This forums is for questions, answers, and discussion about First Edition rules, formats, and expansions.
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Director of First Edition
By MidnightLich (Charlie Plaine)
 - Director of First Edition
 -  
Prophet
#493942
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:

10 JAN 2020: What single card would you ban to improve your game?
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?


It's Friday, and as a bonus, it's new expansion day! Q Who, the eighteen (18) card expansion introducing the [1E-TNG] [Bor] as a "beginner" deck is now available for free. The cards will be legal next week, so you've got a week to work out your first drafts of these new Borg decks. May your deck building be blessed by the Great Bird of the Galaxy.

Last week, we talked about banning cards. Thus I figured it's only natural this week to talk about the opposite: removing cards from the Ban List. Specifically, cards on the OTF Ban List. It's timely as well, becase James Heaney (BCSWowbagger) recently completed his research into the origin of every banned card. So today is the opposite question of last week: asking about removing cards from the ban list.

What card would you immediately unban without changes?

For this question, once again assume that you're in charge of 1E Ban List decisions for a day. You have the unilateral power to remove any single card from OTF, for any reason, but without any change. For this question, you're giving amnesty to a card and not going to make any changes to the card.

What card would you unban, and why? Maybe you really miss instant speed ships with What Does God Need With a Starship? Or maybe you think the collateral damage from In the Zone being gone is too high, and you want it back. Or maybe your deck desperately needs Clone Machine. Whatever the reason, the decision is yours.

Normally, removing a card from the ban list requires getting several people on board with the decision. In the case of this question, your power to spare a banned card card is unilateral. So what card would you immediately unban without changes and why? Feel free to be altruistic (for the game's overall health) or selfish (for your own desires).

Have a good weekend, everyone. Play some 1E, if you can.

-crp
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#493949
I'm gonna go with Tox Uthat - I think we're getting to the point where a seed, a solve, and two card plays to zero out a mission ... isn't that great in power anymore? Maybe just assimilate it instead? :D

(blue text is me finishing my thought. oops)
Last edited by AllenGould on Fri Jan 17, 2020 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#493951
Well, on the other thread, I named Tox Uthat, Dixon Hill, and What Does God...? as three cards that could (probably, IMO) be safely unbanned without changes. Data, Keep Dealing may also be worth exploring, since the main reason it was banned was hexany support and hexany is dead.

Of those four, I want Dixon Hill back the most.

So: Dixon Hill, final answer.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#493959
Ensign Q wrote:
AllenGould wrote:I think we're getting to the point where a seed, a solve, and two card plays to zero out a mission?
???
Sorry.. apparently didn't finish my thought. :)
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#493962
BCSWowbagger wrote:hexany support and hexany is dead.
I don't know if I'd call it dead. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh hexany R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

If there's enough cheap deck manipulation, we'll see Spawn of Hexany again.
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By DarkSabre (Austin Chandler)
 - Delta Quadrant
 -  
Continuing Committee Member - Retired
#493965
AllenGould wrote:I'm gonna go with Tox Uthat - I think we're getting to the point where a seed, a solve, and two card plays to zero out a mission ... isn't that great in power anymore? Maybe just assimilate it instead? :D

(blue text is me finishing my thought. oops)

Kinda agree because the novelty of succeeding with this was due to Q's Planet (which can't happen). I would say we should playtest that to be sure.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#493970
DarkSabre wrote:
AllenGould wrote:I'm gonna go with Tox Uthat - I think we're getting to the point where a seed, a solve, and two card plays to zero out a mission ... isn't that great in power anymore? Maybe just assimilate it instead? :D

(blue text is me finishing my thought. oops)

Kinda agree because the novelty of succeeding with this was due to Q's Planet (which can't happen). I would say we should playtest that to be sure.
I think the problem isn't "Tox Uthat is too strong", it's "Q's Planet letting you get easy artifacts is a bit BS." (And even that might be starting to mitigate with the newer dl+seed mechanics, which means players are more likely to have dilemmas stashed to seed under it.)

But even including Planet, if you score the artifact on T1, you then have to play Tox T2, and then Nova T3. Which means you have two full turns to either win, find a counter to either kill the Tox or just get the combo out of hand - Masaka, say - or deal with it some other way.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#493971
AllenGould wrote:
DarkSabre wrote:
AllenGould wrote:I'm gonna go with Tox Uthat - I think we're getting to the point where a seed, a solve, and two card plays to zero out a mission ... isn't that great in power anymore? Maybe just assimilate it instead? :D

(blue text is me finishing my thought. oops)

Kinda agree because the novelty of succeeding with this was due to Q's Planet (which can't happen). I would say we should playtest that to be sure.
I think the problem isn't "Tox Uthat is too strong", it's "Q's Planet letting you get easy artifacts is a bit BS." (And even that might be starting to mitigate with the newer dl+seed mechanics, which means players are more likely to have dilemmas stashed to seed under it.)

But even including Planet, if you score the artifact on T1, you then have to play Tox T2, and then Nova T3. Which means you have two full turns to either win, find a counter to either kill the Tox or just get the combo out of hand - Masaka, say - or deal with it some other way.
Wasn't Dead End in the tent to defend against that a thing back in the day? For some reason I think it was.
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First Edition Rules Master
 - First Edition Rules Master
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Continuing Committee Member - Retired
Community Contributor
#493984
DarkSabre wrote:
Armus wrote: Wasn't Dead End in the tent to defend against that a thing back in the day? For some reason I think it was.
You are correct.
Yup. But then it's a "I have to take up a tent slot to stock this specific card for this specific counter" thing, which sucks. Whereas if people are stocking those cards for various downloader mechanics *anyway*, it's a far lighter cost if they end up under Q's Planet instead.
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First Edition Rules Master
By BCSWowbagger (James Heaney)
 - First Edition Rules Master
 -  
Community Contributor
#493986
DarkSabre wrote:Kinda agree because the novelty of succeeding with this was due to Q's Planet (which can't happen). I would say we should playtest that to be sure.
Outside the fantasy realm of the 1EFQ, we should of course playtest ALL these changes.
AllenGould wrote:
BCSWowbagger wrote:hexany support and hexany is dead.
I don't know if I'd call it dead. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh hexany R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

If there's enough cheap deck manipulation, we'll see Spawn of Hexany again.
I accept the friendly amendment.

There IS so little cheap deck manipulation now that I think DKD is low-risk. But it's something we must always be vigilant about.

If DKD does get a neat, quite different errata... it's not like this is a card people are especially jonesing for out of nostalgia or flavor or because it enabled cool builds. I certainly wouldn't complain (whereas I WOULD complain about a Dixon errata, or a major overhaul of Supernova/Tox).
DarkSabre wrote:The cards I feel could be are:
Clone Machine
DQSS
Dixon Hill
Memory Wipe
The Sheliak
What does God need with a Starship
Clone Machine and DQSS worry me because the reason those cards got banned in the first place -- free report salad, essentially (although DQSS also contributes to chronic overdraw) -- is still very much present in the game, and arguably much moreso than when they were banned in the first place.

Memory Wipe was banned because of theorycraft. It was extremely, unusually good theorycraft, and I supported the ban -- but I would like to see Playtesting actually try the theorycraft and see whether it's borne out in practice. It's gotta be really hard for Errata to figure out how to address Memory Wipe with literally zero actual play data on how it works.

The Sheliak... you know, I never really thought about it as being unbannable, but, now that you mention it, it'd be interesting to check how healthy it is in the modern meta. The reason it got banned was basically "because Temporal Vortex mentioned it," which is not, in itself, a very strong reason. On the other hand, zero'ing a mission is REAL strong, and I really want it to come back on a self-controlling template. Could be fun to test (again).

With ya all the way on the others.
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By Armus (Brian Sykes)
 - The Center of the Galaxy
 -  
Regent
Community Contributor
#493987
Two Counterpoints:
BCSWowbagger wrote: The Sheliak... you know, I never really thought about it as being unbannable, but, now that you mention it, it'd be interesting to check how healthy it is in the modern meta. The reason it got banned was basically "because Temporal Vortex mentioned it," which is not, in itself, a very strong reason. On the other hand, zero'ing a mission is REAL strong, and I really want it to come back on a self-controlling template. Could be fun to test (again).
Sheliak was never the problem. Sheliak/Q was the problem. Until and unless Q gets another errata look I don't see the issue.
BCSWowbagger wrote:Clone Machine and DQSS worry me because the reason those cards got banned in the first place -- free report salad, essentially (although DQSS also contributes to chronic overdraw) -- is still very much present in the game, and arguably much moreso than when they were banned in the first place.
I don't know about Clone Machine, but DQSS would get my vote. Between the errata to War Council, the removing of the treaty function from The Kazon Collective and The Vidiian Sodality, and the addition to the game of cards like Finally Ready to Swim, and Five Year Mission for non- [1E-DQ] affiliations, plus the addition of the YAAM rule to balance out overpowered Delta missions, I'm not sold that DQSS is even a problem in the modern game. Plus anything that helps [Kaz] and [Vid] in this day and age can't hurt. At the very least it should be tested and we can find out how right (or wrong) I am.
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