[WeAreBack]

I've noticed that a lot of how we talk about the game uses terms like the "seed deck" and "Qs Tent side deck" the "Battle Bridge Side Deck" and the "Dyson Sphere side Deck" like they are eternally separate units.

While this is convenient in a day-to-day sense, I think it misses something important about the origins of 1E way back when it was released. Originally, there was no "seed deck", rather, players seeded cards from their "deck" (being all the cards the player is playing with). Of course, side decks were introduced in Q-Continuum and worked by removing the cards under them from the "deck" when the doorway was seeded.

That is, conceptually, before the doorway phase of the game, there is no "Qs Tent side deck" the "Battle Bridge Side Deck" and the "Dyson Sphere side Deck" -- these cards are part of the player's deck until the doorway is seeded and they are separated out and placed underneath it. And really there is no "seed deck" -- you're just seeding cards out of the "deck."

This seems like a minor detail, but it can be very important to whether certain cards that were released when this was the understanding of how certain cards can be used in practice. I'm thinking specifically of I Tried to Warn You.

No one hitting a Q-Flash seeded as a dilemma is likely to suffer the dire consequences of this card that follow from having a single member away team because that single member away team only has to face a single card. (I mean, what are the chances? They'll probably hit something else.)

The only real reason to put I Tried to Warn You in your side deck is so that, if you see your opponent starting the game off with six planet missions or six space missions, you can pull a Beware of Q out of your Q's Tent and seed it along with I Tried to Warn You as an ordinary dilemma under as many opponent's missions as possible (potentially even six copies of it, given there was no limit on how many identical dilemmas you could seed when it was released).

You would then take an equal number of dilemmas (which you couldn't seed now given the 30 card limit) and put them somewhere else they could legally go: like shoving them into your Qs tent while moving some of the 13 cards originally slated to be there into your draw deck. (While Qs planet remains banned, the way it works makes very clear that dilemmas were always something you could put in a Q's Tent. Technically you can also put dilemmas in your draw deck and just can't play them without something allowing you to.)

I think this original understanding of how the "deck" works is really important to give players options for reacting to the all-planet and all-space tactic. (I can't help but notice an all planet mission deck won Worlds day 2 last year.)

I hope someone agrees that it is perfectly legal to -- before the Doorway phase -- "rotate in" one or more copies of something like Buried Alive out of your Tent or Dyson Sphere Door and/or Beware of Q and I Tried to Warn You out of a Q-Flash side deck.

[JeBuS]

You're not wrong that it changed from "you're allowed to seed up to 30 cards" to "you're allowed a seed deck of up to 30 cards". But that change is real and occurred during Decipher's reign.

There are some interesting possibilities if the game shifted back to that.

[SirDan]

I seem to remember from pretty early on (maybe 1998 or so) that decklists separated Q's Tent contents from the rest of the seed deck, so that you could not make arbitrary changes between games. Specifically, you could not swap cards around from draw deck to tent or swap dilemmas in seed deck for dilemmas in tent.

Doing so would necessarily take place before missions were seeded and seen, so you would be acting on information outside the game (scouting). Which was heavily frowned upon, so much that players were often shoo'd away from the play area as soon as games were finished.

But all of that was a long time ago, and memory is an unreliable thing.

[WeAreBack]

I feel a bit like I'm asking the old question about whether a tree falling in the woods makes a sound if there's no one there to hear it. (The answer to that odl one is that there's amplitude but no volume, there's a frequency but no pitch.)

How can a side deck exist at all prior to the doorway that allows it to?
Worse, if the side deck does exist without the doorway, what happens if the doorway doesn't seed on top of it in the doorway phase?

Again, this is not an academic issue. Let's imagine a game (played physically, not virtually) where I have a deck that, among the 30 seed cards, includes 4 copies of Q-Flash. Let's also imagine that I have separated out 15 cards that could legally go in a Q-Flash side deck that are sitting on the table.

Let's now imagine that, during the doorway phase, I decide not to put a one of my 4 Q-Flash cards on top of this pile of cards. Instead, I decide to seed all 4 Q-Flash cards under missions (using the second function of the cards). Technically, these cards would not be mis-seeded because if my opponent has a Q-Flash on top of her Q-Flash side deck and I was to encounter one of my personnel encountered my own Q-Flash, they would experience cards from my opponent's deck. (Let's just say I'm dumb and I put one under one of my own missions or a 40+ point mission of my opponent's that I attempt.)

It's also worth noting that the current rule book actually anticipates people not seeding all of the doorways properly, potentially including those that go on side decks:
"In Open format, instead of playing their cards simultaneously, players during the Doorway Phase alternate playing cards one at a time, beginning with the starting player. Either player may say "pass" at any time, and, as soon as both players pass, the phase immediately ends — even if either player still has cards they wish to seed in it."

If no doorway is placed on top of my Q-Flash side deck, I think the fairest thing to say is that the side deck does not exist at all and any cards I have set aside to be placed in that deck must be shuffled into my draw deck.

Sir Dan makes a good point regarding my initial thought: I was wrong on that one; you couldn't mix your deck around after seeing an opponent's missions anyway.

Stocking All Available Personnel with the potential to download Balancing Act seems like the only way to go for the "All Planet" or "All Space" deck for now.

[JeBuS]

How can a side deck exist at all prior to the doorway that allows it to?
Worse, if the side deck does exist without the doorway, what happens if the doorway doesn't seed on top of it in the doorway phase?

A side deck without a doorway on it is still a side deck. Except, it's a "closed" side deck and not in play. Notice how the cards specify that they open the decks and they're now in play?

[BCSWowbagger]

It's also worth noting that the current rule book actually anticipates people not seeding all of the doorways properly, potentially including those that go on side decks:
"In Open format, instead of playing their cards simultaneously, players during the Doorway Phase alternate playing cards one at a time, beginning with the starting player. Either player may say "pass" at any time, and, as soon as both players pass, the phase immediately ends — even if either player still has cards they wish to seed in it."

If no doorway is placed on top of my Q-Flash side deck, I think the fairest thing to say is that the side deck does not exist at all and any cards I have set aside to be placed in that deck must be shuffled into my draw deck.

You're correct that the side deck will not function, because it is not opened by any Doorway -- but that just means the side deck is (effectively) out-of-play, not that it would get shuffled into your draw deck.

The built-in rule that you need an extra 40 points to win has been pretty effective against all-planet/all-space decks.

It seems to me that what you're looking for here is an option for sideboarding. This could be cool, and I've advocated for it in the past, and I've even playtested a version of it (thanks, Team Londo, for considering it!), but we don't currently have it in Trek CCG.

[HoodieDM]

This is also proven when Nors/Sites were introduced. I can have 6 sites in my seed deck (not counting towards the 30) but not use a Nor. They're useless in my deck since I use no such cards. But when my opponent plays a Nor, then I can all of a sudden use them.