[AllenGould]

I saw it mentioned in an aside, but original Devidian Door takes the cake.

And here's the reason: it's the card that literally does nothing. Barber Pole at least plays on table.

D-Door was a rule; the gametext on the card is 100% superfluous - the game never cares about it, because you never play the card (you say the magic words, then you reveal the card). The whole thing only works because the rulebook says there's a secret ability, and it could have worked for any card in the game. (Seriously - just edit the rulebook to say "Barber Pole" instead. )

[SudenKapala]

I saw it mentioned in an aside, but original Devidian Door takes the cake.

And here's the reason: it's the card that literally does nothing. Barber Pole at least plays on table.

D-Door was a rule; the gametext on the card is 100% superfluous - the game never cares about it, because you never play the card (you say the magic words, then you reveal the card). The whole thing only works because the rulebook says there's a secret ability, and it could have worked for any card in the game. (Seriously - just edit the rulebook to say "Barber Pole" instead. )

Great choice. But at the same time, you say that the fun/use of the card is in the rules, not the card itself. So... No wait, I don't get it. Why would you not need the specific card, I mean, why do (only) the rules justify its use!? And what secret ability!? Confused. I need the Glossy--

Still don't get it. But/So, yep, very good choice indeed.

Would it be worth it to make this a poll, eventually? I've never done that. How does one go about that -- would we first gather a few more options, and then add them all to the poll? Can it be added to this topic, or must one create a new thread?

(I guess I know more about the game, than about forums. That says it all.)

But, just discussing it is also worth it, already.

[Caretaker's Guest]

Devidian Door would've been my pick, too... So many funny things back in the days...

But I also like the Q-Flash-mechanic, it is very 1E.

[SudenKapala]

Devidian Door would've been my pick, too... So many funny things back in the days...

But

I also like the Q-Flash-mechanic, it is very 1E.

Yes! I also thought of that while in another topic. (And the Tribbles Troubles came to mind, as well.)

So, while certainly not my first choice

(and it's not a very appealing card, visually -- which as a collector, I find of lesser-but-still-significant importance)

, but worth an honourary mention:
Are These Truly Your Friends, Brother? (for its ludicrous combo with Gift Of The Tormentor

-- which, incidentally, boasts a much nicer picture

). I've actually seen it work and backfire a few times, which was fun.

[AllenGould]

original Devidian Door
Great choice. But at the same time, you say that the fun/use of the card is in the rules, not the card itself. So... No wait, I don't get it. Why would you not need the specific card, I mean, why do (only) the rules justify its use!? And what secret ability!? Confused. I need the Glossy--

OK, let me tell you about the joys of D-Door.

(And again, for posterity and people searching for rules help: this is about the original Decipher version, not the 2018 errata version)

So, you and I are playing a game, and I've cleared out the dilemmas at Avert Solar Explosion, but all my personnel are stopped. So I say "Shazam!" and drop Jean-Luc Picard onto my ship. And while you're wondering WTH is going on, I say "Shazam!" again and drop Kirk, and then beam them down to solve.

I'm cheating my ass off, right? I didn't play an interrupt that said "report a personnel directly to the ship". There's nothing on the table that says I can report people to ships mid-turn". All I did was say something. I can explain to you that so long as I reveal a "Shazam!" card from hand next turn it's all OK - I don't have one in my hand right now though.

So, you call a judge over, and I say "oops - I meant to say 'Devidian Door' - I'm just really looking forward to the new movie".

(If you're not a DC fan, feel free to substitute "For the Honor of Greyskull", "Moon Prism Power Make Up!", "Form Voltron!", "Reboot!", or other transformation phrases as appropriate)

So, why does one phrase work, but not the others? It can't be the text on a card, because you haven't played any - and you might not even have a copy in your hand at that moment. You don't even have to prove you have any in your deck in the first place!

Remember - you never played a Door. You said the words, and then you were supposed to show a copy from hand (but it wasn't played - you couldn't Energy Vortex it, for instance). So if you don't show one, what causes you to lose? (Again, no card in play has said that you lose).

The answer to all of this is "there's an entry in the Glossary". And since the Glossary says the magic words are "Devidian Door", that's the ones that work. If they had changed the entry to refer to "Barber Pole" instead, then that would be the card that did the trick.

Which is why the errata is so simple - it just puts a copy on table, and now there's something that says "yes, you can do the thing" that your opponent can see.

[SudenKapala]

Ooh, yes. You've put some thought into that. Thanks for the reveal.

And visually, I also really like DevDoor. (As said, the esthetics also play a role in my love for the game and its cards.) And I liked the episode when I frist saw it as a child. I so hoped Data would not really be lost... And him subsequently walking around with a centuries-older head for the remainder of his days, is also quite Trek.

Heh -- in the same vein, Data's Body is also a (lower) contendant contester contender for me. (English can be confusing for non-native speakers, sometimes... Even though I've used that word before, I had to wrestle with it.)

I'll still vote for my Phoenix, because of my own sentiments, but rationally, there've been better arguments. And I love how all the contributors here have these intricate stories on their card picks -- and they're all so very 1e, each in their own way.

[SudenKapala]

And what about Terraforming Station?

[Maelwys]

OK, let me tell you about the joys of D-Door.

Yep. Only in 1E can you use the gametext on a card simply by knowing that it exists. You don't need to have ever seen or held the card, but that won't stop you from activating it's text. Nor will it stop you from possibly losing the game on account of that card.

[BCSWowbagger]

Yep. Only in 1E can you use the gametext on a card simply by knowing that it exists.

Making is so you can't do this in 1E anymore is one of the prouder achievements of the Errata team, tbh.

[AllenGould]

Yep. Only in 1E can you use the gametext on a card simply by knowing that it exists.

Making is so you can't do this in 1E anymore is one of the prouder achievements of the Errata team, tbh.

I don't know if I've said it before, so I'll say it again - that D-Door errata is perfect, and I am very jealous that I didn't think of it.

[Data's Socks]

Have to admit a general fondness for PAQ cards--the craziness, the whimsicalness, the nukes. Obviously that resulted in a lot of rebalancing, and while the Glossary (praise be) could chug along nicely, mere mortals had more and more to remember.

The roleplaying part was brought up--weren't there a few contests near the release of Q-Continuum, that involving guessing the text on some cards? I think we could guess parts of Soong-type Android, Timicin, and I want to say T'Pau. I know I was off the mark on Timicin, but that was really cool how others were right on target for those. And there's not a lot of space to work with; somehow they still got the flavor in there.

[BCSWowbagger]

Have to admit a general fondness for PAQ cards--the craziness, the whimsicalness, the nukes. Obviously that resulted in a lot of rebalancing, and while the Glossary (praise be) could chug along nicely, mere mortals had more and more to remember.

Don't get me wrong: I adore the willingness PAQ had to push the envelope on the game's format. I love its commitment to making every card feel like a solid representation of a thing from the show. I love PAQ's overuse of special skills and restriction boxes. I love its often colloquial wording.

I just want it all to make sense, within a consistent set of rules, without making players memorize a billion pages of Glossary.

That's why the Devidian Door errata was great: it kept the envelope-pushing craziness of the card and some of that colloquial wording while still fixing abusive cases and getting the rules out of the rulebook and onto the card (where all but the most general rules belong).

[AllenGould]

I adore the willingness PAQ had to push the envelope on the game's format.

I think it was less "pushing the envelope", and more "it was the late 90s and no-one knew what the hell worked in this genre". All those first- and-second-wave CCGs had all sorts of random weirdness that modern design knows is a bad idea.

[SudenKapala]

We obviously were guinea pigs. Experimented upon. Probed and prodded. Horrible.

I am a First Wave Of CCG Survivor, 1994-1997.

(I count 1997, because I consider the First Wave Of Borg in Trek CCG as quite the learning curve, as well.)

But here we are -- still at it.

[Data's Socks]

It makes me smile that Kurlan Naiskos has survived. One-shotting any mission (Tox Uthat), one-shotting ships (Borg Ship), rearranging the spaceline (Q)--things were pretty wild. But triple the stats of a ship--yeah, that's fine. I suppose it works out with the unreliability in nabbing it plus having to make it operational, and just flat out having other ways to cheese in an armada instead of a single potentially vulnerable ship. I wouldn't be surprised to see a hard limit on it these days.

That's why the Devidian Door errata was great: it kept the envelope-pushing craziness of the card and some of that colloquial wording while still fixing abusive cases and getting the rules out of the rulebook and onto the card (where all but the most general rules belong).

Speaking of colloquial wording, I like how the "from the future" part is still there. Is it currently referenced by another card in some way? Time Travel Pod also mentions "the future" in its game text.