[BCSWowbagger]

We had a couple newbies wander by the tournament tables at the New Year's Charity Draft on Saturday, and I realized we are overdue for a newbie-friendly Block tournament in Andoria. I'm overdue to run a tournament, so I started thinking about how to run Block in 2020.

I realized right away that I don't want to run the current Block. Block is cool, but confusing as heck to newbies (time travel!) and wasn't really designed with Block in mind (it shows; I ran a Block tourney a while back). are simple and powerful, but monotonous. If I ran a Block tournament today, I'd probably end up with four nearly identical decks playing against each other. Plus, the newbies probably won't have any of the physical cards -- unless they collected up through TwT, they'd need entirely printed decks.

Next thought: I could run a hybrid Block. I could combine TNG Block sets + TOS Block sets into one pretty cool Block. But I think that would have similar problems: TOS Fed is too strong right now, and uses too many complicated tricks, and there's not enough variety on the TOS end of things just yet.

Well, how about running Classic TNG Block? Pretend it's 2013 again! That's attractive, but still... I really want to attract newbies. One obstacle I've seen is that TNG Block is designed to let PAQ players jump back into the game, but it doesn't actually let them play with most of their old cards, which is confusing and disappointing. They have to look up TNG: Supplemental and figure out which narrow subset of their cards is legal.

Back in the days before universal printability, this made a lot of sense: the CC needed a consistent, all-virtual card pool, and it wasn't going to make reprints of ALL the PAQ cards, so it had to do something like TNG: Supplemental, giving TNG Block the flavor of PAQ without actually including much of PAQ.

This led to a lot of other, minor irritations in TNG Block: the entire Shades of Gray set had been specifically designed to bring PAQ out of the binder, but TNG Block was missing huge swaths of those cards, so cards like Shades of Gray: Despair and Hotel Royale were actually pretty useless in TNG Block, and lots and lots of personnel, like Beverly, had downloads you couldn't actually use because of Block limitations.

We have universal printability now, so I'm thinking... why don't we play a new version of TNG Block, one that fixes all those irritating things from 2013, one that lets PAQ players just show up with a bunch of their old cards and play the game?

So here's my pitch for what I'm calling "Ultimate TNG Block," but you are free to refer to as "JamesBlock":

OTF Rules, Errata, and Bans in full effect.

LEGAL SETS:
Premiere
Alternate Universe
Q Continuum
OTSD
Introductory 2-Player Game
BaH!
Shades of Grey
The Next Generation
Engage!
The Sky's The Limit
Coming of Age
Homefront III

ILLEGAL SETS:
TNG: Supplemental
Homefronts 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6
Resistance is Futile
Straight and Steady
Life from Lifelessness

Even with the cuts, you still end up with a fairly big "limited" card pool: 948 cards total vs. 574 in TNG Block at the end of 2013. But the additional cards will be ones that our returning players know, love, and miss.

In order to ensure that new newbie stumbles into an event with a play-one/draw-one deck and gets steamrolled, the format rules would require players to stock Continuing Mission, Attention All Hands, and at least one card. The tournament announcement would also explicitly list all the cards in the Block that have received bans / functional errata, so no newbie gets hit with a gotchya.

Beyond that, I don't care if your entire deck is physical cards only -- it's probably viable. And I think that could be pretty exciting for newbies: "come on, show up with your deck from twenty years ago, just be sure to fit three virtual cards into it first!"

But I've thought about this as much as I can on my own. What do you think? Is JamesBlock missing anything obvious? Is it too big? (If so, what should be cut?)

[Armus]

We had a couple newbies wander by the tournament tables at the New Year's Charity Draft on Saturday, and I realized we are overdue for a newbie-friendly Block tournament in Andoria. I'm overdue to run a tournament, so I started thinking about how to run Block in 2020.

I realized right away that I don't want to run the current Block. Block is cool, but confusing as heck to newbies (time travel!) and wasn't really designed with Block in mind (it shows; I ran a Block tourney a while back). are simple and powerful, but monotonous. If I ran a Block tournament today, I'd probably end up with four nearly identical decks playing against each other. Plus, the newbies probably won't have any of the physical cards -- unless they collected up through TwT, they'd need entirely printed decks.

Next thought: I could run a hybrid Block. I could combine TNG Block sets + TOS Block sets into one pretty cool Block. But I think that would have similar problems: TOS Fed is too strong right now, and uses too many complicated tricks, and there's not enough variety on the TOS end of things just yet.

Well, how about running Classic TNG Block? Pretend it's 2013 again! That's attractive, but still... I really want to attract newbies. One obstacle I've seen is that TNG Block is designed to let PAQ players jump back into the game, but it doesn't actually let them play with most of their old cards, which is confusing and disappointing. They have to look up TNG: Supplemental and figure out which narrow subset of their cards is legal.

Back in the days before universal printability, this made a lot of sense: the CC needed a consistent, all-virtual card pool, and it wasn't going to make reprints of ALL the PAQ cards, so it had to do something like TNG: Supplemental, giving TNG Block the flavor of PAQ without actually including much of PAQ.

This led to a lot of other, minor irritations in TNG Block: the entire Shades of Gray set had been specifically designed to bring PAQ out of the binder, but TNG Block was missing huge swaths of those cards, so cards like Shades of Gray: Despair and Hotel Royale were actually pretty useless in TNG Block, and lots and lots of personnel, like Beverly, had downloads you couldn't actually use because of Block limitations.

We have universal printability now, so I'm thinking... why don't we play a new version of TNG Block, one that fixes all those irritating things from 2013, one that lets PAQ players just show up with a bunch of their old cards and play the game?

So here's my pitch for what I'm calling "Ultimate TNG Block," but you are free to refer to as "JamesBlock":

OTF Rules, Errata, and Bans in full effect.

LEGAL SETS:
Premiere
Alternate Universe
Q Continuum
OTSD
Introductory 2-Player Game
BaH!
Shades of Grey
The Next Generation
Engage!
The Sky's The Limit
Coming of Age
Homefront III

ILLEGAL SETS:
TNG: Supplemental
Homefronts 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6
Resistance is Futile
Straight and Steady
Life from Lifelessness

Even with the cuts, you still end up with a fairly big "limited" card pool: 948 cards total vs. 574 in TNG Block at the end of 2013. But the additional cards will be ones that our returning players know, love, and miss.

In order to ensure that new newbie stumbles into an event with a play-one/draw-one deck and gets steamrolled, the format rules would require players to stock Continuing Mission, Attention All Hands, and at least one card. The tournament announcement would also explicitly list all the cards in the Block that have received bans / functional errata, so no newbie gets hit with a gotchya.

Beyond that, I don't care if your entire deck is physical cards only -- it's probably viable. And I think that could be pretty exciting for newbies: "come on, show up with your deck from twenty years ago, just be sure to fit three virtual cards into it first!"

But I've thought about this as much as I can on my own. What do you think? Is JamesBlock missing anything obvious? Is it too big? (If so, what should be cut?)

I will point out that my PAQ Era: The Next Generation Tournament is designed to provide exactly this sort of environment. I liked the idea of TNG Block but I was underwhelmed by the execution, so I tried to improve on it.

Granted it's not scheduled until November, so there's plenty of time to register (#shamelessplug!), but if you run something sooner, feel free to direct any players who like it my way!

Incidentally, this format was the single most popular constructed option in my Return to Farpoint Constructed formats poll, so I think it's clear that a limited, beginner-friendly environment is something that's in demand.

[BCSWowbagger]

I will point out that my PAQ Era: The Next Generation Tournament is designed to provide exactly this sort of environment. I liked the idea of TNG Block but I was underwhelmed by the execution, so I tried to improve on it.

Oh, yeah, I see that now. I read the article but didn't click through the card pool description: "Premiere, Alternate Universe, Q Continuum, Introductory 2 Player Game, The Next Generation, Engage!, The Sky's the Limit, Shades of Grey, BaH!, and Coming of Age."

That's VERY close to what I'm suggesting here. Great minds, I guess!

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

I will point out that my PAQ Era: The Next Generation Tournament is designed to provide exactly this sort of environment. I liked the idea of TNG Block but I was underwhelmed by the execution, so I tried to improve on it.

Oh, yeah, I see that now. I read the article but didn't click through the card pool description: "Premiere, Alternate Universe, Q Continuum, Introductory 2 Player Game, The Next Generation, Engage!, The Sky's the Limit, Shades of Grey, BaH!, and Coming of Age."

That's VERY close to what I'm suggesting here. Great minds, I guess!

So it's just OTSD and Homefront III that are included in JamesBlock but not PAQ: Next Gen? I can understand OTSD, but how does HF3 fit in? If any HF is included, I would think it would be the original to unlock the HQs for the sake of nostalgia.

[Discovery rox]

hqs were definitely not a paq thing.

paq is usually defined as pre first contact. but with the exception of fajo collections special downloads, you can definitely think of paq more as a conceptual difference between how the game is played instead of just which expansions are played. and i think in those terms paq would be defined as pre free plays and pre downloads. hqs were the first free plays.

[BCSWowbagger]

how does HF3 fit in? If any HF is included, I would think it would be the original to unlock the HQs for the sake of nostalgia.

HF3 was built partly to support TNG Block, and it shows. Redirect Energy Ribbon in TSTL explicitly depends on HF3 being in the same Block, and All Available Personnel in TNG really benefits from having Balancing Act (which is also a good meta card to have around). HF3 also provides the only draw deck regeneration in "Ultimate TNG" (with Regenerate), which seems like one of those things the game just kinda needs. (Res-Q is nice, but won't help you rebuild after your ship and megacrew gets nuked.)

A couple other HF3 toys are nice-to-haves in the TNG environment -- simple but nifty enhancements that could be fun to run, but won't ruin the fun for hardcore PAQ-only players. I'm thinking here of Engage Cloak, which took the PAQ cloaking mechanism and elaborated on it in an interesting (but not unbalancing) way, Ready Room Door elaborates slightly on the "matching commander" / "captain's order" concepts that emerged out of AU, and HQ: Defensive Measures is the only way giant Q-Continuum fans can make use of the QC Intelligence rule that was later offloaded to this card. (I'd include Cybernetics Expertise for the same reason if I could do it without including all of Holodeck Adventures. )

So does Ultimate TNG Block need HF3? Nah. Does it benefit enough to justify the inclusion? I think so.

I was sorely tempted to include HF1, because most of my TNG Block decks ran HQs, plus HF1 has all the best dilemmas... but including HQs would put a lot of pressure on everyone to run HQs, and I thought that was kind of unfriendly to newbies. And HQs really weren't a PAQ thing. So I leaned against it. You think I should revise that and put HF1 back in?

[PantsOfTheTalShiar]

I guess I was interpreting "twenty years ago" too literally. Actually, looking at HF1's dilemmas now, please do NOT include it. These alternative formats need to distinguish themselves from Complete, so adding 3 of the top 10 dilemmas would be bad. The absence of Dead End in particular could open up some new kinds of decks.

Balancing Act is good to have, though.

EDIT: Thanks for your explanation on HF3, that makes sense. Love me some RRD.

[Klauser]

Excellent discussion here - thank you!!

[sexecutioner]

Love the idea.

But how about we go all in and just make it TNG format...

'All missions, time locations, and all other cards with The Next Generation property logo...'

Rather than having to remember expansions, going for the logo would greatly streamline and simplify it. Plus easier to build on the deckbuilder

[KazonPADD]

I agree with Niall, and already voiced such a suggestion to James. TNG-format could just be all missions (maybe just AQ ones to avoid confusion) and all cards with TNG Property Logo - no need for Time Locations unless a TNG one gets invented. That is a much simpler method than any list of which sets are / are not legal.

[Armus]

I agree with Niall, and already voiced such a suggestion to James. TNG-format could just be all missions (maybe just AQ ones to avoid confusion) and all cards with TNG Property Logo - no need for Time Locations unless a TNG one gets invented. That is a much simpler method than any list of which sets are / are not legal.

1896 San Francisco?

[KazonPADD]

I agree with Niall, and already voiced such a suggestion to James. TNG-format could just be all missions (maybe just AQ ones to avoid confusion) and all cards with TNG Property Logo - no need for Time Locations unless a TNG one gets invented. That is a much simpler method than any list of which sets are / are not legal.

1896 San Francisco?

With an ability to travel between Earth and Devidia II, similar to UFP: One Small Step? Sure, why not! And then you would include Time Location's in TNG-format. Just no need currently.

[DarkSabre]

I agree with Niall, and already voiced such a suggestion to James. TNG-format could just be all missions (maybe just AQ ones to avoid confusion) and all cards with TNG Property Logo - no need for Time Locations unless a TNG one gets invented. That is a much simpler method than any list of which sets are / are not legal.

1896 San Francisco?

With an ability to travel between Earth and Devidia II, similar to UFP: One Small Step? Sure, why not! And then you would include Time Location's in TNG-format. Just no need currently.

I want that time location so bad now...

[Maelwys]

1896 San Francisco?

With an ability to travel between Earth and Devidia II, similar to UFP: One Small Step? Sure, why not! And then you would include Time Location's in TNG-format. Just no need currently.

I want that time location so bad now...

Native to this location: All personnel with "19th century" in lore. Any such personnel lose when reported here.

Rules clarification: "19th century" and "19th-century" (and "19th Century") are all equivalents for the sake of this card.

[BCSWowbagger]

(1) Love the time location.

(2) This may just be me, but I have always found it easier to navigate a specific, limited collection of sets than to navigate (say) an entire property logo. This is doubly true for new players, who generally are quite bad at using the Card Search Engine.

That's why -- for new players! -- I favor the "here is a list of legal sets" approach over the "here is a Block Core List + Block list" or even "just go play TNG cards."

I would still find TNG-logo format very interesting. I'm just not sure it's easiest for new players.

But I could be wrong about that, and I'd like to hear it if so. I really do want to make the new-player-friendliest format I can come up with.

EDIT:

I guess I was interpreting "twenty years ago" too literally.

It's not you, it's me. My internal clock is always thinking the current year is 2010 or 2015 or so, and, if I'm not careful, I write accordingly. I'm flabbergasted every time I realize it's 2020, 9/11 happened an entire generation ago, and Enterprise has been cancelled for fully half my life.