[Naetor]

Everyone think a 0-cost ship makes any sense?

[Marquetry]

Yes, it requires more staffing than any other ship in the game, and has normal stats.

[Caretaker's Guest]

Temporal Transporters is another problem. Probably make it cost 3 and/or discard the Replicate from top of deck, not from hand...

[Armus]

Relativity finished 1-2 at nationals, eh?

Anyone bring a battle deck? Or were y'all just trying to outrace the hotrod?

Anyone bring 8472? They're pretty bad against that as well.

There's answers. If nobody dials up those answers, I'm not sure I have a ton of sympathy.

[Caretaker's Guest]

Win against Relativity, lose to everyone else. That is what I call a good alternative. They are above the curve. There is no doubt about it.

[The Prefect]

Anyone bring a battle deck?

I actually do love a good battle deck. I haven't played on in a while... maybe I should fix that.

The trick though is to build it so it's good at battle and can still get to 100 in time. And, of course, the challenge with Relativity is to catch them at their space mission before they realize what you're up to or they just wait to do their space last if they have two good planet missions in play (Necessary Execution doesn't have the same sting against a Relativity deck as it would others). But, then you have to be really fast after blowing them up because the text on Prevent Historical Disruption lets them start to rebuild the very next turn with a 0-cost ship in play.

Actually, my best showing against a Relativity deck with a battle deck didn't involve any actual battle at all. I managed to strand my opponent at a span 3 space mission (not Prevent Historical Disruption) with two Gomtuus, so rather than take the tie up resources to blow them up I went out and started racking up points while they were helpless. But, there was a lot of luck involved in that scenario.

[Armus]

Ways to beat Relativity:

Event Prevention to shut down the Temporal Teansporters

Once they don't have TT, killing their people hurts more, as they tend to stay dead. Murder, boom, whatever. Get them off the board.

If a Speed Relativity player can recover from that carnage with 40 cards then they deserve a handshake, a tip of the cap, and a "good game"

Whining because speed Relativity beat your midrange solver when you didn't throw any speedbumps at them is a result I'd expect more often than not, so I'm not sure what there is to whine about.

[The Prefect]

Ways to beat Relativity:

Event Prevention to shut down the Temporal Teansporters

Once they don't have TT, killing their people hurts more, as they tend to stay dead. Murder, boom, whatever. Get them off the board.

If a Speed Relativity player can recover from that carnage with 40 cards then they deserve a handshake, a tip of the cap, and a "good game"

Whining because speed Relativity beat your midrange solver when you didn't throw any speedbumps at them is a result I'd expect more often than not, so I'm not sure what there is to whine about.

I think it's possible for there to be ways to beat a deck build and for that deck build to also be over-powered. After all, there were certainly ways to beat the Cardassian solver that used TEoME and Casualties of the Occupation pre-errata (interrupt prevention, Swashbuckler, event destruction, Psychokinetic Control, kill piles) but even though that was the case many were still in agreement that the build was still overpowered, and I think they were right.

So, while I agree with you that someone who shows up completely unprepared to face a speed solver like Relativity probably shouldn't whine that much (just like someone who shows up completely unprepared for interrupt shenanigans shouldn't complain if they lose to Cardassians), I also think that the Relativity deck is a little too good at too many things to be within the curve.

[Armus]

Ways to beat Relativity:

Event Prevention to shut down the Temporal Teansporters

Once they don't have TT, killing their people hurts more, as they tend to stay dead. Murder, boom, whatever. Get them off the board.

If a Speed Relativity player can recover from that carnage with 40 cards then they deserve a handshake, a tip of the cap, and a "good game"

Whining because speed Relativity beat your midrange solver when you didn't throw any speedbumps at them is a result I'd expect more often than not, so I'm not sure what there is to whine about.

I think it's possible for there to be ways to beat a deck build and for that deck build to also be over-powered. After all, there were certainly ways to beat the Cardassian solver that used TEoME and Casualties of the Occupation pre-errata (interrupt prevention, Swashbuckler, event destruction, Psychokinetic Control, kill piles) but even though that was the case many were still in agreement that the build was still overpowered, and I think they were right.

So, while I agree with you that someone who shows up completely unprepared to face a speed solver like Relativity probably shouldn't whine that much (just like someone who shows up completely unprepared for interrupt shenanigans shouldn't complain if they lose to Cardassians), I also think that the Relativity deck is a little too good at too many things to be within the curve.

Maybe. But was anyone teching for it?

If nobody brings the answers it's hard to conclude something is overpowered. If EVERYBODY brings the answers and the something still wins, then it becomes more reasonable that the something is overpowered.

If Relativity wins every speed solving race but gets ROFLStomped by a control deck, that sounds like a reasonably balanced meta.

Until I see the other decklists, I'm reserving judgement.

[pfti]

I would be fine with relitivity if it also didnt have easy access to both Chuckles nonsense and Kirks. particularly since it can replay the death kirk over and over and over and over and over.


Grumpy Jon. went 1-1 against relativity. Got more stops in the game I lost...

[Naetor]

But why do they get the gametext of the Damage Enterprise with the stats of a Vor'cha for 0? Is there some costing chart rule that if you have 6 staffing icons, your ship costs 0? If so, please add 1 more to my Cubes.

[The Prefect]

Maybe. But was anyone teching for it?

If nobody brings the answers it's hard to conclude something is overpowered. If EVERYBODY brings the answers and the something still wins, then it becomes more reasonable that the something is overpowered.

If Relativity wins every speed solving race but gets ROFLStomped by a control deck, that sounds like a reasonably balanced meta.

Until I see the other decklists, I'm reserving judgement.

I don't think this is the right way to look at it. It's not as if people are suddenly coming to the conclusion that Relativity is overpowered. People have felt this way for years. Just because it doesn't draw the same level of vocal hatred as the pre-errata Casualties Cardassian, 5-Space-Voyager, and Lego Starfleet builds doesn't mean it's not problematic. I think there are reasons why it doesn't draw the same level of hate but that's a different topic of conversation.

Let it me put it a different way. Hypothetically, let us suppose that at last year's Worlds (Cardassians came in 1st and 3rd) players had actually shown up teched against the Cardassian solver that was dominant at the time with Swashbucklers and verb prevention and kill piles and pump/attribute denial. Let us further suppose that because of this, Cardassians didn't finish anywhere in the top 5. Would I have been correct to then argue that the Cardassian build wasn't actually overpowered and therefore no errata was necessary?

Looking at the deck lists of the top-ten on Day 2 - excluding the two Cardassian decks - we find the following:

Decks with/copies of Swashbuckler at Heart: 3/6 out of possible 8/24
Decks with/copies of Psychokinetic Control: 0/0 out of possible 8/24
Decks with/copies of Dereliction of Duty: 5/11 out of possible 8/24
Dedicated Kill Piles: 1 out of possible 8

So, I could argue that Cardassians did so well at Worlds last year in part because players weren't really teched for them as much as they could have been. I'd be right. But, if I also then argued that this demonstrated that the Cardassian build in question was within the power curve and therefore undeserving of errata, most players here would say I was wrong.

[The Prefect]

Let's not forget that even though the Relativity has a lot of staffing icons, you can actually report people to the ship. Also, excluding the Holograms, there is only 1 personnel without a staffing icon and they've got two low-cost non-uniques to help with populating the ship.

So, I think if you're going to point to the difficulty of staffing the ship as an argument against the build being overpowered, you must also acknowledging the ease of getting people on the ship to staff it and explain why these two factors don't cancel one another out.

[Armus]

OK if we're going to say 'X is over the power curve' can we please define what 'the power curve' is in this context?

In the case of The Enemy of my Enemy it was overpowered because in the context of it turned their main cost - putting stuff into the discard pile - into a benefit, which left with effectively 0 downside. Ditto Casualties of the Occupation.

To answer this there's really 3 questions that need answered:

1.) What game space was Relativity designed to occupy?

2.) What game space does Relativity occupy?

3.) What game space should Relativity occupy?

The answers to those 3 questions are the start of the larger analysis that will identify root issues (e.g., what is it doing that it's not designed to do/ shouldn't be doing?) and hopefully lead to individual card changes that put things back in the box.

[The Prefect]

OK if we're going to say 'X is over the power curve' can we please define what 'the power curve' is in this context?

In the case of The Enemy of my Enemy it was overpowered because in the context of it turned their main cost - putting stuff into the discard pile - into a benefit, which left with effectively 0 downside. Ditto Casualties of the Occupation.

To answer this there's really 3 questions that need answered:

1.) What game space was Relativity designed to occupy?

2.) What game space does Relativity occupy?

3.) What game space should Relativity occupy?

The answers to those 3 questions are the start of the larger analysis that will identify root issues (e.g., what is it doing that it's not designed to do/ shouldn't be doing?) and hopefully lead to individual card changes that put things back in the box.

Again, I am not sure I agree with this logic.

First, all but one of the designers of Relativity are no longer present on these forums to ask. Plus it was seven years ago. Memories fade over time and narratives emerge to suit the present. But, leaving all of that aside and more importantly, I think you're conflating bad design decisions with cards being overpowered. Arguably, all overpowered cards are bad design decisions, but not all bad design decisions result in overpowered cards.

It's true that The Enemy of my Enemy and Casualties of the Occupation should never have been designed the way they were. But, the cards were also powerful. If those cards hadn't been powerful, it would have mattered much less that they did things they weren't supposed to do. In other words, they still would have been design mistakes, but they wouldn't have resulted in meta-changing builds that needed attention.

Without speculating on what Relativity may or may not have been designed to do, here's what we know it can do:

• floating HQ (so very difficult to de-staff)
• immune to Outclassed
• 0-cost ship, fast out of the gate to start attempting
• access to Fed all-star build (OT Kirk + Chuckles Bros + Bashir + Nth Barklay + Future Data, etc.)
• lots of downloads (the mission, Braxton, Seven, Future Kim, etc.)
• stop prevention (see Chuckles bros)
• kill prevention (see Bashir)
• Prevent and Overcome (see OT Kirk)
• Damage prevention (see future LaForge)
• Repeatable recovery from the discard pile
• Can avoid paying cost for expensive personnel
• Can't turn the ship off (it has the icon)

So basically, what we're talking about here is a build that's quick to get running, quick to recover from kills, quick to recover from battle, has lots of downloads, can get stuff back out of the discard pile, has stop prevention, has kill prevention, has high-attribute personnel, has well-skilled personnel, can play high-cost personnel for two counters a piece, and has prevent and overcome.

And speaking of turning a cost into a benefit, to download and play the ship and to replicate Temporal Transporters (TT) you have to *gasp* put cards in the discard pile. So, I can discard four cards, including some high cost, cherry personnel, to get my 0 cost, Outclassed-proof, floating HQ in play; then play TT to get those personnel I discarded into play for 2 counters a piece, then do that again for as many times as I have cards in hand. Turn after turn.

So, I have no idea what space Relativity was designed to occupy. But, I have a hard time believing Charlie, Brad, John, and Mark necessarily intended Relativity to do all of the above as well as it does. And, if they did, I think it's fair to say they made a mistake. They are, like the rest of us, only human.