A free seeding version of BBD with some kind of restrictions is a must. Right now, it's basically a situation where people feel compelled to stock it regardless of whether it's an important part of their deck's strategy or not.
And in principle, I like the idea of the "seeds for free" version requiring 20 different tactics, with no more than 2 of any card.
However, there are only MAYBE 12-13 tactics that could EVER be practically used in the same deck. For reasons explained below, we need more tactics that are actually usable by all players, under all (or most) circumstances for this to work.
At the moment there are 39 tactics. I break these into 5 categories:
5 highly restricted Tactics that use "requires", unusable under most conditions
1 Borg only tactic, (
Borg Cutting Beam)
21 moderately restricted Tactics using the phrase "if you have a" or "if battling" that are just not good unless you meet the conditions (these are the big problem)
7 Tactics using the phrase "if you have a" that are nevertheless not bad in any deck
5 "Open" Tactics of, to put it politely, "varying quality"
5 "Requires"
The five tactics that use "requires" makes them unusable much of the time: you need a
ship firing, a ship with Energy Dampener, a staffed ship which has three or more staffing icons, Son'a Battleship or Li'seria or a ship at a nebula. Including more than one copy of each of the 4 of these deal with ships is crazy unless you solely play ships that match the kind of ship needed (since you only get 2 tactics and if you draw two tactics that require a condition you can't meet, you're really up a creek with no paddle.)
27 "if you have" "if battling"
One tactic, it must be destroyed, uses "if battling" and is only good against
.
There are then 26 more tactics that give you an additional attack and defense bonus based on the phrase "if you have a."
A lot of these so called "tactics" are nothing of the kind, thanks to Decipher. Cards like
Ferengi Energy Weapon and
Bajoran Phaser Banks aren't so much of a battle tactic as a description of what a ship is armed with. And for the sake of fairness to new affiliations/factions were given cards like
Vulcan Particle Beam and
Classic Phaser Banks.
Frankly, I'm not clear how it makes any Trek-sense that my
Flaxian Scout Vessel can use
Breen Disruptor Burst,
Bajoran Phaser Banks,
Vulcan Particle Beam or
Spiral-Wave Disruptor out of nowhere as a tactic. One would think if i was installing some fancy new weapons system it would work like
System 5 Disruptors,
Tactical Console, or even
Grappler.
But I digress. The point is that realistically, most people are never going to stock
Bajoran Phaser Banks,
Close Quarters Combat or
Vulcan Particle Beam or most of the other faction/affiliation specific tactics unless their deck relies heavily on ships that match the appropriate faction/affiliation. (And this particularly sucks if you are playing a deck with ships from multiple affiliations: looking at you
Staging Ground decks.)
The 7 useful "if you have" Tactics
There are some exceptions here. I count 7 cards of the 27 "if you have" that are still usful if you can't meet the requirements:
(1) obviously
Breen Disruptor Burst with "Attack: 2 Defense: 2" and 35% hull damage as a damage marker,
(2)
Full Phaser Spread with "Attack: 3 Defense: 2"
(3)
Pulse Phaser Cannons, with "Attack: 4 Defense: 1"
(4)
Quantum Torpedo with "Attack: 5 Defense: 0",
(5)
Maximum Firepower and "Attack: 6 Defense: -3"
Thee are OK even if you don't have a Breen, Galaxy-class, Defiant-class, Sovereign-Class or "future" ship firing. (This may be because
always had more types of ships than anyone else, and so needed more general cards, or just bias in favor of
.) There's also:
(6)
Evasive Manuevers, which has the phrase "if you have", but can be used pretty much universally, and is even OK if you have a ship with staffing icons.
(7)
Frontal Assault, if you plan on attacking with multiple ships
The 5 Universal tactics
So what does this leave in terms of universal Tactics? Well, there's:
(1)
Target These Coordinates
(2)
Target Shields
(3)
Picard Maneuver
(4)
Target Warp Field Coils
(5)
"Crimson Forcefield"
Picard Maneuver only gives you the ability to have a 50% of nullifying an attack when you are attacking.
Crimson Forcefield is more defensive. Target shields is a bit lame. Target Warp Field Coils is pretty good if you have an extra slot in your Dyson sphere door to put a copy of
Engine imbalance, otherwise it is only OK.
Basically, to make a new doorway that increases variety of tactics actually work we need at least 5-6 new tactics that are OK.