Since the topic of Refs has come up in another thread recently, I thought I should finally get around to posting my thoughts on Defend Homeworld.
Let's consider why
Defend Homeworld has the SECURITY download in the first place. It's what I'll call "dead card insurance." DH's first function is situational, so its designers gave it a second function that can be used in almost every game. That way, a player can include DH for its first function without the card being a dead card in matches where that function is irrelevant.
So let's say you have a card with both:
a function that's usable in only a subset of games, and
a function that's usable in every game
Which will get used more often? Of
course DH's SECURITY download is going to be used more often than its homeworld protection download. That's a feature, not a bug. Not to mention that DH serves as a deterrent: its very existence reduces the likelihood of its first function ever triggering.
Now I know everyone's thinking by now, "well DH isn't even really needed for homeworld protection anymore since we have
Strategema." Right, but DH has an additional role. By having both a
icon and an ability that's useful in every game, DH serves as dead card insurance for the entire Ref mechanic. It's the assurance of
some ROI if you invest a seed slot into using Refs. So the gameplay impact of removing the Ref icon from DH will be to nerf the Ref mechanic and discourage players from using Refs.
Aannnnd... that's actually fine, if that's what the CC really wants to do. But if so, please write your article about how you want to discourage players from using Ref cards, because that is the gameplay impact of such a change.
If the CC really wants to nerf the Ref mechanic, I think there is better way to do so, which is to ban
Tribunal of Q. Tribunal had an important job back when Refs were a lot more necessary, but now, so many of the current Ref issues are a result of Tribunal: repetitive play,
Containment Field cycling, the fact that DH's SECURITY download is "free", etc. If players only have
Q the Referee, then they have a resource to manage instead of a script to follow. This opens up the potential for interesting in-game decisions: e.g. If my opponent just played
Kivas Fajo - Collector, do I want to cash in on some draws, or would I rather have a SECURITY download? Or should I save QRef in case my opponent STPs a ship under the influence of my
Cytherians?
So Unpopular Opinion time: Defend Homeworld should be the LAST card to lose its Ref icon.
In the end, I don't
really care about Defend Homeworld itself, I care about how the CC understands card designs. The fact that the CC considers "it's used offensively more often than defensively" to be a bug when it is in fact a feature explains a lot about how the CC struggles to make effective defensive or situational cards.