[Macksimus]

Hello all,

New to the forums, I used to play STCCG 1E back in the late 90's and early 2000's but ran out of time when I went to college, now that I am a bit older and have more free time than I used to, I found my old collection and was curious to see if there were any local tourneys or people that would help a one time player get back into the groove of things. I looked at the region map and if I saw correctly I am in the DS9 region. Would love to start playing again (even if I lose a lot XD).

I'm looking forward to playing the game once again and any help with this would be greatly appreciated.


Macksimus

[jadziadax8]

Hello all,

New to the forums, I used to play STCCG 1E back in the late 90's and early 2000's but ran out of time when I went to college, now that I am a bit older and have more free time than I used to, I found my old collection and was curious to see if there were any local tourneys or people that would help a one time player get back into the groove of things. I looked at the region map and if I saw correctly I am in the DS9 region. Would love to start playing again (even if I lose a lot XD).

I'm looking forward to playing the game once again and any help with this would be greatly appreciated.


Macksimus

Welcome back, Macksimus! DS9 is a big region. Can you narrow down where exactly you are? We have a couple of tourneys coming up in the Chicagoland area. Comicbookhero is hosting a 1E tournament on February 11th. I know you specified 1E, but I'm running some 2E and Tribbles stuff January 28th.

[Armus]

Welcome!

The good news is there's a lot of players in your region, mainly in the Chicago area.

I would point you to Maggie (JadziaDax8) or Michael (ComicBookHero) for the local Intel for that area.

Also, this year the Chicago group will be hosting the North American Continental Championship, so you'll have a few months to get up to speed before the biggest event in North America comes your way!

Best of luck, and again, Welcome!


EDIT: I see Maggie is already on the case!

[DarkSabre]

Welcome back! I’m also from a long break. Feel free to msg me or look me up if ever in Virginia


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Macksimus]

I live in eastern Iowa, and Chicago is only a day trip away. It would be nice to get caught up to speed on what new stuff has happened since I was away.

[BCSWowbagger]

There's also a large playgroup in the Twin Cities. It's potentially a little bit further, but we play quite a bit up here (~monthly), we have generally had good relations with the smaller playgroups in the Dakotas (who sometimes come down to visit us, especially during Regionals season) and we'd love to have you join us if you ever get the chance!

WHAT'S CHANGED (in brief):
* You can print all the cards now, for free. Virtual cards, traditional cards, all of it -- it's all legal for tournaments. No more watching a friend buy his way to wins with 30 copies of a rare nobody else in your group can afford; deck construction today is entirely about skill.

* In the 2000s, Voyager / dominated everything with their crazy-good affiliations and (especially) their ability to play lots of personnel really really fast. In the modern era, there have been a couple errata to slow down Voyager, but (more importantly) everyone else in the game now has access to tools that let them play (almost) as fast as Voyager does. Check out, for example, Continuing Mission and the cards it downloads or Reshape the Quadrant and the cards it downloads.

* There are two new affiliations: Decipher added Enterprise-era Starfleet in 2003 or something, and the CC added Vulcans just six months ago!

* There is a ban list now. Decipher was never quite willing to impose one, but the CC did. The goal is to eventually issue errata to every card on the ban list that preserves what made them good but fixes what made them abusive.

* Speaking of which, there's been quite a bit of errata. Check it out: https://www.trekcc.org/op/1eed_hires.pdf

* There were a few other major rules changes, described here.

* Other than that, basically the same game. No new card types, and only a handful of new icons, most of which are self-explanatory. The basic structure of the game has changed FAR less in the 16 years between 2002 and 2018 than it did in the 5 years between 1997 and 2002!

* (Do look up "self-controlling dilemmas" and "Botany Bay icon", though.)

* cards were really important in 2002, but are steadily becoming less important as things get fixed... and they're also easier to access than ever, thanks to Tribunal of Q and Q's Tent: Civil War.

* The current rulebook is terrible. Use the one in my signature instead.

* Obviously, the dilemma combos have changed a lot since 2000, and there are lots of new and important cards, but you'll only learn about all that by studying decklists and card lists, so I'll leave you to it.

* In 1995, the pace of the game was often quite slow. Unless somebody managed to play Red Alert! or The Traveler, it could run 20 or 30 turns or more, each of list lasted a few minutes, adding up to a long, slow game. By 2002, the pace of the game was insanely fast. People routinely won in 1-2 turns. (But the turns took half an hour.) Today, the pace of the game is between those two extremes: it is possible to win in as little as 6 turns, and I'd say about half of all games are over by turn 9. That's still a little fast for my taste, but better than the cheese-fests of 2002.

[Macksimus]

Thank you for the update! WOW there is a TON of new stuff to look through, though I might be the person to observe a game or three and see how things play out nowadays.

Thank you also for the links to the updated rules and banned cards, that should help me at least get caught up and know what to not bring. Back in the day I used to play a both a Bajoran and Dominion deck and i'm looking forward to seeing deck builds for both those factions and also possibly a Fed/Baj or Baj/Non-Aligned (one that I wanted to do but could never get around to trying) build or two. As for showing up for a few tourneys I'd love to! I'll keep an eye out here for tourney postings or just let me know.


Thanks again for helping me get back up to speed all,



Macksimus.