Page 1 of 2

1EFQ - What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:40 am
by MidnightLich
Welcome to today's First Edition Friday Question, where you get a chance to answer questions that will help shape the future of First Edition. If you'd like to catch up on previous entries, here's a list of all of my previous Friday Questions:

3 JAN 2020: What are you looking forward to in The Neutral Zone?
27 DEC 2019: How can we help you recruit new players?
20 DEC 2019: Where do you want the game to be in five years?
13 DEC 2019: Which concepts should 1E "import" from other games?
6 DEC 2019: Which couples should get a dual personnel card?
29 NOV 2019: Which old, unused 1E cards deserve some love?
22 NOV 2019: Which upcoming milestones need celebration?
15 NOV 2019: What's your favorite card image?
11 NOV 2019: What was your first 1E experience?
1 NOV 2019 What is your opinion of the "full page" policy?
25 OCT 2019: What do you want to see in a Halloween set?
18 OCT 2019: What is your favorite expansion?
11 OCT 2019: Which TNG main character needs a new card?
4 OCT 2019: Which Star Trek story needs more cards?
27 SEP 2019: How many points should [SPOILER] be worth?
20 SEP 2019: Which rules always confuse you?
13 SEP 2019: What do you think of [SPOILER]?
6 SEP 2019: Which card needs an alternate image (AI)?
30 AUG 2019: Which characteristic needs love?


Hello again, and welcome to announcement day for Q Who?. This eighteen (18) card expansion focuses on introducing the [TNG] [Bor] to the game as a "beginner" deck for the most enigmatic affiliation. You'll be getting spoilers every day between now and next Friday, when the expansion releases. I hope you enjoy it!

But today, we're going to talk about banning cards. It's still a controversial technique, although I think most people today understand the value of the move. Decipher famously only banned one card, but in the current era, the CC's Official Tournament Format (OTF) maintains a ban list. The reasons for banning a card are varied and range from "it doesn't work" to "it's breaking the game." Today, we're going to find out what single card you'd like to ban.

What single card would you ban to improve the game for you?

For this question, assume that you're in charge of 1E Ban List decisions for a day. You have the unilateral power to ban any single card in OTF, for any reason. What card would you ban, and why? It can be a card that keeps you from playing a certian deck or affiliation. Or it can be a card that your opponent's just won't stop using. Maybe it's a card you don't understand. Or perhaps it's a card you genuinely think is a threat to the health of the game.

The important thing for this question is that it's your decision. Normally, banning a card requires getting several people on board with the decision. In the case of this question, your power to ban a single card is unilateral. So what single card would you ban in order to improve the game? Feel free to be altruistic (for the game's overall health) or selfish (for your own desires).

No matter which card you choose to ban, I hope that you don't ban yourself from having a good weekend. Enjoy reading about Q Who? and checking out the spoilers. And thanks for reading. I'll be back next week with a new Friday question.

-crp

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:42 am
by JeBuS
Q the Referee

:shifty:

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:44 am
by Iron Prime
I was leaning towards that myself...

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 11:48 am
by AllenGould
Iron Prime wrote:I was leaning towards that myself...
So was I, but I think Tribunal might be ahead of the list for me, since it's a card that leans heavily on It Works Because We Say So.

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:03 pm
by KazonPADD
Containment Field

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:04 pm
by DarkSabre
Hope to see an unban question next week.

Tribunal of Q

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:11 pm
by AllenGould
KazonPADD wrote:Containment Field
Containment Field just needs "Not duplicatable" replaced with "May Not Leave Play".

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:13 pm
by KazonPADD
AllenGould wrote:
KazonPADD wrote:Containment Field
Containment Field just needs "Not duplicatable" replaced with "May Not Leave Play".
Agreed. Access Denied was nerfed for similar reasons.

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:15 pm
by AllenGould
KazonPADD wrote:
AllenGould wrote:
KazonPADD wrote:Containment Field
Containment Field just needs "Not duplicatable" replaced with "May Not Leave Play".
Agreed. Access Denied was nerfed for similar reasons.
Y'know, I don't even know if I'd call it a "nerf" - just closing a loophole. You were never intended to use CF offensively, after all. If anything, it gets stronger because each player can have one.

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:26 pm
by BCSWowbagger
I applaud all this hatred for [Ref] mechanics! Amen, brothas! Down with the [Ref] tyranny!*

However, if I had to ban one card, I would probably target [OS] [Fed] .

It's very tempting to ban The Final Frontier -- a card that was supposed to be on par with / slightly weaker than Sherman's Peak (kind of a beginner-friendly Sherman's), but has instead completely supplanted it. But that would deeply wound the entire block, and it would force all TOS players to use time locations, which is really gross.

Instead, I think I would ban Five-Year Mission, a Finally Ready To Swim clone that nobody was really happy with, which doesn't really enforce its era restriction all that well, which adds excess draw to a faction that really doesn't need it, and which overlaps too much with Recreation Room (a much more interesting card, equally accessible to other cards in the block). Killing the built-in TOS net-one draw might not slow them down enough, but it'd be a nice start.

And, yes, it is a bummer to me that all the cards I'm considering for ban are cards I worked on.

There are other problems in the game right now -- honestly, I think OS Fed dominance is just the tip of an iceberg of issues with the game's basic rock-paper-scissors archetypes -- but those problems are either (a) less pressing, or (b) can't be fixed with a single sniper-shot ban.

*However, I don't think you can get rid of or even reduce access to Containment Field without doing something to limit [DL] . Containment Field is an important card right now to keep [DL] from becoming completely unstoppable; curbing it means they WILL become unstoppable without further action. I hate Containment Field with the power of a thousand suns, though, so I support whatever is necessary to get it out of OTF.

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 12:35 pm
by AllenGould
BCSWowbagger wrote: *However, I don't think you can get rid of or even reduce access to Containment Field without doing something to limit [DL] . Containment Field is an important card right now to keep [DL] from becoming completely unstoppable; curbing it means they WILL become unstoppable without further action. I hate Containment Field with the power of a thousand suns, though, so I support whatever is necessary to get it out of OTF.
Just to check - do you hate that it limits [DL], or that the owning player can toggle it on/off at will? I've always liked the throttling, but Q-Ref's ability to make it a one-sided offensive trick irks me deeply.

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:00 pm
by Ensign Q
Temporal Benefactor
still OP, giving too much skills for no effort and easy timepod ring is also stupid, rendering all [1E-AU] dilemma unplayable in competitive

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:16 pm
by Armus
AllenGould wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote: *However, I don't think you can get rid of or even reduce access to Containment Field without doing something to limit [DL] . Containment Field is an important card right now to keep [DL] from becoming completely unstoppable; curbing it means they WILL become unstoppable without further action. I hate Containment Field with the power of a thousand suns, though, so I support whatever is necessary to get it out of OTF.
Just to check - do you hate that it limits [DL], or that the owning player can toggle it on/off at will? I've always liked the throttling, but Q-Ref's ability to make it a one-sided offensive trick irks me deeply.
I would have zero problem adding a "may not leave play" clause so that if one player pulls the trigger, both players have to live with the consequences.

I've never liked Containment Field-as-forced-discard-mechanic either, especially in the Tribunal of Q era, but I view its core function as essential in today's game.

:twocents:

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 1:52 pm
by Mr.Sloan
AllenGould wrote:
KazonPADD wrote:Containment Field
Containment Field just needs "Not duplicatable" replaced with "May Not Leave Play".
:thumbsup:
+31

Re: What single card would you ban to improve your game?

Posted: Fri Jan 10, 2020 2:09 pm
by BCSWowbagger
AllenGould wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote: *However, I don't think you can get rid of or even reduce access to Containment Field without doing something to limit [DL] . Containment Field is an important card right now to keep [DL] from becoming completely unstoppable; curbing it means they WILL become unstoppable without further action. I hate Containment Field with the power of a thousand suns, though, so I support whatever is necessary to get it out of OTF.
Just to check - do you hate that it limits [DL], or that the owning player can toggle it on/off at will? I've always liked the throttling, but Q-Ref's ability to make it a one-sided offensive trick irks me deeply.
The thing I hate with the power of seven hundred suns is the Q-Ref/Tribunal/CF combo.

I'm not really a fan of the card in general, though. The way it imposes its limit is through some fairly complicated bookkeeping mechanics that take a lot of time (especially with an indecisive player trying to decide which card to defer) and it's easy to forget (at a fairly steep price). It's a dumb, distracting minigame that bears a passing resemblance to the Static Warp Bubble minigame it itself effectively bans. But I only hate that whole deal with the power of three hundred suns.

Like Armus says, the card is needed right now because of how [DL] is situated right now. Because I hate both parts of this card, I'd prefer we find a way to do Something Else with [DL] . You all know what Something Else I consider ideal, so I won't belabor it, but there's got to be a lot of Somethings Else out there that are at least preferable to Containment Field.