hit the quintet (every denomination but 1), but don't go out, you'll start the next round with just two (2) cards in hand!

100 Cheat
Cheat gets its second denomination, first appearing in 2016 on 1,000. When you play Cheat, you can play it as if it was the previous number in sequence, allowing you to "skip" a number. So if you've got 100 Cheat (featuring "I Don't Like to Lose" Kirk), you can play it after a 10 (normally) or after a 1, using it's power. And I mean, if you're going to put a non-Ferengi on a "Cheat" card, it has to be Kirk, right?

100 Laughter
This is my favorite image in the expansion. And it's such a weird and fun card to pair up with the iconic scene of Data Laughing. First, you choose a player to discard a card from hand. Then you choose a different player to place a card from their hand on the bottom of their deck. You can choose yourself for either option; but, if you don't, you get 50,000 points. There are a lot of options for this power.

1,000 IDIC
IDIC also first appeared back in 2012, but now it has a second denomination to play with. While the 1 IDIC and 1,000 IDICs don't stack with themselves, they do stack with each other. Thus, if you get a copy of each in your play pile, you'll score 20,000 points per unique power in that pile when you go out.

1,000 Magic
This is my second favorite image in the expansion, which is great because it comes from a pretty awful episode of The Animated Series. But this card is the lynchpin in the new deck created with this expansion. If you manage to assemble all of the properties to which we should aspire (Kindness, Generosity, Laughter, Honesty, and Loyalty) when you play this card, you get to put six cards from hand beneath your deck. That can put you out, or get you a heck of a lot closer. This was a fun deck to playtest, and I look forward to seeing what people do with it.

1,000 Reveal
This power (or something very near to it) was suggested by David Bowling (tomek) at GenCon 2019 as a tool to help his Dance deck work. When you play Reveal, everyone reveals a tribble card from their hand. If anyone shows the same number or the same power as you, then you can put your tribble anywhere into your play pile - except on the top. The top tribble is hereby considered sacrosanct, so you always (or mostly always) remember what you just played. But you can slide a Reverse in between two Skips to make your Dance work.

10,000 Double
Some version or another of this tribble power has been tested in almost every expansion I've ever worked on, but it's finally seeing print here. It's going to slot into every Bonus deck I've ever made, especially since Bonus only appears on 1-10-100-1,000; a 10,000 will fit nicely. When you score points from the Bonus, if you have a Double in your play pile too, you get an extra 100,000 points.

10,000 Honesty
This power is all about keeping yourself honest. First, you draw a card. Then, you reveal your hand (set it down face up in front of you) until the start of your next turn. But at that time, you get to pick your hand back up and score 50,000 points. This, of course, makes you a tempting target for a Utilize deck as they'll get to see your hand before targeting you. However, the random selection is still done blindly by picking up your hand, shuffling it, and picking a card. They'll just know what you have in hand prior to targeting you.

100,000 Flash
Grumpy Q is easily my third favorite image here, and he comes on the appropriately named Flash power. When Flash is played, everyone reveals the top card of their draw deck. Any revealed Bonus or Discard tribbles go on the bottom of the owner's play pile - helping Bonus decks and hurting Discard decks (for when the inevitable Toxin appears). Otherwise, those cards go to the bottom of the deck so Q gets different targets next time he's played.

100,000 Loyalty
Porthos! Loyalty allows you to "copy" Roll, Safety, and Time Warp players in the play piles of other players, just as if they were in your play pile. You can benefit from them as if you'd played them, so if Carol has 10, 1K, and 10K Time Warps in her play pile, you also get to start with four (4) cards in hand each round. Each copy of Loyalty in your play pile lets you choose a different player, but that doesn't let powers that aren't normally cumulative stack. If both Carol and Natasha have 10 Time Warps in their play piles, you don't get to start next round with two (2) fewer cards in hand.

100,000 Trick
Have you ever been playing at a bigger table, and the person right before you Reverses so you have to wait for everyone else to play again before you do? I know I have. Well, now there's an app for that - Trick. When Bruce plays a Reverse to keep me from my turn, I can reveal a 100,000 Trick from my hand and place it beneath my play pile. A very useful power, especially if Reverse is common in your area.

We hope you enjoy all the new toys in A Tribble of a Different Color. As mentioned above, these tribbles are available now, and will be legal in all formats one week from today, on Tuesday, May 12th. Be kind, be generous, and don't forget to laugh - there's lot of fun to be had in this expansion! Enjoy! (And I promise you won't have to wait four (4) years for more tribbles.)

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