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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489115
I added a bunch tonight:

DQSS
DRAGS
Dixon Hill (which ended up being the most interesting by far)
Fair Play
General Quarters
Genetronic
Holo Camo
Horga'hn

See the updated OP for my notes on each.

I'll keep going as time permits.
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By Takket
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#489117
Yes, DRAGS was a part of point draining decks. Back in the day self seeding six scows made it easy to reduce your opponent’s missions by 60 points. WAY back before Fair play you could even do 12. Mix in some HtF and your opponent would practically have to finish six missions to win. Though I don’t know if that ever actually worked since the glossary forbids using this more than once at the same mission. But you might have been able to when AU came out.

Also killed all the people there not in a ship! That makes it that much more powerful.

It should be noted there is no such card as “Scow”.

This card was meant to be one of the first “ref” type cards to counter RGS lockout decks. Would have worked great if they just said it had to be opponent’s scow!

EDIT: As noted below... you could only seed scow in space until the combo came out. Rachmaninoff's post recalls the details much better than mine lol
Last edited by Takket on Mon Dec 02, 2019 11:12 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#489133
Discovery rox wrote:
SudenKapala wrote:And I think it would be decent practice to at least discuss whether or not the opponent agrees to use it.
if its in the card pool then theres no need for discussion. you dont discuss whats in your deck before you play. imagine agreeing to play otf and then you start playing borgs and im like "i dont like playing against borgs, its decent practice to at least discuss whether or not i agree to let you use borgs."
Technically, concerning your above words, you're certainly right. (The best kind of right, it has been said.) I should've elaborated on my comment, but hadn't the time. Now I do.
My argument is -- maybe -- more of an emotional opinion (and therefore largely invalid, from a certain point of view), than a factual one. Except for this bit (see below), perhaps; which I feel warrants very strong prejudice against the card.
Which they only would if they don't have foil Borg Queens in their deck.
you dont have to lose the foil borg queens dude. if i play the card and you dont think you will win, or arent sure enoguh about winning that you want to risk your foil borg queens, you can concede. thats the point of the card, its a decision you have to make, not an obligation you have to agree to. you dont have to take the second option on the card.
Dude! :lol: I know I have the choice! :lol: I'd just hate to make it, much much more than any other game choice. :x

I really don't mind losing, at all. I like playing this game tremendously, whether I win or lose. What I do mind, is having to stop playing the game for what I feel is a "stupid reason" (or "stupid card" -- of which I feel there's only one -- RTS). Conceding because of RTS feels much worse than regular losing for me. It seems to me as throwing away a perfectly good 2-hours-of-further-gameplay (we play non-timed Open Traditional, so tends to drag nicely around 3-4h) by breaking down the fourth wall -- RTS forces you to make a choice not based on in-game situation, but IRL resources. Not done, IMO.

E.g., I didn't so much mind losing after only playing for half an hour by trigger of the rather random but hilarious Gift Of The Tormentor (nor winning, with the Are These Truly Your Friends combo). That, to me, is a pay-off that I can get behind, even though I'm disappointed if there's not enough time to start another game for that evening.

If RTF would give opponent temporary control of the card, i.e. they might borrow it into hand and play as if stolen or compatible, it was a whole other matter. It would not have IRL consequences -- but then it would lose its heart, of course. (I'm sure this kind of errata has been thought of and rejected, since people have been trying to get this card off the ban list and in the errata file for ages.)
besides, its just laminated cardboard.
As was already (indirectly and inversely) hinted at in OP, this is a really lame argument on a forum about a CCG! :lol:

All things considered, I'm not even sure if I find it really dumb OR really funny that there is an ACTUAL LAW against the card. :?
But whatever else my opinion on that entails, at least I think it is a satisfying bout of providence.
KazonPADD wrote:Raise the Stakes is great fun in sealed tournaments.
I hadn't thought of this, but... maybe. Could be fun, could trigger my above sentiments. But it has a lot more validity in such an environment, for sure.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489147
BCSWowbagger wrote:[Int] Destroy Radioactive Garbage Scow

This was banned because Containment Field nullifies it. As I mentioned with Anti-Time Anomaly, at the time of OTF's creation, any card specifically targeted by an existing [Ref] card was presumptively overpowered. Most ended up on the ban list with little discussion.

So the question becomes: why did Decipher target DRAGS? From what I gather, it was being abused by players who would self-seed Scows then detonate them at opponents' missions. This is another card I've never actually seen played, because I came to the competitive scene too late.

I idly wonder whether simply making DRAGS target opponent's Scow would be enough to fix it.
DRAGS is an old card, but was never a huge problem until Enhanced Premiere released. You saw it occasionally used offensively (self-seeded Scows + denotating at opponent's missions) or as part of larger point loss strategies (I recall a deck that seeded 6 TLMBDH and played annoying events and interrupts, including DRAGS... either lose a few points, or try to nullify a card and lose a lot of points).

What put it over the line was the combo Scow, which could be seeded at space AND planet missions. And DRAGS turns a Scow at a planet mission into a mass kill, playing as a valid response to encountering with no conditions for overcoming. No need to hit your own self-seed and tow it to your opponent's mission... just wait for them to encounter it at their own mission and BOOM goes the away team.

The point loss was icing on the cake, but it didn't help that The Trouble with Tribbles released just before, with its own suite of point-loss cards. (Hero of the Empire, 62nd rule, and so on). I played a Hero/DRAGS deck with Edo Probes, Higher/Fewer, and the like, and it wouldn't be uncommon for my opponent to fight all the way through a mission (and lose an away team to DRAGS) to only net 10 points.

In sum: DRAGS wasn't a problem until the combo Scow was released. Which meant it was practicable to seed 6 Scows and guarantee your opponent encountered one at every single mission they faced, and furthermore turn the planet Scows into mass kills.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#489164
BCSWowbagger wrote:
[NA] Dixon Hill

This is a strange case.

From what I have been able to find, banning Dixon was particularly contentious, with more decisionmakers arguing against banning Dixon than arguing in favor. It seemingly went through more or less because the minority who supported the ban wanted it more than the majority who wanted to keep Dixon legal. The people who opposed banning Dixon were fighting to keep other cards on the ban list, and I think Dixon ended up something like a horse trade so that those other cards would stay on as well. (Baryon Sweep, which was also banned for a while, had a similar situation.)

Another interesting wrinkle: Dixon was banned back in the days before universal printability. A lot of the arguments revolve around Dixon's status as an ultrarare card that most players couldn't access. As one decisionmaker wrote, "He is used to much as a backup plan for anything. It's more about having te money to buy the card then to be a good player."

Here are the main arguments made for banning Dixon Hill:
redacted - 10 Jan 2010 wrote:1. It gives us a chance to re-release him. This will give us a playable Dixon Hill for all the cards that trigger off of him (the worst offender of a linked card that's very hard to obtain).

[Editor's Note: back in the days before all cards were printable, physical cards were declared printable if they were given errata. This person is arguing that Dixon Hill is so rare and important that he should be banned and errata'd in order to trigger that rule, making him printable and accessible to all players.]

2. I still maintain that he should only ignore ONE mission requirement, not ALL of them. He was made "that good" because he was an UR. There's absolutely no thematic reason for him to be that good, and he doesn't really make mechanical sense, either.
And the main arguments against banning him:
redacted, stitched together from posts on 12 Jan 2010 & 3 Dec 2009 wrote: 1. There is nothing stopping us from rereleasing him as is [Editor's Note: thus making him printable], so this point is moot.

2. I absolutely fail to understand why this guy is a problem. He does not help you pass dilemmas. If you are building your deck, and finding yourself needing Dixon Hill often, then you are not selecting your missions/personnel correctly. It's no different from Suna downloading Reflection Therapy to get the skill you are missing for the mission. The biggest problem with Dixon Hill is that he lets you play DHBC, once for free, and even then, it is not too concerning.
Others went on to argue that Dixon would be OP in 2E, where mission skills matter a lot, and solving with a single personnel is a huge deal... but that 1E, where a single personnel being able to solve a mission is pretty routine, it's not overpowered, and possibly not even very good.

A coda to this: Errata has tried letting Dixon Hill off the ban list more than once, starting way back in 2014 -- sometimes with changes, sometimes without. Playtesters never form consensus about him. Some believe that reducing Dixon's ability to "all levels of one requirement," or only regular skill requirements, or only missions worth 30 points or less (etc.) is a big nerf that turns him into binder fodder, and that he should come off the list unchanged. Others believe that he was rightly banned, and needs to be nerfed to some extent.

So, like I said, Dixon Hill is a weird situation. He was banned by a minority that felt strongly about banning him, their reasons partly related to printability issues that no longer exist, and even those who wanted him banned wanted him re-released swiftly so that Carlos and Lily would continue functioning. But the power level on his ability has been contentious from day one, and that has paralyzed repeated efforts, from multiple directions, to re-release him.

Poor Dix.
I see two really good time capsule arguments:

- Impact on 2e

- Printability

Both of those are completely moot today.

It's time to turn him loose as-is. If I'm wrong and he's still broken we can always re-ban him.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489192
New today:

Distortion of Space/Time Continuum (which I accidentally skipped last night)
In The Zone (which turned out to be the most complex banning story yet)

Also, some statistics:

The initial 2010 OTF ban list had 70 cards (3 of which were [Ref] cards that "ascended" into the rules).

Today, despite adding hundreds more cards to the game over the years, we're down to 39 banned cards (5 of which are "ascended" [Ref] cards and 1 of which is Persistent Individuality, which will presumably be unbanned without changes once it becomes printable).
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489290
BCSWowbagger wrote: Today, despite adding hundreds more cards to the game over the years, we're down to 39 banned cards (5 of which are "ascended" [Ref] cards and 1 of which is Persistent Individuality, which will presumably be unbanned without changes once it becomes printable).
i dont know if the number of banned cards that have been added since then is a good number or a bad number. would be interesting to see the number of cards that were banned in 2010 divided by the number of cards made up to 2010, versus the number of cards banned in the 9 years since divided by the number of cards made in the 9 years since. are designers more or less careful now then in decipher days?
SudenKapala wrote: As was already (indirectly and inversely) hinted at in OP, this is a really lame argument on a forum about a CCG! :lol:
time to blow your mind: star trek ccg isnt a ccg anymore.

it started out as a ccg and we call it that because thats what we know it as and where it came from. but star trek ccg isnt any more collectible now then anything else could be considered collectible, in the sense that pens and flashlights arent generally considered collectible but there are sure people who find a way to collect pens and flash lights.

not saying we need to change the name but at its core star trek ccg is really just star trek cg, like any other board or card game.

so yeah its just laminated plastic.
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489296
in the zone seems like a straight forward fix. first, the last sentence isnt necessary so it can go and free up much needed space.

second make the effect only apply to players who start with score equal or higher then opponent on there turn, so underdogs cant be targeted.

finally bank the excess points for another turn so they dont count for winning for one turn, so theres a delay but there not nullified forever. that ways players arent punished for doing well, they just have to wait a little while to reap the last of the rewards.

if you can still keep the doubling ship stats at 50 points thats nice and thematic but if theres not enough room it can go too.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#489343
Discovery rox wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote: Today, despite adding hundreds more cards to the game over the years, we're down to 39 banned cards (5 of which are "ascended" [Ref] cards and 1 of which is Persistent Individuality, which will presumably be unbanned without changes once it becomes printable).
i dont know if the number of banned cards that have been added since then is a good number or a bad number. would be interesting to see the number of cards that were banned in 2010 divided by the number of cards made up to 2010, versus the number of cards banned in the 9 years since divided by the number of cards made in the 9 years since. are designers more or less careful now then in decipher days?
SudenKapala wrote: As was already (indirectly and inversely) hinted at in OP, this is a really lame argument on a forum about a CCG! :lol:
time to blow your mind: star trek ccg isnt a ccg anymore.

it started out as a ccg and we call it that because thats what we know it as and where it came from. but star trek ccg isnt any more collectible now then anything else could be considered collectible, in the sense that pens and flashlights arent generally considered collectible but there are sure people who find a way to collect pens and flash lights.

not saying we need to change the name but at its core star trek ccg is really just star trek cg, like any other board or card game.

so yeah its just laminated plastic.
For Decipher CCG stood for Customizable Card Game not Collectable Card Game so in that sense, yes, STCCG is STILL a CCG. It is one of the most customizable card games ever created with so many different permutations of the decks that can be made and still work.
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By SudenKapala (Suden Käpälä)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
#489359
Although I lean more to Sabre's side (since he doesn't simple have a point; he's technically right!), I do see both his and Roxy's points. Still, Rox's point bypasses the fact that there are still only a limited number of unique cards available of the Decipher-produced sets -- which cannot be replicated to the same collectible value, namely won't be officially produced any more. And as such, there is still an aspect of collectibility to the game (but, yes, only partially; since another part of the cards, ever-growing, has no collectible value since was never officially produced).

Just look around on the trading boards.

And even now, newly made promos and foils of CC cards are sought-after. So, saying Trek is not collectible anymore, is oversimplifying things. :wink:

If you simply mean that as a GAME -- not as a WHOLE -- this Trek thing is not a Collectible CG (or Trading CG) anymore-- Huh, come to think of of it, that must be what you meant. Yes, I can also agree there. There is no need for scarcity anymore, and power creep for commercial purposes is no longer needed -- and as such, it is not a TCG anymore. :thumbsup:
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489363
Today:
Intermix Ratio
Jem'Hadar Shrouding

If you don't want to go back and reread the OP again, here's what I added today:
[Evt] Intermix Ratio

OTF made this card into a rule (OTF Rule #7: Victory Conditions, clause 4). If it's both a card and a rule, they can stack in an unbalanced way, so (like Fair Play) the card got the banhammer. Like Fair Play, it's never going to be errata'd and is probably never coming back to OTF.

Fun note, though: during the early years of OTF, Intermix Ratio was banned, but not fully implemented as a rule. You could not win if more than half your points were bonus points, but they did count. Thus, during the first few years of OTF, players routinely got mod wins with scores of 3-0 or 100-11 (with bonus points picked up from Dabo or whatever).

Why the change? When You Are A Monument was turned into a rule, Rules had to reword the Victory Conditions rule pretty completely, and writing a good, clear rule while also retaining the basic wording from the original OTF rule turned out to be fairly difficult. During the rewriting, the current version eventually surfaced. Truthfully, most people (me included) didn't even notice the functional change in the initial draft; we were all too focused on whether YAAM worked, and were still debating how the rule should deal with the Voyager-Only card pool.

However, once a smart rulesmeister pointed it out, there was general agreement that making OTF completely follow Intermix Ratio was a good change which would discourage lockout decks that can't actually solve missions. There was some dissent on this; one player pointed out that making OTF fully implement Intermix Ratio would also injure decks that try to win against battle by scoring a few bonus points and hide for the rest of the game. But the rule was so much cleaner, and most liked the change, so it went through.

Yeah, I guess that story wasn't really related to the ban. But it was interesting, I hope!

[Inc] Jem'Hadar Shrouding

This one's neat because we actually know exactly why it was banned.

On 4 Jun 2011, a few days after OTF came out, the 1E Rules Liaison (an account jointly-managed by several CC staffers to answer rules questions) received the following PM. I don't know who it came from, because the 1ERL anonymized it:
I have a very important concern about Holodeck Adventures Incident Jem'Hadar Shrouding and hope that this message will change something.

When OTF was created, one of its goals has been to ban all the broken cards or cards which can create a negative game experience and after some time bring them back with an errata. Not saying that I completely agree with all the card on the ban list most of them have their place there very well deserved.

For example Rogue Borg Mercenaries: A very disturbing card where a [Ref] card exists against it found a way there. Jem'Hadar Shrouding is almost the same with NO [Ref] card against it and no place on the ban list.

Shrouding costs you one seed card and is limited to an away team not at a headquarters mission. So it is not as "universal" as Rogue Borg are. But because of the fact, that you can place as many Jem'Hadar from hand on it every turn without any cost (you draw a card for placing one card there) and that you can de-shroud them during an opponents turn it is far too strong.

Of course you can build something against it. Personell battle prevention such as Smoke Bomb, but you can still be easily stopped because you can always de-shroud only one Jemmy to stop the away team.

As said before, you can do something against it. But there were also possibilites to counter Rogue Borg, Q, Scan, and some other broken cards which were found on the ban list, and those possibilties were much easier to get because of the [Ref] cards against it. The easiest thing is to attempt only headquarters missions, but I don't think that this limitation is one of OTF's goals.

I don't know how to fix this card, probably if the Jemmies have to come from play this would be much more expensive to play, but it would be a real pity if we see continentals with decks only attempting HQ missions for their planet points...

I know that this is not a new card, but hopefully I was able to make my point clear and to convince you that this card should be put onto the ban list.
One decisionmaker said that the message made sense to him, so he nominated it for the ban list. Another user said "Yeah, I've abused this in the past" and seconded the nomination. In a flurry of "+1" and "Thumbs-up" emojis, the card was banned, with the ban announced and becoming effective July 2011. So, whoever you are who sent that PM, you were very convincing!

AllenGould followed up in a public post the following month by explaining that Shrouding was part of the "next best thing" effect:
I call this the "next best effect": when you pull out the best card in any given category, players naturally look for the 2nd place card. Often, that card was previously seldom played (because there was a better version), but now it's the top dog, and sometimes it was too good as well. Shrouding is the "next best" Rogue Borg - you can pop a single Jemmie off on your opponent's turn and stop an away team (while getting a draw engine on the side). We're pretty sensitive to cards that let you battle your opponent on their turn - the guaranteed stop is far more powerful than the actual battle.

...You'll notice that there's not a lot of "hard data" above. That's largely because there isn't any hard data to be had - we have deck lists (if players/TDs entered them - and that's nowhere near 100%), and we have tournament reports/forum posts/PMs. I would be thrilled to have the level of data that Magic has (where they can tell you exactly what percentage of decks have Jace in it, and what it's win percentage is). Mael does fantastic work in helping us mine the data we have, but in the end, we still make some judgement calls.
So, whew! What a well-documented banning!

Until next time!
 
 - Beta Quadrant
 -  
#489368
that is a convincing post. if i were to fix it, i would make jem hadars come from in play and probably take away the card draw. and then make it so you can only play it to start a battle on your turn. on the plus side, i would give them the ability to take dominion equipment with them, because shouldnt jem hadars have there weapons?
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#489381
Clerasil ToB wrote:Thanks for the Flowers, this was me :cheersL: :cheersL: :cheersL: :borg: :cheersR: :cheersR: :cheersR:
Nice!
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