Picture this game scenario: it's your opponent's turn, and they say one of the following phrases, either "tent choice" or "tent random".  Before you ask, they're not talking about camping equipment, they're attempting to play one of the most useful cards in all of STCCG.  It's a doorway card known as a "Q's Tent", and it comes from the Q-Continuum expansion of the Star Trek Customizable Card Game.  This card has three main uses, each of which will be discussed in this article.

    The lore on the Q's Tent card says the following: "Place one atop Q's Tent side deck (up to 13 different cards) during the seed phase.  Q's Tent is now open and in play."  What most players do when they stock their Q's Tent is put various kinds of cards in there in the hopes of being able to get them into play later on in the game.  Another popular strategy using the Q's Tent is stocking it with "downloadables", cards that can be downloaded via other cards.  An example of a "downloadable" is the Starfleet Type II Phaser, a card that be downloaded by the Tasha Yar Alternate personnel card.  Other good downloadable cards can include any personnel that can be downloaded by the Assign Mission Specialists objective card.

    The lore on the card continues with this: " OR Stock in deck and use as follows: Once per turn, play to take a card from tent into your hand, either your choice (discard doorway) or random selection (place doorway on top of your draw deck).  Must show card to opponent."   When you draw a Q's Tent from your draw deck,  it can be used in two important ways.  If you choose the "tent choice" part, you can take any card in the Q's Tent into your hand.  That's good because you can take any card you need that's important to your game strategy.  For example, if your opponent has a Horga'hn in play, you could "tent choice" for The Devil, the card that can nullify a Horga'hn.  On the other hand, if you decide on the "tent random" option,  the action is a bit different.  This time you just pick a number from 1 to 13 (or however many cards there are left in the Tent) and you take into your hand whatever card matches with the chosen number.  That's also good if you don't really have a preference as to what card you get when you use a Q's Tent card from your hand.

    Probably the most important sentence in the card's lore is the last one: "Draw no cards this turn."  That is extremely important to remember because many times people forget that and draw a card anyway.  The best thing to do in that situation is wait until near the end of your turn before you play the doorway.  A good example of doing this is playing a Kivas Fajo-Collector card (an event that lets you immediately draw three cards) before using the Q's Tent so you get to draw the cards before you're not allowed to.

    The Q's Tent doorway card can be very vital to your deck when you play STCCG...who knows when it will come in handy?  Hopefully, next time you play and see (or hear) your opponent play a Q's Tent, you'll better understand what the card is all about.